“It’s going to mess with the dog’s tracking,” Swansong said. “How can they follow a trail if it’s littered with this garbage?”

“Let’s talk about you showing us the way to them,” I said, to Prancer.

I saw others react. Firming up, tensing, getting ready for debate, fight, argument.

“You leave anyone I name alone, your targets aside,” Prancer said, calm, “Then yeah.”

“We shouldn’t,” Moose said.

“You really shouldn’t,” Contender said, hostile and angry. Beside him, Paris looked like he agreed with the villain consensus.

“Give my guys protections, keep the peace, I’ll show you where those guys are,” Prancer said.

“You’re not making any friends,” Contender told him.

“Deal,” I said.

Prancer laughed. “Fuck no. That’s one of my conditions. Second? Money. Enough to get resituated.”

“You’re making enemies who’ll come for you,” Contender said.

“I promised my girl I’d make something of myself. I’m not doing that here,” Prancer said. “This is a mess, those guys have gone around the bend, and hearing about that kind of horror? Kids? Doesn’t sit right. Having talked to Cradle, Snag, Love Lost, I believe it. It’s fine when it’s Fallen and Fallen soldiers only. But they were too okay with it, and now it’s other people?”

“How much money?”

“I’m not greedy. A hundred thou?”

I grit my teeth.

“Fifty thou,” Prancer amended his statement. “And I hold a hostage until the payment comes. I’ll call in favors, get you your safety.”

“You can’t call in enough favors for that,” Contender said. “They paid mercenaries and hired them to defend these spots.”

“That’s their fault for not being discerning about clients,” Swansong said. “Greed made them stupid.”

“What the lady said,” Prancer echoed. He seemed to stand a little taller, in the mid-strides of a deal. “How much of you being a pain in my ass was your game in Hollow Point, Damsel?”

“One hundred percent,” she said.

“Even down to killing Beast of Burden.”

“That was different. The rest? An act. I’m the easiest and most reasonable person in the world to get along with, when you’re obeying my every whim. You… didn’t obey.”

“Mm.”

“You call them off as best you can, you lead the way, we give you safe passage and we pay,” I said.

Prancer smiled.

Byron’s power went off again. A diagram high above, drawn out in blue lines and bluer lights, it became a vast quantity of water, and that water flooded the area, spraying to cover field and road both. We were beyond the worst of it, but at the road—

At the road, it was a defensive measure. The wolf had been standing guard and the wolf had just been knocked down. They were picking a fight.

“Yeah,” Prancer said. “Deal then.”

“You’re fucking us,” Contender said.