A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

“The point still stands,” he said. “Regarding our biggest guns, and theirs — ?

?

“Doc might have a thing or two to say ’bout that,” Morrow replied, looking to Asbury, who nodded.

“At Mister Pinkerton’s request,” he began, “I have improvised a mechanical analogue to the Hex City Oath, which — according to our information, gleaned mostly from deserters — apparently prevents those hexes who consider themselves its citizens from parasiting each other and yet still allows them to use their powers individually, though not against either the Lady nor her sworn consort, Reverend Rook. I had previously thought to shield our former ally Miss Yu Ming-ch’in — or Songbird, as she prefers to be called — from contagion by giving her a prototype version of the neutralization bracket we now distribute to all Camp Pink hexes. In her case it proved ineffective, but not in any way through the item’s own fault.”

Nope, Morrow thought. All that was on “Mister” Pinkerton’s head, for breaking it off her and swallowing the pieces, ’fore they had the chance to take permanent effect — chawing ’em down like jerky, to suck up all the sweet hex-juice inside. ’Cause when the fit’s on him, he can’t keep himself in check at all . . . and seein’ how you were one of the last to see him that-a-way, Missus Love, I’d say it’s no longer a great mystery why he shuns your company. Since he can glimpse the shadow of his monstrous self in your eyes, same way he does in mine, he keeps us both at arm’s length, dealing with us through middlemen; simply happens I’m the one in the middle, this time.

As though his words were bleeding over, Sophy Love’s clean white forehead wrinkled prettily. “And this restrains any secret hostility they may harbour toward the Pinkerton Detective Agency, as well? For with so many hexes under his command, I don’t doubt but Mister Pinkerton must sleep with one eye open, always ready for attack — ”

“Oh, the Thaumaturgical Law of Replication sees to that,” Asbury assured her. “All our brackets are cast from the same mold as Miss Songbird’s first shackle, with that close-held by the boss — Pinkerton — himself. And he who holds the master prototype may also use it to reverse the flow, de-powering every bracket-wearing hex who thinks to stand against him.”

“So you do keep your wild dogs leashed, then — that’s a mercy. For lo, One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies; Titus, 1:12.”

“More collared than leashed, ma’am. But accurate otherwise, to a point.”

Morrow shut his eyes, unable to dismiss the immediate rush of memory: saw witches and warlocks, volunteers and prisoners alike, lined up knee to knee to wait their turn at the striking iron; with each fresh collaring a groan went up, along with a blast of heat, the slight smell of singed hair or flesh, the wince and stamp of pain. After which the blacksmith’s apprentice would douse their necks in a bucketful of water and move them to where the healers stood, charged hands already outstretched for a mighty laying-on, with the raw assault to everyone’s spiritual dignity left completely untreated.

Though Morrow hadn’t had occasion to sit down with their mutual “boss” for some time now, he found himself nevertheless already convinced of the scenario Asbury had occasionally let slip hints about, late at night, in his cups. For the idea that Pinkerton’s ultimate goal might be to make the Agency the States’ predominant outfit of internal control, sole wielders of the only arcane branch of technology allowing mere humans to police and identify hexes — to break them like horses, groom them like dogs, put them down like sick pets if and when they exceeded their purviews — was both a truly horrifying one, and all too easy to believe.

Strange how it’d taken the War, that dreadful upheaval pitting neighbour ’gainst neighbour, culling an entire generation at one swoop, to convince a divided America that centre-driven unity was better by far than state-to-state autonomy. In a way, it had become their own version of the Oath: a commitment to Missus Love’s Law, instead of that wild, God-given justice the first colonists had supposedly fled England in order to regain. And now, with the constant spectre of fresh Division hanging low over all their heads, Pinkerton was right in thinking how any nation who could use hexes like tools instead of having to deal with them like weather might expect to write its own ticket from now on, both at home and — eventually — elsewhere.

It could never be forgotten that staying within siege distance of New Aztectlan also kept Pinkerton close to a source of hexation he could sample at will, distilling it like the tinctures Asbury had once used to fend off his curse-pollution. Which might explain why all his strategic decisions hitherto seemed to suggest his aspiration was to take the city wholesale, thus enslaving the largest concentration of hexes in America — magicians already used to working together, if only under an oath of loyalty so stark that to break it would kill them outright.

To do so, he would have to dispose of Ixchel, Rook and probably the Enemy as well, a triple coup of spectacularly crazy proportions. Yet Morrow could well imagine that in his hex-juice-drugged state, Pinkerton might think this ambition more easily fulfilled than not.

Asbury drank a lot these days, for a man so patently unused to doing so; did it late in the night and early in the morn, with little pause for full recovery in between. His pleasure was gin, poured into a teacup with the pinkie extended, then chugged straight down without wincing. Sometimes he probably cut it with other things — Morrow’d heard tell that laudanum in red wine would give you horrors so bad you’d think you saw a woman’s nipples wink at you, and as manager of Pinkerton’s medical stores, the Professor sure had access to that. But for all Morrow could really prove, he might’ve been rolling the Red Weed and smoking it the way he claimed those old Mexes used to, or chewing it up like peyote buttons.

Didn’t much matter, either way. Though Asbury’s hands seldom shook and his voice remained slur-free, he did keep himself well-lit. From where he was sitting, for example, it was obvious to Morrow he’d already had a few nips today; luckily, no one else seemed to recognize this fact except perhaps for Langobard, who was probably willing to let it slide on account of being in a similar condition. And once past a certain point in his routine, Morrow’d lately had cause to observe that if you asked Asbury something straight out — no matter what, or what about — he’d just go right on ahead and answer it.

“That first bracket, the bracelet I made for Miss Yu, wasn’t right,” he’d told Morrow, a week back. “Untested. To lock it on a mere girl, in such primitive conditions . . .” He shook his head, sadly. “What right have I to call myself a scientist, after that sort of behaviour?”

“Much right as any here, I s’pose. More right than most, still.”

Asbury shook his head. “Pinkerton’s idea. Wanted a demonstration of its efficacy; demanded I use it just as soon as opportunity presented itself, and on Miss Yu too, if at all possible. Left to my own devices, I would never, but — he insisted. And . . . circumstances were exigent, at the time.”

“No doubting that,” Morrow had assured him.

“Yes. Grateful as he was to reap the rewards, though, he was equally quick to inform me that the effects fell markedly short of his true ambitions.”

Morrow forced a laugh. “What’d he want,” he made himself ask, lightly, “for it to make him turn hex altogether and rule America, like Rook and Chess might’ve planned? Or be President, then, after he’d made short work of Johnson — hell, what about king?”

Asbury muttered something into his collar, the only part of which Morrow thought heard sounded like “uh guh” — followed by another long swallow, to compose himself. After which he eventually managed to eke out: “No. For Pinkerton, you see, wants more. Desires, in short, to be . . . a . . .”

And here things took on a far darker filter, like looking through a pebbled storm window. Because what the word in question turned out to be was “god.”

After all, if Asbury’s theories held true — which they certainly had, thus far — even the “gods” of Old Mexico were once no more than hexes, just as all hexes were once mere humans, thus suggesting that any human charged with hex-power could (in theory) become a god. How, though, exactly? This was the question Morrow most dreaded, hoping devoutly to never see it answered — yet fearing, more and more, that he was doomed to do so.

“Can’t be done,” he’d replied. “Right?”

Asbury regarded his booze-filled teapot, bleakly. “Such a transition requires sacrifice, obviously, from what we saw happen to your Mister Pargeter — that the applicant himself be sacrificed, in point of fact. Yet sacrifice is simply death, placed in special context. And when we speak of creatures as powerful as Lady Rainbow, let alone that Other, are we even really speaking of death, per se? Disruption alone might suffice, if it lasted long enough. The resultant backwash of released mantic energy, horrifyingly strong as it would have to be . . . I see no reason why Mister Pinkerton might not use it to elevate himself to their power status, if only temporarily.”

Temporarily’d be bad enough, Morrow didn’t have to say, since he could only suppose they were both thinking it. And a few minutes later, Asbury put his head down on his folded arms for “a short rest,” never lifting it up again ’til morning.

And here I am, stranded right in the middle of a pile of shit, just like effin’ always, Morrow concluded, his long musing over. Sure hope Yancey and the others have found the real Chess by now, wherever the Enemy might’ve stashed him — that they have a plan to go with that idea, too, if and when . . .

Up on stage, Langobard raised “his” new Manifold to the light, admiring its shine. A second later, however, he almost dropped the thing as though burned — for it had begun to twist in his hand, buzzing waspish, mercury popping like it wanted to escape.