“What about you?” he asked.
Wren gave him an exasperated look. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Wren stared at him for a moment. Then he stepped forward and pulled Ledger into a quick, desperate kiss. It tasted of smoke and blood and puke, but neither of them seemed to care. Wren cupped Ledger’s face with callused hands as he stepped back.
“He’ll hurt me,” he said. “He won’t kill me. I’ll heal. You won’t. Go. I’ll try to slow him down as much as I can.”
Ledger didn’t want to go. His legs felt like lead weights as he took one step back and then another. Except he couldn’t do anything here but die. At least if he got to Sutton and the bookstore, he could maybe get Earl’s death in time to save Wren.
“I’ll go,” Ledger said. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Too late for that,” Wren snorted as he shrugged his jacket off and tossed it to Ledger, who caught it out of the air. The weight of butter-soft leather and zippers was heavier than he’d expected, and he took a third step back. “Take care of that for me.”
Ledger tried to think of the right thing to say. Before he could, Wren grunted and doubled over, shoulders hunched and hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. The tendons on his arms bulged under the skin. After a second, he went down onto his knees on the asphalt.
When he looked up, his face had sagged on one side, one black eye gone milky gray. His tongue poked out between his lips to taste them, and then Earl hauled Wren’s body clumsily to its feet. It reached up and grabbed one side of its—Wren’s—face. Its fingers hooked into the corner of Wren’s mouth, and it pulled, like a fisherman landing a trout, until Wren’s skin stretched and split.
“Ungrateful,” Earl garbled out of the yanked mouth. He let go and dragged Wren’s nails viciously down his face, long runnels of thin skin peeled off to leave raw strips. “Sentimental. Thing.”
The skin on Wren’s temples bulged and split, blood dripping from his cheeks and feathers of smoky dust tangling into his hair. Sharp points of dull gray pushed through the wounds, tearing the skin further, and branched out into thick, gnarled antlers. Only instead of bone, they were wood, and lichen and moss scabbed along the length of them.
“Stop it,” Ledger said. He stepped forward—as though there was anything he could do—as Earl rolled Wren’s head around to get used to the weight of the things. “Leave him alone.”
Earl brought its head up in that distinct, sharp motion that deer had. He stared at Ledger with those misted-over eyes and smiled.
“Don’t worry,” it said as it prowled forward. “Once I get your bones out… I’ll crawl in there and fuck him with your cock. He really wanted that… I’d hate to disappoint him the way… you disappointed me.”
Ledger backed up, nearly falling over his own feet as he tried to think of something. Anything.
His brain kept catching on Syder’s plan. Bell had set that sacrifice up years ago. The groundwork was already there. If Ledger sacrificed himself to pay that debt, he could set the terms. It wouldn’t be hard.
He knew the names.
Earl stopped suddenly. It snarled and looked down at itself.
“No.No!” it said in a fury.
Wren’s left arm lifted, muscles tense as if he was fighting against something. The ink on his arm swirled in swooping, agitated patterns, a single shadowy outline distinct as it veered from the flock and then subsumed it again. It spread up his neck and freckled his face, motion slowing the further it spread. He grabbed the base of the branched antler and wrenched it out by the root. It snapped off, splinters left buried in the raw skin, and Wren’s face twisted with agony as he grabbed the other one. Blood and a greasy black fluid dripped down the side of his face.
He looked at Ledger with eyes that were all black again.
“Go!”
The roared order made Ledger jump and stagger backward. This time he kept going, shrugging the jacket over his bare arms and torn T-shirt. He forced heavy legs into a shambling run that jammed hot spikes into his head with each step. By the time he got to the truck, he had to retch with the pain of it, but there was nothing left in his stomach to come up, so it didn’t slow him down.
Wren had left the driver’s door open, and the overhead light clicked on to illuminate the cab in a warm, soft glow. When he reached the car, Ledger scrambled gracelessly in, the leather under his thighs and against his back still warm from Wren’s body, and fumbled with the keys. His hands felt like he was wearing ski gloves, thick and clumsy, and the lock was two shifting targets.
He managed to slot the key home and started the engine. When he looked up, Wren—or Earl—stood bleeding in the middle of the road. It visibly struggled with itself—jaw clenched so tight that the muscles spasmed and twitched. It stepped forward two slow, dragging steps and then stopped.
Wren clenched his hand around the antler, raised it, and drove it into his own stomach. The split wooden thorns and spike punched through his T-shirt and tore into the taut skin. Blood bloomed on his T-shirt, wicked into the cotton, and Wren hunched over the wound.
Ledger had kissed that stomach. He’d traced the defined planes of muscle and the edges of the tattoo.
Go. Go, or it will be worth nothing.
Ledger shoved the truck into drive and gunned the engine. It surged forward with an almost primal snarl from under the polished hood. The application of horsepower pushed Ledger back against the leather seat as he wrenched the wheel to the side. The truck veered over the center line, the front wheel bouncing off the road into the verge as it took a wide detour around Wren.
