Her teeth chattered for an instant, and it wasn't just the wet clothing. First dragons, then Skull Alley, finally Norman Bates with a rope: this version of Never-Never Land really sucked. It really was one of Maureen's nightmares.
"Why don't you want to help me?" Her voice came out like a whimper. She couldn't help it.
The shadow shook its head and laughed. "Around here, help is never free. Nothing is ever free. What's in it for me? What are you going to give me, in return?"
Men, she thought. Ninety percent of them think with their balls. Like Momma always said, they only want one thing. 'Course, a lot of women think with their gonads, too. I've been known to do that.
It depended on what he looked like. She was past her fertile days for another month, and she'd promised herself an orgasm at the top of the climb. If he was ugly or smelled bad, she had Maureen's gun.
"What do you want?" she yelled up.
A bitter laugh drifted down. "My sister's head."
Jeezum!
Norman Bates, indeed. Jo shuddered. Fairy tales were like that, she remembered, the real ones that Disney hadn't tidied up for the kiddies. Blood and irrational hate and rape and incest and extremely dysfunctional families.
"I've got nothing against your sister!"
"Oh, don't you?" He chuckled. "Fiona's the one who lured Maureen here and gave her to Dougal for a brood-mare; she's the one who wove a spell to bed brother Brian and gave your handsome young David as a blood sacrifice to the land. I'd think you'd have plenty against darling Fiona. More than enough to help me."
Her blood froze. "David! What's he doing here?"
"Dying, my beautiful drowned rat. Dying, inch by inch, as the strangling python of thorns sucks his blood, his breath, his very soul out of his body and spreads them through the land. Dougal wanted to bring springtime back to his corner of the Summer Country, so Fiona gave him an innocent to kill."
"Oh, God," she gasped. She collapsed on the wet rocks, face in her hands. "David." The worst of it was, she knew that bastard was telling the truth. She could feel it through the rocks.
And then rage took her. Steam rose from her jeans and sweater as her chill vanished. If Fiona could drag David into this, she damn well could drag David back out again. This mocking shadow could have his sister's head, just as long as Jo could ask the bitch a few questions first, perhaps with the emphasis of twisting her guts out of her belly and strangling her with them.
"Get me out of here," she snarled.
The laugh floated down again, harsh as fingernails on a chalkboard. "Maybe I don't want to. Dougal has Maureen to gloat over, naked and starving in his deepest, darkest dungeon. Darling Fiona holds Brian in the palm of her hand, or perhaps between her thighs would be a better choice of words. All I have is you. Maybe I'll leave you down there and watch you die."
"I'll help you kill your sister."
"Ah, can you now? I wonder. Do you have the power? If I have to help you out, how much use can you be to me?"
{Jo, don't trust him!}
David's voice whispered in her head, bringing all the threads of her anger and suspicion and fear together.
That slim shadow, where had she . . .
"I saw you! You were kissing Maureen in front of the store!"
The shadow bowed.
"You bastard, you helped your sister do all this!"
He bowed again. "I've decided to change sides, my dear. My bitch twin stabbed me in the back once too often." He paused and chuckled. "The question is, are you strong enough to be worth the trouble? Prove yourself by getting out of there, and we'll be allies."
Cold clarity flooded through her. Maureen's gun nestled comfortably in her hands. "If I don't need you, the real question is, will I let you live?"
Mocking laughter floated out of the silhouette. "I can't help you kill Fiona if you shoot me. Besides, that thing won't work. This is a land of magic, not of chemistry and physics. Go ahead and try."
She hadn't drawn the gun, hadn't consciously unzipped the pocket and reached in and pulled it out and aimed it. Just, suddenly it was there, steady in both hands, sights notched on the heart of the shadow overhead.
"Then," she snarled, "think of this as magic. Instead of gunpowder, these bullets hold rage and hate and are capped with the poison of betrayal. This isn't a gun, it is the Spirit of Death. Your death."
She squeezed the trigger, smoothly, steadily, just like against the black man-shapes on the target range.
The gun bucked soundlessly in her hand. She brought the sights back in time to see the shadow stagger, and squeezed again, and the sights jumped away again with the same recoil she had felt practicing on the range, silently.
The rim of the sinkhole hung there, empty against the glare of the sky, and she lowered the gun. Mechanically, she flipped the cylinder open and dumped two empty cartridges into her hand. They stank of rotting meat instead of the sweet headachy perfume of burned gunpowder. She slid two fresh rounds out of the speed-loader and into the cylinder, and snapped it shut.
A slight rustling overhead brought the gun back up. Jo squinted the sights against a lump on the sinkhole rim and found an arm dangling over the edge, out of the light and into shadow where she could see details. The fingers slowly clenched into a fist and then relaxed.
The gun burned like cold fire in her hands. She stared at one palm and then the other. Red prints matched the line of the metal on her flesh, the frame between the wooden grips across her palms and fingers, a negative and reversed Smith & Wesson logo printed on one thumb. The marks ached like frostbite.
She felt empty, as if the rage had burned through her and hollowed out her
