A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

“Maybe I ain’t finished yet.”

“Suit your bloody self, then. But them rest over there won’t wait forever.”

Chess nodded, and bent down just a tad further, not deigning to hold himself out of Chilicothe’s reach. “I never did scream, no matter how you tried to make me,” he reminded him, voice flat. “’Member that? How it took all three of you to hold me down long enough, which only showed me what kind’a cowards you were, not to mention stick-stupid. And why? ’Cause you let me live, you shithead.”

Up once more, then, back on his feet; he turned his scornful eyes to the rest as his grin widened . “But Christ knows I do like it rough, too, so if any of you dead fools feel up for a second go-round, let’s get to it. I got nothin’ but time to kill.”

Chilicothe turned his face to the ground. But the rest of the mob shifted forward almost like one, closing in; Chess saw ’em coming and shifted stance, ready to once more take up nonexistent arms.

Well, there goes that bright idea.

Oona, by his side: “Just couldn’t keep your bloody mouth shut, could ya?”

“Aw, Ma. Thought you’d’ve known me better’n that, by now.”

As they got closer, however, Chess angled away, so’s she wouldn’t see his smirk fail. Last time things’d gotten this bad had been outside Splitfoot’s, with Sheriff Mesach Love’s Weed-puppets making a shambly forward-march on him, Ed, Yancey, Geyer — yet once a deathblow freed the last shreds of leftover soul, there had been no will in the Weed-things’ eyes, no memory nor hatred. These revenants were equally dead, but every pair of eyes stayed stuck on him, brim-full with an aching need to punish.

On pure reflex, he slipped past, pushing Oona behind him with one hand. Lifted the other, thinking it wrapped in blue-white threads of lightning, concentrating harder than he had at anything since he first took up the gun — then yelped as a slap cracked ’cross the back of his head. “Jesus shit, woman!” he roared, catching hold of the hand she still held high. “The hell’s this? Stop it!”

“You stupid bloody git,” Oona yelled back, and Chess almost let go, in shock; were those actual tears in her eyes, rimming green with red? Cold truly must be getting to her. “Tryin’ to play the ’ero, now an’ ’ere? Get us both stuck, for good? What’d I always tell you, eh?”

“That’d be ‘Save yerself, ’cause won’t nobody else do it for ya,’ I’d think,” he mocked, vowels flat-mashing, Limejuicer style. Then pulled her hard back into his embrace, dipping to snarl, in one ear: “Yeah, well . . . I ain’t you.”

Around them, that bitter wind keened yet higher, sent snow-ghosts sifting through the crowd, tearing each from each; but a slight twist more and it broke upward into a shriek, unbearably pitched, as though the sky itself had torn. The light collapsed, grey as grave mould. And in its wake, a twister touched down, ripped straight from Chess’s own memories — bomb-burst back-slap of Rook’s gallows resurrection, sending all them manning the trap one way and those still waiting to swing the other. Its fury had crushed him facedown into the mud even as the Rev came up rocket-fast, hemp necktie still a-flap ’round his raw neck.

This one’s funnel speared straight down, locking to earth ’round Chess and Oona: half trap and half shield, capping a perfect circle no more than a yard wide, while solid-turned air smacked outward in all directions.

In the real world, this was the kind of force would’ve torn men limb from limb, flung ’em hundreds of yards, to decorate the wrecked trees in scraps. Here, the Dead Posse mainly only lurched, ground backward, like mud-locked wagons hauled by straining men; a few busted free and rose up, splatting ’gainst the mountain’s hide. But it was enough. A path had opened — several. Now, all they needed to figure was which one led where, and take it.

With a shrug, Chess banished the twister as though throwing off a mile-high coat fashioned from the Devil’s own storm-blown hide, and bolted straight into its tail, yanking Oona along after him. “Ma!” he screamed, above the roar. “The Call, where? Which damn way?

“Dunno . . . can’t bloody see — !”

Chess broke into a tripping run, following the base of the rock wall bounding the plain; Oona fell once, with a squawk, then righted herself and hiked his coat immodestly, matching him as best she might. Though the cyclone had stripped snow from the earth, carving a black mud track, more snow cascaded down from the peaks above, throwing up plumes so blinding white Chess was forced to shield his eyes as he ducked through them. Too close behind for comfort, he could feel the Dead Posse’s renewed pursuit in his boots, pounding up through the ground.

He almost missed the gap; would have missed it, in fact, if a hand hadn’t thrust out from it at the last second, palm up-angled toward him, all but beckoning. Grab hold, its unseen owner seemed to say, though no voice spoke. Grab hold, and see where this takes you.

He grabbed fast, felt a moment’s swooping relief when the hand proved at least as warm as his own, and did not resist as it pulled him into — through — the gap beyond, and Oona too.

Once past the barrier, Chess stumbled to his knees, cold stone firm under his palms and shins. The lack of wind was a Goddamn blessing. At his elbow, Oona wept in pain, cursing her feet for their slowness in resuming their normal colouration. Sounded like she would’ve stamped, if she hadn’t figured that would probably hurt the more.

The floor beneath was flat, expert-laid, of smooth but unpolished granite. As his breath came back in gulps, Chess looked up and ’round, taking in yet another passageway. Like all the tunnels before, it stre

tched on into the distance to a vanishing point teasingly set just beyond his sight, but these walls, this roof and floor, looked built. A faint light, cheerless and dusty, trickled through high slits, giving off no sort of shade to indicate its source. Silence weighted the air.

In recessed alcoves set at intervals on each wall, men and women sat like stone — stiff and stock-staring off into the distance, at the floor, or their own folded hands. Might’ve been wax, but that Chess’s keen sight detected the faintest movement at chest height. Unlike the crowds of Seven Dials, their getup covered every time and place Chess had ever known — serapes, dusters, flash check trousers, denim and silk gowns, nought at all — plus dozens he didn’t, their skin, hair and eyes culled from every mix imaginable.

No ropes or chains to bind ’em fast, no dust to suggest how long they’d sat; only the figures, the corridor. The silence.

“Chess . . .” Oona whispered. And Christ, he thought, uncharitably. Can I never have one damn minute to myself, a minute to stop and fucking pause?

He turned, too exhausted even to sigh — and wound up looking straight into the face of the one person he’d genuinely never thought to find down here, in all his ramblings . . . but who else could it possibly be, really? Considering how recently he’d been thinking of him?

“Sheriff,” Chess named him, finally. To which the man gave but a single bow, grave as ever, bones creaking. And though those little-girl pigtails of his swung back and forth with the motion, infinitely ridiculous, Chess felt absolutely no impulse to laugh.

“‘Private’ Pargeter,” Mesach Love — dead twice-over and double-damned as well, if present circumstances were anything to go by — replied.

CHAPTER TEN