Ledger grinned at him. “Maybe,” he said. “But the demons won’t talk to you, will they? Not even after you hung your son up and bled him out like a pig?”
Syder tightened his grip on Ledger’s jaw until the dull ache radiated back to join the rest of the pain. His nostrils flared as he breathed raggedly, his lips squirming across his teeth like worms.
“Don’t talk about my son,” he finally ground out through clenched teeth. “That wasyourfault, not mine. You were the one that was supposed to die, the reason that Hell cut Bell off.”
Ledger showed his own teeth. “Maybe you should have sent me home, then,” he said, “instead of to the hospital.”
“If I had known how quickly everything would fall apart,” Syder said, “I would have, but… I thought it would give us a reason why you disappeared.”
He let go of Ledger’s jaw and stepped back. It took Syder a moment to catch his breath, and when he did, he assumed a shrill, mocking voice.
“Bell Conroy’s boy? The crazy one? He ran off. Or killed himself. Such a shame, but… well… that family, what do you expect?” He mimed a dismissive shrug, then bent over to grab his chair and set it back up. He had to lean on it briefly before he sat down. “But it didn’t work out like that.”
“Yeah,” Ledger said. “Demons don’t edge, and a life built on favors can come down real quick. But I still don’t know what you want from me, Syder.”
Syder got a handkerchief out of his pocket to mop his brow.
“What do I want? I want the same thing that I wanted from Bell,” he said. “The secret. Whatever it was that he kept from me, that he heldoverme. I want my life back, my health back, my fuckingsonback. And do you know what your shit-stain of a father said? After everything I did for him? Every string I pulled to keep him alive in jail, every favor I called in to get him released early, and every nasty fucking deed I did once he got out? Do you know what he said?”
“That he didn’t give a shit what you wanted?”
Syder leaned back into the chair. He wiped the corners of his mouth on the cloth.
“Close enough,” he said. “Close enough. And when I told him to go fuck himself, that bloated cancer-sack tried to blackmail me.”
Ledger remembered the picture at the cabin, the blurry figure in the background that could have, he supposed, been Syder. Maybe there’d been others, and that was just the only one left after Syder had cleaned house. It made more sense than it being some vestige of sentiment on Bell’s part.
“That’s why you killed him,” Ledger said.
There was a pause, and then Syder smiled. “You really did put it all together,” he said. He looked around the cellar and frowned. “This isn’t what I wanted. It’s too close to home, too risky. But I believe you. There’s no secret hideaway. Just here.”
He got back up and went over to the old table shoved against the rough wall. There was something on it. Ledger craned his neck to see. It was an old Wrangler work boots box with holes punched in the side and the lid taped down. Syder picked it up and gave it a vicious shake. Something slow and lethargic moved around inside.
“I caught it,” Syder said. “Your dad’s rat. His familiar. I have you, his son and last debt. All I need now is the demon.”
Ledger pulled on the cuffs again, his fists clenched as if that would help.
“It won’t work,” he said.
“Why not?” Syder said. He put the box back down on the table and walked over to Ledger.
“If killing your own son didn’t work, killing me won’t matter,” Ledger told him. “I don’t matter to you.”
Syder laid his hand on Ledger’s forehead in mock affection. “You’re my son in the eyes of the Church,” he said. “Maybe that’ll be good enough.”
Ledger jerked his head to the side, away from Syder’s clammy palm.
“Besides,” Syder went on, unconcerned by the rejection. “I don’t have to care. It just has to be done. I’ve been tarred with your daddy’s debtor’s brush. That’s why I can’t get anything to take my deals. Because my credit’s bad. I kill you, I pay off the debt that Bell incurred, and then I can make my own deal. Why won’t that work?”
“Hell’s already going to get you, Syder,” Ledger said. “What do you have left to offer?”
“I’m the sheriff of this county,” Syder said. He reached into his jacket and took out a bottle of pills. “If they let me live, I could do such terrible things for them, and it would take so long for anyone to question me. Twenty years I’ve got away with this so far.”
He gripped Ledger’s jaw—fingers and thumb dug into the joint—and squeezed. Ledger tried to clench his jaw but was finally forced to open it. Syder dropped the pills into his mouth and then forced it closed, the heel of his hand pressed against Ledger’s chin. His other hand massaged Ledger’s throat, like a man pilling a dog, until he had to swallow. The two capsules went down like stones despite Ledger’s best efforts to choke on them.
“I have to go and handle some things at work,” Syder said. “Apparently, someone was shot last night at the carnival. This used to be a safe town, you know. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
“No,” Ledger blurted out as Syder moved his hand. He yanked furiously at the restraints until he felt blood run down his arms. “You can’t do this. Let me go.Let me go!”
