He bared his teeth in a snarl and worked the pump. I thought the shuck-shuck noise sounded different, which didn’t stop me from scurrying as the Remington swung back down. But when Sylvester pulled the trigger, nothing happened. Something was wrong-my guess was, the spent shell hadn’t been ejected-and the gun was jammed.
I’d caught a break, and it would have been the perfect moment to rush Sylvester and lay him out cold with one awesome punch. But only if I’d been in range, he hadn’t outweighed me by at least three hundred pounds, and the snake hadn’t been coming on fast with his own guns. I straightened all the way up, rushed to A’marie, and we ran on together, parallel to the edge of the bay.
Sadly, that plan had its own problems, since each of us was barely able to breathe. We’d only gone a few yards when A’marie staggered to a stop and gasped, “Go. They don’t want me.”
“Hostage,” I said. I meant they’d make her one and use her against me. I just didn’t have enough breath left to get it all out. She scowled and jerked her head in a nod to show she understood.
Just then, the shotgun spun between us. I guessed Sylvester had gotten frustrated trying to unjam it-either he didn’t know how, or his Hickory Farms beef-stick fingers couldn’t manage it-and thrown it like a rock.
Maybe I could unjam it, and turn this mess into a whole different fight. I staggered after it, and A’marie followed.
Behind us, metal groaned and rattled. I glanced back just in time to see Sylvester heave the Miata over his head and toss it.
I lurched around, lunged at A’marie, grabbed her, and spun both of us to the side. We lost our balance and fell. The convertible crashed down just a couple yards away. The noise nearly stunned me all by itself, and greenish bits of broken window peppered us.
“My car!” whimpered A’marie.
“Sorry,” I said. I tried to stand up and didn’t make it. Dark spots floated at the edges of my vision.
A’marie and I couldn’t go on like this. We wouldn’t make it. The magic from the green pills wasn’t a sickness or a poison. But it was messing with our bodies, and I hoped that meant Red’s power could get rid of it.
I turned myself into him and gave A’marie and then me a jolt of his mojo. It worked. I inhaled, and the air filled my lungs like it was supposed to. But afterward, I didn’t have to send Red away. He disappeared on his own. Because the mojo tap was empty.
A pistol banged. The snake had decided he was near enough to start shooting. I realized I no longer knew exactly where the shotgun had fallen. I looked around and couldn’t spot it.
I jerked A’marie to her feet, and we ran away from the water. Meanwhile, Sylvester-who maybe wasn’t much of a runner-shambled toward a green pick-up. The cab had such a high roof that it had to be a custom job.
A’marie and I found ourselves in a tangle of narrow streets lined with businesses like machine shops, used car lots, and used furniture stores, plus a bunch of little houses. Even though I’d spent my life in Tampa, I couldn’t remember ever being in this neighborhood, and wasn’t sure which way to run.
Not that I exactly wanted to run. I’d hiked from one end of Afghanistan to the other, but that had been in boots. The pavement was chewing up my bare feet. I couldn’t imagine that running was lot of fun for A’marie, either, with her soaked clothes slapping and weighing her down.
Tires squealing, the pick-up raced around a corner. For a second, I thought A’marie and I might catch another break. Sylvester didn’t drive any better than he shot, and the custom truck was top heavy. It looked like he might spin out or tip over, but then he straightened it out and kept coming. The snake leaned out the passenger window and fired a shot.
It didn’t come anywhere near A’marie and me-he would have needed a lot of luck to hit one of us with the pick-up swerving around like it was-but it got us moving again. We ran between a little seafood joint-a handwritten sign offered crab roll baskets and grouper sandwiches-and a place where you could rent to own a washing machine, refrigerator, or TV.
I thought about ducking into one of those businesses, but didn’t. It might only get us cornered. And I guess that if I’d learned anything, it was not to involve ordinary human beings in Old People business.
Tires screeched off to the left. Sylvester was heading for the next street over to cut us off. A pistol banged. I turned around and saw the snake slithering toward us. He’d gotten out of the truck to follow us. I guessed he was a big believer in boxing people in.
A’marie and I ran left, where the concrete-block rent-to-own place cut off the snake’s line of fire. “We just have to keep moving till we shake them off our tail,” I panted.
“We can try,” said A’marie, puffing the words out one at a time between her short but quick steps. “But Epunamlin-the snake-is a good hunter.”
The bastard was fast, too. No matter how many times A’marie and I turned corners, he kept catching up enough to take another shot. Even using pistols, there was a good chance he was going to hit us eventually.
Looking down the space between two buildings, I saw a bigger used car lot than the ones I’d noticed before. Lines of sedans, SUV’s, and trucks sat under strings of flapping plastic pennons. There was a trailer at the back, and a yellow Mustang was “Today’s Special.”
The place gave me an idea. Well, the start of one, anyway. I led A’marie in that direction, and hoped Sylvester wasn’t waiting to run us over as soon as we charged out onto the street.
He wasn’t, although the screech of rubber sounded too damn close as he took a corner somewhere off to the right. A’marie and I staggered onto the lot and hunkered down behind a Chevy Tahoe.
“Now what?” she asked.
I struggled to come up with Phase Two. “Once you catch your breath, do you think your music could put a hex on both of them?”
“And make it stick for more than a few seconds? I don’t know. They’re both powerful in their own ways.”
I peeked around the edge of the SUV just as Epunamlin reached the other side of the street. His tongue flicked in and out of his mouth a couple times, and then he stopped where he was. Somehow he could tell A’marie and I had stopped running, and he was waiting for Sylvester to show up before he moved in for the kill.
“Okay,” I said, “then we won’t count on it to last for more than a moment or two. But tell me you have something sharp.”
“My horns?”
“No offense, but I’m not sure they’ll do the job.” Which meant I was going to have to drag somebody from the normal world into my problems after all. “Stay here.”
I ran for the trailer. Using the cars for cover, I kept low. But I had to come out into the open to get to the door. Epunamlin spotted me as I scurried up the three wrought-iron steps. A shot punched through the window on my left, making a hole and a spider web of cracks.
I hustled through the door and yanked it shut behind me. The salesman behind the desk had his eyes and his mouth open wide. You couldn’t blame him for being startled. First a bullet whizzed out of nowhere into his office, and then a crazy guy wearing nothing but swim trunks followed it in a split second later.
The salesman had a letter opener on his desk. I grabbed it. I looked around for another object like it and didn’t see one.
“They don’t want you,” I said. “Stay inside, stay low, and you’ll be all right.”
I threw open the door and dived back out. Epunamlin tried to draw a bead on me, and then thought better of it. Probably because right about then, Sylvester’s truck pulled up, and the weeping willow man climbed out.
I crouched back down beside A’marie. “What are we doing?” she asked. Her voice was tense but not panicky, and she’d caught her breath.