A Rope of Thorns (16 page)

“Wife,” Uther said, slow, from behind her, “what
do
you mean by that, exactly?”

Yancey held up her hand, brought the half-knife down again. “Watch.”

The sheer keenness of the edge delayed the pain a moment, just long enough for her to begin to cry: “Mister Pargeter—
here
—” And then her hand was afire, her warning a wordless wail as much shock as pain, though both were almost equally bad.

The Weed sucked up her fresh-let blood swifter even than Love’s pie-crust flesh had absorbed Pargeter’s hexation, digging ever deeper, writhing as it fed. After which a ripple lashed upwards, twining tight about the man in question’s purple-clad legs, and colour surged back into Pargeter’s whey-pale face; he chopped one hand clean through Love’s left-hand-side jaw hinge in a white-powder smash, so hard the Sheriff’s head fair spun, whipping-top style. Yet Love’s stranglehold did not shift, fingers thinning to circle Pargeter’s throat completely and pull in sharp, a leathery, granular noose.

Not enough
, Yancey realized, and clawed her way past the pain “More!” she screamed, to all those agape at her. “Blood kills the Weed, and that gives Pargeter strength—strength enough to put this
thing
down, where we can’t hope to!”

Mister Grey, over by Haish’s fallen body: “Hexation ’gainst hexation? Sounds dicey at best, if that’s even what Sheriff Love is packin’.”

Yancey waved his words away, impatient. “What other choice? If all of us spill a little, then . . .”

“Yancey,
no!”
Uther hollered, and grabbed for her wounded hand—trying to exert his husbandly authority, she guessed, much as it wouldn’t do either of ’em any good, if he succeeded. But Morrow, rising from where he’d fallen, slit his own palm open to the meat, not even waiting to let it spill; reached down to grab the Weed straight-on instead, forcing it to his spurting wound. The soundless green pulse which erupted was near-visible, surging up through the Weed into Pargeter, who gave out a shout: high, wild, inarticulate. A wildcat’s coital shriek.

Sheriff Love let go and staggered back, covering his ears. Cast eyes on Morrow, Yancey as well, like he was disappointed to his very core, and hissed: “Unbelievers! Ye have set up false idols and made worship unto them, as the Israelites with their golden calf, and God’s judgement will be certain, swift,
severe.”

Maybe so,
Yancey reckoned. But her half-cooked plan was definitely working; ’round Morrow, the mess of Weed was already a tight circle of rich grass, so fast the change barely registered. His sacrifice even seemed to have boosted hers, retroactively—for she and Uther both now also knelt in a patch of vibrant growth, fit to pasture the best of livestock.

Here a new voice intruded, odd as Love’s own, though in a far different way. It came from Morrow’s mouth, though his dumbfounded face would seem to belie it, chanting—

“
Now, oh friends,

Listen to the word, the true dream:

Each spring gives us life,

The golden ear of corn replenishes us,

The young ear of corn becomes our necklace.

Blood of men, so precious—

So flowery, like jade.

Our flowers will never end,

Our songs will never cease to be.
”

This—prayer, one could only assume—rose up like a drone, lulling the townsfolk quiet. Beside Mister Grey, who knelt cradling the unconscious Hugo Hoffstedt in his lap, Mister Frewer arose and stepped toward Yancey, bending to pick up the blade she’d dropped.

Uther caught Frewer by the wrist. “You’d best not be thinking of doing anything foolish with that, sir,” he said, low and flat.

Frewer blinked, shaking his head. “Fools is what we were. Tried fire, lost everything. This . . .” A shrug. “. . . it seems
right
.”

And it
did
feel that way, didn’t it? Languorous, lulling. Sweet as smoke.

Yet one more voice she didn’t know (and hoped to never have to, by its tones) intruding, to whisper:
Blood of men—and women, children, everyone: So flowery, like jade. Your precious, precious blood.

“Uther—” Yancey reached to touch his hand, as she had Pargeter’s, trying not to dwell on the similarity. “Husband: we’ve nothing else to try.”

Though Uther’s expression didn’t change, after a second, he turned Frewer loose—and without a word of thanks, Frewer instantly took the blade to his arm, freeing a jet so fierce it fair made Yancey gasp with horror.
Not so much!

But the other guests from Mouth-of-Praise still trapped within the church’s ruins were also rising, all with that same absent look. Those who had ’em drew their own knives, while those who didn’t went scrabbling among the wreckage for dining-ware, glass shards, sharp stones.

The air turned coppery; blood pattered down, like spring rainfall. And Morrow’s voice rang out again, this time joined by near two-score others—each joining in with nary a stumble, as though they were reading off some invisible hymn-book.

The house of He Who Creates Himself

Is found nowhere;

But our Lord, our God, is invoked everywhere,

He is venerated under every sky.

He is the One who creates all things,

He is the One who made himself.

Not a single person here

Can be Your friend, O Giver of Life!

We, lost below, can only seek You

As if for someone hidden among flowers.

Your heart grows weary of us.

The Giver of Life drives us mad,

And no one can truly be His friend,

Succeed in life, or rule on Earth.

The Weed changed so fast it seemed to shimmer, its fragrance fiercely fresh, storm popping like a soap bubble. Yancey felt the power flood her, strong enough to taste, and heard her blood sing out in answer, hot and living and furious. Felt Sheriff Love’s anger mount, equal fast as Pargeter’s ecstasy, and revelled in whatever hurt it did him—merely academic when compared to the blow he’d dealt
her
, off-hand, simply by being what he was. But a passive variety of vengeance on Pa’s behalf, nonetheless.

Two knots of passion fought within her breast, bisected: cold grief, sharp loss, a mounting general horror, set cheek-by-jowl with blind triumph and burning delight. And at the apex, magnet-pulled, her gaze lifted to Pargeter once more, his black aura now gone the same brilliant green of his eyes . . . which met and locked with hers, equal-strong, to flare with mutual recognition.

It’s
too much. He can’t take it all in—can’t let it go, either. And now, right now, is when it’s gonna—

—blow, sky-high. The green broke apart, knocking Pargeter ass over teakettle, dazed, sickened. The backlash sent Morrow to his aching knees yet again, jackknifed, dry-heaving into the grass; towns-folk who’d bled to feed the Weed all staggered too, likewise released.

While Love rose up once more, strength and fury both surging back in a flood, boiling off of him like steam.

He turned his face on faithless-proven Hoffstedtites and Mouth-of-Praisers alike, roaring that God-sent final verdict he’d spoke of to the uncaring skies:
“Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days!”

Moving so fast Yancey could barely track his passage, Love was on Mister Frewer before the poor fool had time to blink and struck him a backhanded blow that spun his head near clean around, bone cracking like a gunshot-load; Yancey felt the spirit blast from his body even as it fell limp, face down into the grass he’d helped pray into being.

“Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth to the Lord of Sabaoth—”
A few steps more brought him to where Hugo Hoffstedt lay, still unconscious, side by side with dead Sheriff Haish. Incensed beyond reason, Love lifted one boot and stamped down, crushing the complaint-fond tobacconist’s neck so hard it near
sprang
from the body on a burst of blood that stained his salt-crusted boot crimson.

Jesus,
Yancey’s mind repeated blindly, returning under fire to the less apparently reliable God of her youth. For in those two dreadful moments, all her hexcraft-got “victory” had turned to dust in her mouth.

“Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter!”
Love howled out, joyfully. To which her dear Uther, suddenly bereft of friends, enemies and barely made acquaintances alike, shook his handsome head in disapproval.

“
You
, sir,” he told Love. “Can just . . . shut the hell up. Your point is made, and you’re frightening my wife.”

Track-caught by such reasonableness, Love paused in his rampage, voice gone abruptly calm. “Well, as to that—your wife is damned, Marshal, I’m sad to say, same as every one’ve those she’s enticed to give the Devil reverence, rendering this place anathema; it should be burnt, so that better people may start over. Burnt to the ground, and its ashes salted.”

Though white-lipped, Yancey found the grace to snort, amazed by her own audacity. “Really. Answer me this, then, Sheriff: things only occur ’cause God lets ’em, as I recall . . . so if it
works
, and it did, who are you to argue?”

Those dead eyes swung back her way, two blasted moons in dull orbit. “Don’t be sophistical, ma’am,” Love replied. “It’s unbecoming.”

Uther took a step closer. “I’m the one gets to decide that, thank you. Now—people have had enough; we’ll solve our own problems in our own way, thank you kindly.
Leave
.”

“I don’t answer to you.”

To this, Uther smiled, ever so slightly. “Oh?” he asked. And punched Love, hard.

It was a roundhouse hook to the jaw that would’ve floored any other man. But the former Sheriff was—
tacky
, so the Marshal’s fist sunk in wrist-deep, then stuck. Yancey jumped to his aid, hauling on him with both arms ’til he tore free at last with a horrid sucking noise, sagging back against her. They were both equal-floored by the sight of his hand, skinned something nasty—a literal glove of blood, fingernails torn either almost to the root, or missing entirely.

“Oh, Jesus!” Yancey cried out, and Uther seemed happy to hear her upset on his behalf.

Started to say: “Hush, now—could be worse—”

But that was when Sheriff Love chose to haul off himself, jab Uther so rough he crushed in one eye like a popped egg, then backhanded him into what was left of the altar stone. Uther’s temple struck the corner, skull broken open on impact, with a meaty crunch. One further twist, snapped-stick sharp, and he was looking back at her full-on, over his own shoulder.

Yancey screamed and clapped both hands to her face, as Uther dropped away. She heard him fall. And knew, at last, that she was all alone. . . .

Except for Love.

On the ground, aching all over, Ed Morrow came back to himself in a rush, slammed together once more by the whip-tail scorch of Missus Kloves’—
Widow
Kloves, now—desolate cry. For a split second, he thought on how it’d be to be made mateless and orphaned on the same damn day, and that supposedly reserved for celebration. How it’d feel to know it was your fault, too, for having brought the means of everyone else’s destruction in through the door and handed ’em ’round like any other guest, thinking your will alone could keep ’em from acting like curse-laden skeletons at your unsuspecting husband’s marriage feast.

A split second only, not a hair more. After which he forced himself up, grabbed Chess ’round his drunken-lolling praise-junkie neck and growled in one ear: “
Help
her, Goddamnit, ’fore that crazy bastard does her like he’s done for the damn rest! It’s the least you owe.”

Chess’s breath came huffing out visible, heavy with green-spiced vapour. “Don’t owe that bitch nothin’,” he snapped back, automatically. “Hell,
I
ain’t the one wants to get up under her skirts. You like her so much, maybe you should take a swing at that crusty bastard yourself.”

“Tried that already, remember? You were there. Didn’t end well.”

Before them, Love stood over op Missus Kloves, gesticulating like a premier Sensation Scene melodramatist:
The Preacher Transformed, or, God’s Monster!
While she, a mere slip of a thing in her green- and dust-stained wedding duds, simply glared at him past her husband’s corpse, grey eyes gone so hard you could strike matches on ’em.

“Well, sir,” she said, with admirable haughtiness, “your work here seems done. Unless you’re fixed to kill
me
, too.”

Love thought on that, then shook his head. “No,” he replied. “You knew what you did, but not why you shouldn’t, so I’ll trust God in his mercy to grant you time to reflect on your sins, and repent of them. For the nonce, therefore, I’ll let you live, for our great Father’s sake.”

Missus Kloves drew her lips back, showing all her neat white teeth at once. And hissed at him, voice rage-thick, “
My
father is
dead
.”

For just a tick, Morrow saw Love’s regained mask of sanity shudder, his leprous hands curl into claws. But with an effort, he appeared to thrust those impulses away from him, having already overindulged, to take the high road. Gave himself a species of all-over shrug, and turned away.

Only to find Chess right there, his fingers already dug deep in the “lapel” of that salt-skin-memory mélange Love wore for a coat.

“Time t’go, Sheriff,” Chess told him. “Just like the Marshal said.”

That same no-explosion, a barely there toll struck on the world’s bell, and so Goddamn fast. Faster yet, every Goddamn time.

Chess and Love were there, then Chess was back, like he hadn’t ever left. And Love?

Gone, at last, if only in body. Not like Pa, Sheriff Haish, Mister Frewer—poor, stupid Hugo Hoffstedt, laid low, never to return. Or Uther.

Yancey sat shivering in the street while Pargeter and Morrow, fellow architects in the destruction of everything she’d ever known, exchanged a look.