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)

  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-struck 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.

&nbs
p; 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?”

  Another voice intruded, from further back — female, uptown New York — Berta? Calling out: “He doesn’t have too much choice about it, Mister Morrow; lost his gun in the first rush, so we’ve been watchin’ his back ever since. That’s after he jimmied my collar free, of course . . .”

  Another one — definitely Eulie, this time — chimed in. “. . . an’ he was glad enough he did, when one of them dog-things with the hands jumped him. Sissy made short work of it, so when she was done, he popped mine off, too . . .”

  But here she trailed away, voice dipping further, almost breaking. Perhaps recalling how there’d been a third person answered to that diminutive, once upon a time — someone whose shell still flew somewhere above, claw-handed and red to the elbow, seeking for further prey.

  Morrow stopped to cough, long and heavingly, Carver considerately glancing away ’til he was done. After which he then leaned in just as Morrow pulled himself up, and said: “Saw what happened, y’know . . . with Himself, back in the thick of it. What you did.”

  Face clammy, Morrow spat to clear his mouth before replying, carefully. “What was that, Jonas, exactly?”

  Make or break time, and they knew it, ’specially since Morrow’s injury made it highly unlikely he could fight back, if Carver decided he had to do anything about Pinkerton’s untimely and highly unnatural demise.

  But the younger man simply shrugged. “Nothin’ I’d swear to, sir, in court or out of it. That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Morrow felt welcome relief and a weird sort of sadness fall on him together to hear it, both genuinely grateful yet truly amazed that anyone he’d known such a powerfully brief time would advance him this high-blown level of trust. But then again, these were tumultuous days; Carver’d done much the same for Fennig’s ladies already, and seen it returned fivefold. Might be he’d decided he might as well place his faith in whosoever it took his fancy to, for however short a time he might remain able to do so.

  One way or the other, Morrow was glad to feel Eulie’s light touch probe at his hurts, efficient as any “real” doctor. “This’ll pain some,” she told him. He nodded.

  “Can’t think but it wouldn’t.”

  “All right, then. Just so’s you know, and don’t blame me.”

  “I wouldn’t be, uh!, too likely to — ohHOhhhh, that’s some big fuckin’ pile of — ”

  “What-all’d I tell you, Mister Morrow? Pain hurts, that’s just what it does; ain’t no easy way ’round it, nice as it’d be if there was. Now, just hold on one tick more yet, and let me do what I gotta.”

  Something ran through him then, stem to stern, like the very hairs of his skin were all set afire at once; he fell back, slipping on offal. Felt his arm snap out, twist this way and that — Jesus, it seemed as though the movements must be earthshakingly huge, though he suspected they were anything but. At the same time, a violent shiver of arcane light buzzed blue all along his break, re-righting it. He could’ve told the exact moment his shoulder popped in, had that not been rendered fairly obvious by its precise coincidence with the second he began to vomit.

  Sympathetic hands grasped his shoulders, one white-skinned and female, the other male and brown. “Just ride it out, Ed,” Carver told him, in one ear, while Morrow hacked and shook.

  Thanks for the advice, never in life would’ve occurred t’me to take that option, Morrow wanted to grump back soon as the pain-haze cleared, which was thankfully fast — but at that very same instant, he looked up once more to see Berta abruptly transfixed and staring even higher, tears streaming down her stately face.

  “Oh God,” she said, quiet, like she didn’t even know her mouth was open. “Oh God, oh, Clo. What that damn woman did to you.”

  “Poor sissy,” Eulie agreed, gripping Berta’s hand tight. “But . . .

  ain’t much we can do about it, I s’pect. So we best be movin’ on, before . . .”

  Too late for caution there, though.

  Above, Clo and Ixchel orbited each other, a moon split in two, vomiting the last of Pinkerton’s ill-gotten witchery back and forth between ’em like they were passing a bottle, while the Rev — back from wherever he’d disappeared off to, now the real fight was mainly over — danced attendance, picking off stragglers with nuggets of verse tossed like Ketchum Grenades. Here a And it came to pass . . .

  that Joshua . . . said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the neck of these kings, there a and David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter; and they fled from him. Which “they” sure did, like blast-frightened rabbits, and to no particularly good effect, either.

  Clouds of dust, blasted sand and mist hung roiling along the plain’s east edge, obscuring the way back to Camp Pink. Before it, a lone cavalryman in an officer’s uniform — Washford, no doubt, even if it was impossible to pick out variations in backlit skin from this distance — galloped back and forth before the remnants of the Thirteenth, yelling orders, organizing its retreat. Morrow saw the skull-faced hag’s eyes light up, tracking the rider’s movements, and groaned to himself. Every instinct he had to attack, intervene, distract just for a moment warred hard against the helpless, hopeless knowledge of the exact uselessness of any such effort — not to mention just what a poor reward it would be for Carver, Berta and Eulie, getting ’em killed alongside him even after all this.

  He drew breath to order the others away — and spasmed head to foot in a wriggling jolt, not painful this time but fire-streaked cold and thrilling; almost exactly like the icy ecstasy of spilling blood to empower Chess, another nahuatl epiphany boiling out of him. Except this one was . . . sharper, more controlled: a lasso tightening on his brain, rather than a gush spilling outward.

  All of the above came in half an instant — joined, in the next, by a presence so startling it left no room even for joy.

  Ed — it’s Yancey! We found him, Ed; we got him! An image followed here, stamped on his brain like some instantaneous tintype: hollow, insubstantial, yet indisputably the face of the real Chess Pargeter, alive with whatever the Enemy so viciously lacked. We’re at Old Woman Butte, in Chaco Canyon — a greyish flat-sided sandstone tower, rearing above the desert — get here, soon as you can! Please, Ed. Pl —

  With a whipcrack of pain, the connection snapped; Morrow cried out, staggering back onto Carver’s supporting arm again, as Berta and Eulie gaped. “Jesus, Ed!” Carver exclaimed. “The hell was that?”

  “Message,” Morrow gasped. “From — a friend.” He paused, wondering how to explain, and lost his chance almost immediately — for just then, Eulie glanced up and shrieked, eyes bugging. Morrow and Carver whirled together to see Ixchel and Clo descending on them without much speed — why bother hurrying, with nowhere for the f
our to flee?

  Briefly, Morrow wondered if they’d somehow sensed Yancey’s calling, or if that coincidence was sheer fluke.

  Didn’t matter either way, he supposed, and shifted his grip to his empty shotgun’s barrel, raising the stock like a club.

  For a moment, he thought the boom that echoed out ’cross the plains was more thunder, another hexacious levinbolt called forth to fry them where they stood. But a second later, as the sadly familiar whistling roar of incoming mortar fire ripped across the sky, Morrow understood his own error.

  “Down!” he yelled, grabbed Berta and dove face-first into the dirt, while Carver yanked Eulie down likewise. Above, Ixchel and Clo actually drew up, revolving one scant moment before the projectile struck. The shell burst between them with a flare of eldritch, oily light that painted both once-women in stark black silhouette, then shrouded them in colourless fire, evoking a single shared shriek of inhuman pain.

  Ixchel plunged groundward like a dry leaf spit out of an autumn bonfire; Clo rocketed skyward instead, a day-born comet, fiercely trying to extinguish her fire against the wind.

  Out of the dust-fog came an earthshaking roar, and the dust itself roiled apart to reveal something Morrow’d as yet only glimpsed in sketches and half-built frameworks: the newest version of Doctor Asbury’s hex-powered “ghost-train,” twice as massive, sporting three armed and armoured cars in a chain — a true Land Ironclad, slabbed in iron plates like Merrimac and Monitor alike, with gun-muzzles thrusting out on all sides. The foremost still smoked, evident source of the missile that had struck down the demon women — a “hex-mine,” Asbury named it. Off the side of the foremost cab, Captain Washford clung to a steel bracket in the open air, sabre drawn and flashing in the murk.