TWENTY-SEVEN
Jo had never seen African Hunting Dogs in real life. They were hyena-like, spotted, but that wasn’t what surprised her. Their size had to be from magical interference. The only other creatures like that were the werewolves, but that was only because of magic that made it so in her wolf form, Jo was three times larger than a normal wild wolf. These African Hunting Dogs had to have been tampered with by one of the council members for drama’s sake. There was no other explanation for it.
Ahead of them, other cars swerved around the attacking animals, trying their best to avoid the clamping jaws that would easily crack most of the bodies of other cars. Jo wasn’t worried about their fenders, but if the dogs managed to flip over Frankie, they’d be sitting ducks.
Or sitting wolves, as it were.
“Make sure they don’t get leverage under the car,” Jo ordered, the tablet clamped tightly between her thighs to avoid it being thrown off her lap and broken even more. “They’re trying to tip them.”
None of the cars were caught that they could see, and Jo thought that meant the African hunting dogs were simply not as much of a threat as she assumed. It wasn’t until they rounded a corner, following the same paths as those before them, that they saw.
“Well,” Nic murmured, his fingers tight on the wheel. “I guess we know how the necromancers died now.”
The necromancer car was flipped onto its roof, the glass shattered, the tires in shreds. It was as if something shredded its underbelly, a large hole in the bottom of the car that shouldn’t be there. The bottom of the cars were more vulnerable than the tops. Even Frankie had a soft spot. The two necromancers who’d been in the car, one male and one female, were in pieces across the yellow grass, some of the larger African hunting dogs laying among the pieces as they feasted.
The beasts could chew through metal.
Jo couldn’t imagine the terror they must have suffered, to be flipped over and huddled inside, thinking they’d be safe if they just stayed in the car only for the great beasts to literally chew through the bottom of the car.
“Get us out of here,” Jo whispered.
“Our car is stronger—”
“I don’t care,” Jo growled softly. “Get us away from them.”
The cars ahead of them were already out of sight, leaving them in eighth and now last place. Frankie was heavier, more cumbersome, but they would make up the time. If this was only the first section, the rest of the track would only get worse. They’d have to be smart about their racing.
The African Hunting Dogs fell behind as Nic gunned the engine and took off, cutting through the tall grass faster. The dogs didn’t pursue them after a certain point, and they fell into silence.
“We still have another five miles to go,” Jo said, glancing at the tablet map. “We’re in eighth place.”
“We’ll make it up,” Nic reassured her. “We’re going to win this. It’s just going to take us being smarter than everyone else.”
“I know.” And Jo had full confidence that they would win in the end. There were no doubts. Frankie was heavier because she needed to be, but it would give them more of an advantage in some places.
The yellow grass began to shorten as they drove and then it faded away completely, leaving them facing a road covered with an inch or two of water. Jo blinked and leaned forward, studying it as Nic rolled to a stop to study the surface in case of tricks.
“Is it too deep to cross?” Nic asked, frowning.
“It looks like if you stay within the markers,” she pointed to the blinking lights along the edge, “then we’ll be fine. I can see the road just under the surface. Frankie is tall enough to avoid any water damage.”
The blinking lights seemed to mark the edge, but the water around the road clearly got deeper. If they were pushed toward them, or off, they’d be in trouble. And clearly, this was meant as another obstacle. Just driving through an inch of water was hardly an issue.
Nic eased Frankie forward, entering the water, sending ripples away from their tires and signaling that there was another car there. Whatever was lying in wait would know they had arrived. Jo started to wrack her brain for creatures that would fit into a safari. Crocodiles? That seemed fearsome enough, but the last race had boasted alligators. Would they copy a similar obstacle so soon?
Nic saw it first. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing toward the water.
Jo leaned forward, searching. “What?”
“There. In the water.”
He pointed toward ripples, and then the thing in question peeked over top of the surface.
Jo leaned forward and narrowed her eyes, focusing until she could make out details in the deep browns. “Is that. . .a hippo?” she murmured, focusing harder. Beside it, another one popped up, tiny little ears flicking back in challenge.
Nic snorted. “Hippos aren’t scary. They’re adorable.”
Another head popped up, and another, and another. Both sides of the road. Jo’s heartbeat sped up.
“Hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa,” she breathed. “They kill more than four hundred people every single year.”
Nic jerked his head toward her, his eyes wide. “You’re shitting me.”
More and more faces popped out of the surface, watching them, moving in closer, too many. There were too many beady black eyes and cute ears pulling back in warning. Dozens. Hundreds.
Nic shifted in discomfort. “They’re staying in the water,” he said, but he sped up anyway. The tires began pushing water away from the road in a bigger wave, the water breaking over too many faces.
As if sensing their need to get away, the hippos began to rise from the water, moving toward the edge.
Jo slapped at Nic. “Fucking go!”
“I can only go so fast without the tires losing traction,” he growled, pushing Frankie just a little faster. Frankie began to fishtail immediately, forcing him to slow again, leaving them traveling at a measly twenty-five miles per hour.
As a unit, the hippos rose onto the edge of the road around them, their great mouths opening wide, so wide, they were at a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree angle. Jo’s eyes widened as they rushed forward, far faster than such a creature should logically be able to move.
And the hippos were faster than their car at the moment.
Jo screamed when the hippo came at the quarter panel of Frankie, but its teeth bounced off the metal before it could close its jaws.
Nic swerved, the car hydroplaning for a moment, but he expertly turned into it, keeping them on the road until another hippo crashed into the driver’s side, shoving them toward the edge. Nic had just enough time to correct it before they were hit again. A hippo came from the left, its jaws already ready to grab hold. Frankie stopped dead in the road, the great beast using its powerful jaws to hold on to the front, right over the headlight.
“Go!” Jo shouted.
But Nic was gassing the car already and the back tires were just spinning, throwing water behind them but nothing else. More hippos closed in.
“Nic!” Jo growled. They had no weapons to wire, nothing they could make the hippo release with.
Despite there being steel on the car, despite the reinforced strength, the metal bent beneath the onslaught of the hippo’s bite, crushing it, the headlight shattering. In the end, the glass breaking into the hippo’s mouth is what made it release the car, the glass hurting its mouth. Too many teeth were pressing at the car, but the moment the hippo released, Nic gunned it, knocking them all back just enough to keep moving.
A second was all they needed.
The hippos fell away, but not before Frankie earned their marks and dents.
Nic’s fingers were so tight on the wheel, they were white, and he was panting slightly, his own heart rate high after the altercation. If too many other hippos had gotten good holds, they would have been toast.
“Fucking hippos,” he said, as the watery road ended suddenly and turned into a coastal type of road, the split between the two atmospheres so sudden, it was hard to judge when exactly it had happened. The town around them was a ghost town, the buildings empty and boarded up. Sandbags lined the doorways in front of them, as if in preparation.
But for what?
The water to their right was rough, churned up, the wind whipping palm trees around. There were no boats that she could see, but visibility was low. She couldn’t see as far as she usually expected along the coast despite her wolf vision.
Jo looked down at the map just as the weapons system came to life. “This section is just called ‘5FIVE5’ on the map.” She frowned. “What does that mean?”
The sirens that suddenly blared to life made her jump.