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By Root 4057 0

as Nathaniel turned a corner. I looked away from it and found the now-human with his head bisected. His brains had leaked out in pieces. I was suddenly hot, dizzy. I couldn’t remember what I’d done with the big blade. I must have dropped it, but I didn’t remember doing it. I wedged myself into a corner, the Uzi raised to the ceiling, my body held on three sides by metal and the seat back. It was as close to being held as I could manage. I closed my eyes, so I couldn’t see what I’d done. But the smell was still there: fresh blood, butchered meat, and that outhouse smell that let you know someone’s bowels had let loose. I started to choke, and the Jeep pulled off the road. That made me look up, gave me something else to concentrate on.

Nathaniel was pulling onto a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. There were trees, a floodplain, green grass, and beyond that, the shine of the river. It was a peaceful spot. He drove until we weren’t easily visible from the road, then stopped.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Bobby Lee answered, “I think if we drive around in traffic with legs sticking out, someone will notify the police.”

I nodded. It was a good point. “I should have thought of it,” I said.

“No, you’ve done your work for the day. Let me do the thinking ’til your head clears.”

“My head’s clear,” I said.

He climbed out of the car and spoke through one of the broken windows as he moved towards the legs. “I know pangs of conscience when I see them, girl.”

“Stop calling me ‘girl’.”

He grinned at me. “Yes, ma’am.” He grabbed the legs and shoved the body through the glass. It landed with a thick sound on top of the first body. A sound came out of the body on the bottom. It might have just been air escaping—it happened sometimes—but then again . . .

I was on my knees, Uzi pointed at the bodies. Bobby Lee said, “Don’t hit the gas tank, ma’am, we don’t want to blow ourselves up.” He had his gun back out.

I shifted my angle so that I’d shoot through the dark head that lay at the bottom of the pile. Did two bodies constitute a pile? Did it matter? Something brushed my hair and I jerked the gun up, only to find that I’d brushed the fingers on the arm hanging from the ceiling. It was coming loose, sliding lower on its own. Great.

I pressed the barrel of the Uzi against the top of the head. “If you’re alive, don’t move, if you’re dead, don’t worry about it.”

Bobby Lee opened the back of the Jeep, his gun angled down for a shot at the “body.”

“If I fire into the top of his head, the bullets may cut your legs out from under you.”

He moved off to one side, gun steady. “My deepest apologies, ma’am, I know better than that.”

I pressed the gun barrel more securely into the top of the head and began to reach slowly towards the neck that was just visible under the very dead top body.

“I’m alive.” The voice made me jump and nearly made me squeeze the trigger.

“Shit,” I said.

“Why don’t you finish it?” the man asked. His voice was pain-filled, but not thick. I’d missed heart and lungs. Careless of me.

“Because that wasn’t Narcissus’s voice over the speaker system, and Ulysses said they had your lovers. That we didn’t know what they’d do to your lovers if you guys failed them. Who is the guy over the speaker? Who is ‘they’? Where the fuck is Narcissus? Why would the werehyenas let anyone take them over like this?”

“You’re not going to kill me?” He made it a question.

“You answer our questions, and I give you my word that we won’t kill you.”

“May I move?”

“If you can.”

He moved slowly, painfully onto his side. His hair was curly, dark, cut very short, skin pale. He turned until he could see my eyes, and the effort left him shaking, his lips blue, which made me think maybe we didn’t have much time to ask our questions, that maybe we’d already killed him, just not fast enough.

His eyes were a strange shade of gold. “I’m Bacchus,” he said in that pain-filled voice.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Anita, that’s Bobby Lee, now start talking.”

“Ask me anything.”

I started asking. Bacchus started answering. He didn’t die. By the time we crossed