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.
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 ba
ck 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!
The Hexslinger Omnibus Page 39
