by Mark Francis
Chapter 14
Ten cars waited in double file at the Bay Street intersection in front of the Archives building. The wild Suffering contrasted with the falling snow as they met near the ground.
The car beside them was deep purple with white racing stripes. The driver was a young woman with black lipstick and lots of dark eye shadow. She looked surprised when she saw Daea. The young Hardy waved and stuck out her tongue.
A man on the side of the road pointed a starter pistol into the night. A loud bang sounded and the race began. The cars roared as they accelerated down the road.
“Punch it,” Daea yelled. She jammed the shifter into second gear. The car rattled violently and stalled.
Sitting on the floor of the car with his feet on the pedals and Daea’s legs hanging over his shoulders, Eli said, “You have to tell me when to clutch! Start the car and let’s go!”
Daea turned the key and brought the car back to life. She saw Eva on the side of the road holding her shaking head.
By the time the Childaar had crossed the start line, the other racers were out of sight.
Eli looked at the map and said, “Keep left. We don’t want to get on that bridge and end up in Quebec.”
Daea navigated the car down through the intersection and past the somber Canadian War Museum. They geared up and sped down the Sir John A. McDonald Parkway.
The four lane road twisted alongside the wide Ottawa River. The road darkened as the street lamps spread further apart.
Daea spotted an old, orange car with a thin green pinstripe. Black smoke sputtered from its tailpipe. Daea got into the left lane and overtook the old beater. She stuck her tongue out at the driver, who looked like he could still be in high school.
“Ninth place,” she announced.
Eli studied the map. “We should be nearing the end of this parkway soon. We have to cut back to get to the Queensway.”
The Smart had just given his warning when the road veered left, away from the river. They turned onto Carling Avenue, passed a series of apartment buildings, small shops, restaurants, and houses, and got onto Woodruff Avenue. Two blocks later, at the ramp onto the Queensway, they caught up to a teal and black car.
The Childaar pulled alongside the other racer on the single lane exit. He had narrow eyes and a large nose. The man honked his horn and screamed from the confines of his vehicle. The aggressive move paid off as Daea and Eli got the inside track, which gave them the lead onto the Highway.
“Eighth place!”
No other vehicles could be seen on the 417. The falling snow and the angry sea of Suffering created a tunnel of white and black between the sound barriers alongside the roads. Daea turned on the car’s high beams, which made visibility worse. She couldn’t see past the hood of the car as a blizzard of snowflakes pelted the windshield. She returned to the low beams as they sped down the narrow tube.
“Maitland, Parkdale, Rochester,” the girl called as they flew by the street exits. “Where is everyone?”
“We’re about a quarter done this race. We have to catch up to them soon if we want to win,” Eli replied.
Daea gripped the wheel tightly, focused on the road, and said, “We’ll win.”
The storm lulled momentarily as they passed Bronson Avenue. Daea saw the Museum of Nature’s silhouette across the street. She jumped in her seat. “I see our home!”
Eli, who kept steady pressure on the gas pedal, consulted the map. “That means we’ll be crossing the Rideau Canal soon. We’re going to stay on the Queensway for a while yet.”
“Just keep that pedal to the metal,” the girl said as they put the car into top gear.
The car hit black ice above the canal, and it began to fishtail. The rear end of their rally car swerved back and forth across the bridge. Daea regained control, but they had lost speed during the near catastrophic slide.
“What happened?” Eli yelled.
“Nothing to worry about. I see another racer. Let’s get them.”
A young woman wearing a tiara drove a pink decaled car with green flames painted on the side. Her driver’s side panel was crinkled. As they passed the car on the bridge across the Ottawa river, her face grew angry and she swerved at the Childaar. Daea kicked Eli to tap the brake. The woman missed. She lost control and slammed into the short concrete wall separating the direction of traffic.
“Nice pedal work, Eli. That woman just tried to hit us with her car.”
“That’s not very sporting.”
“I know. I guess people really want to win this race, and if they can’t, they want to make sure that others can’t either. At least we’re in seventh place now.”
The Childaar’s red car continued to zip down the snowy road. The exits for the Vanier Parkway and St. Laurent Boulevard were but a blur. Daea increased the wiper speed to as fast as they would go, but it made little difference. She could barely see beyond the fence lining the highway as the landscape changed from office buildings and apartments to bushes, trees, and empty fields.
Eli said, “Expect a confusing intersection soon. The 417 highway splits towards Montreal, but we want to be on the 174 to Orleans.”
“Got it,” Daea said as she navigated the car under two overpasses to follow the proper course. Given the car’s incredible speed, it wasn’t long before they were outside of the city, surrounded by wintery fields of snow. The Suffering flowed over and between the tire tracks on the road.
“I see a sign for the Jeanne D’Arc exit. That’s what we want, right?”
“Yes. It’s a cloverleaf intersection, so we want to follow the signs back onto the Queensway.”
“No problem,” Daea replied.
“Do you know who Jeanne D’Arc was?”
“No, but I bet you do.”
“Seriously, you don’t know?”
“Just tell me.”
“Joan of Arc. It’s how you say her name en français.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know who Joan of Arc was? The fifteenth century French heroine? Her nickname was the Maid of Orléans. The English burned her at the stake when she was nineteen years old. Rumor has it that she was a young vampire.”
“She was?”
“I don’t know. She may have Awakened, but there’s no evidence to prove it.”
Daea exited the Queensway, drove past a covered bus stop, turned onto the boulevard, and then turned back onto the Highway. She and Eli had their driving system mastered. It didn’t take long for them to reach maximum speed as they returned to the city.
“Well, I think she was a young vampire. I think she was probably a Hardy.”
Eli sighed. “Says the girl who never reads books.”
“That’s why we make such a great team.”
The streetlights offered little illumination as the car plowed down the highway. Daea spotted a white and red rally car stuck in the ditch.
“Sixth,” the girl squealed in delight. “That was easy.”
“What happened?”
“Someone spun off the road.”
“Awesome,” Eli replied. Not much further, they traversed an overpass, and Eli said, “We just crossed the Rockcliffe Parkway.”
“How do you know?”
“I felt it. Anyway, that’s where we’re going.”
“But we just passed it.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you. You have to take the Montreal Road exit, then get onto St. Joseph’s Boulevard, which turns into the parkway.”
Daea’s eyes widened. “Uh oh.”
“What!”
“There’s a crash at the bottom of the turnoff. Slow down so that we can get through this mess.”
Their car rolled up to the accident. Two rally cars blocked the road. The racers stood outside yelling and screaming at each other. As they got closer, Daea saw the young woman with dark makeup who they had lined up beside at the beginning of the race.
“Give it a bit of gas. You’re going to feel a bump,” Daea told
her partner.
They drove their car into the back panel of the woman’s purple car. It moved enough so that they could get by. The other racers stopped yelling at each other and began yelling at the Childaar. They cleared the wreckage and turned onto the Rockcliffe Parkway, where the car howled as it moved through the gears and regained top speed.
The tall trees that lined the road looked beautiful in the dark and stormy night. Daea focused on the road as she piloted the twisty path.
“I see brake lights. It’s hard to tell how far ahead they are.”
The trees opened and Daea saw the blizzard rage across the Ottawa River. She saw occasional glimpses of the car in front as they wove through the bends in the road.
“We’ll be at the Aviation museum soon,” Eli said.
“There’s an aviation museum?”
“I’ve been there twice.”
“Really, when did you go?”
“I don’t know, some night we were just hanging out. I asked if you wanted to join me, but you said you weren’t interested.”
“I think I see it. It looks like a big gray lump in the middle of a field.”
They caught up to a two-toned blue car. Daea coasted behind the vehicle. The road split at the intersection of the Rockcliffe and Aviation parkways.
Daea asked, “Left or right at the museum?”
“Stay left.”
“The car in front went right.”
“That was a mistake. That’s the entrance to the museum. It meets up with the Parkway again, but there’s an intersection to cross.”
Daea smiled and took the car up and across the overpass. It was close, but when the cars met at the merge, the Childaar had the lead. The bright blue car was so close behind them that Daea could see the driver in her rearview mirror. He was an old, bald man, with a curled mustache.
“We beat him. We’re ahead,” the girl yelled.
A large field opened on their left, and a black blur approached the road.
“I think I see a horse!”
“We’re next to the RCMP’s musical ride, but I can’t imagine why there would be a horse out in these conditions.”
“RCMP Musical ride?”
“Yeah, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They’re Canada’s federal police force. In the past, they would patrol the country on horseback. They keep the tradition alive by performing horse shows across the country.”
The lone black stallion ran parallel to the cars but was soon outpaced by the speeding automobiles.
The cars jockeyed for position, but no matter what Daea and Eli did, the blue car stayed on their tail.
The road narrowed and turned hard to the left. The parkway darkened as the snow muffled the street lamps. Daea and Eli hit a patch of ice and almost smashed into a large rock wall. The blue car slowed to match their pace as the cars drove between a wall of rock and the river. The cars plowed forward, kicking snow and Suffering in their wake.
“Where are we?” Daea asked.
“Can you see the river?”
“No.”
“We must be close to Rideau Hall. The Governor General’s home.”
“Who?”
“Canada’s Head of State. It’s a mostly ceremonial position. He or she—”
“Whatever,” Daea cut him off. “This road is hard to follow. It’s too snowy and too dark.”
“There will be two roundabouts coming up. Take it easy. We won’t win if we crash.”
Daea’s eyes narrowed. “We won’t win if we take it easy.”
They approached the first roundabout. The blue car pulled alongside the Childaar, and the old man entered the junction the wrong way—clockwise. His car slid through the intersection without losing much speed. He was in the lead when they exited.
“He got ahead of us,” Daea yelled. “He didn’t slow down like we had to.”
“He must have drifted. We’ll catch him on the next one.”
“How do I drift?”
“As we enter the second roundabout, we’ll put the car in second gear. I’ll keep the clutch down and you crank the wheel. Then I’ll tap the brake causing our back end to slide out. Tell me when, and I’ll pop the clutch and we’ll blast out of the turn.”
The Childaar’s car was less than a hand’s length from the man’s. The second roundabout appeared out of the dark. The Suffering was in an absolute frenzy. To their left was the entrance to Rideau Hall, while the Prime Minister’s house was on the right. This time the man took his car into the proper lane of the roundabout, which forced the Childaar into the wrong side of the circular junction. Both cars shot snow into the air as they drifted. The young vampires popped the clutch too early and smashed into their opponent as they headed back onto Sussex Drive. The blue car spun out of control and crashed into the Prime Minister’s driveway. Daea fought with the wheel and regained control of their car. The last thing she saw in the rearview mirror as they sped away was the old man shaking his fist at them.
Daea and Eli accelerated like professionals and plowed down Sussex. They passed the exquisite French embassy; the modern John G. Diefenbaker building; the National Research Council; and the Department of Foreign Affairs, a large brown, stepped building, whose design was inspired by the Egyptian Sphinx. The Childaar crossed over a bridge and passed the Saudi Arabian and Japanese embassies.
“It’s the A-team’s home. The art gallery,” Daea said when she spotted the large spider statue.
“We’re coming into downtown. Just remember, we want to be on the right-hand side of the U.S. embassy.”
Daea steered around a monument to Canadian Peace Keeping. It was a wall upon which three soldier statues observed the surrounding area. In the distance, the Chateau Laurier was but a faint outline in the night.
“I see cars,” Daea said.
“How many?”
“Two. They’re just passing our embassy.”
“We have to beat them to win this thing.”
“We will.”
The girl guided the car into the tracks of the cars ahead. They passed the embassy and a big, Gothic government building. The Childaar caught up to their competition at the Wellington Street intersection.
A chocolate brown car with a blue racing stripe and a black car with tinted windows and a skull on the hood rounded the corner in front of the hotel. Daea and Eli used their drifting technique to keep behind them.
Just before the National War Monument, the girl steered the car into the far left lane, but a large dump truck with a snowplow on its front blocked them as it turned off of Elgin onto Wellington.
The girl screamed while kicking down on Eli. “Brake! Brake!”
Decelerating and swerving at the same time, they got back behind the brown car.
“I can’t get by. There’s no room.”
“Get into the oncoming lane!”
On the other side of the monument, Daea pulled their car into the lane for oncoming traffic. She spotted a lone figure on the left, peeking from behind the Langevin building. He or she ran out to the street and threw a fist sized object.
The Childaar’s windshield shattered and airbags exploded from the steering wheel and passenger’s dash.
“What was that?” Eli screamed.
“Someone threw a rock at us. I can’t see anything.”
Daea moved her head around trying to find a clear spot in the window, but the spiderweb of cracks, blowing snow, and crashing waves of Suffering made visibility impossible. The Hardy protracted her claws, punctured the airbag, and then swiped at the windshield. Glass, snow, and Suffering exploded into the car. By the time she could see anything, the other racers had advanced past Parliament.
Little could be seen of the looming buildings as they sped down the street. The brown and black cars exchanged leads as they funneled between the Bank of Canada and Justice Building.
Daea held the wheel tight, and Eli kept the gas pedal floored. They dashed blindly through the storm. They caught up to the racers in front of the
Supreme Court. Snow flew behind the three cars as they barreled toward the finish line. The man who’d started the race waved a checkered flag as they all crossed the intersection in front of Library and Archives Canada.
The Suffering transformed from an angry sea into a simmering pool of darkness. The snowstorm also relaxed. The blizzard was now a snowy night.
Eva ran toward Daea and Eli with a big smile. “You won! You won!” She showed them a camera. “My dad got a picture of the finish.”
The photo showed the Childaar’s red car as it crossed the finish line a few hairs ahead of the others. All the kids jumped and hugged each other. Eva’s father walked over and thanked them for the win.
The celebration was interrupted when five large black pickup trucks ran the group onto the steps of the Archives building. A big, mean looking man in a leather jacket and a ball cap with a red X on the front pointed at them. Angry men and women with rifles jumped out of the trucks.
Eli whispered to Daea, “Firearms can really hurt us. You could take some hits, but I’d be done pretty quickly. We should try to get out of this situation and deal with it later—on our terms.”
The fattest man Daea had ever seen got out of the front truck and walked into the circle to face the Childaar.
“I wonder if he's Contaminated?” Eli asked sarcastically.
“I’d bet everyone here is. If we had Jesi-Sera and Chuck, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
Eli shrugged.
The man yelled at them to be silent. He yelled for a long time, and froth sputtered from his mouth. He told them that they had ruined everything. He accused the Childaar of cheating and disqualified them from the race. The adults cheered when the man in the black car, with the oversized coat and backwards hat, was declared the winner.
Eva looked sad. Her dad looked angry, but he kept his opinion to himself.
Daea protested that it wasn’t fair and that they were the true winners. The fat man laughed and told them that life wasn’t fair. He said they should leave before they got hurt. Daea told him that he should reverse his decision before he got hurt.
The fat man nodded to one of his henchmen, who fired two shots at Daea’s feet. The girl didn’t flinch and stood her ground. The fat man nodded toward Eva and her father.
Daea and Eli jumped in front of the girl and her dad. The Hardy extended her claws and crouched, ready to pounce. The Smart struck his Bruce Lee pose.
The fat man brought his arm up in the air and called everyone to be ready. A series of clinks sounded as the guns cocked. He called for everyone to set, and the adults aimed their rifles at the group. The man was about to bring down his arm to order the fire, when a hairless blue creature with a bat’s head and tiger’s body appeared out of thin air. It charged the fat man and knocked down half of his underlings in the process.
The other adults shot their guns. Daea jumped forward and soaked most of the hits and was thrown back into a snowbank. Eli took two bullets as he pushed Eva and her father to the ground.
Hyelsing charged the next group of adults. She swung her head and sent them hurtling through the air. Terrified, the grownups abandoned their trucks and ran away. The blue creature looked at the Childaar knowingly before she vanished.
“Is everyone OK?” Daea asked as she checked on the group.
Eva lay atop Eli. “Don’t die, Eli. Please don’t die.”
The Suffering had returned to its normal wispy state.
Daea pulled the girl away and inspected the wounds. They had already begun to heal.
The boy sat up and said, “I’m OK.”
Eva laughed and hugged him. Her face darkened. “Did you see that monster?”
The Smart looked at Eva’s dad, who stood in a state of bewilderment. He whispered, “I did.”
“Monsters are real?”
“They are. You don’t need to worry about them, though. That’s our job.”
The dad shook his head and told his daughter that they had to go. He thanked the Childaar, again, for saving his family.
Tears streamed down the little girl’s face. “I don’t want you to go.”
Daea rubbed the girl’s back. “We have to. And you do too. You and your family have a life to get on with.”
“So I won’t ever see you again?”
“We help people, and I think you are done being helped.”
Eli said, “Unless they are involved in another Operation.”
Daea shot him a hard look.
“But you’re my friends. I don’t want you to go away,” Eva said.
Daea held her hand. “It’s OK. Sometimes friends have to say goodbye to each other.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Maybe,” Daea said, and gave the girl one last hug.
“I’ll miss you and never forget you. I will get two dolls. Their names will be Daea and Eli. You will be with me every time I have a tea party.”
Daea smiled. “Goodbye, Eva.”
“Are you OK?” Daea asked her friend.
Eli inspected his side. “That hurt, but I seem to be alright. How are you?”
“No problem,” the girl replied.
“Did you see that monster?”
“Yeah, what was that? It saved us.”
Eli’s brow furrowed. “I have no idea. I’ve never heard of a monster helping Childaar. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. How should we get home? Want to drive?”
Eli laughed. “Yeah, right.”
The young vampires trekked home through the knee-high snow.