From the corner of his eye, he observed Missus Kloves run a nail up inside the sweaty band of her beaver. To distract her, he leaned forward and inquired, low: “So . . . how you like it so far? Bein’ took for a man, I mean.”
“It’s different. Not so bad, I suppose, apart from having to wear this.”
Morrow shrugged, touching his own hat’s brim. “You get used to it.”
“Do you? Well . . .” She shot a look over at Joe, who made sure to be staring elsewhere. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll doff it.”
Joe’s canny, not blind, Morrow felt like saying. But instead, he allowed: “Your call.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
A breath of a pause, which Morrow almost felt catch in his throat, and the decision was made—she lifted the offending headwear free, letting what was left of her marriage-day braids swing loose along with it, then dug in with both hands and unravelled them further, fluffing the solid mass out briskly. It fell to frame her face, two fistfuls deep, softening the pert lines of her jaw ’til her true sex was unmistakable—and Morrow took the thrum of it like a blow to the chest, Joe’s clear gasp echoing the one he feared to make.
Missus Kloves turned in her chair, lifting her eyes to Joe’s once more—and this time, he met them. “Ma’am,” he said, voice dry.
“Sir. Can I rely on your discretion?”
Joe considered this a second. Then: “Spring out for another bottle . . . real cash, this time . . . and it’s a deal.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Believe you’ll have to spot me, then,” she told Morrow.
“Guess I could stand another drink,” he said.
The “whiskey” was rotgut, which Morrow appreciated, since it meant Joe was letting them off cheap. Missus Kloves—Yancey, he reminded himself, God damn—took only the barest sip, visibly strained to withhold a coughing fit, then slid hers over.
“Your Mister Pargeter . . .” she began.
“He ain’t—” Too fast; he bit the words off, re-thought a bit. Carefully: “I got no real claim on Chess—we travel together, is all. He’s his own, if he’s anybody’s.”
“I truly meant no disrespect. Just that . . . people assume things, I’m sure.”
Pink touched up the apple of one cheek, shading to crimson; her eyes had already flicked away. More blushes all ’round, tonight, than at a church ladies’ sewing circle.
Deny it, right to her face, his nethers suggested meanly, and you still might have a chance. Chess won’t mind—ain’t like he’s Jesus, or you Peter. You don’t owe him everything.
Man’d been first to say it himself, after all: I somewhat think you like that gal, Ed. Like he was all but daring Morrow to do something about it.
“I can’t lie,” he said, finally. “I do count myself his friend, and we have been . . . friendly. But though I maintain there’s more things in him to admire than he’ll give himself credit for, I’m not his kind, which we both well know. So far, there’s been one man only for Chess in this whole world, that I’ve seen—and that man ain’t me.”
“So you don’t love him, then.” When Morrow didn’t answer, she went on, feeling her way: “Or . . . it’s a different sort of affection entirely, like me for Uther—for I did care, enough to honour my vows to the end, no matter what Mister Pargeter might think. Brotherly, perhaps?”
Morrow drained the extra glass fast, muttering, “Be a damn bad sort of brother, if it was.”
Giving thanks to Christ, at the same time he said it, that she’d never yet had occasion to touch his skin the way she had Geyer’s, much as part of him might want her to. Because that meant she wasn’t already privy to a whole host of chancy recollections, each with Chess’s name firmly attached: The flash of sweat between his freckled shoulder blades as Morrow hammered down hard into him, urged on by raucous cries; feel of his red beard’s slide in inconvenient places, mouth blazing a wet trail, as pleasure spilled over into pain. Or even the taste of last night’s breath mingling come morning, turning bad to good, fast as two pricks jerk upwards.
“He’s brave,” she allowed, obviously noting his continued embarrassment, yet blessedly unaware of the specifics. “That counts for something, I suppose.”
“Counts for a whole damn lot, in my book.”
“But is he trustworthy? That’s what I’m asking.”
“So long as other people are, around him . . . I’d have to say yes.” Morrow’s eyes sought hers, held them. “I mean—you’re trustworthy enough. I like to think I am.”
“Some would say you used to lie for a living, Mister Morrow.”
“Couldn’t’ve been too good at it, then. ’Cause I sure lost that job.”
At this, she gave a tiny grin followed by a snicker, and he paid her back in kind. Wondering if she saw anything at all whenever she happened to glance his way, ’sides from a fool twice her age, with unsteady morals and odd habits.
I’m an idiot, Morrow thought.
Yancey sighed. “So he means well at heart, according to you, no matter how rudely he behaves,” she said, as to herself. “Very well: I’ll take that as wrote, if I must. But like I said, if he keeps on spendthrifting that extra hexation we gifted him with on trifles, tossing it ’round like Katy-bar-the-door, we’ll be trouble-bound long before Sheriff Love catches up with us.”
“Which you think he will.”
“Think?” Another smile—wider, and far more fixed. “Mister Morrow . . . I pray for such a meeting, devoutly. I count on it.”
Though he’d figured her for being able to take care of herself long before her wedding-rout, the look that came into her eyes as she said this near froze him to his seat. Her initial grief and shock had given way to something darker—a thing he only now realized he’d feared might happen, all along—and Morrow found himself somewhat pitying the next person who might get between her and the next opportunity to work vengeance on Sheriff Love’s salt-cured corpse.
Again, he tried to turn her thoughts in another direction. “We can just pray more power into him, I reckon, we have to . . . you being his high priestess, or what-have-you.”
“Is that what I am?” She considered the idea. “No, I doubt that: anyone’s shed blood would do just as well to feed him, from what we witnessed.”
“Not without you to pray over it, it wouldn’t.”
“But . . . you prayed too, Mister Morrow. So . . .”
“Might be it’s both of us that’s needed, to work that particular trick,” he finished, without thinking. And got another little kick in the ribs from how his heart leaped to see her string the truth together equal-swift, forehead knit in concentration, like somebody’d taken up an invisible stitch between her fine, dark brows and yanked, hard.
“It’s a puzzle, all right,” she said. “And we don’t have much time.”
Morrow cast his mind back to the Hoard, how he’d felt the sheer force of his and Yancey’s worship spin almighty-powerful Chess between ’em like a child’s whipped top. A double possession dragging alien words from both their lips—rendering centuries-old jabber-squawk to English, while the power they’d unwittingly harnessed went surging forth through the newly greened ground, fighting its way up into Chess like a flooded river spilling its dam. It was the sheer responsiveness of the tremendous energies they’d dallied with that scared the bejesus out of him, even now. Yet in the end, Morrow knew none of the power was his, or hers. It had been placed under their temporary command for one purpose only: to render it up to Chess, even as Chess fought it off with every last particle of bone and sinew.
A sick breath out of the dark, memory-borne stench of cold draft and wet rock walls: “English” Oona Pargeter’s raddled whore’s pan, opium-cooked from the inside-out, cured like meat. A woman reduced to nothing but need, just dead flesh still teetering upright, wrapped like Hell’s own candy
in hate and poison.
The only thing Ed Morrow knew for sure Chess Pargeter feared, in life or death, was the thought that he might be likewise helpless one day before a similar hunger. So to find himself a hex, after all that—and not just a hex, either, but a damn blood-drunk god of hexes, power magnified beyond all comprehension alongside the clamouring jones for more, ever more.
If Oona had ever thought to put a curse on him, that’d’ve been a doozy, right there. And seeing how hexes bred hexes, who knew? Having met her the once, Morrow certainly wouldn’t have put it past her to try.
But now he blinked free of contemplation, realizing Yancey was repeating something. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, I’ve drunk my fill; looks to me like you have, too. Time to retire, for both of us.”
“Probably best, yes.”
Now even Joe was gone, leaving the whole place vacant. As they paused on the landing, poised to go their separate ways, he asked her (again without thinking, as seemed to be the pattern): “You’ll be all right?”
Fresh ridiculousness piled on top of a whole heap, enough to make him grit his teeth ’til they squeaked. But she didn’t even seem to notice.
“Don’t rightly know, Mister Morrow,” she replied. “I’ll have to, I expect.”
Then, quick as a fawn, she had already crossed over to her room—Geyer’s, rather—and clicked the door to, shutting him in the hall.
Inside “his” suite, meanwhile, nothing stirred, though Morrow doubted Chess was sleeping; he didn’t appear to need to, these days, no more than to eat or drink, dress himself, or keep track of his possessions. Whatever he wanted for, he could conjure—just like anything he didn’t want could be as easily disposed of, with even less warning.
Inside, the moon paled things so they looked almost clean. Chess sat cross-legged on top of the bed, still mainly dressed, back turned and staring out the window, apparently unaware he was no longer alone. His boots lay shucked on the floor, puddled all over with silverish light; the same light touched his hair, and rimmed his sideburns with frost.
But when Morrow came up sidelong, quiet as he could, he realized that Chess might as well not be there at all. Deep in some sort of trance, his green eyes were open but empty, pupils invisible. His skin, cool as a too-deep sleeper’s, barely dented to the touch.
The most amazing thing, seeing him this way, was to realize once more just how young the most ruthless off-hand killer Morrow’d ever met really was—barely older than Yancey herself.
No play tonight, he thought. Just as well, given . . .
So, with a presumption born of long-stood intimacy, he stroked Chess’s eyes shut to save them from dust and pressed him prone, then crawled in next to him and cuddled up, one arm flung ’round him for warmth; no earthly way to tell if that was how Chess wanted it, so why not? They could debate it in the morning.
Ed Morrow let his own eyes close, heavy as though individually weighted—felt his breath slow, ’til his lungs barely seemed to strain.
Then, in the dream he hadn’t even guessed was creeping up on him, he opened them once more . . . only to find himself perched on a ludicrously tiny, filigreed bench in the rock garden out back of Cold Mountain Hotel, with Yancey sat up next to him: ankles crossed delicate, hair neat-dressed, wearing the exact same clothes as when he’d first met her.
“This is where my Mama’s buried,” she informed him. “Where she was, anyhow, if it’s still there. I wonder where they buried Pa?”
“I’m sure someplace just as nice. People liked Mister Colder.”
“They did, didn’t they? I always thought it was more for show than anything else, since there were some at the start—Hugo Hoffstedt amongst ’em—who claimed having a saloon in town invited dicey elements. But after Mama passed, I believe that softened folks toward us.” She wiped at her cheek, briskly. “Knew all along I’d outlive them both, of course; it’s no tragedy, like being forced to bury your children. I just . . . hadn’t thought it would come so soon.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he told her. “Truly so.”
“I know you are.” A pause. “She was born into the Hebrew faith, I think; him too. Don’t quite know what that makes me, considering I was married in a church.”
“Never cared too much on religion, myself. The Rev used to say all it was good for was reasons folks could kill each other over, and I suppose he’d know.”
“What was he like, Reverend Rook?”
Awful, he wanted to say. The sun struck hard against those neat-laid border stones at their feet, picking out the quartz, and dazzled him; there were tiny green sticker plants growing in between, furled and succulent, like thorny roses.
“Gave a fair impression of being good, sometimes,” he made himself reply, “and Chess did love him, in his way. But to tell you the truth—I hope to hell you never have to find out.”
“Am I dreaming this, Mister Morrow? Ed?”
He’d been wondering that himself, somewhat. Beyond the garden, the Hoard’s main street shimmered slightly; the garden’s dust glittered like mica. Yet Yancey stayed cool and fresh, her calm eyes infinitely inviting. Morrow yearned to watch his reflection fill them up, like little grey mirrors.
“Well . . .” he began, slowly. “. . . I know I’m asleep.”
She nodded, yet again. And then, as though that’d decided the matter for her, she climbed up onto his lap, too quick for him to do much more than rock back in surprise—the weight of her plopped astride, pressing hard down on him. One small breast seemed almost to lunge itself into his hand, nipple scarring the palm, as she traced a thumb ’round the shape of his lips like she was measuring his mouth for size, or trying to sell herself on what might be the best thing to do next.
“No need to be over-formal, in a dream,” she said, carefully.
Through a suddenly dry mouth: “Guess not.”
Though he couldn’t’ve told what she tasted of, he somehow knew it was the exact same way he’d always hoped she would. As they kissed with lips and teeth, messily, Morrow thrust his other hand up under her skirts, only to meet with no real resistance; everything just peeled away to his touch, skinned itself the way a flower drops its petals. There was a fine dusting of hairs all up and down the insides of her thighs, dusky-silky, to match the thatch on her innermost parts; when he slipped two fingers inside, a smell emerged both fresh and salt. He groaned at the feel, out loud, and loudly: so long, so damn long. . . .
With a last sticky nip, Yancey sat back, both breasts unlaced and blushing prettily. Said, breathless, “I’m unsullied yet, Mister Morrow, if you’d wondered. Uther and I never got so far; he was old-fashioned in some ways, which I found charming. Still, I’d take it as a great kindness were you to relieve me of that particular burden, if only in metaphor, before waking.”
Morrow blinked, stupid. “Oh. Yes?”
“Yes.” She sat forward, solemn: “Ruin me, Ed.”
“I’ll . . . do my very best.”
A twist, a tumble, and the bench fell away, the garden itself dissolving around them—sand turned to silk, sheets on a phantom bed slipping down ’round both their hips. And they were naked, too—conveniently so, scrabbling and grabbing at each other, with him pressing forward, she straining to widen herself around him. He was simultaneously surprised and not by her apparent understanding of the act, for wasn’t this what dreams were for? To play out in full whatever actions the day’s demands had denied them, truncated by duty’s call or time’s restraints?
One leg wrapped ’round his, calf to calf, while the other arched up and back, so she could hook it ’round his hip; he sunk deep, drawing a double gasp. “Oh God,” she said, through her teeth, as the movement lit them both up from inside out. “God, sweet Christ, good God Jesus—”
(good God almighty, go on and hit that)
What?
/> (You heard me, Edward.)
Hands in his hair, digging. Her breath in his ear, a bite grazing the lobe. While the whole of her clamped down on him, back locked in spasm, wet and hot and glorious as spilled blood.
“Harder,” she told him, voice rising and sinking both, a fucked cat’s mean-ass squall. “Harder, harder, Jesus God, who’s the Goddamn faggot here, ’tween the both of us? Stick it in, twist it like you mean it, motherfucker, do me ’til it damn well hurts—I said hard, you dumb ox, HARD!”
“Gah! What the shit-fuck son-of-a-gun—”
Morrow went leaping back, pecker out and near to spitting, from Chess’s violent embrace. Chess bolted upright too, mussed from the bottom up with his customarily immaculate hair sweat-stuck every which way, face red as his wilting prick. To spit out, mouth caught in a betrayed half-snarl: “Were you screwin’ that damn girl in your dreams?”
Morrow clutched at himself, instinctually modest, though it wasn’t like the two of ’em hadn’t seen everything the other had on offer. “What’s it to you, if I was? You even think t’ask me, ’fore you started using me for entertainment?”
“I didn’t think I had to!”
“Then we both know somethin’ new, now, don’t we?”
For all he knew, Chess’d been dreaming too, and couldn’t really help it. But still, Morrow found, he’d genuinely believed they were past all that—how he wasn’t simply some muscle-bound toy for Chess to amuse himself with, some handy object to rub against, but . . . a pal, Goddamnit. The way he most-times felt Chess was to him, these days.
Poised to spit out his ire, Chess abruptly seemed to think better, and let himself settle. Allowing, finally: “S’pose I might’a surprised you.”
“Oh, just a tad.”
“Though it ain’t like you seemed exactly reluctant, at the time.”
The Hexslinger Omnibus Page 47
