Ledger craned his neck away and curled his lip in disgust. He was about to say something, but someone got there first.
“You’re wrong, Sheriff,” Wren said as he stepped out of the smoke. It seemed to cling to him, anchored to his collar and sleeves. “You’re going to die. And soon.”
Syder swore and swung around, the gun jerked up to point at Wren. His bloodshot eyes narrowed.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re the slut from the other night.”
Wren grinned, sharp and dangerous. “That’s one thing to call me.” He looked over at Ledger. “What’s in the box?”
Ledger looked down at the shoe box. He wasn’t really sure why he’d dragged it with him. It had just seemed easier to do as he was told rather than think of what else to do. The scrabbling had stopped. He gave it a shake. Nothing.
“A dead rat,” he said. “I think.”
“Why?”
“I said I’d buy you dinner.”
Wren laughed. It was real this time, creasing the corners of his eyes.
“That’s enough,” Syder snapped. He grabbed Ledger by the nape of his neck and dragged him back a step. “Ledger Conroy’s under arrest.”
“For what?” Wren asked.
“Good question,” Ledger said.
Syder gave him a rough shake, like a dog with a rat. “Arson,” he rasped out.
“Yeah?” Wren took a step forward and held up a matchbox pinched between two fingers. “What did he burn down? Because this was my work.”
An awful sense of dread hung in the air around Wren. It was the sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach, the breath catch just as you realized something bad was about to happen. Syder swallowed, a sticky, noisy gulp.
“What are you?” he asked, his voice drawn out thin.
“Does it matter?” Wren asked. “Do you want to know when you’re going to die, Sherriff?”
“I’m not going to die,” Syder said.
“Six months,” Wren said. “Four days, sixteen hours.”
Syder’s hand shook visibly. “Shut up.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“I saidshut up!” Syder yelled and tightened his finger on the trigger.
“No!” Ledger yelled. He tried to lunge for the gun but tripped over his own feet. Syder shouldered him away roughly and fired.
Twice.
The first bullet punched into Wren’s shoulder. The second hit him in the stomach. Wren took a step back at the impact. Threads of dusty smoke leaked from the wounds, thin and feathery as they eddied away on the breeze.
Wren looked down at himself. He grimaced in annoyance as he poked his finger into the fresh hole in the leather jacket.
“Fuck sake, you had to aim for the jacket?” Wren asked, sounding aggrieved as he shrugged the coat off. There was some blood on his shirt, but not much. When he looked up, his face sharpened into something predatory. The aura of fear kicked up a notch, enough to speed up the heart and dry the mouth. “My turn.”
He tossed the jacket at Syder.
The sheriff tried to slap it out of the air, but it tangled around his arm and hit him in the face. Before he could free himself, Wren grabbed his wrist and snapped it with a dry-stick sound. Syder screamed, a shrill, high-pitched noise, and the gun dropped out of his suddenly numb fingers. He writhed at the end of his own arm, the twisted wrist still gripped in Wren’s hand as he whined in pain.
