A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  After, a crew of hotel workers hauled the pews back against the wall while others brought out tables bearing platters of cold meat, soup tureens, battered but polished pewter tankards brimming with ale, plus bowls full of sliced fruit in so much spirit Chess could practically smell it from here. Lionel Colder went ’round pumping hands like he was getting paid for it, ’stead of the reverse. Though Chess and Morrow stood a bit back from the press, they still caught him on the swing-by; Chess made sure his hand was where Lionel’s glamour-fuddled mind put it—his hex-guise as “Mister Chester Jr.” being a foot taller, to make him match with Morrow—and let Yancey’s Pa wring it back and forth with a will.

  “Lovely, wasn’t it?” he burbled.

  Ed, creditably grave: “Sure was, Mister Colder. Same’s I’d like my own to go, one day.”

  Lionel looked to Chess, then, like he expected further support for this judgement, and Chess tried to give it him. “Very . . . likely so, I’d guess,” he hazarded, at last.

  Lionel thanked him kindly enough, blinking an odd look out of his eye—but moved on fast, and didn’t look back.

  “What’d you have to say that for?” Morrow complained.

  Chess hissed through his teeth. “I don’t know, Ed—’cause this’s the one and only time I ever seen this done, in my entire life?” He folded his arms, glowering over at the punch-bowls. “Or maybe it’s just ’cause I got a job to pull that’d go a fuck of a lot smoother without me bein’ badgered all up and down each side while I stand here tryin’ to figure out how it works, in the first damn place.”

  Ed took the hint and shut up, though Chess suspected he’d be hearing more about this later. But even that small irritation was almost too much of a distraction, right now.

  Last night’s boasts to Miz Colder (Missus Kloves, that was) aside, however, this was the very first working Chess had ever chosen to do, deliberately—a harder task than it seemed it should be, at least for him.

  So he closed his eyes, wiping away everything but the cold clarity of the moment, thinking, as he did: You were right and wrong, Ash Rook, like always. This ain’t a gun, and I don’t aim to treat it as such. But one thing you did teach me ’bout hexation. It comes out the way means most to a person, no matter who. You and your Bad Book, Doc Glossing’s Jew-homunculus—all in how you, and they, was raised up. What you learned, deep down. What’s you.

  Well, I never knew too much: killing, fucking, shooting, drinking, etcetera. But I do know how to hook somebody’s eye, like I know what it feels like to drown your own mind in something—liquor, smoke, fleshly pleasures. So let’s slap ’em together, see what’s like to happen. . . .

  It was less like taking aim down a barrel than throwing a glance some man’s way ’cross any given tumult, casting deep, ’fore reeling the poor sucker in. Chess’s favourite recreation, once, aside from killing—and he had to admit how it still made him a bit stiff himself, even now, just thinking on it.

  Shrouded in the false face he’d patterned after Ed’s own, Chess meandered through the crowd, spinning a cloud of invisible spider’s-webbery out through the top of his skull. He could feel it latching on to everyone he passed, too, linking brain-pan to brain-pan; by the time he’d covered the church, the pressure of some twelve-score minds on his was a tangible ache. But . . . it’d worked, Goddamnit, in spite of everything. He had them.

  The sensation itself was a wonder, too. Same as the way he’d somehow always known where everybody else was in a throw-down, he only now realized, but raised to a whole new order. He could barely resist the impulse to flood those strands with power, take hard hold of ’em and yank. Make all these petty, tiny people know just who they had amongst them, so’s they might render him his due reverence.

  But here Chess paused to breathe deep, checking to make sure he’d tied no similar thread to Ed, or to Yancey, and warmed himself again with that little self-congratulatory jolt. Best to keep his eyes firm on the road, lest it lead straight into the Rainbow Lady’s own meshes, where Chess would be trapped by his own blunderings like any other foolish insect.

  Then, down those thought-strands, he carefully dripped his memories like hot wax on a candlewick: absinthe’s sour tang; Oona’s eye-watering opium pipe-stink; ether’s blissful lassitude, from those rare occasions a Confederate sawbones had drugged him up; the twitchy punch of good chaw. Spreading, fading, dissolving like ink in water as Chess kept up a gentle but inexorable pressure, casting slow darkness over the whole.

  All’s he’d needed was to fire up, by just a smidgen, a place in their brains most of ’em were already hightailing toward at best speed anyway.

  The drinks flowed free, and all ’round, an ungodly mess of a hobbledehoy boiled up: every man present spouting frippery to anything in a skirt, with those same skirts batting their flirtatious eyes and cooing ’til Chess fair ached to yell how money should change hands already, before he puked outright. But then, he supposed this ridiculousness was just how “normal” folk comported ’emselves, when struck by the urge to revelry; just too bad for him he’d no one to share that opinion with aside from Ed, who’d no doubt try his best to talk him out of it.

  And that, right there, was where he felt the Rev’s loss worst once more, an unset bone. He wasn’t drunk enough yet for it not to discomfit him, and unlikely to become so, if he wanted to stay fit to do his part.

  Over at the table’s mid-point, Miz Colder as was—Missus Kloves now, he reminded himself—caught him looking, and gave him a brief smile before turning back to her cunt-struck bullock of a brand-new husband.

  Thinking as she did, knowing damn well he’d be able to hear: Your patience’s laudable indeed, Mister Pargeter; I’m very sure it costs you something, to sustain. Yet soon enough, you and Mister Morrow’ll be on your way, unnoticed—all you have to do is just let ’em all get good and snookered, and they’ll mind nothing on the morrow but that they had the world’s best time. And even if any of ’em were to figure out who-all they might’ve missed capturing, later on, the hangovers alone will make ’em think twice about coming after.

  So thank you, for that. Thank you for not bringing my home down around my ears, or sinking us all hip-deep in Weed. I sure do appreciate your restraint, seein’ how hard—how unnatural—it is for you to practice. . . .

  Meant no insult by it, either. It’d be uncharitable to think so.

  When’d you ever reckon things by their charity, though, darlin’? the Rev whispered to him, a lick deep ’cross his inner ear, hot and honey-slow. Woman’s got you tied up tight, doing her will like a dray-horse. That ain’t the Chess I know.

  Just shut the fuck UP, you house-size sumbitch, he shot back. I’ll do what I like, and like what I damn well do. Like Goddamn always.

  Oh, and now he felt the drunkenness he was bringing forefront in everyone else fine enough, but with no release, no real enjoyment—a ticking timepiece, a lit fuse’s hiss. Decency all ’round him, like an insult by proxy.

  On his left a kid sat crying, all by itself, ’til seconds later its dam swept down to pick the little monkey up, cuddling, soothing, stroking. Chess watched the kid latch on like a drunk does to his poison, and felt something inside him give a painful click, like tumblers falling.

  He elbowed Morrow in the ribs, hard, hissing under his breath, “Let’s just get the hell gone from this place, Ed—’cause, ’fore God and man, it’s gettin’ so I want to shoot something.”

  Morrow gave his head the slightest shake. “Give it another hour,” he murmured back. “They ain’t far enough gone yet. Someone might still remember us, we left now.”

  For what minuscule consolation it was, he didn’t look all too much like he wanted to stay, either; more like he had a bee crawling ’round in his britches, fixing to find just the best place to sting. And Chess soon found he well knew why, just from the way he kept on stealing cow-glum glances back in the newlywed Kloves’ direction.

  “Christ, Morrow,” Chess snapped, “you want this gal so bad, I could lay t
he Marshal out under the table for a good few hours, while she thanks you proper.” Which actually got Morrow to throw a glare at him, flushing—as much in embarrassment as in anger, though, which cut down on the entertainment factor considerably.

  Across the room, a mob of dancers were yelling suggestions at the band: “‘Rake and a Ramblin’ Boy’! Naw, hell—‘West Virginia’!” “‘Buffalo Skinners’!”

  “I ain’t too like to make you fear I’ll bail out to chase some girl we both of us just met, let alone one new-hitched in holy matrimony,” Morrow told him, at the same time, “and not being quite so stunned as I look, I got no desire to get Chess Pargeter mad at me, either. ’Sides which . . .”

  “‘The Red-Head Pistoleer’!” That one got cheers.

  Here Morrow cut off, reconsidering his next sentence. But Chess simply nodded, and finished it for him anyhow: “’Sides which, you might get her killed,” he said, nodding to Yancey, now looking over at the band in dismay. “Right? Oh, Christ’s sake, Ed, don’t take on—who you think I am, your gal back home? So long’s you’re there for me when it counts, believe me, you can get gay with whomever you choose to.”

  “Really?”

  “True dish. Think I want a damn ring, from anyone? A church full’a fools and some combine playing clog-step crap like—” He turned, frowning. “What the hell is that song, anyway? Tune sounds familiar.”

  “Think it’s ‘Two Dimes and a Nickel,’” said Morrow, eyes narrowed. “Lyric don’t seem quite right, though. . . .”

  “Oh, no, that ain’t ‘Two Dimes’!” The man standing by them was one of Kloves’ deputies, Chess vaguely recalled; reflexively, he tightened his glamour, and Ed’s as well. “It’s a whole new reel entire, from someplace back Arizona way—‘The Red-Head Pistoleer’!”

  Chess froze.

  Morrow: “I, uh, never heard that before.”

  “Oh, don’t worry yourself, Mister Chester—take ya home humming, you’ll see, ’specially the way Joe sings it.” And, slamming back the last of his punch, he hurried for the dance floor, calling over his shoulder: “It’s a right toe-tapper!”

  Which seemed to be true enough, the way the dancers were now singing enthusiastically along.

  Chesssss . . . Pargeter was a pretty little man, his hair was red as flame,

  His Ma she knew no better, and she raised him up the same.

  The ladies he liked little, the men he liked too well.

  Mere repetition of his sins might send a man to Hell!

  He danced with men for money, but he’d kill ’em just for fun,

  And the only thing he truly loved was the barrel of his gun.

  In the army he met Reverend Rook, who tried to pray him ’round,

  But Chess sunk in his wicked hooks, and pulled that good man down.

  Me, Chess realized. It’s about me. And—

  He drew a long breath, thick-burning, gullet suddenly a-heave.Felt Morrow’s touch on one shoulder—all five fingers, strong and warm yet far too brief: appearances, don’tcha know. So’s not to fright the horses. “Chess . . . ter, Junior: buck up, little brother. Just hold on, now.”

  Now, one sin leads to every sin, or so you may have heard—

  And sodomy and sorcery are almost the self-same word.

  He’d been a saint by all accounts, right faithful to God’s ways,

  But once stuck fast in Chess’s toils, the Rev begun to change. . . .

  Chess swallowed yet again, spit flavoured with bile. Said, slowly, “So . . . what they’re sayin’ is—I turned him bad?”

  “It’s a song, is all. Wrote by some idjit in a saloon five states over, probably drunk, couldn’t even think up a brand new tune to set it to. Like the penny-papers, or them Dreadfuls done up on rag-pulp—all the lie that’s fit. You know for yourself they always get it wrong.”

  The chorus rose up overtop, twice as strong, drunken-riotous:

  The Good Lord wrote the Bible, Lincoln freed the slaves,

  But the Devil made Chess Pargeter to drag fools to their graves.

  He made him small and pretty, as bright as any pin,

  And set that red-head pistoleer to tempt weak men to sin!

  I could kill you, Chess thought, head at once blessedly clear, if aching. All of you. Each and every damn one. It’d be easy. Pleasant, almost.

  All he had to do was pour every last drop of his rage down the web, turn booze-sodden cheer to the same killing fury burning up his spine, let them all loose on one another and then just sit back, while the blood pooled at his boots. Or maybe he’d just let it rip in all directions at once, unguided: a barrage of grapeshot, grinding everything into chuck— meat on meat blended together to make one red flurry, like it was raining screams. All guts, no glory.

  You . . . think you know, ’bout Rook and me? You don’t know shit.

  “Chess, fucksake—” The light turned strange, and Chess realized Morrow had stepped close between him and the crowd, shielding the one from t’other. “We can’t, not now. Jesus Christ Almighty, look at yourself!”

  Since there was more panic in Morrow’s voice than Chess had heard, well . . . ever, he did. And found that the sight did not ease his fury in the slightest, though it did come wrapped in blessedly dispassionate curiosity: A sweaty crimson sheen was leaking from his pores, slick and coppery, backlit by the subtle green luminescence outlining his bones. He turned his hand over and back, yet more sick light spilling forth like he’d cupped his hand on a green-flamed candle, so hard he’d bled in the cooking.

  Now if he’d never met him, the Rev might still be right,

  But Pargeter, that red-head tramp, a-turned him from the Light.

  The Devil gave Rook magic, those mocking him were slayed—

  And thus the Rev was proved a hex, and stays one to this day.

  They scoured the state from east to west, a-robbing as they went.

  Good men they killed, their widows left, ignoring their laments.

  They took both trains and coaches, good folk were all appalled,

  And the whole town of Bewelcome, the Rev, he preached to salt. . . .

  What must his face look like, by now? Chess wondered, idly—some unholy mask, going on Morrow’s horrified look alone: raw meat and cut vines, bad things growing wild. He felt the glamour slip from him, part by part—saw those closest widen their eyes as he shimmered and shrunk, gaze greening up, reddening from tip to tail. Danger, his mind sang out, dangerdangerdanger—

  For them, Hell yes: danger aplenty. But not for him.

  He was beyond that, and knew it, every fibre lit up with some deep, abiding grin.

  “Wasn’t no joke,” he said, voice mud-thick, all uncaring who besides Ed might hear. “Not to me. And I ain’t no vaudeville-hall act. Laugh at me, it’s the last damn thing you’ll ever do.”

  Then: more fingers—not Ed’s, too small and soft by far—touched his. He wanted to peel ’em off, like leeches, or crush ’em, just to hear ’em squirt. But they slid down to encircle his wrists without trembling; his pulse hammered hard against them, a caged rat.

  “Then they won’t,” said Yancey Kloves, simply. “Not anymore.”

  ’Cause . . . I can do that.

  It was her wedding, after all.

  He swayed, pried his eyes open, but she was already gone, flitting through the crowd like a white-veiled wraith, as that damn refrain howled out all the louder:

  Ohhhh, the Good Lord wrote the Bible, Lincoln freed the slaves,

  But the Devil made Chess Pargeter to drag fools to their graves.

  He made him small and pretty, as bright as any pin,

  And set that red-head pistoleer to—

  “’Scuse me, gents. Excuse me!”

  Slipping her way betwixt musicians, one hip moving Toe-Tapper Joe aside so forcefully he lost his breath, Yancey waved an empty glass at the crowd, overriding their complaints with effortless cheer. “Can’t tell y’all how much it means to me, and Uther,” a doe-eyed glance at Marshal Kloves, owl
ishly a-blink at her from their table, “that y’all are having such a great time here! You’ve all been so kind and generous t’us, I wanted—” She hesitated; then her jaw firmed. “I wanted,” she went on in a quieter voice, “to sing you something, in return. A song . . . my mother always loved.”

  As time grows near, my dearest dear, when you and I must part,

  How little you know of the grief and woe in my poor aching heart.

  ’Tis blood I’d suffer for your sake—believe me, dear, it’s true;

  I wish that you were staying here, or I was going with you.

  I wish my breast were made of glass, wherein you might behold

  Upon my heart, your name lies wrote in letters made of gold;

  In letters made of gold, my love—believe me, when I say

  You are the one I will adore until my dying day.

  The blackest crow that ever flew would surely turn to white

  If ever I prove false to you, bright day will turn to night.

  Bright day will turn to night, my love—the elements will mourn.

  If ever I prove false to you, the seas will rage and burn.

  On this last line, she let her struck-silver voice soften and fade away. And in the instant of silence before the hall erupted in praise, Chess let out a long, shuddering breath; he felt dazed, exhausted. The pull of the mind-web was a stabbing pain through his skull.

  But Morrow’s grip eased, voice kindly once more. “You all right?” he asked, words pitched low, beneath the noise.

  “I will be, we can git, right this minute.” Chess brushed at his face, impatiently. “That’s always assuming you didn’t break my damn arm, tryin’ to hold me still.”

  “Very . . . pretty.”

  The harsh, low voice might almost have been Rook’s; for one gut-wrenching instant, Chess half thought it was, before realizing it entirely lacked Rook’s hypnotizing resonance. Yet it cut straight through the revel, sent the crowd spilling back over each other’s feet as its owner reared up, just suddenly present, in their midst.