Free Black Dog by Caitlin Kittredge

eyes.”
    I herded him toward the door of his car, and he stumbled. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m only human, give me a break.”
    He winced every time he breathed, and I felt for him. I whined, scratching at the closed door, but Leo shook his head. “We gotta ditch the car,” he said. “My father knows it.”
    I scanned the lot for anything else, since my beautiful bike was probably living in the Vegas impound lot by now, and saw the bulb of an enormous taillight protruding from behind the motel office. I let out a bark, one I hoped wouldn’t make Leo pee himself. He started, but he kept it together.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Keys?”
    â€œCan’t you jack it?” I said, but it just came out as a long snarl, and Leo recoiled. Shit. I really wished he could speak hellhound.
    This was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to get anywhere playing Hellspawn Turner & Hooch with Leo, so I gritted my teeth and shifted.
    He caught me when I started to pitch over, even though I landed on his broken ribs. “Fuck,” I said. “We’re quite a pair.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Leo said. “I had no idea—­”
    â€œI completely understand why you want to shank your dad,” I cut him off.
    He nodded, still holding on to me. I wasn’t sure if I was propping him up or the other way around. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Leo said. “We need keys for that thing.”
    â€œWhat kind of gangster can’t wire a car?” I said. Leo’s mouth crimped.
    â€œLook, if you need someone to cook up a deadhead or drop some blood conjuring, I’m happy to help, but I never jacked cars. My skills run more to cleaning and disposal, if you get the drift.”
    I got it, and felt a little bit of my own smugness that I could do something a badass warlock couldn’t, even if it was just petty theft.
    The car was a monster, a candy-apple-red Buick Skylark from a time when there was enough metal in the fins alone to build a small aircraft. “I hope you weren’t going for inconspicuous,” I said to Leo, breaking the door lock with a sharp jerk. I slid onto the buttery white leather seat and pulled out the ignition wires.
    â€œSomething’s bothering me,” Leo said.
    I stripped the ignition and the solenoid wires and started the delicate courtship of tapping them together until the motor coughed, then grumbled, then caught. “Getting blood out of white leather is your area, I’d think,” I said. “But if it’s really getting to you I can try to find a towel to sit on.”
    Leo shook his head. “Are you always this calm right after everything goes to shit?”
    I wasn’t calm. I was numb. But fuck if I was going to let Leo know that.
    â€œIt’s that call,” he said. “Gary said I called him, but I didn’t. I’d say it was my father, but I think he was surprised as I was. Who’d pretend to be me just to get you iced by a reaper?”
    I sat back, looking at the tchotchke dangling from the rearview mirror. A big fuzzy pink M, for Marty .
    â€œYou still have that gun?” I said to Leo. He pulled it from his waist and handed it over.
    â€œFull mag, one in the pipe,” he said. I flipped the safety off and stalked back toward the motel office, ignoring the dozen niggling pains that wanted to make me limp.
    Marty had come out of hiding and was sweeping up broken glass from his front window, carefully skirting the pieces of deadhead that were scattered around like the world’s most morbid store display.
    â€œWhy?” I said. He stopped sweeping and bugged his eyes at me.
    â€œDid you really think Gary was going to pat you on the head and give you a corner office?” I said. “And don’t you think you should have called him as yourself if you wanted to effectively kiss his ass?”
    Leo had said Marty didn’t know who he