“And you need her. To make yourself a damn god, too.”
“You really are a sight smarter than you look, Ed — but yeah. And no. I need her . . . to make Chess a god.”
The hell?
“Oh, he ain’t much enamoured of the idea right now,” Rook continued, like he hadn’t heard Chess — and why would Chess expect him to? “But that’ll change. He’ll be a god, I’ll be his priest-king; hers too. It’ll be choice.”
“And her.” Morrow jerked his head at the window above. “What does she get out of it?”
“Oh, the usual . . . blood, and lots of it. That’s what her kind like best. How’d it go, by the by? You and him, I mean.” As Morrow blushed: “Yeah, I knew. But don’t think I’m jealous, Ed; you gave him what he needed, in the moment. And now — you won’t be so quick to want shed of us after all, either, will ya?”
“What do you want, Reverend?”
“I’m playin’ it by ear, somewhat. Goin’ where the currents take me. All hexes can, or could, but most don’t listen. So — you send Kees for the Pinkertons yet?”
Morrow reared back, and Chess could see in his eyes it was true. White-hot fury: Morrow, a Pink? He’d fucked a damn Pink?
You son of a bitch, Chess raved to himself. Minute I wake, I’m gonna —
“Aw, shit! Okay, I give the hell up.” Morrow threw out his hands. “Why d’you let me do anything, exactly? Why ain’t I dead a hundred times over, by now?”
“’Cause I need you upright, Ed.” Rook came close, put a comradely hand on Morrow’s shoulder. “Better yet . . . ’cause Chess does. I need you for him — to want to serve him, protect him, bad as I do.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“All you need to know is I can’t, Ed. Not right now.” Rook looked away, eyes shadowed. “I lay down with dogs, and now I gotta deal with the fleas . . . you understand me?”
“Not even a little damn bit.”
Rook sighed. “Well, it don’t matter too much, really. We all of us only do what needs doing, or what we’re made to do.” He glanced at Morrow. “You as much as anyone, Ed, for what that’s worth.”
Morrow frowned. “What — what d’you mean?”
“I mean, that what he needed last night . . . well, that was what I n
eeded too. To make this whole thing work. So — ” Rook tapped the coat-pocket which held the mojo-bag “ — I might’ve helped things along, with you and him. Just a bit.”
“You made us do that? Both of us?”
“Ahhhh, I said I helped, is all.” Rook waggled a reproving finger at Morrow, whose hands had bunched into fists. “Didn’t need that much pushin’, truth be told, for either of you. So what’s really gonna drive you mad, Edward Morrow, is wonderin’ just how much of that night was me . . . and how much was you.”
For a moment it seemed Morrow might just let fly at Rook, spells be damned — but Rook just tipped his hat and walked away, whistling. Morrow watched him go.
Then he walked over to the wall of Splitfoot Joe’s and punched it so hard the skin on his knuckles burst.
“Oona” shook her head, sadly. “So men are born fools and stay fools, steered ’round by their pricks ’til the day they die. Too bad the only way knowin’ that might ’elp you would be if you wasn’t one.” She gave him a considering look. “Poor little bastard. If you ’ad been a girl, least I’d’ve been able to teach you ’ow love’s nothin’ but a mug’s game. As it is, you’ll go on doin’ whatever the little ’ead tells you to, ’til you learn better.”
Chess frowned, having heard all this before — too many times to count, or register.
“What’s that noise?” he asked, instead.
The real Oona, embarked on a philosophical tear, would’ve slapped him for interrupting; this one just grinned. And replied, “A fair question. What’s it sound like?”
Several phrases popped into Chess’s head at once, all equally unlikely. In rough order — slammin’ door . . . a wood bell tolling . . . something . . . rotten.
Back and forth, in and out, a decomposing heart’s mushy beat. It had started low-down, but now it mounted steady, so the walls fair rung with it. Don’t rightly know, he thought — had halfway opened his mouth to say — but stopped. Because his eyes had gone lower, drifted to “Oona’s” skinny chest, and seen.
And now she was looking down too. “Ah, that,” she said, unsurprised. “Want a better look, do ya?”