A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  Pargeter grabbed his partner’s arm in turn, as though to pull the bigger man up, half-pivoted in the same direction—and saw why.

  For the drift of salt he’d made was whirling in a contracting spiral, vicious with energy; it scrabbled in on itself, mounding high ’til it abruptly plumed skyward, a miniature eruption that literally blew the top off the place, scattering shingles everywhere. Then fell back down, into an all-too-familiar shape.

  Love stood there unharmed, exactly where he had a mere moment before.

  The Sheriff slowly flexed his hands, which grated icily, giving off a great puff of skin-stuff. At the sound, a general moan went up from all around, desperate as wind through a graveyard.

  “Fuck-almighty!” Pargeter burst out.

  “Interesting,” Love mused. Then added, looking up through what was left of the church’s roof: “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Morrow clutched back, palpably a-strain to keep his body interposed shield-wise between ’em, apparently without thinking twice. “Chess,” he gritted, “we need to go.”

  “So he’s got tricks. Think that frights me?”

  “Know it don’t, you ass. But what about the rest?’

  Hell with those fools! Yancey could feel exactly how hard Pargeter wanted to snap the thought back, stacked cheek by jowl with how he knew he couldn’t—and that was a change, one he found distinctly unwelcome. And here Hugo Hoffstedt broke in, pointing a shaking finger at poor Mister Frewer, as though he was the true cause of everybody’s danger.

  “Told you we’d rue the day we let these Mouth-of-Praisers in—hexation draws hexation, and that’s the damn fact! And now look what’s the result: two hexes, for the price of one!” His eyes skipped to Uther, already wending his way back. “Your foolish softness’s doomed us all, Uther Kloves, you and your Jew father-in-law, too—”

  “Shut your mouth, apostate,” Love told him, absently. “Pargeter’s the man-witch here, but my strength comes from Almighty God alone . . . and you will not mock at me.”

  Hoffstedt’s face turned even more purple; his eyes bulged. With a gagging sound his only accompaniment, he started a collapse, but hadn’t quite completed it before Uther caught him, knotting one big hand in the tobacconist’s shirt. “Sorry ’bout this, Hugo—” The other drew back and punched him, straight in the stomach.

  Hoffstedt jackknifed, whooped a slapped-baby gasp, and puked out a sodden chunk of rock salt too huge for any normal throat to swallow, which skipped to lie before him, dripping. Yancey stared at it.

  Salt, which Mala always said turned hexation aside, surer than any other known cure. There’s folks say witches can’t cry at all, Yancey, since tears are saltwater; I’ve seen enough do so to know that isn’t true. Yet salt does keep, and render, and purify. And salt throws off hexation, same as a rod does lightning—roots it down deep, so it’ll make away with itself without causing too much harm. Same way as your Pa throws a spilled pinch over his left shoulder at dinner, to ward away the Devil.

  And the Sheriff . . . that was all he was made of, wasn’t it, saving terrible grief, and a seeking after revenge? So even if he didn’t understand the true whys and wherefores, believing it was the diamond-hard strength of his own faith that kept him safe, the result would be the same.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Not knowing to make the same connection, Pargeter just sneered, like it was all another bad joke. “Hell, preacher—if that’s supposed to be a sample of God’s work, then maybe you better go on and pull the other one!”

  Mister Morrow was right, Yancey thought, soul-sick; you should run, the both of you. For his sake, if not your own.

  But the devilish little man just wouldn’t, obviously; wasn’t in him. Might be he didn’t even know how.

  As Hoffstedt rolled onto his back, gasping, Pargeter neatly swapped his place for Morrow’s, much as the other man tried to prevent it. “But that is some extra-fresh load of power you’re carrying, one way or t’other,” he continued, ignoring how being mis-called a hex twice in a row made Love’s jaws grind. “And how you’re puttin’ it to use ’minds me most of . . . what the Rev could pull out his Good Book, you only pissed him off enough. Like back in Bewelcome.”

  “Don’t presume to talk on that, you filth-piece.”

  “Oh yeah, I recall how you did pretty good in Round One, ’til he called on Lot in Sodom, and pimp-smacked your Jesus Christ holler like a two-bit whore.”

  “Be still!”

  “Take a sight more than a shake or two of table-fixings to stop my queer-boy mouth, Sheriff—”

  “You!” Love’s voice almost hurt to hear, now. “You killed my wife, my son, my town . . . you and Rook, the both—”

  Yancey shuddered, yet again. For they had done that, undeniably—and if Pargeter had not consciously chosen to do it, he had certainly delighted in seeing it done.

  “Or you killed ’em, more like,” Pargeter threw back, shameless, “by standin’ against us.” With a gunman’s vaudeville flourish, he sent lightning crackling fingertip-to-tip, green as his eyes. “Took on ’cause you were too proud to hear the Rev ‘blaspheme’ your precious Book, though what-all it had to do with you I still don’t know; thought to reap reward on our heads, and kicked your own house down doin’ it.”

  Love drew himself up. “I did . . . what I had to.”

  “Likewise.” Another grin. “’Course, I understand ‘worship’—used to be the Rev I knelt to, in all senses. But since he made me this, I don’t do nobody’s will but my own.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, ‘Private.’ You’re no god—not even a graven idol, like Moloch, or Baal.”

  “Oh, I’m a god, all right: the Flayed Corn King, He-With-No-Heart, somethin’ new, and something very old. Responsible for every bad thing that happens ’roundabouts, too, they tell me—so who knows but that ‘angel’ you think God sent you wasn’t my doin’, somehow? All along. Ever think of that?”

  If he’d expected this last shot to tell, it didn’t, visibly. Yet Love’s pale eyes slid sideways, fixing upon Morrow.

  “I do note, however,” he said, “that even without Rook, you still seem to have something left to lose.”

  At this, Morrow tried to push by, take up his protective stance once more—but Pargeter swept one arm out behind him, and the bigger man soon found himself abruptly up against the nearest wall, legs a-flail, ’til he lost his balance and fell to the same knee, with palpably painful impact. He’d already struggled halfway back up before an outthrust palm stopped him in his tracks—not more hexation, just a clear signal: Stay back, Goddamnit!

  So he does care for him, Yancey thought. Like I guess Love’s counting on.

  Pargeter raked Love up and down, with fine contempt. “Threats on a third party?” he asked. “Don’t seem very Christian. Better make up your mind. Is vengeance yours, or the Lord’s? You want an eye for an eye, for real?”

  Not waiting for Love’s reply, Pargeter beckoned, seeming oddly happy at the prospect.

  And snarled—“Then come take one of mine.”

  Chapter Eight

  Without thinking, Morrow surged automatically forward one last time, then felt the air around him slam shut, and ceased to struggle. Jesus God, he wished he had some sort of firearm handy! His shotgun, reckoned too long to conceal under Chess’s imperfect glamour, he’d left behind in the Honeymoon Suite, with the rest of what little gear they retained. If Yancey’s plan had actually worked, they would have had ample time to retrieve it.

  But—Sooner or later, Sergeant, every plan stops working—with the very first shots, more oft than not. Colonel Stockwell’s prissy-vowelled New York memory-voice, snapping back at him all the weary way from Marais des Cygnes. The test of a true leader is how he deals with what he couldn’t have planned for.

  Morrow’s fists clenched. What he needed, by those lights, was a distraction, something to jolt Love off-guard long enough for Chess to whisk ’em both away and send the Sheriff rocketing after, leaving these poor people to thei
r own devices.

  As though she knew his mind, new-made Missus Kloves gave him a head-toss over toward where the church’s back door was working its slow way open. And Morrow nodded back, schooling himself to not react as a hunched figure—her father?—crawled back inside, dragging a burlap sack heavy with what looked, even at this distance, like weaponry.

  Get set, he thought.

  Yancey didn’t dare turn further, not and hope to keep Love’s attention wholly fixed on Pargeter; to meet Mister Morrow’s eyes, see the hope flaring there, was dangerous enough. Still, she could feel Pa’s presence again, and her heart went helplessly out to him—a soul-scared man straining to act the part of brave father, convinced his daughter’s life depended on him doing it. Which she could only hope it didn’t.

  Meanwhile, undistracted by any of the above, Sheriff Love bent his awful head over folded palms and whispered, like wind stirring gravel: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. . . .”

  A deafening crack split the air, unseen thunderbolt-swift. Before his expression could twitch toward even the beginning of surprise, Pargeter went up like a roman candle of searing, blue-white flame.

  With a yell, Mister Morrow lunged blaze-wards, only to reel off almost immediately—face shielded, beat back by waves of heat. The crowd moaned. Yancey fought all the champagne she’d drunk thus far back down.

  Can’t be that easy, though. Can it?

  Seconds later, two only slightly pinkened hands thrust upwards from the inferno and spread apart, ripping their way free; the fiery shroud tore wholesale, shredded into streamers, rewove itself into twin whips of actinic flame dangling from Pargeter’s palms. He stepped clear, no more high-coloured than usual, his imperially hued suit not even scorched.

  “Good one,” he said. “But I’ve heard better.”

  Not taking his eyes off Love, Pargeter whirled the fire-ropes ’round his head so they buzzed, trailing blue sparks. The very air above shimmered terribly, roaring as if cut, ’til he flung both Hell-lariats at Love headlong. They struck the Sheriff with a noise like two locomotives mating; Yancey braced herself against the crash—which never came.

  For a heartbeat, Love glowed equally hot, if far less bright, as Pargeter’s whips collapsed straight into him, sponged up. But the light faded, draining down into the floor, planks set a-flash like moonlit water. Once more, Love stared unblinking, untouched.

  At last, Pargeter’s grin faltered.

  But, just in time . . . here came her Pa, creeping, weapons-bag in hand, to touch random crowd-members’ elbows and handing ’em on toward escape, as though he were directing traffic. Catching hers, he bore her away to meet from Uther eeling his own way downstream, making for them with eyes glued fast on that swinging, faintly clinking bag of tricks. . . .

  “Think your Satan-got might impresses me, you trousered harlot?” No brag in the preacher’s dead voice, just plain, scornful fact. “I have the very Thrones and Principalities at my back. I have His Word, always, in my ear.”

  Pargeter shrugged. “Well, you don’t listen, that’s for damn sure.”

  But this insult lacked the usual venom, his glare gone narrow, calculating odds and means. Drawing an alarmingly long knife, he slapped its blade into his other palm, sliced fast, flicked the result Love’s way; a fine spray of blood licked ’cross one bleached cheek with an audible sizzle, leaving a smoking trench behind. But Love simply raised his own hand and dug in, scraping melted flesh away as whitish sludge, like badly laid mortar. His teeth gleamed visibly through the gap, slate-grey, before his cheek reformed itself.

  “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty,” he rasped, wiping his hands. “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” A long step forward. “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but near you it shall—not—come!”

  Each of those last three words came with another unnaturally swift pace, closing the distance, taking him almost within his wiry little opponent’s reach. Pargeter took a step back—Yancey felt Morrow’s dismay, a cold shock in her stomach’s pit, at seeing his fearless partner retreat—before groggery-brawl reflex took over, and he whipped his knife at Love’s right eye.

  The blade buried itself hilt-deep, which stopped Love for at least a moment; Pargeter seized this opportunity to circle sideways, opening up the field. And though his lips stayed peeled, Yancey sensed, for the first time, more doubt than anger behind this reflexive grimace as Love simply turned as well, resuming his opposing stance.

  “Oh, what a vain, luxurious, vicious young coxcomb you are,” Love declared, almost conversationally, pulling the knife free of his socket with a visible wrench. The eye that reformed was now completely white, unshelled to show the phosphorescent glow beneath, spreading in faint hairline cracks up to his very temple. “A walking canker, spreading fresh plague with every step. Yet God, who has made even you, has appointed me your cure.” He looked down at his hands, brow wrinkling, as if he’d forgotten how the weapon he still held got there—then snapped it lengthwise, and tossed it to the floor.

  Now it was Pargeter’s face which went blank. “That,” he said, almost too soft to hear, “was a gift. From a friend.”

  The black aura around him deepened, as though the edges of the world were peeling back. And the silence outside the church began to shred.

  Something coming.

  “Oh shit,” Mister Morrow said.

  Pa’s head jerked, foolishly, as though primed to snap: Don’t think to swear in front of my daughter, you outlaw! Most ’specially not on her wedding day!

  But by then, Uther and Sheriff Haish had joined them; faster than Yancey could blink, they’d already upturned the coveted sack, doling out guns like party favours to Pa, Mister Frewer, themselves.

  Love, intent on Pargeter, seemed utterly incurious as to the rising clatter and flurry behind him. But Uther, on finding Mister Morrow’s shotgun at the bottom, snapped the stock, racked it—and tossed it back to its original owner, who plucked it gratefully from the air and levelled it over Pargeter’s shoulder, straight at Sheriff Love’s chest.

  “Sheriff!” Morrow shouted. “You’ve got any of God’s mercy in you, back off, ’fore this goes too far!” When Love glanced at him, though Morrow’s voice cracked, his gun stayed steady. “Think, man! What’s the fate of those who spill innocent blood?”

  The Sheriff’s other eye went white as well, while the entire air around him leached to the colour of dry-fissured bone.

  “I am,” Love replied.

  Then Morrow’s finger clenched on the triggers, unleashing both barrels. Love’s chest erupted; salt sprayed everywhere, flushing unwary eyes. But Love barely rocked back on his heels, pellets blazing merrily right on through, their momentum unabated. Along with yet more salt, sharp and pitiless, forged near-obsidian hard by passage through Love’s furnace-hot heart.

  Duck, Yancey thought, even as she yelled out loud: “Now, now, get damn well DOWN!”

  But one burst nicked Haish’s neck, drawing a mighty spurt—he spun, clapped a hand to the damage, looked drunkenly surprised. Fell to the floor, jacked and shaking, like cholera. The other neatly blew out the centre of Uther’s left palm, instinctively upraised between it and Yancey, as though he’d dreamed it would shield her from lead. Luckily, her Pa shoved her headlong at almost the same moment, to sprawl face-first onto the floor ’midst the dust and splinters. Which, unluckily, left him—

  Oh my Good God Jesus, Pa.

  —looking down as she looked up, faces equal sick-white in the inconstant light. A flutter of ill-timed laughter spun inside her, trapped, a skeleton leaf in updraft. Like a flame-caught moth charred black, already dying.

  “Gal,” Lionel Colder tried to say
, through a closed throat. And Yancey heard his lungs rattle as he toppled, juicy-wet, through that unmendable hole in his chest.

  “Shit,” Mister Morrow said again, like it was the only word he knew. Like he’d forgotten how to say anything else, without bawling like a damn baby.

  Not his fault, though. More Pargeter’s, she supposed—but even now, lapped by this insane storm of destruction, he drew nothing from her but abstract alarm, mixed here and there with an odd pulse of pity.

  It was Love who got the full brunt of her hatred, in a vitriol cocktail; Love who she wanted to see broken apart once more, reduced to crystals so fine they’d dissolve on skin. Blast him to particulates, and beyond. How dare he even mention God, for good or ill, when—

  Eyes tear-burnt, Yancey felt blindly for her Pa’s hand, which flexed in her grip, fixed and cooling. Closed her lids so tight they hurt against the sight of him, only to see his soul’s skein bloom upwards anyhow—unwind from his mouth in a fine gold thread and out through the shattered roof, along with his last attempt at breath.

  Took a second at most, probably less. Felt like forever.

  Uther by her side, big as a house, stuck to her with sweat and blood alike; Uther, still trying to shield her with his body as he pried her gently loose, raised her to her trembling knees.

  “Honey, oh honey,” he said, tender as a stone-made man can be. “I’m so sorry.”

  Me too, she thought, but couldn’t speak aloud. Could only choke on, dry, as though she were chewing a cud of blood . . . ’til from all around came a noise Yancey recognized immediately, though she’d only heard it described the once.

  “What . . . the hell . . . is that?” someone, maybe Hoffstedt, whimpered.

  A buzzing and clicking at the window-frames, as of a multitude of scrabbling legs. A reverberant hum moaning up through every breach, every crumbling mortar-lick. The floorboards juddering and splintering underfoot, sending those still trapped inside the church reeling, while Pargeter and Love both remained rooted. Jagged cracks lancing up through all four walls at once, filled with a tangle of red-stained green, a million dancing filaments tasting air: budding, seeding, blooming. Turning their hungry flower-faces toward the rigid purple-clad figure of their god, even as the plain wooden cross behind the altar broke free and crashed to the ground, crushing a handful of poor parishioners beneath it.