“What . . . the hell . . . is that?” someone, maybe Hoffstedt, whimpered.
A buzzing and clicking at the window-frames, as of a multitude of scrabbling legs. A reverberant hum moaning up through every breach, every crumbling mortar-lick. The floorboards juddering and splintering underfoot, sending those still trapped inside the church reeling, while Pargeter and Love both remained rooted. Jagged cracks lancing up through all four walls at once, filled with a tangle of red-stained green, a million dancing filaments tasting air: budding, seeding, blooming. Turning their hungry flower-faces toward the rigid purple-clad figure of their god, even as the plain wooden cross behind the altar broke free and crashed to the ground, crushing a handful of poor parishioners beneath it.
Yancey saw it all, through a hundred eyes at once: screams, tears, Pa and Sheriff Haish, Uther hauling her close.
But heard none of it, for her ears were blocked, admitting one sound only—that other voice in her head once more, dry, urgent—
This heralds your moment, granddaughter; be ready to make sacrifice—
Sacrifice? Yancey was barely able to ask.
You shall show them the way. Be ready.
A flicker of light caught Yancey’s eye as half Pargeter’s broken knife-blade leaped high into the air, tossed by a floorboard suddenly cracked in two; when it landed near her, and she squirmed to get one arm free, grab for it. The edges bit her palm, stinging fiercely.
With a splintering cacophony, Weed thrust up through every crack, spreading out ’round Love’s and Pargeter’s feet in a widening, slimy green and crimson pool. What Mouth-of-Praisers were yet present screamed in unison, rushing the church’s doors and hammering on them, wailing, as the Weed spread ever further; the floor decimated, whole fresh ropes fisted every wall-chink apart at once, a barn-raising in reverse, brickwork crumpling outwards in a cacophony of shattering wood and billowing dust.
And through this fresh ruin the itzapapalotl (the foreign word sliding into Yancey’s mind, bringing such a flood of similar jabber in its wake that for one reeling heartbeat, she feared she’d never speak English again) came swarming—a thousand thousand black glass butterflies on squeaking, jagged wings, each flap drawing blood.
They folded themselves sidelong ’round debris, grazing Weed ’til juice sprayed wide in their wake, and whirled ever inward in a glittering twister. The roar of their passage was like every sand-storm ever sighted bearing down in unison.
We’re done for sure, Yancey thought, cleft palm cleaving to Uther’s, a last hopeless parable of matrimony.
Yet even as she did, she heard that ruthless voice—What should I call it?—inside her answer—
Such discourtesy! I called you granddaughter, did I not?
. . . Grandma?
Morrow lunged to his feet as a host of more natural insects—dragonflies like the Lady came cloaked in, mosquitoes and wasps, red-shelled ladybirds and a dozen more kinds besides—spilled in behind those volcano-born death-moths he and Chess had glimpsed above Tampico, gnawing through flesh and fabric alike. Flinging himself in their path, he gasped with relief when all of ’em went skittering away from him, as though he wore some invisible canvas tarp. Unbelievably, Rook had told the truth: he was protected from harm, at least indirectly; marked and bound, both for good and ill.
“Ed.” Even Chess’s voice had changed, resonant with echoes of the gap between worlds. “There.” He pointed; Morrow followed his finger to where a young woman hunched over her screaming child—same one he’d seen Chess stare at, before?—with her whole back streaming blood. At the first sign of trouble she’d folded herself ’round him, just like you’d expect; now the butterflies were stripping her shoulder blades bare, drawing wet, red wings down her good gingham dress.
Morrow whipped off his duster, draped it over ’em both and hauled ’em clear, kicking past the maelstrom’s swirling rings. Weed pulled at his boots, but let him go when he strained—as if it recognized that somewhere, deep down, Morrow had at last begun to accept his role as the Flayed One’s servant.
The woman, her boy’s screaming face pressed hard to her breast, could barely make her feet. “God bless you, mister,” she managed, through bitten lips.
Morrow shook his head, and set one boot to her ass, as gently as he could. “Run!” he ordered, kicking the two further out of danger. “Don’t stop. And don’t look back!”
Then, much against his own misgivings, he turned to fight his way back in.
Back at the storm’s core, Chess poured his anger out upon the preacher in entirely one-sided fashion, each finger discharging a six-shooter’s worth of those roily little spell-loads, while Love simply stood angled slightly into the barrage, like it was no more than a stiff wind. No matter what Chess threw at him, it either soaked right into the man’s skin or slid off harmlessly into the unstable bed of rucked and vibrating floorboards beneath, re-emerging as fresh new batches of Weed.
“Fuckin’ well die, you sumbitch!” Chess growled. But Love simply shook his head, insects glancing off his face and body, leaving nothing behind but drag-marks.
“Unlikely, I fear,” he said. “And you’ve only yourself to thank, for that.”
With horror, Morrow saw Love move forward again, inexorably; whenever Weed reached up to snare his legs, the powdery flesh just broke apart and re-coalesced around it, leaving a trail of vines flopping like pulled veins in his wake. Missus Kloves gagged at the sight, like she was fixing to heave. Chess just stared on, amazed.
“There really ain’t nothin’ left of Bewelcome’s big damn hero anymore, is there?” he asked. “Look ’round, Sheriff. Womenfolk, children, Marshal and Missus Kloves—‘good people,’ Goddamn innocents, caught in the crossfire. You could stop it, you only wanted to . . . but then you’d have to let me go. This what your God-botheration really amounts to?”
That got Love to stop at last, as nothing else had—to consider Chess directly, for almost the first time.
“Arminius’s creed says we are justified by faith alone,” he told him, “but sanctified by the Holy Spirit. And whatsoever the Spirit does is right, for it is the Spirit which does it.”
All at once, those big hands flashed to seize Chess’s throat, hauling him up by the neck—and everything proceeding from Chess’s power-source immediately stopped dead. The Weed fell still, insects plummeting ground-wards with one great rattle, a glass-and-chitin hail. Chess’s boots kicked useless, fingers scrabbling frantic, unable to find purchase; green lightning crackled from his fingernails only to disappear inside Love’s body, like every damn thing else.
Morrow too collapsed, his own throat constricted, spots swimming before his eyes. The room darkened.