A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Rook felt those black doll-eyes shift his way, and hissed through his teeth, projecting: Shut it, Henry. Felt her alien intelligence stroke his brain almost affectionately at the same time, before moving on — too busy, or bored, to bother probing deeper.

“She knows everything,” he said, at last. “Told me as much. So I don’t see the point of plotting, let alone anything else.”

Fennig’s spectacles were already back in place, rendering gaze and expression equally opaque. “Wants you t’think she does, more like — got her consuming interests, just like the rest of us. And contrary to popular belief, she can’t be everywhere at once, neither. I’ve checked.”

“Henry — ”

“I’m a big boy, Rev. I slip up, I’ll gladly pay the price; g’hals can look after ’emselves, if they have to.” A thin grin. “Not that I wouldn’t miss their sweet company, from across the river. Still, once we get this War put to bed, we can . . .”

. . . rebuild, branch out, found schools and hospitals, do all the things necessary to make this means to an end permanent. That’s what Fennig wanted, like most’ve the rest — this haphazard experiment was a paradise to them, or close as they thought themselves ever like to see. Whereas Rook, like Ixchel, saw the edges blurring as New Aztectlan became a portal from one future to another, and knew what was coming would wipe out everything in its path regardless . . .

that in the end, the Hex City crowd could either join it, get out of its way or be borne away, accordingly.

Can’t help them with that, though. I’m all hers, bought and paid for. Can’t help anybody, with anything.

Chu and the Shoshone, having gotten the storm where they wanted it, had spun it free and let it expand, eating what was left of the twilit sky. Now Fennig’s ladies stood with arms still linked, thrilling to the thunder’s rumble as the first intimations of lightning swirled around them; Clo was already starting to drift up a tad in sympathetic response, her swollen belly lit from within, the other two just managing to keep her anchored.

Ixchel, meanwhile, was somehow already halfway out atop the cloud itself, which parted to let her pass. Her train and cloak formed a second funnel, sucking up a dose of darkness that spawned yet another roiling energy ball between her own hands, charge concentrated enough to lift the bulk of her hair by sheer galvanization.

With a tiny kick, she swum upward still, turning toward the east, where a dry riverbed snaked through two miles of canyons. And even without her mind touching his — not so’s he could notice, anyhow — Rook nevertheless thought he began to see what she might have in mind.

Time to go. To lay her vengeance down on Bewelcome — could’ve been anywhere, Rook supposed, but he could see why that place in particular held a certain charge, seeing how it was the last place she and that “brother” of hers had thrown down — and watch what rose to greet it, then crush that thing in turn with all the force of a dead pantheon, a living yet absent God.

At his elbow, Fennig still watched Rook from behind those lenses, twisting his cane — like he hoped for some sort of elaboration, but understood if none was forthcoming.

So Rook made himself look up, and tell him, lightly enough: “Best not to rely on me too much, maybe, when all’s said and done; not with your women on the line, and your child likewise. As the Lady’s own property, I’m hardly trustworthy.”

This time, the dapper New York gangster didn’t even bother to nod. Just replied, equally nonchalant, “Oh, no more’n any of us, Rev, I s’pose. But more so than Herself, by far.”

Rook inclined his head, reaching to rake up an appropriate verse from deep inside: Job 27:21, The east wind carrieth him away and he departeth, perhaps. Or Psalms, 83:15 — So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. Either would do.

Yet hearing in his head simultaneous, as mocking echo, a few more of those Celestial war-wisdom adages Honourable Chu liked to quote: All war is deception; to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill — to subdue the enemy without fighting, that is the acme of skill; if ignorant of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.

“Let’s to it, then,” the Rev said. And stepped off the ramparts with Fennig and the Missuses trailing behind like a kite’s tail, blown straight into the storm’s beating heart.

CHAPTER SIX

The town hall’s roof came

off like kindling, as if the storm’d turned one big mouth, opened wide, and took itself a bite. Rook came drifting down inside what was left with the rain still pelting ’round him and Fennig a mere half-step behind, bringing the Word along as well, in silver-black clumps: Isaiah 13, 6 to 9:

Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt:

And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

The place was gutted, chairs and pews flung every which way, smashed to sodden flinders. A stage took up the back half, uneven now, as though it’d been stamped on — and that was where he found what was left of the elders’ council: some fat man with a broken leg, sprawled with a Manifold clutched to his chest like he thought it could ward off heart attack (Mayor Langobard, probably), plus a roster of other notables, similarly stricken — including a dapper fool Rook could only assume, with a twinge of nasty amusement, must be the town’s new preacher: no Mesach Love, that was for sure. For though this man’s lips moved feverishly, Rook could barely sense enough faith in him to light a lucifer, let alone ward off evil.

In the corner crouched Doc Asbury, managing admirably to not quite cower; might be the last few months had finally inured him to the shock of seeing his theories turned fact. While nearby, half-hid behind a tangle of fallen furniture, a man with similar taste in fashion as Fennig crouched with tablet out and pencil busy, scribbling frantically, as though he aimed to preserve all he saw for posterity’s sake.

But even as Rook took note of them all, they paled to invisibility in the face of his true target, who crouched above Langobard with one hand laid soothingly on his sweaty brow, clutching her baby close with the other: Sophronia Love, the Sheriff’s woman, moral heart of Bewelcome’s resistance. The figurehead all the rest rallied behind.

For a year in the salt, she looked uncommon good, even dressed in black with her hair plastered dark by the downpour’s vigour. As did that fussing boy of hers, whose healthy lungs sent up counterpoint music, loud enough to be heard over the storm itself.

Strike her down, this town dies with her, lit and fig. Strike her down, and victory follows.

Easier said than done, though, he suspected. Since this one’s faith was so pure it all but sparkled, even under these circumstances.