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were all pumped up on adrenaline and the smell of sweat and fresh blood and everybody was talking at once and the radios were crackling.
    And voices. “Who’s the chick? What’s she doing here?”
    And “Secure that money on the floor.”
    And Nina. “That’s mine .”
    Broker floated in an excruciating fog, wrapped in fiery cotton candy that dripped sticky red from the mangled knuckle that was locked in Earl’s jaws. Somebody blurted on a radio, “No shit, one of the assholes bit off Broker’s thumb.”
    They eased him off his knees to the floor so that Earl, stretched out like an alligator, lay between Broker’s spread legs, breathing in short snorts, with worms of snot crawling on his upper lip. His face had turned a demented purple and orange with some parts showing through the blood a horrible fish-belly white and the engorged veins popped out on the twisted crimson cables of his neck muscles.
    “Got a doctor coming,” yelled a medic. His cohorts quickly took wood splints from their bags and jammed them between Earl’s teeth. As they worked, Broker noticed the contents of Nina’s purse, which lay scattered beneath him. He reached down with his good hand for the pack of Gauloises. Like the cognac, her father’s brand . He found the lighter in her purse and lit it. Despite the pain, the bright pink airsacs in his lungs collected in a happy banzai charge and ran straight for the nicotine.
    The medics carried on in awed, too-loud voices. A spirited professional discussion about the problem Earl presented.
    “I’ve read about this, surge of adrenaline, ancient survival mechanisms—”
    “Strongest muscle group in the body—”
    “Stuck together. I thought that meant intervaginally?”
    “Bad joke. Bad joke.”
    They had worked the splints between Earl’s teeth to buy Broker time but debated that they couldn’t pry the jaws apart without risking a surge that would take Broker’s thumb with it.
    A medic shouted into an emergency radio. “We can’t bring him in. They’re attached. Sure we’re trying to keep him calm…whad’ya mean, don’t let him wander around. He’s not in shock, he’s fucking being eaten .”
    The medic handed off the radio and knelt beside Broker. “Okay. It’s a tricky one so the doctor’s coming with a shot. We gotta keep his neck immobilized, we’ve stabilized the biting pressure, but if he gets to whipping his head around…Hey, the guy’s got serious neck muscles.” Another medic, a husky blonde wearing a Washington County Paramedic jacket, narrowed her eyes at Broker. “You shouldn’t be smoking,” she lectured, just like a good Minnesotan.
    “Fuck you! Get him offa my hand!”
    Nina was there, watching him. Broker peered into her merry, adrenaline-drunk, gray eyes. Speckled blood blended naturally with her freckles. A slight bruise darkened her left cheekbone. She stifled an absurd laugh.
    “What?” Broker demanded.
    “I can’t help it,” she sputtered. “It’s…” She glanced at the spectacle of Earl trying to eat the thumb. “Just too weird.” She broke into contagious laughter.
    “Don’t,” gasped Broker. “It hurts when I laugh.” The insane hilarity subsided and he drilled her with tormented eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    Nina shrugged. “You said if I ever needed help I should come to you. Well, here I am.”
    Broker groaned. Earl’s lips curled back and his teeth gleamed, socketed in Broker’s blood—his eyes were pure Pickett’s Charge. The hollow growl emanating from back in his throat sounded like the sound effects in The Exorcist .

8
    T HE DOCTOR LOOKED LIKE BEN FUCKING CASEY, with copious chest hair sticking out of his green scrub shirt. He sauntered like a deeply tanned visitor from Olympus on a slum tour through the seedy mayhem of the house. He smiled, amused at the macabre banter circulating among the heavily armed law-enforcement types forming a brawny huddle over Broker and Earl.
    He snapped on thin