A Rope of Thorns (14 page)

Screams ripped up from the crowd; furniture crashed and fell, glass shattering, as those onlookers still left backed away even further. And the grey-white cloud that had been Sheriff Mesach Love settled slowly to the clapboard floor, pattering like rain.

Chess, meanwhile, simply stood there, admiring his own works, unmoved. As though he’d all of a sudden decided there was no point even pretending he was still pistoleer first, hex after—let alone the damn
god
that Enemy of everyone’s had so often named him.

No need even to draw, let alone aim, or shoot; I think a thing, it happens, and that’s all. Like it
has
to. Like it’s got no earthly Goddamn choice. Like
I
don’t, neither.

Well, that’s
one
way,
Morrow thought, numbly.

“Holy Christ,” whispered Hugo Hoffstedt, so quiet Yancey wasn’t even sure she’d actually heard it. Her eyes stayed locked on Chess Pargeter’s terrible aspect, refusing even to flick away. Had she really so recently felt
sorry
for such a creature, back when the band’s mockery brought hot blood to his face?

He’d been just a man, then, boy-sized, tough outside and bruised in-, wounded by love, then mocked for caring. Never having seen Reverend Rook, let alone his works, she’d almost envied him for having loved someone so much he was ready to cry—or kill—over it.

Yet love can be terrible, too,
the nameless voice told her, sadly.
You have far too few words for so many things, granddaughter.

Who
is
that?
Yancey considered her life to have been far easier when she hadn’t had to ask herself such questions.

Most ’specially so when the phantom intelligence in question didn’t even pause, before replying:
No matter. Now watch—and be ready.

For
what
?

Just like that, however, the voice was gone.

Pargeter, all blissful-unaware of this exchange, caught Yancey looking and sketched a mocking bow while Mister Morrow hurried to his side, muttering something Yancey couldn’t make out. But right as he got there, his foot stepped awry, bringing him down heavy on one knee. Shock lit Morrow’s face.

Pargeter grabbed his partner’s arm in turn, as though to pull the bigger man up, half-pivoted in the same direction—and saw why.

For the drift of salt he’d made was whirling in a contracting spiral, vicious with energy; it scrabbled in on itself, mounding high ’til it abruptly plumed skyward, a miniature eruption that literally blew the top off the place, scattering shingles everywhere. Then fell back down, into an all-too-familiar shape.

Love stood there unharmed, exactly where he had a mere moment before.

The Sheriff slowly flexed his hands, which grated icily, giving off a great puff of skin-stuff. At the sound, a general moan went up from all around, desperate as wind through a graveyard.

“Fuck-almighty!” Pargeter burst out.

“Interesting,” Love mused. Then added, looking up through what was left of the church’s roof: “Thank you, Jesus.”

Morrow clutched back, palpably a-strain to keep his body interposed shield-wise between ’em, apparently without thinking twice. “Chess,” he gritted, “we need to
go
.”

“So he’s got tricks. Think that frights
me
?”

“Know it don’t, you ass. But what about the rest?’

Hell with those fools!
Yancey could feel exactly how hard Pargeter wanted to snap the thought back, stacked cheek by jowl with how he
knew
he couldn’t—and that was a change, one he found distinctly unwelcome. And here Hugo Hoffstedt broke in, pointing a shaking finger at poor Mister Frewer, as though
he
was the true cause of everybody’s danger.

“
Told
you we’d rue the day we let these Mouth-of-Praisers in—hexation draws hexation, and that’s the damn fact! And now look what’s the result: two hexes, for the price of one!” His eyes skipped to Uther, already wending his way back. “Your foolish softness’s doomed us all, Uther Kloves, you and your Jew father-in-law, too—”

“Shut your mouth, apostate,” Love told him, absently. “Pargeter’s the man-witch here, but
my
strength comes from Almighty God alone . . .
and you will not mock at me
.”

Hoffstedt’s face turned even more purple; his eyes bulged. With a gagging sound his only accompaniment, he started a collapse, but hadn’t quite completed it before Uther caught him, knotting one big hand in the tobacconist’s shirt. “Sorry ’bout this, Hugo—” The other drew back and punched him, straight in the stomach.

Hoffstedt jackknifed, whooped a slapped-baby gasp, and puked out a sodden chunk of rock salt too huge for any normal throat to swallow, which skipped to lie before him, dripping. Yancey stared at it.

Salt, which Mala always said turned hexation aside, surer than any other known cure.
There’s folks say witches can’t cry at all, Yancey, since tears are saltwater; I’ve seen enough do so to know
that
isn’t true. Yet salt does keep, and render, and purify. And salt throws off hexation, same as a rod does lightning—roots it down deep, so it’ll make away with itself without causing too much harm. Same way as your Pa throws a spilled pinch over his left shoulder at dinner, to ward away the Devil.

And the Sheriff . . . that was all he was
made
of, wasn’t it, saving terrible grief, and a seeking after revenge? So even if he didn’t understand the true whys and wherefores, believing it was the diamond-hard strength of his own faith that kept him safe, the result would be the same.

Oh, Jesus.

Not knowing to make the same connection, Pargeter just sneered, like it was all another bad joke. “Hell, preacher—if that’s supposed to be a sample of
God’s
work, then maybe you better go on and pull the other one!”

Mister Morrow was right,
Yancey thought, soul-sick;
you
should
run, the both of you. For his sake, if not your own.

But the devilish little man just wouldn’t, obviously; wasn’t in him. Might be he didn’t even know how.

As Hoffstedt rolled onto his back, gasping, Pargeter neatly swapped his place for Morrow’s, much as the other man tried to prevent it. “But that
is
some extra-fresh load of power you’re carrying, one way or t’other,” he continued, ignoring how being mis-called a hex twice in a row made Love’s jaws grind. “And how you’re puttin’ it to use ’minds me most of . . . what the
Rev
could pull out his Good Book, you only pissed him off enough. Like back in Bewelcome.”

“Don’t presume to talk on that, you filth-piece.”

“Oh yeah, I recall how you did pretty good in Round One, ’til he called on Lot in Sodom, and pimp-smacked your Jesus Christ holler like a two-bit whore.”

“Be still!”

“Take a sight more than a shake or two of table-fixings to stop
my
queer-boy mouth,
Sheriff
—”

“
You!
” Love’s voice almost hurt to hear, now. “
You
killed my wife, my son, my
town
. . .
you
and Rook, the both—”

Yancey shuddered, yet again. For they
had
done that, undeniably—and if Pargeter had not consciously chosen to do it, he had certainly delighted in seeing it done.

“Or
you
killed ’em, more like,” Pargeter threw back, shameless, “by standin’ against us.” With a gunman’s vaudeville flourish, he sent lightning crackling fingertip-to-tip, green as his eyes. “Took on ’cause you were too proud to hear the Rev ‘blaspheme’ your precious Book, though what-all it had to do with
you
I still don’t know; thought to reap reward on our heads, and kicked your own house down doin’ it.”

Love drew himself up. “I did . . . what I had to.”

“Likewise.” Another grin. “’Course, I understand ‘worship’—used to be the Rev I knelt to, in all senses. But since he made me
this
, I don’t do nobody’s will but my own.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, ‘Private.’ You’re no god—not even a graven idol, like Moloch, or Baal.”

“Oh, I’m a god, all right: the Flayed Corn King, He-With-No-Heart, somethin’ new, and something
very
old. Responsible for every bad thing that happens ’roundabouts, too, they tell me—so who knows but that ‘angel’ you think God sent you wasn’t my doin’, somehow? All along. Ever think of that?”

If he’d expected this last shot to tell, it didn’t, visibly. Yet Love’s pale eyes slid sideways, fixing upon Morrow.

“I do note, however,” he said, “that even without Rook, you still seem to have something left to lose.”

At this, Morrow tried to push by, take up his protective stance once more—but Pargeter swept one arm out behind him, and the bigger man soon found himself abruptly up against the nearest wall, legs a-flail, ’til he lost his balance and fell to the same knee, with palpably painful impact. He’d already struggled halfway back up before an outthrust palm stopped him in his tracks—not more hexation, just a clear signal:
Stay back, Goddamnit!

So he
does
care for him,
Yancey thought.
Like I guess Love’s counting on.

Pargeter raked Love up and down, with fine contempt. “Threats on a third party?” he asked. “Don’t seem very Christian. Better make up your mind. Is vengeance
yours
, or the Lord’s? You want an eye for an eye, for real?”

Not waiting for Love’s reply, Pargeter beckoned, seeming oddly happy at the prospect.

And snarled—“Then come take one of
mine
.”

Without thinking, Morrow surged automatically forward one last time, then felt the air around him slam shut, and ceased to struggle. Jesus God, he wished he had some sort of firearm handy! His shotgun, reckoned too long to conceal under Chess’s imperfect glamour, he’d left behind in the Honeymoon Suite, with the rest of what little gear they retained. If Yancey’s plan had actually worked, they would have had ample time to retrieve it.

But—
Sooner or later, Sergeant,
every
plan stops working—with the very first shots, more oft than not.
Colonel Stockwell’s prissy-vowelled New York memory-voice, snapping back at him all the weary way from Marais des Cygnes.
The test of a true leader is how he deals with what he
couldn’t
have planned for.

Morrow’s fists clenched. What he needed, by those lights, was a distraction, something to jolt Love off-guard long enough for Chess to whisk ’em both away and send the Sheriff rocketing after, leaving these poor people to their own devices.

As though she knew his mind, new-made Missus Kloves gave him a head-toss over toward where the church’s back door was working its slow way open. And Morrow nodded back, schooling himself to not react as a hunched figure—her father?—crawled back inside, dragging a burlap sack heavy with what looked, even at this distance, like weaponry.

Get set,
he thought.

Yancey didn’t dare turn further, not and hope to keep Love’s attention wholly fixed on Pargeter; to meet Mister Morrow’s eyes, see the hope flaring there, was dangerous enough. Still, she could
feel
Pa’s presence again, and her heart went helplessly out to him—a soul-scared man straining to act the part of brave father, convinced his daughter’s life depended on him doing it. Which she could only hope it didn’t.

Meanwhile, undistracted by any of the above, Sheriff Love bent his awful head over folded palms and whispered, like wind stirring gravel: “
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. . .
.
”

A deafening crack split the air, unseen thunderbolt-swift. Before his expression could twitch toward even the beginning of surprise, Pargeter went up like a roman candle of searing, blue-white flame.

With a yell, Mister Morrow lunged blaze-wards, only to reel off almost immediately—face shielded, beat back by waves of heat. The crowd moaned. Yancey fought all the champagne she’d drunk thus far back down.

Can’t be that easy, though. Can it?

Seconds later, two only slightly pinkened hands thrust upwards from the inferno and spread apart, ripping their way free; the fiery shroud tore wholesale, shredded into streamers, rewove itself into twin whips of actinic flame dangling from Pargeter’s palms. He stepped clear, no more high-coloured than usual, his imperially hued suit not even scorched.

“Good one,” he said. “But I’ve heard better.”

Not taking his eyes off Love, Pargeter whirled the fire-ropes ’round his head so they buzzed, trailing blue sparks. The very air above shimmered terribly, roaring as if cut, ’til he flung both Hell-lariats at Love headlong. They struck the Sheriff with a noise like two locomotives mating; Yancey braced herself against the crash—which never came.

For a heartbeat, Love glowed equally hot, if far less bright, as Pargeter’s whips collapsed straight
into
him, sponged up. But the light faded, draining down into the floor, planks set a-flash like moonlit water. Once more, Love stared unblinking, untouched.

At last, Pargeter’s grin faltered.

But, just in time . . . here came her Pa, creeping, weapons-bag in hand, to touch random crowd-members’ elbows and handing ’em on toward escape, as though he were directing traffic. Catching hers, he bore her away to meet from Uther eeling his own way downstream, making for them with eyes glued fast on that swinging, faintly clinking bag of tricks. . . .

“Think your Satan-got might impresses me, you trousered harlot?” No brag in the preacher’s dead voice, just plain, scornful fact. “I have the very Thrones and Principalities at
my
back. I have His Word, always, in my ear.”

Pargeter shrugged. “Well, you don’t
listen
, that’s for damn sure.”

But this insult lacked the usual venom, his glare gone narrow, calculating odds and means. Drawing an alarmingly long knife, he slapped its blade into his other palm, sliced fast, flicked the result Love’s way; a fine spray of blood licked ’cross one bleached cheek with an audible sizzle, leaving a smoking trench behind. But Love simply raised his own hand and dug in, scraping melted flesh away as whitish sludge, like badly laid mortar. His teeth gleamed visibly through the gap, slate-grey, before his cheek reformed itself.