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She winks and pulls the respirator up over her face.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what a shy flower you were in the face, so to speak, of free pussy. A rare commodity in Hell, Jimmy, but you’d remember that if you hadn’t gone soft living the good life back home.”

“I’m bleeding and I just got murdered, Cherry. Give me a fucking break.”

“Keep an eye on him for me, Father,” she wheezes in her mask. “If anyone’s going to kill him down here, it won’t be Daja.”

“It will be you?” says Traven.

Cherry gives us a fingertip wave and heads back to camp.

Traven looks at me.

“Well. That was unexpected.”

“That’s one word for it.”

He looks down at Megs. “What are we going to do with him?”

I reach down and snap his neck. He blips out of existence a moment later.

Traven turns away.

“Please warn me the next time you’re going to do something like that.”

“Sorry.”

He looks back at where the body was a second before.

“There’s a lot of blood.”

“We’re going to need to cover it up.”

I look around.

“We’re close to the base of the mountain. I remember loose soil down there,” I say. “I’ll bring some over and cover the blood when things settle down.”

“You’ll need help.”

I look around for something else to cover the blood with, but there’s nothing.

“You’re in good with the Magistrate,” I say. “I won’t fuck that up. If things go wrong, it should be me they come after.”

“That’s not fair.”

“We’re in Hell. I just got knifed by a charcoal briquette and molested by a witch. Talk to me some more about fair.”

“At least let me be your lookout,” says Traven.

“Fine. But not now. When most of them are asleep.”

We go back into the camper. Traven settles back down on his cot and I lie on my coat on the floor with a couple of pillows. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it beats sleeping anywhere else at this crummy summer camp.

He says, “This has been an unusual day.”

“And we’re just getting started.”

“I know.”