frequency, rather, for lack of a better term; in this case, all the suppressor’s stored hexacious energies are directed inward.” He paused to give the fob another few twists, at which the whirring sped up again. “Though we would have to recharge it by siphoning hexation from another magickal source using my personal Manifold; so long as it runs, this field nullifies sound, warps most light around a certain radius, and entirely muffles all psycho-aetheric vibrations within. In other words, we simply register as being not here, or as good as.”
Ludlow pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Got a veritable magic shop in that bag of yours, don’t you, Professor?”
Asbury looked almost ashamed. “Yes, well . . . if you tinker long enough, some advances are inevitable. But I must say — it does seem as though everything hexaciously powered is increasing in efficacy to a truly threatening degree, and that doesn’t bode well.” He bit his lip. “I do not much like to consider any future impact of the sheer aetheric destabilization these conflicts may have induced, Mister Ludlow. Indeed, I do not like to think on it at all.”
It took more than an hour for the battalion — some thousand men or so, trailing followers and supply wagons — to finish moving by, after which Geyer made them wait another fifteen minutes, just to be safe. Then they set their feet to the path once more, muddying the Mexes’ tracks with their own. Without asking, Ludlow slung Asbury’s arm over his shoulders, ignoring the exhausted older man’s halfhearted protests. “Where to now?” he asked. “Bewelcome?”
“Nope,” said Geyer. “Gonna meet up with Mister Thiel . . . and the Texicans.”
Upside was about how Chess’d remembered it, from Down Under: full of discomfort and disarray, everything just that hair out of true — wind too cold, sun too bright, full to the gills with contrary motherfuckers who might slap you soon as kiss you, or shoot you without any kiss at all. Not to mention how there wasn’t one person within eye’s reach who hadn’t fucked with him at least once, and not in the enjoyable way, either . . . his second good friend in all this lousy world Yancey Kloves, sad to say, very much included.
But for all that, even while he stood there squinting and shivering with the toll of his travels run through every part of him like a stain, he still felt as though he’d never seen anything so pretty as the same sun that pained him, the empty, windswept sky, the bone-coloured desert with its hidden varmints and disasters. That he’d never felt so Goddamn good in all his strange, short life as he did standing here weaponless and alone, barely able to recall what it was he thought he’d been doing when the Enemy’d tricked him into signing away his flesh and becoming yet another of that mirror-footed son-of-a-bitch’s four faces. None of it seemed to matter, just for the moment; he felt naked and new, a colt licked to full trembling height, teetering on un-shod hooves that might one day take him . . .
anywhere, really. Any-damn-where, at all.
Only wish Oona was here to share in it, he caught himself thinking, just for a moment. But he really must’ve been happy, for once — happy like he hadn’t been since the bad old days, the simple days, measured out in bullets or blow-jobs — because he couldn’t even bring himself to resent it.
One moment only, barely half a skipped beat of his missing heart. And then — it was all sent sideways, stretched and pinched and twisting in a way that made him want to bend double, claw at the dust ’til his fingertips split, unsure if he’d see blood or bone or what, exactly: just the awful spectacle of his own flesh crumbling away, maybe, like chalk, never to be resolved.
Oh God, oh God. Christ Almighty, not that I ever thought of You as such, ’cept to scream your name out in crisis and revel in the blasphemy . . .
So swift had all this passed that Yancey was only now replying to his first question, repeating: “‘Where’s Ed?’ Might’ve hoped you’d be happy to see me, too, after all this while — though I s’pose time runs a bit different, down there.”
Chess swallowed, or tried to; his mouth was so dry, he could barely taste his own teeth. “Yeah, it does, but . . . I am, really. It just . . .
feels like . . .”
He felt himself droop and cursed it, but couldn’t stop, wobbling on his pins like a chloral-drop drunk — saw her grey eyes widen as she took in the extent of his ruin and felt her seize onto him by both shoulders, holding him from collapse. Behind her, the others stepped closer, keen to help. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Are you — hurt, somehow? What can I do?”
“Don’t know,” he managed. “An’ . . . don’t know that either, or that. I feel — oh, shit.”
Now he really was ground-bound, bones gone all slippy, braced to hit with his eyes shut and maybe roll (or sprawl, at best), to minimize the damage. But a fresh grip intruded, keeping him upright: Yiska’s mannish fingers, knitting fast with his own. Meantime, Songbird’s gunpowder-flavoured Chinee magic twined ’round shoulder down elbow to wrist and right back up the same path on Chess’s side, a dragon-scaled glove bolstering strength and channelling energy which warmed, probed, stung as it searched him for answers.
Yancey checked his sweaty forehead. “Why’d you ask about Ed?” she demanded. “Why right then — right now?”
“Dunno . . .”
“Well, think, Goddamnit. If you’re not too sick to swear you’re well enough to reason, so far’s you’re able.”
“Screw you, Missus,” he told her, with a surge of black temper, which at least made her smile. “Yeah, there you go,” she said, with some affection. “Now spill it, ’fore you pass out.”
“I just . . .” On instinct alone — hell, it’d worked so far — Chess rummaged down deep, cleared his mind as far as he could, and trusted the words to come on their own. Which is how he was surprised to hear himself saying, eventually —
“Ed — and you — you’re the only things I feel . . . tied to, anymore — like I’d dust up and blow away, otherwise. Feel like I need him, is all — need you both, here, together. That make any sense?”
“More than you know, red boy,” Grandma rumbled, from behind him. “But then, this is no great mystery, given you know so little.”
“Oh, thanks for that, rock-pile,” Chess snapped back, and quivered all over from inside to out, feeling horribly like he was going to puke, pass out . . . or fade clean the fuck away. For the first time since the War he recalled his past soldiery to mind — not the guns-and-killing part, but the code that made it okay to lean on a comrade when you knew you couldn’t stand — and leaned on Yancey that way now, stifling his humiliation. Took deep breaths, for all he still didn’t really feel a need to breathe, until the nauseating feeling that he might see the ground through his own boots at any second faded, if only by a touch.
“So what the hell is wrong with me?” he asked, to keep himself from looking down to check. “You gals botch the resurrection? Not to blame ya, if so; Rev himself never had the balls to try pulling that one off — ”
“Chess,” said Yancey, and he found himself shutting up — as surprised by his own vague shame as by her voice’s steely command, not loud, but final.
“Resurrection is for dead things,” Grandma replied, “and you are not a ghost; the Smoking Mirror repaired your flesh when he possessed it, so it lives yet, even without you inside it. If you had ever learned spir
it-walking, or any Hataalii skills at all, then you would have some control over your current state. As it is, you have neither any place prepared in this world nor an empty vessel to return to. You must be anchored if you wish to remain here, especially while the Crack remains open.” As Yancey, Songbird and Yiska exchanged looks, her voice became acid: “Do you doubt me? Who knows more of such things, amongst us?”
“Only you, Spinner,” Yiska assured her.