A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Both wore duster coats and sported neat-waxed walrus moustaches, one blond, the other da

rk. The dark one used a brass telescope to mark points of particular interest while the other rocked back and forth with hands dug deep in his pockets, all but toe-tapping to signal his impatience.

“I’ll point out it’s your intelligencer we wait on, Mister Geyer,” the dark one said, without turning, “so whatever strategical quandary you find yourself enmeshed in, it’s entirely of your own making. Actually, given how little faith you seem to have in this fellow, I’m driven to wonder why you thought to engage him, in the first place.”

“Lack of options,” ex-Pinkerton Agent Frank Geyer replied. “He was well-situated, well-disposed . . . and to be frank, George, he works cheap.”

“Perfectly good qualities, in any spy,” agreed the other man — ex-Agent George Thiel, of course, first official defector from their former mutual boss’s increasingly dubious organization. “Pinkerton himself would approve.”

“Not if he knew what we were doing with him, I don’t think.”

“And there’s where I’d agree with you,” a third voice called out, from the shadows, as its owner made his way up the hill’s backside. This soon proved to be Fitz Hugh Ludlow, dandified clothes still mud-stiff from the fray. Reaching the hill’s apex, he stooped and huffed for a moment before straightening, trotting out the same oily grin that’d so failed to ingratiate him to Ed Morrow. “But may I say how disheartening it is to hear yourself described with such unfortunate accuracy, ’specially by those who don’t know you’re on hand to listen in?”

“Where’ve you been, Ludlow?” Geyer demanded.

“Extricating myself from that matchstick-pile Sophy Love and company used to call a meeting house, for starters, after which I was forced to stop awhile and observe Reverend Rook and his cadre beating unholy hell out of her husband’s unworthy successors.”

Thiel turned, quirking an interested brow. “To what outcome?”

“Oh, bad all ’round, pretty much universally. Missus Love stood proud ’gainst the hexacious tide, only to get herself disintegrated. Reverend Catlin preached on God’s supremacy while holding one of Doc Asbury’s little machines, letting it suck in witchcraft ’til he blew his own hand off. Then Queen Rope herself appeared and tried to flood the town out, only for Chess Pargeter’s ghost to rise up through the dirt, ass-naked but for a set of Red Weed underclothes, and put paid to her scheming. Can probably see the moat he made from here, you only squint hard enough.” Ludlow paused for breath. “In short, an exciting evening had by all, well worth an entire yellow novel chapter to itself. And you, gentlemen?”

Geyer shook his head, as though to clear it. “Hold a moment . . . Sophronia Love is dead?”

Ludlow shrugged. “Impossible to tell, truly. I certainly saw her lose coherence in the face of that Paddy witch’s onslaught. But this proves nothing; I’ve seen hexes transport folk from one point to another just as easily, with much the same result.”

“She and her babe might be prisoners, then, inside Hex City’s precincts,” Thiel observed. “A useful idea, ’specially if we wanted to rouse Bewelcome’s survivors for a rescue.”

“True!” said Ludlow. “And what a narrative that would make for . . . saleable indeed, to all possible markets.”

Geyer studied each for some hint of a joke, eyes widening with genuine discomfort when he didn’t find any. “You two make my blood run cold,” he said, at last.

Ludlow puffed up, finally insulted. “Sir, I follow my calling, from which you and Mister Thiel here benefit extraordinarily for very little bodily risk, while I put myself in the very thick of harm’s way. Believe me, if I yearned to be called names, I’d’ve stayed in New York.”

“Desperate times, Frank,” Thiel replied, at the same time, without heat. “Desperate measures. We can’t afford to be — ”

“ — what, human?”

“Over-nice, I was going to say. For the plain fact is, we need every advantage we can gain from here on out, putting our endgame together. What we do here we do for the very literal salvation of all mankind.”

There was little to say in response, so no one tried, simply fell silent a spell, ’til Ludlow said, “Well, moving on to other things . . .

as you know, Mister Pinkerton did not attend the meeting, for which I’m sure he’ll be thankful, once Mister Morrow and Doctor Asbury debrief him on their return. He seldom leaves Camp Pink at all, these days, or so Mister Morrow has tried ably to keep from letting slip.”

“And why’s that, I wonder?” Thiel asked the wind. Beside him, Geyer snorted.

“Still semi-witched, I’d ’spect, from his dabblings in matters arcanistric. You only saw the start of it, George — that wound he took from Pargeter, how Asbury tried to treat it. He was worse when I met him on the Train, by far.”

“Rumours to that effect, yes,” Ludlow agreed. “They do say how the Professor’s engineeringological victories have only made his particular . . . hungers all the easier to satisfy, as the Pinkertons’ supply of collared hexes grows. But this latest miracle of his may well take the proverbial cake.”

“Meaning?”

“Asbury gave Morrow bullets, Morrow shot ’em at the Rev — and they took. From what I could gather squatting behind a brake, everyone seemed pretty much equal horror-struck; Asbury too, now I think. But then, he’s been looking unwell, in general.”

“Tell me more about that,” Thiel suggested.

Ludlow laughed and struck a pose, fair cracking his knuckles. “Oh, that’s been coming on for some time now; going by tonight’s brief appearance, the man looks almost on the verge of a collapse — dispirited, sirs, very dispirited, though not so much so that he’s gone teetotal.” He paused, ruminatorily. “Rather the opposite, really.”

Geyer regarded him with scorn. “Never use a two-bit word when a five-dollar one’s to hand, do you, Mister Ludlow?”