A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

But this insult lacked the usual venom, his glare gone narrow, calculating odds and means. Drawing an alarmingly long knife, he slapped its blade into his other palm, sliced fast, flicked the result Love’s way; a fine spray of blood licked ’cross one bleached cheek with an audible sizzle, leaving a smoking trench behind. But Love simply raised his own hand and dug in, scraping melted flesh away as whitish sludge, like badly laid mortar. His teeth gleamed visibly through the gap, slate-grey, before his cheek reformed itself.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty,” he rasped, wiping his hands. “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” A long step forward. “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but near you it shall—not—come!”

Each of those last three words came with another unnaturally swift pace, closing the distance, taking him almost within his wiry little opponent’s reach. Pargeter took a step back—Yancey felt Morrow’s dismay, a cold shock in her stomach’s pit, at seeing his fearless partner retreat—before groggery-brawl reflex took over, and he whipped his knife at Love’s right eye.

The blade buried itself hilt-deep, which stopped Love for at least a moment; Pargeter seized this opportunity to circle sideways, opening up the field. And though his lips stayed peeled, Yancey sensed, for the first time, more doubt than anger behind this reflexive grimace as Love simply turned as well, resuming his opposing stance.

“Oh, what a vain, luxurious, vicious young coxcomb you are,” Love declared, almost conversationally, pulling the knife free of his socket with a visible wrench. The eye that reformed was now completely white, unshelled to show the phosphorescent glow beneath, spreading in faint hairline cracks up to his very temple. “A walking canker, spreading fresh plague with every step. Yet God, who has made even you, has appointed me your cure.” He looked down at his hands, brow wrinkling, as if he’d forgotten how the weapon he still held got there—then snapped it lengthwise, and tossed it to the floor.

Now it was Pargeter’s face which went blank. “That,” he said, almost too soft to hear, “was a gift. From a friend.”

The black aura around him deepened, as though the edges of the world were peeling back. And the silence outside the church began to shred.

Something coming.

“Oh shit,” Mister Morrow said.

Pa’s head jerked, foolishly, as though primed to snap: Don’t think to swear in front of my daughter, you outlaw! Most ’specially not on her wedding day!

But by then, Uther and Sheriff Haish had joined them; faster than Yancey could blink, they’d already upturned the coveted sack, doling out guns like party favours to Pa, Mister Frewer, themselves.

Love, intent on Pargeter, seemed utterly incurious as to the rising clatter and flurry behind him. But Uther, on finding Mister Morrow’s shotgun at the bottom, snapped the stock, racked it—and tossed it back to its original owner, who plucked it gratefully from the air and levelled it over Pargeter’s shoulder, straight at Sheriff Love’s chest.

“Sheriff!” Morrow shouted. “You’ve got any of God’s mercy in you, back off, ’fore this goes too far!” When Love glanced at him, though Morrow’s voice cracked, his gun stayed steady. “Think, man! What’s the fate of those who spill innocent blood?”

The Sheriff’s other eye went white as well, while the entire air around him leached to the colour of dry-fissured bone.

“I am,” Love replied.

Then Morrow’s finger clenched on the triggers, unleashing both barrels. Love’s chest erupted; salt sprayed everywhere, flushing unwary eyes. But Love barely rocked back on his heels, pellets blazing merrily right on through, their momentum unabated. Along with yet more salt, sharp and pitiless, forged near-obsidian hard by passage through Love’s furnace-hot heart.

Duck, Yancey thought, even as she yelled out loud: “Now, now, get damn well DOWN!”

But one burst nicked Haish’s neck, drawing a mighty spurt—he spun, clapped a hand to the damage, looked drunkenly surprised. Fell to the floor, jacked and shaking, like cholera. The other neatly blew out the centre of Uther’s left palm, instinctively upraised between it and Yancey, as though he’d dreamed it would shield her from lead. Luckily, her Pa shoved her headlong at almost the same moment, to sprawl face-first onto the floor ’midst the dust and splinters. Which, unluckily, left him—

Oh my Good God Jesus, Pa.

—looking down as she looked up, faces equal sick-white in the inconstant light. A flutter of ill-timed laughter spun inside her, trapped, a skeleton leaf in updraft. Like a flame-caught moth charred black, already dying.

“Gal,” Lionel Colder tried to say

, through a closed throat. And Yancey heard his lungs rattle as he toppled, juicy-wet, through that unmendable hole in his chest.

“Shit,” Mister Morrow said again, like it was the only word he knew. Like he’d forgotten how to say anything else, without bawling like a damn baby.

Not his fault, though. More Pargeter’s, she supposed—but even now, lapped by this insane storm of destruction, he drew nothing from her but abstract alarm, mixed here and there with an odd pulse of pity.

It was Love who got the full brunt of her hatred, in a vitriol cocktail; Love who she wanted to see broken apart once more, reduced to crystals so fine they’d dissolve on skin. Blast him to particulates, and beyond. How dare he even mention God, for good or ill, when—

Eyes tear-burnt, Yancey felt blindly for her Pa’s hand, which flexed in her grip, fixed and cooling. Closed her lids so tight they hurt against the sight of him, only to see his soul’s skein bloom upwards anyhow—unwind from his mouth in a fine gold thread and out through the shattered roof, along with his last attempt at breath.

Took a second at most, probably less. Felt like forever.

Uther by her side, big as a house, stuck to her with sweat and blood alike; Uther, still trying to shield her with his body as he pried her gently loose, raised her to her trembling knees.

“Honey, oh honey,” he said, tender as a stone-made man can be. “I’m so sorry.”

Me too, she thought, but couldn’t speak aloud. Could only choke on, dry, as though she were chewing a cud of blood . . . ’til from all around came a noise Yancey recognized immediately, though she’d only heard it described the once.