Page 25

s’posed t’be like this?”

Rook’s throat clogged up. Damn Ixchel, he thought, not caring if he was heard. Damn all gods and monsters. Like us. Like me.

Then, wounded shoulder burning, he glanced around, wondering if any of the soldiers had regained their feet, or Morrow his hex-killer gun . . . and locked eyes straight on with the figure standing in the mud not ten feet from them, clad all in purple shreds and lightning.

This close, in the awful light from Clo’s stricken, labouring womb, the blue tint to his skin glowed like alchemist’s venom; Weed twined up and down each limb, a mesh of skull-fragment armour hung with old ivory shards, red flowers like jewels swivelling to hiss at Rook’s approach. And when Rook took a single, truncated step more in his direction he smiled, revealing teeth like obsidian flakes chipped triangular, the hungry malice of it so close to what Chess’s smile had once been that Rook felt his groin clench and his pulse leap. Yet the eyes, the absinthe green eyes, were . . .

No. Not him, at all.

And — whose fault is that, exactly?

Rook’s arousal died. Behind those empty eyes, something inexpressibly weary pressed its unnatural weight upon the earth.

I raise a mirror to you, priest-king, his Enemy said, softly. Do you see yourself?

To which Rook only shuddered, bursting head-to-toe with cold, and grabbed for Fennig’s hand to connect them all again. Ripped the air open headlong, bridging the miles back to Hex City in a single spasm of shared pain.

Thinking, at the same time: Oh Chess, oh darlin’. What the hell have I done?

No answer seemed forthcoming, if there even was one.

Morrow trudged stiffly toward the Chess-thing, shivering himself as it turned to fix him with that horrifying, black-glass grin. Barely aware of Asbury stumbling up behind him, he bowed his head, and rasped: “Thank you.”

It chuckled. “So polite. This, I hope, puts paid to any notions you may have that I am allied in any way with Reverend Rook, or the Lady Ixchel? For as I have said, many times before: I am their Enemy.”

“Ours, too,” said Morrow, through dry lips.

“You remember, soldier! Yes, yours too. Everyone’s. Which is why I will not tell you where your Missus Love has gone.” Then, as cheerful-flirty as Chess himself might, it winked at him — while to Asbury, it simply gave a cool: “A clever working, Professor. Very . . . interesting.”

And sank back down through the ground, leaving nothing behind but lightning twisting itself dark in the mud, a wet mess of fuses.

Asbury stared at the spot, blinking. “Why — would he do that?” he asked, presently.

“Why’s it do any damn thing?” Morrow sighed. “’Cause it’s what we wouldn’t expect.”

He trudged to what was left of the church steps and sat down, too tired to stand another minute. Couldn’t hear Catlin’s screams anymore; whether that meant he’d died or been helped, Morrow couldn’t tell, and didn’t much care.

Asbury followed, looking dubious. “You know him best of all of us, I suppose, Mister Morrow.”

“Chess, maybe. But like I said . . . that ain’t him.”

He broke open his shotgun, ejected the empty shell casings and began to wipe the mud from the stock and barrel. And froze, Asbury along with him, as a soft but undeniable voice echoed up through

both their skulls:

Are you so sure of that, conquistador?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Down under the black water of Mictlan-Xibalba, sinking deep and deeper, to truly unreckonable fathoms. That was where Yancey glimpsed Chess Pargeter, yet once more: sitting next to a woman she could only assume was his mother, red-haired as himself but wasted from the inside out, who either squinted up at Yancey sourly or gave an occasional broke-toothed sneer of secret knowledge, like she was reckoning odds. While the little pistoleer, on the other hand, simply looked right through her, when his gaze chanced to fall Yancey’s way at all — then sighed, took a shot of not-whiskey from his phantom glass and turned to stare glumly out the window once more, watching Seven Dials’ ghosts pass by.

Made no difference at all how Yancey called and yelled at him, not even if she broke down and begged outright; Chess might hug himself a little, like he’d felt a draft, or a goose walking over the grave he’d never yet lain in. And then Yancey would feel Songbird and Grandma reel her back up by the silver cord she’d come down on, vaulting levels ’til she thought her chest would crack and her eardrums burst. ’Til she emerged at last from the latest inconclusive session atop Old Woman Butte, sweat-drenched and head banging, only to look up and see the hexes scowling down on either side of her again — equally annoyed (in their very different ways) by her consistent failure to make Chess even register her presence, let alone communicate with him directly.

Crossed legs all pins and needles, Yancey unfolded herself with a grunt of pain, fighting the urge to vomit. The fire had long since died to ashes, leaving them only shapes and sketchy gleams in the starlight.

“‘Dead-speaker,’” Songbird spit out, scornful. “How polite you are! Inefficient, as well; ghosts need a heavier hand, a master’s voice. When you travel through the Ten Thousand Hells you must threaten, not wheedle.”

“Don’t notice you stepping in for a turn,” Yancey replied, face gone hot.