THIRTY-SIX
“Have you ever played Mario Kart?” Nic asked as he stared at the walls around them. It was strange, the way they were driving through some sort of magical house that curved and moved with the road. The road was wide enough for two cars to move through side by side, as if the house was built around the road.
“No,” Jo answered, her eyes wide on the. . .things. . . moving along the walls. Were the picture frames crawling? “But I’ve seen The Shining.”
“Oh, good.” Nic gripped the steering wheel tightly. “At least this won’t be super surprising then.”
The wallpaper was peeling and old, some floral design that had faded with age. The way it peeled back to reveal old wood underneath, like the Victorian house Nic had once spent a summer restoring only made things worse. Red dripped from the walls in some spots and the longer Nic watched it as they drove passed, the more it looked like blood. It could have just been red paint, but with the atmosphere and the Council’s penchant for authenticity, it was probably blood.
The screams started a second later, and then the doors they were driving passed in the hallways began to open and slam back closed. It only made them jump with each aggressive movement, but otherwise wasn’t too scary.
Until the first one appeared.
A door on the right opened and a phantom exploded outward, the bellow it released as its jaw unhinged and opened far too wide, making even Nic jerk and swerve away from it. Frankie scraped the side of the wall, tearing some of the wallpaper off, before he corrected the wheel. Unlike the forest ghosts, this one didn’t just disappear. He latched onto the metal of Frankie and held on.
“Nic!” Jo screeched, leaning away from the phantom reaching inside the car for her. Thin, spindly fingers curled into her jumpsuit and yanked, slamming her against the metal.
Before Nic could reach across to help Jo, another one appeared on the windshield, its tongue hanging out as it made faces. It grabbed onto the windshield wipers and ripped them off completely before using them to beat at the windshield that was holding up far better than it should.
“How the fuck do we fight poltergeists?” Nic shouted, swerving the car. A normal creature would have been dislodged. Clearly these ghosts weren’t normal.
Jo was trying to punch the ghost but as expected, her fist went right through its body. “Maybe this is just something we have to deal with until we get through this section?”
More poltergeists appeared, all bursting from the doors, all clinging onto Frankie as if she were a magnet for them. She probably was. As everything in the race was meant to do, they were targeting the racers and in second place, quickly gaining on the fae, they were a threat.
The poltergeists covered the car like something out of Ghostbusters, making Nic swerve wildly to keep the car on the track and not running through a wall. The ghosts pulled at his hair, jerked him around, just as they did Jo. They were fighting things they couldn’t do anything about except grin and bear it.
“Fuck off!” Nic growled at a female ghost who was currently trying to wrap her hand around his throat. She only screeched like a banshee in answer, clearly not amused by his language. Judging by the fancy gown she wore, she was probably some old rich lady from the late eighteen hundreds. Nic guessed they didn’t like being told off.
Just as suddenly as they attacked, the poltergeists suddenly all screeched and took off back into the walls, scattering as if bowling pins hit by a bowling ball.
“What the hell was all that?” Jo asked, her breath sawing in and out. Her hair was wild where it had been pulled, her face was flushed from the fight, and there were a few rips and tears in her jumpsuit, but she looked mostly unharmed. Any scratches would heal fast enough at least. “Why did they leave?”
Nic met her eyes. “Something bigger must have spooked them.”
The wall exploded on the left and the creature that leapt through just barely missed Frankie as they sped past. Nic’s eyes were wide with panic as he looked in the rearview mirror frantically. “Was that—”
“Who cares what it was?” Jo shrieked. “Just get us out of here.”
It burst through the wall again, this time from the right, its long body still traveling through the first hole it made. Whatever it was, it was massive. The great gaping mouth of it caught the edge of the rear fender and jerked Frankie slightly before they were gone, moving faster now to avoid the giant worm—it had to be a worm—as it dove through the walls to eat them. Its mouth was a large circle, teeth going around like some sort of wood chipper as it desperately tried to catch them. Its body was long enough that it was still strung between the holes as it moved, twisting, crunching the path behind them.
Nic shrieked when the worm burst out in front of them, but Frankie was low enough to pass beneath without harm, quickly trying to get through the section of the race. He had no idea how long they had until the race was complete, but considering everything going on, it was best to just worry about getting through it all.
“Watch out!” Jo screamed, and Nic swerved on instinct.
But there was nothing there.
“Wait, what?” Nic asked, more worried about the worm than anything else, but if Jo had said to watch out, then it was a danger, but he couldn’t see anything. “Jo, I don’t see anything. What are you talking about?”
“There! Right there!” she continued to scream. “Don’t you see the fucking dinosaur standing in the middle of the track?”
Nic did not, in fact, see a dinosaur. Not a small one. Not a large one. The only things in the middle of the track were pieces of the ceiling where the worm continued to attempt to eat them. “Jo, there’s no dinosaur.”
“It’s right there!” As he drew closer, she began to scream.
The sound of a bug buzzing entered the car and Nic swatted at it on instinct. Nothing. There was nothing there. More buzzing, and more, until it sounded like the car was filled with flies. And then they appeared in his eyes, and he began swatting at them. His hand continued to touch nothing.
“Stop flailing around!” Jo hissed. “Nic! There’s nothing in the car!”
“The flies!” Nic grunted, swatting at them. “They’re trying to crawl in my ears!”
“Nic, there are no flies!”
And it clicked. The moment it did, the flies disappeared. “Hallucinations,” Nic growled. “They’re not really there.”
The worm burst through from the left again, and Nic had just enough time to swerve around its gaping mouth. Behind them, the track was left destroyed. Even if the dragons managed to get their car going again—highly doubtful—there would be no getting through the track.
“Nic, there’s twelve miles left. The fae are—”
The explosion slammed into Jo’s side of the car. One moment, he was staring at her as she read from the tablet, the next, white-hot flames were spreading along the passenger side. It threw them into the wall on the left, leaving behind a Frankie-sized dent. In slow motion, Jo’s eyes closed as the window finally shattered, spraying them with chunks of glass. Her head jerked sideways and Nic tried to reach for her, but there wasn’t enough time. Ears ringing, he dropped Frankie into first gear and gunned it, knowing if there was one attack, another would be coming. Thankful for the steel of the body that protected them, Nic looked over at Jo again.
“Are you hurt?” he screamed, but both of their ears were ringing. She probably couldn’t hear him, let alone him hear if she replied. So instead, he held up his thumb.
Jo saw his gesture and nodded jerkily, her hands going to her ears to try and alleviate the ringing.
Another explosion rocked them, this time missing Frankie and blowing out the wall. The giant worm screeched in outrage and turned toward the source. The two fae were hanging out just around the bend.
Nic wasted no time. Frankie, with her steel and mismatched pieces, was a better battering ram than most anything. He didn’t swerve around the fae team’s Lexus like he would have before. They’d almost killed them, and that deserved exactly what the fae got. Nic rammed Frankie into the rear end of their car, crumpling it, the fiberglass and plastic shell cracking apart. The fae driver shouted in outrage, immediately gunning the engine and ramming back into Frankie, but it did more harm to their car than it did to Frankie.
“All you’re doing is giving us some more color,” Nic growled as they left behind their paint, and though the ringing was starting to subside because of their healing capabilities, his voice still sounded muffled.
“Why are you doing this?” Jo shouted out her window, her ears clearly healing far faster than Nic’s. “Just fucking race!”
The passenger fae hung out the window, her wings tucked away behind glamour. She laughed at Jo’s words as if it were the greatest joke she’d ever heard. She threw back her head and laughed. “Silly wolf,” she giggled. “The money offered to end your life is far greater than that of the prize.”
Jo blinked and looked over at Nic. “Did you hear that?”
“I did.” He swerved around another poltergeist that was running down the hallway. “Someone really wants you dead.”
The Lexus eased back until they were right beside Jo and Nic, the fae still leaning out the window. She drew a sword—a literal fucking sword—and climbed out on the roof of their car, clearly preparing to use it on Jo. Nic slammed Frankie into them, forcing the fae to stumble, and Jo seized her opportunity.
“Keep the car steady,” she ordered, and unbuckled her harness.
“Jo, no!”
She met his eyes. “Trust me.”
He hesitated. “Don’t get hurt.”
“No promises about that,” she said as she climbed out. “But I can promise she’s going to hurt worse.”
Her claws burst from her fingertips and fur began to spread along her arms and legs, the in-between form of shifting, both sexy and terrifying. That was his mate! She was a literal badass.
The fae grinned maliciously as Jo joined her on the roof of the car with only her claws out, no other weapons on her.
“You came unarmed,” the fae purred. “How very foolish of you.”
“How very pathetic of you that you need one,” Jo responded. “I am the weapon.”
And then, balanced on top of two racing cars, a werewolf and a fae attacked.
It was a long time coming.
The sword swiped at Jo, but she avoided it with a twist and swiped her claws out, catching the fae across the shoulder. She stumbled, just barely catching her balance before she could slide off the car. The cars weren’t going so fast for it to be a problem, the twisting hallways of the house making it difficult to go anything over thirty miles per hour, but Nic expertly held the car as steady as possible. The fae driver wasn’t as skilled. Their car jerked and moved, forcing the fae on top to counteract her movements, leaving her at a disadvantage.
“How much are they paying you to kill me?” Jo asked. She was curious, but it was also a distraction.
The fae grinned. “Five hundred million.”
Jo blinked. “Damn, as far as numbers go, I expected something far less.”
“Someone wants you dead awfully bad,” the fae teased. “Poor little werewolf, at a disadvantage in this world.”
Jo grinned as the rumbling came from behind her. “Only a fae would think a disadvantage a bad thing.”
The fae’s wings flared, releasing the glamour, her ego forcing her to show off her full sparkling yellow glory. “This fae will be the last thing you see before you die!”
Jo’s grin widened. “Will it though?”
She dropped to her stomach a moment later, clinging onto the top of Frankie with thick claws embedded into the metal. The fae watched her drop in confusion. It took her too long to understand what was happening. By the time she did, Jo was finger waving at her as the giant worm burst through the wall again, flew over her head, and went right for the bright yellow fae.
With her wings out, she couldn’t do much of anything except turn and spread her wings in an attempt to lift up, but the ceiling wasn’t that high, and the worm followed her trajectory, the brightness attracting it. Jo watched as the worm slammed into the fae, as she screamed and stabbed at the creature before her scream cut off abruptly. They were out from underneath the worm a moment later.
“Jo! Jo, are you okay?” Nic screamed from inside the car.
Jo hauled herself over the top of the car to the Lexus, still keeping pace. She reached in through the fae’s window, the poor fae’s eyes widening in surprise as if she hadn’t even realized her comrade was gone.
“I’ll take this,” Jo said, her claws wrapping around the steering wheel and jerking hard. It came loose easily, and she tossed it behind them lazily. The fae driver immediately lost control and swerved into the wall, the car out of commission without the steering column in working order. The horn didn’t sound, so the fae was still alive that was driving, but they were officially out of the race.
All Nic and Jo had to do now was finish.
Jo dragged herself back through the window and into her seat.
“You okay?” Nic asked, the ringing in his ears minimal.
“Never better,” Jo grinned. “All we have to do now is cross the finish line. Think you can do that, hotshot?”
“Hell yeah, I can,” he growled and gunned the engine.
The hallway ended abruptly, and they found themselves facing a blank wall with nowhere to go. The track led right to it, directing them through the wall.
“Hang on!” Nic grunted.
Jo clutched at her seat, not having enough time to buckle the harness back over her chest. Her claws tipped out to curl into the aluminum seat and held fast. Her eyes squinted in preparation, knowing it could go very badly, very quickly.
“Here we go!” Nic announced, but he said it in the way Super Mario did in the game, and Jo deadpanned at him.
“Really?” she grunted, just before they burst through the ugly floral wall and found themselves back in the haunted forest.
The ghosts immediately kicked into high gear, attacking the car. They were brutal and frantic, screaming so loudly it made Jo’s ears hurt, clearly not all the way healed after the explosion. They banged against the side of the car, clearly more of the poltergeists rather than phantoms that couldn’t hurt them. Jo swiped at them as best as she could, but it was useless as they clung to the car and roared back.
“Fucking ghosts,” Jo scowled. “I’ll never think of ghosts as anything but assholes again.”
The gnarled trees around them began to reach down in an attempt to catch at Frankie, to stop it, as if the very forest was conspiring to stop them completely. It probably was. As the final racing team and the one no one wanted to win, the council would be doing everything in their power to stop the werewolves.
But they weren’t stopping.
Frankie, like the tank she was, barreled through the reaching limbs, snapping them off, taking them with her. The poltergeists roared at the hindrance of the branches, fighting to get inside, fighting to hurt them, but they wouldn’t stop.
The shadow men appeared like phantoms out of the midst, no longer human-looking in their haunting. They were more terrifying than the poltergeists, their deep black auras forcing living memories to the surface around them.
Before Jo’s eyes, she saw the moment again and again where Nic and her had met, saw failures, saw each disappointment, but she blinked them from her mind and narrowed her eyes. Nic, on her left, was doing the same. She reached across and curled her fingers around his forearm, offering a way for them to ground each other.
The shadow men roared their anger, but they didn’t attack. They couldn’t. That wasn’t their job.
It was difficult to focus on the road with so much going on, but Nic kept Frankie on the track and pushing forward. It didn’t matter how long it took now but the faster they finished, the faster they could escape this nightmare.
“Six more miles,” she said as she glanced at the tablet. A poltergeist reached through and grabbed at it, trying to rip it away, but Jo shoved it beneath her thighs to keep it safe. “That’s not yours,” she chided the ghost. It roared back at her. She didn’t flinch.
Frankie dozed through the obstacles, pushing forward, and the adrenaline in Jo’s body was starting to take effect. This was it. They were almost there. Almost. So close.
The poltergeists looked up as one, stilling, before they scattered. The shadow men faded away. The trees froze.
Jo clutched Nic’s forearm tighter. “Something’s coming,” she warned.
Static electricity danced through the air.