was still bad for about a block, but okay afterwards. I sped through a yellow light and turned left, heading down a two-lane street toward Hyde Park. Standing in front of a dentist’s office, the Pharaoh struck a flame from his lighter.
So far, we hadn’t seen any more of Timon. “Do you think he’s dead?” asked Ren. “Or at least knocked out?”
“No such luck,” I said. “But he hasn’t caught up to us yet, and I’m starting to feel a strain-”
Shadow snapped around to glare at me.
“Sorry,” I said. “But that’s how it is.” I reached with my mind and pulled the four of them back inside me.
Hyde Park’s a historical district, full of big old houses that yuppies spend big bucks to renovate. Timon’s version looked like the original except that it was empty, with no puppet drivers on the road, and nobody strolling on the sidewalks or sitting at the outdoor tables in front of the bars and cafes. He didn’t have unlimited mojo, either, not even in dreamland, and had evidently decided not to populate the back leg of the course.
That was fine by me. No traffic meant I made better time. For a little while, I wondered if I might even make it to the finish line before he caught up with me again.
Then a low shape with blue headlights like long, slanted eyes appeared in the rearview mirror. As it sped up on me, closing the distance fast, I saw that it wasn’t quite a Maserati MC12, just like the Humvee hadn’t quite been a Humvee. But near enough.
I tensed, waiting for Timon to open up on me with more machine guns, a rocket launcher, or whatever 007- style aftermarket features he was packing. But, maybe because Old People thought it was tacky to use the same trick twice, he didn’t. Instead, he cut left of center to pass.
Why not? Maserati built the MC12 for racetracks. It wasn’t even street legal, and it was way faster and more maneuverable than the T-bird.
But I was out in front, and, just from watching Timon charge up behind me, I already knew I was a better driver. I spun the wheel and shot left of center, too, before he could pull up beside me, and then kept matching him zig for zig and zag for zag.
He tried bumping me. It jolted me forward in my seat, and I had to jerk the wheel to keep from jumping the curb. But it was still a really bad idea, because the impact actually made Timon lose control. The MC12 veered, clipped a parked car, spun through a one-eighty, and came to a stop. I laughed, and then the street went black.
Suddenly there were no traffic signals hanging in front of me, no streetlights on either side, and no neon. Except for the moon and stars, the only light shined from the two cars and the windows of a couple of the houses. But I didn’t see why that mattered until the T-bird changed.
That happened in a split second, too, most of the car melting around me while the rest heaved me higher off the ground. That, and the instant slowdown, confused me. By the time I figured out that I was now pounding along on top of a black horse, I was already slipping sideways off its back.
I spotted the saddle horn, grabbed it, and held myself in place. Realizing that it had a floundering idiot for a rider, the horse stopped running. Something rumbled and clattered behind me.
I looked around. The MC12 was gone, too. Now Timon was driving a buggy, and two white horses with glowing blue eyes were pulling it. Nearly dumping me off again, my horse jumped out of its way.
I kind of understood what had happened. The rules said Timon and I would race through Tampa. But I hadn’t specified modern Tampa, and he’d rolled back time to before there were cars. Which meant we couldn’t have them. I flashed the Thunderbird, laying it on top of my horse’s head, but I couldn’t change it back.
But hey, no problem. It wasn’t like I didn’t know anything about horses. I’d taken a pony ride once, at a school carnival when I was nine years old. And I’d thrown away a lot of money betting on them.
All that-or maybe the movies-had at least taught me that you were supposed to put your feet in the stirrups and steer the horse with the reins. I fumbled around and found them both, while Timon’s buggy disappeared into the night.
I also thought that if you made a clucking noise, or flicked the reins, a horse would move. Mine didn’t. I kicked backward with my heels, and that did the trick. I kept it up until we were galloping.
The horse got instant revenge for the kicking, as the saddle spanked me again and again. Eventually I tried standing up in the stirrups. That helped, but made me feel even more like I was in imminent danger of falling off.
I didn’t sit back down, though, and I didn’t let the horse slow down, either. We chased the buggy’s clatter, and then the carriage itself when I could make it out in the dark. Gradually we pulled up even with it.
Timon twisted on his bench and his grimy, wrinkled face snarling, snapped a whip in my direction.
The lash cracked across my horse’s head. It veered away from the buggy and stopped, almost pitching me over its head. I tried to kick it into motion again, but it bucked and reared. I just had time to notice my feet had slipped out of the stirrups, and then I went flying over its ass.
I slammed down hard and cracked my head against a street that was now made of cobblestones, not asphalt. The shock dazed me, made me want to lie still, and I fought my way through that. I filled up with Red and used his power to fix any damage the fall had done.
Then, still a little shaky, I stood up. The horse had run away, and I was still in the past, without an electric light, telephone pole, or parked car in sight. I flashed the Thunderbird and concentrated, willing my car to reappear in front of me. It didn’t.
That only left one option. Still burning Red’s mojo, I sprinted after the buggy.
I ran faster than I ever could have in real life, even with my Ka juicing me. But I still didn’t see Timon again until I was all the way out of Hyde Park and onto the street that almost certainly wasn’t called Kennedy Boulevard yet. And then he was still way ahead of me. There was no chance I could catch him on my own.
So it was a good thing I had another partner lying in wait.
As the buggy pounded and rattled onto the bridge that arched across the Hillsborough River, Murk rose to the surface. The first sweep of a tentacle smashed the buggy to pieces and laid the team out flat. One horse lay pulped and motionless. The other screamed and kicked with legs that bent in too many places.
But Timon stood up, bleeding from a cut on his head, from the middle of the wreckage. “Traitor!” he howled, and when a second tentacle reached for him, he snapped his fingers. The end of Murk’s tentacle burst into flame, and he had to dunk it in the river to put it out.
They went back and forth like that for a while, the kraken reaching, slipping some of his tentacles under the bridge to attack from both sides at once, and Timon counterattacking with fire. The Pharaoh took it all in from the center of the bridge, apparently not worried that Murk would pulverize him by accident.
Wheezing, my heart pounding despite all Red could do, I reached the foot of the bridge. Then shadowy forms appeared on black surface of the water. Cannons boomed and rifles cracked as the puppets on the gunboats fired on Murk from behind.
I vaguely remembered one of my teachers talking about Union blockade ships bombarding Fort Brooke during the Civil War. And although I couldn’t see many details in the dark, I had a hunch Timon had more or less recreated the event.
Whatever he’d done, the barrage caught Murk by surprise and hurt him, too. He roared and thrashed, and while he was distracted, Timon moved up to the guardrail, and, the grubby fingers of both hands snapping nonstop, set more parts of him on fire.
It was obvious Murk couldn’t take much more. I had to get across while I could, before Timon noticed I’d caught up. I managed a last burst of speed and ran behind him, trusting the bang of the guns and Murk’s howling to cover the noise I made.
Apparently they did, because Timon didn’t turn around. But either some of the puppets on the gunboats spotted me, or else they were lousy shots. Because a couple Minie balls whistled past me, and a cannon ball blasted apart a section of guardrail right in front of me. Two flying splinters jabbed into my face, one above the eye and one below.
I didn’t stop to brush them out. I did it on the run, and made it almost all the way to the other end before Murk dived for the safety of the river bottom. Then Timon spotted me. I wasn’t looking back to see him pivot in my direction, but I felt his magic suddenly poised in the air around me like a rat trap about to snap shut.
Then, however, I caught a break. I took the final running stride that carried me off the bridge, and the towers
