A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

“You know how the Sheriff out there and me first met, Ed?” he said, not turning back, as contrast between harsh light outside and gloom within made a haloed silhouette of him.

Morrow hesitated, before admitting: “Read the Agency report, yeah. Like everybody else.”

Chess nodded, raising his voice to include Yancey herself—even Geyer—in the juice of the tale. “He was gonna lead a posse ’gainst us, which meant we had to set an example, so’s others wouldn’t get similar ideas. And me, I’d’ve just snuck in and killed the fucker, but Ash Rook wanted to make a production of the whole to-do, ’cause that’s how he’s bent. So I went along, like I always did. . . .” He paused. “Still, only now occurs to me—at least Love really believed what he preached back then, dumb bastard. Was more’n willing to die over it to defend his kith and kin, which’s pretty funny when you think about it, ’cause all of them was equal ready to die for him, too. That woman of his, who wouldn’t leave his side no-how, no matter what he said—got saltified the exact same way, God’s favour or no. And when she went down, she took their baby along with her.”

And I laughed at her, while it happened, Yancey alone heard inside her head, Chess wondering over his own actions, as at a stranger’s. Laughed at all three of ’em, like my sides were fit to split.

“You did him a terrible wrong, that’s true enough,” she agreed, out loud. Thinking back, at the same time: And that’d be ’cause you’re a bad man, I reckon—selfish and angry and unforgiving, if not downright wicked. Though you’ve suffered, too, and pain makes us all human, more or less.

Yeah, well, he replied, internally, that’s the part ain’t debatable, like I told the Rev, back when he was moral enough to care. So I still don’t aim to debate it.

Adding: “Hell, gal, think I don’t know what-all I got to be sorry for? Used to be, though, I wouldn’t have cared; I miss that.”

“You can’t just not care—”

“I can. Could.” Here he finally turned, again seeming to address them together. “’Cause fact is, it don’t do any earthly good to feel bad over what the gun’s pointing at, when it gets to be time to draw. All that’ll ever do is get you killed, right along with the ones you pump a bullet in.”

Yancey drew breath to disagree, but Love already was bawling out his challenge once more: “Pargeter! You gone deaf or what, you heathen creature? Don’t cower there in the dark with your entourage—come face me on this cut-rate Megiddo’s field of battle, like the man you purport to be!”

“I’d tell you to come over here and say that,” Chess called back, “but . . . hell, guess I can probably screw you up just as easy, you stay right where you’re standing.”

And with that, he stepped free, shrugging his jacket back from his belt as he strolled into range: sheerest habit, both holsters being empty. While Yancey stepped straightaway out behind him, fast enough that Morrow and Geyer were hard-pressed to follow—only to halt, mid-stride, when she saw what Love had brought along with him.

“Lord God of Hosts and all his angels protect us!”

She felt herself stagger, caught up one more time by Ed Morrow’s welcome arm; clutched close to its warmth for comfort, finding none. Because—those figures arrayed ’round Love, just waiting—she knew them . . . had known them. They hung as if by hooks through the neck, all their weight dangling limp, blank eyes staring off to a dozen different quarters. And woven over it all, pallid flesh and dirty rigs alike—sewn through the muscle, covering bone where it showed, blossoming crimson pods at every cheesecloth-skinned joint—a net of Weed throbbed and knotted, a hundred thousand marionette cords grown thick and juicy, hideously animate.

Morrow tensed like he wanted to throw punches, but didn’t know where to aim. “Oh, you crack-walking son of Goddamn Perdition,” he said, in much the same tone Yancey’d just used.

Love simply shrugged, and spread his arms out wide—unconsciously cruciform—to encompass the army he’d brought along with him. Yancey’s eyes followed them as though magnetized, helpless not to recognize faces, along the way: poor Sheriff Haish’s remains, neck wound packed full of leaves that fluttered with each heave the Weed forced out of him, like soft green gills. Hugo Hoffstedt to his right, even worse—torn-off head held precarious atop his body, wobbling with each step, by tendrils wound ’round neck stump and skull alike. Mister Frewer, so cadaverous in life, now looked sucked alm

ost dry; his head bobbed loose as well, seeming to float on a fan-like growth of fronds that strung ’emselves through jawbones and cheeks, rendering his entire brain-pan a ball balanced between invisible juggler’s fingertips.

Everywhere Yancey looked, yet another of her murdered wedding guests stood repugnantly upright, Hoffstedt’s Hoarders and Mouth-of-Praisers reforged by death into a more tenuous fellowship. On all too many of them, she saw livid slashes where they’d shed blood to feed Chess, far too late to benefit from their sacrifice. And finally, to either side of Love himself . . .

Both Yancey’s knees gave out, so quick she barely felt them go—but this time, she caught herself in mid-fall and drew up back up sharply, hands falling to what were now her gun-butts. Using her own rage as fuel, she gladly allowed it to eat her anguish ’til nothing remained but a genuine will to shoot ’til she could shoot no more, no matter how many bullets it took to put these apparitions down for good.

And then you, Sheriff. I’ll see you ground into parts so fine you poison the earth you stand on ’fore I allow any more of this disgusting offence ’gainst life itself, Goddamnit.

Her father, chest-hole thick with Weed that swelled and beat like a second heart; Uther, green filling out the grisly wounds deforming his half-pulped skull like a mask, right hand a sticky glove, hiding the hole Yancey knew had been blasted through it. He still wore the remains of the same suit he’d spoken his vows to her in.

And then, as if her recognition-spark had jumped the gap from living to dead, Uther Kloves’ lone remaining eye slid snail-track slow ’round to hers, and blinked.

Nothing in there to call “alive”, not any more. But God, oh God, all the same—

“They’re screaming,” she heard herself say, core-stricken. “Inside, deep down. Almost too deep to get to, for anybody but me.”

Each in turn, the rest all cocked their heads, bringing their dead gazes to bear—Haish, Frewer, Hoffstedt . . . Pa. Their soundless shrieking went up forever like some Hell-made alarum, setting her whole skin to sizzling.

“Missus Kloves,” Geyer said, “we can’t hear a thing, really—”

“What’s that to me? Point is, they’re still here, some tiny part of ’em at least. And they just damn well shouldn’t be.”

Abruptly, Morrow turned on Love. “Who is it told you could do this, you bastard? Goddamn God?” She felt the rage beat from him like heat, in waves. “You lay those people down again! They’re dead, and they got the right to stay that way!”

Love seemed unimpressed; Yancey thought there probably wasn’t much could even startle him, these days. “But this isn’t my doing, Agent Morrow—only miraculous Word I know’s our Lord’s, and unlike Reverend Rook, I employ it correctly. As Mister Pargeter’s Enemy told me to tell you, this is all his fault, and only likely to get worse.” Those dry eyes narrowed. “But see, I almost didn’t need to, for he knows it already. Ask him to deny it, if he can.”

Chess spat. “Why would I? Just admitted the same, not twenty seconds back.”