Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(142)
Author: Kim Harrison

"No, wait! Come back!" his mother was crying as she ran down the cobbled walk, her hands waving. Boyd hit the gas, and Grace rechecked her belt.

"I don’t know if I should be impressed or worried as all hell that he didn’t stall his bike," Boyd said, and Grace reached out the open window to put a flashing light on the roof as they raced through an empty four-way stop.

They weren’t gaining, and knowing that she could find Hoc anywhere given enough time, Grace braced herself against a turn and tried to open the map. The GPS was gone, too. It wasn’t hard to insulate a vehicle, but all the little gadgets were harder. That Zach had enough power to unconsciously short out their watches yet enough control to save his bike said a lot. Successfully bringing him in might get her enough kudos to demand a transfer to the elite. It wasn’t that she didn’t like collecting, but she wanted more-so much so that it hurt.

"Steak dinner says he’s heading for the expressway," Grace said as they careened around the corner. Zach was taking them through a small cluster of light commercial buildings, and people scrambled back onto the sidewalk as cars beeped at them. "He’s going to have to go through an industrial park. Take the next main right. We can cut him off."

Hand gripping the car frame, Grace braced her feet as Boyd jostled over a railroad track. Just that fast, they were free of people, and Boyd stepped on the gas. The wind pushed through her hair, and she leaned forward, enjoying it. Grace squinted past the waving strands as Boyd raced down a dusty industrial road, lights flashing but no siren.

Zach had fried their watches, so anything that happened from here on out could be justified as necessary force, but no one would thank them if this ended with the local power grid collapsing. Blaming the power outage on a squirrel caught in a transformer only worked once. All she cared about though was finding Zach before he learned enough to become a real threat-if it wasn’t too late already. There were ways to increase the amount of ergs you could throw, and figuring out that cup of coffee in the morning was why you could now toast your bread with a finger was not hard.

She could feel him . . . a spot of energy sizzing like a worn tension wire, and she pulled her windblown hair out of her mouth. "I think we’re in front of him," she said, and Boyd nodded.

"I can hear his bike. How do you want to do this?"

Grace thought of the blast of polarity that had exploded from Zach when he had run, frying their car’s gadgets and stopping their watches. He had enough aptitude and guts to know how to use it, and probably enough caffeine in him to accidentally kill someone. "I’m open to suggestions . . ."

Taking a slow breath, Boyd reached into an inner jacket pocket and pulled out a candy bar.

Seeing it, Grace felt herself go cold. "Boyd . . ." she warned, turning where she sat as he slowed the car and parked in the shade of a quiet building. Caffeine could boost their power, but it made their abilities unpredictable. It wasn’t illegal for them to eat it, but like a drug, it was easy to get hooked, lured into believing you could handle the increased power until they found you dead of an overdose, your heart fried by your own brain. Shit. He said he’d been having balance issues . . .

"You’re not going to tell on me, are you?" he said, smiling sickly as he fumbled unfamiliarly at the plastic wrapper.

"Boyd, how long have you been . . . Stop!" she yelled when he crammed half of it in his mouth. "Are you crazy?"

"No, I’m scared," he said around his full mouth. "Grace, I’m losing it. This is the only thing keeping me on the street working."

He got out. Grace sat where she was, stunned. Her partner was a booster. He wasn’t able to keep his levels up, and he was relying on self-dosing caffeine to find it. There was an unregistered throw coming at them at forty-five miles per hour on a bike, and her partner was going to do something incredibly stupid.

She looked at her watch, having forgotten Zach had fried it. Outside the car, Boyd crouched to look in the window. Guilt pinched his aged eyes. "He’s insulated his bike. I need to give it one hell of a pull. I can’t do it without the boost. I’ll stop the bike, you stop him."

"Then you’d better drop him, because I’m not chasing after him if you’re high on caffeine," she said, and the sound of the bike grew closer. Damn it, her partner was boosting. How long? How long had he been doing this?

"I only ate half," he grumped as she got out. "I know what I’m doing!"

Boyd gestured for her to cross the street to get out of his blast radius. Nervous, she jogged across the broken cement, not liking this but not knowing what else to do. Boyd had been throwing energy longer than she’d been alive. She remembered eating her Halloween candy as a little girl, and then exploding pumpkins afterward to get rid of the extra energy. It hadn’t been the pumpkins that had given her away to the authorities.

The brum, brum of the bike grew louder, and Boyd ambled out into the middle of the street, adjusting his suit to look like a gunslinger. "Zach! Stop your bike!" he shouted when the scared kid turned a corner and slowed, taking in the new situation. Grace tensed when he gunned it.

"Bad choice," she said, checking her motion to run into the street when the kid angled his bike right at her partner.

Boyd calmly scooped up a bent pipe, swinging it dramatically in a loop over his head, gathering the energy his cells could burn in a day into one microsecond pulse. With a yell that echoed as loud as the bike, he threw the pipe at the bike.

Zach swerved and the pipe hit the ground in front of him. Hitting him wasn’t Boyd’s intention, and Grace’s brow pinched in fear when a visible line of blue energy arched from Boyd to the pipe, stretching between them as a bridge of power.

A sparkle of black raced from Boyd’s outstretched hand following the trace. It hit the pipe and jumped to Zach. Grace cowered, hiding her head when a boom of force exploded from it, knocking Zach from his bike and shattering windows. In the distance, a car alarm went off. Even farther away, an industrial klaxon began honking. Now we’ve done it, she thought as Hoc limped into view at the end of the street. Seeing her, he loped forward.

Zach’s bike slid twenty feet, without Zach on it. The kid slowly sat up, his jeans torn and his arm bleeding. Her eyes darted to her partner. He was down on one knee, and as she watched, Boyd clutched at his left arm and fell to both his knees.

"Boyd!" she screamed, running to him.

Zach staggered to his feet. "I’m not ever going to be one of you!" he cried out, shambling into a shaky run.

She slid to a stop beside Boyd. He was ashen faced, his expression drawn and in pain. "Boyd, are you breathing? Is your heart okay?" she exclaimed, holding his shoulders and keeping him upright.