OhGodohGod—I smacked the lever into reverse and didn’t want to turn around to see where I was going. As if I could have anyway with the camper stuffed full of my life. The truck slewed and jolted back as the werwulf loped forward, tongue lolling and teeth gleaming. The cord for the engine-block heater popped free like a cable in a high wind.
Graves grabbed the dash as we plowed through the weak spot in the mountain of snowplow-piled ick. It was a lucky thing I hit right where I’d run into it coming home a few nights ago. The back end bore down, chains rasping, and I cut the wheel a little too hard. The truck groaned, shook itself like a dog coming out of water, and decided to settle.
I jammed it into “drive” and hesitated again. Christophe was in there. August had said he was all right, and—
“DRU!” Graves yelled, and I hit the gas. The chains bit and we lurched forward, but he was pointing out the windshield, as something long and sinuous, with thin membrane wings, landed on the hood and bonked itself a good one on the glass.
I screamed again, a short little bark because I’d lost all the air I ever breathed, and for one blinding second I remembered what had happened last night after my unconscious, sleepwalking body opened the window. How the thing’s tongue had pressed against mine, cold and nauseatingly slimy, tasting of spice and dead rotten ooze, like a Thanksgiving candle gone horribly wrong.
Like Christophe’s good smell, turned to badness.
Christophe, back in the house with the werwulfen. I was too busy to think about it.
I hit the windshield wipers. They smacked the mini-dreamstealer’s small wet snout, and for good measure I pushed the lever back and hoped the washer fluid wasn’t frozen. For some reason, it wasn’t, and it gushed up, spraying the thing.
It screeched, the sound scraping against the inside of my brain, and was flung aside as the wind crested again, the truck’s springs groaning as fingers of cold air pushed against its side. My breath came in short sharp puffs of white.
“Holy shit,” Graves whispered. “It had babies.”
That’s what Christophe said. Christophe. “OhGod,” I whispered back. “They’re going to kill him.”
“I thought he was going to kill you.” His teeth were chattering. Tiny round pellets of ice caught in his curls sparkled in the dimness; I flicked the headlights on. The street unreeled, and I saw the stop sign on the corner. Houses clustered around us, each of them with their porch lights on. Windows broke with sweet, sharp tinkling sounds, darkness crawling out from behind the blinds and oozing over jagged glass. The wind was suddenly full of thin wriggling things, diaphanous wings ragged and beating frantically as they dove for the truck.
“Hold on—” Snow slipped and slid under the wheels. I gave it some more gas. We were achieving a scorching twenty miles an hour—faster than it sounds with the wind howling like a lost soul, a sky the color of rotten grapes overhead, and winged snakes with dull gummy poisoned fangs trying to splat themselves through the windows.
I’m glad we’re not trying this in summer. The lunacy of the thought jerked a giggle out of me, a high-pitched, crazy little sound.
I goosed the gas pedal again; the stop sign was coming up fast, and I had to pick a direction.
Right or left?
Not much time. I racked my brain for geography, but the goddamn things wouldn’t stop splatting against the glass so I could think. Right or left? Rightorleftrightorleftrightorleft—
I jerked the wheel to the left, tapped the brake a little, and we started to slide. There was a smaller pile of snow, a hillock where the plow had scraped the slightly bigger road and blocked off the entrance to this one, and I had a mad moment of wondering if someone would get a stern talking-to once the neighbors called in and complained about not being able to get off their own street.
One of the winged snakes hissed, a sound clearly audible through the windshield, and I suddenly knew without a doubt, the knowledge springing whole and complete and awful into my head, that there wouldn’t be any irate calls from anyone on my street. Ever. All the pretty houses that turned the cold shoulder to my house were only full of death and broken bodies, the little winged snakes tearing at flesh as they hatched. The mama snake might be dead or dying somewhere, but the babies were very much alive—and they were hungry.
Dru. What have you done?
Graves yelled something, but I had my hands full. The truck, unhappy with what I was asking it to do, fishtailed to see if I was paying attention. I got it back on track, bumping through the piled-high drift and feeling the front end bounce a bit. The chains bit again, the back end wallowing, and we pulled through onto the sanded road, traction suddenly giving me a whole new set of problems.
There was no traffic. The winged things shriek-hissed, battering themselves against metal and glass—I wondered if their gummy little teeth would do any damage to a tire and had to let off the brake as a skid developed, steered into it, the wheel twisting like a live thing in my hands.
Good one, Dru! Dad’s voice echoed in my head, as if he was sitting right next to me, teaching me what he called defensive driving. Physics is a bitch, ennit!
“It is.” I barely recognized my own voice, high and breathy. The skid eased, and the crunching sound was the bodies of the winged snakes. They were falling rapidly now, flopping on the icy road surface before we rolled right over them, at a whopping twenty-five miles an hour now. “It certainly is.”
“What?” Graves had both hands braced on the dash. The back was packed too solid to move much, but something rolled under the bench seat and I hoped it wasn’t the first aid kit. Or the field box. All we needed now was random gunfire.
Oh, please God, no. Christophe. Why was I worrying about him? Why was it okay to leave him behind, but not okay to leave Graves?
That’s not the right question, Dru. A slight hill sloped downward and the truck picked up speed, the horrible crunching noises reaching a peak as the wind moaned. I turned the wipers off—they weren’t doing anything and the snakes were falling like dead flies now. Tiny pellets of ice hit the windshield and bounced away.
The right question is where the werwulfen came from, and why they’re after Christophe. Work on that. But I had too much to deal with already.
Then, amazingly, a stoplight reared up ahead of us, and there was actual traffic on the cross-street. Not much, just a couple of cars, but the people inside probably didn’t know what to make of the things festooning the truck as we rolled through the green light. I let out a choked sound, realizing my cheeks were wet, and the streets snapped into a recognizable pattern behind my eyes. I was taking the bus route to school, probably because it was familiar.
Holy shit. Goddamn.
“Graves.” I had to cough to get my throat clear. The crunching under the wheels began to fade, serpent bodies running with thin black moisture as they melted off the car, decaying rapidly. “There’s a city map in here somewhere. It was on the seat. Find it and navigate me.”
“Yeah.” His voice broke. He sniffed, and I realized we were both crying—me steadily and messily, and him as quietly as he could. “Sure. Right. Fantastic. Where the hell are we going?”
Oh Lord, I don’t know. “Burke and 72nd, out near the suburbs.”
“Okay. Sure. Why are we going there?” But he peeled his fingers off the dash and swiped at his eyes with his coat sleeve. I couldn’t take my white-knuckled hands off the wheel, but I wanted to. I wanted to reach over and comfort him.