“Really? It looks quite painful.”
“Oh, once, yes—but these days, it’s nothing I can’t deal with. Just can’t seem to get it to seal up, not completely.”
“I’d think that would make things . . . very difficult.”
“I’m not sure I take your meaning.”
“No? Let me rephrase, then: that does not, in fact, seem like a wound it would be possible for a man to survive, no more than it’s usually possible to survive a revenant’s attack where the bite breaks skin, everyplace else but here. Would that be your wife I glimpse there through those doors, the lovely woman tending bar?”
I bristled. “It would.”
“Well, well! She, too, looks in remarkably good health, given what you say she’s been through.”
“You think I’m lyin’ ‘bout her getting better, is that it? Just like Mister Corcoran did, over there, or Missus Yee and her girls, down at the wash-house? What possible reason would I have to misrepresent our triumphs, small’s they might be, when the losses we’ve had remain so much greater?”
“None at all.”
“Then why’re you quizzing me on all these whys and hows, exactly? I’m no arcanologist, not like your bosses, or yourself.”
“Well, this is your town, isn’t it? Who else should I think to ask?”
We stood there glaring a moment, eyes locked, like we were about to draw down; you reached into your fancy waistcoat, and I fairly twitched. But instead of a shooter, you instead brought out one of old Doc Asbury’s famous hexation-measuring manifolds, the latest model; it could drain spellwork too, as I recalled, though I think you somewhat forgot about that part, once things’d gone fully to perdition. At any rate, you held it outstretched my way like a dowsing rod, attempting to explain how the spinning of its various dials revealed there was far more to me than I’d hitherto suspected.
“You see, sir,” you said, “I believe that you are causa generis of this infestation—unintentionally and all unaware, I can only guess. As most new-turned hexes are, concerning the damage they do.”
“A hex. Me.”
“Can’t see any other explanation, really. There are those who’ve shown similar powers, already, upon expression . . . what the witch-hunters of old once called necromancy, whether demonstrated by bringing the dead back to life, or keeping those already on the cusp
from, uh—going any further. That said, of course, I frankly can’t think there’s been a case before recorded in which one man did both at once, spreading revivification in his wake like typhus . . . or re-ordered an entire town to his personal liking, either, using a threat he himself was author of to keep its populace under his rule . . . ”
God, the pure shock of it. Though it did fit, I had to admit, if only to myself; if I couldn’t recall having had anything like magical powers previous to that truncated attempt to cut my own throat, things certainly had gone to my benefit ever since, albeit in odd and awful ways. Even the idea that I should have made my change in the manner a man usually does, rather than a woman—for I’d received my monthly gift years ago, and never made much of it, aside from an excuse to change trousers more frequently—that, too, seemed right, when placed in context. As right as any of it could be.
The way you regarded me, though, when you thought I wasn’t looking; it was like you thought I’d done it deliberately. And the rage rose, kindling me from head to toe, pumping me full of poison and fire admixed—up, and up, and up. My fingers itched, longing to form fists.
Yet at that very instant, I heard my sweet little Meem yell out, from behind: “Papa, don’t! Papa, they’re coming—they’re almost here—you just got to stop them, Papa, please—”
We turned as one, then, you and I, Agent Law. Just in time to see a fresh passel of rotten, reaching dead come charging down the street as though summoned, all sunken eyes and moaning, open mouths.
How’d they get past my barriers? I remember wondering as I whipped out my knife, fast enough it must’ve looked like I was fixing to juggle it. My sentries? The catch-pits? Christ’s sake, how damn deep we got to dig those trenches, anyways, ‘fore they finally start to do the trick?
Then I saw the whole range of their faces, just as the first wave broke against us—those intact and fresh as well as grave-kissed, same ones I’d called out greetings to that morning, on my daybreak stroll from one end of Satan’s Jewel Crown to the other.
And I knew, finally. At last, that was when I knew.
You should let them all go, Papa—let them leave, let them move on. While you still can.
Before . . .
. . . the crush was on us, and everything turned to carnage, with you and me back-to-back against the horde. I saw you put down six, a round for each, before you were forced to throw your gun away and grab whatever came to hand, instead—first a good, solid length of log, snatched off the nearest pyre pile, followed by the Cavalry sabre old Mister Hudgens no longer seemed to know how to use. I found myself trying to thrust aside those I recognized while taking down those I didn’t, but that went by the wayside soon enough, once the berserker-fit was on me. And at some point I stood gasping, glancing down, only to realize that the figure crouched beside me was Anthea—Anthea, her long hair blood-dabbled, hugging Meem to her like some awful Madonna and munching away on the side of her neck all the while, like it was the world’s best slice of watermelon.
I groaned out loud, then, and punched my wife full in her beautiful face—knocked her sidelong, slapping her down further, so I could wrest what was left of the only child I’d ever be likely to call my own from her still-grasping arms. Saw you from the corner of my eye, Agent, watching me do it, even as Missus Yee’s eldest took a chunk out of your nicely-dressed calf. But I didn’t have time to note what happened next, let alone to care.
Oh, but I held Meem tight, tight. Gripped her like she was salvation. And then—
“You all stop, goddamnit!” I cried, cradling that poor girl close. “All of you, just . . . stop.”
Which, without further ado—they did.