“So what’s the plan?” Luke asked. “Kill me right here, leave me for the buzzards?”

“I’m a Viking, not a common thug.” Johan’s ax was still buried beard-deep in the Caliber’s ruined windshield. He extracted it with a couple of beefy tugs, and positioned it over one shoulder. “I value honor above all else, and I will honor my agreement with Tera Montecino. At the same time, my own need for revenge can’t be overlooked. And believe me, Luke, I intend to savor the moment.”

“You’re not a Viking. You were born in Los Angeles twenty-eight years ago. Your old man is a computer hardware developer.”

“I am descended from—”

“You’re a murderer, a criminal, and a goddamn YouTuber.” Luke wrinkled his nose, staring Johan in the eye. “What’s honorable about that?”

Johan’s tone had been a dissonant blend of chaos and cool, but with this a storm crossed his face. It emphasized his imperfections—his narrow brow and crooked nose. In those few seconds, he looked unnerving. Luke readied himself. He didn’t quite know for what—an ax blade, a thunderbolt—then the storm passed and Johan’s long grin returned, sharp enough to cut wood.

“Xan, Ruben, we’re leaving. Tie this motherfucker’s hands behind his back. Use his belt, if you can’t find anything else.” And to Luke he whispered, close enough to bite, “I’ll bury you deep, but I can’t promise the coyotes won’t get to your bones.”

Johan led the way, cutting a groove across the silent desert, rejoining Black Valley Road west. Tailpipe dragging, bodywork clattering, his Mustang moved at one-quarter the speed it had once been capable of.

The Tundra followed, with Ruben behind the wheel. Luke was propped awkwardly on the backseat, with Xander next to him. The berserker’s energy was as live and hazardous as a downed power line. He brandished his semiautomatic pistol, listing all the places that Luke could take a bullet and still die slowly.

“Your foot,” he said. “Lots of small bones in the foot. Real painful. Or your shoulder . . . your thigh . . . your leg. Hey, how about your kneecap? Both kneecaps?”

His face and hands had stopped bleeding. The wounds were dark and puffy. Luke wondered, if Xander were to contract rabies, if anyone would notice.

“I could shoot off your thumbs.”

Luke stared through the windshield, and before long the Tundra’s one working headlight picked out the dark angles and unwelcoming façade of the Rattlesnake Hotel.

26
So Wrong

By her own estimation, Tera Montecino’s cop intuition operated at seventy-five-percent efficiency. It—and her notable temper—had been the reason for her numerous reprimands during her time on the force. She still trusted it, though, because it was right more often than it was wrong, and because, without intuition, a cop was little more than a badge with a face.