lady,” I mumbled. “Come check on me again.” I opened my eyes and peered under the top curve of the wheel at the dashboard. The oil was fine, but the gas registered below empty. “You got thirsty awfully fast, baby.” I flipped the hazards on and climbed out of the car.
The smell of gas was so strong I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. Oh, adrenaline, maybe? a sarcastic little voice in my head said. I hoped I’d always talked to myself that way, and it wasn’t another shiny new improvement that came along with being a shaman. There was a neat round hole through Petite’s purple rear end, punched through steel like it was plastic wrap. I popped the trunk, my teeth set together, and sure enough, there was another neat round hole jammed at an angle down through the bottom of my trunk. The gas tank was directly below the trunk. I hardly needed to get the flashlight out of the glove compartment to go look, but indeed, there was a neat round hole through the gas tank, too. An arrow was caught in it, scant centimeters from the asphalt. If the arrow’d been another two inches longer, sparks from the metal rubbing the freeway as we sped along would’ve blown me and Petite to Kingdom Come.
I lay on my back, methodically going through all the swear words I knew. When I ran out, I yanked the arrow out through the hole it’d made and climbed to my feet, staring at it.
Then I broke it into as many pieces as I could with my hands, dropped them, jumped up and down on them and swore some more. A few cars whisked by. One slowed way down so the guy in the passenger seat could take a photo. The flash made a sharp shadow on the freeway wall, and I started laughing with furious hysteria as I kicked the arrow bits around and crunched them under my boots. It took about a minute for the novelty to wear off. When it did, I kicked the rest of the wood shards out of my way, got my jack and emer gency duct tape out of the trunk, and jacked the car up so I could reach the gas tank.
Duct tape may not be the ultimate answer to everything, but it’s the best temporary ultimate answer I know. I slapped two strips together and taped them over the hole with four more strips, then crawled out from under the car to watch Cernunnos’s host, led by the god and a riderless horse, gallop down from the sky toward me.
For a moment I just stood there, disbelieving. This couldn’t be happening.
The riders forged on. Apparently it was happening. I kicked the jack out from under Petite, who crashed down with a reproachful smash. “Sorry, baby.” I flung the jack back into the trunk and yanked the four-month-old five- gallon emergency gas container out all in the same movement. I untwisted the top and poured a good-sized splash of gasoline out onto the concrete, and because I was moving too fast to be careful, also all over my shoes and shins. “Shit! Dammit, dammit, dammit, shit!” At least I was pretty sure I’d gotten rid of any water that might have built up. I poured the rest into the tank, threw the open container into Petite’s trunk with another apology, slammed the trunk closed and ran around to the driver’s side just in time to almost impale myself on Cernunnos’s sword.
“Oh, look,” I said. “You got a new one. And me without my knife.” I flung myself sideways into the open door, across Petite’s front seats, as the stallion lunged forward, bashing into the door.
I scrambled for the gas pedal and the ignition all at once. Unfortunately, my head was in the passenger footwell, and the pedal and ignition weren’t. I twisted around and sat up as a battle-ax smashed into Petite’s windshield. The glass shattered and caved inward, breaking the ax’s momentum only enough that it didn’t follow through to split open my breastbone. For a couple of seconds I stared at the gleaming metal edge that had broken through the windshield, then cranked the ignition. Petite, God bless her little steel soul, started with a roar.
The ax tore along the windshield in an agonized squeal of glass and metal as I gunned her and shot forward. The thick-shouldered rider on the roan reflected in the side-view mirror for a moment, startled and shaking his hand where Petite’s sudden acceleration had yanked the ax away. Then he caught up his reins and whirled the roan around as Cernunnos’s host began to give chase.
A little belatedly, it occurred to me that running from a hunt was probably the very last thing I wanted to do.
Somehow, I didn’t find any comfort in the thought that it was probably going to be the very last thing I did, either.
I knew foxes went to ground when they were hunted. I couldn’t think of a single damned place that I could go to ground. I didn’t know how, but Cernunnos had found me toodling down the freeway. That didn’t bode well for losing myself in a crowd, and besides, it was already clear the Hunt didn’t mind a lit tle property damage. I hardly wanted to give them the opportunity to start killing people. Other people, at least. They already seemed pretty fixed on the idea of making me dead.
Petite’s speedometer climbed past ninety before the Hunt showed any sign of losing ground. Cernunnos fell back, distantly reflected expression furious, and all the host but one slowed with him.
The riderless horse came on, eating great lengths of distance with each stride. It was impossibly fast, and so clear in its motions that even watching in the mirror I could see the play of muscle under pale golden fur, bunching and releasing as it closed the distance between us. I glanced at the speedometer; I was still adding speed, heading toward a hundred now.
And the riderless horse was gaining on me.
A knot of certainty tied itself in my stomach. If Cernunnos were uninjured, all the Hunt would be gaining on me now. I pressed on the gas pedal and Petite responded with an urgent hum of power as she accelerated. I wasn’t surprised that the riderless horse still gained on me. I topped out at one-fifteen, more out of respect for my poor abused car than being unable to push her faster, and watched the pale horse put on a surge of speed that brought it to my side.
It-she-was huge, as tall as Cernunnos’s stallion, and there was nothing wasted in her. Admiration and envy stung through me. Sparks flew where the mare’s feet made solid connection with the ground she ran on, though I’d seen the Hunt ride and I knew she wasn’t constrained by having to run on the unwieldy concrete. She ran effortlessly, stretched out long and lean, so low that her head was nearly on a level with mine.
She turned her head to look at me, the almost-full-on gaze that horses do, and the weight of her body followed the lead of her head. For the second time in under an hour I braced for the impact, and for the second time the horse avoided it, this time with a tiny burst of speed. She leaped ahead of me, one hoof denting Petite’s hood as she sprang into the sky and wheeled, galloping back to the Hunt, leaving me careening down the freeway alone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thursday, January 6th, 5:13 a.m.
I woke up on my feet, my heart pounding wildly in response to a mysterious sound that I couldn’t hear anymore. The lights were very bright and my glasses were smashed against my face in a tell-tale fashion that suggested I’d gone to sleep on my face while wearing them. It took a few seconds to recognize my own living room and the indentation in the couch pillows as where I’d been sleeping. The details of getting home were sketchy, but since I was here, apparently I’d made it. The distressing noise sounded again. After another several seconds I recognized it as the doorbell. I staggered to the door, adjusting my glasses as I pulled it open. Gary stood there, looking unfairly awake. He laughed at me.
“Morning, sweetheart. Thought you said you’d be awake.”
“Did I say that?” My voice was hoarse. I waved him in and staggered to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Gary followed, brandishing Cernunnos’s sword, and dropped into what looked to me like a pretty good en guarde position. Of course, what I didn’t know about fencing would fill a library.
“You did.” He made a little feint at me. I batted at the sword before I remembered it was sharp, and was glad I hadn’t made contact with it. Gary straightened up. Old guys weren’t supposed to look that solid. I examined that idea while I drank my water. It wasn’t like I knew that many old people, but the ones I saw usually seemed to look fragile.
“I want to look like you when I grow up,” I told Gary blearily. He laughed again.
“When you’re old, you mean. I tell you what, lady, if you don’t quit doing whatever it is you did to your car, you’re not gonna get old. What happened?”
“Cernunnos and I had a race down the freeway. I got away, but they chopped up Petite. I think it was a draw. D’you want some water?” I admired how matter-of-fact I sounded. I was trying hard not to let myself think
