by Gemma Files
Geyer could only nod.
Pinkerton jabbed a sausage-like finger at the map, flicking Asbury’s aside. “Along wi’ the Professor’s theories, Miz Songbird’s Celestial scryings suggest a reason for why Rook chose Bewelcome to raise his New Babylon next to: the place is dead. No’ just of life—of magic. Which may suit it to our needs.”
Asbury leaned forward. “If my calculations are correct, any fully wakened hex entering that area will soon have only what strength he takes in to work magic with. Once exhausted, he will not be able to replenish himself, until he leaves. With more exact data, I believe I can construct a mechanism to exploit that effect, neutralizing hexation completely within its boundaries—an invaluable property for a base of operations against a city of hexes, you will appreciate. Logically, this should also produce full neutralization of Reverend Rook’s summonings, so those hexes who do choose to serve our cause may be free of that distraction.”
“A weak term,” muttered Songbird, “seeing how from dawn to dusk, it hooks at my skull so I must spill half my power each day to endure it.”
Since Pinkerton and Asbury gave no indication they’d heard, Geyer decided to pretend likewise. “All very impressive, Doctor, but I’m—”
“—no hex, aye, Frank; we ken,” Pinkerton interrupted. “That was no’ a problem for Morrow, either, ’til he commenced to let his britches do the thinking.” The light in his eyes was back, exultant. “A short trip wi’ one of the guid Doctor’s devices, a day or two in observation, and we shall be in a position t’meet ye not far outside the ruined land itself.”
Geyer glanced back down, following the red dots’ swathe. “And Pargeter? He’s clearly on his way to Hex City, moving faster than any mundane transport could take him—what do I do if he turns up?”
Pinkerton smiled. “Agent, if ye should chance to encounter Chess Pargeter, then run, fast and far as ye can. If possible, before he sees yuirself at all.”
But here Yancey stopped listening, the big man’s voice abruptly falling to a buzz in the middle distance. For her guts had suddenly clenched up at the sight of the name on one black dot, not yet marked in red, sitting defenceless in the path of that encroaching tide—innocent, blameless, and utterly unaware of what would come upon it.
Hoffstedt’s Hoard.
Then—Songbird lifted her head, as if she heard noise from another carriage; glanced around suspiciously, almond-flesh eyes already narrowed against even this dim light and squeezing further, almost to slits. Yancey gulped. She held her thoughts still inside Geyer’s head, breath slow; Songbird’s gaze passed over “her” as if Geyer was not there, but did not alight. Lightheaded with fear, Yancey followed that gaze, wondering what it saw.
A near-fatal mistake. The mere alignment of focus seemed to trigger a snapback of mystical forces, and for an awful second, Songbird’s vision was Yancey’s: she saw shimmering veils of power spark and flare outside, cloaking the train in invisible fire, as it thundered across the landscape. But clinging to that veil, peering like a street urchin sneaking a furtive peek into some knocking shop’s back windows, was a burly man with a coarse grey beard, transparent as dirty glass.
Songbird reared back, shrieked a fast and furious string of Chinese, backed up by power’s whiplash; Yancey felt her hand slice air and ether alike, slamming both window-ward. Caught in its path, the bearded spectre outside distorted lengthwise, like smeared ink—
—and Yancey sat back into her proper body, still locked upright at Splitfoot Joe’s table, muscles stiff as a day-old corpse’s, while a dizzying chill swept her from head to toe. Released, her hand fair flew from Geyer’s wrist, movement alone appearing to transmit somewhat of the same sensation to him; he gasped out loud and stared at her, rigid, like she’d grown another head.
What gave you the right to rummage ’hind my eyes, Miss, when I’ve tried to treat you kind? he thought, so theatrical tin-thunder sharp she winced, trying to block it out.
“That ghost, on the train’s side,” she said, out loud. “Songbird . . . knew him.”
Morrow frowned. “What ghost? And—how d’you know that name, anyhow?”
The information came rattling out headlong through Yancey’s throat, unstoppable: “Little Chinese witch, barely more than a child, works with—” Don’t say Pinkerton’s name! She had to remind herself, forcibly. “—your boss, and Doctor Asbury . . . there’s something wrong with her, more so even than the usual. Bone-bleached, eyes so weak she can’t see properly in any world but the spirits’, can’t bear the light of the sun or walk outside without two veils and a parasol.”
But now they were both regarding her with a similar pitch of horror, which finally stopped her in her tracks.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, weakly, eyes avoiding Geyer’s. “I just needed to know. What you knew.”
The Pinkerton swallowed. “Are you . . . you’re a hex?”
“No. Hell, no.”
“Then how—”
Yancey felt a hopeless lurch; the innate Goddamned impossibility of telling him anything acceptable suddenly fell on her all of a piece, with all the dead weight of grief deferred.
“There’s other things in this world, Mister ‘Grey,’” was all she could manage, finally, “and I’m one of them. That’s all.”
But then, you should understand that, given what we left behind us. Sheriff Love, and all his godless Man-of-God works.
And maybe he could hear her still, hard as she was labouring to make it so’s he couldn’t. Because with that, Geyer nodded his head, looked down at his hands, took a great fresh breath—and started over.
“She did seem to see something, though I didn’t; left quick enough, afterwards. The boss and Asbury just let her go. I thought . . . well, I had other things on my mind, at the moment.”
Mister Morrow broke in, impatient: “Hold on here, let’s go back a minute, ’fore we outpace ourselves. What ghost?”
Yancey described him, and watched Morrow’s face fall.
“Sounds like Kees Hosteen, to me,” he said. “He was in Rook’s gang; last man standing, really, after Mictlan-Xibalba. I sent him to get help, before we left, but we were gone when he got back. Died in Tampico, walkin’ into a bullet meant for—someone else.”
“Can your Reverend Rook raise the dead?”
Morrow snorted. “Don’t doubt he can, considerin’ how much there is of it in the Bible.”
They sat, ruminating on the concept. ’Til Geyer said, slowly, “If I’d been more attentive, I might’ve known what to expect later on at the Hoard, ’specially after noticing how the . . . remains . . . of Sheriff Love were gone from Bewelcome square. But I was so engaged in taking Asbury’s readings, it simply never occurred to me—not even when I saw tracks leading off into the desert, and that mystery light poor Mister Frewer described off in the far distance, moving faster than any human eye could follow.”
Love, travelling quick, as the dead tend to do.
Morrow frowned again. “Readings? He gave you the Manifold?”
“A Manifold, yes. To take the data he needed.”
“‘A’—hold the hell on, Frank. There’s more than one, now?”
And with that, they were off again, Geyer sinking back into a lengthy explication of Asbury’s various achievements: a whole tiny Manifold factory ensconced in one boxcar of Pinkerton’s king-train, churning out fifty of the things a day (Yancey caught a flash of the one Morrow’d once carried from his mind, spasming painful ’gainst his waistcoat pocket-seams as a heart attack in progress). Geyer drew it out, flipped it open with a thumb-tip, and they all admired the way its needles clicked immediately roof-ward, toward Chess—the single most magic-charged object to be found, doubtless, within several vicinities.
“Didn’t even guess you had that on you,” Morrow said, amazed. Geyer shrugged.
“Much good it’s done me, considering they let me go without any real instruction. But it’s like George Thiel said—now the die’s been cast, this machinery of
the Professor’s will change the world as we know it, for better or for worse. There’s no stopping it.”
Like so much else, Yancey thought, the cold feeling in her guts returning.
“Mister ‘Grey,’” she asked, “why was it your boss thought this Mister Thiel unreliable?”
Geyer’s eyes met hers yet again—this shock was softer, though still potent. Something he’d carried without examining, for longer than he’d had time to feel guilty over.
“A long story,” he said. “Suffice it to say . . . someone had, indeed, been gravely misinformed.”
“Pinkerton?” Morrow asked.
Geyer shook his head, sadly. “No,” he replied. “Me.”
Chapter Twelve
After Geyer’d divested himself of the rest of his tale, laid out the full extent of his and Morrow’s mutual former employer’s perfidies in fine and horrid detail, he sat as though gutted. The fire burned down, reddening the darkness ’til everything around them hurt somewhat to contemplate—or perhaps that was just Morrow’s skull, which had begun to pound, erratic as that tooth old Doc Glossing had “painlessly” pulled, what now seemed like fifty years before.
“He’s a man of parts,” Morrow said, finally, of Pinkerton. “Well suited to make hard choices, as needs must. From what I’ve seen, though . . . can’t quite believe he’d be capable of all that.”
Geyer shook his head. “Nor I, Ed; nor I. And yet . . .” He winced, as though Morrow’s ache were catching.
The conversation ran dry once more, with little hope of revivification.
“I’m for bed,” Geyer said, finally, bolting the last of his drink. To Yancey: “Would you be willing to share with me, Mister . . . Kloves? I’d take the floor, of course, in practice.”
“That’d be right kind.”
“Then . . . should we both go up now, together?”
She hadn’t even been looking Geyer’s way previous to that, just contemplating middle-distance, but this last broke her free, and she made a regal little gesture of demurral. “Not just yet, sir; I need to speak with Mister Morrow awhile. Then he can escort me, later on.”
“Without makin’ it look like I am escorting her,” Morrow assured them both. “Us all being fellows together, like we are.”
“Yes,” Geyer agreed, and rose, stiffly. “Goodnight, then . . . gentlemen.”
Geyer climbed the stairs, leaving them alone but for Joe, who busied himself where he stood behind the bar with haphazardly polishing something below eye level. Once upon a time, Morrow might’ve feared it was a shotgun—but he was honestly tired enough from a day and night of hexacious combat plus magickal travel, followed by a bunch of secrets he’d frankly rather not know, that he could barely rouse himself to care, either way.
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-t
he-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.