Cheekbones lets out a snarl and a sharp bark. A shovel clunks metal-end first onto the ground. Someone, before I can catch who it is, bolts. In one heartbeat, long hair whips in the wind before it vanishes rustling amongst the leaves. In another, Cheekbones races after them, plunging fast into the foliage with a guttural shout.

I'm alone, with Petey's upper body half-buried in various plant leaves and pine needles. The shovel's next to an almost fully dug grave beside him.

Once I get closer, I kneel down and inspect Petey's torso, touching the rip of the flesh and his spine. He's resting in (one) piece. Where's the other half?

Careful, I peek into the abandoned plot of earth beside a big pile of dirt. Whoever lifted it all up had the arms to start and the abs to finish. Lucky for me, nothing jumps out to tongue me to death from the abyss. Instead, all I see is Petey's lower body at the bottom, bungee chords still half-attached.

I breathe out a sigh of relief. Then I frown.

Tinder nestles in bunches around his legs. The faint scent of gasoline hinges in the air. Whoever was burying him was trying to ensure I couldn't bring Petey back to life.

Cheekbones returns, out of breath, stumbling back into the clearing. "I lost them," he pants. I stare up at him pawing out the twigs in his hair. His chest heaves. His teeth grind together as he shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

"Can you help stitch?" I'm already swinging my kit off my shoulder. "Or bring Petey's bubble butt out from six feet under? Whichever you're better with first."

"Thread the needle for me." Cheekbones doesn't hesitate. One hand on the edge outside, he eases himself into the grave. "I'll do both."

"You know, some people marry to hear that."

Cheekbones chortles a little from the grave. "Only if it's a promise."

When he climbs back up, Cheekbones has Petey's squat-worthy buttocks hanging over his shoulder. He's also much gentler with Petey's lower body than I'd be. He aligns it with the bottom half of the torso and takes the threaded needle and wire when I pass it over.

"Is there a special stitch I should use?" he asks me. "I've only ever fixed tears in my clothes and ripped seams."

I try to concentrate on reattaching Petey's head to his torso and try not to think about Cheekbones flexing. It's tough, because even with reaper bone needles, you need to press hard into the flesh. I prick my thumb and stick it into my mouth with a scowl. "Whatever you think's best. Worse come to worse, we use the bungee chords and get Roderigo to cast another reattachment spell."

We work in silence, the morning sun turning into noon overhead in the gaps of the leaves. I'm checking to see if my stitches line up when Cheekbones asks me a question.

I look up. "Sorry, repeat that?"

Cheekbones has discarded his leather jacket. He studies me, tilting his head the way he did in the convenience store when he was sizing me up. "You're pretty close to your cousin, aren't you?" he asks, for someone who's getting a free stationary lap dance from a buff corpse.

"What? No. He's paying me for this. I'm charging and he knows it." I'm in fact tallying up his exorbitant total in my head with every hard-earned stitch. I am the scion of get-rich-quick schemes and the bitterness of unnecessary effort.

"I mean, last night." Cheekbones says, and he looks ashamed he's even bringing it up. He hides it in the bushy furrow of his eyebrow, but he ducks his head between his shoulders like he always does. "You were okay up until he shot out the window. And then you looked..." He trails off. "I didn't help a lot."

Is this his way of apologizing for whatever happened in the car?

"Last night? Yeah, I was upset." I shrug with one shoulder. I make another stitch. Franken-Petey is coming out well. "But not at you. I've known him almost forever. It's the two of us against the world. I was more mad at myself."

"How'd you two get to be so close like that?"

"I almost corked him this one time so I pretended to drop dead."

Cheekbones almost chokes. "What?" He's incredulous.

I grin at him. "It was an accident, if you can believe it. The rest is history." I re-knot several times and study my work. "We're a tag-team. He's serious. I'm uninhibited. He respects the dead. I respect statutory holidays. We get along great half the time." I re-knot one more time to be sure. "Plus, I'm pretty sure the Clan just texts me "Cease & Desist" to save on paper."

"I heard about that," Cheekbones says. "The Clan manages its necromancers under some sort of legal jurisdiction." He hesitates, even when his stitching is consistent. "My Alpha's not a big fan of your policies."

"I'm not a fan either." I put in another stitch. "Too many people get into this for revenge, but they didn't even want me to come after we found out about Petey. I'm here on my own." I glance at him. "Unless you're with me too."

"I said I was with you from the beginning," Cheekbones affirms. "That hasn't changed."

I sigh and look at Petey's calm resting face. "Counting today, I've two days left in town, though. And we're still nowhere close to figuring out who killed him and why."

Cheekbones doesn't say anything at first. Then: "This might not be something big..."

My head snaps up. "You have the scent of the person who ran?"

"Sorry." Cheekbones grimaces, resuming his stitches. He finishes quickly. "This area's... The gasoline's strong enough to throw off anything I can track down. But I can tell you that shovel's for human use."

"Human use?" I watch as he snips the wire with one sudden hooked claw, and reaches over to do the same to mine. "How can you tell?"

Cheekbones pushes Petey off his legs and gets up. He picks up the shovel and warps the metal blade with a twist from one hand like a pretzel. "Not durable." He snaps the wooden handle over his knee. It breaks in half. "And there's only one place here in town sells human-made things."

"Where?"

"The convenience store."

I snort. "So we're going back there."

"Not yet," Cheekbones says, tossing what's left of the shovel into the grave and cracking his neck. He looks at me over his shoulder, and then flushes when he realizes I was watching his ass. "Um. Don't you have to revive your cousin?"