A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

“Please, jefe,” she said again, “don’t send me back there. Not yet.”

Did she truly think he could do anything about her lowering fate? If so, she was a fool. Ask anyone and they’d tell you just what Reverend Asher Rook’s role was, in this whole affair: to stand by Ixchel’s side, take her orders and do her will. To watch and wait, raise his hand whenever she voted, and — above all — be silent.

Rook sighed, and sat up. “Get my boots then, gal, and walk me down to the council meeting — that’s where you’ll find Fennig and company, if nothin’ else.”

As Marizol ran jackrabbit-quick to obey, gratitude bright in every line of her, Rook felt it sink deep in his side like Longinus’ spear, and twist: Christ’s wounds, stigmata, the old Catholic heresy. As though such as I was pure enough to even imagine such pain, let alone feel it — to hang a second’s tick on His bright cross even in mockery, when merely to contemplate the very idea is error, if not sin outright.

He shut his eyes one more time, shook his head emphatically, as though to clear it. And swung himself out of bed, joints cracking prodigiously, to face yet another day of war.

The council met most mornings, always in the same place: that very adobe-walled house, overlooking the Temple, on whose roof Rook had once raised the shade of dead Kees Hosteen, his friend and fellow outlaw. Inside, watery sunlight trickled through the slotted windows, nowhere warm enough to dispel this dull November chill, seeing last night had brought snow in feathery drifts. Someone should’ve already gone ’round the walls, lighting dish-lamps full of stolen oil . . . and would’ve, he supposed, had the group already there not found ’emselves so deep in conversation.

“I can help?” Marizol asked, at his elbow, looking longingly toward the table’s end, where Three-Fingered Hank and his ladies sat — and as though cued, dark Eulie Parr looked up just in time to catch the girl’s eye and grinned, beckoning. Marizol’s face coloured prettily, a lamp unto itself. Sketching a quick curtsey, she knelt to lay her head in the youngest Missus Fennig’s lap while Berta Schemerhorne reached over to stroke her hair comfortingly, and Clo Killeen continued to whisper away in Hank’s ear, her hushed tones typically ferocious.

Happy to give little Marizol and her troubles up, Rook conjured a brief flicker between his fingers, and set himself to bringing light out of darkness. The dishes themselves were hex-free; likewise, the splintery table, mismatched chairs and benches had all been brought to the city as they were, without any touch of magic, while the hut itself was one of the few buildings sufficiently well made to stand without active spell-work.

That was the irony of it — in a city of hexes, where the innate hunger of hex for hex made every flare of power perceptible to any who cared to look, the only way to hide was to disdain hexation. In New Aztectlan, anti-scrying cloaks were nothing but black blankets in a white room — there was no spell another hex couldn’t pierce, given patience or luck. As with so much else, therefore, the best way to avoid detection was to simply never prompt anyone to look, since the only truly unprovable lie was one you never spoke at all.

But then, we never do have to speak, out loud, we don’t want to — not so’s you’d notice. Ain’t that right, Rev?

Rook nodded, acknowledging the sly twang of Fennig’s mind-voice, before casting his eyes back over to where his unofficial right hand slouched comfortably, all three of his “wives” chatting away with Marizol, as Eulie and Berta balanced the extremely enceinte Clo precariously between ’em. Rook raised an eyebrow at the Irish girl’s bulging belly, then directed a half-reproving glance to Fennig, who shrugged.

Can’t get her to do nothin’ she don’t want, Rev, anymore’n you can get her not to do whatever she’s set on. I’m sure you know the type.

Clo, keen enough to catch the exchange — at least in abstract — went red to her ear-tips. “Something ye want to say, Reverend?” she demanded. But Rook, knowing better, refused to be drawn — he raised his palms, which counted for enough of a surrender that Clo let herself slump back, still scowling, into Berta and Eulie’s supporting grip. “’Tis only that walking’s more labour than once ’twas,” she said. “But I have as much right to a place at this table as any other, caught short or not, as I’ll thank ye to remember.”

Rook fought the urge to smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

Oh, but he could see why the other three loved this girl, difficult as she was, defiant and fiery to the very last. But here remembrance closed his throat once more, crushing it, a second hangman’s noose.

At the same time, a grey-haired, mahogany-skinned woman whose muscular frame spoke of too much labour and not enough food, rendering what her Maker might once have intended as womanly curvaceousness with unforgiving strokes, was taking her seat on Fennig’s other side. “Brazier and coals still not ready to hand, Rev’rend?” she drawled, passing out a kerchief-wrapped basket of rolls stuffed with meat, peppers and cheese.

The Rev shook his head. “There’s too many would remember such an odd request, by far. So if these gatherings’ purpose is to remain private . . . .”

Sal Followell shook her head. “Secrets like snakes,” she grumbled. “Hard t’hold onto, no matter the circumstances — and they slither.”

“Got that right,” Fennig agreed, glancing ’round. “So where’s the Honourable himself, old Mister Chu?”

“Ain’t comin’,” Missus Followell replied. “Him and the Shoshone been up all night on war party business, so they sends their regrets — talkin’ ’bout dragons under the earth and such, how best they can entice ’em out t’help us. Well, Chu thinks it’s dragons and the Shoshone thinks it’s spiders, but I ain’t minded much which of ’em’s rightest, so I left ’em to it.”

Clo had already finished her portion, devouring it like a feral dog. Rook gave her his too, earning a brilliant smile from Clo and a glare from the old Negress, who snapped: “You ain’t too much hex to need to eat, Reverend.”

Fennig took a ginger bite, with rather less enthusiasm. “Much obliged for the thought, Missus F.,” he said, “but, ah . . . exactly what’s this we’re eating, again? Wasn’t just conjured, was it?”

“An’ what if it was, Yankee man?”

“Pax, Missus F.; truce. No insult intended. It’s just that me and the g’hals, we tried that, travellin’ here. Didn’t yield much pleasantness.”

Rook remembered a hex-crafted cob of corn, melting to slimy decay in his mouth, and wanted to spit. “True enough,” he said. “Well, ma’am? Have we come to that pass?”

Followell sighed. “Stores is tight,” she admitted. “With Pinks camped all ’round the outside walls, we can’t take no small-folk on raids anymore, and there ain’t many strong enough to wind-walk over them, or side-slip beyond. If we weigh our stocks careful, and ain’t too fussed ’bout what we eat — not like some — we can go ’nother four, six weeks. Longer, we get some more strong hexes come to join us.”

Fennig cleared his throat. “Yeah . . . might not be much cause for cheer on that front, neither.” As Rook motioned him to continue: “Since you delegated Oath-takin’ duties to me and the g’hals, Rev, you probably ain’t had opportunity to notice, but we ain’t been gettin’ much new blood for some weeks now. Stragglers, mostly — and they’re weak, too. Some of them’s still gettin’ pressed by the Pinks, sure, but . . .” Fennig doffed his smoked-glass spectacles a moment, rubbing at the marks they’d left on his nose. “I’m beginnin’ to think how maybe the well’s just run dry.”

Never so many of us in one spot before, his mind-voice echoed, unheard by any but Rook — or was that true? Probably the Missuses could listen in to that particular telegraph line too, they cared to bend their will to it. Yet still it struck an intimate chord, a note of desperation Rook couldn’t ever remember having heard in Fennig’s roguish waking speech. What if the Call’s finally brung all there was to bring? What if we’re all there’s left to feed —

The Machine, Rook completed. To feed the Machine.

They were all still predators, however much the Oath kept them from each other’s throats. Perhaps Fennig thought Rook had forgotten that . . . or perhaps, in his Utopian blur, he’d all but forgotten it himself.