any undue attention. And if you do you'd better hope you're stronger, faster or smarter than whatever is trying to catch you. Preferably all three.
The Wyldwood, as the name implies, is mostly forested, though there's a good amount of pastureland as well. There are villages located in the Dominion, though they tend to be few and far between. Those lykes who desire a more urban lifestyle tend to live in the Sprawl and while Lord Amon frowns on this, he doesn't forbid his subjects to leave the Wyldwood. Still, the vast majority of shapeshifters live there.
I'd traveled through a bit of the Wyldwood before, on foot, which is precisely as dangerous as it sounds. During that time, I'd stuck close to the Obsidian Way, but supposedly the interior of the Wyldwood changes its shapes just as lykes do. One day it might be a dark European forest, the next African grasslands, and the day after that, arctic tundra. I don't know if it's true but I've met Lord Amon, King of the Shapeshifters, and since he can change his form into that of any creature he desires, I've no trouble believing his Dominion is as metamorphic as he is. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason the land bordering the Obsidian Way remains stable in the Wyldwood is because Father Dis wants it that way to promote greater ease of travel. Then again, nice thick woods are much easier for predators to hide in and maybe that's the real reason the land around the Obsidian Way never changes. It makes for better hunting that way.
Whichever the case, the treeline on either side of the road varies little – huge, ancient trees with thick trunks and dense foliage kept us company as we drove. Although it wasn't long before we picked up new companions.
A dozen or so lykes appeared out of the woods and began running alongside the Obsidian Way, easily keeping pace with Lazlo's cab despite how swiftly we were traveling. They darted in and out of the woods on either side of the road, lithe forms moving with eerie silent grace. Some wore full animal forms, others appeared as human-beast hybrids, while still others were mostly human with only slight feral touches: pointed ears, sharp teeth, yellow eyes… But all the lykes moved with supernatural speed that was at once both terrifying and beautiful to behold. They were all predators of one kind or another, canine and feline, primarily. No mixbloods, though. Once a lyke has visited Dr. Moreau at the House of Pain for a genetic makeover, he or she isn't welcome back in the Wyldwood. A lot of mixbloods are lower caste lykes who've chosen to leave the Wyldwood rather than continue serving the alphas. Can't say as I blame them. I've always had a bit of a problem with authority myself.
The lykes pacing us on both sides of the road weren't simply out for a bit of exercise. The wrecked and abandoned vehicles we passed every few miles were testament to that. The lykes chased cars in the hope that they'd blow a tire or throw a rod and be forced to pull over, in which case it was snack time. Of course, few people are foolish enough to travel the Obsidian Way unless their vehicles are in tiptop shape and they're well armed. Which means that the lykes need to take matters in their own claws. The law forbids them from stepping onto the Obsidian Way to attack a vehicle, but if a driver just happens to encounter an obstacle…
Lazlo gazed out the windshield. 'Aw, dammit! I hate lykes!'
'What's wrong?' I couldn't see, so Devona lifted me up and propped me on the back of Lazlo's seat so I could look over his shoulder and out the windshield.
'Spike strip,' Lazlo said. 'A lyke just tossed one onto the road ahead of us. Hold on.'
I'd just managed to catch a glimpse of the gleaming metal of the spike strip illuminated in the wash of the cab's headlights when the vehicle suddenly lurched upward. I almost fell, but Devona grabbed hold of my head with both hands to steady me, though my body slumped over against her. We would've strapped my headless form in when we first put it in the cab but Lazlo doesn't believe in seatbelts. He says they show a serious lack of faith in a driver.
I have no idea how something that at least outwardly resembled an earthly cab managed to jump into the air, but that's exactly what Lazlo's vehicle did, sailing over the spike strip and landing on the other side with a jarring impact. No damage was done, though – or at least, none the cab couldn't contend with – and we kept going. The lykes keeping pace with us snarled with frustration, eyes wild, tongues lolling, jaws flecked with froth, but they continued flanking us, no doubt looking forward to their next attempt to force us to stop.
The snarls and growls gave way to full-fledged howls, and Lazlo grimaced. 'I've had enough of this shit.' He thumbed a switch on the dash and in response the cab's hood retracted into the main body of the vehicle with a moist sliding sound. A mottled discolored organ rose forth from the vehicle's cavity, flesh coated with slimy mucus and shot through with swollen purple veins. I recognized the cab's tongue, but as I watched it thickened and swelled, lengthened and extended, until it had assumed a very different shape, one reminiscent of a mounted machine gun. The fleshy weapon began firing – or perhaps spitting is a more appropriate term – swiveling back and forth, spraying silvery gobs of organic material as if they were bullets with accompanying chuff-chuff-chuff sounds. The silver sputum hit the lykes on both sides of the road as we passed and the werebeasts howled and screamed in agony as the ammunition struck them. From the severity of their reaction I knew that the mucusbullets Lazlo's cab produced somehow contained actual silver. A dozen lykes fell to the barrage from the flesh-gun, while the others decided that this night discretion really be the better part of valor and fled, slipping silently away into the shadowy woods.
Once the lykes were driven off the fleshgun stopped firing, descended into the vehicle's cavity – returning to its normal tongue shape in the process – and the hood slid back into place.
Lazlo then turned to look over his shoulder and gave us a grin.
'Nothing like a few hundred rounds of silver to make a lyke think twice, eh?'
The cab swerved alarmingly to the right while Lazlo said this and both Devona and I shouted for the demon to turn back around before his haphazard driving accomplished what the lykes couldn't and caused us to wreck. Lazlo faced forward again, seemingly unconcerned that we were heading straight for a huge oak tree, and he managed to bring the cab back under control in time to avoid a collision.
Lazlo continued driving and Devona and I were silent for several moments while we adjusted to the fact that we'd barely just avoided becoming weremonster kibble. When I had my nerves under control, I said, 'That's a new feature, Lazlo. When did you have it installed?'
'What do you mean?'
I was used to Lazlo being, shall we say, of generally vague disposition, but I had a hard time believing he didn't understand my question.
'The gun. I saw you hit the switch to activate it.'
'Switch?' Then Lazlo laughed. 'Naw, I was just trying to turn up the radio to drown out the sound of the lykes. All that howling and snarling is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.'
'But the gun…' I insisted.
'I have no idea where that came from,' Lazlo said. 'My little baby is just full of surprises, isn't she?'
He patted the dash lovingly and the cab's engine made a noise that sounded surprisingly like a purr.
Evidently word that Lazlo's cab spit silver had preceded us for we saw no further sign of lykes as we passed through the rest of the Wyldwood. As we approached the Dominion's border we saw the green light cast by the flames of Phlegethon flickering against the grayishblack sky and soon we crossed the Bridge of Silent Screams and entered the Boneyard. The Dominion of the Darklord Edrigu, the Boneyard is the realm of the dead, and it fit the part perfectly. The buildings were rundown and always on the verge of collapse. Stone pitted and chipped, wood warped, glass smudged and cracked, mold and mildew clinging to every surface as if they were varieties of paint. Sounds are muffled in the Boneyard and refuse to travel as if the air itself is dead. And while I don't breathe and thus can't personally attest to it I'm told the air smells of must and slow decay, like an ancient tomb that's been sealed for a thousand years or more.
Here Lazlo's insane kamikaze driving was less of a hazard than usual. Few living people had reason to visit the Boneyard and those who did pass through stuck to the Obsidian Way. So the streets were deserted, giving Lazlo fewer targets to hit. The sidewalks were deserted too, but if you stare long enough and allowed your eyes to go out of focus, you begin to see ghostly images of pedestrians garbed in fashions spanning the course of human history, and you get the sense that, far from being deserted, the Boneyard is as full as any major metropolitan area on Earth, and in its own macabre way just as alive. As someone with more than one foot in the grave myself I'm able to see more of the Boneyard's true nature than most, but even I sometimes feel that I'm only catching a glimpse of a larger and more complex picture.
The longer we drove the more we began to see the suggestion of ghostly vehicles sharing the road with us. As with the spectral pedestrians, various ages were represented by the traffic – horse-drawn carriages, model Ts,
