Chapter Nine
BETWEEN THE PATCHESand replacements, there wasn’t much of the original bodywork left on Jonah’s truck. That was OK. Old engines were made of iron.
The hag burst apart as the truck punched through it, dispersed into a spray of cigarette ash and treacly liquor that splattered over the windscreen. Jonah flinched as the smoky remnants of the hag caught in his nose. His hand slipped on the wheel, and he lost control. The truck lurched to the side, bounced over a root, and smashed headfirst into one of the apple trees.
Jonah was thrown forward against the seat belt, the strap tight across his chest and collarbone, and back again. He grunted as the air was knocked out of him and clenched his jaw against the pain.
“Are you OK?” Luke asked.
“I’ll live,” Jonah said. “For now. You?”
Luke laughed, a strained, brittle sound. “I’ve been better,” he said. “I don’t suppose that killed it?”
“I don’t suppose so either,” Jonah said.
He popped the seat belt and shouldered the door open just as Shiloh pulled up next to them. The long rumble of the bike’s well-tuned engine mingled with the death rattle of the truck.
Shiloh wiped the residue of ash from the visor of his helmet and pulled it off. He let it dangle from his fingers while he looked over the car. In the dim moonlight, his eyes looked close to the same color.
“That trouble that was over your head?” he said. “Is that what’s all over your truck?”
“More or less,” Jonah said. “It’s going to be back.”
Shiloh reached up to idly fiddle with a crow pin on his collar. “It can try me,” he said, confidence cold and dangerous in his voice. “I’m hardly small fry.”
Neither was Ram. Yet the hag had still finished with him and caught up with them.
“It’s not after you,” Luke said. He climbed over the seats and scrambled out into the tire-raked mud. “Whoever you are.”
“Don’t ask,” Jonah advised him.
There was a low, ominous tick from the engine, and the sweet smell of spilled gas teased at Jonah’s nose. He grabbed Luke’s arm and dragged him away from the wreck. For some reason, Luke had grabbed the soggy bag of apples on his way out, clutched in his hand as the juice dripped on his leg.
“You here to help or just state the obvious?” Jonah asked Shiloh.
Shiloh braced one long leg against the ground to steady the bike and tapped his helmet against his thigh. “I don’t know,” he said. “What’s in it for me?”
“It’ll cover your ass,” Jonah said. “And your dad’s.”
“You’re not Crow’s type,” Shiloh said.
Jonah took a breath of sticky, cider-sour air and told the shiver of awareness that raced down his spine to behave itself. Just because he’d picked up a few dates while he was on the knife-edge of disaster didn’t make it a good idea. Even if Shiloh had pretty much admitted Jonah was his type.
“I’ll owe you one,” Jonah said.
“What’s that worth?” Shiloh mocked him. Then he shrugged and glanced up into one of the trees. A black bird stared down at him from the branch, out too late for corvid business. A second of silent communication passed between them, and then the bird dipped that heavy beak. Shiloh shifted his attention back to Jonah. “You both owe us a year.”
“No,” Jonah said. He stepped in front of Luke without thinking about it. “It’s my debt. He’s daylight people.”
“He’s a cop,” Shiloh said slowly, as if Jonah was an idiot. “He’s more use than some Babylon boy who knows just enough to run errands. We own you both for a year. Take it or leave it.”
Luke pinched Jonah’s elbow. “Do we need him?”
When Jonah didn’t say “no,” Luke must have read the answer in his silence. He tightened his grip on Jonah’s arm.
“Make the deal,” he said.
“Six,” Jonah said. “Six favors each, none of which involve breaking the big ones.”
