straight, fluttering in the window wash.
“Up ahead somewhere,” Incarnadine said. “It’s weaving in and out.”
“It wants to be caught,” Mordecai said.
Incarnadine wolfed down the rest of his fish sandwich and wiped his mouth. “Can you get up more speed?”
“We got three hundred and ninety cubic inches in the engine and a four-barrel carburetor.”
Mordecai eased the accelerator pedal to the floor and the car’s engine throbbed with gas-guzzling power. Expertly and with equanimity, Mordecai piloted the huge vehicle through foaming channels of traffic, blithely weaving from lane to lane. More horns blared, dopplering in anger.
“I see the little devil now,” he said. “There she is.”
“You have sharp eyes, Uncle Mordy.”
“These glasses are fake, you know. Nothing wrong with my eyes at all. Twenty-twenty. Well, maybe not that good, but I really only need them for reading. How d’you like Florida, by the way?”
“Nice and hot.”
“Ever spend much time here?”
“No, not much. I can see it now.”
Ahead was a fuzzy area of grayness, a shimmering sheet like heated air rising from the hot asphalt. It seemed to move with the traffic, shifting from side to side.
“There we go,” Mordecai said. “We’ll have you back in the castle in no time.”
Behind them, a siren began to whoop.
Incarnadine looked back. “This could be trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I got handicapped plates.”
Mordecai shifted lanes, passed a bus, then swerved back to overtake a car via the inside lane. The speedometer was edging past eighty-five, muggy Florida air blasting through the open windows.
The siren was getting closer. Mordecai swung into the outside lane again.
“Whoops, there it goes!”
“There’s an exit,” Incarnadine said calmly.
The portal had veered to the right, heading off the road. Mordecai careened toward the exit and nearly took the front end off a camper. A chorus of horns screeched their execration.
The caddy shot onto an exit ramp and thundered down it in pursuit of the portal, the siren following. The ramp merged with a two-lane road, which Mordecai roared onto, ignoring the stop sign.
Trees flanked the blacktop, edging a wide shoulder. The police car was gaining now, its whirling red lights dancing in Mordecai’s rearview mirror.
“We may not make it,” Incarnadine said.
In the back seat, Jonath, quite unruffled, popped the last McNugget into his mouth. A smile crossed his lips.
“You married?” Mordecai asked.
“Yes,” Incarnadine said, eyes caged front.
“Children?”
“Two, boy and a girl.”
“Wonderful,” Mordecai said. “A man should be married.”
“I think we lost it,” Incarnadine said, leaning forward to peer through the wraparound windshield.
The road bent sharply to the left up ahead. The portal was nowhere in sight.
“We better think about slowing down,” Incarnadine said. “I’ll pay your ticket — or bail you out.”
“Don’t worry about it. I got friends in this county, and a wonderful lawyer.”
“Wait till the cops get a load of our getups —
The portal had stopped just around the bend and was waiting for them, a vague patch of wavering nothingness. Mordecai’s foot didn’t have time to hit the brake pedal.
Thirty-two
Inferno, Then Paradiso
The lava flowed, the ash rained down. Smoke and fire rose from gashes in the earth. The tee was a bed of cinders that set the soles of their shoes to smoking. Thaxton had the honor, and drove into a magma flow. One lost stroke. He hit another and the ball bounced among the rocks and disappeared into a crevice.
Two. Gritting his teeth, Thaxton got out a new ball and shot again. The ball fell on the narrow fairway, where a herd of hippogriffs pecked and scratched. One got to the ball and gobbled it.
Thaxton threw his club into the bubbling tar pit. “Right! That’s it, that’s the bloody end! I’m damned if I’ll put up with any more of this!”
Dalton said, “I don’t blame you this time.”
Above, harpies shrieked their dismay, and great dragons soared on thermal updrafts. Smoke poured from the great volcanic cone that rose against the sun to the right. The air was filled with flying debris.
“Oh, damn. Damn!” Thaxton stamped his foot. With an air of resignation, he took out his three-wood, teed another ball, and drove. The ball bonked a hippogriff and hid in tall grass.
“To hell with it,” Thaxton said, rebagging his club.
After Dalton drove they struck out for the wastes, Cerberus following. They passed basilisks sunning themselves on the rocks. None spoke, none seemed to care; needless to say, the men paid them no mind.
Tremors shook the ground, steam-venting chasms opening up here and there. Dalton nearly fell into one, Cerberus clamping down on his shirttail to save him. His ball was lost, so he calmly played another.
Thaxton finally found his ball and chopped at it to get it out of the rough, then hit a good four-iron toward the green. The earth split where the ball landed.
Without saying a word, Thaxton dropped his last ball.
The erupting volcano exploded, raining ash and fire down on the course. By the time the men got to putting, the surface of the green was a smoking ruin and they were dodging boulders the size of cars. Thaxton virtually herded his ball into the cup.
“Make your putt!” he shouted over the din.
Dalton putted for a sextuple bogey, and they got out of there.
The land seemed to change as they ran. The thunder faded, and the smoke cleared. It was like passing from one diorama to the next in a museum. The sky became blue and trees sprang up. The grass thickened and greened, as did the shrubbery. Wildflowers bloomed in the rough. A soft breeze began to blow, carrying the scent of jasmine and lilac. The sun was bright and beautiful, sparkling off the lake and drenching the course in a yellow glow.
The fairway ahead was long and broad, few bunkers to mar its manicured prettiness.
On an oak near the tee was a sign:
HOLE 17?
Underneath, on a picnic table, was a bucket of ice with a magnum of champagne in it. Two inverted glasses rested on a sheet of white linen.
“How nice,” Dalton said. “Compliments of the management, I assume.”
“Or the Devil,” Thaxton said, taking the bottle out and ripping off the foil top. He deftly worked the cork up until it popped and flew. He poured.
Dalton sipped. “The real thing, from the Champagne region.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Thaxton gulped it down and poured himself another glass.
Their clothes were in tatters, great holes burned in them. They were snowy with ash and their shoes were scarred and burned. Thaxton poured out a stream of champagne for Cerberus, and the dog lapped it up with relish.
All three were slightly tipsy by the time they were ready to play golf, but this didn’t seem to affect the play.
