A Tree of Bones (42 page)

Now Pinkerton himself bled power, and the bleeding was hot, fast, thick, continual, first in sparks, then arcs, then massive blue-green whiplashes which crackled back and forth between the two abominations, whirring in ever-accelerating circles. Ixchel would take and Pinkerton would grab back, desperately, only to lose whatever he’d grabbed once more, along with a fresh new gush. Meanwhile, as Clo continued to calmly decimate the boss’s and America’s armies alike, the very air began to howl and shriek, a funnel of dust and wind blossoming up skyward, turning vaguest dawn to endless night.

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.

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 . . .”