The Hexslinger Omnibus

by A Book of Tongues; A Rope of Thorns; Tree of Bones; Hexmas; Like a Bowl of Fire; In Scarlet Town (Today) (epub)

  “I cannot slacken,” said Grandma, at last. “This city is Rook’s dream, and I will see it fall.”

  “Her dream,” Yiska pointed out. “How often have you said that Hataalii should find a way to band together? Now look — here are Hataalii, a whole city of them! It is their dream, too. What better revenge than to help them take it from Rook and the Lady, to make it ours . . . and theirs?”

  My God, Yancey thought, forgetting entirely to mask herself, so stunned was she by the very idea, which had frankly never hitherto occurred to her. Could that work?

  “I see no reason not, dead-speaker,” Yiska replied, without moving, as Grandma’s “head” slid ’round, grating in its socket. “It seems to work well enough for them now, even under Rook and Lady Suicide’s reign.”

  Hex City as destination rather than obstacle, then: a refuge for all hexes, if events saw Rook and Ixchel removed. As already proven, it could certainly sustain itself; once Oathed to each other instead of the Lady, its inhabitants wouldn’t feel the need to parasite on newcomers, or even on the non-hexacious. In fact, so long as that Balance Yiska and Grandma were always chawing over stayed preserved, it might go even further than accepting “just” hexes — considering how well-defended and powerful such a place would be, Hex City could provide a refuge for all peoples who felt themselves not part of “the Union.” Natives, for example, starting with these two’s own tribes. Freed slaves, Chinee ’scaping ’Frisco’s immigration quota; Jews, like Yancey’s Pa; gypsies, like her Ma. The two-spirited, even . . . hard women and frilly men, like Yiska, or Chess. Any-damn-one.

  No one would feel they had to hide themselves anymore, to take a false name or put on a false face. No one would feel they had no place of refuge, no Promised Land to flee to.

  “They do not know what we know, most of them,” Yiska told Grandma, “that Hataalii are everywhere, always — part of the Land’s plans, and thus to be neither feared nor avoided, any more than one may avoid weather. But we can teach them a better way, you, I and the dead-speaker here . . . and Yu Ming-ch’in as well, if she is amenable.”

  Grandma seemed to look down, contemplating her nailless, mitt-like hands.

  “You want me to solve the whole world’s problems,” she said, “when this thing I call my flesh, containing neither flesh nor blood, is coming apart like a seedpod.”

  Again, Yancey heard her own voice reply, without knowing it was going to: “All the more important, then, for things to be done quickly . . . and right.”

  This time Yiska did glance back, long enough to give her a single firm nod of approval. To which Yancey could only think back, a trifle flustered: Thank you kindly, sir — ma’am, I mean; oh, that doesn’t sound right at all. No offence meant, Yiska. I’m a bilagaana fool.

  But Yiska simply shrugged a bit, one hand making a dismissive flutter. As Grandma allowed, slowly, “Something is happening in that city of Rook’s . . . his city, and Hers. I did not see it coming, while in my body; it was as yet hidden in time’s creases, even when looked at through the weave of Changing Woman’s own loom. But now I am bodiless I see far more clearly, knowing in my soul my vengeance is less important than the seed these two have sown, without even knowing they did so. There is something growing, alive and unforeseen, and though it galls me to say so, it must be preserved.”

  A high laugh cut the air behind them. Yancey didn’t have to turn to know that Songbird had slunk out of her hole once more and climbed to listen as well, standing there with her blanket-shawl wrapped tight against the night wind, her hair — unbound for sleep — blowing like snow.

  “Fools,” she said, though less scornfully than usual. “Even if I had my full power once more, these are gods we trifle with — they cannot be killed, and guard what they consider theirs jealously. As Pinkerton will discover soon enough, should he overstep himself. And how I shall laugh to see it, when he does!”

  Yiska shook her head and tsked, as if disappointed.

  “No,” Grandma told her, equitably enough. “Whatever they are now, Suicide Moon and her Enemy were once only as you and I . . . as this ghost-speaker here, even. He proves it, that red boy we seek after so desperately. Gods sleep within us all, waiting to be prayed alive, or bought and paid for with blood. And gods can kill other gods.”

  They all took a moment after that, sitting and standing, in the moon’s bright light. ’Til suddenly, a fresh new thought struck Yancey full force ’tween the eyes, and she gasped out loud. “I really am a fool,” she said, to no one in particular.

  Yiska’s eyes sharpened. “How so?”

  “Because — we’ve been trawling down through Hell-that-ain’t for how long, wasting our time trying to get Chess Pargeter to hear me, and all ’cause I’m a dead-speaker, right? But see, thing is . . . he’s not dead.”

  Now it was the three other women’s turn to look her way in unison, with the same sort of stare you’d give some idiot.

  “We know this already,” Yiska reminded her. “But what can we ever do to remedy it except try again, and harder?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Talk to his Ma, maybe, who is damn well dead? ’Cause considering I see her sitting right beside him most of the time, I’m thinking that might be helpful!”

  And if not, given all she’d heard about Oona Pargeter, from Chess himself . . . well, there were dead people everywhere in Mictlan-Xibalba. And now she’d remembered it was so, Yancey could just as easily speak to any one of them.

  Might be I’m getting better at this, she reckoned, giddily.

  Grandma nodded, satisfied — looked first to Yiska, then Songbird. “See, granddaughter?” she asked the warrior. “I told you there was merit to bringing them both.”

  “Hmp,” was all Songbird gave back, by way of a reply.

  But when the bleached girl saw how Yiska was smiling again, Yancey almost thought she might have seemed pleased.

  SEVEN DIALS: TWO

  All worlds begin, and end. All worlds begin again.

  Here is a flower, watered from a skull. Here is a seed of blood. Here is the tree that grows from it — yaxche, tree of heaven, with leaves like hair and roots like veins, anchored deep between this world and all others. A tree of bones.

  Here is where we tossed the husks and silk of eaten lives, that new lives might grow once more, rendered up in joy to feed the ever-turning Blood Engine. And always, new lives came, new hearts blazed in fire, new blood washed the stone. As it had been, ever would be, world without end . . .

  until it ended.

  In Mictlan-Seven Dials, Oona Pargeter’s revivified spectre showed her teeth once more and laughed, shortly, a sulphurous rasp to its undertone, creepily reminiscent of the Rev in his sin. “Wish you could see yer own face, sonny, truly,” she replied. “First real tin bath I’ve ’ad in months.”

  “First what?”

  “Laugh, you prat; can’t ’elp it if you don’t know your proper flash jabber, can I?” But here she tossed her hair back, dismissively. “Well, s’pose I could’ve, ’ad I been so inclined. But what good it’d’ve done you in San Fran, the Devil only knows.”

  Chess shook his head and took a sodden half-step back, running his eyes up and down this slim spectacle before him, clad only in her witch’s mane: this flirtatious, sharp-witted creature whose words rang simultaneously too familiar, and not at all. But as he did, she stepped lightly to him, advancing while he retreated, fighting the urge to back away further — bold as polished brass, her movements lithe and easy, as if she’d never ruined her joints with cold, or her guts with gin.

  “Awful nippy out ’ere, though,” she observed. “Care to ’elp a girl out?”

  “You ain’t no girl.”

  Oona rolled her eyes, vivid as his own. “No more’n you’re a gentleman, given ’ow I raised you. But you’re still the one wiv the coat to spare, ain’t that so?”

  Nonplussed, Chess found she’d already slipped one of his purple sleeves half-free — so he
gave up, letting her tug the whole rest of it off his shoulders, trusting she’d use it to wrap her off-putting nakedness away once more. Which she did, shivering delightedly.

  “Much better.” Looking up through lowered lashes, then, she winked, lasciviously throwing one hip out toward him like it was a magic trick . . . as though that swinging dick of his meant he was just one more john to hook, with every trick in her arsenal. “Fanks, ever so.”

  “Don’t do that, Goddamnit. Ain’t — ”

  “Right? Proper? Never knew you t’care too much over either of those.”

  “Jesus, Ma!”

  “Well, ’ave it yer own way, then. I’ll lay off the treacle, so long’s you agree to ’ear me through — wivout the beat-down, this time.”

  Chess paused and spat, mouth all of a sudden sour. For it was all so wrong, and horribly so. The unpersuasive croon he’d hitherto known only as a hundred shades of lying mockery gone suddenly playful, cheerful . . . real, and painfully so. The misremembered source of every saucy trick he’d practiced in his own turn, and rendered horrid for the comparison. For who had he been imitating, after all, each time he’d turned the flare of his attention on some hapless sap — the Rev, Ed and countless others — but her, apparently?

  At the very thought, his gorge rose up again, only to find itself crammed back down, with all the considerable will at his disposal.

  At the sight of his repulsion, Oona’s smirk took on a savage edge. “Takes some gettin’ used to, don’t it?” she murmured. “The very idea that I was ever young, like you — fast, like you — fresh and pretty, fit to ’ave any man fool enough t’meet my eye, I wanted ’im, ’fore cuttin’ ’is purse and movin’ on. Just like you.”

  “Fuck, no.” Chess made himself straighten, regained what little height he had on her and used it, staring haughtily down. “Ain’t no single part of me comes from you, save for the trappings.”

  “Oh no, ’course there ain’t — just the parts what like to ’ook a man deep and string him ’long for as far as you can, for the fun of it. Just the parts want what they want, and ’ooever gets ’tween them and their desire dead. Or aches t’frow ’emselves at men won’t do nothing for ’em but fuck ’em ’ard and walk away, smilin’ — ”

  “You’re talkin’ out your well-worn backside!”

  Oona raised a brow, gold-red as his own. “Never did tell you much ’bout your Pa, did I?”

  “Never asked you to. Then again, I misdoubt you know which he was, let alone who.”

  Her smile softened, making his stomach churn. “Ah, but there you’d be wrong, for ’e wasn’t the sort you forget — an educated man, wiv quite the ‘ead for hoity-toity God-botheration: Malcolm Devesstrin, what sailed from Dublin to New York City and took up with the gangs, standin’ mage for the Might of Eire ’gainst every roisterin’ jack in the Five Points. Said ’ow ’e’d been a monk once, which was why ’e called ’imself Columcille, after the saint.” It came out Collum-kill, and here Chess felt another odd twist in his gut, something turning, a keyhole creak. “And Christ knows, I didn’t ’ave no cause to doubt ’im. But that was all put paid to, when ’e stole some mouldy book and took off runnin’.” She glanced back over her shoulder, then, lashes lowering flirtatiously, to add: “A fine, tall man, big as a ’ouse and broad as a barn and ministerial in ’is declamation, wiv a powerful love to ’ear ’imself talk. Sound familiar?”

  “You’re a lyin’ whore.”

  “Oh yes, always, but not about this. Why bother? Bastard’s dead any’ow, from what I heard; struck out in the streets, five years after you was born. Was some Nativist battle-witch they calls the Widowmaker what laid ’im low, probably ’cause ’e tried to pull the same trick on ’er ’e did on me, but she was wilier. Or just luckier.”

  Chess shook his head, muzzily. “What . . . trick?”

  “Fink a minute on it ’fore you dismiss anything I got to tell you out of ’and, just ’cause it’s me ’oo’s talkin’, Cheshire Pargeter — for that’s your full name, as it ’appens, and did I never tell you that, neither? Sorry.” Her voice dropped, sweet giving way to rough, as the rasp crept upward. “Named you for a county, one I fought my own Ma came from, once upon a time. But that don’t matter much now.”

  “Keep on talkin’, bitch, ’fore I paste you another, story or no story.”

  “All right. Say a man ’as hexation, powerful bad, and meets a woman ’e’s drawn to, on account of the power she’s got locked up inside; say she’s drawn to ’im the same, enough to let ’im ’ave ’is way and trust ’e’ll do right by ’er, for all every scrap of experience tells ’er that’s a load of old rope. And say one day she misses ’er courses, knows she’s taken short.”

  “Any of this got a point, beyond the obvious?”

  Display, that’s all it was — his only weapon left, used without compunction. But it made Oona’s eyes light up, same way he knew his own could, or had — shoot genuine sparks like tears from either corner, kill-flash bright, which scarred her cheeks on their way down before healing themselves anew, flesh knitting back together in their wake.

  “Point is, you berk,” she gritted, “that everyfing you ’ave you owe to ’im an’ me, more’n you ever knew. Fink I was conjured out of nothin’, wiv you already stuffed up inside? I ’ad fourteen ’ole years before you ever existed, and damn, if I didn’t make ’em count! I could’ve done anyfing, I’d only come into my own, wivout you to ’old me back.”

  She clapped her hands and whipped them apart, blue-white arcs of lightning writhing between her palms, their spitting light painting her face. “Anyfing,” she whispered, whites of her eyes gone sodium-bright.

  Chess shuddered, then shrugged.

  “Gonna need more than that to make a mark, Ma,” he ground out. “That little crackle wouldn’t set me back none even if it was real — Ash Rook was ten times any hex you might’ve been, and I’m ten times the hex he was. ’Sides which, you already told me — down here ain’t nothin’ but dreams. Shadow shows.” He thrust his hand straight into the lightning field, and saw it pass unscathed. “I’ll say it again: I ain’t you, and you ain’t me. Never were.”

  Oona closed her hands, making the lightning vanish, but didn’t lower her eyes from his. “No,” she agreed. “Glamour I ’ad, enough t’get me shed of this place, but I wasn’t no true ’ex, since my full power ’adn’t yet come to pass.” A pause. “Your preacher-man — ’e tell you what ’appens to witches carry witchlings?”

  “How the whelp comes out dead, or the mother dies, or they both die?”

  “That’s right.” No smile, now. “Could feel it movin’ inside me, right along with you. The craft I’d yet to grab ’old of, close as my own blood. I felt it pullin’, each and every day; felt you pullin’ on it, fightin’ me for it. “That was when ’e came back, your Pa. And when I saw ’im again, you jumped inside me like you was tryin’ to bust out right then . . . and I knew. Could see in ’is eyes that ’e knew, ’ad known all along, ’ow this would go.”

  Nothin’ worse in this whole world, darlin’, Ash Rook’s Hell-deep voice told Chess, mildly, than a bad man who knows his Bible.

  “’E laid it out for me,” Oona went on, “told me there was nought to be done about ’ow fings would end, unless . . . ’e tried something.”

  Chess’s brows contracted. “And you let him? Some ex-monk hex you didn’t know from Adam, savin’ he’d had his tackle up in your box, and left you like to die of it?”

  “’Adn’t much bleedin’ choice, did I?” Oona snapped. “And ’e . . .” Surprisingly, she flushed. “’Ad a way with ’im, Columcille did. Made me fink it was — I was — important. That we’d learn something, if everyfing worked right; that if fings went wrong, there’d at least be no pain in it, far as I was concerned.”

  “Bet he lied about that one, though.”

  “Oh, ’e lied about all of it, from first to bloody last. That was just the topper.”

  She looked down
, red hair falling curtain-long once more, wrapping her profile away. And as Chess’s gaze followed, instinct-driven, he saw her fold into a squat, balancing on those small bare feet, toes already black with mud. Watched her dip the fingers of one hand through a rut puddle, yet more light trailing in its five-fold wake while shadows bred inside the brightening water, a cloudy mirror full of images he struggled to decode.

  This same younger form she wore now stretched out in some foul tenement bed, held down, her mouth wide. A dark man crouched watching, one big hand cupping her jaw, the other stroking her sweaty brow. Gas hissing in the sconce, blue flames pin-pointed in her pupils; the beat of a heart, two hearts, a doubled pulse ebbing in and out.

  Give it t’me now, girl. My lovely Oona, my hunger’s bride. Just as you promised, as you want to, along with that brat of yours, poor little sweetmeat. Poor, puling little mage-bred sacrifice.

  Reminded him of nothing so much as Dame Ixchel, swimming in blood-drool and other hot juices. Suicide Moon Ixchel, taking his lip between her teeth and grinding ever so slightly, like she meant to tenderize him just a touch, ’fore throwing him on the grill. Or eddying alongside as Rook puppeted him stringless through Mictlan-Xibalba’s rainy corridors, telling him that dying for gods you didn’t even know, making ’em a raw meat meal, wasn’t so much dreadful as glorious, flowery, beautifulbeautifulbeautiful —

  So sons of bitches ran in his family, apparently. No great surprise, given.

  “Sly as the bloody Pope, that one,” Oona spat, one fingertip tracing the dark man’s regal profile, erasing it with a ripple. “So I’m turnin’ inside out from the pain of squeezin’ you clear, feelin’ the ’exation in every part of me ready to pop the exact same way you was, an’ I ’ear Columcille call out somefing . . . Jew cant and church-talk all mixed together, what ’urt the ear t’listen to. And it all just tore, ripped clean away, so fast I didn’t even feel you drop. Nothing left behind ’cept a hole, raw and sick and covered over in scab — ”