"There it is," announced Vlass.
Slodge gazed across to his left. There in the distance, trundling down the hill to their west, was the beat up old ambulance, their target, their mission. Slodge applied the brakes. They locked, forcing the massive truck into a slide. Lifting his foot, he then applied pressure again, this time with a little less force. The truck started to slow. Vlass exhaled a sigh of relief.
Heading down the hill into the next dreary town, the driver looked on, trying to stay focused. It looked identical to the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that. Monotony was by far the worst part of this job. It was only really the pay that made it bearable, he thought, chomping down on a bar of sickly milk chocolate that one of his friends had bought him back from a regular trip to Austria. Slowing down a little more, he took in everything in front of him, after all, he was a careful driver. The gentle slope led into town; traffic was coming from either side approaching the intersection ahead. Knowing it didn't matter too much as he had right of way, and any traffic (he could see a huge truck approaching from his right) would have to stop and give way to him, he continued on, chomping on his chocolate, fiddling with the radio, trying to pick up anything remotely listenable.
Slodge slowed down even more, trying hard to gauge things just right, knowing that he had to give the impression that he was going to stop and give the ambulance the chance to escape.
Stuffing the last of the chocolate into his mouth all in one go, his eyes caught sight of the café. It occurred to him that he hadn't had a hot meal in over two days, and that perhaps now was a good time to stop. But he'd had orders, ones that he was pretty sure he should obey to the letter if he wanted to see any of that well earned pay he was so looking forward to spending. In an instant, he decided against stopping. It was a shame, he really should have done. It might have saved his life. That thought of food, in that instant, was enough to distract him, just momentarily. A second earlier and he might have been able to brake in time to avoid the truck. As it was, he was too late.
Instantly he slammed on the brakes, which under normal circumstances would have been fine. But the brakes locked up, sending him into the mother of all uncontrollable skids. All he could do was look on.
'He's speeding up,' was the first thing that ran through the ambulance driver's head, the second being the truck itself.
The impact was stomach churning, no matter where you were. In the ambulance, in the truck, walking along the street, or inside one of the businesses, it was horrific. Instantly, the driver of the ambulance died. Vlass and Slodge, despite being heavily strapped in, had significant injuries, not that they really mattered. It would be relatively easy for them to recover after the incident and just slip off into obscurity.
With the wreckage of the two vehicles scattered across the intersection, smoke poured from radiators and engines as bizarre things started to happen. Out from between a set of ramshackle old buildings, a brand new low loader appeared, turning up on the highway away from the intersection at first, before reversing back towards it. From in and around some of the other buildings, masked men approached, wading into the wreckage, not bothering to check on casualties, only interested in the back of the ambulance. The bright yellow crane thrummed into action, its operator swinging the extended arm right round until it lay directly above the shattered ambulance. Immediately the masked men got to work, securing the back of the ambulance to the crane's giant arm. Ninety seconds later it was done. One of the men indicated it was ready to go, so the crane operator raised the huge arm, pulling the undamaged back half of the ambulance free from the gushing black smoke of the two vehicles, carefully swinging his load around in a tight semi circle, letting it hover directly over the back of the perfectly positioned low loader. Meanwhile, the masked men made their way to either side of the truck's cab. Vloss and Slodge were relieved to see them. They'd had some idea of what would happen, but needless to say, hadn't been filled in on all the details. They knew getting away wouldn't be a problem, but just needed a little bit of time to apply the perfect spells and heal before fleeing. Knowing it was best not to struggle in the wreckage that they found themselves trapped in, they both thought it was great that their cohorts were about to free them from the smoke choked cab, and give them the opportunity that they needed. Two of the masked men ripped the driver's door off the cab, leaving it dangling precariously, attached only at the bottom. Slodge smiled, trying to indicate that his leg had been ensnared in the wreckage. To his utter amazement, both masked men whipped out silenced guns from behind their backs and poured half a dozen shots into each of the nagas disguised as humans. Casually, they walked back to the low loader, which had now been joined by a nondescript four by four.
Carefully, the crane operator lowered its load onto the base of the vehicle. He must have been good at his job, because it barely made a sound. All but one of the masked men began to release the load from the crane and started strapping the still burning cargo to the low loader. Making sure to douse the bodies of the two dead nagas, the remaining masked man finished pouring petrol into the cab of the truck. One or two pedestrians looked on, with most having ducked back inside either the bar or the café.
Inside the crane, the man with the phone shot the crane operator and retrieved the vast sum of cash that he'd passed him some time before, then proceeded to place a small explosive device, set on a five minute timer, in the footwell, before taking his place in the four by four. With a rumble, the low loader's engines roared to life, putrid black smoke coughing out of its engine. The last masked man tossed an identical explosive device into the cab containing the two dead nagas, before sprinting off towards the by now moving four by four. Catching up just in time, he leapt majestically into the open back door, swinging inside and closing the door behind him, all in one slick move. Overtaking the low loader, the four by four led the way east up the hill, the route the ambulance would have taken had it continued straight on its journey. Five minutes later, two massive explosions ripped through the town, peppering the main street with shrapnel and throwing two towering plumes of thick black smoke far up into the atmosphere. Onlookers and customers all had the sense to retreat to their houses, something that saved their lives. For the most part their town had gone, along with a very large supply of LAMINIUM!
33
Tables Turned
It was getting to him and he was rattled. It was more than he could take. For some time he'd suspected that he was being followed, but the last few days had confirmed it. Racking his brains as to why anyone would want to follow him, he'd had precious little sleep over the last few nights worrying about it. In the end, he could come up with only one answer. THE DAGGER! Aviva's dagger... it had to be! How anyone could possibly have found out about it, he had no idea. As far as he knew, only he, Richie and the king himself knew about it. Richie really didn't count, because having had her memory wiped, she would of course remember absolutely nothing. And he couldn't believe for one minute that the king had revealed its existence to anyone. It was a mystery, but it was also the only logical answer as to why anyone would be tailing him. So in his mind there seemed to be only one solution and he was about to do exactly what the king had expressly told him not to do. But he couldn't think of any other way, or of anywhere safer for the dagger to be.