Mike and Manny exited, leaving the engine running.
“If it’s a flat, we can fix it in a few min—” Mike’s voice halted and I got out to check the damage, leaving my abaya behind.
The right front tire was flat, practically shredded. But what was worse was that it was canted at a sharp angle, indicating structural damage.
“Let’s pull the tire and check,” said Mike. “Maybe it’s something we can fix.”
Manny shuffled to the rear of the SUV and popped the hatch. He fumbled with moving stuff around until Mike stepped up to help him.
Mike took the jack to the right front and made to slide it under the frame. “Oh, crap,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“The frame is on the ground. The jack won’t fit.” He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe we can lift it high enough slide the jack into place.”
Manny shook his head bitterly. “Mike, I don’t think the two of us could do that lift even at our best.” He held up his swollen arm. “And I’m not exactly at my best. We’re going to have to wait for help.”
I looked down the desolate road in both directions. No cars visible for as far as I could see.
“No Triple-A out here, Manny?”
“I could call someone, but they’d take hours to get here. A Saudi police car swings by every few hours. They’ll help us.” He looked at me and shook his head. “The less contact you have with Saudi nationals, the better.”
Mike handed me the jack. “Do you know where to put this if I lift the car?”
“I grew up on a farm in Wyoming,” I said. “I know how to change a tire.”
“Mike, you’re going to rip a tendon. There’s no way you can lift that much.”
“I’ve been working out, Manny.”
Instead of squatting to lift the Suburban with his arms, Mike dropped his jacket on the ground in front of it. He lay down on his back and put both feet under the bumper. He took a deep breath, then straightened his legs, lifting the front of the vehicle into the air.
I slid the jack under the lifting point on the frame and said, “Let it down easy, Mike.” The lug wrench was also the jack handle, and I used it to lift the jack a few more inches.
Then without waiting for Mike, I squatted down and used the wrench to spin the lug nuts off the ruined tire.
Manny blinked in surprise when I tossed the heavy tire and wheel assembly aside as if it were a bicycle tire. “Country girl, Manny. I’m stronger than I look.”
We examined the damage. The tie rod had snapped, and the lower swing arm was bent from the impact.
“There’s no way in hell we can drive on that,” said Manny.
Mike and I exchanged a glance. For Manny’s sake, I said, “I can fix it. At least good enough to get us to Riyadh.”
“That’s not possible.”
“If she says she can do it, it’s possible,” said Mike.
“Give me two of those steel coat hangers and bring out your jumper cables,” I said.
I rolled Mike’s jacket farther under the vehicle to give me a place to lie. “Block his view, Mike,” I whispered. Then, more loudly, “Hook the jumper cables up to the battery and give me the other ends.”
I unwound the coat hangers, giving me two lengths of steel rod. I used a claw to scrape the enamel off the metal, then folded the wire. I grabbed one end of the rod with the positive jumper cable, leaving the other end free.
Mike handed me his sunglasses. “To protect your eyes from the arc,” he said.
I put the sunglasses on and slid under the SUV. My werewolf sharp vision let me see through the tinted lenses even in the dark.
First, the bent swing arm had to be coaxed back into place. I grabbed it with both hands and hooked my knees against the front bumper, allowing my body to act like a huge C-clamp, and put pressure on the bent metal. It was hard on my abs, requiring more strength than I had used in years. “It’s okay, Luna,” I said to myself. “It’s time you worked on losing that baby fat anyway.”
It would normally have been a job for a hydraulic press, but I used earth magnetism as well as werewolf strength to bend the stubborn steel to my will. Millimeter by millimeter, the steel moved back to its original shape. The effort left me breathless and sweaty. Bits of rust, road dirt, and grime dropped into my face and hair. I ignored them.
“Manny, help me drop the spare while Luna works,” said Mike.
“What if she needs help?”
“She’ll call if she needs us.”
Mike was fumbling the exercise of dropping the spare tire from the under-trunk well to distract Manny. That gave me time to work on the broken tie rod.
With the swing arm back in place, I placed the two pieces of the tie rod together. They matched, mostly. There was a chunk of steel missing, chipped off by the impact.
I clamped the negative terminal of the jumper cable to the inner piece of the tie rod. Then I brought the metal rod clamped in the positive terminal up and touched it to the metal, producing a healthy arc.
Normally, a car battery wouldn’t produce enough amperage for a long enough time to arc weld anything, but I amplified the effect with magnetism and magic. A variant of my gas-mask spell enveloped the tie rod in inert nitrogen, ensuring a clean weld.
The arc flared and the steel flowed from my makeshift welding rod to the tie rod, joining the two pieces together.
I heard a vehicle stop, and the sound of Manny speaking to someone in Arabic came and went. I was too busy welding to worry about anything else. For just a second, I wondered if a woman working on a car in the middle of the night would cause problems.
