An Artificial Night od-3

by Seanan McGuire

  She blinked. “Why do I bother putting up with you? Cause I really don’t know.”

  “No! Before that!” Spike punctuated my statement with a yowl. I swept it into my arms, ignoring the thorns. “Spike, be quiet.”

  “Toby?” interjected Connor. “They’re gaining.”

  May and I turned toward him, saying in unison, “Shut up, Connor!” It’s always good to have backup. After a pause, I added, “And drive faster!” It couldn’t hurt to try.

  Connor slammed his foot down on the gas. The car lurched forward. Glancing back over the seat, I winced. Blind Michael’s men were still gaining. Then again, they weren’t dependent on silly things like gasoline or internal combustion. They had magical horses.

  “Next time, I get a magical goddamn horse,” I muttered, turning back toward May. “You said I wouldn’t let you drive.”

  “Well, you won’t! You brought the Selkie instead,” she said. “You don’t trust me.”

  “No, I brought the Selkie because you’re a lousy driver.” I decided to ignore the whole “trust” issue. She was my personal incarnation of death; if she expected me to trust her, she was delusional. “You remember everything I’ve ever done, right?”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Do you remember the time I had the guy with the gun sneak into the car?”

  She blinked. “Yes. Why?”

  “Do you think you could do that again?”

  “Do what?”

  “Drive like that.”

  There was a pause as she realized what I meant. Then she wailed, “I don’t know how to drive like that! I’m not you anymore!”

  “So learn,” I said, and pressed myself against the door. Spike mewled in protest, pinned against my chest. “Spike, hush. Connor, keep your foot on the gas and scoot over. May, get your ass into the driver’s seat.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Toby, this isn’t such a good idea—”

  “Both of you, just do it. May’s driving.”

  They turned to stare at me, demanding in unison, “Why?”

  “Because she drives like a manic on crystal meth! Now get moving before I take the wheel and do it myself!”

  I didn’t think my driving was that much of a threat, but apparently, I was wrong. Connor unfastened his belt and scooted over into the passenger seat, smashing me against the door until I unfastened my seat belt, squirmed free, and balanced myself on his leg. He kept his hands on the steering wheel until May scrambled over the seat and grabbed it, shouting, “Now what?”

  “You were driving earlier! Just drive!” I jabbed Connor in the side with my elbow. “Let go of the wheel and buckle up. This is going to get rough.”

  May was working herself into a panic. “That was just a game!”

  “So pretend this is another one!” All the kids were awake now, and several were starting to cry. Trying to sound jovial, I called, “Hey, kids, if you’re not wearing a seat belt, put it on!” They’d already been traumatized enough; they didn’t need to watch me argue with my Fetch. Then again, neither did Connor.

  He fastened his belt, looking at me bleakly. I reached up to grab the oh-shit handle with one hand, offering him the other. When he took it, I squeezed his fingers. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “Liar,” he said.

  May fought the wheel, trying to steer. She was being too delicate about it. We’d be lucky if they didn’t catch us before we got off the bridge. “Toby!”

  I squirmed around to get a better look at the Riders behind us, snapping, “Just drive!”

  “Why me?” she wailed.

  “Because if you don’t, we’re all going to die!” There was something ironic about forcing my Fetch to save my life, but I could dwell on that later, after we’d survived the experience.

  May stared at me, then nodded and slammed her foot down on the gas. At least she knew which pedals to use. The car roared like a wounded beast and leaped forward, accelerating at a distinctly unsafe speed. Finally.

  If I even suspected that my driving was half as bad as hers you’d never get me behind the wheel of a car again. She rode wild across all four lanes of traffic, weaving between cars that couldn’t see through the Luidaeg’s don’t-look-here spell and thus didn’t realize we were there. It was a good thing, too; if they’d been able to see us, we’d have caused more than a few accidents. More and more of the children were screaming. I understood the sentiment.

  Connor pulled his hand out of mine and covered his face, closing his eyes. I glanced at him, trying to pretend that I wasn’t clinging to Spike for dear life. “Coward.”

  “Your point?” he muttered, not looking up. I sighed. Fine. If he wanted to be that way, it was no skin off my nose. I looked to the rearview mirror to check on the locations of the Riders and smiled. My plan was working; they were still behind us, but our lead was growing because May’s driving was too erratic for them to predict. Drivers—even faerie drivers—usually follow the rules of the road out of a sense of self-preservation. May, well … May didn’t.

  I’ve been driving since I went to work for Devin, and May knew everything I did. Thing is, watching a surgeon on TV doesn’t make you a doctor. It just means you know what surgery looks like. May didn’t have my muscle memory. She’d actually driven a car all of once, during the relatively simple trip from the Luidaeg’s apartment to Shadowed Hills, and even then she’d shown a dismaying tendency to drive the wrong way down one-way streets, ignore traffic lights, and attempt to use the sidewalk as an extra lane. Now …

  Given free rein on the open highway, May was embracing her inner race car driver. It didn’t help that she had no idea how to control her speed, and was thus opting for as fast as the car will go. The children’s screaming tapered off as they stared out the windows, awed. They’d probably never been in a car that was trying to break the laws of physics before. I was just afraid they were going to learn what a twelve-car pileup looked like, from the bottom.

  Andrew had his nose pressed against the glass, watching wide-eyed as the Riders began closing the distance between us. “Look, Auntie Birdie,” he said, “the men are going faster.”

  “That’s nice, Andy,” I said, finally letting go of Spike. It climbed over the seat to curl up in Jessica’s lap. She was one of the few that was still asleep. I hoped she’d stay that way. If the screams hadn’t been enough to wake her, maybe she would.

  “They’re followin’ us.”

  “Yes, they are.” They were getting closer fast, weaving in and out of traffic with a speed my little VW couldn’t hope to match. I tried to run down my options and couldn’t think of any. We had no place to go. We’d outrun them, or we’d die.

  He turned to look at me, frowning. “Why?”

  “Because they’re mad at me, sweetie. Now hold on tight, okay?”

  He smiled at me, nodding. “Okay.” I love kids. They’re endlessly adaptable, and not as breakable as we think.

  My Fetch wasn’t handling things nearly as well. She swerved between two trucks with a heart-stopping squeal of the brakes, wailing, “Am I doing this right?”

  “You’re doing fine! Keep driving!” Maybe I was afraid she’d kill us all, but I was a lot more worried about Blind Michael’s men. They weren’t the sort who’d negotiate once they’d run us to ground. They might be willing to lop our heads off and take them home as trophies instead of torturing us, but that was probably about it.

  “Aunt Birdie? What’s going on?”

  I winced at the sound of Jessica’s voice. “Honey, just hold on. We’re on the way home.”

  “Aunt Birdie—”

  “Not now, sweetheart!”

  “The bridge is ending! The bridge is ending!” May shouted, slamming her foot down harder. The car sped up. I hadn’t known that was possible. “Now what do I do?”

  “Take the first exit!” I turned to look out the windshield, bracing my hands against the dashboard. “Turn right and head toward the warehouses when you get off the bridge!”

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nbsp; May nodded, nearly falling over as she dragged the wheel to the right. The car wasn’t cooperating, and I couldn’t blame it; if she’d been trying to steer me, I wouldn’t have been terribly cooperative either. Connor whimpered, squeezing his eyes more tightly shut as we swerved off the bridge and down the street, barely avoiding a collision with a commuter bus. Five of the Riders managed to change direction and follow us; the other two missed the turn and went shooting off down the bridge, trapped in the flow of traffic.

  “Two down!” I shouted, jubilant. “Take the first right and floor it!” Turning, I elbowed Connor. “Look for things to throw.”

  He uncovered his face, eyeing me. “What?”

  “Look for things to throw out the window. Clothes. Cans. Whatever.”

  “Why?”

  “Distraction!” The rest of the explanation was lost as May found the turn and roared around it without slowing down. For one dizzy moment it felt like the car was going to flip over. I fell back against my seat, accompanied by a chorus of giggles and cheers from the back. At least some of us were enjoying the ride. Turning my attention back to the windshield, I choked. We were driving straight for a brick wall, and May wasn’t stopping. I caught my breath, and shrieked, “Turn around! Turn around! Turn around!”

  She turned and blinked, keeping the gas pedal pressed down hard. “What?”

  In unison, Connor and I shouted, “Watch the road!”

  “Okay …” May shrugged as she looked back to the road, and then yelped in surprise. “Toby, there’s a wall!”

  At least one of us was surprised. I slammed my fists down on the dashboard, yelling, “Turn around turn around!”

  That got through. She hauled on the wheel, sending us into a wide spin. Andrew tumbled away from the window, slipping out of his seat belt, and bowled Raj over. The two of them landed in a heap on top of one of the smaller Cait Sidhe. She started to howl, surprised, and the rest of the children joined in. The noise startled May enough that she pulled us out of our spin and into a smooth turn.

  You can say anything you want about the Volkswagen bug, but never, ever claim that it doesn’t have a good turning radius. We somehow avoided slamming into anything, instead winding up pointing toward the mouth of the alley we’d mistakenly tried to use as a getaway route. Problem: the five remaining Riders were lined up across the alley’s mouth, blocking our escape.

  And May still had her foot on the gas.

  What followed was a quick and dirty lesson in the law of relative mass. The Riders were fierce, armed, and possibly deadly; they were riding magical horses that could move as fast or faster than a car and were a lot more maneuverable. These were all things to their advantage. We had a hysterical Selkie, an age-slipped changeling, and a car being driven by someone who had no concept of her own mortality. Guess who had the overall advantage?

  We plowed into the Riders at almost full speed, hitting one while two others dove out of the way, losing control of their mounts in the process. The illusions on the two freed horses dissolved, the motorcycles replaced by fae steeds who wheeled and fled.

  Only two Riders were left as we pulled out onto the street, and they were following at a cautious distance. “Connor, give me something to throw,” I said, rolling down the window.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything! I don’t care!” He stared at me, then bent to remove his shoe and pressed it into my hand. I paused to gauge my aim, and then chucked it out the window.

  In a perfect world, I’d have hit something. This isn’t a perfect world. The shoe flew wild, landing on the sidewalk. “Damn it. Give me something else.”

  May interrupted, shouting, “Toby, the sign says ‘stop’!”

  “Don’t stop!”

  “But the sign—”

  “If you stop, I will kill you myself!” I shouted, flinging several empty soda cans and Connor’s other shoe into the street. May gave me a panicked look, but didn’t slow down. The kids saw what I was doing and cheered. Then they rolled down the back windows, starting to throw anything that wasn’t nailed down out of the car. This wasn’t the sort of thing I would’ve normally encouraged, at least in part because it would have caused their parents to kill me, but these were definitely special circumstances. A little lifesaving misbehavior seemed like exactly what we needed.

  Spike hissed and fled to the front seat when an overenthusiastic child tried to pull it out of Jessica’s lap, having sensibly recognized the rose goblin as something that would cause a lot of damage if thrown. Jessica glared at the kid, removed her one remaining shoe, and pitched it out the window. That was promising; it was the first real action I’d seen her take since we got out of Blind Michael’s lands.

  Maybe it was the combination of our speed and the objects flying out of the car, or maybe it was just sheer, dumb luck. Whatever the reason, we made it through the intersection just ahead of a turning Metro bus. So did the first Rider. The second Rider didn’t. The sound of crashing metal has never been that sweet.

  The last Rider was still behind us, and we were running out of things to throw; we needed to lose him. To make matters worse, the excitement was starting to wear off for the children, and it was being replaced by fear. I could hear whimpers starting under their continued giggles. Kids get upset easily. They also recover fast, but that doesn’t make it a fair trade.

  I threw the last of the cans out the window, demanding, “How are we supposed to get rid of this guy?”

  “I don’t know!” snapped Connor.

  “Then what good are you?” I threw a bad paperback romance out the window, followed by my trash bag from the week before.

  “Toby? Toby?”

  “Shut up, May!”

  “Um …”

  I turned toward her, glaring. “What is it?”

  She had time to whimper, “Hill,” and then we were going down, fast. Very, very fast. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the last Rider pulling his steed to a halt at the top of the hill, staring. He wasn’t dumb enough to follow. Lucky us, we were already committed.

  “Turn! Turn!” I shouted. The kids weren’t whimpering anymore—most of them were cheering like wild things. The few that had the sense to be scared were screaming, but the screams were almost indistinguishable from the cheers.

  San Francisco was built on a series of hills. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. Some of them are steep enough that sane people won’t drive down them even at a normal pace; they go around instead, using the side streets with gentler inclines. Yet here we were, plummeting down one of the tallest hills in the city at a speed so ludicrous that I was willing to bet we were close to breaking a record. Slowing down would have been suicide. The brakes weren’t good enough, and parts of the car simply wouldn’t stop.

  “Turn where?” wailed May. Connor was staring at the street as it unspooled ahead of us, all the blood drained from his cheeks. He looked terrified. I couldn’t blame him.

  “Find a smaller hill! Turn!” We could lose some speed by turning. The car probably wasn’t going to recover—the damage to the engine had been done—but we might still be able to save ourselves if we could slow down enough.

  May wrenched us hard to the left, and this time the car did lift up onto two wheels before dropping back to the ground with a bone-jarring thud. The shocks weren’t going to like that. The brakes probably weren’t too happy about it either.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” said an unhappy voice from the back.

  Privately, I agreed. Out loud I said, “Try to wait, okay? Let us stop the car first.”

  “How do I stop the car?” May demanded.

  “Start slowing down!” The hill was tapering off, and we’d stopped gaining speed; there was a chance that we’d be able to decelerate enough to keep from becoming a thin metal sheet at the bottom of the hill. Not a good chance, but a chance.

  “How do I slow down?”

  “The brakes, hit the brakes!” snapped Connor.

  “The what?”
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br />   Oh, that was not what I wanted to hear. “Take your foot off the gas!”

  “Oh!” May nodded and eased off the gas, looking relieved. The car slowed, until we were moving at a speed that had at least a passing resemblance to the legal limit.

  “Good,” I said. “Now try the other pedal.”

  Connor held his breath as May fumbled for the brakes, found them, and brought the car to a stop in the middle of the street. She slumped forward, resting her forehead against the wheel, and I leaned over Connor to set the parking brake before we could start rolling again. The kids in the back cheered. Connor shuddered and started breathing.

  I eyed him. “Wimp.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Are we dead yet?”

  “No. The brakes worked.”

  “I’m gonna be sick,” said the voice from the back.

  “Me too,” said Connor.

  “I don’t ever want to drive again,” moaned May.

  “Deal,” I said, before adding, “You realize you just saved my life, right?”

  “What?” She sat up, staring at me.

  “We’d have died if you hadn’t taken the wheel.” I grinned at her. “Good job.”

  “I can’t save your life! I’m your Fetch!”

  “Yeah, I know. Get in the back.” I nudged Connor with my elbow. “It’s your turn to drive.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?” I shrugged. “I’m still too short to drive. Our other option is May. Do you really want to do that again?”

  He looked from my Fetch to me and back, frown deepening in a scowl. Finally, he took off his seat belt, saying, “May, move.”

  Flashing a grin, May scrambled into the backseat, settling next to Jessica and Spike.

  Connor slid into the driver’s seat and fastened his seat belt, saying conversationally, “You realize I hate you.”

  “I know,” I said, and smiled. “I’m okay with that.”

  “I didn’t really save your life,” said May.

  “I’m okay with that, too,” I said. “Come on. Let’s get these kids home.”

  Connor sighed and restarted the car. It wasn’t riding very smoothly anymore, and I was fairly sure the shocks were shot. Oh, well. There’s nothing like a good car chase to start the morning off right. I gave him the directions to Mitch and Stacy’s and fell silent, enjoying the quiet. The kids were exhausted, and Connor and May were too busy hating me to talk. It was nice to have the break.