“I did my part already,” Ledger said. He raised his voice. “Earl! I’ve got no more questions.”
The thing took another step forward. “Ask me who did it,” it said. “I’ll tell—”
It gaped its mouth after the words, like a guppy after a lure. Its eyes flicked over to gray again in a blink, dried out and milky. Agony twisted its mouth in a rictus, and it lunged at Ledger. It moved faster than seemed possible for something so ruined. One hand closed around Ledger’s throat and squeezed tight around his windpipe.
Frayed lips pulled back from its teeth, and it leaned in toward his face. Ledger felt panic cramp in his gut, cold and liquid, as he imagined how much it was going to hurt. Before he had to find out, Wren shoved his forearm into the thing’s muzzle. All the way back, till the dry corners of its mouth split and peeled back.
It tried to bite down, thrashing its head from side to side, but it couldn’t get purchase. Wren grimly hung on to it as Ledger clawed at the hand locked around his throat. The dead didn’t feel much pain—so the skin bunched up under Ledger’s nails didn’t do much—but they were still subject to physical laws.
Like tensile strength. And leverage.
Ledger grabbed one finger and yanked it back until he heard something snap. Then he did a second. The grip on his throat loosened, and he managed to drag himself free. His throat felt raw, and it stung as he sucked in ragged lungfuls of breath.
“Wren…”
Snarling around the leather and muscle shoved into its mouth, the thing threw itself from side to side in a frenzy. Wren clenched his jaw and grabbed one of the thing’s arms to keep its splintered black nails away from his face.
At the end of the road, a set of headlights appeared. The truck sped toward them, a big bright red cab pulling a heavy silver trailer. Wren wrestled the thing to the side of the road and, teeth clenched, held it there as he waited.
The truck bore down. The thing squalled with mindless, rabid fury. Ledger counted down in his head.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Wren shoved the thing into the road. He did it earlier than Ledger would have, but that was a question of style, Ledger supposed. The thing lurched backward into the road, too-short arms windmilling, and fell into the path of the truck. It bounced off the road-scarred metal grill, hit the asphalt, and was pulled under the wheels.
The trucker didn’t even tap the brakes.
Patches of hide and maggoty meat grated off along the road. An ear—distinct and ragged—flew out and landed with a wet flop on the rocks. The rest of the thing was caught up in the undercarriage of the truck and carried away with it.
Ledger rubbed his throat and tried out his voice.
“Well, that went well,” he said dryly.
* * *
Wren stripped his stained,foul-smelling T-shirt off over his head and tossed it onto the ground. The tattoo on his back, soft-edged gray smoke that started somewhere under his jeans and flowed up his spine until it spilled over his shoulders, seemed to move as the long, tight muscles flexed and stretched under tan skin.
“All that,” Wren said sourly, lifting his arm to sniff himself. He grimaced and opened the door of the pickup. “And all we learned was that you’re full of shit.”
Ledger pulled the collar of his shirt up and blotted his cheek. It stung, but if the raised welts on his face had bled, he couldn’t tell from the dark cotton.
“Not sure how you work that out,” he said.
Wren pulled out a bottle of water, twisted the top off, and bent his head forward as he poured it over himself. Cold water plastered his hair to his skull, dripped down his hard, ink-marked sides, and left dark marks on his faded-to-gray jeans. He shook his head to shed the excess and gave Ledger a hard look.
“You kidding?” he asked. “You’re on the hook for Bell’s debt. In a couple of days, the boss is going to pull your bones out through your asshole…”
Ledger hoped that was hyperbole. He supposed it didn’t really matter—it was going to hurt either way—but still.
“…because it turns out that you have no fucking clue what’s going on.”
“That’s not true.”
Wren snorted. This time when he reached into the truck, he pulled out a bottle of Fireball. It was half-full, and the amber liquid sloshed against the sides as he waved it toward the road.
