“Or some people, either?”
Yiska rolled her eyes, snorting — but whatever she was about to say next was lost in a sudden ripping crack like a tiny thunderclap, followed by a high-pitched scream that jerked her ’round. “Ai-eh, now?” she snapped, grabbing up her spear, and bolted back up the path; barefoot and weaponless, Yancey tore after her, on sheer reflex.
They rounded a curve behind a rise in the rock, and stopped, gaping. In front of them, something like a dog bounded back and forth — but no dog stood near as tall as Yancey at the shoulder, nor clawed at its victims with leathery five-fingered hands like an ape’s, ruff of black glass spikes bristling with every growl. Around it, dozens of deerskin- and wool-clad albino Chinese girls shrieked as they ran in all directions, crab-walked backward or stood paralyzed, hands to hidden faces. The creature took the head off one in a single vicious swipe, only for both head and headless body to burst in a damp cloud of ectoplasmic mist and vanish; it sent up its own cry of cheated hunger, an unnatural soprano yipe.
Illusion! Yancey thought, throwing the word straight at Yiska’s mind. She focused her Sight, struck through hexation’s layers to find the real Songbird perhaps ten feet away, backing just as slowly and silently away from the monster as she could. A damn good plan, in Yancey’s opinion. But you couldn’t say any shred of the Enemy was without sense, and maybe realizing Songbird’s intent was enough to draw attention to it, for the dog-thing paused, hunkering down — cocked its head and shifted, nostrils flared wide, dragging in deep, snorting breaths, ignoring the ghosts in favour of the girl’s real scent.
Without thinking, Yancey found herself leaping forward, waving both arms wildly. “Hey!” she screamed. “Here, you son of a bitch! Here!”
The thing whirled, drawing bead on Yancey, and she went still — not in fear, so much, as sheerest concentration. Danger slid her senses to their highest pitch, so far she could see lines of power like greasy tendrils running from beast to the Crack and beyond, from whence it came. Even if she had no hexation herself to smite it with, those power lines she could seize . . . could, and did.
Contorted in mid-leap, the creature crashed to earth, flailing at her feet with those inhumanly human hands while its soul pressed hard ’gainst hers, tight as any lover. Yancey shook with effort, alternating blasts of rage and hurt lighting her mind with dreadful images: Chess Pargeter and Sheriff Love in full array, tearing at each other hopelessly; the reborn Sheriff under her gun, his skull bullet-hollowed, wife screaming his name like she had Uther’s. Ed Morrow sprouting claws and fangs, savaging her. The creature hunched itself closer, flooding out hunger so fierce it was its own agony. Yancey tried to step back but found herself paralyzed, her grip on the spirit lines slipping.
The monster began to rise — then slammed back down as Yiska drove her spear hard through the back of its neck, pinning it to the earth, before dodging away. Ear-scraping squeals drowned to gurgles; it writhed, spewing gushes of stinking black blood Yancey avoided only by inches. Songbird’s many selves winked out, leaving a single version, striving hard to seem unimpressed. And when Yiska saw that she laughed out loud, triumphant — wheeled back, poised to count coup, eager to show off in front of at least one of them.
But it wasn’t to be. Without warning, a massive foot made of dirty bone crashed down on the thing, flattening it to silence in a single stroke.
Angrier looking than she’d seemed at any previous point, Yiska glared up at the only vaguely human figure towering over her and Yancey. “You broke my spear, Spinner!” she shouted, fists on hips. “Am I to slay the next foe with my knife only?”
Grandma looked blankly down without speaking, then turned, trudging back up the slope. Yiska grimaced and muttered under her breath; Yancey couldn’t catch the sense of it, but felt a hint of fear under the anger. Which, given how little fear she felt from Yiska generally, was worrying enough.
“Hell was that, anyway?” she asked her.
“Huehueteotl,” said Yiska. “Tools of the Enemy, when he wishes; more dangerous still, when he gives them no orders.” To Songbird: “A good tactic, White Shell Girl. You remembered what I said.”
“Which was?” Songbird called back, shrill and breathy, arms wrapped ’round herself with the blanket fallen from her white face.
Yiska’s smile returned, wide as ever. “If you can’t be strong, be clever.”
Songbird opened her mouth to refute this, but found Yiska half-gone before she could — slipping past Yancey, shattered spear already snatched up, following in Grandma’s wake to meet her braves, who’d come running down to “help.” She yelled something raucous at them, earning laughs in return.
Songbird stared after her, face shaded, yet bewilderment plain.
“Spend half our time killing whatever comes out of that damn crack,” Yancey complained to Songbird, later. “Dogs with hands, fish walking, snakes with a head at each end, what’s it gonna be next? And for all the . . . stuff . . . comes out of that Goddamn thing, you’d think it’d be easy to send one thought halfway into it, right? Well, no such luck. Like trying to cast a fishing line through mud.”
Instead of snapping, Songbird actually cast her an amused look. “Are you sure you have not yet contacted English Oona’s son? Your imitation astonishes.”
Against her will, Yancey found herself laughing — and was surprised as all hell, after a moment, to find Songbird had joined her.
“As for this-all with . . . Yiska, and you,” she said, finally, “I just hope . . .”
Songbird bristled. “Hope what?”
“. . . you’re not taking advantage, that’s what. Not trifling with her affections, such as they are, since she’s treated you well in harsh circumstances. That you’ll consider how she’s an honourable creature, in her way, and act the same, if you can. But I’ve said my piece, so that’s where I’ll leave it.”
Schoolmarmish in the extreme, Yancey chided herself; she’ll never fall for it. And indeed, the albino first stared at her askance, before having the grace to seem just a touch guilty.
“Look at me,” she said, at last. “This place . . . I am hardly suited to it, or anywhere else. I have spent my whole life in a box, surrounded, always a possession; I cannot take care of myself. I must have a protector, especially now, and — she wants that role. Shall I deny her?”
Though Yancey could hardly object on moral grounds, she nevertheless heard herself say: “Might be kinder.” To which Songbird only laughed again, this time more bitterly.
“Do I seem kind, to you?” she demanded.
“You could be. Could try to, anyhow.”
Songbird nodded slightly, as if to say: I know it. “Yes,” she agreed.
CHAPTER THREE
There were no clocks in Hex City, no more than newspapers, so what information Reverend Asher Rook got on the outside world came mainly from the mouths of dying men with a side order of illusory infiltration and spying-by-proxy, since there were those to hand who could throw their consciousnesses up and peep through passing birds’ eyes, or cast ’em down into the narrow minds of a whole stealthy hoard of creeping things. Or cough out bits of ’emselves to fashion fetches from, tiny jewel-eyed sickness-bugs they’d let loose to float across to Pinkerton’s encampment, there to gather what intelligence they might before being spotted and squashed.
Every night, darkness beat the sun down like a hammer, reddening the horizon with its blood. Yet every dawn it struggled back up again, eager for similar punishment.
Even with Chess, Rook had woken to an otherwise empty bed or bedroll as often as not, yet that fact had never troubled him, no more than when a housecat leapt from your lap, tired of caresses. Most times, he could crack open an eye, roll to one side and find Chess crouching sentinel by the fire’s ashes or sitting in a chair cleaning his pistols, green eyes bright in the gloom. Never far, with something always left behind — some heat, some scent — to hold his place ’til he came back.
&nbs
p; The bed Rook slept in now, in a vast stone room midway up the Temple’s side, was the grandest he’d seen west of the Mississippi: down-filled pillows, silken sheets, rich dark wood ornately carved as any Continental throne. And if it might’ve been nothing but deadfall and grave cloth before the Lady set her power to it, that hardly mattered, for once fixed in shape, the sybaritic softness was real enough. But however many nights Ixchel shared it with him — fewer and fewer, of late — no warmth ever lingered in its hexaciously self-cleaning sheets. The limestone walls held cold silence, as if jealous of the favour their maker showed him; the chalky flint of the floor stung his feet, and shadows sulked in every corner. Rook almost wished he had his Bible back, just so’s he might find words enough to express how deeply he’d come to hate it.
But a room amongst the people did not befit the High Priest-king of New Aztectlan — and hateful though it might be, Rook had to admit, this chamber did have its advantages: wards fierce enough to keep anybody but Herself from entering without his say-so, for example, or wake him if anyone tried. So when the Mexican girl, Ixchel’s pet — Marizol, her name was, one of the blood-cult’s get — walked in, Rook snapped instantly alert, cold and tense, a literal curse on his lips.
“Jefe?” Her accent, so like that of dead Miz Adaluz — Ixchel’s unfortunate first vessel — slurred liquid yet higher-pitched, diffident and breathy. “Forgive me — the Lady, she said I could come. That you could . . . use me.”
Use you? Well, that was mighty nice of her. Like how, I wonder?
Rook felt the urge to laugh and a surge of anger, but managed to fight ’em both down, hopefully unnoticed. This job certainly was good for his self-restraint, if nothing else.
“Marizol,” he rasped, scrubbing a palm ’cross his bristles. “I’m sure the Lady must have . . . a sight more useful things for you to do than wait on me. Could be you’re needed at services, maybe? In the Moon Court?”
Marizol shook her head. “No, jefe, please! I don’t want to go back — you don’t know, I think, how bad it’s gotten. Terrible things are done there. Terrible . . .” She seemed a mere shadow herself, face unreadable. “Lady Rainbow, she knows I like it here, far more than back with mis padres, los Penitentes — I’ll run errands, do whatever’s needed. Anything. So if you truly have no use for me, maybe just send me on to someone who will . . . Mister Glass-eyes Hank, or his ‘g’hals’?”
“Darlin’,” he said, as gently as he could, “I’m sure you mean well, but — the Missuses Fennig are hexes, you understand? Brujas. Can’t think what-all you might do for ’em that they couldn’t get just as easy from each other, or almost anybody else.”
As he’d assumed, Marizol had no answer for that one. Just stood still, biting her lip, while Rook let his mind wander back to the rest of her group, whom he rarely saw; they lived sequestered in Ixchel’s throne room, that raw stone hole she’d taken to calling the Moon Court, pouring the juice of themselves out like water for her to feast on — and died, too, the most tapped-out amongst ’em conveniently content to stagger to the window slits and throw ’emselves out, so’s not to stink up the place. But then again, there always seemed to be more where they came from.
That the cultists’ faith bolstered Ixchel’s power was undeniable — but in a way, it was equally good for everyone else, as well; kept the Machine fed, so nobody had to bleed for it who didn’t want to. And though the Americans had resented the “lottery” system which chose victims at random, these Mex enthusiasts were downright happy to contribute, volunteering with a smile, instead of being tricked or taxed into it.
Not all of ’em, though, he guessed, looking into Marizol’s frightened eyes while she stared on, mute pleading writ large in every line — older by far than when she’d first arrived, if only in spirit, her slender figure bent with the weight of that moonstone-laden trinket Ixchel’d clasped ’round her throat like some thrall’s collar.
“Please,” she repeated, without much hope. As though he could do anything about . . . anything.
Goddamnit, little girl, you’re come amongst nothing but monsters and bad men here, even the ones you think you like. If you’ve any hope of surviving, you need to grow the hell up.
“Your parents know where you are?” Rook asked her, finally.
“Mi madre, mi padre . . . they stay with Her, always.” The implied capital rang strangely chilling. “They don’t need me. She don’t need me.”
Repeating it like a rosary, in fervent hopes that if she said it enough times, it’d make it so. When the truth was, Ixchel did have a very specific use for this girl-child, as the gal herself probably well knew. With her current body withering, held together only by magic and sheer awful will, the dread goddess needed a new one to cram herself inside, and was grooming Marizol for that express purpose — the way her Enemy-brother Smoking Mirror had with Chess, maybe, after Bewelcome’s resurrection left him bled out and on the point of dying. Trying to make her want to submit, aspire to nothing so much as to be Ixchel’s ixiptla, her sacrificial anchor in this world . . . the carrion-fed human tree from which all her grand schemes might finally bear their stinking, blood-soaked fruit.
Rook remembered walking in on them together, in the Throne Room — Ixchel balancing Marizol on her bony knee like an uncomfortably large child, extolling her loveliness while stroking her up and down. All but counting down the days to Marizol’s “flowering,” the very instant she’d be mature enough to consent, while simultaneously trying to ladle boiled-sugar sweets into her with both hands.
Dear child, hold still; have more, if it pleases you. Tell me that you love me — that you hold me in your heart, as I hold you in mine. Oh, what a pretty thing you are!
In his mind’s recesses, Rook heard Ixchel’s deeper dream-voice murmur, as it once had to him alone: This well is full of bones, and all of them have “been” me, little king . . . all of them, and none.
Sometimes she made the girl thorn-rope her own tongue, dragging each prickly link through in turn, while her cheeks glazed with tears. Then kissed her deeply, spreading the blood between them both like rouge.
Rook shut his eyes on the image, just for a breath. Choked down a sliver of bile, and tried to cast his mind elsewhere — only to have it slide back to Chess, and all the harm he’d done him, in the process of trying to “save” him. As the God he’d abandoned only knew, Rook had spent some long, numbed time after that last skirmish thoroughly convinced that by struggling to turn Chess’s Hell-bound trajectory Heaven-ward once more, he’d done nothing but get the one man in all the world he’d ever cared for killed outright. But even though he’d since had ample proof to the contrary, he still didn’t believe that the thing wearing his hide “was” Chess, not where it most counted. For nobody could meet that black stone gaze, in battle or out of it, and truly think they saw any part of Chess Goddamn Pargeter staring back . . . not if they were intimately familiar with the original, at any rate.
Chess, however, had gotten no forewarning of Rook’s perfidy — while Marizol, far as Rook could figure, understood at least a bit of what Ixchel had in store for her, and shunned it. For much as her parents might worship the Lady, this girl had been dragged here, threatened with abandonment and damnation every step of the way. What few charms Hex City held for her all lay outside Ixchel’s quarters, back in the sunlight, amongst people who’d only died once — thus far.
“Please, jefe,” she said again, “don’t send me back there. Not yet.”
Did she truly think he could do anything about her lowering fate? If so, she was a fool. Ask anyone and they’d tell you just what Reverend Asher Rook’s role was, in this whole affair: to stand by Ixchel’s side, take her orders and do her will. To watch and wait, raise his hand whenever she voted, and — above all — be silent.
Rook sighed, and sat up. “Get my boots then, gal, and walk me down to the council meeting — that’s where you’ll find Fennig and company, if nothin’ else.”
As Marizol ran
jackrabbit-quick to obey, gratitude bright in every line of her, Rook felt it sink deep in his side like Longinus’ spear, and twist: Christ’s wounds, stigmata, the old Catholic heresy. As though such as I was pure enough to even imagine such pain, let alone feel it — to hang a second’s tick on His bright cross even in mockery, when merely to contemplate the very idea is error, if not sin outright.
He shut his eyes one more time, shook his head emphatically, as though to clear it. And swung himself out of bed, joints cracking prodigiously, to face yet another day of war.
The council met most mornings, always in the same place: that very adobe-walled house, overlooking the Temple, on whose roof Rook had once raised the shade of dead Kees Hosteen, his friend and fellow outlaw. Inside, watery sunlight trickled through the slotted windows, nowhere warm enough to dispel this dull November chill, seeing last night had brought snow in feathery drifts. Someone should’ve already gone ’round the walls, lighting dish-lamps full of stolen oil . . . and would’ve, he supposed, had the group already there not found ’emselves so deep in conversation.
“I can help?” Marizol asked, at his elbow, looking longingly toward the table’s end, where Three-Fingered Hank and his ladies sat — and as though cued, dark Eulie Parr looked up just in time to catch the girl’s eye and grinned, beckoning. Marizol’s face coloured prettily, a lamp unto itself. Sketching a quick curtsey, she knelt to lay her head in the youngest Missus Fennig’s lap while Berta Schemerhorne reached over to stroke her hair comfortingly, and Clo Killeen continued to whisper away in Hank’s ear, her hushed tones typically ferocious.
Happy to give little Marizol and her troubles up, Rook conjured a brief flicker between his fingers, and set himself to bringing light out of darkness. The dishes themselves were hex-free; likewise, the splintery table, mismatched chairs and benches had all been brought to the city as they were, without any touch of magic, while the hut itself was one of the few buildings sufficiently well made to stand without active spell-work.
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