Part 5 (1/2)
Despite the Mercury's faded exterior, its engine was in excellent shape. Acceleration shoved Alouzon back in her seat as the car roared out into the left lane.
”Jia would be jealous,” she murmured to herself.
The driver blinked at her with dark eyes. ”Jia?”
Lights were pa.s.sing: street lights, traffic signals, the neon glow of bars and storefronts. Alouzon regarded them with a clenched throat. ”Uh ... a friend of mine.”
”Don't I know you?”
She nearly laughed, but she stifled it: she was afraid she would start crying. ”No. You don't.”
The big Mercury cruised out towards Western. ”Sure I do. Lessee. Uh . . . waitaminute. I remember: you're a waitress. I seen you up at the . . . uh . . . Tropicana. Yeah, that's it. I go there all the time. You do that mud wrestling. You girls got some muscles, I'll tell you. And you're built like G.o.ddesses.” He grinned at her. ”I got me a celebrity.”
Despite her efforts in the park rest room, Alouzon decided that she probably made the mud wrestling girls look clean by comparison. ”Sorry. You're out of luck.”
The driver was unfazed. ”You comin' back from a party?''
She snorted softly. ' 'I wish.''
The city went by. Western Avenue and the green porcelain of the Wiltern Theater, then Wilton Place. Early morning, pre-dawn: traffic was light, and the Mercury purred and grumbled along Wils.h.i.+re as though it were a jungle cat marking its kingdom.
”What'cha do for a living?”
Trainee G.o.d came to mind. Alouzon shrugged. ”I get by.”
”You interested in earning a little extra cash?”
She read his meaning. It would have been easy to become angry, but she had other things on her mind. ”Sorry. Not interested ”Come on, I'm not a cop. Fifty?”
”No. Give it up.” Just get me to Bel Air, d.i.c.k-head. I've got things to do.
He frowned petulantly. Face set, he glowered over the wheel, took the turning onto Highland, and cruised up the street at ten miles an hour over the speed limit.
”This isn't going to get us to Bel Air any time soon,” said Alouzon.
”I know what I'm doing.”
”Suit yourself.” She settled back, tried to decide what she should do after she had picked up her car. Go home? What was home? ”By the way: what day is it?”
He grinned. ”You don't know? It's Sat.u.r.day. Musta' been some party.”
”Yeah,” she said. ”Quite a party.” 3.5-inch rockets, and Skyhawks, and hounds whose blood melted flesh like hot lye. And then the Specter.
The Mercury pa.s.sed beneath the Hollywood Freeway, but, caught up in her thoughts, Alouzon did not notice for a minute. When she did, she chewed it over hi her mind for a moment, then: ”All right, dude. Where are you taking me?”
He did not look at her. ”I got some friends that want to meet you, girl.”
”Not interested.”
He pulled up at a stop sign. ”Sorry, dude,” said Alouzon. She reached for the door handle. It had been removed. The Mercury pulled out again, tires screeching. ”Say, guy, what the f.u.c.k is going-”
She broke off. He had drawn a knife and was holding it a few inches from her linen tunic. ”Just sit still, babe, and you won't get hurt,” he said. ”You got a cute body and you had your chance to make a few bucks with it. But you turned it down. Now it's all gonna be for free.”
The Mercury picked up speed. Alouzon examined the knife. Sharp, but thin and cheap, it was, she decided, suitable only for abducting properly socialized females. ”Cute,” she said, biting back her anger. ”Does it come in an adult size?”
He drove on. The car was traveling too fast for her to make a move. As Gryylth, Corrin, and Vaylle hung balanced in precarious existence, she bided her time.
The man turned into the maze of streets that wound through the hills east of Hollywood Lake. Houses here were dark and set back behind overgrown gardens and unkempt lawns. Trees that had not seen a pruning in twenty years straggled and drooped over roofs and power lines.
The Mercury slowed because of the twists in the road. The shoulders of the road were unpaved, and a vacant lot appeared ahead, overgrown with gra.s.s and weeds.
The lot was on the right now, pa.s.sing swiftly. Alouzon moved. Grabbing the hand that held the knife, she bent it back until she heard the wrist snap. The sound was as gratifying as the harsh, sucking intake of breath that came from the man's lips.
The Mercury wavered. Backhanding the driver with a fist, Alouzon grabbed the wheel and ran the car over the unpaved shoulder and into the tall gra.s.s of the vacant lot. With a free hand, she grabbed the ignition key and pulled it out, but when the car continued running she cursed aloud and pushed down on the brake pedal with her hand until the engine lugged and stalled.
Wary of another knife, she shoved herself away from the man, but he was looking at a right hand bent back at a crazy angle. Pieces of bone stuck out of his wrist, and blood was oozing from the rents they had left.
Pain finally cut through his shock, and he started to scream. ”You . . . you ...”
Cities had been razed. Dindrane's people had been decimated. And Cvinthil and an army bent on revenge were making for Vaylle. There was too much death in the past and future for Alouzon to be bothered by the whining of one bully.
She reached to her boot and extracted her own dagger. It was small, but its leaf-shaped blade was broad, sharp, and built for fighting. It made the man's stiletto seem a child's toy. ”You're playing with the big girls now, s.h.i.+t-for-brains,” she whispered, laying the point against his throat.
His screams cut off. He started to whine frantically, and he made a lunge for the door handle, but she caught him by the s.h.i.+rt.
”You're not going anywhere,” she said. ”And shut the f.u.c.k up. I've seen men with wounds a lot worse than yours holding their own against three.” Alouzon gave him a shake. ”You G.o.ddam wimp.”
She kicked out the pa.s.senger side window, opened the door from the outside, and sprinted around the car. Jerking open the driver's door before he had time to move, she shoved him to the far side of the car and slid in behind the wheel. ”Don't even think about trying anything,” she said.
Terrified, holding the ruin of his wrist, he stared at her as she restarted the car, backed out of the lot, and drove down to Highland. Taking the turning onto Sunset, she made her way westward, faintly astonished that she could operate anything more technologically complex than a horse. But the Mercury purred along under her guidance as her would-be abductor cowered in the corner.
She glanced at him. His eyes were glazed with pain, his wrist was b.l.o.o.d.y, swollen, and discoloring with ma.s.sive bruises. But her pity evaporated when she thought of what he had intended to do to her-what he would have done to another woman with less experience in fighting.
The man groaned and shut his eyes, obviously expecting no more mercy than he himself had been prepared to give. But Alouzon shook her head and turned onto Helen's street, still wondering at the anomaly of her strong brown hands on a welded chain-link steering wheel. Just around a bend from the house, she made a U-turn, stopped, and pulled on the parking brake. ”OK, buddy. It's your turn again.”
He stared, unbelieving, but after dumping her armor and sword onto the asphalt, Alouzon got out, grabbed him by the s.h.i.+rt, and dragged him over behind the wheel. Her knife was in her hand again.
”Now,” she said, holding the blade to his throat, ”you drive. And you drive real good. The UCLA Medical Center is at Le Conte and Tiverton, right by the campus. They've got an emergency room there: they can fix your wrist.” She started to close the door, but a thought struck her and she stopped and leaned towards him. ”And don't ever think you're gonna use a knife to grab a little piece of a.s.s again, 'cause I'll fix you good if you do.”
She slammed the door and picked up her armor. The man dithered at the wheel, groped for the parking brake and the s.h.i.+ft with his good hand.
She kicked the side of the car. ”Move. ”
Shakily, weaving back and forth, he drove off down the street. The sound of the Mercury's engine faded into the distance.
But its rumble was replaced by another, and when Alouzon turned towards the bend in the road, she saw the trees and shrubs lit by the reflection of flas.h.i.+ng lights: red, blue, yellow, white. A helicopter was circling above, its searchlight stabbing down into the darkness, the roar of its engine blending with the distinctive sound of idling fire and rescue trucks.
She suddenly remembered the attack on Helen's house. Weeks had pa.s.sed in Gryylth. Los Angeles had known only a few hours.
Lugging her armor and sword, she turned the corner and found that the house was a ruin of gla.s.s, brick, steel, and wood. As though a great weight had fallen upon it, it had been demolished so thoroughly that the two-story structure now rose no higher than the head of a tall man. Police cars were parked in the street and on the lawn, and officers and firefighters were examining the wreckage cautiously.