A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  Yancey saw it all, through a hundred eyes at once: screams, tears, Pa and Sheriff Haish, Uther hauling her close.

  But heard none of it, for her ears were blocked, admitting one sound only—that other voice in her head once more, dry, urgent—

  This heralds your moment, granddaughter; be ready to make sacrifice—

  Sacrifice? Yancey was barely able to ask.

  You shall show them the way. Be ready.

  A flicker of light caught Yancey’s eye as half Pargeter’s broken knife-blade leaped high into the air, tossed by a floorboard suddenly cracked in two; when it landed near her, and she squirmed to get one arm free, grab for it. The edges bit her palm, stinging fiercely.

  With a splintering cacophony, Weed thrust up through every crack, spreading out ’round Love’s and Pargeter’s feet in a widening, slimy green and crimson pool. What Mouth-of-Praisers were yet present screamed in unison, rushing the church’s doors and hammering on them, wailing, as the Weed spread ever further; the floor decimated, whole fresh ropes fisted every wall-chink apart at once, a barn-raising in reverse, brickwork crumpling outwards in a cacophony of shattering wood and billowing dust.

  And through this fresh ruin the itzapapalotl (the foreign word sliding into Yancey’s mind, bringing such a flood of similar jabber in its wake that for one reeling heartbeat, she feared she’d never speak English again) came swarming—a thousand thousand black glass butterflies on squeaking, jagged wings, each flap drawing blood.

  They folded themselves sidelong ’round debris, grazing Weed ’til juice sprayed wide in their wake, and whirled ever inward in a glittering twister. The roar of their passage was like every sand-storm ever sighted bearing down in unison.

  We’re done for sure, Yancey thought, cleft palm cleaving to Uther’s, a last hopeless parable of matrimony.

  Yet even as she did, she heard that ruthless voice—What should I call it?—inside her answer—

  Such discourtesy! I called you granddaughter, did I not?

  . . . Grandma?

  Morrow lunged to his feet as a host of more natural insects—dragonflies like the Lady came cloaked in, mosquitoes and wasps, red-shelled ladybirds and a dozen more kinds besides—spilled in behind those volcano-born death-moths he and Chess had glimpsed above Tampico, gnawing through flesh and fabric alike. Flinging himself in their path, he gasped with relief when all of ’em went skittering away from him, as though he wore some invisible canvas tarp. Unbelievably, Rook had told the truth: he was protected from harm, at least indirectly; marked and bound, both for good and ill.

  “Ed.” Even Chess’s voice had changed, resonant with echoes of the gap between worlds. “There.” He pointed; Morrow followed his finger to where a young woman hunched over her screaming child—same one he’d seen Chess stare at, before?—with her whole back streaming blood. At the first sign of trouble she’d folded herself ’round him, just like you’d expect; now the butterflies were stripping her shoulder blades bare, drawing wet, red wings down her good gingham dress.

  Morrow whipped off his duster, draped it over ’em both and hauled ’em clear, kicking past the maelstrom’s swirling rings. Weed pulled at his boots, but let him go when he strained—as if it recognized that somewhere, deep down, Morrow had at last begun to accept his role as the Flayed One’s servant.

  The woman, her boy’s screaming face pressed hard to her breast, could barely make her feet. “God bless you, mister,” she managed, through bitten lips.

  Morrow shook his head, and set one boot to her ass, as gently as he could. “Run!” he ordered, kicking the two further out of danger. “Don’t stop. And don’t look back!”

  Then, much against his own misgivings, he turned to fight his way back in.

  Back at the storm’s core, Chess poured his anger out upon the preacher in entirely one-sided fashion, each finger discharging a six-shooter’s worth of those roily little spell-loads, while Love simply stood angled slightly into the barrage, like it was no more than a stiff wind. No matter what Chess threw at him, it either soaked right into the man’s skin or slid off harmlessly into the unstable bed of rucked and vibrating floorboards beneath, re-emerging as fresh new batches of Weed.

  “Fuckin’ well die, you sumbitch!” Chess growled. But Love simply shook his head, insects glancing off his face and body, leaving nothing behind but drag-marks.

  “Unlikely, I fear,” he said. “And you’ve only yourself to thank, for that.”

  With horror, Morrow saw Love move forward again, inexorably; whenever Weed reached up to snare his legs, the powdery flesh just broke apart and re-coalesced around it, leaving a trail of vines flopping like pulled veins in his wake. Missus Kloves gagged at the sight, like she was fixing to heave. Chess just stared on, amazed.

  “There really ain’t nothin’ left of Bewelcome’s big damn hero anymore, is there?” he asked. “Look ’round, Sheriff. Womenfolk, children, Marshal and Missus Kloves—‘good people,’ Goddamn innocents, caught in the crossfire. You could stop it, you only wanted to . . . but then you’d have to let me go. This what your God-botheration really amounts to?”

  That got Love to stop at last, as nothing else had—to consider Chess directly, for almost the first time.

  “Arminius’s creed says we are justified by faith alone,” he told him, “but sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And whatsoever the Spirit does is right, for it is the Spirit which does it.”

  All at once, those big hands flashed to seize Chess’s throat, hauling him up by the neck—and everything proceeding from Chess’s power-source immediately stopped dead. The Weed fell still, insects plummeting ground-wards with one great rattle, a glass-and-chitin hail. Chess’s boots kicked useless, fingers scrabbling frantic, unable to find purchase; green lightning crackled from his fingernails only to disappear inside Love’s body, like every damn thing else.

  Morrow too collapsed, his own throat constricted, spots swimming before his eyes. The room darkened.

  “And see.” Love’s voice had gentled, almost regretful. “Even thus is the Lord’s vengeance properly delivered. With all your might, you’re flesh and blood; no more, or less. Soon you’ll be dead as Sophy, or my boy . . . dead as me.”

  Eyes bulging, lips blue, Chess choked out a final jibe: “Buh ahll—stih—look—behher.”

  The revenant nodded. “I’m sure you’ll have fresh admirers aplenty, in Hell.”

  Granddaughter—look, now. See.

  Yancey let her gaze slip back down to her own yet-dripping blood beading bright on what was left of the floor, the Weed’s writhing bed. Where it landed, a faint scent and smoke rose up and the tide calmed, vine smoothing to wet grass, thick with possibilities. One incautious itzapapalotl flew over top and cracked down the middle, both sharp wings bisected, still fluttering even as they fell to smash below.

  Remember what he said, your little Hataalii’s travelling companion. Remember how it sounded . . . so plausible.

  “The Weed eats blood, and dies,” she whispered, eyes straying again to Mister Morrow. “You have to—cut yourself, and pray. In his name.”

  “Wife,” Uther said, slow, from behind her, “what do you mean by that, exactly?”

  Yancey held up her hand, brought the half-knife down again. “Watch.”

  The sheer keenness of the edge delayed the pain a moment, just long enough for her to begin to cry: “Mister Pargeter—here—” And then her hand was afire, her warning a wordless wail as much shock as pain, though both were almost equally bad.

  The Weed sucked up her fresh-let blood swifter even than Love’s pie-crust flesh had absorbed Pargeter’s hexation, digging ever deeper, writhing as it fed. After which a ripple lashed upwards, twining tight about the man in question’s purple-clad legs, and colour surged back into Pargeter’s whey-pale face; he chopped one hand clean through Love’s left-hand-side jaw hinge in a white-powder smash, so hard the Sheriff’s head fair spun, whipping-top style. Yet Love’s stranglehold did not shift, fingers thinning to circle Pargeter’s
throat completely and pull in sharp, a leathery, granular noose.

  Not enough, Yancey realized, and clawed her way past the pain “More!” she screamed, to all those agape at her. “Blood kills the Weed, and that gives Pargeter strength—strength enough to put this thing down, where we can’t hope to!”

  Mister Grey, over by Haish’s fallen body: “Hexation ’gainst hexation? Sounds dicey at best, if that’s even what Sheriff Love is packin’.”

  Yancey waved his words away, impatient. “What other choice? If all of us spill a little, then . . .”

  “Yancey, no!” Uther hollered, and grabbed for her wounded hand—trying to exert his husbandly authority, she guessed, much as it wouldn’t do either of ’em any good, if he succeeded. But Morrow, rising from where he’d fallen, slit his own palm open to the meat, not even waiting to let it spill; reached down to grab the Weed straight-on instead, forcing it to his spurting wound. The soundless green pulse which erupted was near-visible, surging up through the Weed into Pargeter, who gave out a shout: high, wild, inarticulate. A wildcat’s coital shriek.

  Sheriff Love let go and staggered back, covering his ears. Cast eyes on Morrow, Yancey as well, like he was disappointed to his very core, and hissed: “Unbelievers! Ye have set up false idols and made worship unto them, as the Israelites with their golden calf, and God’s judgement will be certain, swift, severe.”

  Maybe so, Yancey reckoned. But her half-cooked plan was definitely working; ’round Morrow, the mess of Weed was already a tight circle of rich grass, so fast the change barely registered. His sacrifice even seemed to have boosted hers, retroactively—for she and Uther both now also knelt in a patch of vibrant growth, fit to pasture the best of livestock.

  Here a new voice intruded, odd as Love’s own, though in a far different way. It came from Morrow’s mouth, though his dumbfounded face would seem to belie it, chanting—

  “Now, oh friends,

  Listen to the word, the true dream:

  Each spring gives us life,

  The golden ear of corn replenishes us,

  The young ear of corn becomes our necklace.

  Blood of men, so precious—

  So flowery, like jade.

  Our flowers will never end,

  Our songs will never cease to be.”

  This—prayer, one could only assume—rose up like a drone, lulling the townsfolk quiet. Beside Mister Grey, who knelt cradling the unconscious Hugo Hoffstedt in his lap, Mister Frewer arose and stepped toward Yancey, bending to pick up the blade she’d dropped.

  Uther caught Frewer by the wrist. “You’d best not be thinking of doing anything foolish with that, sir,” he said, low and flat.

  Frewer blinked, shaking his head. “Fools is what we were. Tried fire, lost everything. This . . .” A shrug. “. . . it seems right.”

  And it did feel that way, didn’t it? Languorous, lulling. Sweet as smoke.

  Yet one more voice she didn’t know (and hoped to never have to, by its tones) intruding, to whisper: Blood of men—and women, children, everyone: So flowery, like jade. Your precious, precious blood.

  “Uther—” Yancey reached to touch his hand, as she had Pargeter’s, trying not to dwell on the similarity. “Husband: we’ve nothing else to try.”

  Though Uther’s expression didn’t change, after a second, he turned Frewer loose—and without a word of thanks, Frewer instantly took the blade to his arm, freeing a jet so fierce it fair made Yancey gasp with horror. Not so much!

  But the other guests from Mouth-of-Praise still trapped within the church’s ruins were also rising, all with that same absent look. Those who had ’em drew their own knives, while those who didn’t went scrabbling among the wreckage for dining-ware, glass shards, sharp stones.

  The air turned coppery; blood pattered down, like spring rainfall. And Morrow’s voice rang out again, this time joined by near two-score others—each joining in with nary a stumble, as though they were reading off some invisible hymn-book.

  The house of He Who Creates Himself

  Is found nowhere;

  But our Lord, our God, is invoked everywhere,

  He is venerated under every sky.

  He is the One who creates all things,

  He is the One who made himself.

  Not a single person here

  Can be Your friend, O Giver of Life!

  We, lost below, can only seek You

  As if for someone hidden among flowers.

  Your heart grows weary of us.

  The Giver of Life drives us mad,

  And no one can truly be His friend,

  Succeed in life, or rule on Earth.

  The Weed changed so fast it seemed to shimmer, its fragrance fiercely fresh, storm popping like a soap bubble. Yancey felt the power flood her, strong enough to taste, and heard her blood sing out in answer, hot and living and furious. Felt Sheriff Love’s anger mount, equal fast as Pargeter’s ecstasy, and revelled in whatever hurt it did him—merely academic when compared to the blow he’d dealt her, off-hand, simply by being what he was. But a passive variety of vengeance on Pa’s behalf, nonetheless.

  Two knots of passion fought within her breast, bisected: cold grief, sharp loss, a mounting general horror, set cheek-by-jowl with blind triumph and burning delight. And at the apex, magnet-pulled, her gaze lifted to Pargeter once more, his black aura now gone the same brilliant green of his eyes . . . which met and locked with hers, equal-strong, to flare with mutual recognition.

  It’s too much. He can’t take it all in—can’t let it go, either. And now, right now, is when it’s gonna—

  —blow, sky-high. The green broke apart, knocking Pargeter ass over teakettle, dazed, sickened. The backlash sent Morrow to his aching knees yet again, jackknifed, dry-heaving into the grass; towns-folk who’d bled to feed the Weed all staggered too, likewise released.

  While Love rose up once more, strength and fury both surging back in a flood, boiling off of him like steam.

  He turned his face on faithless-proven Hoffstedtites and Mouth-of-Praisers alike, roaring that God-sent final verdict he’d spoke of to the uncaring skies: “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days!”

  Moving so fast Yancey could barely track his passage, Love was on Mister Frewer before the poor fool had time to blink and struck him a backhanded blow that spun his head near clean around, bone cracking like a gunshot-load; Yancey felt the spirit blast from his body even as it fell limp, face down into the grass he’d helped pray into being.

  “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth to the Lord of Sabaoth—” A few steps more brought him to where Hugo Hoffstedt lay, still unconscious, side by side with dead Sheriff Haish. Incensed beyond reason, Love lifted one boot and stamped down, crushing the complaint-fond tobacconist’s neck so hard it near sprang from the body on a burst of blood that stained his salt-crusted boot crimson.

  Jesus, Yancey’s mind repeated blindly, returning under fire to the less apparently reliable God of her youth. For in those two dreadful moments, all her hexcraft-got “victory” had turned to dust in her mouth.

  “Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter!” Love howled out, joyfully. To which her dear Uther, suddenly bereft of friends, enemies and barely made acquaintances alike, shook his handsome head in disapproval.

  “You, sir,” he told Love. “Can just . . . shut the hell up. Your point is made, and you’re frightening my wife.”

  Track-caught by such reasonableness, Love paused in his rampage, voice gone abruptly calm. “Well, as to that—your wife is damned, Marshal, I’m sad to say, same as every one’ve those she’s enticed to give the Devil reverence, rendering this place anathema; it should be burnt, so that better people may start over. Burnt to the ground, and its ashes salted.”

  Though white-lipped, Yancey found the grace to snort, amazed by her own audacity. “Really. Answer me this, the
n, Sheriff: things only occur ’cause God lets ’em, as I recall . . . so if it works, and it did, who are you to argue?”

  Those dead eyes swung back her way, two blasted moons in dull orbit. “Don’t be sophistical, ma’am,” Love replied. “It’s unbecoming.”

  Uther took a step closer. “I’m the one gets to decide that, thank you. Now—people have had enough; we’ll solve our own problems in our own way, thank you kindly. Leave.”

  “I don’t answer to you.”

  To this, Uther smiled, ever so slightly. “Oh?” he asked. And punched Love, hard.

  It was a roundhouse hook to the jaw that would’ve floored any other man. But the former Sheriff was—tacky, so the Marshal’s fist sunk in wrist-deep, then stuck. Yancey jumped to his aid, hauling on him with both arms ’til he tore free at last with a horrid sucking noise, sagging back against her. They were both equal-floored by the sight of his hand, skinned something nasty—a literal glove of blood, fingernails torn either almost to the root, or missing entirely.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Yancey cried out, and Uther seemed happy to hear her upset on his behalf.

  Started to say: “Hush, now—could be worse—”

  But that was when Sheriff Love chose to haul off himself, jab Uther so rough he crushed in one eye like a popped egg, then backhanded him into what was left of the altar stone. Uther’s temple struck the corner, skull broken open on impact, with a meaty crunch. One further twist, snapped-stick sharp, and he was looking back at her full-on, over his own shoulder.

  Yancey screamed and clapped both hands to her face, as Uther dropped away. She heard him fall. And knew, at last, that she was all alone. . . .