I studied the map for half that time. The aging Tappan-Zee Bridge was the starting point for one of the major trucking routes from New York to Illinois. The house was at the end of a private lane off a narrow, winding forest road. We got onto the Taconic State Parkway, the road I normally took to get to Bozya Akra, and gunned north along the abandoned highway at twenty miles over the limit until we merged onto Saw Mill River Road.
“It’s the next left, Zane.” Talya’s voice was high and nervous. She had the radio, thumbing the trigger nervously. “Then take the second right, then follow the road to Marian Place. The house is the one right at the end of the cul-de-sac.”
“Roger that,” Zane replied, barely slowing as he took the hard corner and rumbled over the uneven asphalt. “Everyone ready to go?”
“As ready as I can be.” Angkor unwrapped his rifle and loaded a round, then wound his window down. We all did the same thing. Behind us, the motorcycle escort slowed at the entry to Inningwood Road, one of the two ‘mouths’ that opened up onto the highway. Looking back, I saw Jenner give us the thumbs-up.
From my position behind Zane, I could get the best view of the road outside. As we took the road deeper into the woods, flying at sixty in a thirty zone, I leaned out to get a look at what was coming up around the curve.
Three cars roared out of Marian Place just was we were coming up on it. They screeched as they swung around on the turn and rushed us headlong in both lanes.
Zane wrenched the handbrake and threw the wheel to drift us as the first car clipped our bumper and flew by, followed by the zip-zip of the other two as they passed at high speed. I was flung back into my seat by centrifuge as the Lincoln about-faced, coming to a smoking standstill as a semi-trailer clawed up the shallow hill like a dinosaur and thundered off down the road. There was a shipping container on the back of the truck.
“Bravo! Echo!” Talya shouted into the radio.
“Damn this fucking- HOLD ON!” Zane slammed the accelerator, starting off in a cloud of burned rubber and swinging us in right behind the truck.
Angkor chambered a round into his rifle. “Get in closer! I can shoot out the tires.”
“You get in closer, asshole!” Zane snapped back.
We gained on the semi when it had to turn. I leaned out again, further this time, and aimed the Glock at the rear wheels of the truck just ahead of us. I exhaled, focused, and then nearly flew out of the car and onto the road as an unseen vehicle slammed into us from behind.
Zane held on as the car wobbled and threatened to twist and spin, but the suspension and his strength kept us moving forward. The car that had rammed us pulled up alongside, a black Jeep with Duke at the wheel. His formerly handsome face was barely recognizable as human: his cheekbones had been shattered, his face slashed from side to side. His skull was deformed, dented and shot through with razor shards of glass from every wound. He had a pistol leveled at Talya’s head.
“Down!” I was already headed for the floor.
Talya dropped, arms over her head, as one bullet zinged overhead and the second hit with an explosion that took a huge chunk out of the edge of the doorframe. I smelled phosphorus. Incendiary rounds.
Zane steered us away as the side of the car took several more bullets, and then ran our low-slung car into the taller Jeep broadside, trying to destabilize it and knock it off the road. Angkor braced against the passenger-side door and set the rifle against his shoulder, holding steady through the shoving match.
“Cover your ears!” He called out, and fired.
His first bullet took the driver’s side door, denting the Jeep and forcing it away; the second shot took out Duke’s front tire. His car lurched towards us as he fought for control, and he slammed into the Lincoln broadside, his front window level with Talya’s. He snarled, his face a bestial mask, his teeth stained black, and lunged through the pair of open windows.
“Duke, come on! Look what they’ve done to you!” Talya slashed at him with the machete as he groped and clawed for her. She hit his face with her machete, lashing the back of the driver’s seat with dark blood. Duke howled, the sound choking off as the cut sealed over with Yen and his eyeballs burst. Needles of glass forced themselves out of his sockets, crowding them.
Talya screamed and dropped the knife. I pushed her back against the seat and shot him twice in the neck and chest, point-blank. I’d hoped the force of it would knock him back, but the impacts didn’t even slow him. Zane hauled the wheel to pull us away, Duke lunged through the window, clawing at Talya with hands that were already half leopard.
“Miss me, babe?” He snarled, voice too deep and thick to be human, and then ruptured into animal form.
I shouted, Angkor shouted. Talya was shrieking high, panicked screams as Duke wrapped her in his forelegs and pulled her through the broken window, kicking and cursing and crying. The Jeep was out of control, and veered to the side away from us. Duke was scrabbling to remain in the cabin; Talya slammed into the outside of the door, Duke’s fangs buried in her throat, his paw wrapped around her chest.
The girl gnashed her teeth and shouted with rage and pain as she tore herself away from him, ripping open her own neck in the process. Talya tumbled messily to the ground and out of sight on the dark road behind us.
“Talya!” Zane cried out.
Angkor and I both opened on Duke. He took the bullets, roaring, and then tore the door off the Jeep and leapt out onto the road at breakneck speed as the car swayed to the side, flipped the barrier at the edge of the road, and careened into the trees.
“God fucking dammit!” Zane snarled, steering us in towards the truck. “Is she going to get that glass disease from this, or what?”
“Weeders can’t transmit Yen to other Weeders through bites. Sex, StainedGlass weapons or the insertion of an infectious payload… that’s it,” Angkor said, reloading his rifle. “Proper StainedGlass is the only reliable vector. Besides that, Talya’s the Weeder equivalent of The Hulk.”
Even Talya’s slight weight had slowed the Lincoln, and we gained on the truck as the entire caravan rounded the sharp corner onto Inningwood. Jenner was waiting for us on the highway. We just had to keep on them until they reached the straight and we could open up.
“We need to drop the back tires!” Angkor threw his rifle into the back of the car, rolled over the seat, and took the other rear position. “If the truck rolls, the kids are going to be mashed inside that thing.”
“Someone has to get in the cab,” Zane said.
Angkor turned to me, eyes flashing in the orange gloom. “I can’t drive, and I’m too weak to hold on up there at high speed. Can you do it?”
“I’ve taken twelve hits in as many hours,” I replied, loading a new magazine into the Glock and holstering it. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise I’m any stronger than you right now.”
“I’ve got enough in me to help you overclock.” Angkor reached out and clapped my face between his hands before I could protest. I jumped, startled, and then relaxed as his eyes bore into mine. They were normally a dark, iron gray, but in the darkness of the cabin, I saw them shine with a subtle, luminous green. Deep inside them was a glimpse of his Neshamah, an elusive ghostly thing as visceral and unnerving as he was. For a shocked moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.