He gave me a serious look. "It's not funny. Wounds can't heal if there is something blocking the skin from closing."

"Wel , there's nothing impaling my head. How are you?"

"I need to eat."

"Looks like it." I wiped at a streak of blood on his cheek.

"Who the hel was that bat chick?"

"An agent of Bastian's," he said. "I don't want you to fight her. Not yet. You aren't awake enough yet."

Ivar's face flashed in my mind, her corpse gray eyes cold on mine. "Why? Was she one of the vir you told me about, like from my memory?"

He nodded. "Yes, she is a vir," he explained. "Ivar is a reaper with shape-shifting abilities. She can appear mostly human if she desires to."

"I didn't like her," I said.

"I never have."

"They weren't even in the Grim," I said. "Why did they attack us on this plane?"

He groaned and straightened his shirt out. "They do that sometimes."

He moved to the side so I could get a good look at my car. What was left of my Audi was a gnarled mess of bloodsplattered metal and shattered glass. Some of Ragnuk's fur was caught in the frame of my windshield. The driver's-side door was crunched and hung limply on the hinges. The windshield had exploded al over the inside of the car and on the pavement and grass around it. Blood was smeared across the hood and roof. The red was stark and violently apparent on the white paint. Marshmal ow had been turned into a freaking war zone.

"My poor car," I groaned. "What am I going to do?"

Wil sighed. "You have to cal your parents. Tel them it was a deer. If you want your insurance to cover this, you'l probably have to fil out a police report."

"This sucks." I wanted to cry. My brand-new car was totaled. I loved my car. With nerves shaking my hands, I picked up my cel phone. It rang only twice before there was an answer.

"Hey, El ie," my mom said. "What's up?"

"I had an accident," I said, my voice quaking.

"What? Are you hurt? Where are you?"

"I'm fine," I assured her. "Wil is with me. We're fine. I drove into a bunch of deer and my car is totaled."

"Who's Wil , honey?"

Whoops. I forgot I hadn't mentioned him yet. I gave him an apologetic glance, but he appeared unaffected. "This guy I know who came to the movies with us. I was giving him a ride home."

Her words were rapid but careful y enunciated as she tried to stay calm. "Okay, are you on the side of the road?"

"I freaked and hit a tree."

"Oh God! Are you sure no one's hurt?"

"We're in a ditch."

"Are your flashers on?"

No. "Yeah." I turned them on.

"Okay, I'l cal the police for you and a tow truck. Sure you're okay? Is your friend hurt? He's not going to sue, is he?"

Ugh, the police? "We're fine, Mom. He's not going to sue us. Relax."

"I'm on my way."

I shut my phone. "This is just wonderful. The cops are never going to believe deer did this!"

"You'd be surprised." His expression told me he might have used this excuse before. "Deer kil more people on the road than people kil people. Michigan has a lot of deer."

"Yeah," I grumbled.

"See?" He smiled. "Very likely."

"My poor car . . ." I wanted to cry, and I really wanted to kil Ragnuk for destroying my car. I was just very thankful that my first accident had been with a reaper and not another person. My mom arrived in five minutes, and the police fol owed only a couple of minutes after. She would not stop hugging me. The two cops who arrived did little else besides question me and write stuff down.

"What'd you hit?" the officer with the mustache asked, tapping his pen on his clipboard loudly. He didn't seem happy to be there.

"Deer," I answered.

Officer Mustache eyed me darkly, like I'd committed a crime. "Must've been a huge deer. Big buck?"

"Oh yeah. Big buck. And a bunch of little ones."

"Where are the bodies?" the younger, cuter cop asked.

"Bodies?"

"Yeah," Cute Cop said with a wave of his hand back at my car. "This kind of damage and no dead deer is a little hard to believe. I can't imagine him getting up and running off."

"Wel , he didn't," I said. My voice trembled. I was nowhere near as good a liar as Wil . "Some random rednecks drove by in a beat-up truck and offered to take the dead buck who went through my window."

"Random rednecks?" Officer Mustache narrowed his eyes.

"I don't know why they wanted it. It had big antlers, but maybe they were thinking about a barbecue tomorrow. How should I know? I don't want to think about what they wanted with road kil ."

Cute Cop grimaced. "Were you or your boyfriend hurt in any way?"

"He's not my boyfriend," I said sternly.

"Answer the question, El ie," Wil said.

"No, we're fine." I glared at him.

"That's a lot of blood on you," Cute Cop noted, eyebal ing both of us.

"It's not ours," I said. "The deer was cut wide open. Go look at my front seat. It was a massacre."

Officer Mustache nodded to his partner. "There's a tow truck on his way. He should be here soon to get your car home. Drive safely from now on, miss."