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But Pinkerton didn’t flinch; he opened his own mouth and swallowed the blast, sucked it greedily down like whisky. His body blurred, rippled, swelled, bulged; the seams of his coat and shirt burst, boots exploding off his feet. Skin marbled with fungus-like patches, he towered up ’til he was half again Ixchel’s height, and roared.

Ixchel stumbled backward, face too ruined now to read. Yet her body, at last, betrayed the truth: this once-goddess was no longer the master of events. Pinkerton lunged forward and slammed both outsized fists down, pinning her to earth on her back with a massive, cartilaginous wrench. Just as he

seized her throat, however, it was Pinkerton’s turn to gag — Ixchel’s own hand lashed up and stretched, palm and fingers splitting apart, peeling back, limp as a torn glove. Exposed bones, speared out long as bayonets, came punching through his shoulder at the juncture of neck and chest, drawing smoking blood to gout from the wound in thick jets.

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?