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)

  His voice trailed away, run dry at the sheer horror of it, especially from a man he’d once admired. But Chess didn’t take the hint.

  “They what, hexify ’em ’gainst their will? Poor damn babies. Bound to’ve happened sooner or later, and if they’re so dumb they still turn Pink after, then—”

  Yancey sat upright, her final straw snapping. “Oh, let me,” she said.

  Her hand darted forward, snaring Chess by the sleeve and pulling him so close it made him startle, like she came loaded with some particularly female complaint he might catch through sheer proximity. “Whoa, now! Just ’cause you and Ed been flirting . . .”

  “Hush,” she said, severely, and kissed him on the lips.

  Purest intuition, same as going skin-to-skin with Geyer had been, the night previous—but she couldn’t fool herself there was no small shred of payback in the gesture, either. If nothing else, it certainly shocked Chess silent.

  Both their minds broke open, pulled right on back to Pinkerton’s conclave, together: so close-sat between the predatory trio of Asbury, Songbird, Pinkerton and Geyer’s memory-self it seemed insanity no alarm was roused. The former agent looked uppercut, dazed.

  “But . . . these are citizens of our nation, sir, not enemy operatives; fellow veterans, some of them. I thought our charge was the protection of such innocents.”

  Pinkerton’s dreadful maw quivered, as though striving (yet failing, miserably) to knit itself back together—and it shocked Yancey to realize how shocked Chess was by the sight, his unwitting handiwork made flesh.

  “We are nane sae innocent as tae be sinless, from Eve’s womb on,” Pinkerton replied, shortly. “But what America stands on here, Frank, is the precipice of a far worse division than that which almost sundered us—one which must be avoided, at all costs.”

  “I’m still not sure why that necessitates forcing the unprepared into custody, ripping them from wives and families, subjecting them to—”

  “A cocktail of the same sacramental Weed Pargeter sows behind him, only,” Asbury assured him, “creating delirium, followed by a mere shadow-show of impending grievous bodily harm: threat of fire, or approaching bombardment . . .” Hastening to add, as Geyer gawped at him: “. . . and then, once the deed is achieved, sedation via heroin—a housewife’s cough remedy!—or gentle gastric lavage. It is done with all possible delicacy, Mister Geyer, leaving not a speck of permanent damage; we have no wish, or need, to go further.”

  “Yet these medicament-aided vaudevilles of yours must ring convincing enough to make the change occur,” Geyer shot back, “which confirms the whole offensive matter as torture!”

  Asbury reddened, from his collar up. “Our processes, however traumatic, allow these recruits to avoid such Mediaeval nonsense, sir! No more burnings, hangings or pressings, no more ‘spectral evidence’—no hysteric, misinformed massacres, in fact, such as that which lent Salem its legendarily ill name.”

  Unable to restrain herself, Songbird giggled behind her fan, drawing Pinkerton’s roar. “Be still, both o’ ye!” To Geyer: “I must ha’ men around me I can trust, Frank, sincerely, and not worry over. If you canna play that part for me, then tell me now, and we’ll ha’ ye back Illinois-way on the instant.”

  “I . . . that wasn’t my intent, boss, by any means. It’s simply . . .”

  He shook his head, amazed, while Pinkerton merely shrugged. “Aye, it’s a conundrum—how tae comport ourselves as true Christians, gi’en what we deal wi’? We can’t do much tae hurry the lassies along, and setting one hex to make another is a witless errand, for they eat ’em right after, or at least try damn hard. Savages!” Songbird laughed again. “But the Professor here’s figuring a way tae keep ’em in line.”

  And here things froze, a print-run newsbill settling from ink to image. Cutting out the middleman, since they were there already, Chess turned directly to Geyer’s shadow-self, and asked: “What’s he on about? Those grounding-wires the Doc uses to suck up magic?”

  First Yancey’d heard of such a thing, but Geyer-of-the-past—perhaps somehow combined with his current self through hexological miracle, so that the “person” they spoke to was as much Geyer as its original?—nodded quick enough, like it was familiar business. “Says he can boil it down into a spring or cog and add it to the Manifold’s next generation, so’s we won’t even need the whole rigmarole with casting a circle or dispersing the result—just point and shoot, and the thing takes more the more your target tries to fend it off, ’til they run plumb dry.”

  “For permanent?” asked Chess.

  Geyer shrugged, blankly. “Asbury says magic’s a natural force, like gravitation, so no . . . every hex can take a charge of it, like running electricity through metal, which means it’ll build up again, eventually. But the rest of that stuff he talks of—build a machine that can extract magic, let alone store it so any normal man can use it, later on? That’s like sayin’ you can build an engine that flies to the moon, or a bombshell fierce enough to level an entire city. No, if the last century’s taught us anything, such foolery is the province of hexation alone.”

  “So what broke you free of Pinkerton’s sway, exactly, and sent you chasin’ after me?”

  Geyer looked down, abashed. “He sent me away with George Thiel, his second-in-command ’til then—doing work Pinkerton no longer trusts himself with, be it purging Weed or rounding up potentials. He feared Thiel’s loyalty was slipping, that the man intended to form his own Detective Service Agency, in direct competition to our own. So Pinkerton told me to ride along with him on a fact-finding mission up Bewelcome way, watch for my chance, and—when I saw it—act.”

  “Back-shoot the fucker, in other words.”

  “I said: ‘Given provocation?’ To which he replied: ‘Provocation’s a thing can always be decided upon, after.’”

  “Wouldn’t expect any better, from the same man had agents dress like ghosts to scare a nut-house confession from Alex Drysdale.”

  “No, no.” Geyer shook his head fiercely. “That was justice, however rough. But how could I follow his orders after that, knowing he held a loyal man’s life in such disregard? Worse still, when I broke the bonds of silence to warn George, he was unsurprised—he’d known it was coming, and made his plans accordingly. Fly north and east, back to the government, and tell them first-hand what hay Pinkerton’s been making of his authority . . . convince them how vitally important it is not just that Hex City be overthrown, but that Pinkerton not be its conqueror, lest he use such victory as an excuse to seize power for himself.”

  “Shut up,” Chess ordered him, turning back to Yancey, who braced herself. “As for you—that was a dangerous game you just played, missy. Last woman who kissed me . . . well, turnabout is fair play, or so I’ve heard. . . .”

  Before she could ask what he meant, it was his lips on hers, tongue tracing the seam in one hot, abrasive lick. The charge of it broke outwards, sweeping Geyer, Pinkerton and the rest clear, and what followed came as a series of blood-tinged blinks, viler than anything Yancey’d ever dreamt on: all limbs and motion, a serpentine coiling, pinned hands and feet, imposed desire and vivid rage co-mixed. Chess lay trapped in its midst, prone and horrified; a looming man-tower she could only assume was Reverend Rook stared down on his humiliation, purring, with horrid affection: Soon be over, darlin’. Just let her have her way.

  At the very centre of this storm, meanwhile—his tormentor, the cyclone’s bride. The aforementioned Lady.

  Her real name is Ixchel, Chess told Yancey, dispassionate. While his own memory-self, bound fast as Leviathan, struggled against her toils with everything he had, only to prove it wanting. Thinking furiously, with the only part of him left free: Oh, I’d kill you right now if I could, scatter your bones and dance on ’em, in a fuckin’ instant. Bite your lips off, bitch. Rip out your lyin’ tongue, and hang it for a party favour. Just kil
l and kill and kill—

  And her, nodding, black hair ’round his face like a curtain, funereal flag of some overthrown nation. Thinking back, in vaguely amused return—If you could, yes. Yet you cannot; you are made for this, littleixiptla, my husband’s husband. It will happen.

  Chess bucked and writhed, but in his mind’s eye alone. He chewed at his own tongue ’til his teeth almost met, and still she rode him down through the storm, the rainbow’s black core, a cauldron of hissing dragonflies. Rode him ’til an ending of sorts lit up the hollows of their skulls, and all their eyes turned black.

  Motion through darkness, vertiginous downward plunge, and Yancey hit bottom at last. That dreadful female form had absented itself, along with the Reverend’s ghost; the two of them were left alone, nose to nose, and the weight of what she’d inadvertently done to Chess pressed at her chest like some massive iron bell’s clapper.

  “I’m so sorry,” Yancey said, eventually, knowing it made not a whit of difference. “I didn’t . . . I couldn’t’ve . . .”

  Thankfully, all Chess’s anger seemed to have fled in transition, leaving only gruffness behind. “’Course you couldn’t. Just don’t do it again—not without warning.”

  She hesitated, then ventured: “You must truly hate me.”

  That irritable spark flared up once more, though no longer directed her way; a flare of insight blooming, uncomfortable, undeniable. Snapping back: “Jesus, what for? You ain’t her, just ’cause you got a few of her particulars—ain’t my Ma, either. You’re—”

  —something different, the like I’ve never seen, with your clumsy-true aim and your high moral quackings. More akin to me than not, even folding in your choice of where to lay a roving fancy. Though he was with me last night, in the flesh, and don’t you ever forget it.

  More an ally than an enemy, in other words. One of the current gang, so tiny there was no point in either mistrust or rank, beyond the barest rudiment: Chess in front, the others behind, for protection—theirs, and his. Shedding blood in his half-deified name. Watching his back.

  Hell, even I can see that.

  Close as they were at this moment, the thought could’ve come from either, and still be just as true.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Night’s house rose everywhere. From horizon to horizon, the desert filled with its whisperings.

  To the west, a train powered by anguish rode ghostly rails, heading swift and sure for a certain hidden valley. Inside, its master dozed, sedated to a less immediate level of pain. His partners sat in the dining car, one watching the other throw a series of three coins over and over, noting down the results, which were—unsurprisingly—always the same.

  “Your divinatory scholars call this the I Ching, I believe,” Asbury said.

  Songbird did not bother to nod, let alone look up. “When Fu Xi first compiled them, the hexagrams were cast using a handful of yarrow stalks, but that method has been lost for centuries. The Han gave us coins instead, which serve.”

  “And the outcome?”

  The bleached girl-witch bent lower, studying the latest compilation of broken and unbroken lines. “Tui above, the joyous lake. Sun below, a gentle wind through the wood. Weakness outside, strength inside—a situation out of balance, extraordinary, dangerous. Such a condition cannot last; it must be changed quickly, or misfortune will result.”

  “I thought that was the path we were already embarked upon.”

  Her weak eyes flicked to rake him, visibly unfocused, yet too sharp too evade. “Did you? This is Pinkerton’s crusade, Professor, as you well know, though you raised no objection—but then again, neither did I. I keep my own counsel, with the Book of Changes as my advisor.” Colourless lashes drooping, as she quoted from memory:

  Nine in the third place:

  The ridgepole sags to the breaking point.

  Six at the top:

  One must go through water that goes over one’s head.

  Misfortune, but no blame.

  “Meaning?”

  “There are things more important than preserving one’s own life, so long as the right prevails.” She hissed through her teeth. “Ai-yaaa! Such foolishness. Yet the true reading is plain. If anyone is doomed to sacrifice himself to rebalance the whole, it will be English Oona’s son, not anyone sworn to our cause.”

  “Why cast these runes at all, then, if you see the future they speak of so clearly?”

  “Because luck can change, always; that is its nature. And always in more than one way.”

  Asbury nodded. “Indubitably. And yet . . . in a world containing both science and hexology, surely we have no need for such antiquated concepts as luck?”

  Obviously, Songbird did not feel this last observation worthy to be dignified with any sort of response. Instead, she let her red veil swing closed like a door, returning to her efforts; Asbury sighed, reaching for a fascinatingly appropriate yellow-backed dime novel he’d picked up at their last stop: The Salten Town, or, Outlawry Aplenty at Hex City’s Door!

  “It’s a hard life you lead, for one so young,” he said, as though to himself. “All . . . this. Were you not—” Here he glanced up again and hesitated, finding her dim gaze returned to him, even more off-putting than before. “—what you are, I mean,” he finished, weakly.

  “Were the sky not blue, perhaps, or the moon and sun exchanged? Old fool! What should I do, play with dolls? A hundred generations went to make me. I am a warlord born—an empress reduced to a brothel figurehead, sold alongside peasant girls in a muddy pigsty. More than match to any full-grown American sorcerer. So what matter, if I rail against time’s cage on occasion, or find myself intemperate?” He saw her fingers flex and tremble in their gilded sheaths, perhaps with the effort expended to not hex him silly.

  “Please—I meant no insult.”

  Songbird sniffed, suddenly cool and remote once more. “Gweilo go-se shifu, elevated undeservedly by cleverness—you have not substance enough to insult me. In the Forbidden City, they would have made a eunuch of you.”

  “And we have made you a whore. Is that so preferable?”

  “We each use the other for our own ends—you give me shelter from Reverend Rook’s accursed Call, and I lend power, as needed. If that counts as prostitution, I am hardly the only whore in this compartment.”

  Asbury flushed. “Nevertheless,” he went on, doggedly. “I am not unconscious of your position’s injustice. I sought only to offer you freedom, or the best version of it I can give; a kind you may not yet have contemplated, perhaps.”

  “What . . . freedom?”

  Diffidently, Asbury placed a Manifold upon the table where the coins of the I Ching yet rested. Beside it, he laid a delicate bracelet made up of a dozen interwoven rods; its metal looked like silver, but the dull clank it made on wood lacked silver’s chime, sounding somehow dead. Songbird narrowed her eyes further, as if both objects might be scorpions disguised by glamour.

  “You know the latest iterations of my device can drain away the hexaciously gifted’s accumulated power,” Asbury said, tapping the Manifold. “But this—” his hand moved to the bracelet “—is the next step. By donning the guard, composed of the same alloys that ground thaumaturgical forces, the hex’s affinity is blocked—he no longer draws in such forces to replenish himself, nor feels any hunger to do so, nor provokes such hunger in other hexes. With one simple bracelet, he can deny altogether the responsibilities of a never-asked-for burden.” He leaned forward, urgent. “You’d be free both of the Call and of any obligation to us. Without your power, Mister Pinkerton will have no need for you, and you could return to—well, wherever you want. San Francisco, far Cathay . . .”

  Songbird lifted her gaze. “And this ‘guard’—is it always made so, removable at will?” Her voice went softer yet, a silken rope noose-coiled. “Or are other forms of it yet more . .
. permanent?”

  Asbury grew pale, stammering: “But surely, you see there are those of your kind who cannot be permitted . . . who are not . . . safe.”

  But here he broke off, realizing that thin squeaking he heard was her nail-sheaths grating against themselves.

  “Old man,” she said, “take care how you speak to me, or to any other ch’in ta, for that matter. I do not want your pity, or your ‘help.’ Your devices mean nothing to me—less than nothing. For even if they do what you claim they will, it cannot be made permanent.”

  “I beg to differ—”

  “Beg all you wish. Do you truly think you can cure this sick world, wracked to its very core, by ‘curing’ me? I have a part to play, like the spider, the wolf, the carrion crow. And because I know this, because I am not stupid enough to deny it, I am already so far beyond your grasp that you should truly be afraid. Just think how much further even than that such as Chess Pargeter, Reverend Rook or his Lady of the Long Hair must be!” She smiled, revealing kitten-teeth. “Especially so, since—on your employer’s orders—we now travel toward them, rather than away from them.”

  Asbury swallowed. “You’re at risk too, then, as much as we, if not more. For all three will be hungry, when we arrive.”

  “Yes. But I, at least, will either conquer or die, doing what I was meant for. And you will not deprive me of my chance to do either with this manacle of yours, unless you wish to be cut a hundred times in a hundred different ways: denied xiao by ling-shi, both in this world and the next—all the next worlds, from Mictlan-Xibalba up through each and every one of the Ten Thousand Hells my amahs promised me.”