400 Horsepower of the Apocalypse

by Erica Lindquist

  “Um, I’m right here,” Leo reminded me.

  “Well, you’re still its boss.”

  The bike heaved to one side in the straps and Leo groaned as he struggled to hold it upright.

  “Yeah… I’m not so sure about that,” he said.

  I fitted a socket wrench over the first bolt. It took me a couple of tries, but the tool fit and after a lot of swearing, pushing and shoving, I managed to remove the bolts. By the time I got the casing off and pulled out the spring retainer, I was sweating as hard as Leo.

  I peered into the enclosure and grimaced. The clutch plates inside had been some of those nice expensive carbon-fiber ones, but now they were nothing but blackened, shattered shrapnel. No amount of feathering your clutch did that to the plates. Leo looked over my shoulder and whistled.

  “Damn…” he said.

  Damnation. Yeah, that was pretty close. I went back to the workbench and found a pair of gloves, then pulled them on be­fore removing the ruined plates. I had no desire to touch them with my bare hands if I could avoid it.

  Look, I had no problem with engine grease up to my elbows and smudged all over my face. But gunpowder-smelling demon-bike blood? Hard pass.

  The pieces of the broken clutch plates were small enough to dump into the jug of blood-slash-primary fluid. I used some rags and paper towels to clean out the Packmaster’s enclosure, then stuffed them into the jug, too. I screwed the cap on as tight as I could, then wrapped it in a couple layers of engine tape for good measure. And wrote DO NOT OPEN – TOXIC AF on the side in big block letters with a felt-tip pen.

  Well, that was the best I could do there. Now time to get the Packmaster up and running. I carried the new clutch plates over to the motorcycle, picked them out of the primary fluid and silently said a little prayer to the patron saint of mechanics as I began pushing them into place.

  They fit and I breathed a sigh of relief. A short one, though. When I maneuvered all of the plates into position and reconnected the cables, I closed the casing up again and then refilled it with fresh primary fluid.

  How long would it stay recognizable? The bike was changing. As Death grew stronger, it became less and less a motorcycle and more the horseman’s steed.

  I paid for my momentary distraction as the engine enclosure went suddenly hot under my fingertips. I yanked my hand back as the metal glowed red and a chemical-smelling smoke curled up from the nylon straps.

  “Stop!” Leo shouted. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

  The engine gunned and the exhaust pipes backfired like a rifle shot. Leo snarled at his bike.

  “She’s already changed your fucking clutch,” he said. “That’s enough!”

  The enclosure flared with ember light for a moment longer before flickering and finally snuffing out.

  “Jaz, are you alright?” Leo asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was wearing gloves.”

  I reached out toward the bike gingerly, but didn’t feel any heat. I finished tightening the bolts and the drainage valve, then stood up. Leo glared at his motorcycle.

  “Is that it? Should it run now?” he asked.

  “In theory,” I answered. “But I can’t promise much if your steed here decides to fry the clutch again, or throw a piston.”

  “It’s my job to make sure it doesn’t,” Leo said.

  “Well, let’s check that I did mine properly.” I gestured over to another machine in the corner of the garage, a large one with steel rollers set into the baseplate. “Can you put that big bastard on the dynamometer? I want to check my work before we try to roll out of here.”

  I lowered the lift table again and we carefully unfastened the smoking straps that held the motorcycle in place. Leo grabbed it firmly by the handlebars and pushed his bike over to the dyna­mometer, then up onto the rollers. There were some more straps that I used to lash down the front wheel, but the Packmaster’s engine turned over and revved threateningly.

  “Would you smack this thing on the fender with a rolled-up newspaper or something?” I asked.

  “Easy there,” Leo said, like he was gentling a horse. “Easy.”

  I bet Leo would have looked great riding a horse. Along a beach… Shirtless, just on general principle. But the Packmaster wasn’t impressed and growled in a lower gear this time.

  “We’re only going to make sure you’re still working and see how strong you are,” Leo said. “Settle down.”

  The motor throttled back to an idle. I had no idea if that boded well for my work, but it didn’t sound like the Packmaster was about to bite off one of my fingers, so Leo and I positioned the rear tire on the dynamometer’s roll assembly.

  When everything was in place, I turned on the computerized display. An orange progress bar flashed on the screen, and then several rows of yellow buttons. I selected the basic settings and pointed to the Packmaster’s throttle. Leo nodded and twisted it slowly, bringing the motorcycle up to speed and cycling through the gears.

  I watched the readout and realized my mouth was hanging open.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “Or maybe more like unholy shit…”

  “What’s wrong?” Leo asked.

  I blinked and squinted at the dynamometer. There was no way that these numbers could be right. I had been a slightly un­willing passenger on the Packmaster long enough to know it was far beyond factory specs, but this…

  “A… a normal dual-cam engine gets about fifty horsepower at the wheel,” I told Leo. “Which comes out to around a hun­dred at the crankshaft. On a custom bike like yours, I would expect another twenty or thirty.”

  Leo’s dark eyes narrowed. “That’s not what you’re getting on the dyno, is it?”

  “I’m reading four hundred horsepower,” I said.

  The Packmaster revved and roared in Leo’s grip. The best racing bikes in the world had only half that kind of power. Leo’s motorcycle was way, way beyond street legal. But it was already breaking pretty much every physical and mechanical law… so why not a few mortal ones, too?

  “Is everything working?” Leo asked.

  “Better than it should,” I said.

  “Then let’s get on the road. We lost a day of driving to this shit.”

  Leo turned off the engine and hauled his motorcycle off the dynamometer while I shut down the machine. I left Leo to keep an eye on his bike while I wiped down and put away all of the tools. Yeah, I know we broke in and I was a hardened criminal now, but it was habit and I’m not an asshole.

  When I was done, Leo took a stack of money from his jacket pocket and I kept nodding until he had fanned out about two thousand dollars. It was more than enough to pay for the broken window, one clutch kit and a bottle of primary fluid, but it still might come up short on therapy bills if someone got curious and cracked open the bloody jug we were leaving behind.

  Well, I couldn’t solve every problem. I couldn’t even solve my own problems at the moment…

  I swept up the shattered window glass in the lobby and then left the money on the workbench that I had used in the back. By the time we finished, the first violet light of dawn was creeping over the eastern horizon.

  “Do you need something to eat before we go?” Leo asked.

  The smells of blood and brimstone were still sharp in the air, and I shook my head.

  “No, I’m a little queasy,” I answered. “Are you okay to drive? You haven’t slept for two days now.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Leo said. “I mooched a couple of sodas from the break room fridge and wiped the door down when I was done.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Did you spill something?”

  “Fingerprints,” Leo said.

  Guess I still had a lot to learn about being a real criminal. I had cleaned off all the tools and worn gloves most of the time I was using them, but I wiped a paper towel over the chain of the rolling door while Leo pushed his motorcycle outside again.

  When we closed up the garage as best we could – we might have broken in, but no need to invi
te more thieves to do so – Leo swung a leg over his bike and started up the engine. The exhaust smelled like gunpowder and the big Packmaster growled. Leo shushed the motorcycle, trying to soothe it. But when that didn’t work, he just growled right back.

  Is it weird that it was kind of sexy?

  I cannot say, Uriel answered.

  I wasn’t asking you.

  Death has chosen a strong vessel, the archangel said. A horseman’s steed acknowledges no other master. But it only grows stronger as Death does. Leo cannot hold it at bay forever.

  What about you? I asked.

  You have been a worthy opponent, Jaz. But in the end, I will have control of this vessel. I must.

  And here I thought we were becoming friends, I said.

  Uriel sifted through the thoughts and memories of my life, childhood and adolescent friends flashing through my mind like the pages of a book flipping by too fast.

  Yes, the angel said. We are becoming friends. To my regret.

  We rode hard across Arizona, trying to put some distance between us and Jasper before someone at Chain Gang called the police to report a break-in. We hadn’t exactly been thorough about covering our tracks – Leo may have been a pro­fessional criminal, but he was more of a strong-arm bandit than a cat burglar.

  So despite the ludicrous amount of horsepower beneath us, Leo drove carefully and legally, and we kept watch every mile for Michael’s cops. I mean, we got passed by a minivan and that’s just sad.

  But some of that might have been Leo… He hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours and when we stopped for an early lunch, Leo ordered three coffees. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red, with dark circles under them. I was glad that he had eyes – even without Uriel’s feature-length apocalyptic dreams, Death’s empty sockets were the stuff of nightmares – but I still felt bad for Leo.

  And I was damned tired, too. Last night had involved only a few hours of sleep and a lot of fixing a motorcycle that didn’t want to be fixed. We took our food down the winding road to a rest stop so that we could remain close to the Packmaster while we ate. I yawned into my hash browns and rubbed my eyes.

  “Do you need some sleep?” Leo asked.

  “Me? You’re the one on insomnia duty,” I said.

  “More like not-killing-Jaz duty,” Leo countered. “And generally maintaining control of my body.”

  “It’s a nice body.”

  Leo blinked and I clapped a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But you know… tired.

  “If you can stay awake,” I said quickly, “so can I.”

  But Leo was shaking his head. “One of us has to be rested and alert, Jaz. Stopping Death from taking over and keeping the Packmaster from throwing a piston requires pretty much everything I have. There are still the other horsemen, archangels and those paramilitary whackjobs that shot up our motel room in… shit, I don’t even remember what town that was now.”

  “Mmmm,” I said.

  That was supposed to be something along the lines of Yeah, good point or It was Zamora Canyon, but I was too busy yawning again. We were sitting at a rest-stop concrete picnic table that had been abused by more than weather. Leo patted the bench with a smirk.

  “Come on,” he offered. “Lay down and get a little sleep.”

  “Okay, just give me five minutes,” I said.

  I stretched out on the seat, but I didn’t keep my eyes closed for long. The concrete was hard and cracked, impossible to get comfortable on. Sleeping rough sucked.

  “Try this,” Leo said.

  He took off his jacket and I assumed he was going to fold it into some sort of cushion. The leather was old and well-worn, but I sat up and Leo slid down the bench toward me. When my head came down again, it was against Leo’s thigh, and he draped his jacket over me like a blanket.

  Oh, wow… Leo’s muscles didn’t make for a very soft pillow, but I wouldn’t have traded for the best, most expensive mattress.

  Your heart is pounding, Jaz. Are we preparing for battle? Uriel asked.

  There’s more to life than fighting, I said. If you can forget about war for just a minute, you might learn about some of it.

  Perhaps. But for now, Leo is correct. You require rest. Sleep and we will keep Death at bay.

  I don’t know if Uriel was poking around in my brain for some of those non-battle nice things, or if sleeping with my head cradled in Leo’s lap set the tone for my dreams… But let’s just say that it was a nice reprieve from the nightmares of fighting four mounted demons with a sword made of razor-sharp light.

  I slept for a lot longer than five minutes before Leo shook me gently awake. I sat up and wiped my mouth, checking for drool. If Leo noticed, he didn’t say anything. I really hoped I hadn’t said anything, either… I’ve never been particularly prone to talking in my sleep, but nothing in my life was normal right now.

  You spoke no words while you slept, Uriel assured me.

  Thank goodness, I thought. Wait, did I make any sounds?

  “Ready to go?” Leo asked me.

  I stretched and my spine popped as I looked around. With­out my phone, I couldn’t have told you the time, but the sun had moved and I didn’t recognize any of the cars in the parking lot anymore. I wasn’t sure how much Leo had let me sleep, but it was long enough that I was glad the cops hadn’t picked us up for vagrancy. I felt a lot better and nodded at Leo.

  “Let’s get back onto the road,” I said. “You still know where we’re going, right?”

  “San Diego…” Leo answered with one eyebrow arched.

  “I meant our route,” I said. “Since we’re not taking the high­way anymore.”

  Leo sighed and stifled a yawn against the back of his hand as he put his jacket on again.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” he said. “I think so, but maybe you should look over the maps so you can kick my ass onto track if I screw it up.”

  We pulled out the maps and reviewed our route again. The Arizona maps didn’t cover the whole trip to California, but they would get us at least to the Nevada border.

  “We can pick up another map there,” I said. “Or check on a computer.”

  Leo nodded wearily and I followed him to the Packmaster. The motorcycle growled at his approach, but Leo snarled at it and put the maps back into the saddlebags.

  We mounted up again and kept driving at careful, family-friendly speeds through a town called Whitburn, then Coconino National Forest. I was expecting endless deserts and taco stands – which shows just how badly I needed to get out of Crayhill – and was surprised at how many trees there were in the American southwest. The day was bright and hot, sunlight flickering through the overlapping green of leaves to paint wild golden mosaics across the road winding between them. It was beautiful, and all the more because it was so unexpected.

  Unexpected locations lead to unexpected problems, Uriel pointed out.

  And unexpected good stuff, too, I thought. You’ve never had a surprise party, have you?

  No. The angel riffled around my thoughts for a moment. And neither have you.

  But if I ever do, I’m going to love it.

  I wasn’t sure if that confused Uriel or they just didn’t have an answer, but the archangel fell silent again. Leo drove us through Coconino National Forest, past trucks and RVs full of families on vacation. By that evening, we left the forest behind and rode to­ward the setting sun.

  It wasn’t particularly late, but I felt the exhaustion trembling in Leo’s muscles and one yawn after another stretching his chest. He kept the Packmaster moving more or less steadily, though, until I pointed through the fading twilight to a road sign that promised gasoline, food and lodging. If I remembered our maps correctly, this might be our last chance to stop off for a while. Unless we wanted some rocks and pine cones for dinner, and I was pretty sure tree sap didn’t have the sort of caffeine content Leo needed right now.

  “Let’s eat,” I shouted into his ear.

  Leo gave me a brief thumbs-up and w
e turned at the next traffic light, then stopped in the parking lot of a hotel flanked by a nice-looking Chinese restaurant and a slightly less busy bar-grill combo. We parked outside the grill and Leo staggered as we went in. I grabbed his arm.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Leo answered. “Just need some coffee.”

  At least, I think that’s what he said. It was loud inside the grill and Leo was mumbling badly.

  A host pointed us to a small table and Leo slumped down into his chair without even trying to put his back against a wall. He stared at the menu for five full minutes and when our server came by, I had to repeat Leo’s order for him. To be honest, it was mostly coffee with a grilled cheese sandwich chaser.

  Luckily, the server seemed to sense the extent of the problem and hastily returned with a cup of coffee. It was still steaming hot, but Leo downed half the mug in a single gulp. He let out a long breath and rubbed his eyes.

  Hey, was that you or the horsemen? I asked. Which one of you invented coffee?

  None of us, Uriel answered. By agreement, the two sides created a physical universe in which our war could finally be won or lost. But how that universe evolved was shaped internally by its own forces and inhabitants.

  I shook my head. You should have just taken credit.

  “I’m alive, I swear,” Leo said. “This stuff is a miracle.”

  A little of the light came back to his brown eyes, but the dark circles remained and I wasn’t entirely convinced. I drank down some water – it had been a long, hot day and I was thirsty, too – then cocked my head toward the nearest window and the Packmaster parked outside.

  “You’re exhausted,” I told Leo.

  “No argument here,” he said.

  “Do you think there’s any chance you could bully your bike into letting me drive?”

  Leo looked out the window as he finished his coffee. He had turned off the motorcycle headlight when we parked, but the filament glowed an angry, hellish red and seemed to be staring right at us.

  “No,” Leo said. “Nobody else can drive my steed.”

  “Especially some girl with an angel inside her.”