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)

  Her voice broke, startling Chess, one thought crystal clear in every rigid line of her: No more man, no magic, no promises of love — just me, alone, like I’d fooled myself I wouldn’t be. Positionless and street-bound, with one skill only t’my name, ’less I wanted t’swing for thievery; all that, nothin’ more.

  Except, of course, for . . . you.

  Chess didn’t want to tell her he knew what that was like — to be took up and dropped, have the whole world pulled out from under you like a rug, by one you thought you’d gladly die for. Shouldn’t have to tell her, anyhow; could just go on ahead and read his damn thoughts like any other dead person, if she was really interested.

  Instead, he cleared his throat. “I never heard of anybody could do that — take a person’s hexation from ’em, without killin’.”

  “’Cause you know so much about it, eh?” Oona didn’t look up, staring grimly down at the puddle’s fading picture show. “But no, wasn’t like ’e took it, as . . . made it so’s I couldn’t catch ’old of it — so’s it just flowed in one way and out the other. Closed fings up inside me and fused ’em shut, like any back-alley angelmaker.”

  “What the hell’d be the point of that?”

  “’Oo knows? A give-and-take, maybe, for some bigger reward on ’is own end — ’e ’ad ambitions in that direction, though it wasn’t like ’e’d discuss their particulars wiv the likes of me.” Another shrug. “Or maybe ’e was just a bastard.”

  More’n likely, Chess thought.

  “Saved your life, though, not that ’e was finkin’ of it — ’cause by makin’ such a mess of me, ’e made sure I couldn’t feed off of you, even if I wanted. And believe you me, I wanted.”

  “What makes you think I don’t believe you?” Chess asked.

  A silence fell between them then, dull as any unhealed break. Chess let it pass without remark, being used to the sensation — pain run through him like a tide, out and in and out again once more. Though it did surprise him just a tad to see Oona wince slightly, for all the world as though she felt it, too.

  “So,” she continued. “There I was wiv you and not enough glamour to light a candle, after I’d been bankin’ half a year on the day it’d all change.” A ghastly smile. “Oh, sonny, you don’t know how many times I almost frew you overboard on our way down the coast, or drowned you in the bath like a kitten . . . not since you were cause of all my sorrows, so much, but just since you were close to ’and. And ’e wasn’t.”

  Now, that he could almost believe. Same way he’d ended men for not being the ones he really yearned to kill, or fucked ’em for much the same reason.

  “And I was the one set you to whore and smoke, too, I s’pose; neat damn trick, with me still on the tit. Next you’ll be sayin’ the Devil made you do it.”

  “Was Columcille I’d’ve blamed, like I said, if there was anything to gain by it. You I kept alive, much as it cost me . . . but ask yerself this: given ’ow much I wanted to get rid o’you, why d’you fink I never actually did?”

  “’Cause baby killers get the gallows, they get caught? ’Cause I was worth more sold than thrown away?” Chess spread his hands. “Both or neither, don’t even matter, considering how little of a fuck I give.”

  Yet here another voice came back to him, this one light and clear, pleasantly absinthe-softened, betraying no hint of the steel he knew lurked behind it. Babies die, Mister Pargeter. Happens lamentably easily. . . . She’d really wanted you dead, you would be.

  “You really ’aven’t wondered, ’ave you, all this while?” Oona cocked her head, disbelief writ wide on every line of her too-young face. “Why I kept on at you, put you straight into ’arm’s path a thousand times over — consider what you know ’bout your father now, ’bout me. Then tell me you really can’t see the why of it all.”

  The why of it all: half his life, to this point. That same life had made his double purpose escape and vengeance, without even a hope of prosperity, after. Just hit the ground running and not look back, or fill any motherfucker got in his way with lead.

  But yeah, he finally did know what she’d wanted all along, now. So simple, from this side of things. So impossible to guess at, from the other.

  “You wanted me to turn hex,” he said, and coughed up a sick laugh. “Go up like a blow-stick, take the whole show with me when I did — that about the size of it? Christ, no wonder you got more and more pissed, every time I never turned the trick!”

  “Contrary to the last, you bastard. You really must be the toughest little shit alive.”

  “No thanks to you. But then again . . . how dumb are you, woman? In any of the stories I heard tell of, only thing makes a man-hex bloom is threat of death! Ash Rook swung, for Christ’s sake, and he had to take my damn heart out to make me what I am — what I always was. You telling me that for all the neck-stabbin’ and pimpery, there was never one time you thought of just slittin’ my throat in my sleep and seeing what might happen? Or . . .”

  He trailed off. She didn’t answer.

  Didn’t have to.

  Because — oh God, it was already creeping up like he’d been born saturated, a poison-knowledge tisane, waiting for the right hand to dunk him in boiling water and brew the truth right out of him. The bitter truth, too disgusting for anyone — even him — to swallow.

  ’Cause . . . if you’d done it wrong, all I’d’ve been was dead, and . . . no.

  “No,” he repeated, out loud. “You do not get to say that to me, Goddamnit.”

  Oona simply stood there, green stare level, now he was the one unable to meet it. Chess shied like a horse, swung away, stormed a few paces off, spun back. “Bitch, no. You . . . you don’t get to . . . to even start to say . . .”

  Appalled, he felt a lump thicken in his throat, and fought the temptation to finish his thought, furiously as he’d ever fought anything. But though she herself showed not the faintest flicker of expression to confirm these traitor words in his head, it was too late — even unspoken, they hung between them, like the stink of powder after gunplay.

  You do not, not ever, get to tell me you really did love me, after all.

  Took near a minute of the silence that followed for Chess to realize that the everlasting “London” rain had finally stopped, along with the noise of that threadbare, cycling crowd. Hugging himself hard, he turned a slow circle, blinking. Down all seven streets, from here to their vanishing points, the Dials were empty but for him and Oona: every fellow phantom gone, every building hollow and silent, every laneway glinting slick. No rat-skitter or pigeons’ coo to break the stillness; no footfall over the grey rooftops, pavers dull as teeth below, shingles like scales above. The black sky held no stars.

  For a moment, the entire scene seemed to ripple, no more than a hastily sketched picture on threadbare black silk curtains, stirred in a cold breeze.

  “What’s it matter, any’ow?” Oona asked, finally. “Don’t know why I put myself out. You’re dead now, same as me.”

  “I am not. My body’s still up there, still alive — ”

  “Occupied, too. Which means you can’t do nothin’ wiv it, don’t it?”

  “Well, I ain’t about to stop tryin’!”

  She gave him a long look — and smiled again, finally, with far more warmth than last time. “That’s different, then. Now, you ready to get out of ’ere, or what? ’Cause I sure am, and I’m thinkin’ it’ll take the both of us.”

  “Be one fancy piece of work if it did, seein’ as how you ain’t even a hex no more.”

  “You neither, cully — not down ’ere. But I’m sure we can figure out somefing.”

  Chess’s lips drew back. “Fuck ‘we,’ Ma. Might’a slipped your mind how you ain’t ever been exactly reliable — for me, anyways.”

  Oona slid one small hand out from under his cuff, considering her fingernails as though they were little horn mirrors, nonchalant. “Oh, I could be, wiv the right incentive. ’Sides which,” jabbing a th
umb skyward, “them lot upstairs been droppin’ lines for weeks, trawlin’ for your attention, and you can’t even see ’em. Can ya?”

  Christ, how Chess loathed this feeling of being just a step behind, that glee some so-called “smart” people took in changing subjects too fast for him to follow: Oona, Songbird, the Enemy. Hell, even Ash Rook’d talked down to him at first, though — give the big bastard his due — he’d also been the one person ever tried to break himself of that habit, if for no other reason than Chess had told him to either do so, or get reacquainted with his own right hand.

  “Seems not,” he said, between clenched teeth. “Can’t even say I know which ‘lot’ you’re talkin’ on, unless — ” But here memory broke past anger. “Yancey,” he breathed.

  “That’s her name, then, Miss Table-tapper?” He nodded. “Well, la di da. Strong little missus, ain’t she? She’s been yammerin’ away at you for donkey’s years, wiv never a bit o’ joy. Which might be why she’s suddenly decided t’talk t’me, instead.”

  Chess’s hackles rose. “Right now?”

  “Says ’er friends are layin’ a trail for you, to take you up an’ out. Which makes sense — this place’s been flush wiv silver, the last few days. But you don’t know why that is, do ya? ’Scuse me again, for not rememberin’ you don’t know nothin’.”

  “And whose damn fault is that?”

  “Patience, boyo. The way a call from Up Over looks down ’ere, it’s like a silver thread you catch ’old of, then tug at it t’follow it up.” She plucked something from the air alongside the dial-column, traced it, as though running her fingers up an invisible wire. “And that’s where you’ll need me, to show you the way. To show you where any one of ’em is.”

  “You been’ . . . seein’ these call-threads. All the time. Since I got here.”

  “That’s when they started, yeah.”

  “And you never told me.”

  “Didn’t fink you’d be amenable. Was I wrong?”

  “More like ’cause you already tried to tug on one yourself and didn’t get nowhere, is what I’d guess.”

  Oona let her eyes drop. “’Course,” she admitted. “Can’t expect you to trust me now, though, can I? Not when I always did leave you to pay the butcher’s bill whenever I could, ’cause on the pipe, it’s take what you can and keep it, wiv barely any room for anything else. No changing it now. But I never did nothin’ to you I wouldn’t’ve took myself.”

  “Oh, no doubt. And that’s what taught me to reckon my own price higher.”

  Oona nodded, face rigid, silver gleam of the rain-drenched streets reflected in her downcast eyes. They stood there a moment, long and longer. Chess would’ve reckoned it by heartbeats, if either of ’em had had one.

  “Maybe it’s that I ’ad to be like I was,” she offered, at last. “So you’d turn out like you are. Like you ’ad to be.”

  Raw as he was feeling, the guffaw that burst out of Chess at this last piece of ridiculousness caught him by surprise, but he was grateful for it all the same.

  “Oh, fuck that horse-crap,” he said. “You ‘had’ to ruin your life just to ruin mine, ’cause soft don’t win the race? Makes it sound like Rook’s Book without the poesy. At least that Hell-whore Ixchel and the Enemy got a bit of patter to go with their craziness, even if it’s all in some palaver I can’t speak. So apologize or don’t, but save the excuses, ’cause I don’t want none.”

  “Little boy. You don’t want none of nothin’ . . . never did.” Oona shook her head once more, half rueful, half malicious. “But you’re gonna get it.”

  Then, catching hold of what Chess could only assume was that phantom cord again, she reached out for him, fingers flickering impatiently. “Now — shall we?”

  Chess let out his breath, more than half minded to say No, just to see the look on her face. Then thought, amazed: But my friends are waiting. And wasn’t it sadly strange how easy that word came to his lips now, as if he’d had friends all his life, ’stead of only learning what that meant a tad too late to be worth the education?

  Even natural perversity wasn’t enough to keep him here, though.

  “Let’s,” he said, shortly. And took her proffered hand.

  BOOK TWO: SAVAGE WEAPONS

  November 13, 1867

  Month Fourteen, Day Six Crocodile

  Festival: Still Quecholli, or Treasured Feather

  Day Cipactli (Crocodile) is governed by Tonactecuhtli, Lord of Nurturance, as its provider of tonalli or Shadow Soul life energy. Cipactli is an auspicious day, ruled by energetic work signifying advancement and honour, good for beginnings. But this trecena, which starts with day Cozcacuauhtli (Vulture), is ruled by Xolotl, god of fire and bad luck, who sometimes aids the dead on their journey to Mictlan. It therefore signifies the wisdom and freedom of old age, representing the path of the setting sun — and while the way of the warrior points to the primal relationship between predator and prey, this sign points to the Third Way, which is neither.

  Accordingly, these thirteen days are set aside to perfect the Way of the Scavenger. While the young heart must strategize between offence and defence, the old heart floats like the clouds, stooping to earth only to take what no one else wants. These are good days for disengaging; bad days for participating.

  By the Mayan Long Count calendar, today is governed by Piltzintecuhtli the Youthful Lord, who is the planet Mercury — the sun’s little brother, that planet visible just before sunrise, or just after sunset. His wife is Tlazteotl, filth-eater, who redeems through lust and may be invoked during childbirth. He is the third Lord of the Night.

  SEVEN DIALS: THREE

  This is where the gods killed themselves to make the sun and the moon come up.

  Down here in the dark, in the house of dust. Down under the black water, deep and deeper. At the very farthest point, the great taproot, where the crack in all worlds begins. This is where a thousand catastrophes lurk, waiting to be rediscovered — where a million apocalypses slumber, waiting to be recalled. Where the end of all things lies fallow, hoping to be summoned, to fulfill its purpose: to complete itself, and everything else.

  In truth, there is no denying that all of our ancestors knew that just as the world began, the world must end; on this point, there is never any debate. The only valid consideration is neither if, nor when — but how.

  For the Mexica, first came Nahui-Ocelotl, the Jaguar Sun, whose inhabitants were devoured by wild beasts. Then Nahui-Ehécatl, the Wind Sun, whose inhabitants were destroyed by hurricanes; Nahui-Quiahuitl, the Rain Sun, whose inhabitants were washed away in a rain of fire; and Nahui-Atl, the Water Sun, whose inhabitants died by flood — except for those who became fish, as well as that single man and woman who escaped alive, only to be transformed into dogs.

  After Nahui-Atl, Quetzalcoatl himself went down to Mictlan and stole the bones of all previous races from Mictantecuhtli, skeleton lord of death’s kingdom. These he then pulverized and used to create clay, blending it with divine blood shed from a wound in his own divine penis, through which he had threaded a penitent rope of thorns. And from this clay was moulded the current world’s population, baked to life in a furnace powered by Quetzalcoatl’s heart, the glorious morning star.

  This, therefore, is why we mutilate ourselves, give all we can afford (and more) in our worshippers’ service, improving their too-brief lives on the assumption that they then will be glad to die — perfect, happy, knowing themselves loved — for us, in our stead.

  To keep this pain-born orrery we all occupy turning.

  Throughout the last phase of his short life, Chess had seen wonders enough to flatter himself whatever miracle might manifest now as he gripped his mother’s hand, reduced by circumstance to childish dependency, he’d take it in stride. Mind-wrenching shifts, vertigo and displacement, convulsive transfigurations of earth and sky with everything washed away under foot — he’d endured all that, and more. Nothing could surprise him.

&n
bsp; What would it be like, though, this time, when the world around him peeled back to let whatever lay behind unshuck itself? Couldn’t be worse than here, he’d’ve snarled, once — but experience suggested otherwise.

  But I’ve fought my way clear of Hell before, Chess thought.

  Oona smiled — and yanked hard on the unseen line of tension in her other hand, twanging it bowstring sharp. The recoil pulled ’em first skyward, predictably, as a hooked fish’s tug will set the line whipping. But they didn’t go too far in that direction, instead finding themselves dragged headlong a bare few feet up off the wet black street, kicking up slime and trash; Oona went first, red hair flapping like a torn flag in a windstorm, her grip on Chess’s hand just hard enough to haul him in her wake.

  By the time he’d recovered, nonplussed, they were halfway down a narrow crevice between buildings previously near-invisible in the gloom, staring at a blank, crumbling brick wall. Rancid puddles pooled between the flagstones, mud squelching beneath Chess’s boots. Oona bit one dirty knuckle and considered the wall, as if she hadn’t expected it.

  “What’s the deal?” he demanded. “Thought we were goin’ up, not side-a-ways.”

  “Well, I fought the same,” she snapped back, “so if I knew, I’d damn well say. The thread, it definitely goes in ’ere, after all that; right dead-centre of this brick I’m pointin’ at, neat as a whistle. But — ” She stepped forward and began to probe the wall, hands spidering lightly over the bricks; her brows knotted, peering still closer. “ — after that, I dunno.”

  “No way through?”

  “Not as I can ken.”

  “And I’m s’posed to just take your word for it, am I?”

  “’Ow many other choices you got?”

  She had a point, there. But hell if it didn’t scrape Chess’s craw to have to rely on her sense of something so completely invisible, ’specially when she didn’t appear to be doing anything with it.