Greyson made a sharp left. The Jag’s tires complained loudly about such rough treatment. Megan clutched at the center console to keep from hitting the door.
“Open the glove compartment, Meg, come on.”
“I’m trying!” The engine roared. The interior was bleached white by the headlights of the car behind them, switched on high. Greyson flipped the console lid up and grabbed his sunglasses, snapping them open and sliding them on to block the glare.
The car bounced again. Another gunshot broke the air, then another. Loud thunks came from the car and it shook with the impact; they were shooting the trunk, the roof, as Greyson swerved back and forth, trying to avoid the shots.
“Fuck! My car!” For the first time she felt his anger, a breeze colder than the air outside brushing over her skin.
Megan grabbed the handle with clumsy fingers and yanked open the glove compartment. Inside, Greyson’s leather gun case rested on the owner’s manual.
Light flared behind them. Megan turned and saw flames erupting from under the hood of the pursuing car as Greyson tried to make the engine explode. Even as she started to breathe a sigh of relief, the flames disappeared and the car lunged at them. She could almost see the figures inside, two shapes, pale flashes in the dark exterior. Maybe if she lowered her shields—
“Megan!”
“I’m trying to read them.”
“You won’t get anything. They’re not human. Just open the case.”
It took her three tries to grasp the slider and pull it down and another second to force herself to look at what lay inside the case. She knew he carried it, she’d seen it several times. But she’d never really thought about it before, about why he needed it or what he might do with it.
“Take out the gun. Be careful, it’s loaded. Take off your seat belt.”
“I can’t.”
“Do you want to die?”
“No!”
Greyson swerved again, riding up on the curb. They’d turned onto a busier road; horns honked and tires squealed around them. “Then get the fucking gun out now!”
Her mouth was so dry she didn’t think all the water in the world could help, but tears poured freely from her eyes. The gun sat heavy and cold in her hand, dwarfing her palm. She didn’t like guns, had never liked them, and Greyson once told her he didn’t particularly care for them either.
She turned around so her chest rested against the seat back.
It’s them or us, it’s them or us…
“Okay. Steady your arms on the back of the seat and look straight down them. Use your dominant eye and close the other one.”
She obeyed. “Okay.”
“Good. See those notches at the end of the barrel? Line up what you want to shoot between them. Then squeeze the trigger—don’t yank it, just squeeze it. Be ready, it’s going to kick back on you, so don’t lock your arms too hard.”
This felt unreal. She could do this, she could, she’d destroyed two zombies once with nothing more than a showerhead and some hair spray, she could definitely shoot these fuckers trying to kill her…
She took a deep breath and fired.
The Jaguar was going too fast for her to recoil far. Inertia, like a large hand, forced her body against the seat, but her arm kicked back. The gun’s report echoed in her ears, thundering all the way through her body. She couldn’t see where the shot had gone.
More black smoke filled the car. This time she acted instinctively, ducking forward while heat flared behind her back.
The car behind them swerved and sped up, its front end only inches from the Jag’s rear. Greyson jerked the wheel to the left. Megan fell against the door, her hair blowing wild around her face, obscuring her vision. The Jag bounced and lurched, cutting into the next lane, flying across the center divider and down another side road. Metal crashed against metal behind them.
“Okay, get my phone and hit one,” Greyson said. She couldn’t believe how calm his voice was, how through all of this he’d barely yelled at her despite the rage she felt simmering below his surface. Even now his face in profile didn’t reflect any anxiety save the slight tightening of his lips and a faint furrow in his brow. Whereas had she looked in a mirror she doubted she would have been able to recognize herself.
She obeyed, the sleek little phone much friendlier in her hand than the gun now resting on her lap. The other end rang once, twice, before a familiar Cockney voice answered.
“Malleus! Malleus, we’re being chased, they’re shooting—”
“Tell him where we are and we’re heading for the reservoir,” Greyson interrupted. “Tell him to meet us at exit twenty-two.”
She’d barely finished repeating this when Malleus hung up.
“Are they gone?”
Her answer was another gunshot. The aluminum accents on the dash broke with a sharp, loud crack. Megan’s hands flew up to cover her face. Greyson said something, but she didn’t understand him.
“Shoot them again.” Roughness underscored his tone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just shoot!”
She braced her heels against the underside of the dash and raised the gun again, shaking with adrenaline and fear.
“Shoot the grill!”
She did, aiming as best she could, but just as she squeezed the trigger the car shot forward. Greyson jerked the wheel to the right and Megan fell onto him. His gasp was audible even over the screaming engine and the rushing of blood in her ears.
The world spun dizzyingly around the car; they were turning in a full circle, leaving ink-black tire marks on the street. Before Megan even had a chance to duck they’d sideslipped the black car and passed it, heading back the way they’d come. Flames leaped up behind them, completely obliterating the road.
They went right, taking the turn wide, almost ramming a truck coming through the intersection. The truck’s horn added to the cacophony of sounds around them.
“Did we lose—”
The black car flew around the corner, its tires still burning. Without being told she raised the gun, her fingers working of their own accord as they pulled the trigger. This long smooth stretch of road was the best chance she’d have.
This time she hit something. The black car lurched sideways, the dim shapes inside moving. A ball of blue-white fire came out of nowhere and slammed into the grill, through the grill, flames licking the top of the hood from beneath. Black smoke poured out, then as Megan watched, the smoke formed itself into a shape like an arrow and aimed at the Jag, only to vanish in another conflagration.
Her eyes burned from the horror and heat. She shot again, not knowing how many bullets were even left in the gun. More smoke, white now, came from the car behind them. Still it burned. Hope blossomed in her breast.
“Hang on,” Greyson said, spinning the wheel. The Jag slipped up an entry ramp onto the highway, the black car still following but slower now, lurching forward. Its tires exploded in a mass of flames. The car leaped in the air, forced up from the blast, and landed on its side against the retaining wall of the ramp. Megan watched until Greyson merged into traffic, but the car didn’t move again.
“Oh my God, oh my God, who were they? Why were—”
Pale gray light from the streetlamps flashed into the car and out, like a slow-motion strobe, highlighting the black splatter of blood on the charcoal dashboard, the gleaming river of it soaking Greyson’s sleeve.
“I’m fine,” he said again, just as he had so many times in the last hour as they drove all over the city to make sure they weren’t being followed. Megan stopped just inside the dimly lit white entry hall of Iureanlier Sorithell, the mansion on the outskirts of town belonging to the Gretneg of Greyson’s Meegra.
Right now that was Greyson, at least in theory. Since his takeover of the position had involved handing the former Gretneg, Templeton Black, over to the supernatural law enforcement agency known as Vergadering, some members of his Meegra doubted his integrity. The other Gretnegs were still debating whether or not to allow him to have that much power and authority.