A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

No, damnit! Don’t let her —

Here his strength gave out, thudding him back to the earth, but Chess glanced over at him — into him — and winked. Crouched. And hurled himself backward, slamming spine-first into Tezcatlipoca’s chest, his body seeming to burst, exhaling a crimson cloud that billowed up ’round the god, penetrated him from every angle, pumping blue skin purple and red Weed even redder. Tezcatlipoca staggered, fell to his knees with the vines boiling and writhing ’round him, ’til gradually he began . . . to laugh.

Yeah, well, Morrow roused himself enough to think, dimly. What else?

Louder and louder this Fifth World’s self-proclaimed Enemy guffawed, as if he finally understood the punch line of the best joke ever told. Then reared back up just as the swinging panels of his ribcage broke apart, two small, scar-knuckled fists punching them wide like saloon doors. Bare feet came next

, kicking out through both blue-skinned thighs as if shrugging off garb made from sodden papier-mâché. The whole head split and moulted like a crab’s shed shell, guffaws blended into a wordless yell of triumph, as Chess Pargeter — naked as the day of both birth and re-birth, before he thought to re-clothe himself in purple once more — lunged to his feet with red-gold lightning crackling from his eyes, a cowled halo drooping from shoulder blades to forearms like fiery wings, then trailing down ’round his fists in death-dealing frills.

“Yeah!” he announced. “That’s better! ’Cause this here’s my flesh and nobody else’s, let alone some dead monkey-god’s, no matter the size of his Smoking Mirror! There’s one Chess Pargeter only, and I’m damn well him!”

With the same shimmying shudder Morrow’d seen him use on a gulp of absinthe, Chess shook the last shreds of Tezcatlipoca’s blue skin from his body and met Ixchel’s gape head-on, eyebrows sketching his curly red forelock.

“Oh, so what?” he asked her. “Didn’t think I really meant to just pour a whole fresh bunch’a blood-power into you, when I know that’s all you drink? Come on. I ain’t that dumb.”

Ixchel blinked, or struggled to. But . . . how . . . you are no variety of god, not anymore — only a ghost, fleshless, without root. How could you possibly unseat the Night Wind whose slaves we all are, one thing with four names, Father of Every Magic?

Because I allowed him to, of course, a terrible voice said, behind her — the creature in question’s own, freed at last from its human trumpet’s confines, echoing unchecked like the black between stars. For there it was, humped back up with its skull-and-crossbones cape flapping free as it loomed over them all, one foot tucked under it and the other reflecting their shocked faces back at them, done over in shades of obsidian.

Well played, little brother, it told Chess, with a wink. And vanished from sight, before Ixchel could do much more than goggle.

Then Chess glanced back down, and grimaced at the damage Morrow and Yancey’d done themselves, glee dissipated by dismay. With one hand-flick, he sealed Morrow’s wound; a second closed up Yancey’s arm, stemming the tide.

Then came something Morrow truly didn’t expect: Chess lifted his hands, flattened them into blades and brought them down, short and sharp, like an axeman cutting ship’s line. Pain backlashed, hammering Morrow’s head; too weak to move, he could only groan, realizing by the sudden absence in his mind just what Chess had to’ve done.

Why would you — ?

Ixchel shook her head, slowly. “Fool,” she rasped. “Twice fool, to cast away your last priests! How will you be renewed? How can you live, with no heart and no new form waiting in your cycle? When you exhaust the last of what you have now, you will die, surely as you should have in the Moon Room, when your lover cracked your breastbone.”

Chess turned to face her. “S’pose that’s about right,” he agreed. “’Cause if my friends get to your Moon Court, like I’m bettin’ they will any second, that’s the exact state they said you’d be in. Not to mention how, since your friend and mine kept on sowin’ all this time he’s been wearin’ me for pyjamas, I still got a whole shitload of Weed all ’cross this state to pull on. Lose your City and your Court along with it, though, and what’ve you got to draw on, exactly?”

There wasn’t quite enough mobility left in Ixchel’s face to show fear — but as she threw her head back to scream at the sky: “Daughter! To me!” — the terror which suffused that shout might’ve almost been the sweetest thing Morrow had ever heard.

For a half-second, anyhow. Until rubble-dropped Clo Killeen hurled the massive block of stone pinning her off and rose back up looking almost good as new, undead demon that she was, snarling loud enough Ed could hear her from where he lay.

Ah shit, was all he had time to think, then blacked out as well.

Inside Hex City, Mexes, Texicans and hexes were fighting equal-hard, carving out a truly hellish scene. The spider, once mounted, proved an odd ride indeed — broad-set and hairy in ways that rubbed painfully, ass-end canted up far higher than its front, almost like a living saddle. Geyer, who’d taken pride of place, used its own silk to navigate the thing along while Ludlow swapped his derringer for Geyer’s rifle, blasting away at whatever blundered close enough to seem dangerous; perched on Ludlow’s right hand, Asbury clutched his Manifold while wedged almost sidesaddle, eyes kept peeled for any less mundane threats.

This arrangement saw them safely into the main thoroughfare, where — once the crush increased so much that forward motion became impossible — Geyer urged their conveyance straight up the wall, jumping it literally from pillar to post, ’til they fetched at last within wrestling distance of a tall, flat-faced woman armed with gun and horse-jaw tomahawk. From her Wanted poster description, Ludlow recognized her as The Night Has Passed or Yiska, “Grandma’s” chief lieutenant. Surely, her presence here meant that Missus Kloves couldn’t be far behind, or Ed Morrow, for that matter.

“Pinkerton man,” the squaw addressed Geyer, levelling her pistol at his head, even while Ludlow fought to draw similar bead on hers. “I remember you, from outside the Bone Channel, when we rode to Bewelcome. Come to finish what your master started?”

“Hardly. Would’ve thought you’d’ve heard already — Pinkerton’s dead and there’s another Agency waiting to take his place, run by my friend, George Thiel.”

“Ah, then you must feel proud for him. Where is he now, I wonder?”

“Close enough, I’m sure. Though not close enough to stop you shooting me, you happen to take a mind to.”

“No,” she agreed. And though her barrel hadn’t moved even an inch, Geyer nodded as well, nonetheless — civil, like they were taking tea together.

“You’ve no reason to trust me,” he admitted, “or anyone else wears a government badge. But world’s end aside, things do have to change, and I believe we all well know it, ma’am — or may I call you Yiska?”

“That is my name.”

“Mine’s Geyer. Frank.”

“I know. Say your piece, Mister Geyer — I have other business, elsewhere.”