Book Of Tongues (Hexslinger 1)

A tiny nod. “Almost. Luckily, I find it aids in my speculative endeavours. And now, since we have dispensed with formalities: your dream. It began when you first came to power?”

“Exactly at that same point, yes.”

“When the gallows-trap opened? Or when your neck broke?”

The Rev took this in. Though still loomingly tall, he seemed suddenly smaller, less assured. “I don’t think it ever actually broke,” he said, at last.

Songbird smiled, thinly. “Such prevarication, for such a powerful man. Show me the kiss she gave you, your ‘Rainbow Lady.’”

“Thought you said — ”

“I can feel very well, Reverend.” Voice dropping further: “Now — I have other business of my own to conduct tonight, as do you, no doubt. So open your shirt, and bow down to me.”

Was there an extra thrum to the words she spoke? For Morrow, it was mere speculation — but from what he could see, Reverend Rook took them full in the face, a thrown glass of cold water. His huge hands were already rising to obey, unbidden, when he shook himself like a dog and hauled them back down again.

“Little girl,” he said, “you’d best be able to give me what I want. Or I will tear this damn place of yours down around you, without ever even opening my Book.”

Songbird yawned, covering her mouth with those huge gilt nail-sheaths. “We will see.”

The Rev exhaled through his nose, then popped the requisite buttons, shrugging collar aside from the puckered rope-scar which still encircled his thick neck, bent himself until Songbird could reach up and place her naked palm against the furrowed flesh without having to rise. She stroked the burn, delicately, like she was planning to buy more of it by the ell.

Creepish, Morrow heard Chess’s voice remark, from the back of his brain.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Reverend Rook?” she asked, at last.

“Sure,” the Rev replied, straightening up again. “Why?”

“And do you believe in God?” As Rook stared: “Gods?”

This drew a frown. “Old heretic deities, the things they worshipped in Philistine times? Baal and Moloch, and such?” Songbird nodded once more. “I was taught those were devils, sent by Satan to fool with unbelievers. Like Solomon with his wives’ idols, or Ahab and Jezebel.”

Songbird shrugged. “Gods or ghosts, energy begets energy — prayer, worship, sacrifice, revenge. Like the ch’i, which you and I both carry inside us; a stream the whole universe drinks from, for good or ill. Nothing really dies.”

“I do hope there’s some point here beyond the merely philosophical you’re eventually aimin’ to make, for both our sakes.”

“Certainly. This woman of yours — who watches over all hanged men, and claims you for her own — is both god and ghost. Doubly powerful, and thus doubly dangerous. She demands something from you . . . and until you render it to her, she will never let you go.”

“Well, that ain’t actually too helpful, since Goddamn if I know what that might be.”

“You must ask her.”

“She don’t really speak my language.”

“No — or you hers, I gather. Few probably live who do. This is why you must speak to her directly.” Pinning Morrow with a red-tinged glance: “If you would be so good as to reach behind you, Mister Morrow . . . yes, there, exactly. Thank you.”

The item in question proved to be a long slab of black stuff like congealed tar, four inches by six, inscribed all over one side of it with queer figuring. Peering closer, Morrow thought he could make out the remains of a prehistoric murder, some creature left in dismembered wreckage — but no, it was a woman, her cheeks picked out with spiral patterns, black breasts pendulous and stiff coif balanced by a massive pair of dagger-sharp earrings, fit to carve someone else the same way she herself had already been unstrung.

Rook shook his head. “That ain’t her.”

“Not completely,” Songbird agreed. “And yet . . . I was given this in tribute, by a man from Tlaquepacque. He called it a ‘smoking mirror.’ Your Rainbow Lady will respond to it favourably, if given the right sort of impetus.”

“Which would be?”

She beckoned him back down again, and whispered in his ear. Slowly, Morrow saw a cold understanding wash across Rook’s face.

“Uh huh, all right. How much?”

“It depends. How much are you prepared to pay, Reverend?”