A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

Not until the four-foot-wide earthwork trough dug behind said marker hove into sight, at least. And when, just a moment later, he saw the gleam of torchlight reflected redly from the shifting liquid surface — realizing, as he did, just why the stink hung so thick here — Morrow found himself gulping back a twinge of nausea. Two hex-handlers sat on camp stools nearby, wearily wiping dark stains off their hands; at their feet, tarred wooden buckets lay tipped and stickily empty. Carver stared with horror at the result, Ludlow with avidity, clearly composing chapter titles in his mind: Hex-Harried, American ’Tecs Driven to Emulate the Enemy’s Methods of Sanguinary Sacrifice — Says Pinkerton: “We Will Fight Fire with Fire, and Blood with Blood!”

“Read your report, Edward, whilst ye were napping,” said Pinkerton, rubbing his hands briskly together. “Going by it, this Smoking Mirror of yuirs seems almost . . . dealable-with, may we say? More so than Lady Rainbow and her ilk, leastways.”

“Not sure what dispatch you read, sir, but from my angle, that was hardly the gist of it.”

“It rose against Rook’s bitch directly, for once, and with witnesses aplenty — that’s different, in itself. A clear indication that so long as it and we are both set on bringing her down, the creature’s obviously more wi’ us than against us.”

Morrow all but goggled. “Well,” he said, finally, “perhaps I failed to adequately describe the moment, then, if that’s what you took away from it. But had you been present yourself — ”

“‘My enemy’s enemy,’ Ed . . . our single best choice of ally, really, given the selection. Classic tactics, in the Alexandrine mode.”

“Again, I’m not half the scholar you are, sir, and don’t pretend to be. But from my own experience, that maxim’s only good advice if the enemy you’re dealin’ with isn’t the Enemy.”

“Nevertheless.” Dismissing his arguments outright, Pinkerton indicated the trough with a theatrical sweep of one hand, offering Morrow a knife with the other. “Dinna be shy, Ed — gift us wi’ your expertise. Summon the thing that wears yuir friend’s shape, and let’s see what it thinks of my ideas.”

“And just how d’you suggest I — ?” Morrow exhaled, gustily. “Aw, hell; all right.”

For all had been abruptly made clear; much as he might want to believe otherwise, if Pinkerton had anything to say about it then this was going to happen, no matter what feeble objections Morrow might raise. Accepting the blade, therefore, he stepped to the trough’s side and laid one wrist open with a quick cross-wise stroke, letting the resultant dark jet fall to mingle with what blood already lay there.

Had to be swinish, he thought, already a touch lightheaded, or horse; no way to get that volume of human blood shed without someone noticing, and challenging its necessity. Or so he hoped.

Pinkerton glanced to Carver and Ludlow, fixing them both. “To be clear, gents: this is to be a negot

iation, no’ any sort of attempt at a binding. Any man draws weapon once this begins, he’ll be flogged.”

“Absolutely,” Ludlow agreed, without apparent qualm, or at least no wish to see his soft hide striped. But Carver merely stared back, obedience flecked with dismay; looked over at Morrow, brows hiked. As if to say: I thought it was us against the Hex, not for it. Thought you at least was righteous, “Ed,” even with unrighteousness aplenty all about. . . .

Just himself talking to himself, and Morrow knew it. Still, anger came surging up nonetheless, through mounting dizziness — and when he opened his mouth as though to snap at the younger man, what spilled out between his lips instead was a hiss-slur-click of unfamiliar Old Mex words, like he was some sort of human spirit-trumpet . . . nahuatl, the echo inside his skull named them. Blood-jet poetry drawn forth with the pulse of his own heart’s juice, which all who were close enough to hear found they somehow understood:

O yohualli icahuacan teuctlin popoca ahuiltilon Dios ipalnemohuani: chimalli xochitl in cuecuepontimani in mahuiztli moteca molinian tlalticpac, ye nican ic xochimicohuayan in ixtlahuac itec a ohuaya ohuaya.

(At night rises up the smoke of the warriors, a delight to the Lord the Giver of Life; the shield-flower spreads abroad its leaves — marvellous deeds agitate the earth; here is the place of the fatal flowers of death, which bloom to cover the fields.)

Maca mahui noyollo ye oncan ixtlahuatl itic, noconele hua in itzimiquiliztli zan quinequin toyollo yaomiquiztla ohuaya.

(Let not my soul dread that open field; I earnestly desire the beginning of the slaughter, may your soul long for that murderous strife.)

In ma oc tonahuican antocnihuan ayiahuc, ma oc xonahuiacan antepilhuan in ixtlahuatl itec, y nemoaquihuic zan tictotlanehuia o a in chimalli xochitl in tlachinoll, ohuaya, ohuaya, ohuaya.

(Let us rejoice, dear friends, and may you rejoice, O children, both within the open field and going forth to it — let us revel amid the shield-flowers of the battle.)

“Ohuaya,” he repeated, bittersweet and thick, as through a mouthful of marigold-scented gore. “Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, Quetzalcoatl: come one, come all, come now, come. Ohuaya. Ohuaya. Ohuaya.”

The invocation released Morrow, then, allowing him to stumble backward, cut wrist suddenly afire. Showing startling presence of mind, it was Ludlow who stepped up to knot a kerchief tightly over the gash, murmuring out the side of his mouth as he did: “Most uncanny, sir! The Apostles’ gift of tongues, Hell-translated? If there is any way you might approximate some version of the original, er, Aztectlish for me, later — ”

Here, thankfully, he broke off, eyes widening: the blood-filled trough’s dense scum-skin had begun to bubble and steam, letting off a noise considerably thicker than that of boiling water — viscous, almost glutinous. Carver backed slowly away, clearly primed to draw, order or no. Pinkerton himself stepped to one side and, with no ceremony at all, grabbed one of the hex-handlers by the shoulder; the man stiffened, flailed and fell over to lie helpless, sucked near-dry in an instant, while blue-green light leaked out between Pinkerton’s knuckles like marsh slime.

“Thought we were goin’ to negotiate,” said Morrow, dry-mouthed.

“Aye, and it’s purest folly not to do so from strength, where ye can,” said Pinkerton, not taking his eyes from the trench, while Morrow wished his mouth was wet enough to spit. Should’ve thrown that damn knife into the trench and walked away, he thought; let him go fish for it, he wants this so —

Just then, the blood exploded upward, splattering hot gore in all directions. It splashed off Pinkerton’s shields like water from an oiled parasol, but Carver, Morrow, Ludlow and the hex-handlers, less protected, were all drenched instantly: blind, mildly scalded, repulsed beyond telling. Morrow choked and swiped his eyes clear, then felt an immediate urge to laugh hysterically at the look on Ludlow’s face, gaping down at his ruined notebook. But when his gaze moved further, to the thing that now stood on the blood’s surface like some awful Christ-parody, all idea of mirth died hard.

As in Bewelcome, the Enemy was naked but for a twining “suit” of Red Weed, still full of those bone-bits it’d picked up travelling through the earth — war trophies, decay-jewels, insults to dead and living alike. The vine’s flowers hissed, extending their pistils like tiny tongues. His face still looked like Chess’s, but stiff and set, as though worn like a mask, Xipe Totec-style; red hair, blue skin and green eyes all glowed with lightning, falling wispy from him as a mange-struck hound’s shed fur. And behind him, on the earth, his shadow seemed to hump up far too large and black for his small form, moving with a sickening independence.

Yet the wry, contemptuous smile he . . . it . . . wore twisted unexpectedly in Morrow’s gut, so like was it to one his lost friend might’ve come up with, under similar circumstances.

“Allan Pinkerton,” the thing said, seeming to taste the name — only one, after all, to the many it bore, from Chess Pargeter to Night Wind, Smoking Mirror, We Are His Slaves, and so on. “We recall you. Speak.”