it.
'All right, you fucker,' he said. 'We do it the hard way.'
'Who were you talking to?' Annica asked when he crossed back over the highway.
'You mean the trooper?'
'What trooper?'
He looked at her, then looked away. 'Do me a favor, kid: just stick out your thumb.'
An eighteen-wheeler filled with Borden milk squealed to a stop five minutes later. The driver was delighted to see Annica waving him down. He was less delighted to see Matt trudge up behind her, looking like something that had crawled out of a crypt. But when Annica made it clear that they were a package deal, he finally relented.
'Wet as hell tonight,' he pointed out grumpily as Matt followed the blonde up onto the big vinyl seats and slammed the door.
Matt grunted as he scanned the driver quickly. He looked like a skinny Santa: blue eyes, white beard, wire-rim glasses. The comparison ended with his sinewy frame and Jimmy Page T-shirt, which said 'Ramble On.' But no lesions, wounds, swellings. He smelled of Old Spice, wore no sunglasses: behind wire-rims, his blue eyes were guileless-and unbeetled.
Matt settled in, reached for the seat belt.
The big engine rumbled as the driver threw it into gear and leaned on the pedal.
'How far you goin', missy?' he asked the girl.
'As far as he does,' she said, nodding towards Matt. 'I'm with him.'
'Huh-uh,' Matt said. 'We're dropping her off at the next town.'
Annica leaned close to him, touched his arm. 'We make a good team, Matt,' she said in a voice almost inaudible over the rumble of the engine. 'Freaks like us, with no one else in the world…'
Matt pressed his forehead against the window. The cool glass felt good against his hot brow. After a night of battles, this was one too many. He'd find somewhere safe to leave her, someone sane to take her in. He may have failed to unlock the secret of Mr. Dark's nature, but he could at least do that much.
A silence followed, filled with nothing but the hum of eighteen wheels on wet macadam. Then the skinny Santa spoke up. 'S'pose it's not too much to ask how ya bloodied yourself up like that?'
Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Fight over a girl,' he said.
'Same old story,' the driver snorted, shaking his head. 'Girl comes along on a Friday night, and everybody thinks he's a hero.'
'Buddy,' Matt said quietly, 'you don't know how right you are.' And he stared through the window at his reflection and, beyond it, amid a break in the ghostly black pines, the unblinking eyes of a white stag.
