onto the chopper behind her boyfriend and threw her arms around his waist. He wore a leather jacket over his spangled costume. No helmet protected his skull. He shot Pete a dirty look.
“Wait!” Pete hollered. This whole operation was going south on them again. He rushed toward the bike, but Jim wasn’t sticking around.
Gunning the throttle, he pulled a wheelie, then peeled out parallel to the fence. Pete guessed that he was heading out of the parking lot toward the open road. The bike’s exhaust hung in the air. So much for chasing Nadia on foot. Pete tried to remember where his car was parked. Retrieving his keys from his pocket, he remote-activated the locks. An answering beep led him back to a rented Subaru and he jumped behind the wheel. Honking madly to clear a path, he sped out of the lot after the bike. He yanked his seat belt into place. The lights of the carnival receded in his rearview mirror. A winding country road lined by low stone walls and drooping elms and oaks led him away from West Haven. Keeping his eye on the motorcycle, Pete hit the gas to eat up the distance between them. Irritated drivers honked at him as he passed them in pursuit of the fleeing carnies. An oncoming pickup truck came around a corner fast, and he yanked hard on the wheel, barely making it back to his own lane in time. The close call left his heart pounding. This would have been easier in the Badlands… His wild driving made him impossible to miss. Jim and Nadia looked back over their shoulders. It was obvious they had made him. The chopper accelerated, trying to shake him, but Pete stuck to them like Sticky String, something he’d had plenty of gooey experience with. The bike wove recklessly through traffic, tempting fate. Did having a healer aboard encourage Jim to play daredevil, or was he just determined to keep Nadia out of the agents’ nefarious clutches? Probably the latter, Pete guessed. They shredded the speed limit, turning the moonlit road into a racetrack, as Pete floored it to keep up with the bike. His brain was racing, too, trying to figure out how to end this chase safely. Running the chopper off the road was not an option; as much as he wanted that glove, he wasn’t going to risk getting the two carnies killed in the process. Nor could he call for backup; he really didn’t want to involve the local constabulary in this. All he could do now was keep on top of the fugitives until they gave up or ran out of gas.
Losing them now would suck big-time. A stop sign warned of an approaching intersection. The Harley didn’t even slow down, despite an oncoming station wagon with the right of way. The wagon slammed on its brakes as the bike cut in front of it, risking a collision. The driver honked his horn in protest. Pete gave him an apologetic wave as he blew through the crossing after the bike. The problem with high-speed chases was that they always endangered any innocent drivers sharing the road. Pete’s temper heated up. Jim and Nadia weren’t risking just their own skins now. An open straightaway gave him a chance to zoom past the cars between him and the chopper. He pulled in behind the bike, which was right ahead of him, hammering down the road. Pete honked and flashed his headlights to try to get them to pull over. Too bad the rental car hadn’t come with a siren. Or a tractor beam. The riders ignored his signals. Instead, to his surprise, Nadia stood up behind Jim and climbed over her boyfriend’s shoulders even as he scooted backward to make room for her up front. The daring high-speed acrobatics were like something you’d see in a circus-or a carnival.
Pete’s jaw dropped. Nadia and Jim traded places atop the speeding chopper. She grabbed the handlebars, taking control of the bike. It swerved wildly for a second but then got back on course. The bike kept on rolling. “What the hey?” Peter muttered. He couldn’t figure out what they were up to. The answer came in the form of a flashing blade.
With Nadia now steering the bike, Jim’s hand was free to pluck a throwing knife from his belt and hurl it back at Pete. The blade caught the gleam of the Subaru’s headlights. Pete ducked involuntarily, but Jim wasn’t aiming at him. Instead of striking the windshield, the knife plunged toward the car’s front tires instead.
The knife struck the driver’s-side wheel with a jarring bump. Air hissed from the punctured tire. More knives followed, one after another. Both front tires blew. White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as Pete lost control of the car. He hit the brakes, and the car swerved to the right, clipping a mailbox and crashing into a ditch. An air bag inflated explosively, swallowing his face. Abused metal crunched noisily before falling silent. The Subaru came to rest nose down in the ditch. Broken glass tinkled across the mangled hood.
Smashed headlights went black. Pete guessed he wouldn’t be getting his deposit back. Over the ringing in his head, he heard Nadia open up on the throttle. The chopper sped away into the night. Artie didn’t like what they had to tell him. “You lost the artifact? It got away?” “I’m afraid so,” Myka admitted. She and Pete shared their Farnsworth while, a few yards away, a tow truck extricated the battered Subaru from the ditch. A second car, which she had “borrowed” from the carnival parking lot, was parked nearby. Unfortunately, she had not arrived in time to keep Nadia and Jim from escaping with the glove. On the brighter side, her ankle felt good as new. “At least we know what we’re looking for now,” Pete pointed out. His face was scratched and bruised from the crash, but otherwise he seemed to be in one piece.
His hair and clothes had looked better. “If not where it came from.”
“That’s progress,” Artie conceded. “A glove, you say? Of antique design?” He scratched his beard thoughtfully, sounding intrigued.
“Hmm. Let me look into that. In the meantime, you two need to get a lead on that girl. What about her fellow carnies?” Myka shook her head. “They’re not talking. Turns out the Mafia has nothing on the sideshow code of silence. Plus, they all seem to regard Nadia as a genuine saint. She’s been using the glove to relieve their aches and pains for weeks now. They’re not going to flip on her.” Pete squirmed uncomfortably. “Speaking of which, Artie, I’ve gotta ask: Are you sure we’re doing the right thing here? Nadia really does seem to be helping a whole lot of people.” “Are you serious?” Artie acted surprised by the question. “How long have you been working here, again? Since when do we leave unidentified artifacts at large?” “You weren’t there, Artie,” Myka said. She understood where Pete’s doubts were coming from. To be honest, the same reservations had crossed her mind. “You didn’t see how happy those people and their families were after Nadia healed them.” “But at what cost?” he said sternly. “I’m sure that this Nadia person means well. People who find an artifact, or are found by one, often do. But we absolutely, positively cannot let this go. That kind of thinking never ends well.” A grave look came over his bewhiskered face. “Look what happened to MacPherson.” James MacPherson’s schemes to exploit the power of the artifacts had ultimately gotten him killed, along with plenty of innocent people.
And it had all started when he used a dangerous artifact to save one woman at the expense of others. That had been the end of his career as an agent-and the beginning of a tragic tale of death and betrayal.
“Point taken.” Myka wished it was otherwise-that they could just let Nadia keep on healing people-but she’d been an agent long enough to know better. So had Pete. “Don’t worry, Artie,” he sighed. “We’ll track her down, just like we always do. It just kind of sucks sometimes, you know?” Artie smiled sadly. “Do I ever.” Pete tried to lighten the mood. He peered into the Farnsworth, trying to see around Artie’s head. “Is Claudia around?” He fished the cheap plastic binoculars from his pocket. Miraculously, they had come through the wreck unscathed. “I got her a souvenir, just like I promised.” Oh, boy, Myka thought. She could just imagine Claudia’s excitement… or lack thereof. “Sorry,” Artie said. “She and Leena are doing inventory.” In other words, they could be busy for a while…
CHAPTER
7
WAREHOUSE 13
“Queen Victoria’s wedding cake?” “Check.” The Warehouse seemed to go on forever. Aisle after aisle of overstuffed shelves and storage areas stretched further than Claudia could see.
Wooden crates, metal drums, cardboard boxes, steamer trunks, Tupperware bins, plastic coolers, picnic baskets, and other containers were piled several stories high. Labels, ranging from handwritten index cards to sophisticated electronic video units, attempted to impose order on the sprawling collection, which threatened to fill up every nook and cranny of the vast, cavernous space. The sheer size of the Warehouse could take one’s breath away. Claudia had been apprenticed here for over a year now, and she was still stumbling onto new areas and artifacts she had never seen before. Maintaining an accurate inventory was a Sisyphean task, despite her continuing efforts to update Artie’s stubbornly antiquated records and filing systems. Like, a card catalog… seriously? “D. B. Cooper’s parachute?” “Check.” She rode a rolling metal ladder along the towering shelves, calling out the artifacts in front of her, while Leena strolled down the aisle below, checking the items off on a clipboard. They had been at this
