A Book Of Tongues (32 page)

“Sure. Gonna try and hold me down?”

Morrow flushed, and Chess
knew
, precisely, to the last little
drop — as if gauging the mix of a favourite drink — how much of
that flush was memory, equal parts arousal and embarrassment,
versus how much was exasperated anger . . . with something else
lurking lower yet, gobsmacking in its urgency, its stark truth: fear.
Of Chess — no surprise there. But also —
for
him.

Shuddering, Chess pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m
worse by far’n just
sick
, Morrow,” he said. “
Sick
people don’t heave up
bugs, or puke cooked blood — and better still, when
people
ain’t got
a damn heart in their chest, sick or not, they usually go on and die.
Not to mention how there’s no sickness I ever heard tell of lets you
fuckin’ well
hear what someone else is thinkin’
— ”

But
that
was a mistake, ’cause the instant the words were out,
Morrow paled, and Chess swayed under the cold blast of his fear
before he threw it off with a jolt that rocked both of them:
No no no
shit
, get your head out of my
head
you sumbitch!

Silence and numbness slammed down. Chess stared hard at
Morrow, who stared back — then sighed. And replied, “Sounds like
hexation, right enough . . . ’cause you’re a hex, Chess. That’s the sad
truth of it.”

Morrow crossed to the nightstand, flipped the plain denim
clothes at him. They fell on top of the bed. “You don’t wanna sleep,
fine. Put those on, at least. We got business to discuss.”

And I could stand not havin’ to watch your tallywhacker jig free under
there, while we do it
.

Oh get out, get
out
, get GODDAMN
OUT
!

“I don’t see how there’s any sorta
business
left ’tween you and me,
exactly — ” Chess started.

But here Morrow whirled on him — faster than Chess had ever
seen him move, ’cept maybe in the occasional gunfight.

“Inside this circle Songbird’s done up here, you got no more mojo
than I do,
Mister
Pargeter,” Morrow snarled, his sideburns fair to
bristling with the righteously angry effort of it. “There’s enough
men to fill a whole goddamn state would wanna kill you, they found
you like this — and I might even be one of them, too, if I didn’t
already have bigger shit to worry about.”

Initial rage expiated, he stood back up again, but his glare didn’t
lessen. “You spent one half your whole life thinkin’ you were dirt,
but the next thinkin’ you were a man above all other comers, just
’cause you could draw faster and shoot better’n any of the rest of us.
But ain’t nobody gets to call himself a
man
who don’t
clean up his own
fucking messes.
”

The new door in Chess’s brain swung open a moment.
Immediately, Chess was submerged, still and breathless, under a
bitter surge of anger, frustration . . . contempt, marrow-stunned
with the hurt of it, the shock. Maybe because of its sheer inside-out impact, if nothing else, for to be loathed, looked down on, was
certainly nothing new. But — Morrow’s rush of disgust, temporary
as it might prove, had nothing to do with the truths-turned-insults
flung out. No. What riled Morrow ran far deeper — was the sheer
perversity of Chess’s own nature, that unbreakable wilfulness he’d
always revered in himself, as sign and source of his innate freedom.
His stark refusal ever to be bound, to obey aught but his own whim
and want.

Because while he could walk free and hold a gun, Chess Pargeter
answered to no man — no man, no law, no damn body, motherfucker.
No ideal, no cause, no force but sheer chaos, bound and determined
to move unimpeded and burn for the sake of burning. To never
submit himself to ghost or hex or priest or even
God,
’less he damn
well
wanted
to.

No man except Ash Rook, that was — for a time. And after this
last betrayal, from now on . . . not even him.

’Course not,
Morrow’s anger spoke back, unimpressed by Chess’s
well-tuned inner litany.
That’s ’cause you’re nothing but a brat who
never grew up
—
a skillet-hopping little hot-pants who knows everything
’bout killing and nothing at all ’bout
living
. Who spits on friendship, duty
and honour not ’cause he’s above them, so much, as ’cause he don’t know
what they even mean — same way you don’t really grasp how anything’s
real, ’cept if you want it, or it hurts you. And
that’s
why you ended up
givin’ everything you had to a man who skinned you alive, then left you
stranded down in Hell — ’cause he was what you wanted, and Christ
forbid Chess Pargeter ever admit what he
wanted
was
a goddamn bad
idea
. You made it easy for him, Chess, you damn fool. ’Cause you couldn’t
believe you deserved anything better. And me? I’d never do that to you, or
anyone. Never.

The door between them slammed shut once more, leaving Chess
alone in his own head, wrung out with surprise and confusion. And
Morrow — he didn’t seem to have even noticed their momentary
communion. Just folded his arms, jaw set, and repeated: “So get
dressed, I ain’t gonna tell you twice. There’s more goin’ on than just
you
— and for once, you’re gonna help fix it, instead’ve doin’ every
damn thing you can to make things worse.”

And me wearing guns,
Chess thought, amazed. Of course, Morrow
had
gone ahead and emptied the damn things first.

Chess knew he should be spitting mad, going on history alone —
but it seemed more effort than it was worth. Still equal bone-tired
from his long sleep and sharp awakening, he unfolded the shirt
slowly, barely able to pry its buttons apart. Morrow evidently saw his
fatigue as well; after a moment he huffed impatiently and stepped
over the pictographs Chess could barely stand to skirt, bracing
himself to help Chess dude up.

Damn, when’d
you
get so nice?
a voice from the past said, in
Chess’s ear. But Chess brushed it away, like it was one of those dying
dragonflies.

Boots now firmly wedged on, Morrow got his shoulder under
Chess’s arm and lifted him to stand. Freshly rendered decent, Chess
felt the shirt and pants grate all scratchy-stiff against his skin, yet
managed to force at least half a smile. Asking, “No pomade?”

Morrow snorted. “This ain’t no Presidential Suite, Chess. Just
have to wait ’til you’re back on American soil for the little amenities,
I —
what the shitfuck Sam Hill?!
”

Came so out-of-nowhere quick it almost made Chess bust out
laughing, ’til he caught a snatch of his own shirt-sleeve going by.
The plain denim was simply gone, replaced by
his
clothes — same
rig he always bought, no matter where, or from whom: purple shirt,
near-black trousers, burgundy-bottle vest, all clean and fragrant, as
if fresh-laundered and pressed. Even his gunbelts were back around
his waist, guns neatly holstered. And the boots were the exact ones
he’d broke in months ago, no matter he
knew
they and all the rest
were still lost somewhere outside this entire world.

“Oh, shit, Ed.” He looked back up at Morrow, mouth open in
dismay. “I’m a damn
hex
.”

“All but indubitably, Mr. Pargeter.”

As Chess’s eyes went to the door, Morrow stepped smartly back
over the circle, realigning himself with those who had just entered.
So they told ya don’t come in here,
Chess thought, and filed it away.

Songbird came first, her all-red rig pretty much the same as
when he’d last seen it, except for wearing her too-white hair down
rather than up. Still as elegant and finely dressed as a bleached-out
baby whore could be.

She met his eyes full-on and threw him an evil little smile,
murmuring: “
Ni hao
, English Oona’s boy — so nice to see you once
more, even after all the trouble you made for me, back at Selina
Ah Toy’s. But very much especially so, now that we both
know
each
other . . .”
For what we actually are.

That last part “said” extra-loud and direct, a spike punched
straight through to his brain’s own stem, the way most hexes
probably joshed with each other — ’cause they damn well
could
, and
get away with it.

Allan Pinkerton, on the other hand, he knew from posters — a
big, burly, check-suited man with a full bushy beard and a bowler
hat. And then came a third figure, the man who’d spoken — some
white-haired, bespectacled old fool, looked like the dimmer sort of
medicus you sometimes found taking refuge from parts Eastern or
Northern. Or would have, if his washed-out blue eyes hadn’t held
the most keen regard of all.

Chess tensed. He’d expected fear, smug triumph, stupid
dismissal — all the old touchstones — and there was more than
enough of all of them in Pinkerton’s and Songbird’s eyes to go
’round. But the old fool’s gaze was different — clinical, passionate
with fire Chess barely understood. As though Chess was the walking
answer to some riddle gone unsolved all his life, a living quizbook
ripe for reading. Or maybe a vivisection-bound (in)human curiosity,
all fit to get strapped down and cut into.

It pissed Chess off — and spotting Hosteen hangdogging in
back, like the bastard didn’t have enough nerve to push past these
strangers stink-eyeing Chess, only made him angrier.
Guess this
here’s the sorta situation where you’re finally apt to be more careful ’bout
your
own
skin than mine, for once, old man? You hypocrite —

But then a strange thing happened. Hosteen squinched shut his
eyes, fast as if Chess had actually pasted him one ’cross the chops
with the above, rather than just
thought
it at him. Held his head,
morning-after skull-ache style, and stared at Chess with wild,
wounded eyes. At which point Songbird turned, silks flowing, to
look first at Chess, then to Hosteen, then once more to Chess — like
she’d just caught him at something, and it was making her happier
than a shit-dipped hog.

With a tiny little smile, she raised one finger and wagged it back
and forth, approving-reprovingly. Then whirled the finger and
yanked, sharpish, as if first wrapping, then
snapping
some invisible
thread.

For half an instant, Chess saw something — a flicker of light, a
shimmer of heat — ripple up from the circle around him. A stinging
chill came both down and up him at once, a giant pair of tailor’s
shears,
cutting
the air between Chess and Hosteen. Chess had no
idea what, hadn’t even known it was there, ’til it snapped back into
him.

He staggered, grabbed the bedpost and glared at Songbird, who
only shook her head with that same tiny smile:
Ah-ah-ah-ah,
gweilo!

Oh, that is fuckin’ well
it.

Chess felt it rush into him with a tingle, an ill-summoned current
of power sent flooding outwards to prickle in both palms, which he
clenched into fists. Almond eyes narrowing, Songbird’s lip lifted in a
snarl — and just as suddenly, a heat-haze crackled between the two.

“Doctor,” said Pinkerton, low but urgent, to — the white-haired
man, who’d been staring in open awe and delight, but now came
to his senses with a shake of the head. Swiftly, he popped that
odd timepiece of Morrow’s from his own weskit-pocket. Morrow
frowned to see it but said nothing.

Old Doc Whoever flipped it open, releasing its usual frantic
clicking and clattering into the air. From another side-pouch, he
drew a reel of dull, silvery-looking thread, spun off a length and
snapped it free. He wound its middle once ’round the watch’s fob
and threw the end out the window, deftly swift, like he was laying
a fuse. Chess followed it all only from the corner of his eye, barely
truly clocking it, gunfighter-poised to meet whatever Songbird was
conjuring with the hardest possible return strike he could muster.
That he had no idea either
what
he would do or just
how
to do it
didn’t matter, not right then.

But that was when the doctor tossed the other end of the
thread forward into the circle, to land squarely between Chess and
Songbird. And that, that . . . was when shit commenced to
hurt
.

Compared to what-all he’d suffered down Mictlan-Xibalba
way, ’course, this agony was second-rate at best. But for sheer
surprise alone, it nonetheless took most of Chess’s will to keep his
teeth together as his body locked up, and all that freshly accessed
hexacious firepower came sliding greasily out of him.

Songbird was far less sanguine. She threw back her head and
screeched, indignant, as pinkish-white-green lightning arced from
her and Chess both straight to the silver thread’s end.

“
Ai-yaaah! Zhè shì shénme làn dongxi?
”

Which meant something like
what is this garbage?
— if Chess
recalled his Chink insults aright. Though damn if he didn’t almost
feel he could “hear” it in its entirety, red-on-black-lettered inside his
own skull, with the part she hadn’t said at all — only
thought
— as an
echoing aftertaste:
Kewù de lao bàojon
(
horrible old bastard
),
hao le ma
(
that’s fucking well enough, okay?
) — or was that maybe
huàile
(
shit on
my head
)?

Meantime, the symbols she’d inked upon the floor turned black,
smoked, and melted into char as twisting, writhing arcs of power
leapt from them too, lashing down the thread, through Morrow’s
device and out the window. Light flashed outside with deafeningly
sharp cracks, the sound of a revolver emptying its chambers right
shy of your ear. Followed by silence but for echoes, Chess all a-sway
with his part-blinded eyes blinking, feeling light-headed and
horribly empty.