A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  She nodded, a queenly dip of her back-sloped forehead, from which dead Miz Adaluz’s locks were creeping steadily back, restoring her original Mayan hairline.

  “He must Become, completely,” she agreed, “and whatever help we can give him to do so will aid all three of us, in the end. Yet perhaps we should not discuss such matters of true import in front of your . . . pet.”

  Oh, don’t mind me none, Hosteen began, only to have her round on him in full terrible aspect, dragonfly cloak whipping out every which way, to fill the tomb with buzzing choir music.

  “Silence, creature!” she snapped. “You have no right to insult me with speech at all, let alone so informally!”

  If ghosts had shoulders, Hosteen would’ve been squaring his, fists rising like he thought the two of them were like to settle the issue with an all-out bar-brawl. Silence your damn self, Jezebel! ’Cause with me, you’re pretty much none for none: I ain’t a hex, never took your Oath, and you already got me killed.

  “If you truly believe yourself somehow outside my power simply because you are dead, old soldier—”

  Rook interposed, smoothly. “Kees . . . consider yourself dismissed.”

  The bottle appeared in his palm at a finger-snap, Hosteen’s hair-smoke coiling aimlessly inside. Immediately, his former friend’s sad imprint accorded it the entirety of his attention, like a pointing dog; Rook almost thought he could see the semblance of his grey mane rise, ruffling the way a vulture’s crest puffs in anticipation of something nicely rotten.

  I can go now, that’s what you’re sayin’? he asked, understandably suspicious.

  “With my blessing.”

  Keep it. But—if you happen to get the chance, tell Chess—

  Hosteen stole a look back at Ixchel, who barely seemed aware he hadn’t left already. “Tell him what?” Rook prompted, gently.

  A raft of emotions flickered ’cross the dead man’s face, all equally truncated. At last, he merely shook his head, and sighed: . . . nothin’.

  Rook cast the bottle down, heard it pop, and watched what little was left of his third-in-command blow out, a windless wind-gust, leaving nothing behind but those next uncertain steps along his future’s bleak road.

  ’Round and ’round it goes, Rook thought. Like a mill wheel ’cross the threshing floor. And the grain is ground into chaff, good and bad likewise, so one from the other is rendered indistinguishable.

  “I’m thinking we might leave Three-fingered Hank in charge, while we’re both gone,” was all he said out loud, however. “Him and his ladies, that is. Makes for four pairs of eyes watchin’ our backs, ’stead of just the one.”

  “As you see fit.”

  “Should probably go up and tell ’em, then.”

  “Yes,” she replied, utterly remote even as she reached for his hand, fingers cold as ever in this deep-set chamber pot of a place; rough with wear, slick with something he could only hope was sweat. One lavender fingernail seemed ill-set in its bed, peeling upwards, perhaps about to detach, so he covered it with his own lengthy index, fist engulfing all her stolen digits like a mitt.

  My bed, he reminded himself, repeating the words incessantly, a caltrop rosary. And folded her to him, allowing the hiss-winged swarm-cloak to carry them both away.

  Yancey was well-braced to see Sheriff Mesach Love’s leprous salten face again, once she, Geyer and Morrow followed Chess down to the saloon’s front door. Yet she hadn’t at all expected what Chess did next, upon that threshold: stopped short, one hand thrown up, warning them all back—a former soldier’s gesture, ripe with uncharacteristic caution.

  “You know how the Sheriff out there and me first met, Ed?” he said, not turning back, as contrast between harsh light outside and gloom within made a haloed silhouette of him.

  Morrow hesitated, before admitting: “Read the Agency report, yeah. Like everybody else.”

  Chess nodded, raising his voice to include Yancey herself—even Geyer—in the juice of the tale. “He was gonna lead a posse ’gainst us, which meant we had to set an example, so’s others wouldn’t get similar ideas. And me, I’d’ve just snuck in and killed the fucker, but Ash Rook wanted to make a production of the whole to-do, ’cause that’s how he’s bent. So I went along, like I always did. . . .” He paused. “Still, only now occurs to me—at least Love really believed what he preached back then, dumb bastard. Was more’n willing to die over it to defend his kith and kin, which’s pretty funny when you think about it, ’cause all of them was equal ready to die for him, too. That woman of his, who wouldn’t leave his side no-how, no matter what he said—got saltified the exact same way, God’s favour or no. And when she went down, she took their baby along with her.”

  And I laughed at her, while it happened, Yancey alone heard inside her head, Chess wondering over his own actions, as at a stranger’s. Laughed at all three of ’em, like my sides were fit to split.

  “You did him a terrible wrong, that’s true enough,” she agreed, out loud. Thinking back, at the same time: And that’d be ’cause you’re a bad man, I reckon—selfish and angry and unforgiving, if not downright wicked. Though you’ve suffered, too, and pain makes us all human, more or less.

  Yeah, well, he replied, internally, that’s the part ain’t debatable, like I told the Rev, back when he was moral enough to care. So I still don’t aim to debate it.

  Adding: “Hell, gal, think I don’t know what-all I got to be sorry for? Used to be, though, I wouldn’t have cared; I miss that.”

  “You can’t just not care—”

  “I can. Could.” Here he finally turned, again seeming to address them together. “’Cause fact is, it don’t do any earthly good to feel bad over what the gun’s pointing at, when it gets to be time to draw. All that’ll ever do is get you killed, right along with the ones you pump a bullet in.”

  Yancey drew breath to disagree, but Love already was bawling out his challenge once more: “Pargeter! You gone deaf or what, you heathen creature? Don’t cower there in the dark with your entourage—come face me on this cut-rate Megiddo’s field of battle, like the man you purport to be!”

  “I’d tell you to come over here and say that,” Chess called back, “but . . . hell, guess I can probably screw you up just as easy, you stay right where you’re standing.”

  And with that, he stepped free, shrugging his jacket back from his belt as he strolled into range: sheerest habit, both holsters being empty. While Yancey stepped straightaway out behind him, fast enough that Morrow and Geyer were hard-pressed to follow—only to halt, mid-stride, when she saw what Love had brought along with him.

  “Lord God of Hosts and all his angels protect us!”

  She felt herself stagger, caught up one more time by Ed Morrow’s welcome arm; clutched close to its warmth for comfort, finding none. Because—those figures arrayed ’round Love, just waiting—she knew them . . . had known them. They hung as if by hooks through the neck, all their weight dangling limp, blank eyes staring off to a dozen different quarters. And woven over it all, pallid flesh and dirty rigs alike—sewn through the muscle, covering bone where it showed, blossoming crimson pods at every cheesecloth-skinned joint—a net of Weed throbbed and knotted, a hundred thousand marionette cords grown thick and juicy, hideously animate.

  Morrow tensed like he wanted to throw punches, but didn’t know where to aim. “Oh, you crack-walking son of Goddamn Perdition,” he said, in much the same tone Yancey’d just used.

  Love simply shrugged, and spread his arms out wide—unconsciously cruciform—to encompass the army he’d brought along with him. Yancey’s eyes followed them as though magnetized, helpless not to recognize faces, along the way: poor Sheriff Haish’s remains, neck wound packed full of leaves that fluttered with each heave the Weed forced out of him, like soft green gills. Hugo Hoffstedt to his right, even worse—torn-off head held precarious atop his body, wobbling with each step, by tendrils wound ’round neck stump and skull alike. Mister Frewer, so cadaverous in life, now looked sucked alm
ost dry; his head bobbed loose as well, seeming to float on a fan-like growth of fronds that strung ’emselves through jawbones and cheeks, rendering his entire brain-pan a ball balanced between invisible juggler’s fingertips.

  Everywhere Yancey looked, yet another of her murdered wedding guests stood repugnantly upright, Hoffstedt’s Hoarders and Mouth-of-Praisers reforged by death into a more tenuous fellowship. On all too many of them, she saw livid slashes where they’d shed blood to feed Chess, far too late to benefit from their sacrifice. And finally, to either side of Love himself . . .

  Both Yancey’s knees gave out, so quick she barely felt them go—but this time, she caught herself in mid-fall and drew up back up sharply, hands falling to what were now her gun-butts. Using her own rage as fuel, she gladly allowed it to eat her anguish ’til nothing remained but a genuine will to shoot ’til she could shoot no more, no matter how many bullets it took to put these apparitions down for good.

  And then you, Sheriff. I’ll see you ground into parts so fine you poison the earth you stand on ’fore I allow any more of this disgusting offence ’gainst life itself, Goddamnit.

  Her father, chest-hole thick with Weed that swelled and beat like a second heart; Uther, green filling out the grisly wounds deforming his half-pulped skull like a mask, right hand a sticky glove, hiding the hole Yancey knew had been blasted through it. He still wore the remains of the same suit he’d spoken his vows to her in.

  And then, as if her recognition-spark had jumped the gap from living to dead, Uther Kloves’ lone remaining eye slid snail-track slow ’round to hers, and blinked.

  Nothing in there to call “alive”, not any more. But God, oh God, all the same—

  “They’re screaming,” she heard herself say, core-stricken. “Inside, deep down. Almost too deep to get to, for anybody but me.”

  Each in turn, the rest all cocked their heads, bringing their dead gazes to bear—Haish, Frewer, Hoffstedt . . . Pa. Their soundless shrieking went up forever like some Hell-made alarum, setting her whole skin to sizzling.

  “Missus Kloves,” Geyer said, “we can’t hear a thing, really—”

  “What’s that to me? Point is, they’re still here, some tiny part of ’em at least. And they just damn well shouldn’t be.”

  Abruptly, Morrow turned on Love. “Who is it told you could do this, you bastard? Goddamn God?” She felt the rage beat from him like heat, in waves. “You lay those people down again! They’re dead, and they got the right to stay that way!”

  Love seemed unimpressed; Yancey thought there probably wasn’t much could even startle him, these days. “But this isn’t my doing, Agent Morrow—only miraculous Word I know’s our Lord’s, and unlike Reverend Rook, I employ it correctly. As Mister Pargeter’s Enemy told me to tell you, this is all his fault, and only likely to get worse.” Those dry eyes narrowed. “But see, I almost didn’t need to, for he knows it already. Ask him to deny it, if he can.”

  Chess spat. “Why would I? Just admitted the same, not twenty seconds back.”

  Love nodded, as though this only went to prove his point.

  “No,” he repeated, “wasn’t me threw these poor souls into purgatory. But if He’s given them to me for use, I’ll certainly point them in whatever direction He sees fit to lead me.”

  “That ‘He’ you’re talking of—that wouldn’t be God, now, would it?” Yancey hurled the words at him, hands settling into proper, draw-ready grip on her hand-me-down shooting irons. “Our God? Or don’t you even pretend to be doing His work anymore?”

  “What good would that do me? I’m damned no matter, Missus, by this malefic creature’s hand.” Indicating Chess, Love gave a smile so bitter his lips wrenched apart in sections. “Yet if I cannot pull myself back up, I can pull you all down here with me.”

  “I knew it!” Splitfoot Joe yelled from an upstairs window, startling all concerned. “I damn well knew it! You’re the fuck-all bad-luck king, Chess Pargeter!”

  “Oh, shut your pie-hole!” Chess shouted back, shutting Joe’s window with a flip of one hand—then smashing the shutters closed over it, for good measure.

  Love looked up, over Chess’s head, and raised his gravelly voice, calling out: “That’s sadly so, innkeep—you’ll burn just as long and bad as this creature here, for harbouring him and his. Though if you turned against him, joined the side of Right for once in your miserable life . . . well, things, might go different. You have my word, as a man of faith.”

  Chess’s bark of a laugh was oddly steadying, for sheer familiarity. “Damn, Sheriff. How almighty stupid you think that man is, anyhow?”

  “Given he sold you room and board, even at gunpoint? I’ll take my chances.” Love shifted his gaze to Morrow; the big man paled, but didn’t flinch. “Maybe you’re thinking to buy the sinners dwelling here time to flee? You’re soft enough to care more for them than yourself, I reckon, however much a waste it is.” To Geyer, meanwhile: “And you, a Pinkerton man yet, standing in the whirlwind’s path—allied with oath-breakers, demons and inverts. Will you die in their defence?”

  “Stand by a friend, when I have to. Seems the thing to do.”

  Love shook his head. “Foolishness. You know Pargeter won’t stand by you, any of you. Not if he thinks it’ll cost him.” Moving his dead, salt-white eyes back to Chess: “For that’s all you’ve ever done, even before you met Rook. Kill and steal, and run when you’re done. You leave nowhere better for your presence. Even the green growth you sow is poison, unnatural, as you always have been. Invert. Faithless. Worthless.”

  Chess’s fists tightened; the power-mist about him drew in, like shoulders hunched against a blow. When he answered, his voice fair hummed, wound whiplash-tight. “I pay my way, Sheriff. And I pay my debts.”

  “When it suits you, yes. When the whim amuses you. And when you do pay, it’s not in gold but with others’ blood, or whorish sin—others’ corruption, even if the means of it doesn’t seem corrupt to you. Muddy everything, kick it all down and crow over the ruin . . .real companionship, love, family.” Love’s face warped, as though some torrent pulsed beneath it. “So prove you have some worth, Chess Pargeter. Your heretics would gladly spill blood to see you thwart me once again; refuse them. Face me without that Hell-borne potency, if you dare.”

  Chess said nothing for a moment that became so appallingly long, Yancey’s stomach clenched up. Oh, no, he can’t be thinking—

  Luckily, however, he obviously wasn’t.

  “Opinions aside, one thing I ain’t is a fool,” was all Chess said. “And since I well remember how our last fight went . . . this time, we’re gonna try somethin’ different.” He turned his head just slightly, not so’s he had to take his eyes from Love, yet just far enough to throw a nod in Yancey’s direction. “Missus Kloves, if you please.”

  Before he’d even finished, both guns were in Yancey’s hands, muzzles already bead-drawn. The first bullet went straight through Lionel Colder’s forehead, freeing a burst of jellied blood and pulped matter, along with something brighter—something nobody but her saw, feeling a whip-crack of grief-struck joy as that final soul-shred rocketed upwards. Uther went down a second later, double-load of loss and relief splashing past as his vine-ridden corpse crumpled. With both blasts, Love howled, clapping hands to his head like he’d been shot.

  And then—the fallen bodies stirred. Dragged themselves clumsily back up, empty puppets now, tools turned weapons. Yancey kept the Colts level, unwavering.

  Love straightened too, almost as slow. “Pointless,” he rasped. “The dead cannot be killed. And I cannot be stopped by pain.”

  Yancey cocked the guns. “Maybe not. But it’s worth the effort, just to try.”

  ’Cause I sure do like that sound you make, when I do.

  As she opened up again, a cold prism dropped over it all. Time slowed. Each trigger-pull felt leisurely, the possibility of missing a bad jape. Brains flew like sap. To either side, she Morrow and Geyer stepped to follow her lead. Their combined shot-sto
rm chewed its way through the corpse army’s ranks, knocking them spinning. Yancey cheered each released fragment as it leapt upwards. Though she realized she was weeping, she kept blasting away—watched Love, fallen to his knees, arch backwards in agony, his own screams lost in the deafening roar.

  Then her pistols ran dry; a second later, Morrow and Geyer ceased fire as well. Yancey gasped, breast heaving, barely able to breathe for cordite stink. Grey-white clouds of smoke rolled away. The dropped Weed-revenants stirred still, a ripped-raw fan of carnage, fresh shoots knitting back together with dreadful inexorability. Yet Yancey only had eyes for Love’s own feebly shifting form, her eyes swollen yet heart exultant.

  Though it might well be her life’s last act, by God, she had hurt him, finally—made him know pain for what he’d done. And that was worth something, certainly.

  As though she’d spoken, Chess’s eyes slid back her way, with no mockery at all in them for once, only respect. A look even one without her gifts might have read as meaning: Yes, that’s right. Now you see. Now you understand.

  As a few revenants made what was left of their feet, Love pushed himself up as well, even though his face’s very shape was beginning to soften. Salt sprayed wet from his mouth, guttural words nigh-incomprehensible: “Daaammnashun,” he croaked. “Ghaaadzss Judzhh . . . ment—!”

  One half-melted hand lifted. At its cue, the Weed-corpses trudged on toward Chess, who watched them come.

  “Not that I’m lookin’ to hurry you,” Morrow muttered, hand rising protective to Yancey’s shoulder, “but it’d be useful as all get out, to know what you’re fixed to pull from that trick-bag of yours, if and when.”

  Chess raised a finger. “Not just yet, Ed—wait a minute. Hold position.”

  “This ain’t the front lines, Chess!”

  “Ain’t it?”

  Even Geyer’s hard-won calm was starting to crack. “Um—no?”

  Chess paused, eyes gone abruptly narrow, like he’d spotted something off in the distance—then grinned broadly, half born killer’s incipient battle joy, half boyish delight. “Here it comes,” he said.