Book Of Tongues (Hexslinger 1)

Wasn’t though, was ’e? that other voice murmured, far too deep down inside to ever be shut out. Not really. Not when it bloody counted.

But they’d settle that little point of difference later, when he’d caught up with Ash Rook once more. When he and that Mexican ghost-bitch’d had their fun, and the score’d been settled rightwise. When Chess finally had his boot laid right on that big bastard’s rope-scarred throat, ready to stomp and grind the End-of-the-World Bible-foolery right out of him. That, or go down fighting, whichever way the chips might chance to fall.

One way or the other, he was never gonna throw his hat in the Pinkertons’ slimy ring — a damn gang like any other, for all they had that staring sleepless eye-totem to watch over them, and drew their cheques at the same government trough as the Bluebellies. No matter how nice one particular agent might feel while all up in a man’s business.

Here his bitter train of thought derailed. The true pain of his situation rushed back in, pouring him brimful with soreness and futility. Like getting your goddamn heart cut out by the same bastard you thought’d finally proved Ma wrong, who’d taught you love did exist, that you really were worth something more than a blow-job for a bullet, an extra gun at a knife-fight, or any other sorta flyin’ fuckin’ fuck. . . .

Think you can pull my strings with greed, gentlemen and “lady”? Think there’s any tune whatsoever you can play will make me dance? Think there’s a thing on this whole damn earth you can tempt me with, now the one damn thing I ever wanted is gone forever?

He snorted, loud and harsh, and saw Asbury frown, Pinkerton redden. Songbird’s ghostly eyebrows lifted in an odd sort of respect . . . which frankly only made him want to punch her all the harder.

You got nothin’ I want, the none of you, he thought, knowing at least one of them could hear him. So fuck you kindly, very kindly — or rather, not. Fuck all y’all.

To Asbury, with a smile so sunny it gave the lie to itself, curdling atop the acid ill-hid in every syllable: “Got something you maybe want to ask me, doctor, under all that syrup and sociability?

Then I suggest you do it straight out, ’cause we’re burning daylight.”

Asbury coloured, thrown off his born pedant’s stride. “Mister Pargeter,” he began, stiff and direct — before slipping sidelong again into inquiry: “By the by, is ‘Chess’ your entire given name, or . . . a mere sobriquet, perhaps?”

“What exact part of ‘get the fuck to it’ was it you didn’t understand most, mush-head?”

“Sir! I must protest, volubly — ”

A brief flash from Morrow: Jesus Christ, please don’t, with a side-order jolt of nasty amusement — from over Songbird’s way.

“Mister Pargeter, if you please,” Pinkerton amended, laying in thick with his battle-captain’s knack of making his voice fill a room without seeming to shout. “For all you may find Dr. Asbury’s methods a tad, eh . . . offputting, I think we’ve still one offer you might find of interest, nevertheless. Would you care to hear it? Given what seems to have occurred during your sojourn down in Hell’s belly, for the good of America, if not the whole world — we aim to destroy the Reverend Asher Rook. And . . . we want your help.”

“Need it, you mean,” Chess snapped back, without thinking.

Pinkerton didn’t much like his tone, that was clear — would’ve been no matter what, even without the accompanying in-rush of damned puppy/queerbait bastard invert/how DARE . . .

And — didn’t it scare Chess, somewhat, how used to that he was getting?

Pinkerton, cold but calm: “Need, then. If you’re willing to give it.”

“Why would I be?”

“The way he’s betrayed you, humiliated you, torn you stem to stern and then left you behind, for your worst enemies to pick up? Why wouldn’t you, would be my question.”

“Why indeed,” Chess repeated. “But . . .”

Was that Morrow at the back of his head, now, slicing in all of a sudden from behind him, and probably not even thinking he was doing so? Showing Chess himself, slant-viewed, in ways he’d never previously dreamt on. How he maybe wasn’t quite as black as he was painted, not even now, with Smoking Mirror’s pitch-smeared face lookin’ down over his mental shoulder.

Ask yourself why Chess does so much of any damn thing, overall, and it’s always pure contrariness — Oh, you think you KNOW me? Think you know what I’m capable of, which way I’ll jump? Think the fuck again! — That’s what Pinkerton don’t care to understand, and Asbury just ain’t even halfway equipped to reckon. Though Songbird probably knows it, or I’d be much surprised.

Jesus, Chess thought, head swimming, and we only lay down together the once, too. Who knows what-all the Pinkerton son-of-a-bitch might’ve found out, Rook’d only stayed away a few nights more?

He buckled without warning, eyes wide, and puked another splatter of hot and coppery blood that hissed as it struck the char-smeared wooden floor. Songbird’s mouth tightened in distaste — then slackened, as Asbury gasped and Pinkerton’s eyebrows rose, when the thickened mass inside the blood stirred, pushed upwards, swelled into a floral bud of the same carnal colour. In the silence of astonishment, the faint cracks of roots working their way into the floorboard’s grain was clearly audible. Leaves unfurled along the stem. the bud grew further, spreading out red petals. With a dancer’s grace the blood-flower revolved to face Chess, opening wider as it did, as if yearning for the sun.

Its central petals irised apart, revealing a bell lined with lamprey teeth that pulsed and tensed, a swallowing and hungry throat.

“My . . . good God,” breathed Hosteen.

Chess made a sound too sharp and harsh to be a laugh. “Oh, you think, Kees?” He rounded on Asbury. “Fuck your money, Doc, and fuck your mission too, Pinkerton. I’ll find Rook, all right — but not for you. He’s mine. ’Cause . . . that’s just the kinda bitch I am.”

Songbird leaned slightly in Asbury’s direction, and murmured: “I told you so.”

Pinkerton drew himself up to his full height, mind hardening and darkening. Behind Chess, Morrow tensed. The two currents met queasily in Chess’s midsection. “You’ll not earn the dignity of a second chance from me, Pargeter, if that’s your only answer.” Then his scowl skewed to puzzlement. “What in God’s name is that?”