“I know what you’re doin’,” Morrow told it. “Ain’t anything new, you know. Our Devil plays his cards just the same.”
It shook Chess’s red curls at him. “Yet again, I do not know this name, soldier. However many times I hear it spoken, from however many of your kind, the concept makes no more sense to me than it did the first time.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that kinda figures. Seein’ that’s just what we call the thing that passes close enough for you, as regards our own single-God creed.”
“Your All-Father’s rebel child, who lives under the earth and roasts dead souls on a fire pit, behaving in ways that would make my Lords One and Seven Death or Mictantecuhtli laugh? Yes, I have heard of him — how he tempts those not yet condemned to do ill by promising repayment, taking their afterlife as collateral. It is a pleasant fable.”
“I can see how it’d strike you that way. Point is, whenever Satan wants to get things goin’, he doesn’t ever really put himself out at all, not like we think — just shows whoever he’s after things that’re happening already, then steps back and lets ’em draw their own conclusions, so he can see what-all they’ll do with the information.”
“Ah. And this, you believe, was why I told my sister’s secrets to your Mister Pinkerton . . . to find out what he was capable of, if he thought to gain some benefit.”
“You saying I’m wrong?”
“Not entirely. But let me show you something now, without asking a fee in exchange, and then see what might follow, after.”
Images flashed inside Morrow’s head, quick and flat, yet sticky red-rendered: Pinkerton as one of those curlicued Old Mex stone images, dipped in blood and printed on a wall, acting out all sorts of secret mayhem — having fresh-turned hexes brought to his tent each night when the camp was too asleep to come looking and sucking ’em down like oysters, or making do with energy siphoned off those defeated by the hex-handlers instead; anything for a fix, just like the junkie he’d never stopped being. And all of this conducted under Asbury’s auspices, with the ruined scientist’s connivance, going along to get along, since Asbury sure as hell knew he couldn’t hope to stop him.
Berta and Eulie, brought down like fleeing cattle, to be milked of their bounty at the boss-man’s convenience. Or maybe done away with entirely once he was finished with ’em, like that child they’d tried so desperately hard to save, by bringing her all the way to their chief persecutor’s camp — an object lesson in just how little Pinkerton cared for anybody outside of himself, these days, hexacious or not.
The “old complaint,” all right, which Asbury’d claimed to be ministering to, and lied right to Morrow’s face in doing so. He ain’t gettin’ better, Morrow thought, appalled. Oh no.
No indeed, soldier.
He’s getting worse.
Yes. Something should be done. So ask yourself: is that opportunity I spoke of earlier to be his, while my sister and I come to blows? Or might it be someone else’s . . . yours, perhaps?
“Shut your hole, you awful creature. I can’t trust you no more’n the Fallen One, or any other demon.”
Or Pinkerton, either. Better to trust yourself, then, and do as your conscience dictates, when the time comes . . . as I know you will.
“Think you know me that damn well, huh? I just might surprise you.”
It gave him Chess’s smirk again, and Morrow found himself gob-struck by the way that tiny flash of sharp black teeth travelled straightway to his groin, like a shock.
“Unlikely, I think,” it replied. “Now come closer; let me show you something to remember me by, before I depart.”
“Didn’t think you creatures got itchy in that same way.”
“Part of me is your red boy, soldier. And where he is now, he misses you — badly.”
The offer tugged at him, just like it was supposed to. But how much of Chess really could be left, inside there? Any, at all? Didn’t matter; regardless of how his gooseflesh might prick and his pants might tighten, Morrow wasn’t anything like fool enough to feel like taking a chance on finding out.
“Well, tell him I miss him too, then,” he said, finally, flushing to where his collar would’ve reached, had he been wearing one. “But not that bad.”
“I could show you your woman, then — Mictlantecihuatl’s handmaiden. Would you prefer that, as a gesture of my respect?”
“I’d prefer you not gesture my way at all, thanks. I’d prefer to sleep, alone.”
“Will you tell her what passed here tonight, when you do?”
Morrow nodded. “If you ever let me.”
“Good.” Morrow looked at him. “And now you wonder what game I play, soldier? A long one, very long. So do not worry yourself; nothing you do, or think of doing, will inconvenience me much. What you want is what I want, after all.”
“For now.”
“For now, yes.”
Riled, Morrow tried to turn away, but got caught by the wrist, and went rigid — there were things moving around inside the Enemy’s hand that made him want to puke to feel, and when he checked, he thought he saw “Chess’s” face ripple, like a mirage. Still, the Enemy — who truly seemed to take no insult at his disgust — merely laughed, and let him go.
It is decided, it “said.” You will march with your army to Hex City, and wait for my signal. My order.
“Don’t work for you,” Morrow muttered, mutinous, into his own neck. While beside him, Chess Pargeter’s mostly naked ghost raised a quizzical brow.
Oh no? Then for who, I wonder?
And was gone, leaving Morrow to wonder, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sunset poured blood across the snow-streaked desert, cold for all its brilliance. Half a mile to the northeast it struck dark bronze light off the western wall of what the shamanesses — human and inhuman — called Tse Diyil, that great slab-sided mound of rock thrust out up of the desert like God’s fist punched up through oilcloth. It sparkled on the waters of the Chaco Wash, and stretched the shadow of the woman kneeling alone in the wasteland out behind her; her bent head gave it a distorted look, sending wraiths of darkness spiralling ’round with each shuddering breath.
For Sophronia Love, née Hartshorn, what little she’d experienced directly of the War herself had been enough to break her of the idea that meekness was an inherently blessed condition. She and Mesach had both seen enough of the Beast’s face to know what needed to be done, and most efficiently minimize the chances of anything similar ever happening again. They would discuss it late at night or early in the morning, immediately before or after prayers, and sometimes during; the fact that they had been of one mind as well as one flesh — potentially — was what drew her to him, in the first place. Bewelcome had been their shared dream. Not the true New Jerusalem — they were neither of them so proud as to aspire that far — but a place for the faithful to live as they would, making a fresh start after the sins of war and civilization. To build lives in that they would not be ashamed to show their Saviour, when their time came.
Somehow, though, it had never occurred to Sophy how Mesach’s time might come so much sooner than hers would. Or that the very duties they’d undertaken together would be the things which kept her behind, alone, unable to follow him until that burden was justly laid down. For whatever gifts God had given her to help meet those duties — even the outright miracle of her own rebirth, along with all Bewelcome’s — they still could not undo the ache in her life that Mesach had left, bereft of his voice, his touch, his unwavering certainty.
Oh God, she missed him, her beautiful man.
One might think her time in the salt should have prepared her, but it hadn’t — the passing year had seemed only a dream, the heartbeat between one drawn breath and the next, an upward-cast plea. She remembered folding Gabriel in, forming herself ’round him like a shield, then . . . nothing. The tumult had ceased instantaneously, leaving only absence and long darkness, without even a sense of time’s moveme
nt to anchor her in its face, ’til that same timelessness had dissolved on the instant of her shattering re-entry into life, leaving not even a wrack of memory behind.
She had seen Mesach fall to Rook’s and Pargeter’s mingled devilry, been struck down herself — then come back, reunited for one shining instant, before losing him yet again to Yancey Kloves’ bullet. And all of it so quickly that both days often seemed equally more nightmare than truth, lost in the black chasm which split her life in two pieces.
Thus far, that second life had been much less joyous than the first. She had buried herself in labour, overseeing Bewelcome’s recovery, then integrating the town into Pinkerton’s war against Hex City even while doing her best to keep Gabriel fed and healthy. True, his beauty (particularly as he grew, so sunny, so smart) provided some small annealment to her grief, but never anything near completely, and the secret hope which lay hidden beneath her maternal dedication — that she might one day become a casualty of war herself, liberated without guilt to thus rejoin her Mesach — was a shameful consolation.
And even so, it had still taken months before she could pass a single night without weeping, wrapping her head in blankets to keep her muffled sobs from waking Gabe.
God’s strength was bottomless; that was what Mesach had preached, what she herself had seen proven, over and over. Yet what Sophy knew now, most dreadfully, was that hers was not — that when a second shattering blow cut her life apart again, her faith alone might not see her through the pain of rebuilding a third new one. And for the one soul she still truly loved, the only purpose left worth suffering for, to be himself the cause of that inevitable blow . . .
What did it say of her, that she was grateful another woman had her son — and that woman her own husband’s murderer — because she feared being tempted to smother him, the first time an opportunity presented itself? That she could no longer give her baby the untainted love of days before, could barely stand even to look at him, because the forces he’d used to save them from death were drawn of the same darkness his sainted father had died fighting against?
Give him over to her, to them — his own kind. The words dinned in Sophy’s head, barely recognizable as her own. Then walk away into the desert, let the thirst and the cold take me, if some savage doesn’t slay me for trespassing, first. It is the only answer. And I could still do it, I swear; I can do anything, for him. Maybe . . . it would be better, that way.
“Perhaps, yes.”
So quiet was this new voice that the start Sophy gave on realizing she’d actually heard it was far more muted than she would’ve expected it to be, had she been watching herself do so. She looked up, blinked watering eyes at the figure silhouetted against the sunset; it tilted its head her way like some watchful bird, apparently nothing but honestly curious.
“But could you, in truth, do such a thing?” it asked. “Are you really so desperate, salt-man’s wife?”
I am interested, you see. For, even as your husband did — you interest me.
Sophy stood, shading her eyes, able to make out more of the thing only as her vision cleared. The fear which pierced her struck an oddly welcome note, driving home a simple truth: No, she thought, I do not want to die, not yet. And not at this creature’s hands.
“Despair is an affront to the living God,” she said out loud, voice hoarse, but unflinching.
The being who wore Chess Pargeter’s mostly naked flesh gave a black-toothed smile, almost cruel as Pargeter’s own. And for just a half-instant, she could hear him in her head once more, screaming into the sandstorm as Mesach went white, froze in place, began to crumble under the wind’s incessant howl: Yeah, go ahead on and cry, little boy — your Daddy ain’t comin’ home anytime soon, not now, not ever.
That wasn’t this man, though, for this wasn’t a man, at all; not even the negotiable sort Pargeter claimed to be, with all his perverse appetites, his “love” that’d set Reverend Rook on her path, in the first place. You only had to look in its eyes the once, and not for long, to know that it had already far outstripped its Hell-bound original a thousandfold, in terms of being evil.
“This God of yours,” this awful thing — “the Enemy,” Missus Kloves and her savages had called it — mused, examining one claw-nailed hand, as though admiring the way the sunset painted it red. “Quetzalcoatl-Love spoke of him too, and frequently. What he said sometimes reminded me of the Duality Above All, first of our kind, who made this world — perhaps as a joke, or for some sort of wager with each other — and then retreated to the sky’s palace, to let it work out its own damnation. But I have yet to hear one word thus far, for yea or nay, from that particular direction.”
“Might be you’re not fit to. I have.”
“Ah. But then, your man ‘knew’ the same — did he not? And was mistaken, for what he heard was me. What makes you think otherwise?”
“Faith, monster. Faith.”
Sophy folded her hands before her, a gesture this thing would be foolish indeed to read as demure. Fear she had, in plenty; she wouldn’t bother to deny it, even if she could. But reverence, respect, or even the appearance of such? Not for something like this, ever, no matter how deeply it might cost her.
“You used my husband’s pain against him,” she told it, steadily. “Tempted him sure as any devil with what he most wanted, at the moment of his worst weakness. But know this: though you may have secured torment for him through lies and trickery, you nevertheless betrayed your own true nature, in the doing so. Which means, having already shown me what you are, you have nothing to offer . . .
nothing I would accept, anyhow.”
“Do not be so sure of that, salt-widow.”
Though the Enemy took barely a step, it abruptly stood face to face with her, as if the space between them had briefly ceased to exist altogether. Sophy recoiled, tripped over her dress’s fraying hem, and sat down hard. Before she could move further away, however, the Enemy had already dropped to one knee, other equal-taloned hand palm-spread over her breastbone; not gripping, so much, as simply holding her down, its strength effortless.
Then leaned in to murmur: “So I cannot bargain, then . . . not even with your life?”
Though the ground drew heat out straight through Sophy’s back, quick as draining blood, her only answer was a weary sigh. To which the creature merely snorted, and took the prisoning hand away once more. “Yes, of course — you care nothing for that, expecting this Heaven of yours, no matter the way you may die in order to get there. A foolish question.” It sat, hunkered low on its calves, offering no help as Sophy pushed herself back up. “Still, if you will take nothing for yourself, you may at least wish news of interest to your colleagues here,” it nodded at the butte, “and at home. News of the War.”
Sophy sat still, examining it closely, for — whether pagan god or demonic visitor — the single thing she knew for sure about it by now was that (like so many things in a man’s shapes) it truly did love to hear itself talk.
Just as she’d suspected, she did not have long to wait.
“After much study, and my sister’s example as my guide,” the Enemy announced, “I decided it was past due time for me to take a hand in fate’s design; really, I flatter myself to think I can do no worse. And so, on the night your son removed you from the battle, I chose to protect Bewelcome-town from Ixchel’s wrath, raising walls of Weed to break her flood. Later, I told Allan Pinkerton that three nights hence — nightfall tomorrow, as you reckon time — I will challenge her to open battle, a test she can neither refuse nor accept, without vulnerability. If there is still any desire left in you to see justice done on what you call ‘Hex City,’ therefore, tomorrow night may be the best — and last — opportunity for that to be accomplished.”
Sophy stared. “Why . . . would you care?”
The Enemy’s grin widened. “Why not? It will be a great jest on someone, no matter who. Perhaps that is enough, for me.”
Inside her head, meanwhile,
its voice vised down yet further: resonant, bone-deep. Adding, Or then again, perhaps you should consider it simply — providence.
Above, the sun squeezed out, a shaken coal. And a second later, without noise or light, Sophy stood alone; the Enemy was gone, leaving not even mist behind. Night fell with desert speed to show the stars ablaze, diamond-hard and cold, in the sky above.
Sophy sat a few minutes more, lips moving. Praying, she hoped. Cursing, she suspected.
But the blood-din in her ears was far too loud for her to hear either way, and that, in itself, was occasion enough to give thanks, however hollow. So she waited until it dimmed, then regained her feet, and began trudging back northeast toward the butte.
On the chill night air, sound carried well, and far. Which was how Sophy came to hear the argument already in progress long before she crested the last sloping turn in the path ’round the butte that hid the war party’s cave. The brave standing guard didn’t make any sort of stab at greeting her at all, merely turning a pair of expressionless black eyes her way, a sight which might’ve unnerved her, once. But not just now, seeing her last conversation had been with something far more terrifying than either of them was ever likely to be, to the other.
So she simply nodded at him and passed by, skirts in hand. Kept on climbing, ’til at last she found her way to the small, smokeless fire ’round which the others sat gathered.
That ill-cobbled rock-creature — “Grandma,” Yancey Kloves called her, a Hell-bound ghost recalled only momentarily from God’s judgement by her feud with Lady Rainbow — squatted motionless at the cave’s back like some ancient idol. Across from her, the heathen Chinee witch-girl sat blanket-wrapped and shivering, with only one slant eye peeping out from under a snowy fall of hair; an exhausted-looking Missus Kloves sat between with Gabe, trying unsuccessfully to soothe him, while he fussed and wriggled.
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