A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  Chess gritted his mental teeth, bit his equally mental lip. You really think this is goin’ to go that way, after all you done? Please.

  Rook laughed again, muffled into the sweaty nape of Chess’s neck. Still fussed over my methods—I understand that. But I do believe you’ll thank me for it later.

  Hell I will!

  Hell you won’t. You uncivilized, rude, improvident young man.

  Improvident—that mean selfish?

  Rash, thriftless, not providing for the future. Which you don’t much, do you?

  Hell, no. I’ll be dead long ’fore I gotta worry about that.

  Into Chess’s ear, a hot breath chased with a gentle bite: Not if I can help it.

  And now you think you got me well in hand, don’t ya? Chess thought, anger and desire messing with each other all through him, the way laudanum could be used to cut liquor. So he raised his chin to pin Rook fast with a backward glance, felt the Rev huff in quick, and smiled just a touch at the rush of power that reaction afforded him: See? Still got it. A quarter-turn more and they were staring straight at each other head-on, without the mirror to mediate; Chess felt it like a touch of fever, mildly vertiginous.

  But then the whole scenario slid sideways, as it so often did in dreams, ’til Rook and Chess stood together on a balcony overlooking what Chess could only think must be Rook’s new home. All around reared up buildings slapped together from rock, mud and magic, black and strangely shaped; smoke billowed up from a hundred chimneys, limned in heat-shimmer. The sky was the colour of sugared absinthe.

  So, Rook “said,” weirdly sociable. Since you don’t seem all too eager for my regular blandishments . . . here we are. He swept one hand out, leaning back ’gainst the balcony’s oddly sharp railing, its wrought iron curlicues reminiscent of those Chess had seen on row house verandahs. Gaze upon New Aztectlan, o pilgrim, and wonder.

  Chess snorted. Uh huh. This where you and her are supposed to be rulin’ all America from, one of these days?

  That’s the plan . . . part of it, anyhow. How’s Agent Morrow, by the by?

  We have our fun. Chess shot him another look. Jealous?

  With a tiny tilt of the head: Should I be?

  Just another mask, smirk and all—another prepared face, be it Good Man Gone Wrong, High Priest of Darkness or Unflappable Mastermind with a plot for every contingency, surprised by nothing. Might’ve even fooled Chess, he hadn’t already seen its like so damn often. And maybe it was just the smoky gloom around them—the dream-sick unreality of everything that green light touched—but for a moment, Rook’s face really did seem bone-hard, frozen in something more grimace than smile, its eyes dark as glass.

  You’re not lookin’ too good, Ash. The words came out flat and quiet, wiping Rook’s visage further, a scrubbed slate.

  And after a moment, the answer came back—his mouth’s utter stillness betraying this whole illusion, almost absently: Probably not. But . . . I made my bed.

  Sure did, Chess thought, whip-quick—not at Rook per se, the way he had thus far. But not caring all too much if he happened to overhear, either.

  Turning away, he saw the city’s black blur immediately resolve, as though it felt his attention—ripen all over with squirmy detail, like a dead dog bred maggots. A raw smell struck him, all gunpowder, vomit and hot blood, like Chinee New Year in a San Fran slaughterhouse. Crowds reeled through the streets, their ruckus peculiarly muted, even as magic spilled brilliantly off them. Shapes blurred in flux; power arced from open mouth to open mouth; men and women danced and fought on empty air, easy as though it were solid ground.

  Around them, meanwhile, buildings even larger than the front line could now be observed overhanging in unnaturally rock-smooth drapes, and it took Chess a moment to figure why: not a one of them bore the lines of brick and mortar, or even daub-sealed log palisades. Instead, every structure was a single seamless piece, some of granite, some marble or sandstone, some of wood still lined with bark and dripping with sap—as if they’d been raised up like clay out of living rock, or force-grown from tortured tree roots. And the tallest of all reared high directly opposite them, a step-pyramid temple with a great bonfire blaze at its peak, black column of smoke pouring upwards into the green clouds, an unending river of night.

  What you got on the grill over there, exactly, makes it go so hot and bright? Chess demanded.

  Oh, this ’n’ that. Care to see?

  Chess gave an angry sigh. He felt Rook work on him un-ceasingly—a pull like falling, the inexorability of sheer mass—and fought it, the only way he knew how: dirty.

  I’m thinkin’ it don’t matter much to you, whether I do or don’t, he snapped back. But let me take a guess—that’s your Moloch, ain’t it? The Satan-hole you throw your own children down, on her command, and watch ’em as they burn to flinders.

  He’d known it soon as he laid eyes on it, from the very stink of the smoke. Tasted the power in the back of his throat, burnt and burning, the way that last drink you guzzled before puking left behind a taste you couldn’t quite seem to part with.

  The lure of it pulled at him like fish-hooks, so horrid, so profane. So . . . delicious.

  And you did that to me too, you big bastard, Chess thought, dizzily nauseous with rage. Gave me your disease, like you were dolin’ out the clap; made me into just another hop-head. Put your jones into me and let it fester, knowing once I’d took my first jolt, I’d never be able to pull it back out.

  But Rook just shrugged. Oh, it’s only the stupid who go to feed the Machine. Those as can’t keep control long enough to be useful.

  Chess felt that space under his ribs clutch again. You doing them same’s you did me?

  Hell, no. Think the Lady and me want more little gods runnin’ ’round? No, they kill ’emselves, mainly—jump in the cistern, or throw ten-at-a-time necktie parties in the yaxche forest, down where the big roots grow. Seems they somehow got the idea it’ll complete their ‘transition.’

  ’Cause you told ’em so.

  Well, we sure don’t tell ’em any different.

  Chess clenched his hands on the iron rail and he felt its edges press into both palms, vaguely flaky, as with rust or rotting paint. So real, and yet . . .

  A dream, he told himself. That’s all this is. He can’t touch me, not really.

  Not him. And not her, either.

  Yet even as he formed the thought, he knew it in error. Because now he could feel the darkness clotting all around him, swallowing him whole. Shadow like mist to his waist and a disembodied mouth nuzzling at his parts, sweet-dreadful, rousing him like no other woman’s ever could; wrong, Jesus, so damn wrong. A rising buzz. A rustling of papery wings.

  Look down, risk just the quickest glance, and that black at his belt became her swirling hair—she looked up, smiled in welcome, her jade-chip teeth sharp.

  I have waited so long to greet you again properly, my husband’s husband. Poor, angry little warrior . . .

  Oh God, get the hell AWAY—

  Rainbow Lady Ixchel taking shape, summoned the faster by his fear, in all her awful glory. To wrap herself ’round him just like she’d done that endless night at Splitfoot Joe’s, screwing down onto him and riding him for her pleasure. When he’d been at her mercy, and Rook hadn’t done a damn thing to help—just pushed them closer together with one hand on Chess’s sick-sweaty back, so she could have her will.

  Watch how our holy city comes to life, she murmured, almost fondly, licking at his ear. This is what was meant to be, what must be—and you should be here to see it, so they can lie prostrate before you, do you due worship. So they see for themselves the God for whom all this was made.

  Chess shrugged himself free of her, well aware he only had the juice to do so because of what she—and Rook—had wrought him into, and bitterly resenting it. But damn, it felt fine to do so, anyhow. Far too fine to stop.

  And here he felt it again, all over, unwilling but undeniable: that power, Glossing’s and otherwise, torrenti
ng down into him from every direction. Making him fume and spark out every pore at once, as though his whole body were a fuse lit by some unknown hand.

  Don’t want none of your . . . tribute, damnit! He snarled, lips fletched back to the canines.

  Yet it comes to you nevertheless, she pointed out. It all goes to you, so you can do what you must. Intent does not matter; your blood cries out, and theirs answers. The river flows in only one direction.

  Chess tried to spit in her mocking face, but the dragonfly cloak she wore whisked her away, depositing her neatly out of range. So he did the next best thing, and drew on her instead—cocked back the hammer, snarl sliding straight to grin.

  Uh huh. Well, stand still a while, bitch—’cause for all I ain’t much of a debater, I think I maybe got you a suitable rebuttal right here.

  Ixchel considered him, her chill gaze moon-calm. The venom-green sky behind her gave her olive skin the tint of verdigris, made her face a tarnished copper mask. There is nothing you could do to me, little killer, even were your weapons real. As we all three of us know.

  Goin’ by history alone, I could probably at least perforate that carcass you’re wearin’—just like Ed Morrow did, down in Hell’s half-acre. Or did you forget about that?

  She clicked her tongue. Unruly! You should have been beaten with nettle switches. Throwing her eyes Rook’s way: Must he always be so difficult, husband?

  Rook’s mouth twitched, fond and rueful. Must, I don’t know about. Is, though, usually.

  You’d know, Chess thought.

  But Rook was already talking at him again—voice affectionate, a laudable parody thereof—Listen, darlin’—remember back when I first woke up, after they swung me? How I was stuck working from the Bible, as though if I didn’t quote Verse on what I had in mind, then nothing was like to happen? Well, that was my mistake. What I knew best, so I wouldn’t let it go . . . assumed I needed it, when really . . .

  . . . he does not. And never did.

  Magic ain’t a gun, Chess; you can’t treat it as such, or it’ll blow up in your hand. And I know that eventually, you’ll outgrow thinking life’s a problem best solved with a bullet . . . but we can’t wait for that.

  Chess guffawed, nastily. Oh, spare me. Think all you got to do is feel on me some in a dream, and I’ll do your damn will from then on? That’s some cheap ride you ’spect to take on me, Reverend; thought I taught you better that-a-ways, at least ’bout how my Ma told me to reckon myself.

  Rook contemplated him a heartbeat, with what almost looked like—sorrow? Insult?

  I’ll never love anyone like I loved you, Chess, he said. Believe it or don’t.

  That’d be ‘don’t.’

  Ixchel gave a laugh of her own, eking up slow as if it came from deep down under-earth, where all Mictlan-Xibalba’s horrors lurked. The cogs of some ’quake-engine cut from stone and greased with bone-dust, grating against each other.

  Your prerogative, Rook allowed. Consider this, though. For all Ed’s a decent sort, he ain’t like you or I. The longer you stick with people like him, whether it’s for fancy or to pay us back, or just to stick your thumb in God’s eye awhile—the more you’ll bring down on their heads. You’re a plague to normal citizenry now, Chess, even more so than you ever were. Hexes will come and dash ’emselves against you, go up like rockets, and catch everyone else around in the back-blast.

  Unable to stop himself, Chess saw Glossing’s dying face—those rabbit-eyes closing, lids twitching dimly, like he was almost glad to bid farewell to any world held Chess in it. Heard those townsfolk yelling trash at him, and felt his free hand fist, itching to blast ’em where they stood.

  Which is why, Ixchel put in, you must accept what you are: our Flayed Lord, red god of red Weed, Opener of our Way. Fight this, and you only fight yourself.

  Chess bristled. So now you come at me both together, I’m s’posed to just roll over? Screw that, and screw all them other motherfuckers, likewise! You put this shit on me—hoodooed me into sayin’ yes, then went on and did it anyways, even when I stopped. Which is where you both fucked up, or so your Enemy tells me. . . .

  Oh, be silent! Even Rook took a step back as the air around Ixchel blazed, stone thrumming beneath her bare feet; the city itself seemed to shimmer and recede. Do you think yourself special? We were all of us ixiptla, once upon a time—

  (even me, even)

  (HE)

  A flood of images behind his eyes—or did that work, seeing his eyes were closed already? Chess saw blood and bone and stone knives tearing, heard alien words and knew their meanings before she was done speaking them, before their vowel sounds had scratched his ears’ drums. Tlacacaliztli, piercing with arrows. Tlahuahuanaliztli, gladiatorial combat. Tlacamictiliztli, extraction of the heart . . .

  (His breastbone aching in sympathy, cleft and barely re-sewn, each no-beat of his own missing organ a hammer-blow echoing from the inside out.)

  Cold crush of drowning. Dirt in your lungs, from burial alive. A drawn mouthful of searing heat, as skin-girt priests swung you over the sacrificial fire. Crunch and chunk of separation as your head was wrenched free, placed high in pride on the tzompantli, before your body was thrown down an endless flight of steps to slam square at the apex of a far smaller pyramid made from limp, cooling human meat.

  (And that was worse, somehow. To feel even a moment’s sympathy—not for her, so much. But for the girl she’d once been.)

  And now the city was gone again, the sky once more a starless but honest black, leaving he, Rook, and the Lady alone on a flat grey plain. Chess reholstered his guns, lifted his hands up between him and his tormentors, palm-out, half shield, half absolute refusal.

  Get outta my dream, he told them, hard as he could. You ain’t makin’ me do nothin’—I won’t be rode, let alone broken. Goddamn you both! I will not do what I won’t!

  Rook was a towering, fading silhouette, recognizable only to one who knew the shape of his features in the dark. Okay, darlin’. But, see—problem is—

  —you will, Chess Pargeter. As we all must, eventually.

  It was a moment before Chess realized he was finally awake, for good and true; the smoky smell of campfire embers rose in the desert chill, unblurred by furnace-reek or magic’s stinging tang. He held his breath, and waited.

  The world stayed as it was, unchanging.

  Chess let out a huge sigh, and was struck abruptly with an almighty need to piss, which drew a laugh. Cheered immeasurably, he rolled to his left, away from the campfire, hit something rough, then looked up—and up, and up.

  Twelve feet tall, black as tar and shiny as glass, head and shoulders blazing with blue fire, the Enemy—Ixchel’s, Rook’s, his, the whole wide world’s—grinned back down at him, its teeth like knives.

  She is right, of course, it said.

  Chess crab-scrabbled backwards so the fire was between ’em, anything to get away. Then glanced down himself, all unthinking, and screamed out loud.

  Chapter Three

  “Seemed nothin’ out of the usual, when we went to bed,” the man—Yancey Colder thought his name might be Frewer, but wasn’t sure—began, eyes kept careful on the teacup he held balanced on one skinny knee. “I mean . . . sure, that business with Dentist Glossing, earlier, but—everything’d been already took away, street swept clear of bad rubbish. Was warm and fine that night, red skies for a clement morning, not one cloud on the horizon. . . .” He trailed away, head shaking slightly. “And then . . .”

  “Then?” Yancey’s Pa encouraged.

  “My woman woke me, ’round about four of the clock. Said she heard this sound like something tearing, off in the distance. But when I went to take a look out the window, I couldn’t get the shutters open, ’cause they were weighted down with all sorts of . . . bugs, and other awfulness—grasshoppers, chiggers, furry-winged moths. Devil’s darning needles the size of pie-plates, rubbin’ ’emselves together ’til the hum went up too loud to yell over.”

  “How long’d thi
s-all go on?” asked Sheriff Haish from his place in the corner, leaning back in his chair. Up ’til now, he’d seemed far more interested in his chaw of tobacco than in Mister Frewer’s story, but Yancey guessed that was mainly for show.

  “A goodly piece after dawn.” The cup trembled between Frewer’s long hands, thin china squeaking dangerously. “We just sat there with our arms ’round the children, hangin’ on for dear life. Noise got so loud near the end, by God, it like to’ve drove us mad.”

  Pa and the Sheriff exchanged a glance, but seemed to agree to let him set his own pace.

  “When I was able to wedge the door,” Mister Frewer said, at last, “the street was gone, all of it. Like it’d never even been. Nothin’ left but this low rut through a tangle of roots, and every other house just slick with crawler-juice, and this smell in the air—Christ Almighty, like when that whole farm died of Yellow Jack in high summer, but nobody twigged ’til a week and a half later. All it lacked was for maggots.”

  He took a shallow breath. “Happened to glance east then, where the tooth-pull shop used t’stand, and it was one big green knot, like kudzu. ’Cept for it had little red bell-flowers hung on it every-which-where, gaped wide, like snappin’ mouths.”

  “I never heard tell of Weed grown up that fast,” a fresh voice—Mister Mergenthal, Hoffstedt’s Hoard’s only butcher—piped up, nearer to the room’s back end, where Yancey had made sure the half-open door blocked Pa from any sudden view of her eavesdropping. “So . . . what’d y’all do?”

  Frewer shrugged, hapless. “Might’ve come about from them hexes havin’ a shoot-out in the middle of Main Street, I s’pose, the day before—”

  “Who and who?”

  “One was Doc Glossing, the dentist, like I already said—not that most’ve us knew he was hexacious before that, at least not for sure. And the other was that new-turned ’slinger, Reverend Rook’s boy—”

  Sheriff Haish scowled, and let fly into the spittoon. “Chess damn Pargeter shot up your town, and you didn’t think anything would come of it?”