A Tree of Bones

by Gemma Files

  Pinkerton ignored this advice, however, as the creature had no doubt known all along that he would.

  So, Ixchel said, gaze fixed on Pinkerton like she was trying to burn through all the layers of his skin at once. You do have her.

  “I did. At one point.”

  Explain.

  Pinkerton struck a pose, hands on hips. “’Twas these two who brought her to me, straight into my camp’s heart — ” He indicated the remaining Missuses Fennig, the motion bringing Eulie’s head up at last, tears already a-sparkle in the corners of her eyes. “ — which at first I thought was for mere negotiation, as a bargaining chip. But no; turns out they truly did only want to save her from you, and the awful fate ye’d condemned her to.”

  A sneer, difficult to distinguish, considering how skewed her lips already were. And you jumped at the chance to “rescue” my sweet Marizol, vowed to me by her own parents as a love-offering — to play protector, hide her away somewhere, disguised perhaps behind your tinkerer’s “hex-proof” trinkets —

  “Not as such, ma’am.”

  Then bring her forth! Restore her to me, now, and I may spare

  you . . . may.

  “Can’t do that, I’m afraid. For in the end, contemplating upon it, I realized that just as whatever did you good was nothing I wanted a hand in, neither did I wish tae run the risk of you taking her back, no matter what might occur later on. And so . . .”

  Oh, just get the hell on with it, you numbskull, Morrow thought, annoyed with these theatrics. While Ixchel simply peered at Pinkerton, not even visibly angered by his ridiculous hubris.

  What is it you are saying? she demanded.

  But Pinkerton was revelling in his own stupid glory now, making the haze around him bunch and blur, almost dense as Ixchel’s insect panoply. He took time to smooth his beard before calling up to her, gaily: “Yes, I’ve been somewhat remiss in no’ makin’ it clearer, havnae I? For which I apologize. But what I mean is . . . she’s dead. Head-shot. Dead over a day, by my watch. And granted, Our Lord returned after three, good as new or better — but you, ye’re nae Jesus Christ, is what I’m sayin’.”

  A slow, impassive blink was Ixchel’s only reaction, revealing supernumerary false eyes mosaicked to their lids — but Morrow went cold all over, every hair erect and stinging. As memory winged past him, he heard Yancey’s toneless voice asking, in that split-second before joy shattered to horror: Sheriff Love?

  Signalling Carver and Geyer with a sidelong glance, he first gestured them back without moving — upper body held perfectly still — then eased backward himself ’til his shoulder bumped into Asbury’s; at his nudge, the Professor yielded with a stumble, gawping bemusedly. By inch-fractions they withdrew, all Morrow’s attention left concentrated on those three dreadful beings before them, muscles taut to a fare-thee-well hair trigger.

  Then, unexpectedly, Morrow caught Reverend Rook’s eyes — and in them the same tense dread plus something else, wholly unexpected: that amused arrogance the Rev had always affected, most ’specially to his enemies, was gone. Without changing expression, Rook turned slightly, still hanging in the air, looking past Morrow as if he wasn’t there. The black book he’d held in one hand (Sophy Love’s Bible, it jolted Morrow to see), a convenient page marked with a finger, had disappeared up his sleeve.

  In that instant, Morrow knew what he had to do.

  Ixchel screeched something in that rotten-flower dead tongue of hers, spraying stinking black blood like venom with the force of it, and flung herself down upon Pinkerton. The plunge was thunderstrike-quick; greenish-blue light exploded ’round both of them, as they — and the Enemy — disappeared, together. Morrow was already bringing his shotgun up, swinging it ’cross toward what had once been Clo; had he hesitated even a fraction of a second in choosing a target, he would have been too late, and almost was anyhow. Clo went hurtling straight at Carver, Eulie and Berta, who survived only because Carver sensibly flung the girls’ leashes away, while simultaneously hurling himself backward. Clo’s dagger-length bone claws came within an inch of tearing off the man’s scalp ’fore Morrow’s anti-hex shell slammed into her.

  She screeched, spun in mid-air, crashed to the ground, bounced upright once more like a wolverine. A second shot caught her right between the breasts, smashing her backward. Clo reeled, gaping chest hole showing torn innards and broken bones, but the wound was already sealing. Hands flying, Morrow broke open the gun and slammed another two shells home, bracing himself to burn, as a fiery holocaust seemed to well up out of the horrid creature’s eye sockets and mouth together.

  Yet here, most welcome, Carver’s pistol thundered instead, stitching smoking hole after smoking hole across Clo’s front. She yowled and sprang away, blurring almost too fast to see over the ground, heading straight for the front lines. Carver stared after her, then let out a whoop, and began to reload.

  “What you yelpin’ over, you idjit?” cried Eulie, clambering to her feet. “She’ll tear ’em apart!”

  Carver chortled. “Two whole damn armies, miss? Think maybe you ain’t counted those odds right! Ain’t no way one woman, no matter how . . . I mean, she . . . can’t . . . .” But here he trailed off, jaw slack, too mazed with battle heat to register much beyond distant, dismayed shock. “Oh. Oh, sweet Jesus, no — ”

  Morrow took one second to check over his shoulder — yes, Rook too had vanished, far less obtrusively than his Lady — then turned back, heart heavy, to watch the catastrophe unfold.

  The soldiers had obeyed their sergeants’ orders with all their old precise professionalism: Front line, aim! Second line, prep! Third line, load! Front line, FIRE! — and a shockwave of lead ripped out across the empty plain, slowing Clo only for a second. Unfazed, the front line stepped back three paces; as the second line stepped forward into their place, knelt and aimed, Clo drew closer and closer: Front line, FI — !

  Too late.

  Clo opened her mouth. What came out was not sound, but light: a white-hot, triple-thick beam of white fire fed from mouth and empty eyes together that tore through the massed ranks like grapeshot crossed with sun focused through a jeweller’s eye. Shrieks of agony erupted skyward, torrenting fountains of blood, severed limbs. Yet these war-hardened men might’ve stood fast nonetheless, even in the face of such carnage, if Clo had not then sprinted directly into the centre of the army — using that very same path of scorched flesh and earth as her guide-trail — and cut into them like a knife-bedecked whirlwind, slashing and stabbing faster and more accurately than any human.

  No weapon touched her. Pistols and rifles went off to no effect, or felled hapless comrades. Geyer swayed on his feet, watching it; Asbury collapsed to all fours to empty his stomach. Berta and Eulie held each other up.

  In mid-air, above the abruptly empty plain, Ixchel and Pinkerton reappeared with a thunderous crack of torn air, hands locked; they spiralled about each other, whirling down and down, and broke apart on landing with an impact Morrow felt in his very boots. Ixchel, still screaming — had she ever stopped? — vomited a gout of greasy black power straight onto Pinkerton’s face, like a sluice-gate opened on a sewage pond; Morrow bit savagely on one knuckle, driving out nausea with pain, as he saw the force of the attack distort Ixchel’s very skull, pushing jaws and nose plate forward ’til she seemed more ape than human. Her face’s corpse-tight skin snapped and tore, peeling away from warped bone.

  But Pinkerton didn’t flinch; he opened his own mouth and swallowed the blast, sucked it greedily down like whisky. His body blurred, rippled, swelled, bulged; the seams of his coat and shirt burst, boots exploding off his feet. Skin marbled with fungus-like patches, he towered up ’til he was half again Ixchel’s height, and roared.

  Ixchel stumbled backward, face too ruined now to read. Yet her body, at last, betrayed the truth: this once-goddess was no longer the master of events. Pinkerton lunged forward and slammed both outsized fists down, pinning her to earth on her back with a massive, cartilaginous wrench. Just as he
seized her throat, however, it was Pinkerton’s turn to gag — Ixchel’s own hand lashed up and stretched, palm and fingers splitting apart, peeling back, limp as a torn glove. Exposed bones, speared out long as bayonets, came punching through his shoulder at the juncture of neck and chest, drawing smoking blood to gout from the wound in thick jets.

  Now Pinkerton himself bled power, and the bleeding was hot, fast, thick, continual, first in sparks, then arcs, then massive blue-green whiplashes which crackled back and forth between the two abominations, whirring in ever-accelerating circles. Ixchel would take and Pinkerton would grab back, desperately, only to lose whatever he’d grabbed once more, along with a fresh new gush. Meanwhile, as Clo continued to calmly decimate the boss’s and America’s armies alike, the very air began to howl and shriek, a funnel of dust and wind blossoming up skyward, turning vaguest dawn to endless night.

  Morrow stood frozen, appalled, his shotgun drooping — utterly unable to think what (if anything) to do next.

  From the shorthand notes of Fitz Hugh Ludlow:

  Mister Pinkerton and Lady Ixchel strive immovably — most unnatural and monstrous forms — the very elements protest this horror, as a cyclone forms — the Enemy H has appeared! He speaks — by hexation, all can hear.

  H: Dear sister. Once again, you craft your own doom.

  P: Help me, you bastard!

  H: But why?

  P: What’d you bring me here for, if not that?

  H: In truth, for distraction.

  P: But — you said —

  H: That I would stand with you when I called her out, yes — and I have. Did I say I would do more?

  The Enemy laughs — and has vanished! — True treachery indeed! — The ghastly demon-girl begins her rout once more — oh, those poor, poor brave men — I see the hexes and their handlers coming to the fore — will their powers turn the tide?

  Things sped up, just like at Mine Creek, at Marais des Cygnes, at Bewelcome. The hex-handlers thrust their charges forward by the necks, using those loop-and-pole arrangements they normally only hauled out for captures; the hexes, in turn, took one damn look at the slaughterhouse hay Clo and Ixchel were making with their magic-less brethren, and obviously thought better of that idea. A moment later, collars were being torn free bodily, regardless of how they might rip open fingers or throats in the prisoners’ frenzied rush to die on their own terms, rather than in service to Pinkerton’s craziness — concussive firecracker blasts of hexation went up and down again like signal flares, popping off heads and hands, ’til the handlers themselves also started to cut and run.

  Morrow actually thought he could see one of ’em clearly mouth: Fuck THIS shit!, before turning tail and joining with the general scramble.

  Ixchel whipped her tresses out to net a few stragglers, reeling them in, and sucked ’em mummy-dry in seconds like she was choking down shots back at Splitfoot Joe’s, jacking her armament up any way she could. Which must’ve seemed a similarly bona fide idea to Pinkerton, for he too turned and cold-cocked the nearest deserter, who squealed like a pig sensing the knife as his former boss’s much-altered shadow fell atop him: “Mister Pinkerton, I’m sorry, but you just can’t expect a man to bear such rampant awfulness, not in all conscience — ”

  “I can, an’ I do. An’ if ye won’t, then what damnable use are you t’me, except as fuel?”

  “Oh Jesus, no! No!”

  A dreadful alchemy seemed to overtake what remained of the Agency’s founder, twisting his flesh to match his cannibal desires. He gaped wide, wider, widest of all — Christ Almighty, Morrow almost thought he heard the man’s jaw-hinge muscles tear, his cheeks rip like cloth in a high wind. At last, his skull-top itself seemed to teeter on the ragged verge of separation, sheer violent jut of force-grown bone increasing his mouth’s width and depth at least twice over. More than enough to fit a man’s entire screaming face inside, it turned out.

  Pinkerton bit down, a shark-toothed trap sprung shut, and set in to chew. The screaming stopped, then, eventually . . . but not fast enough, by far.

  God, was all Morrow could think, numbly, over and over, as he watched and did nothing, because — what was there to do, exactly? Goddamnit, God . . . come on already, old man, if you’re comin’. Ain’t this the sort of stuff you like to put a stop to? Or is Hell finally empty and all the devils here — just silence coming back, ’cause there’s nothin’ left out there to answer? Anything don’t want to eat us, that is, or make us so’s we crave to eat each other?

  A fair question, soldier, the Enemy’s voice murmured, from behind him.Yet I am here, nonetheless.

  Clinging on Morrow’s shoulder, like any bad angel; Morrow didn’t even bother turning his head to see. Simply shivered to feel that too-cold copy of Chess’s deft little hand on his, reminding him — subtly, yet firmly — that he still held his weapon.

  How many shells left, soldier?

  “Takes two, one per barrel. I got ’em both.”

  You should use them, then.

  That drew a weak sketch of a laugh. “On who?” Morrow managed.

  Who do you think?

  Morrow turned his eyes on Ixchel, hovering once more out of reach and range alike, pits where her eyes should lie already intent on Pinkerton’s bent and heaving back, apparently too appetite-hypnotized to be aware of her threat — and Goddamn, but he really didn’t know how that woman’d ever borne the sad chore of walking from place to place, back in the day. But then again, she probably hadn’t had to do it for long.

  Then back to Pinkerton, popped jaw crunching back and forth like a coyote cracking bones for marrow, blood greased back so far it’d dyed his sideburns cathouse red. ’Cept what he was actually chewing on had been a man’s hollowed-out idea-pan, some poor bastard’s entire life writ infinitesimal small on grey-pink loops of brain — same ones Pinkerton was shovelling down right as Morrow watched, licking his fingers for the last of it, while hexation sweated out like mercury through every pore.

  How Morrow’d admired the man, once — truly, completely: a man of action, of application, far-seeing and inventive, carving a new path through a brave new world. But there was nothing of the personality he’d followed left at all, that he could see, no matter how hard he searched for it — only hunger, ape-stupid and degraded.

  Yes, soldier. Remember what I told you? That time I spoke of when you must follow your own instincts, do as your conscience dictates . . . is now.

  So I see, Morrow thought. And raised the gun, not giving himself time to think about it further, if only in faint hopes Pinkerton might not “overhear” him do so.

  A man stuffed sausage-full with that much stolen witchery couldn’t really fail to figure out when someone was plotting his doom, though, ’specially if they only stood a yard or so that-a-way; that disgusting object Pinkerton called a head jerked up, sniffing the air. And before he could turn, Morrow pulled both triggers at once and gave it to him, right in the back, hard enough he could see Pinkerton’s naked spine glisten amongst the meat.

  The hole opened was fearsome. So was what poured out, a flood of decay cut with arcane marsh-gas flame that turned the sand below all rotten black and crap-bucket brown, the sickening horn-dun yellow of a bled-out corpse’s feet. Pinkerton shrank visibly as it escaped him, straining to catch the bulk in his cupped hands, only to have it scald them so bad their palms blistered up like slimy mittens. These he lifted Morrow’s way, maybe in plea, or cut-off imprecation; it was impossible to tell either way, since the damage he’d done to his own speaking organs wasn’t healing, leaving his unstrung tongue to flap useless in the rising wind.

  The Enemy already seemed to’ve eddied away, like any good tempter. But Ixchel stared down still, grinning fit to bust, as though she’d seldom seen anything quite so sweet in all her long, hard un-life.

  Daughter, she called, sweetly. I see you at play and rejoice, for your pleasure gives me pleasure. Yet it seems I have need of you here.

  And the eager answer, resonant as a grave-s
truck gong, seemingly echoing back from everywhere at once: I come, mother. I come.

  Though it was somewhat hard to tell, Morrow almost thought Pinkerton might’ve whimpered at the sound of it, for which Morrow certainly didn’t blame him. Yet found he was running a tad low on sympathy, nonetheless.

  Let’s at least hope she makes it quick, was all he had time to think, before Clo swept in and tore Pinkerton in two, like paper. One half went this way, the other that, while the very best part of what was left inside him all went streaking up into Ixchel herself, who barely seemed to register its influx.

  But then again, neither did Morrow, really. For that same instant must’ve been when whatever hit him next knocked him backward like a hundred haymakers, a blindsiding mortar burst, right into the corpse-tangle’s raw and reeking briar patch heart.

  So here he lay, coming to by painfully slow degrees while someone tugged hard on what he gradually realized must be his broken arm, trying to extricate him from this hex-dug hole; Private Carver, calling his name and hauling, while what sounded like Ixchel and Clo wiping the field with the dregs of Pinkerton’s forces raged somewhere behind. Barely able to resist screaming aloud, Morrow gritted out: “Please stop doin’ that before I puke, Private — Jonas, I mean — ”

  Carver let go, sprang back. “Ed Morrow, that is you! You’re awake?”

  “Most definitely so, yeah.”

  “Oh, thank the Lord! Man, things are comin’ fast as yellow-jack shit out here; I got these gals t’look after, and almost nobody left upright to help. After they all broke and run, things just got worse — don’t even know where half them folks got to, Doc Asbury and the Captain included . . .” Here he stopped, peering closer. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  “Broke, I think . . . that or so far out the socket it’s like I can feel the damn ball movin’ ’round loose in there . . .”

  “Yeah? Well, it looks pretty awful, but might be the gals could take a look — ”

  “You trust ’em to?”