A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Meanwhile, he saw that Ixchel had already let loose the flood, sending waters pouring down the valley and racing across the plains. Rook heard screams rise up from the townsfolk outside, frozen where they stood while doom came thundering down upon them, and felt Ixchel’s rage like his own, inhumanly ancient, monstrously deep.

Remove yourself, little kings and queens, for this city ends now — now that they have dared to thwart My wishes, to strike at My high priest.

Not a moment’s concern in that sending, though — no care for him, for Fennig or the girls, for how close they had all come to death. As Berta went to support Hank while Eulie staggered under Clo’s weight, pulling her back from the stage, Ixchel stayed safe inside her vortex, not reaching out even a tendril to pluck them from harm’s way. Simply trusting they would save themselves, or deserve their own deaths.

Join me in the heavens, therefore, to watch our vengeance.

Rook fought down the pain with a groan and flung out his power to seize all the others at once, hauling them up into the sky: ten yards, twenty, thirty. High over Bewelcome’s rebuilt steeple, the five hexes clung to one another, watching the massive torrent boil and roar toward the town, and then splash upward, slamming into a barrier that ripped out of the earth on all sides in a single thick wall of hot-pulsing life like a vast bank of flayed muscle encircling Bewelcome, guarding it. More great slabs of the stuff — the Red Weed, Rook realized — slapped upward like giants’ hands, sending massive gouts of water into the sky to arc over the town, spraying wide and harmlessly. And in the town square beneath, another crack of lightning revealed a figure Rook knew had not stood there a scant second before, a figure he could barely see and yet knew in an instant, without needing to: small, slim, hair fire-touched in the hissing light as it looked up, grinning.

Chess —

“REV, LOOK OUT!”

Fennig’s yell c

ame too late — a huge surge of water had already struck the group, knocked them all spinning sideways, snapped apart. Rook saw poor Clo slam heavy into the church’s steeple, breaking bones and wooden beams alike, even as instinct told him to break his fall by grabbing at the air itself. He hit the town square’s mud in a roll, breath knocked from him with a thud, and lay still a moment, fighting for his wind. Then rolled over with a grunt of effort to find Fennig kneeling by him, face oddly young and naked without his specs.

“Henry! You harmed?” At Fennig’s headshake: “Then what in God’s name happened? Was it you smote the Widow, before Clodagh could?”

“Not me and none of us, ’cause wherever she’s gone, she ain’t been harmed — I’d’a seen, she was!” Grabbing Rook’s shoulders, the younger man leaned in close: “That boy of hers, though — I saw him flash as it happened, like bottle lightning.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s a hex.”

Jesus! That young? Could it even happen? Well, Clo’s belly shot out sparks whenever she got going. . . .

But here solid, squelching footsteps broke Rook’s daze as Morrow strode to them, shotgun levelled. Certain now of its efficacy, his eyes were steel-hard. “Rev, Mister Fennig — stand down, if you please.”

Rook looked round. From the wrecked main hall, the young minister — Catlin, his name was, Rook now recalled hearing — and Asbury had emerged with Langobard balanced between ’em, that New York fop with his notepad right behind, still scribbling. Catlin had purloined the mayor’s Manifold, which was chattering in his hand, frenzied by the hexation hanging thick in the air. Around them, blue-coated soldiers had materialized, all of them Negroes; their guns were levelled too, though Rook felt confident only Morrow bore a weapon of any import. One of the soldiers might’ve been that same young man he’d seen fleeing at Morrow’s side, just before they’d ripped the hall’s roof off. Beside him, a taller officer wore the epaulettes and stripes of a Union captain: Washford, Rook remembered from the intelligencers, Isaiah Washford.

The young soldier whistled, admiring Morrow’s work. “Like to get me one of those shells, sir, you got any spares goin’ beggin’.”

“You’ll have to talk to Doc Asbury ’bout that, Private Carver,” said Morrow.

Gathering what dignity he could, Rook slowly regained his feet. “Gentlemen,” he said, in his deepest voice, “the Professor’s devices notwithstanding, you still cannot hope to resist my Ladyship’s power. . . .”

But his sonorous declamation trailed off as he looked skyward, to see — nothing. Only the rain and the black night sky.

Fennig, following his look, clenched his jaw. Blue light blazed in his eyes.

“Bitch up and left us,” he observed, unnecessarily.

On the meeting hall’s wrecked front steps, Catlin suddenly began to laugh, hysterically. “See!” he cried. “The Devil abandons his servants, at the first good show of righteousness! I told you all we had to do was be strong in our faith, and — ”

Even Asbury looked disgusted. But the speed and fury of Fennig’s reaction caught everyone flat-footed; he turned with a glare, sending that same blue glow arcing straight at the idiot. Reflexively, Catlin flung “his” Manifold up; the light smacked into it and locked fast, discharging harmlessly into its whirring gearwork.

Agape, Catlin burst out into the same maniacal racket. “For behold, my God is a righteous God!” he choked, as Fennig sent ever more power at him, the Manifold’s buzz rising higher while Morrow, Washford, Carver stared on, mesmerized. “I shall fear no evil, not while I walk in His sight — ”

“Mister Catlin!” Asbury shouted. “Reverend, sir, you haven’t the training to — you don’t, you can’t — ” Abruptly shoving Langobard at the notepad scribbler, he didn’t wait to watch them hit mud before flinging himself backward, with a yell: “Everyone, take cover — !”

At which point the Manifold, overloaded, exploded in Catlin’s hand, blowing most of it off. He sat down hard, blood gouting from his left wrist’s wreckage.

With one forceful sweep, Rook smacked Morrow backward into the mud, sending the gun flying; two more tumbled most of the soldiers like ninepins. He pulled Fennig back, sprinting toward the steeple base, where Berta and Eulie were hauling Clo up. All three were sodden and filthy; Clo hung with her legs spread wide, and Rook’s heart clenched to see a dark stain spilling inexorably between them. Face bone white to the lips, her huge stomach glowed, swelling and pulsing, a swallowed star.

Eulie clung to her, weeping. “Sissy, sissy — oh, God! Don’t give up, now. . . .”

“I don’t feel well,” Clo replied, voice small and bewildered. “Is it . . .