"Ouch! Fucking hell, you mad bitch. Why'd you do that?" Sweeney shouted as he hit the dashboard of the car when Laura slammed on the brakes.
"You've been asleep for 2 hours and you've drooled on my shoulder," she said with a withering look.
"You could have just nudged me, like a normal person!"
"I did, a bunch of times, you just kept telling me to fuck off."
"I did? Heh, sounds like something I'd do."
He stopped grinning at the sight of her scowl, "I'll take over driving duties again then, yeah?"
"That'd be great."
She took the backseat and spread herself out, head resting against the door. Sweeney sat himself in the driver's seat and flicked at a fly that was crawling on the steering wheel, it hit the windscreen, buzzed twice in the throes of death and then ceased to move.
"Don't they annoy you? Buzzing round you all the time," he asked her.
"No more than you do," she answered, cracking one cloudy eye open.
"Fuck you, dead wife," he mumbled under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Absolutely nothin," he answered.
"Yeah, I thought so."
He pushed his foot harder against the accelerator, the sooner they reached Shadow, the sooner he could be rid of her. Wednesday had him playing chauffeur for a walking corpse, when he should be out in the world enjoying his luck, not following the angry flesh and bones that kept him from his coin.
Stop looking at her.
He was watching her again, in the rear-view mirror, he did it without realising anymore. Did she know? Did she notice the glances out of the corner of his eye? The music from the radio interrupted his thoughts, he wrinkled his nose at the voice, softly wailing about love and loss.
"Hippy bullshit, what do they know about love, real love," he said, twisting at the dial to find something more pleasing to his ears.
"What are you babbling about now," Laura asked him.
"Mortals, you don't know anything about love, real love," he sniffed and rubbed at his face with a dirty and calloused hand.
"And you know, do you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do, aye. The kind of love that makes you hurt inside, like you've got a knife stuck deep in your gut. And when you fuck, it's like you're in a vacuum, it's just you and them and you can't breathe. You'd die for them and they for you."
"I did die..."
"No, you were killed while you were fucking about with his friend. You couldn't wait for Shadow because you didn't love him, maybe you thought you did, but I'm telling you that you didn't."
Sweeney looked up into the mirror, she was staring back at him, one blue lip curled upwards, and her eyes narrowed in disgust at his words. There was no warning from her as she launched a foot at the back the driver's seat, tearing through the fabric and hitting him right in the middle of his back, the force rattled his internal organs. The air was ripped from his lungs and he gasped, his mouth flapping like he was a fish out of water. A mortal man would have been paralysed, he counted himself lucky that she hadn't used all the strength at her disposal. The car swerved in the road as he regained control over his breathing, he looked up at the mirror again, she was smiling with satisfaction.
"Are you trying to kill us?"
"You don't know me; you can't say those things about me."
"I know you better than you think, Laura Moon. You can't scare people into not telling you the truth, the sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be."
"And what about your truth? You want everyone to think you're some washed up, crazy alcoholic."
"That is precisely what I am, I accept that truth," she was staring at him like she could see through his lie, he gave her his best fake grin. Thousands of years of practice had made it indistinguishable from a real smile, he preferred it that way.
Even you don't know which smile is real anymore.
He smacked at the side of his head to dislodge his thoughts, sending it back to the little part of his mind that stored all the things he didn't want to think about it, the place where his denial ruled. He sent a lot of things there these days, he sent Laura Moon there too. She sat in his mind, caged up, begging to be freed.
That's right, lock it up like you do with everything else. Pretend you only have one reason to be here with her now.
She was quiet now, pouting in the back seat, gazing out of the window. He left her to her thoughts, even though it meant being left with his, those torturous flutters of memory that he couldn't piece together in the right order anymore. She was part of that puzzle; he just couldn't figure out where to put her. So, he left the fractured pieces buzzing around in his skull like angry bees.
He reached into his pocket, one hand on the wheel while the other rummaged for his hip flask, his fingers found the cool metal that held the whiskey. He took a deep swig, making an overemphasized noise of satisfaction as the liquid warmed his throat, the more he drank, the less he had to remember.
"Turn here," she told him.
He did as he was asked, taking another look at her in the mirror as he turned the wheel of the car.
One more look won't hurt.
Sweeney leant against a wall in the mortuary of Ibis and Jacquel Funeral Parlor, watching Mr Ibis work on Laura's maggot ridden body. Wednesday stood by the windows, casually reading a newspaper as if this was business as usual, which for Wednesday, it absolutely was. He reached for his hip flask, taking two long swigs, trying to numb the biting guilt.
Well, it is all your fault.
No! it's fucking Wednesday's fault.
You let him use you to do his dirty work.
He knew it was true, but he was in debt to a God, He couldn't even remember the ins and outs of it anymore, his memory was not what it used to be, all out of order and shuffled up. He felt like it had all been for nothing, they'd driven for miles on the back roads of America, literally chasing a Shadow, only to end up back in Wednesday's clutches.
Sweeney approached her on the table, the pieces of her he'd picked up now stitched back together, "Are you just gonna lie there and let nature have her way with you? Snap out of it you fucking cunt!"
He hit the back wall of the mortuary with enough force to leave his ears ringing. He didn't really care, inside he was smiling, she still had some fight in her. After finding Shadow on the train, the way she'd ripped into those guards, it had been a thing of beauty. Then Wednesday had reared his ugly one-eyed head, right as the dead wife had been reunited with her love. But he'd seen the way that Shadow looked at her, right before the train had crashed. It wasn't the look of requited love, it was one of horror, almost fear at the sight of his old love, her boots covered in brains and blood smeared on her face.
Sweeney's lip jerked at the memory; her pale eyes stood out against the red on her face. He wondered how death could be so beautiful. Then the train crashed, and she was in pieces on the tracks, body parts dotted between the wreckage. He wasn't sure if she'd given up then, she'd seemed so ready to give up in the field, a dead girl amongst the flowers. Now here she was, pieced back together like a macabre puzzle, still kicking. He was curious about just how much it would take to make her snap, for her to resign herself to her fate.
And now she's going to follow the devil right into the jaws of death.
He'd tried to warn her, that going with Wednesday was a terrible idea. It made his insides twist to watch her walk out the door of the funeral home, that smile she gave him as she closed the door.
She thinks she knows, but she doesn't have the faintest idea. She's going to fucking regret going with Wednesday.
He knew he'd see her in New Orleans, she would come running once Wednesday was finished with her. A stronger man would be done with all the bullshit.
But you're not a stronger man, you're soft on her.
There was something flickering around his mind, a thought, a memory, he wasn't sure. It gnawed away at him as he wandered around looking for a way to get to New Orleans, the further away he got from her, the more he ached.
Is it your coin, or is it her?
There was a hint of uncertainty in his thoughts, but there was one thing he was certain about, once he reached New Orleans, he was going to drink it all away.