A Book Of Tongues (34 page)

“Agent Morrow.” None of Asbury’s fear was in his voice, unless
that flat evenness was itself the fear. “What —
exactly
— did that . . .
woman . . . say she wanted to do, with Mister Pargeter?”

“Sacrifice him, as I recall it.” Equally flat, equally controlled. A
voice Chess had never heard from Morrow. The Manifold clattered
and buzzed, the pitch of its gears winding higher and higher. “Make
him some kind of a — skinned god. A god . . . who dies? Like Christ
Jesus, I s’pose. Only — bloodier.”

Asbury turned away, paced frenetically back and forth, unable
to keep still in his ferocity of thought. “Sacrificial re-enactment,”
he breathed, slapping his fingers against one palm. “The role of the
avatar, rendered literal — yes, yes, with sufficient power directed
upon it, bolstered by the faith of the worshippers . . . it could
happen!” He stopped, excitement flash-flooding into dismay and
horror, so vividly and powerfully Chess felt it strike everyone at
once, for just that moment. “Oh, good Lord . . .”

“What
is
this, Doctor?” asked Pinkerton, low and the more
dangerous for his own fear. “What the hell did we take into our fold
on your say-so?” He spun to Morrow, abruptly shouting. “Morrow,
what did you bring us?!”

Songbird, meanwhile, overtop — her mind’s voice shattered glass
and smoke:
KILL him, fools, while he’s distracted, kill him NOW —!

Hell,
Chess thought,
and me with empty guns.

The Manifold screamed on, a miniature steam-engine running
at breakneck full-throttle, derailment-fast.

Asbury panicked. Chess felt it happen, more than saw it — the
shattering of every ounce of vaunted rationality in one thoughtless
burst. Knew, even as the old man scrabbled for Hosteen’s gun, what
he was going to do. Lifted his hand helplessly as Asbury wrenched
Hosteen’s pistol from the startled outlaw’s holster, cocked it, spun
to aim it at Chess’s breast.

And then, right at that same instant: the crimson flower on the
floor swivelled around and
struck
, lamprey-teeth closing fast on the
silver thread-end beside it.

A double-flash of light blinded the room, one carmine, one actinic
white, as the flower vapourized, the thread liquefied instantly, and
the Manifold burst with a flat sharp crack that buried smoking
shrapnel in every wall. Battle instinct saved Morrow and Pinkerton,
both of them dropping to the ground when they saw the flower
move. Songbird’s shields had already snapped on, deflecting flying
shards around her every which way, a jagged metal-and-glass halo.
But Asbury yowled and fell to his knees, hands pressed to a long,
bleeding gash traced all along his cheek.

Hosteen swayed slowly in the doorway, one hand wandering up
to his neck, where a thick red flow drenched collar, shirt, and vest as
it spattered onto the floor. He subsided against the doorframe and
slid down it, without haste. Chess gaped at him, barely able to see for
the flash-blindness blurring his vision.

The old Dutchman didn’t have enough strength left for a smile,
but Chess felt the last of his thoughts curl around Chess’s own:
Made
you a damn . . . god, huh? Well. Always knew . . . you’d matter. To him . . .
to me . . . always . . .

His eyes went flat and fixed. A terrifying emptiness yawned for
a moment inside Hosteen’s skull. Then — nothing. The thing in the
door might as well have been a wax sculpture, for all the resemblance
it bore to a man Chess’d fought beside and cared for.

He glanced over at Morrow, met the man’s eyes, and was startled
to find them equally stricken.

Footsteps thundered up nearby stairs, down the hall. Pinkerton
lunged to his feet. “
Stay back!
” he roared. “For the love of Christ, stay
clear!” He whirled and drew his own piece — which promptly lofted
out of his grip and clattered against the wall. Songbird lowered her
hand with a look of deep disdain.

“Silence from you,
gweilo
,” she ordered. “This is a matter for your
betters, now.” Turning to face Chess, lightning crackling in her hair,
as her own power — newly unshackled — puffed her like a windy sail.
“Well,
boy
? Shall we finish at last that conversation we started, back
in Selina Ah Toy’s?”

Chess clambered to his feet, feeling power surge along nerves
and muscles, electrifying and painful with his fury. Magic welled
out from him, pushing back the inflood of thought and leaving him
blissfully alone in his own head once more. “Sure you wanna do this?
Seein’ what I am, I mean.”

On nothing but sheer impulse, he swept his hand, palm-out,
’cross the air in front of him. felt an invisible flame spill down into
the floorboards, wrenching them up and apart as a decade’s worth
of vines and ivy grew in an instant, mounding up six inches high,
curved before him in a tiny wall.

Heat-shimmer rippled up between them from the vegetation,
distorting Songbird’s face to a monstrous grimacing mask — but she
just shook her head, and replied: “Oh, you
are
powerful, yes. But I — I
know
more.”

She moved a mere finger in a minuscule yet complex pattern —
and in an instant, the power flowing from Chess into the vine-fire
wall simply went
snap
, a rotten log cracking in two. The barrier
vanished, ivy withering. Energy backlashed into Chess, convulsing
him with a startled yell of agony.

“Prince of flowers,” Songbird scoffed. “Does your new skin chafe?
Perhaps we will cure that itch by taking it off for you, once more.”

“Get the hell offa me, you kinchin dollymop
bitch!
” Blindly, Chess
spat more blood at her — only to watch it sizzle redly through midair, vitriolish. Songbird flipped her left hand up, a half-second too
late. The hasty ward stopped all but one droplet, and she shrieked
as it coursed down her face in a steaming red runnel, like she’d been
hit with acid. By the time she mustered hexation enough to wipe
it away, it had left a weeping, smoking scar near four inches long
behind, running right down one perfect cheek.

Disbelievingly, she touched the wound with diffident fingers,
tracing its path. Took them away to look at the blood. Then looked
up at Chess — and all sense vanished from her face in a mindless
demonic scream of fury as she threw herself upon him, the air
between her fingers a-pop with ball-lightning, blue and vicious. “Aiyaaah! Lotus-boy
ch’in ta
, uneducated
gweilo
whoreson
bastard
!”

With absolutely no idea how to shield himself from her vengeance,
Chess switched right on back to his old tricks, and punched her full
in the face — a round-house haul-off, nothing fancy but nothing
pulled, worthy of any given ball-house tap-room brawl. Songbird’s
front teeth cracked across with a sound that filled the room as she
went down, forehead-first, right at Pinkerton’s boot-tips.

As it turned out, Pinkerton packed more than the one gun. Which
wasn’t much of a surprise, really — though hellish inconvenient,
’specially now he was brandishing the damn thing right in Chess’s
face.

“I knew this was a mistake, from the very get-go,” Pinkerton
told him, levelly. “Mad dogs should be put down, not catered to, no
matter
what
other tricks they’re capable of. So here’s a proper end
to it.”

Chess held himself in some pride for not even flinching. Wasn’t
like he hadn’t always thought this was the way he’d go out, after all.

“Better go on ahead, then,” he said, “and drop your damn jawin’ —
’cause my only regret’s I didn’t kill a sight more of your men while I
was at it, Mister King Shit Almighty Pinkerton. And if these guns of
mine
were
loaded, I sure know where I’d start.”

“A fine thing for me that they’re not, then.”

Yeah, too damn bad,
Chess thought — then whipped his head
’round, as he heard almost the exact sentiment echoed from behind
him.

“Too bad, yeah,” said Morrow. “But still — ”

Songbird looking up, at the same time, her mouth’s pain a spike
through the tongue:
What is that in your
mind, gweilo
?

“Still
what
, agent?” Pinkerton demanded, as Chess and Morrow
locked gazes.

To which Morrow answered, slow but distinct, “Still, occurs to
me . . . since you
are
a hex, Chess, with at least as much juice as Rook,
if not more . . . just what the hell’s it matter, anyhow?”

Pinkerton opened up his jaws, drill-sergeant quick, like he was
just about to bark at Morrow to
shut his mouth
— but it was too late.
As though just giving the idea voice, however obliquely, had turned
a key in Chess’s gut, filling him back up top-to-toe with a virulent
force that suddenly made all things possible.

Chess grinned, wolfish. “Always did like you, Ed,” he said.

And cross-drew, fulfilling every outlaw’s dream in one fell swoop
with two impossible shots — that of shooting Allan Pinkerton in the
face — or close as made no never-mind, clipping the Scotsman ’cross
one ear-top as he swerved and went down ass-backwards, biting his
own tongue so badly Chess could see the glinting muscle — with no
ammunition but a
spell
.

He heard Asbury cry out. Heard Songbird laugh, even through
her own pain, in sheer delight.

The bedchamber door heaved and sprang from its hinges, and
a flood of agents spilled in, all blazing-ready to defend their sire.
Chess turned to meet them head on, automatic, his guns already
up. Only to have Morrow grab him up under the arms and sling him
headlong through the white-curtained window, bursting out onto
the first-floor roof in a spray of glass. He rolled and fell to the dusty
street below, turning mid-air to find his feet like a cat.

Following hot on his heels, Morrow landed far heavier, with a
yelp and a curse — jerked up and started limp-loping down the
street, yelling back over his shoulder: “Jesus Christ, Chess, they’ll
be on us in a minute — you
comin’
, or what?”

Chess shook his head, but only to clear it. There’d be choice words
’tween him and Morrow later on, obviously regarding — various
issues. For now, however . . . he turned, reholstering, to make better
speed.

That they ended up in a graveyard, after — a cramped stripe of
yellowing grass and tilted Spanish-carved stones, fenced off by
black iron from the surrounding alleys, shaded by a dilapidated
church to the west and new-raised houses on every other side —
couldn’t help but strike Morrow as entirely fitting. The new houses’
whitewashed pinyon walls, he noticed, were superstitiously free of
windows facing the tombs. What few did exist had been boarded up.
Chess leaned against the back of a worn and grey sepulchre, bent
over and panting hard.

Morrow stood with his arms crossed, shivering, thinking:
Everything I had . . . everything I am. I just sent it all up in fuckin’ smoke,
and for what? For
who
? The son-of-a-whore who’s gonna kill me too, like
as not, once he’s got his damn breath. And that’s a fact.

It would make sense to run, he supposed. Run, keep running,
see how far he got. But his legs hurt — and frankly, given what he
already knew Chess could do, he didn’t much see the point.

Chess straightened — made to spit, but then thought better of
it and just wiped his mouth instead. “Tell you one thing,” he said
finally, without looking up, “that was some shindig, back there.”

“Sure was.”

“Guess you’ll be in pretty bad odour with the big boss from now
on, too, considering.”

Morrow nodded, face lodged where between grim and blank.
“Yup. Don’t doubt it — ”

At last Chess turned to glance up at him, but immediately shied
away, hand over his face as if to shade his eyes from the sun. “Uh,”
he snarled. “Just . . . stop
lookin’
at me!”

Too tired to argue, Morrow complied, fixing his eyes on a
smallish headstone.
Assumpta Francisca Xaviera Contesquio,
it read.
17 abril 1832 – 20 enero 1839
. His Spanish was rusty, but he thought
the line beneath read something like,
Her beauty would only have
grown greater.

He thought of the Mexican woman whose body Ixchel wore.
Wondered who
she
’d been, before the goddess-bitch took up
residence — her life, her name. Did anyone still live who’d want to
commemorate her with a stone recording their sorrow?

Christ knew, Morrow sure couldn’t think offhand of anyone
who’d bother doing the same for him.

“Ain’t so bad, when you don’t look,” Chess said, unexpectedly. “I
mean, I still feel it comin’ off you, like standin’ by an open window
with a rainstorm outside.” His voice dropped. “But when you look,
it’s like the wind changes, and it’s blowin’ right
through
me.”

For half a heartbeat, the chill in Chess’s voice touched Morrow
to his bones, for all the Mexico sun continued to blaze down upon
them.

“What’s ‘it,’ Chess?” he asked, not really wanting to know, but
feeling he should, somehow.

Chess thought hard on that one, an uncommon long span of
time. “Might be . . . what you’re thinking. What’s inside you. The
past, the future — I get it all the time now, from every-damn-body.
Even Songbird, and I couldn’t make out the
half
of what she had goin’
on, let alone . . .” Chess trailed off, then struck the sepulchre’s wall
with one palm, flat and angry. “And it’s always there, always, and I
just can’t get rid of it, can’t block it out. Might be you, might be some
other fucker a half-mile back, but it’s
so loud
, and I
can’t fuckin’ make
it stop
. Goddamn, if I ain’t gettin’ to wishing I’d let Pinkerton finish
the job. And on a related note, just who the hell told you to help me
back there, anyways?”

Morrow shrugged. “Who’d ya
think
, you ass? Rook.”