A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Might be I’m getting better at this, she reckoned, giddily.

Grandma nodded, satisfied — looked first to Yiska, then Songbird. “See, granddaughter?” she asked the warrior. “I told you there was merit to bringing them both.”

“Hmp,” was all Songbird gave back, by way of a reply.

But when the bleached girl saw how Yiska was smiling again, Yancey almost thought she might have seemed pleased.

SEVEN DIALS: TWO

All worlds begin, and end. All worlds begin again.

Here is a flower, watered from a skull. Here is a seed of blood. Here is the tree that grows from it — yaxche, tree of heaven, with leaves like hair and roots like veins, anchored deep between this world and all others. A tree of bones.

Here is where we tossed the husks and silk of eaten lives, that new lives might grow once more, rendered up in joy to feed the ever-turning Blood Engine. And always, new lives came, new hearts blazed in fire, new blood washed the stone. As it had been, ever would be, world without end . . .

until it ended.

In Mictlan-Seven Dials, Oona Pargeter’s revivified spectre showed her teeth once more and laughed, shortly, a sulphurous rasp to its undertone, creepily reminiscent of the Rev in his sin. “Wish you could see yer own face, sonny, truly,” she replied. “First real tin bath I’ve ’ad in months.”

“First what?”

“Laugh, you prat; can’t ’elp it if you don’t know your proper flash jabber, can I?” But here she tossed her hair back, dismissively. “Well, s’pose I could’ve, ’ad I been so inclined. But what good it’d’ve done you in San Fran, the Devil only knows.”

Chess shook his head and took a sodden half-step back, running his eyes up and down this slim spectacle before him, clad only in her witch’s mane: this flirtatious, sharp-witted creature whose words rang simultaneously too familiar, and not at all. But as he did, she stepped lightly to him, advancing while he retreated, fighting the urge to back away further — bold as polished brass, her movements lithe and easy, as if she’d never ruined her joints with cold, or her guts with gin.

“Awful nippy out ’ere, though,” she observed. “Care to ’elp a girl out?”

“You ain’t no girl.”

Oona rolled her eyes, vivid as his own. “No more’n you’re a gentleman, given ’ow I raised you. But you’re still the one wiv the coat to spare, ain’t that so?”

Nonplussed, Chess found she’d already slipped one of his purple sleeves half-free — so he gave up, letting her tug the whole rest of it off his shoulders, trusting she’d use it to wrap her off-putting nakedness away once more. Which she did, shivering delightedly.

“Much better.” Looking up through lowered lashes, then, she winked, lasciviously throwing one hip out toward him like it was a magic trick . . . as though that swinging dick of his meant he was just one more john to hook, with every trick in her arsenal. “Fanks, ever so.”

“Don’t do that, Goddamnit. Ain’t — ”

“Right? Proper? Never knew you t’care too much over either of those.”

“Jesus, Ma!”

“Well, ’ave it yer own way, then. I’ll lay off the treacle, so long’s you agree to ’ear me through — wivout the beat-down, this time.”

Chess paused and spat, mouth all of a sudden sour. For it was all so wrong, and horribly so. The unpersuasive croon he’d hitherto known only as a hundred shades of lying mockery gone suddenly playful, cheerful . . . real, and painfully so. The misremembered source of every saucy trick he’d practiced in his own turn, and rendered horrid for the comparison. For who had he been imitating, after all, each time he’d turned the flare of his attention on some hapless sap — the Rev, Ed and countless others — but her, apparently?

At the very thought, his gorge rose up again, only to find itself crammed back down, with all the considerable will at his disposal.

At the sight of his repulsion, Oona’s smirk took on a savage edge. “Takes some gettin’ used to, don’t it?” she murmured. “The very idea that I was ever young, like you — fast, like you — fresh and pretty, fit to ’ave any man fool enough t’meet my eye, I wanted ’im, ’fore cuttin’ ’is purse and movin’ on. Just like you.”

“Fuck, no.” Chess made himself straighten, regained what little height he had on her and used it, staring haughtily down. “Ain’t no single part of me comes from you, save for the trappings.”

“Oh no, ’course there ain’t — just the parts what like to ’ook a man deep and string him ’long for as far as you can, for the fun of it. Just the parts want what they want, and ’ooever gets ’tween them and their desire dead. Or aches t’frow ’emselves at men won’t do nothing for ’em but fuck ’em ’ard and walk away, smilin’ — ”

“You’re talkin’ out your well-worn backside!”

Oona raised a brow, gold-red as his own. “Never did tell you much ’bout your Pa, did I?”