A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

“Mi hija,” she said, slowly. “Marizol . . . she’s my girl, si.”

“Her you gave to the Lady, right? As her pet, her treat?”

From a worship-knot away, a man Eulie could only assume was probably Marizol’s Pa tried to jerk himself up too and failed, sheer, raw weight of hardware through wounds tugging him back down again; he spat at her: “Marizol, la Dama call her especial! Chosen, like in old time — meant for better things. Like una mujer San, la virgen de Guadalupe.”

“Si,” Marizol’s mother chimed in. “So we give, yes. Like we give everything. Because la Dama give back, jus’ like she say, and never lie. Never.”

Cries of ecstasy, of faith renewed, went up on every side — the cultists scourged ’emselves afresh, drawing yells, along with sanguinary tribute. And this time, Eulie could fair see the power as it came eddying out, in burning updraft ribbons. One of the longest and loudest-coloured fluttered up from Missus Marizol, the other from Mister, knotting together ’til they braided. It was enough to turn

Eulie’s stomach.

Without any notion of considering it beforehand, she leaned forward to deal Missus M. a rifle-shot slap ’cross her red-soaked chops.

“You fool dupes!” she hissed. “Know what your Lady gave Marizol, her better thing? A Goddamn grave, is what — like she gave my gal Clo, and my man Hank. Like she aims to give us all, hex or no. She sucks you dry and you thank her for it. Her, who runs up the tab and never pays for nothin’!”

She found herself shaking, and wondered a titch at the sheer outrage welling up inside her. Saw only poor Marizol, skull-cracked by that sumbitch Pinkerton’s bullet, falling headlong into Saint Terra with no chance to wipe that silly, appeasing smile from her face. And laid overtop came Marizol’s mother with one hand up to her cheek, tears starting at her eyes’ corners, as though Eulie’d dealt her a hurt worse than any of the others she’d just spent God knew how many hours inflicting on herself.

How dare you! was what that wounded look cried out, so like Marizol’s own; how dare you tell me truth, ’stead of these pretty lies the Lady sells. How dare you show me it was me and her Pa drove her into yours and Berta’s arms, sent her running for Camp Pink on faint hope of rescue, on the idea that a man should practise what he preaches. . . .

This was almost as much ripe horse-crap, though, and Eulie well knew it; her own brand, or maybe even Hank’s, who’d preferred to gamble his two remaining wives’ freedom on the chance he could talk what’d become of the first one down, before she gutted him like a fish. For the plain truth was — and she could admit it now, at last, at the end of all things, without even resenting it — though he’d claimed to make ’em all the same pledge, it always had been Clo he’d loved best.

Sissy; oh, sissy. Think I’ll say a prayer for you too, sometime soon — probably right as you’re comin’ to pull my head off, I had to start takin’ bets.

Saw Marizol’s Daddy staring daggers at her, then, like he’d pay big coin to jump over and throw a punch, he could only bring himself to work ’round the fact he’d just poked his pecker full of holes. So Eulie marshalled herself one last time and told the Moon Court at large, clear and cold as Christmas: “You’re gonna kill yourselves for her, faster than slower, and the plain fact is, she don’t even deserve it. And all I’m sayin’ is maybe you need to think on that a bit, ’fore you end up like Marizol — like everybody else ever did what that old-as-Jesus bitch wanted, or didn’t want, either.”

“That’s brave talk, all right, yella gal,” came Sal Followell’s no-nonsense voice, cutting in. “Problem is, though, we’re the ones gonna have to try an’ live with her, after this mess is done with.”

Eulie turned to snap back, hands on hips — and faltered as she saw who was towering behind Sal in the doorway: the black-coated bulk of Reverend Rook himself, fingertips tented on his breast like a hanging judge already pondering sentence. He seemed more sorrowful than angry, but Eulie’s heart quailed, nonetheless — Rook had always looked saddest just before wreaking his worst. And if she defied any order he gave, she’d bust her Oath wide, rendering herself helpless or dead within the minute.

“Chu and the Shoshone are shepherding folk into the Temple,” Rook told Sal. “Should have the last of ’em in within minutes. Once they’re inside, we can bring up the wards, and then it’ll just be a matter of waiting ’em out ’til her Ladyship’s strong enough to settle things — if her supply ain’t been cut off in the meantime, that is.”

Sal’s mouth flattened to a hard line, once again addressing herself to Eulie. “See, you dumb little snip — ? But no; I can’t fault you none for tryin’ what you felt you had to, after Hank and Clo. Still, and this is important . . .” She stepped forward and took Eulie firmly by the shoulders, like a mother hoping her gone-wanton daughter would see light without needing further correction. “There ain’t no beating Her, not now, not ever — you try, you die. And even if you could win, we still all die! Go back to livin’ like thieves and Gypsies, hidin’ from each other and the world, with those of us who survive tearin’ each other’s hearts out just to sup on ’em.” She shuddered in a breath, voice steadying again. “Them out there just got a little time ’fore they meet their fate — an’ then it all begins again, Eulalia. Don’t throw your life away when there ain’t no need, or point.”

Eulie glared at her. She’d always loved this mountain-stubborn old woman, bound fast to her in potential slavery by at least a quarter-blood, but the lump in her throat felt too hot by far to choke back. “So everything — Hank, Clo, their babe — it was all for nothing? Or worse, for this?” She swept a hand at the filthy, slaughterhouse-stinking Moon Court. “Those really the only choices we got, Sal? Us, who can do most any damn thing, now we got somewheres to stand together?”

Without warning, Sal’s flinty eyes spilled tears, shocking as water from the rock. But even as she nodded, lips actually moving to shape the word Yes —

“Maybe not,” Rook said instead, offhand, as though it was some interesting thought had only just occurred to him. He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small spruce twig, unornamented, at least not visibly. Which he took in both hands, without prayer, or fanfare . . .

and snapped.

Time stopped.

Morrow had lost count of how often he’d skimmed death’s edge and dodged away at the last second, these last few years — but splayed now on the cold ground, heart’s blood pouring out into Chess so fast he could barely breathe, he had just enough strength left to realize that this might be the last time, if not quite enough left for fear. Only a dim awe, vague resignation . . . and a second later, the weirdly delighted urge to laugh, when Chess glared at the two inhuman Powers and roared, without preamble —

“Which one of you fucks got my heart?!”

Tezcatlipoca smiled and pointed to Ixchel, as though it’d seriously ever been in doubt.

Automatically, Morrow looked at the goddess as well, and felt a twinge of nausea. What a desperate joke it seemed, now, to think she could ever have been beautiful — swollen-jointed, leather-skinned, mask face torn askew. She seemed more animate rawhide than human. With a shock, he realized the hole he’d put in her head himself had reappeared, though nothing — not blood, nor foetor — trailed from it now. Long dry rips down her naked chest and belly showed sickening glimpses of yellowed ribs, shrivelled organs, dust-dry black veins.

And behind that exposed chest-lattice, something shadow-hidden, distending and collapsing with such force that it seemed as if whatever lay beneath the bone was fighting its captor as furiously as Chess himself would.

Ixchel, for her part, neither smiled or frowned, mouth froze in a paralytic’s sneer, one corner furled to show her entire left-hand row of upper teeth. Only stared at Chess with a vivid hunger in her black eyes — the single part of her, really, that still seemed alive — before spreading her arms, as if to embrace him in welcome. He almost seemed to hesitate, at the sight.

No!

A bolt of terror galvanized Morrow; he managed to lift himself a bare inch, hurl a warning at Chess, sending it down the path of blood as the link flickered toward extinction.