THIRTY-THREE
“Expedition Zero,” Jo repeated. “Extreme heat to extreme cold.”
“Fuck, I can’t see anything,” Nic grunted, grabbing his shirt from where he’d been using it to soften the heat of the metal and trying to clean the fog from the windshield. “Now I understand why the a/c would have been nice.”
Which was true, Jo thought. Having A/C meant they would have been able to stabilize the heat and clear the windows without them worrying. Now, with the extreme differences in temperature, they were at a severe disadvantage.
With the change, the door panels and Frankie itself began ticking as the heated metal was quickly cooled by the arctic air outside. Jo reached forward and cranked on the heater they’d thought to leave in the car. Something had told her not to remove it when she was getting rid of the extra A/C parts. Really, she’d just chosen not to fix the already none working unit they’d installed. The heater was easy enough. The a/c would have taken extra time and work to make it function. Not to mention the extra weight of the Freon. It was a small detail, but one she’d thought was smart at the time.
Now, not so much.
“At least the brakes work better in the cold,” Jo commented, taking the shirt from Nic and quickly cleaning the windshield herself. “Let’s get moving. We’re in fourth place now.”
“Brakes won’t do a lot of good on ice,” Nic reminded her as the windshield wipers and Jo managed to clean the windshield enough to see. “Luna, are we in Antarctica?”
Jo kept swiping. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Despite the heater running full blast, the frigid cold of outside crept in. Frankie wasn’t insulated against such extreme cold. As an all-metal beast of a machine, the cold quickly crept in and kissed their skin. Even with the heater, Jo could see her breath in front of her.
Jo kept clearing the windshield each time the fog tried to spread. Ice crystals began to climb along the edges of the windows, crawling along them, a dangerous thing when they needed to see to win.
The car appeared in front of them a moment later, sitting still in the snow as if left there for them to find.
“That’s the goblin car,” Jo commented at the same time as the horn sounded above them. She wrinkled her brow. “The car doesn’t look like it’s moved for a while, but they just died?”
Ice was crawling along the cobbled-together car, the doors probably frozen shut. Of course, once they inched past the car, they could see the other door wide open, ice crystals hanging from the edges. There were blood smears on the ground around the door, but not enough for the four goblins who had been on the team.
“Where did they go?” Jo asked, frowning.
“A better question is why did they leave the car?” Nic replied, glancing at her. “What was so scary that leaving the car was a better option?”
The reality of what they could face hit them as they crawled along the ice. At least they had ice spikes in the tires, Jo thought, reaching forward to engage them, only to realize they weren’t working.
“The spikes. . .”
Nic sighed. “The heat of the fire probably got them stuck. The tires are high heat, but I don’t know if the mechanics for the spikes are.”
Jo groaned. “Fuck. Of course. Just. . .be careful on the ice. Without the spikes, we have significantly less traction.”
They appeared out of the white landscape so fast that they didn’t realize what was happening until the ice was shattering across the windshield. Nic slammed to a stop that wasn’t as sudden as it should have been thanks to the ice, but they both stared out of the windshield in horror.
There were three ice sculptures in front of them, three goblins that appeared to be running, their eyes open wide in terror.
No. Not ice sculptures at all.
“Was that. . .”
“Yep,” Nic replied with a grimace. They’d hit the fourth goblin, his body shattering into a million pieces at impact.
“The horn didn’t sound because they hadn’t been completely dead yet,” she whispered, the horror of that hitting her. The Race Games were always brutal, but to witness it in front of you. . .
“We should keep going,” Nic offered, easing forward again. The tires threatened to slip but Nic’s expert driving kept Frankie on the road despite that.
“These fucking windows,” Jo growled, leaning forward to wipe them clean again. They kept fogging up, chasing the heat of their bodies. The ice was starting to crawl faster. “I’m going to have to lean out and scrape the windows soon.”
Despite the frigid air, there was still sweat coating their bodies from the wildfire. It started to freeze the longer they were in the section, the air working its magic despite the heater. They might not freeze to death, but they were about to get real uncomfortable.
Nic began rubbing at his chest, as if he could feel the ice in his lungs. Jo glanced over at him, took note of the signs, and began to panic.
“Nic, pull your jumpsuit back over your body,” she commanded.
“But I’m sweaty.”
“Just do it,” she snarled, leaning over to help him get his arms in while driving. They couldn’t afford to slow down now that they were in third place.
Shock was an extremely human thing. Supernatural creatures were difficult to kill by standard, but when you put them through extremes, their bodies could be tricked into reacting the same way as any human. Just as the goblins eventually froze despite their hardy bodies, werewolves could do the same.
And they’d just gone through extreme heat and landed in extreme cold. There’s been signs of heat sickness in the wildfire. The shock of the cold was now counteracting that to the opposite side of the spectrum. And Nic was feeling the effects more than Jo was.
As Jo tugged the jumpsuit onto Nic’s body, she noted the ice crystals from where his sweat had frozen, creating a sheen of diamonds across his body that would hopefully start to melt as he warmed up. His breathing was faster than it should have been, sped up because of the beginning stages of shock. His lips had a slight bluish tint to them. His pupils were enlarged.
“You’re having mild symptoms of shock,” Jo rasped, her own lungs struggling to pull air into them. But she wasn’t driving. As long as Nic could keep going, they could get out of this.
Nic inhaled a shaky breath. “I can work through it. Just keep the windows clear.”
So Jo did as he said. She continued to wipe the windows, clearing the fog as best as she could despite the ice crawling along the outside. The windshield wipers weren’t working properly thanks to being scorched in the wildfire, but every now and then they caught a larger piece of the ice and managed to dislodge it. It wasn’t enough but it was something.
“You’d think they’d put more obstacles in here than the frigid cold,” Jo commented as she wiped.
As if her words summoned it, large creatures burst from the ice around them, telling Jo two things.
One, they were on a glacier, not just in the snow.
Two, those things bursting from the ice were leopard seals, and even at regular natural size, they were massive.
“You just had to say it,” Nic grimaced.
A closer leopard seal lunged at them. The metal would keep them out, Jo told herself to keep calm, but despite them not being able to get in, they were still at a disadvantage. The seal slammed into Frankie, immediately sending the car into a tailspin that Nic couldn’t control. Brakes were useless on the ice and the tire spikes weren’t working. And Frankie was a heavy ass car.
Jo squealed and held on for dear life. She wasn’t strapped into her seat because she’d been clearing the windows, so each time another seal hit them in a new direction, her body tried to follow. Only her claws digging into the metal around her kept her from being slammed around in the car. The leopard seals were batting them around as if they were in a pinball machine and there was nothing they could do about it.
Her claws slipped and she slammed her shoulder against the door before quickly latching on again. The spot smarted, but it would heal. As long as they could get out of this hellhole.
Nic managed to turn into the next spin and the leopard seal off to the side missed the rear fender just barely. It gave Nic the time he needed to straighten out Frankie and take off again. . .
. . .right into penguin central.
Any other time, Jo might have cried about how adorable they were, all waddling along the ice, the babies there with them. Jo loved penguins. But, right now, they were leading leopard seals right into their midst and there was a baby penguin right in the way that the leopard seals to her right somehow keeping pace with Frankie, took notice of.
“Keep going,” Jo ordered. “But make sure the baby ends up on my side.”
She rolled down the window.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Nic snarled, struggling to keep the car straight, but he followed her directions, moving until the baby penguin was flailing around on her side of the car and they closed in quickly. She heaved herself onto the door frame, all the warmth sucking from inside the car that they’d managed to keep. The wind chilled her to the bone, ice forming immediately on her eyebrows and nose, but she leaned down despite the leopard seals growling at her, seeing her hanging out the car like dinner.
“We’ve only got one shot at this,” Nic warned, his eyes on the seals closing in.
But Jo only needed one shot.
The baby penguin screeched at the seals closing in, turning to run but slipping on the ice. If she missed, the seals would for sure get the tiny thing. She leaned down, ignoring the way the wind began to freeze her hair, began to make her fingers go numb, and as Frankie eased close, her fingers scooped up the fuzzy bird. She couldn’t feel them as well as she’d have liked, but she managed to drag herself back over the door frame and quickly roll up the window. The leopard seals roared.
“There’s a baby penguin in your lap,” Nic grunted, glancing over at the little penguin that was now cowering against her.
“There is.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
Jo blinked. “That’s a good question.”
His eyes went to her hair. “You look like an ice queen.”
The seals fell behind, backing off, and they knew why a few seconds later.
A sound like a ricocheting bullet echoed around them, a warning of a new obstacle to come. The seals disappeared completely, diving back into the ocean, bellowing as they went.
“Slow down and I’ll let the baby out. There are penguins right there.” Jo lifted the fuzzball in her hands and kissed him on the head. The little thing chittered in response, as if he understood and was thanking her. “Stay safe, little fuzzball.” She opened the door once Nic slowed and let the penguin out. It rushed over to the others, ready to find its mother. “Okay. We have a race to win.”
Nic threw the car in gear again, but the ice under their feet, felt through the floorboards and their misshapen shoes, began to rumble. She looked at the tablet, saw they were in third, but there were still four teams. At some point, the dragon team had fallen behind them. The vampire team and the fae team were ahead. She glanced behind Frankie, but the window was covered in ice, making it impossible to see if the dragons were close behind or not.
The sounds of the glacier cracking grew thunderous.