Fink on what I told you, then, boy.
Christ, which part?
About Columcille — your Pa, that bastard. ’Is trick, and what it cost me. Remember that?
Though Morrow had no idea what she was on about, Chess sure seemed to — wracked his brains, visibly, letting Rook get in a few more licks as he did, vicious enough to make Yancey wince, even with her own blood in her eyes.
The spell stops a person from usin’ his own hexation, makes ’em same as everyone else again? Yeah, that’d be useful, right about now, and only what this fucker deserves, too — worst thing I could do to him, considering. But hell, you didn’t even know how he done it!
“English” Oona didn’t seem any more sympathetic in death than she’d been while alive, however, and Morrow could fair feel the curl of spite and temper, familiar as Chess’s own. Lashing him with her barbed phantom tongue, while telling him —
You’re ’is spawn, ain’t ya, same as you’re mine — and don’t we both see the mark of me in every bloody part of you, no matter ’ow much you’ve worked t’deny it? Then there’s gotta be some part of ’im in there too, you great flamin’ molly . . . so get up an’ dig ’ard, ’cause much as I know you like t’spend time on your knees, I somewhat doubt you crave t’die there — let alone for a third bloody time!
Chess coughed more spume, pink rather than red, which boded even worse — might be that last jab had broke a rib, even nicked a lung — and nodded, slightly. His hands were barely alight anymore, yet from where Morrow sat, it was as though some sort of flashpaper twist had ignited inside his brain pan; he braced himself as Rook hauled him up by the wrist, bone creaking awfully, other fist drawing back for a final knockout, a punch so hard it might well break Chess’s neck.
He don’t know how to do it, whatever “it” is, Morrow realized, horrified. But he’s sure gonna try.
From Ixchel — back on her feet at last, if in no way steadily, half-dead remnants of her dragonfly cloak and her still limp fall of knotted hair doing nothing at all to hide her shame — came the order, fishwife-shrill: Be done with him, I tell you, as you should when he first refused our offer. Finish! Do your duty, husband, as I command!
“Don’t make me do this, darlin’,” the Rev pled with Chess, at the same exact moment, like he wasn’t even listening to her.
While all at once, Morrow felt a great rush of wind, black and cold. Heard yet another voice — never anything like human, but familiar all the same — whisper, in the very smallest recess of his hex-staggered mind —
Now indeed, soldier . . . for just as these two dead women say, the moment has come once more, as it sometimes does. Luckily, I know you know the way already. So use that old man’s toys, just as with Pinkerton; help my brother work his will. Let what we call magic and what you call science combine, and watch what results.
Morrow’s finger found the shotgun’s trigger; he knocked it back together with a fast upward jerk, barrel trained straight-centre of Rook’s mammoth back, with no time for any sort of prayer. Just ready, aim — fire —
— and heard the hammers fall, with a feeble click-click, on empty chambers.
Yancey’s face crumpled. Morrow felt the gut-punch of it, a rage he was too weak to give voice to. Even Tezcatlipoca seemed bemused for once, caught off-guard by something as simple as a lost count.
At the sound, the Rev barely glanced around, raising one eyebrow in the mildest of surprise, like: Why, Ed Morrow — fancy meetin’ you here. Then shook his head, turned to Chess again, and drew his fist back once more.
A cordite-stink crack split the silence, pierced Rook’s shields with a flare of light and gouged a burst of red from his broad back. He was thick enough it struck deep but didn’t tear free, which Morrow guessed was good for Chess; still, he gasped out loud at the impact, watching smoke curl up from the barrel of Jonas Carver’s pistol, shaking in his hands where he stood maybe ten yards distant. At Jonas’s feet, the scorched and smoking form of Berta Schemerhorne huddled, leaned limply against him, half her clothes and most of her hair burnt away; her slow, harsh breaths were the very sound of pain.
Ah, said Tezcatlipoca, appreciatively nonchalant. But then . . . he is a soldier, too.
Grunting in shock and agony, Rook lost his balance and crashed full-force down into Chess’s hard little arms, so surprisingly strong for his size. Again, it was as though Morrow saw past and present superimposed. Rook held fast in Chess’s grip at the river after barely ’scaping Songbird’s clutch, taking the judgement his lover passed then on his own arrogance like the bruising kiss it was meant as, and not resenting a single word.
“It’s you makin’ me do this,” Chess told the Rev, simply, this time. And thrust his reignited hands up inside Rook’s chest.
Contrary to popular belief,seems instinct really does trump experience, far more often than many would like to admit, Chess was sure he recalled Rook telling him, at least the once. That’s been my observation thus far, at any rate — most ’specially whenever it comes to you, Private Pargeter.
So maybe it was that blood-curse Oona’s ghost had berated him into attempting to invoke, some phantom portion of the man he’d never known existed, yet somehow yearned for enough to choose himself an almost-double of to lay down his loyalty — his Goddamned, stupid love — for. Tall and strong and fickle, an educated bastard, full of fine words and passionate lies; kind of man you’d really think would know better, overall. Except for the fact that, in his heart of hearts, Ash Rook never had thought anyone else he met could ever prove one-tenth as smart as himself . . . or one-hundredth as ruthlessly deceitful, either.
This must be quite the double kick in the ass, then, Chess thought. Shot in the back and stabbed in the front at once — hell, I could almost pity him, I was somebody else.
Guided by forces that seemed as beyond his control as his own actions seemed unplanned, Chess felt his fingers plunge through muscle, bone, tissue, ether — groping blind ’til, with a wrench, they grasped the very outlines of that complicated, spiky thing he assumed might be whatever Rook considered his soul. One way or the other, it veritably oozed hexation, sparking-fine and savoury. Jesus, it was like Chess could taste it through his skin, so intensely did it make his mouth water and his guts convulse.
I can take this. I will. Block off them valves, one by one — snap your connections so it all goes through you like water through a reed, a cracked flowerpot full of mud and shit. You’ll never see the height of hexation you got right now again, you traitor, and you still won’t die from it, not ’less I want you to. No, that’s just what you’ll have to live with from now ’til your own sorry end, the high price for what-all you done in her name, and mine.
The answer came back to him then, rippling faint as a sigh up from under, with Rook’s mouth and throat barely stirring around its passage.
Saying, simply, sadly — mere dimming snatches, trailing away into darkness —
Do it, then, darlin’. . . .
(always knew I could count on)