Without any notion of considering it beforehand, she leaned forward to deal Missus M. a rifle-shot slap ’cross her red-soaked chops.
“You fool dupes!” she hissed. “Know what your Lady gave Marizol, her better thing? A Goddamn grave, is what — like she gave my gal Clo, and my man Hank. Like she aims to give us all, hex or no. She sucks you dry and you thank her for it. Her, who runs up the tab and never pays for nothin’!”
She found herself shaking, and wondered a titch at the sheer outrage welling up inside her. Saw only poor Marizol, skull-cracked by that sumbitch Pinkerton’s bullet, falling headlong into Saint Terra with no chance to wipe that silly, appeasing smile from her face. And laid overtop came Marizol’s mother with one hand up to her cheek, tears starting at her eyes’ corners, as though Eulie’d dealt her a hurt worse than any of the others she’d just spent God knew how many hours inflicting on herself.
How dare you! was what that wounded look cried out, so like Marizol’s own; how dare you tell me truth, ’stead of these pretty lies the Lady sells. How dare you show me it was me and her Pa drove her into yours and Berta’s arms, sent her running for Camp Pink on faint hope of rescue, on the idea that a man should practise what he preaches. . . .
This was almost as much ripe horse-crap, though, and Eulie well knew it; her own brand, or maybe even Hank’s, who’d preferred to gamble his two remaining wives’ freedom on the chance he could talk what’d become of the first one down, before she gutted him like a fish. For the plain truth was — and she could admit it now, at last, at the end of all things, without even resenting it — though he’d claimed to make ’em all the same pledge, it always had been Clo he’d loved best.
Sissy; oh, sissy. Think I’ll say a prayer for you too, sometime soon — probably right as you’re comin’ to pull my head off, I had to start takin’ bets.
Saw Marizol’s Daddy staring daggers at her, then, like he’d pay big coin to jump over and throw a punch, he could only bring himself to work ’round the fact he’d just poked his pecker full of holes. So Eulie marshalled herself one last time and told the Moon Court at large, clear and cold as Christmas: “You’re gonna kill yourselves for her, faster than slower, and the plain fact is, she don’t even deserve it. And all I’m sayin’ is maybe you need to think on that a bit, ’fore you end up like Marizol — like everybody else ever did what that old-as-Jesus bitch wanted, or didn’t want, either.”
“That’s brave talk, all right, yella gal,” came Sal Followell’s no-nonsense voice, cutting in. “Problem is, though, we’re the ones gonna have to try an’ live with her, after this mess is done with.”
Eulie turned to snap back, hands on hips — and faltered as she saw who was towering behind Sal in the doorway: the black-coated bulk of Reverend Rook himself, fingertips tented on his breast like a hanging judge already pondering sentence. He seemed more sorrowful than angry, but Eulie’s heart quailed, nonetheless — Rook had always looked saddest just before wreaking his worst. And if she defied any order he gave, she’d bust her Oath wide, rendering herself helpless or dead within the minute.
“Chu and the Shoshone are shepherding folk into the Temple,” Rook told Sal. “Should have the last of ’em in within minutes. Once they’re inside, we can bring up the wards, and then it’ll just be a matter of waiting ’em out ’til her Ladyship’s strong enough to settle things — if her supply ain’t been cut off in the meantime, that is.”
Sal’s mouth flattened to a hard line, once again addressing herself to Eulie. “See, you dumb little snip — ? But no; I can’t fault you none for tryin’ what you felt you had to, after Hank and Clo. Still, and this is important . . .” She stepped forward and took Eulie firmly by the shoulders, like a mother hoping her gone-wanton daughter would see light without needing further correction. “There ain’t no beating Her, not now, not ever — you try, you die. And even if you could win, we still all die! Go back to livin’ like thieves and Gypsies, hidin’ from each other and the world, with those of us who survive tearin’ each other’s hearts out just to sup on ’em.” She shuddered in a breath, voice steadying again. “Them out there just got a little time ’fore they meet their fate — an’ then it all begins again, Eulalia. Don’t throw your life away when there ain’t no need, or point.”
Eulie glared at her. She’d always loved this mountain-stubborn old woman, bound fast to her in potential slavery by at least a quarter-blood, but the lump in her throat felt too hot by far to choke back. “So everything — Hank, Clo, their babe — it was all for nothing? Or worse, for this?” She swept a hand at the filthy, slaughterhouse-stinking Moon Court. “Those really the only choices we got, Sal? Us, who can do most any damn thing, now we got somewheres to stand together?”
Without warning, Sal’s flinty eyes spilled tears, shocking as water from the rock. But even as she nodded, lips actually moving to shape the word Yes —
“Maybe not,” Rook said instead, offhand, as though it was some interesting thought had only just occurred to him. He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small spruce twig, unornamented, at least not visibly. Which he took in both hands, without prayer, or fanfare . . .
and snapped.
Time stopped.
Morrow had lost count of how often he’d skimmed death’s edge and dodged away at the last second, these last few years — but splayed now on the cold ground, heart’s blood pouring out into Chess so fast he could barely breathe, he had just enough strength left to realize that this might be the last time, if not quite enough left for fear. Only a dim awe, vague resignation . . . and a second later, the weirdly delighted urge to laugh, when Chess glared at the two inhuman Powers and roared, without preamble —
“Which one of you fucks got my heart?!”
Tezcatlipoca smiled and pointed to Ixchel, as though it’d seriously ever been in doubt.
Automatically, Morrow looked at the goddess as well, and felt a twinge of nausea. What a desperate joke it seemed, now, to think she could ever have been beautiful — swollen-jointed, leather-skinned, mask face torn askew. She seemed more animate rawhide than human. With a shock, he realized the hole he’d put in her head himself had reappeared, though nothing — not blood, nor foetor — trailed from it now. Long dry rips down her naked chest and belly showed sickening glimpses of yellowed ribs, shrivelled organs, dust-dry black veins.
And behind that exposed chest-lattice, something shadow-hidden, distending and collapsing with such force that it seemed as if whatever lay beneath the bone was fighting its captor as furiously as Chess himself would.
Ixchel, for her part, neither smiled or frowned, mouth froze in a paralytic’s sneer, one corner furled to show her entire left-hand row of upper teeth. Only stared at Chess with a vivid hunger in her black eyes — the single part of her, really, that still seemed alive — before spreading her arms, as if to embrace him in welcome. He almost seemed to hesitate, at the sight.
No!
A bolt of terror galvanized Morrow; he managed to lift himself a bare inch, hurl a warning at Chess, sending it down the path of blood as the link flickered toward extinction.
No, damnit! Don’t let her —
Here his strength gave out, thudding him back to the earth, but Chess glanced over at him — into him — and winked. Crouched. And hurled himself backward, slamming spine-first into Tezcatlipoca’s chest, his body seeming to burst, exhaling a crimson cloud that billowed up ’round the god, penetrated him from every angle, pumping blue skin purple and red Weed even redder. Tezcatlipoca staggered, fell to his knees with the vines boiling and writhing ’round him, ’til gradually he began . . . to laugh.
Yeah, well, Morrow roused himself enough to think, dimly. What else?
Louder and louder this Fifth World’s self-proclaimed Enemy guffawed, as if he finally understood the punch line of the best joke ever told. Then reared back up just as the swinging panels of his ribcage broke apart, two small, scar-knuckled fists punching them wide like saloon doors. Bare feet
came next, kicking out through both blue-skinned thighs as if shrugging off garb made from sodden papier-mâché. The whole head split and moulted like a crab’s shed shell, guffaws blended into a wordless yell of triumph, as Chess Pargeter — naked as the day of both birth and re-birth, before he thought to re-clothe himself in purple once more — lunged to his feet with red-gold lightning crackling from his eyes, a cowled halo drooping from shoulder blades to forearms like fiery wings, then trailing down ’round his fists in death-dealing frills.
“Yeah!” he announced. “That’s better! ’Cause this here’s my flesh and nobody else’s, let alone some dead monkey-god’s, no matter the size of his Smoking Mirror! There’s one Chess Pargeter only, and I’m damn well him!”
With the same shimmying shudder Morrow’d seen him use on a gulp of absinthe, Chess shook the last shreds of Tezcatlipoca’s blue skin from his body and met Ixchel’s gape head-on, eyebrows sketching his curly red forelock.
“Oh, so what?” he asked her. “Didn’t think I really meant to just pour a whole fresh bunch’a blood-power into you, when I know that’s all you drink? Come on. I ain’t that dumb.”
Ixchel blinked, or struggled to. But . . . how . . . you are no variety of god, not anymore — only a ghost, fleshless, without root. How could you possibly unseat the Night Wind whose slaves we all are, one thing with four names, Father of Every Magic?
Because I allowed him to, of course, a terrible voice said, behind her — the creature in question’s own, freed at last from its human trumpet’s confines, echoing unchecked like the black between stars. For there it was, humped back up with its skull-and-crossbones cape flapping free as it loomed over them all, one foot tucked under it and the other reflecting their shocked faces back at them, done over in shades of obsidian.
Well played, little brother, it told Chess, with a wink. And vanished from sight, before Ixchel could do much more than goggle.
Then Chess glanced back down, and grimaced at the damage Morrow and Yancey’d done themselves, glee dissipated by dismay. With one hand-flick, he sealed Morrow’s wound; a second closed up Yancey’s arm, stemming the tide.
Then came something Morrow truly didn’t expect: Chess lifted his hands, flattened them into blades and brought them down, short and sharp, like an axeman cutting ship’s line. Pain backlashed, hammering Morrow’s head; too weak to move, he could only groan, realizing by the sudden absence in his mind just what Chess had to’ve done.
Why would you — ?
Ixchel shook her head, slowly. “Fool,” she rasped. “Twice fool, to cast away your last priests! How will you be renewed? How can you live, with no heart and no new form waiting in your cycle? When you exhaust the last of what you have now, you will die, surely as you should have in the Moon Room, when your lover cracked your breastbone.”
Chess turned to face her. “S’pose that’s about right,” he agreed. “’Cause if my friends get to your Moon Court, like I’m bettin’ they will any second, that’s the exact state they said you’d be in. Not to mention how, since your friend and mine kept on sowin’ all this time he’s been wearin’ me for pyjamas, I still got a whole shitload of Weed all ’cross this state to pull on. Lose your City and your Court along with it, though, and what’ve you got to draw on, exactly?”
There wasn’t quite enough mobility left in Ixchel’s face to show fear — but as she threw her head back to scream at the sky: “Daughter! To me!” — the terror which suffused that shout might’ve almost been the sweetest thing Morrow had ever heard.
For a half-second, anyhow. Until rubble-dropped Clo Killeen hurled the massive block of stone pinning her off and rose back up looking almost good as new, undead demon that she was, snarling loud enough Ed could hear her from where he lay.
Ah shit, was all he had time to think, then blacked out as well.
Inside Hex City, Mexes, Texicans and hexes were fighting equal-hard, carving out a truly hellish scene. The spider, once mounted, proved an odd ride indeed — broad-set and hairy in ways that rubbed painfully, ass-end canted up far higher than its front, almost like a living saddle. Geyer, who’d taken pride of place, used its own silk to navigate the thing along while Ludlow swapped his derringer for Geyer’s rifle, blasting away at whatever blundered close enough to seem dangerous; perched on Ludlow’s right hand, Asbury clutched his Manifold while wedged almost sidesaddle, eyes kept peeled for any less mundane threats.
This arrangement saw them safely into the main thoroughfare, where — once the crush increased so much that forward motion became impossible — Geyer urged their conveyance straight up the wall, jumping it literally from pillar to post, ’til they fetched at last within wrestling distance of a tall, flat-faced woman armed with gun and horse-jaw tomahawk. From her Wanted poster description, Ludlow recognized her as The Night Has Passed or Yiska, “Grandma’s” chief lieutenant. Surely, her presence here meant that Missus Kloves couldn’t be far behind, or Ed Morrow, for that matter.
“Pinkerton man,” the squaw addressed Geyer, levelling her pistol at his head, even while Ludlow fought to draw similar bead on hers. “I remember you, from outside the Bone Channel, when we rode to Bewelcome. Come to finish what your master started?”
“Hardly. Would’ve thought you’d’ve heard already — Pinkerton’s dead and there’s another Agency waiting to take his place, run by my friend, George Thiel.”
“Ah, then you must feel proud for him. Where is he now, I wonder?”
“Close enough, I’m sure. Though not close enough to stop you shooting me, you happen to take a mind to.”
“No,” she agreed. And though her barrel hadn’t moved even an inch, Geyer nodded as well, nonetheless — civil, like they were taking tea together.
“You’ve no reason to trust me,” he admitted, “or anyone else wears a government badge. But world’s end aside, things do have to change, and I believe we all well know it, ma’am — or may I call you Yiska?”
“That is my name.”
“Mine’s Geyer. Frank.”
“I know. Say your piece, Mister Geyer — I have other business, elsewhere.”
Ludlow felt sweat sting his eyes. Beside him, Asbury’s breathing seemed barely perceptible.
By God, I wish I had my tablet out, he thought, swallowing, and shifted his grip on the rifle, fingers damp.
“All right,” Geyer said. “Your band — Missus Kloves, Miss Songbird and the rest — ” At this last name, Asbury sat up a bit straighter, as though pricked. “You obviously had some scheme in mind, when you called this thing’s Mama up” — and here he touched the spider between its rows of eyes, gentle but firm — “same as the rest’ve us had, when we came running. Hex City goes down today or we all fall in the attempt, witch, wizard or other. Your group holds representatives from several that’ve been equal ill-treated by men like me, depending on you to keep ’em safe. And all I can swear to you is that George Thiel and me ain’t Pinkerton. No matter what the outcome, if we survive today and he ends up heading what’s left of the boss’s organization, from now on things’ll be different.”
Yiska gave him a long, cool look, then lowered the gun, though she kept it unholstered. Which frankly seemed nothing but wise to Ludlow, considering the circumstances.
“If we triumph,” she told Geyer, at last, “then it will be because of hexes, and worse . . . Celestials like Yu Ming-ch’in, secret Jews like Yancey Kloves, two-spirits like the red boy and Bad Indians like me. Your friend and you would do well to remember that, after.”
“We will. Anything else you can think of, might sweeten the pot on an alliance ’tween our two nations?”
“Hmmm. If you see another of those spiders, will you rope one for me?”
Geyer looked at Ludlow; Ludlow stared back, stumped. But to everyone’s surprise, Asbury leaned forward and promised, with utter sincerity: “Madam . . . if you would be so kind as to provide us with an escort through this tumult, I believe Mister Geyer would be perfectly happy to g
ive you this one.”
Yiska grinned, widely. “You are a strange old man,” she told him. “Just as the White Shell Girl says.”
Outside, Clo turned, hair puffed, eyes blazing; Chess braced himself for her attack, making torch-bright fists. But just as she tensed to move, the entirety of Hex City itself rose up like a table-rapper, and not by stages. Its elevation was complete, immaculate, a dreadful miracle — one more, in half a year of the same. From the pyramidal Temple at its heart and its earth-clogged under-mesh of dungeon-passages to every building which remained intact, with Oath-bound hex and small-folk alike — plus a good many helpless invading soldiers — caught in the web between, the City lifted into the winds on a patchwork disk of dripping soil and hex-shaped stonework. Random men and women stood on glassy air, screaming as they stared down, watching the Earth fall away. Its shadow carved a hole in the sky.
And then, with a twist, a rip scored deep between worlds . . . New Aztectlan was erased, completely. Winked out, a popped eye, leaving nothing behind but the hole where its foundations had lain. Scattered here and there amid the wreckage, lone soldiers and small groups stared ’round in appalled incomprehension, deprived of purpose and danger at once. And in their midst, coat slightly flapping on the sudden wind, ragged wings of some gigantic carrion crow —
— the Rev.
Inside the Moon Court, time stood still, as it had during the clash with Sheriff Love and Pinkerton at Bewelcome when Rook and Ixchel drew Chess “aside” to offer an alliance with his greatest enemies, rebirth and redemption bought at the price of Ed Morrow’s blood. That meeting, in turn, was interrupted by Tezcatlipoca, string-puller extraordinaire, from which point things had gone . . .
badly, to say the least. Yet Rook, who had been the one to work the trick directly — on Ixchel’s instructions, but even so — still well-recalled its mechanics.
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