A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

I command you, by the bond between us. Do not forget your Oath.

To which Rook shook his own head, unsurprised in the least. And smiled.

Chess wanted to retch yet again, so powerful was the sudden spasm of fresh desire that smile bred in him. And after everything, too — all the pain and ruin, brought upon not just him but the whole world. Christ! Shit, Rook didn’t even look half so good as he once had: face lined, powerful neck loose-skinned and its stubble greying, stance indefinably broken. His very man-mountain hugeness seemed suddenly heavy, weary.

Then the hex-hunger stirred the base of his spine like a twisted knife, rendering him dry-mouthed, and Chess went abruptly cold. Right, he thought. ’Cause . . . that was always part of it, and I just never knew.

How much of them had been this thing, though, always waiting between them, this slow-fused grenade primed for inevitable detonation? Chess had to believe at least part of it would have been real all the same; to think anything else was madness . . . but he couldn’t know. Not all the way to the bone.

And then another hit still, like a smack from one of the Spider-Weaver’s mighty legs: the idea that Rook must have felt the exact same way, on learning of their fate from Grandma, barring the bargain that bought safety at the price of impotence — felt this exact same rush of dread, realizing that no matter what you did, something you couldn’t live without was doomed to pass away; that there was no certainty, no safety, not even in the most secret parts of your own heart. Whether that organ was present, it turned out, or not.

Oh, you Goddamned asshole, Chess raged silently, glaring at Rook. Don’t make me finally understand you now, after all of what’s gone by —

He hated Rook all the more fiercely, for losing him at least this one reason to hate him. And if some of the gut-wrenching want was mere brute power-appetite, as much or more was plain desire, not just for flesh’s ravaging penetration but for everything which came before, around and after: peace; warmth; trust; affection . . . love.

Maybe just because he’d read Chess’s face, Rook shook his head, gently. “Don’t disappoint me now, darlin’,” he said. “Been waiting a good long while to have this dance. So let’s step up.”

Chess drew in a shuddering breath, blew it back out. Rocked back on his heels, muscles drawing tight — ready to brawl, if not entirely willing.

“All right,” he replied.

Morrow came up gasping, to find Yancey already awake, holding her head. In front of them, Chess and the Rev were going at each other with everything they had, with what he could only reckon were the shattered remains of Ixchel lying jackknifed to one side. Rook threw text at Chess, and Chess flipped it aside; where it hit it drew blood, but Chess seemed not to mind. Just bent himself into it like a wind, and kept on coming.

“You’re no match for me, not one on one,” Rook told him. “Not without that god-power goin’ through you, or your heart returned, either — you’re runnin’ down already, darlin’, like a watch. Can’t you feel it?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Chess panted. “I’ll do for you, then I’ll do for her, just like I always said.”

“How, with your black angel not doin’ a damn thing on your behalf, anymore?” He glanced over where the Enemy’s enormity coiled and eddied, grinning, biding its time — for what, Jesus and itself only knew. “You’re a blunt instrument, Chess Pargeter. Never been a true sorcerer, for all you got hexation to spare. Not to mention how you don’t know one trick I didn’t teach you . . . and I didn’t teach you shit.”

Chess paused just a moment, face unreadable. “Oh no?” he asked, quietly.

Rook frowned, then roundhoused the smaller man right in the face, sending him staggering.

Chess spat blood and what looked like a piece of tooth, jaw immediately starting to bruise; the flame at his knuckles guttered, but didn’t go out. Saying, without much surprise, once his mouth was again clear for use — “So that’s how you want to play it, huh? Big man. And me without my Colts.”

Rook shrugged and punched him again, knocking him back further: one time, two times, three, ’til Chess was panting at his feet with his ass in the dirt, Rook towering overtop. Looking down dismissive, to taunt: “Never told you to give ’em away to the only skirt ever took your fancy, did I? And now there’s all your dreams of equality gone right down the drain, thrown out along with the bullets.”

“Screw you, you God-botherin’ bully.”

“Uh huh, ’cause if we were settlin’ this in bed, you might have a chance. But we ain’t — it’s on here, now, toe-to-toe, with me three times your size. And you still fight like a cathouse jade, son, just like your Momma showed you.”

Chess’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t seem to dislike it before, not all those times you had your dick up my ass. So don’t you never call me ‘son,’ you house-sized shit-piece.”

Yancey, hearing herself mentioned — however obliquely — had bolted upright, fumbling for the guns in question.

But as she went to raise one, without even looking her way first, Rook spat out a verse — For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood — and sent it winging through the air to clip her ’cross the temple, slicing her scalp into a flap. Gore exploded free; she clapped a hand to stem it, yowling.

“You son of a bitch!” Morrow heard himself yell, feeling her pain like his own . . . could that be literally? With all the magic buzzing through the atmosphere, even mage-blind like he was, it was getting hard to tell. His own hand reached the stock of his shotgun, dropped in all the earlier excitement and half sand-buried, tightening on the grip, but hesitated; he suddenly found he couldn’t remember whether he still had one of Asbury’s hex-shells left, or not. Or whether, for that matter, the thing was loaded at all.

Chess kicked Rook high and hard, though not quite high enough to reach where he was aiming; Rook kicked back, catching him right in the stomach-pit, rolling him so’s his ribs were at a good angle for further stomping. And then —

— things began to move fast and slow alike, the way they tended to, at the crux. It was like Morrow could see and hear it all, from every angle. How even as Rook pounded all the harder down on the man he’d once claimed to love so much he’d risk damnation to save him from harm,

might be Chess was only letting him think he’d triumphed, fishing him in closer while gathering the last of his strength for some final assault. How there was something at the back of his head he was listening to: God, was that Yancey, playing through her pain to send him a blast of someone else’s voice — some other dead person, a woman, whose hoarse, Limejuicer-tanged tones Morrow well knew from that dim pit under Songbird’s long-demolished brothel?

’Ey, you idjit, it carped. Is this what I put myself to all that trouble for, Down Under? You t’lie back an’ take it, like the she-’e you told me you wouldn’t never be?

Chess, then, buckling under yet another hit and straining to get back upright: Got another suggestion, old woman, I’d love to hear it. If not, then get back to wherever you landed — some fresh Hell if there’s justice, Heaven if there ain’t.