Fur and Claws (Race Games 4) - Page 36

THIRTY-FIVE

If not for the vampires dying in front of them, they would have had no warning. The water was still as a sheet of glass as they traveled along the road. It wasn’t until one straight fin appeared that Jo knew they were about to attack.

She screamed as Nic swerved around the orca suddenly sliding over the ice toward them, the ice forcing them to slide around the massive whale.

They had no time to celebrate the small victory before another one was launching out from the other side and trying to throw them off the ice the same as they’d done to the vampires.

“Shamu should have been far more violent of a film,” Nic snarled, swerving around orcas launching themselves out of the water. “This is bullshit. That whole movie was a lie!”

“Focus,” Jo breathed, even as she clung to her harness tightly. “Should I fire a weapon?”

“Yes.” When Jo reached toward the weapon panel, he shouted, “Wait! No!”

“Yes or no?” she growled.

“If you fire anything, it could break up the ice and we’d be stuck.” He glanced at her for a split second. “Besides, it’s not the orcas’ fault that the council enchanted them to be here as an obstacle.”

Jo grimaced and settled back in her seat. “You’re right.”

Because that’s how it always was, wasn’t it? The council forced these obstacles and creatures to be in this enchantment, to attack and fight, to be savage. Granted, orcas were extremely dangerous in the wild to begin with, but they were only angry because they couldn’t do anything but attack. This wasn’t their choice, though they might have attacked otherwise.

An orca leapt out of the water right in front of them, blocking the road, and both Nic and Jo screamed as they swerved around the creature, around its teeth that were wide open in case it could grab them. All it would take is the creature to get ahold of one little piece to pull them into the water. They couldn’t get too close.

They were still screaming as Nic corrected the trajectory and slammed through a sheen of fog. Just as suddenly as the artic began, it ended, and they found themselves faced with a forest again.

“Welcome,” the tablet announced. “To the Haunting of Annabelle Lee.”

Jo blinked down at the tablet. “Well, that’s not terrifying at all.”

Where the arctic had been frigid cold and creatures bursting from the ice, this last section was completely different. With trees that were so tall, it was difficult to see the tops of them and fog crawling along the ground, Jo knew she wouldn’t want to be lost in a forest like this. Green moss climbed along smaller trees that were twisted and growing in horrifying shapes. They were harmless for the most part, but the shapes of them, the bent and gnarled branches, lent to the spooky atmosphere.

Through the trees, a scream rang out, loud enough to penetrate inside the car. Another scream answered it, echoing around them, but it didn’t feel like someone asking for help. It felt like a lure.

Jo jerked away from the window when a ghost appeared, a woman screaming, rushing the car. She disappeared into mist before she could get inside, but Jo was properly freaked out anyways, her heart rate high, adrenaline pumping through her body still after the orcas. She’d probably crash after all this, once they survived. Her body couldn’t take much more of the highs and lows.

Another phantom appeared in front of the car and Nic swerved out of instinct. The male shattered the moment Frankie touched it.

“What is this? A haunted forest?” he asked, clearly shaken the same as Jo was. An unfair fight where they were at a disadvantage? They’d both take it on. Ghosts? Nope.

The phantoms and ghosts continued to appear, rushing the car, but it wasn’t until they started appearing inside that Jo nearly lost her shit. When one particular woman appeared in the middle of them and screamed bloody murder, her eyes dripping blood, Nic had nearly ran Frankie into a tree with the sheer terror of it, but she too had faded away. Jo’s nerves were shot.

“They don’t seem to be able to touch us,” Jo pointed out, feeling a little bit better about it after realizing that. They could scare them and give them the heebie jeebies, but otherwise, the ghosts weren’t really a threat. They needed to worry about the fae team and the dragon team more.

They moved around a bend in the road and Nic rolled to a stop at the scene in front of them. The road was blocked, not by a fallen tree or anything of that matter.

“Is that a giant?” Jo whispered. “And is it sleeping?”

That’s precisely what the giant was doing. It was sprawled out across the road, its legs a barrier of their own, snoring away. Clearly, it had been left there to cause trouble for the teams, but it had fallen asleep on the job.

“I’ll just ease around him,” Nic murmured, pointing Frankie off track and moving slowly. They didn’t want to wake him. One less obstacle to face was best.

The ghost appeared out of nowhere. First, the two of them were alone in the car. Then, there was a shredded face of a man sitting between them, staring out the windshield just as they were. Jo glanced over, saw him, and nearly screamed. Only Nic’s hand suddenly clamped on her mouth kept the scream from erupting and waking the giant.

The ghost grinned and disappeared.

“Fucking asshole,” Jo spit, her voice so low, she knew no one would hear it but Nic. Giants weren’t known for their excellent hearing.

Nic eased Frankie back onto the road, now on the other side of the sleeping giant. It hadn’t moved, hadn’t woken up, so with a sigh, they picked up speed again, trying their best to catch up to the fae team. There hadn’t been any announcement of them winning so they still had time.

“We need to catch up to the fae,” Jo pointed out.

In answer, Nic sped up again, pushing Frankie around the curving road through the trees. They ignored the ghosts and phantoms trying to cause trouble. It was easier once Jo knew they couldn’t hurt them, but she jumped every single time one of the bastards found their way into the car. There was nothing quite as terrifying as turning your head to come face to face with something from the movie “thirteen ghosts.” Those things were terrifying.

They had a chance to win the games. Only one team was ahead of them. Only one still in the race behind them. This was it. They were so close, and Jo could feel it in her bones. They were going to win. They just had to catch the fae first.

The attack came from the side without warning. One moment, Nic was gunning Frankie and making good time on the first five miles of the section, and the next, they were slamming into the trees on the right, denting up the steel but not causing true problems for the car. Jo hit her head against the window and her ears began to ring for a moment before she shook it off and snarled.

“It’s the dragons,” she spit, moving to unhook her harness. She’d need free range of movement if she was going to battle.

The chrome green of the dragon’s Camaro flashed despite the darkness in the forest. The dragon team this race was made up of a man and a woman, and despite the race being difficult enough, they were clearly foregoing winning in favor of the large payout killing Nic and Jo would be. The tree they slammed into cracked and began to fall, not strong enough to handle the impact.

Jo, without waiting for direction from Nic because she didn’t need it, pulled down the weapons panel and began pressing buttons. The dragons had their own weapons and so it became an all-out war between them, ammo—some of it wasn’t even ammo really— flying through the air back and forth. When a fork pinged off Frankie’s windshield, Jo shook her head.

Frankie’s defense mechanisms spat spikes from the sides, targeting the tires of the Camaro, but clearly the bloodsuckers had high quality Game tires. The spikes did nothing to them. She continued to press buttons, firing weapon after weapon at them. Guns sprayed bullets. Rockets sailed off into the trees. Trees began to topple. Only when Jo pressed the extra button Danica had added during her help did they make any progress.

Danica hadn’t said what the button was for. She hadn’t left any instructions at all, but it was on the weapons panel, so it had to be a weapon. With that in mind, thinking it couldn’t be too bad, Jo pushed it.

Glitter exploded around them, oozing from every crack Frankie had, and began to swarm like bees toward the vamps. Their eyes got wide as the rainbow glitter began to lay on their car, obscuring their view, trapping them in. Whatever type of glitter this was, it wasn’t anything like Jo had ever seen.

Not able to see where they were going, the vamps slammed into one of the large trees that stopped them in their tracks. They hit hard enough to total the car, the engine done for as it was shoved back into the cab of the car with the force, but the vamps were still alive at least, even if they were out of the race.

Jo blew out a breath and met Nic’s eyes. “One more to go.”

He reached over and took her hand. “One more to go.”

The forest abruptly ended as they entered a dark tunnel. It was startling enough that Nic slowed, only for the tunnel to end and they came out onto a track surrounded by walls.

Like a hallway in a house.

The walls, with their picture frames and badly peeling wallpaper, began to move.

Tags: Kendra Moreno Race Games Paranormal
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