Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(18)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Hey, hi," I said as I wrangled the phone to my ear. "We’re almost across the Mississippi. How was your flight?"

"Lousy." Ivy sounded tired, but she’d been up longer than I had. "I’m at the arch," she continued. "Stay on I-70, then take the South Memorial Drive exit just after the bridge."

"Thanks, I already looked at the map," I said, mildly peeved. The woman had not only laminated the map, but she’d used a marker to star where we could stop for Jenks.

"Follow Memorial Drive all the way down to Washington," she continued, as if I’d said nothing. "There’re signs everywhere to the parking structure."

"Okay, thanks," I said, exasperated, but Jenks was laughing as he landed on my shoulder.

"Rache, those guys are getting closer," he said, pitching his voice so Ivy could hear him.

"What guys?" Ivy asked, her concern clear through the tiny speaker.

I fluffed my hair to make Jenks take off. Thanks a hell of a lot, Jenks.

"Someone’s tailing us," I said casually.

"For how long?" she said, loud enough for Trent to hear.

"Long enough," I said. "They aren’t that close. Quarter mile."

"Two hundred feet, Ivy," Jenks said loudly, back on the rearview mirror and knowing her superior vamp hearing would pick it up. "Three guys unless someone’s taking a nap."

The good news being that if they were that close, the car probably wasn’t bugged.

"Maybe we should drive straight through. Where’s the map?" Jenks said, taking off in a burst of sparkles and vanishing in the backseat.

Trent stiffened, his gaze sharp on mine. "We need to stop."

"I don’t need a map, Jenks," I said, paying more attention to the road. We’d picked up a dump truck somewhere, and the road was getting crowded with semis and SUVs.

"If you’re being followed, just keep going," Ivy said. "I’ve got a rental car, and I’ll catch up, okay? Ram them or something."

"We are going to stop," Trent said again, looking militantly adamant. Maybe he needed to use the little boy’s room after his nappies.

From the backseat, Jenks chimed, "I found it! Trent, be a pal and open it for me, huh?"

I jiggled the phone to my other ear, and the car swerved. Ram them? Was she serious?

"Rachel?" came Ivy’s voice, and I put my attention back on the road.

"You’re not going to ram them," I said, and Trent rubbed his forehead as if in pain. "And we aren’t going to drive through. We are coming in. I’d rather meet up now than later, even if they are watching. They probably already know you’re waiting for us."

Jenks darted up from the backseat, his hands on his hips. "Trent, I could use some help here. You just going to sit there like a pile of fairy crap the entire way?"

"We don’t need the map," I said, starting to get mad. "And we are not driving through. We are stopping for Ivy!"

From my phone, Ivy was protesting, "There’s a bunch of kids here. You really want to risk a fight with the coven?"

"The coven wouldn’t dare," I said as I started to wonder. "Not with innocents around. We can have an ice cream or something. Make bunny-eared kisses at them from across the park."

"I suppose," she agreed, sounding doubtful. "Call me when you park, okay?"

Making a murmur of agreement, I closed the phone and dropped it onto my lap.

"Good plan," Trent said breathily, and a single warning flag went up, as smooth and sure as ice is cold. I don’t know why, because he was agreeing with me, but his attitude-the overwhelming relief he was trying to hide-was at complete odds with what he should be feeling with someone tailing us. Frowning, I thought back to whose idea it was to stop in St. Louis in the first place. Ivy’s, I think. She’d bought a flight going there.

The tires hummed as we found the bridge, and the world seemed to shift as we headed right for the city. The arch was huge. Word was that it pinned down one of the city’s ley lines, which I thought suspect. Why would anyone do anything so stupid?

"You need the Memorial Drive exit," Trent said intently. "It goes right past the park."

"Thanks, Trent," I said, my eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You’re in the wrong lane," he added, and clenching my teeth, I wondered what he’d do if I just drove past the exit. Watching his body language, I shifted even farther to the left to get around a black car. Sure enough, he tensed.

Interesting, I mused, and then, checking the rearview to see that the gold car had done the same, I slid back to the right-hand lane, making the motion far too fast. Jenks yelped, taking to the air as the steering wheel spun. Trent clutched the dash, glaring at me as we rocked to a halt, but saying little else as his sunglasses slid off the dash and to my feet. Another warning flag went up. That should have gotten me more than a dirty look.

"You’re going to have to do a lot more than that to lose them," Jenks said, misreading my motion, and I eyed the semi that roared up behind me, aggressively making his brakes flatulate in an effort to get me to move faster. Faster. That might be a good idea, seeing as that gold Cadillac was a car length away. Three guys. All blonds. Elves? Not the coven, then.

My phone hummed, and I ignored it. Trent jerked, his eyes showing a new alarm as he turned to me. "We need to get off this road. Now."

"Like how?" I snarled. "Our exit isn’t for another two miles."

"Well, do something!" Trent exclaimed. "Someone is prepping a spell."

My eyes flicked behind us, seeing the three heads clustered together. The shoulder was on one side and that truck on the other as he tried to pass me. A little VW bug was ahead of me, full of people. "Are you nuts? No one would make a hit on the expressway. Too many people could get hurt. And besides, I don’t feel-"

"Look out!" Jenks shrilled, and I gasped, jerking the wheel as a reddish-gold ball of something blossomed from the car behind us. Our tires hit the shoulder, gravel kicking up underneath as I struggled to maintain control at a suddenly too-fast sixty-five miles per hour.

The spell hit the VW bug ahead of us, and I watched in horror as it turned sideways and spun, right into the path of the truck barreling down on it. Sparks flew inside the small car, and the truck hit its brakes, the tires hopping on the pavement as three lanes of traffic became five, everyone trying to get out of the way. The little car spun into a roll, a protection bubble snapping into place, and I stiffened my arms, looking for an out. The truck was going to jackknife, and the rear of it was two feet away, coming closer, almost shoving us.