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“Oh, I don’t know. Have to be pretty damn desperate, wouldn’t I?”

They glared at each other a spell, ’til Hosteen sighed deep, and Morrow let out his own held breath at almost the same exact time, in grateful sympathy.

“Look,” he began, “Rook’s got a mojo-bag held over my head, that’s the long and the short of it. Chess and me, last night — wouldn’t surprise me if he had a hand in it, though I’m damned if I know why. But as it is, I have to stay the course, for fear of bein’ blasted. So if anyone’s left could do anything for Chess, Kees, it’d be you . . . assuming you were willin’.”

“You offered him a pardon.”

Morrow shook his head. “No, sir. For Kees it’s all about loyalty to the old cohort, and he’s known Chess a damn sight longer than he’s known the Rev. I did tell him your plans, though, Doc — how you were fixin’ to build a hexacious reserve. Gave him the idea that Chess might be worth more to the Agency alive than dead, for once.”

“That’s all well and good,” Pinkerton said, and sat back to mop his shining brow. “But as to Pargeter — just what is he now, anyways?”

“’Sides from not to be trifled with, or only at your own peril?” All Morrow had to offer was another shake, for that — plus a further swig, while Asbury and Pinkerton swapped significant glances.

Songbird rapped her gilded knuckles impatiently on the table-top. “My choice would be your genuine opinion on the matter, Mister Morrow. If you please.”

Morrow threw a glance upwards, speculating on exactly how high you’d have to go before the roof above became the floor of Chess’s impromptu prison — that room where he lay asleep, ensorcelled deep in a trance of Songbird’s own making. Maintaining the same fierce slumber he’d endured ever since they’d both . . . resurfaced from their scramble through the depths, with Morrow clawing his way up mindlessly with one arm dug death-grip tight ’round the raw neck of what he could have sworn was Chess Pargeter’s gutted corpse.

How he’d ever found Chess down there, in the first place — laid a hand on his collar in the dark, once it’d all gone predictably to shit — that, even now, Morrow didn’t quite know himself. Only that during what he’d thought was three days ago and the month or so Pinkerton assured him had actually elapsed, enough “grievous physical insult” had occurred to make Chess exactly what Rook and his dragonfly-cloaked Lady had planned for: a sacrifice to dead forces, a new-expressed mage not yet aware of his own power, a son-of-a-bitching reborn “god-to-be.”

Songbird had to feel it, surely. Wasn’t the tasty pull of Chess’s power what had led her, Asbury and Pinkerton to Mexico City, where they’d dug Chess — and Morrow — up out of the earthquake’s rucked hide? But then again, perhaps it was just too big, too . . . alien, for her to fully realize. Which was why she still had to ask.

And that, if handled correctly — could be an advantage, for Chess. Morrow, too.

“Fuck if I know what he is,” Morrow lied, therefore, right to the former witch-queen of San Francisco’s pig-pale face, with far more sass than was probably warranted, or safe. And went to pour himself another, regardless of Pinkerton’s disapproval.

“Good enough, Mister Morrow,” Asbury said. “You are no expert in hexology, sad to say, as we are all of us aware. But if, barring such sidebars, you might continue with your recitative nevertheless.”

Morrow nodded. “Why not?” he asked, of no one in particular.

“Think they’d want Chess for that hex-army of theirs, if only we could get him took into custody?”

“Think Chess’d stand still for it, if we did?” Morrow shot back, without thinking. Hosteen’s face fell at the idea, a whole dropped wedding-cake of dolefulness.

“Maybe not . . .”

“But . . . maybe so, too,” Morrow suggested. “’Cause much as Chess may not mind dyin’, he still takes awful good care to keep himself alive.”

“Yeah. Maybe . . .”

They looked at each other, then, and knew it: a compact had been sealed.

“So here’s what you do,” Morrow told him — risking another glance upwards only to find the window gone dark, and shuddering to think what-all might be in progress behind it. “

Go west nor’west, fast as you can. We got an outpost, maybe a day’s ride to get to, but they’ll bring you back a deal quicker, ’cause they got Songbird to work it for them — hell, she can probably slingshot Pinkerton’s private train right into the middle of Joe’s, she takes a damn mind to.” Hosteen stared. “C’mon, Kees! Can’t make fry-cakes without you break — ”

“ — eggs, yeah, yeah, I get it. But . . . Ed, you at least got credit with those fuckers, you pull out your badge. They ain’t got no fit reason under Heaven’s sky to believe me, on anything.”

Maybe not, Morrow thought. But they’re gonna want to.

“They will,” he said. “Long as you show them this.”

He reached inside his vest, where the Manifold clicked and chittered, to grasp it firm, pull it out, giving it no time for nonsense. And dropped it in Hosteen’s outstretched hand.

“I was very happy to receive my little device once more, by the by,” Asbury assured him. “The readings you’d taken, their impressive range of resonances . . . well, they were more than I’d hoped for. It was they which formed the spectrum allowing me to confirm your diagnosis of Mister Pargeter’s — condition — last night, once he was . . . secured.”

“Glad to be of service, Doc,” Morrow replied. And t’ finally get the damn thing off my chest . . . literally, he thought.

“Strange, however, that Reverend Rook would not have immediately gleaned your intentions in this matter,” Songbird remarked. “Or this goddess of yours, either . . . powerful as you make her seem, in your report.”