– and in the moment of skin-to-skin contact nearly screamed again. He was, for an instant, in Lee’s head, and it was like being in the Knowles River all over again; he was drowning in a rushing black torrent, pulled down into a cold, roaring place of darkness and desperate motion. In that one moment of contact, Ig knew everything and wanted not to, wanted to make it go away, to unknow.

Lee still had the wrench, and he came up with it, pounded it into Ig’s gut, and Ig coughed explosively. He was shoved off, but as Ig was jolted aside, his fingers caught on the golden chain around Lee’s neck. It came apart with hardly a sound. The cross sailed away into the night.

Lee squirmed out from under him, climbed back to his feet. Ig was on elbows and knees, struggling to breathe.

“Try and choke me, you piece of shit,” Lee said, and kicked him in the side. A rib snapped. Ig groaned and slumped onto his face.

Lee followed with a second kick and a third. The third thudded into the small of Ig’s back and sent a withering shock of pain through kidney and bowels. Something wet hit the back of his head. Spit. Then, for a while, Lee was still, and the both of them had a chance to get their breath back.

And at last Lee said, “What are those goddamn things on your head?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “Jesus, Ig. Are those horns?”

Ig shivered against the waves of hurt and sick in his back, his side, his hand, his face. He scratched at the dirt with his left hand, digging furrows in the black earth, clawing at consciousness, fighting for each second of clarity. What had Lee just said? Something about the horns.

“That’s what was on the video,” Lee said, a little breathlessly. “Horns. Holy fucking shit. I thought it was bad tape. But it wasn’t something wrong with the tape. It was something wrong with you. You know, I think I saw them yesterday, looking at you through my bad eye. Everything is just shadows through that eye, but when I looked at you, I thought, Hunh…” His voice trailed off, and he touched two fingers to his bare throat. “How about that.”

When Ig closed his eyes he saw a bright, brassy Tom Crown mute, pushed deep into a trumpet to choke off the sound. He had found a mute for the horns at last. Merrin’s cross had choked off their signal, had made a circle of protection around Lee Tourneau that they couldn’t get through. Without it Lee was open to the horns at last. Naturally, too late to do Ig any good.

“My cross,” Lee said, still touching his neck. “Merrin’s cross. You broke it. You broke it trying to strangle me. That was uncalled for, Ig. You think I want to do this to you? I don’t. I don’t. The person I want to do this to is a little fourteen-year-old girl who lives next door to me. She likes to sunbathe in her backyard, and I watch her sometimes from my bedroom window. She looks real cherry in her American-flag bikini. I think about her the way I used to think about Merrin. Not that I’d ever do anything to her. Too big a risk. We’re neighbors, I’d be a natural suspect. You don’t shit where you eat. Unless-unless you think maybe I could get away with it. What do you think, Ig? Do you think I ought to do her?”

Through the black spoke of pain in his shattered rib and the swelling heat in his jaw and smashed hand, Ig noted that Lee’s voice was different now-that he was speaking in a dreamy, talking-to-himself kind of tone. The horns were going to work on Lee as they had gone to work on everyone else.

Ig shook his head and made a pained sound of negation. Lee looked disappointed.

“No. It isn’t a good idea, is it? Tell you what, though. I did almost come out here with Glenna just a couple nights ago. I wanted to like you wouldn’t believe. When we walked out of the Station House Tavern together, she was really drunk, and she was going to let me give her a ride home, and I was thinking I could drive her out here instead and fuck her in the fat tits and then beat her head in and leave her. That would’ve been on you, too. Ig Perrish strikes again, kills another girlfriend. But then Glenna had to go and blow me in the parking lot, right in front of three or four guys, and I couldn’t do it. Too many people could’ve placed us together. Oh, well. Another time. Thing about girls like Glenna, girls with rap sheets and tattoos, girls who drink too much and smoke too much-they disappear all the time, and six months later even people who knew them can’t remember their name. And tonight, Ig-tonight, at least, I’ve got you.”

He bent and took Ig by the horns and dragged him through the weeds. Ig could not find the strength to so much as kick his feet. Blood ran from his mouth, and his right hand beat like a heart.

Lee opened the front door of Ig’s Gremlin and then got him under the arms and heaved him into it. Ig sprawled facedown across the seats, his legs hanging out. The effort of tossing him into the car almost pulled Lee over-he was tired, too, Ig could feel it-and he half fell into the Gremlin himself. He put a hand on Ig’s back to steady him, his knee on Ig’s ass.

“Hey, Ig. Remember the day we met? Out here on the Evel Knievel trail? Just think, if you went and drowned way back then, I could’ve had Merrin when she was cherry, and maybe none of the bad things would’ve happened. Although I don’t know. She was quite the stuck-up little bitch even then. There’s something you need to know, Ig. I’ve felt guilty about it for years. Well. Not guilty. But you know. Funny. Here it is: I really. Truly. Did not. Save you. From drowning. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that or why you never believed me. You swam out on your own. I didn’t even smack your back to get you breathing again. I only kicked you by accident, trying to get away from you. There was this big fucking snake right next to you. I hate snakes. I have, like, an aversion. Hey, maybe the snake pulled you out. It sure was big enough. Like a fucking fire hose.” He patted a gloved hand on the back of Ig’s head. “There. I’m glad I got that off my chest. I feel better already. It’s true what they say. Confession is good for the soul.”

He rose, got Ig’s ankles, and pushed his legs up and into the car. A tired part of Ig was glad he was going to die here. Most of the best times of his life had happened in the Gremlin. He had loved Merrin here, had had all his happiest conversations with her here, and had held her hand on long drives in the dark, neither of them speaking, just enjoying a shared quiet. He felt that Merrin was close to him now, that if he looked up, he might see her in the passenger seat, reaching to put her hand gently on his head.

He heard scuffling from behind him and then that echoing, tinny, sloshing sound, and at last he could identify the noise. It was the sound made by liquid slopping about in a metal can. He had just struggled up onto his elbows when he felt a cold, wet splashing over his back, soaking his shirt. The eye-watering reek of gasoline filled the cockpit.

Ig rolled over, struggled to sit up. Lee finished dousing him, gave the can a last shake, and tossed it aside. Ig blinked at the stinging fumes, the air wavering around him with gasoline stink. Lee fished a small box out of his pocket. He had picked up Ig’s Lucifer Matches on the way out of the foundry.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Lee said, struck the match, and flicked it through the open window.

The burning match hit Ig’s forehead, flipped, and fell. Ig’s hands were taped together at the wrists, but they were in front of his body, and he caught the match as it dropped through the air, not thinking about it, just acting on reflex. For a moment-just one-his hands were a cup filled with fire, brimming with golden light.

Then he wore a red suit of flame, became a living torch. He screamed but couldn’t hear his own voice, because that was when the interior of the car ignited, with a low, deep whump that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the air. He caught a glimpse of Lee staggering back from the Gremlin, the flame light playing across his startled face. Even braced for it, he had not been ready for it: The Gremlin became a roaring tower of fire.