Page 29 of Coyote

Then nothing in the shed was moving except Coyote's ribs and the blood coming off his chin into the straw.

Coyote stayed crouched over the body, breathing through his mouth. Blood covered him from his chin to his knees. Nimue wound tight around his shoulders, her head tucked under his jaw.

The first man's torn throat pumped twice more and stopped. The smoker by the wall made a soft bubbling sound when he breathed. Coyote turned and put the knife into his heart. The bubbling stopped.

I counted the dead, sorted the wounds, and moved on to the living.

Coyote was upright and breathing. No limp. No blood I could immediately identify as his.

The blood on my cheek cooled. It tightened the skin when I moved my jaw. I should have wanted it off. I should have wanted distance from the man who'd put it there. Instead, I wanted his pulse under my hand.

Coyote turned toward me. His shoulders were high and rigid. His knife hand shook once before he closed it into a fist. "John."

The knife dropped from his fingers. He crossed half the floor, then stopped. He searched my face.

I opened my hand. "Come here, little one."

He came the rest of the way and dropped to his knees in front of me. Both hands caught my face, leaving bloody prints along my jaw. "Look at me. Where are you hurt?"

"I'm all right."

"Where?"

"Two stitches torn. Maybe three."

His hands moved over me. I hissed when he reached my ribs.

His expression changed. "They opened you."

"Just the sutures."

"Who?"

I looked toward the bodies. "Take your pick."

His hands kept moving over my shoulders, my arms, the back of my neck, fingers trembling against my skin. I caught one wrist and pressed his palm against my chest. My heart thudded hard beneath it.

"You saw what I did," he said.

"I saw you come back."

His eyes found mine. "You aren't scared of me?"

"You killed four men in front of me before I knew your name."

"That isn't an answer."

I slid my hand behind his neck and held him there. "No," I said. "I'm not scared of you."

The shaking moved through his shoulders once and stopped. He leaned forward until our foreheads touched. Then he crawled to the man by the door and caught his boot. He turned the heel toward the light.

A chip cut across the boot heel.

"This one," he said. "He came through the north fence. He helped lay the trail, then turned back over the hard ground while the other one kept us moving."

His fingers tightened around the dead man's ankle.

"They built the whole night to get me away from you."