Game of Cages

her bony hips sticking out through her skin … I wasn’t prepared for how starved she looked.

Then I saw that the sides and top of her head were burned nearly black. There was a section of undamaged skin on her face about the size of both her hands, but the flesh around it was actually smoking.

“Jesus Christ, boss,” I said, with more fear in my voice than I’d intended. I jumped up and slipped out of my jacket. She let me wrap it around her shoulders. Her usual expression of stony anger turned a little sour, but she didn’t shake it off. It looked as big as a quilt on her. The smell of her burns made my stomach twist into knots. “Is there something I can … Does that hurt?”

She pulled the jacket closed. “I hate it when they burn my clothes.”

“Issler is on the other side of the building. He was still alive when I left him.”

“I can fix that,” she said, and started walking in that direction. “Get away from the building.”

I sprinted for the line of cars and crouched behind the trunk of one of the BMWs. A few moments later, Annalise walked around the pit with Issler dragging behind her. His head hung at an awkward angle. Dead.

She lifted Issler’s corpse in front of her like a shield and kicked the front door of the cabin open. Flames roared out. She threw him inside, then trotted toward me. My jacket was smoking, too.

“Well,” she said when she reached me, “that was annoying.”

As we walked down the switchback trail, Annalise stayed a few paces behind me. I didn’t know whether she was sparing me the sight of her burned flesh, using me as a lookout so that no one would question her injuries, or using me as her wooden man again. It didn’t matter. We walked in silence, and when I glanced back to see if she was about to go into shock or something, she glared at me.

Back at the road, Catherine was waiting for us in the van. She slid open the back door to let us climb in. I stepped aside to let Annalise get in first.

“I thought I told you to find the sapphire dog,” Annalise snapped.

Catherine glanced at her, gasped, and shouted: “Oh my God!” She shoved her door open and fled into the road, running to the opposite shoulder to retch into the dirt.

Annalise knelt at a big plastic cooler behind the driver’s seat. She took out a Tupperware tub and peeled off the lid. It was filled with little cubes of uncooked red meat. She popped one into her mouth.

That was it for me. I slid back out of the van and walked a few paces away, grateful for the clean, cold breeze.

Catherine had finished, but she stayed on the far side of the street. She looked spooked, so I moved toward her.

“What’s she doing in there?” she asked.

“Healing her burns,” I answered. “She has a spell that protects her, and when she needs to recover from an injury, she eats meat.”

“She’s … eating?” The look on her face showed that she was close to losing control again.

Raw and fresh, I almost said, but I didn’t want to make either of us queasier than we already were. Instead, I went with: “Glamorous, isn’t it? Don’t worry, she’ll be back to normal soon.”

“What happened up there?”

That was a good question. Issler and Zahn had left a booby trap for us, and it had nearly worked. A normal gangster would have just left a bomb in that oven. It would have killed me in a blink. It wouldn’t have killed Annalise, though, or any of the other peers I’d met. Zahn and Issler had gone to a lot of trouble to set up that disaster, and when I thought about the tiny bones in the bottom of that oven, I wanted to kill Issler all over again.

Not that it would be enough. Nothing would ever be enough to set right all the things that had happened in Washaway.

“Issler is dead,” I told her. “We aren’t.” Then I remembered telling her Stuff. I gave her a quick rundown, making sure to mention what had happened to Penny and her son.

I shivered in the cold but didn’t head for the van. I didn’t care how warm it was, I didn’t want to see Annalise’s body—not the injured parts, not the uninjured parts.

The driver’s door suddenly swung open. “Let’s go!” Annalise called out. Her little voice had a nasty sharpness to it.

Catherine and I crossed back to the van. “I’m still driving,” Catherine said. I laughed and went around to the side door.

Annalise had changed into heavy canvas pants and a heavy canvas jacket. Her head was pale and healthy and completely bald. She pulled a knit cap on, then opened her jacket and began alligator-clipping ribbons to the inside lining.

I knelt between the two seats. “You okay, boss?”

She tossed my jacket at me. I pulled it on. It stank of smoke and other things I didn’t want to think about, but I was too cold to be fussy. “Except for all the spells I wasted, yes. Now, did you find the sapphire dog?”

Catherine started the engine. She wouldn’t turn her head to look at Annalise. “I left you a message, but I guess you’ve been too busy to get it. I didn’t get close enough to see it, but I’m pretty sure I know where it is.”

“Then go.”

Fat, damp snowflakes that wouldn’t stick were still falling. Catherine pressed the gas and we pulled onto the road. I knelt on the metal deck and watched where we were heading. I didn’t need to. I already knew.

We had to take the long way to the fairgrounds. The feeder road we had used to chase the plumber’s truck was