A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

“That’s pretty big talk, for a pole-smokin’ queerboy,” Holger’s right-hand pal put in.

“Well, I am big, or so I’ve been told.” As if to prove it, not-so-sweet Charlie unfolded himself, attaining a height from which he could stare down on almost every man there. “’Sides which, you don’t have to be tall to raise all sorts of hell, even on the invert side of things. Y’all never heard of Chess Pargeter?”

Right-hand guffawed while left-hand snorted, and Sam Holger just shook his head. “Oh, so,” he said, sneering. “Got yourself somewhat’ve a crush, I ’spect, from them songs and penny novels. But you ain’t no Chess Pargeter, Charlie Alarid.”

Chess could see where this was headed. Holger he took for a bully, but blooded. Charlie, too proud to back down, read all over as being as yet unversed in how best to make others do the same. It felt familiar enough to time, a song Chess could hum in his sleep. Why should he get involved?

’Cause the boy seems to idolize you, fool — and he’s not bad to look on, either. Though on t’other hand, it was thinking with your dick got you into . . . everything, in the first place.

Aw hell, he thought, once again.

Downing the rest of his shot, therefore, Chess kicked his own chair back deliberately, making it ring ’gainst the floor — and when the rest of ’em jumped, heads turning, he rose too: not so high as Charlie, yet with a tad more martial emphasis. Commenting, as he did: “No, he sure ain’t. I am, though.”

Right-hand and left- scoffed again, like they was wound-up clockwork with only the one trick. “The hell you say!” right-hand blurted. “Am what?” Holger demanded, at almost the same time.

“Chess Pargeter, ass-wipe. Did I stutter?”

All three gave him a hard stare, followed by a snort.

Left-hand: “What, ’cause you’re red-headed and runtish?”

Holger nodded. “You ain’t neither! Just some sad-sack don’t even have a gun on his belt, stickin’ his nose in where it don’t belong — ’sides which, even if you was him, word is that whoremaster Rook’s been cast down, and all his old gods along with him. There ain’t no hexes left, now they took their city and gone . . . so if you got left behind, what sort’a hex could you even be?”

“There ain’t even such a thing as hexation no more, is what I heard,” put in right-hand, crossing his arms.

Chess felt himself boggle. “What idjit told you that?”

“Hell,” the fool replied, “I don’t recall — read it in the papers, I s’pose. It’s known.”

Now it was Chess’s turn to snort, then snap his fingers. Without fanfare, he was suddenly him once more: imperially regaled from tip to toe, boots shone, spurs gleaming — his red hair silver-touched but sleek, pomaded. All finery replaced but the ear-bob, his Colts . . . and the beard.

“That a fact?” He asked, mildly enough.

Holger swallowed, visibly. His pals turned pale. And Charlie Alarid, previously the sole fierce Spartan in this whole five-horse crap-hole — he clapped his hands together, happy as a kid on Christmas, and laughed right out loud.

“Told ya,” was all he said.

The place seemed dimmer than before. Or was it just how Chess shone brighter, casting everyone ’round him into shadow? Not that he could help it, any more’n they could.

“I . . . ain’t afraid of you,” Holger lied, queasily, licking his lips. To which Chess simply shook his head.

“Boy,” he said, though the man in question probably had five years on him, “you need to listen, and listen good — there’s no way this goes well, for anybody but me. Walk away and you live, with a story to drink on. Make me kill you, what’s that? Stampin’ on an anthill just for fun, conduct unbecoming. You ’n’ yours ain’t worth the juice it’d cost me to set you afire, let alone the piss it’d take to put you out.”

Sounded fair enough as he said it, but how was he to know, without Morrow there to translate? Still, even as he turned his back, he suspected it wasn’t going to work. And indeed, a second later, Holger’s first bullet came pocking over his shoulder, shattering a lamp behind the bar — but the second bounced straight off in a heat-haze ripple, ricocheting back through the webbing between Holger’s gun-hand thumb and forefinger. Holger squalled, cradling his maimed hand. As his weapon hit the floor, meanwhile, Mister right-hand reputation-debunker and their left-hand pal alike were left stunned, unsure whether to help, flee or just stand steady, hoping Chess wouldn’t notice they were still there.

“Now,” Chess said, turning back, “just think a little, and you’ll see exactly how foolish a move that was. ’Cause me, I’ve been a damn god most’ve this last year, like Rainbow Bitch Ixchel-that-was and the rest — got hexation comin’ out my eyeballs, so much I don’t hardly know what-all to do with it, which is why I oft-times don’t choose to. But even was I ‘only’ plain Chess Pargeter once more, you’d still be the stupidest motherfucker alive to talk at me that-a-way . . . and you wouldn’t be that for long.”

He nodded at Holger. “Once upon a time, I’d’ve told you to come back when you’d trained left-handed, try it again. Here’s the difference a war makes, though — right this instant, I’m more inclined t’be merciful than not, since I’ve been travelling with good people a while. So . . .”

Here he stepped forward as Holger stumbled back, caught hold of him by the wrist and laid his opposite hand to his sweaty forehead, willing reparative sleep all through him. Holger folded up, wounds already knitting, to clunk skull-first back onto the floor at Chess’s feet; Chess stepped away while the fool’s friends lunged to catch him, wiping both palms of him like Pilate.

“. . . take that, clear out, and leave me be,” he concluded. “I’m drinkin’, and I don’t care to be disturbed.”

Everyone mostly took care not to do so, after — looked anywheres else, all but whistling. Chess sat and was served, though the barkeep kept on forgetting to charge him. He took it first as his due, then eventually sighed, shook what coin he had left ’til it had multiplied itself threefold, and left it by his up-turned glass.

Halfway down the street, he noticed young master Alarid still drifting vaguely after him, hands in his pockets and guitar dangling, and stopped to fix him with a cold eye. “Already saved your ass once tonight,” Chess pointed out, “so you can stop starin’ at me like I’m ’bout to grant you wishes.”

Charlie shrugged, not even pretending to be shamed. “Made my dreams come true when you showed Sam Holger and them how queer can go hand in hand with tough sumbitch, so . . . maybe I just want to thank you, is all.”