'Get in,' he ordered, opening both doors on the driver's side.
'Are you insane?' I snapped, limping over to where Sarah stood. 'We are not going anywhere with you —'
I like to think of myself as reasonably able to take care of myself in dangerous situations, but the man in front of me was several inches taller than me, probably a good fifty pounds heavier, and evidently spent his spare time working out with weights, or throwing unwilling women into the backs of vehicles, because he had no difficulty in doing the latter. He tossed small, delicate Sarah into the car as if she weighed no more than a bag of grapefruit, flinging larger and more substantial me in on top of her before slamming the door behind us.
'Hey!' I yelled into Sarah's left hip.
'Oh my god, get off me. I think you're breaking my rib.'
The car lurched forward as the potential murderer, now kidnapper, started the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator.
'I'm sorry, it wasn't my choice to be here,' I grumbled, scrambling off Sarah and onto the car floor. I flailed around for a moment, but only ended up wedged in between the back and front seats. 'Ow! That's my head you just kicked!'
'Sorry. Hey, you! This is kidnapping! International kidnapping! If you pull over right now and let us out, I won't get my husband, a renowned criminal lawyer, to sue your ass into a life sentence at the nearest penitentiary where you will spend the rest of your days as some burly axe murderer's girlfriend.'
'Stay down or the Hashmallim will see you,' was all that the kidnapper said.
'Hit him,' I whispered furiously to Sarah where she crouched above me on the seat. I tried to pull myself out of my predicament, but there was nothing I could grab to give me leverage.
'What?'
'Hit him,' I said again in a voice pitched low enough that just she could hear. 'On the back of the head. Knock him out so we can escape.'
Sarah looked wildly around the backseat of the car. 'Knock him out with what? My camera bag? It has my digital camera in it!'
'Oh, for Pete's sake, do I have to do everything…move aside so I can get out of this horrible deathtrap.'
Sarah managed to move aside just enough for me to grasp the fabric of the car seat with both hands and heave myself out of the trench. The car swerved slightly as the kidnapper glared in the rearview mirror at us.
'I told you to keep down. The Hashmallim could still see you.'
'You are kidnapping us,' I told him, untangling my purse strap from my person. I didn't have much in it but my travel wallet and miscellaneous tourist items, but I had to do something to stop our abduction. Spending time trapped in a psycho's lair while he did who-knew-what to us was not on my vacation to-do list. 'Stop the damned car and let us out!'
'What you're doing is illegal!' Sarah added, scooting over ever further as I hefted my bag.
'I answer to higher laws than yours,' he muttered as he swung the car around a corner. Ahead of us, the town of Newton Poppleford hove into view.
'It's now or never,' I whispered to Sarah. 'We have to get out before he goes through the town. I'm going to bash him on the head with my bag while you open the door and throw yourself out. I'll jump out my side at the same time.'
Sarah bit her lip as she watched the water rush past while we drove over the humpbacked bridge, no doubt worried about the folly of jumping out of a moving car, but she didn't let a little thing like possible death or dismemberment stop her. She nodded that she understood.
'On three,' I told her, taking a deep breath and a firm grasp on my purse.
'One…two…' I swung my arm back, prepared to wallop the kidnapper on the head as he slowed down to maneuver through the town.
As I was about to bring it forward, his head whipped around, his black eyes flashing a warning. For a moment his gaze held mine, and I was aware of a strange fission of warmth that seemed to come to life inside me. 'I am trying to save you, you foolish woman!'
'Save us from what?' I asked.
'Death,' he snapped.
'Three!' I yelled, and brought my purse down as hard as I could on his face. The car jerked to the left, brakes squealing as he tried to stop.
Sarah jerked open the car door and threw herself out of the vehicle without waiting to see if I was following. The man yelled something as I wrenched at the door handle, pausing for a second at the sickening sight of the pavement passing so quickly outside the door. I didn't wait around to see what he had to say, however. I flung myself forward, wrapping both arms around my head to protect it from injury. I hit the ground with my right shoulder, skidding and rolling at the same time, pain blossoming from a dozen different spots as I tumbled along the road, finally coming to an abrupt stop courtesy of a parked car.
I lay dazed for a few minutes, too stunned by the fall to rally much awareness, but at last my senses started returning to me. I was aware that the exposed skin of my arms and hands burned, my shoulder ached, and my back and legs felt as if someone had beaten me with a baseball bat, but I was very much alive. Several horrified voices calling out questions and exclamations indicated the townsfolk had seen our unorthodox arrival. I got to my knees, flinching at the sting as my abraded palms touched the ground. Several pairs of hands reached out to help me to my feet while voices asked question after question.
'I'm OK,' I said, weaving dizzily for a moment when I made it to my feet. 'Thank you for your help, but I'm just fine. A few cuts and bruises, nothing more. Has anyone seen my friend—oh there she is.'
'Why on earth did you go that way?' Sarah asked, standing on the verge of a grassy square. She brushed a few last strands of grass from her dress and straightened up. 'It was much nicer falling on soft lawn. Oh! Someone stop that man!'
The benevolent bystanders turned as one to watch our abductor's car drive off down the street with a squeal of tires. I memorized the license plate number, swearing revenge, or at least justice for the assault and kidnapping.
I had expected that, as foreign visitors to the country, we would be caught up in endless red tape in both getting medical care and reporting the abduction, but to my surprise, a short two hours after we had made our dashing escape we tottered up the stairs of the Tattered Stoat to our respective rooms, bruised, battered, exhausted, and in my case, utterly confused.
The hospital had done three blood tests (two at my insistence since I was positive the prior results were incorrect), all of which showed I had not ingested any form of fungus, hallucinogenic or otherwise.
'Are you going to be OK with the séance we are supposed to go to tonight?' Sarah asked wearily as we slowly made our way up the dark back stairs to the upper floor. The pub was a popular one with the younger crowd, as evidenced by the large flat-screen TV blaring music videos. The building, however, was thankfully thick- walled, so the noise was muted on the second floor.
'You heard the doctor—I'm fine. Just a few bumps and bruises; nothing a couple of aspirin can't fix.'
She paused at her door and gave me a concerned once-over. 'I know, but I still feel like you should be in bed, not attending séances with me.'
'Don't worry about it,' I said with a careless wave that I felt far from feeling. 'I wouldn't miss the opportunity for exposing some hokey medium.'
'Portia!'
'I know, I know. I promised I'd go into this with an open mind. But I'm going to enjoy proving you wrong.'
'There's that little matter of the cloud that followed you that you have yet to explain,' she said with obnoxious cheerfulness.
'I explained it perfectly well. It was either the result of hallucination by a yet-as-undetermined source, hypnosis, or visual trickery.'
'Smoke and mirrors, you mean?' she asked archly.
'Smugness ill becomes you,' I said sternly, pulling my room key from my pocket. 'I will offer scientific proof as to the non-existence of the cloud just as soon as I have soil from that faery ring analyzed. It could well be that there are elements at work other than possibly hallucinogenic fungi.'
