They moved up fast behind us, their outriders lashing out with steel-tipped boots at anyone who got too close. I could hear the pack-leaders hooting and howling at each other in their prehuman language, and something in those brutal, primitive sounds made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I must have made some kind of noise myself, because Screech's eyes snapped open. He turned languorously to look out the rear window and pulled a face.
"And I thought humans were ugly… Nature can be very cruel to some people. Any chance we can outrun these evolutionary disasters?"
"Not in this traffic," said Ms. Fate. "It's so tightly packed I can't build up any speed, while those motor-bikes are weaving through the vehicles behind us. It's times like this I wish I'd invested in that air-to-surface missile system I saw in Motors of Mass Destruction magazine. Find me an open road, John, and those creepy bastards can eat my radioactive dust, but as it is… Prepare for boarding, chaps. And do try to keep them from chipping the paint-work…"
"Give me a rundown on the car's defences," I said. "What have you got that's new and nasty?"
"Not a lot, I'm afraid. The machine-guns, of course, but only at the front… The grenade launchers and the nerve-gas dispensers really need refilling; you know how expensive they are to maintain… And a few other bits and bobs, but that's basically it. I'm a street fighter, John; I don't really do that whole death from afar thing. I've always prided myself on being an old-fashioned hands-on sort of girl, dispensing personal beatings to bad guys."
"Isn't there anything you can do?" I said.
"Oh sure! I'll put on some Evanescence; that should put us in the right mood."
As the music blasted from the in-car speakers, I remembered why I only ever called on Ms. Fate for transport when there was no-one else available.
A motorcycle's roar contended fiercely with the music as a Hell's Neanderthal pulled up alongside. He matched his bike's speed to the car's and grinned nastily at me through my side window, showing off brutal yellow fangs. He came in really close, reaching for the length of steel chain wrapped around his barrel chest, and I slammed open the side-door with all my strength behind it. The door rammed into the Neanderthal, and he suddenly disappeared sideways as his bike overturned, leaving him hooting loudly in surprise and pain as the road came up terribly fast to meet him. I looked back as he shot back down the road under his bike, in a shower of sparks and spurting blood, then his cries were cut off as his own people rode right over him. They came howling after us, waving their steel chains in circles above their heads.
One of them pressed in close, right on the Fatemobile's bumper, and Ms. Fate slammed on the brakes. The other bikers sped past us, caught by surprise, but the rider behind couldn't react quickly enough, and his front wheel connected with the rear bumper. The bike kicked and dug in, and threw the Neanderthal violently forward over the handle-bars and onto the car's boot. He clung fiercely to one of the pink tail fins, his bandy legs dangling behind in the slip-stream, then he pulled himself forward and up onto the roof, hooting and howling wildly. A jagged steel blade punched down through the roof, the long blade narrowly missing Screech. The elf grabbed the blade with one bare hand and snapped it off, leaving the Neanderthal nothing but the hilt. He jumped forward onto the bonnet, whirled around, and showed us his blocky teeth in a nasty grin. And while he was busy feeling proud of himself, Ms. Fate hit the brakes hard again, and the rather-surprised-looking Neanderthal was thrown tit over arse off the bonnet and onto the road, where we ran over him.
Up ahead, the other Hell's Neanderthals had turned themselves around and were now roaring back, weaving in and out of the approaching traffic while waving their various weapons in the air. Ms. Fate opened up with the forward-mounted machine-guns and mowed them down. The night was full of the sounds of gunfire, and the road was full of blazing motor-bikes and dead Neanderthals. Eventually, Ms. Fate ran out of targets, so she shut the guns down and cruised on in quiet satisfaction.
"What depressingly stupid creatures," she said, after a while.
"Evolution is wasted on some people," Screech said solemnly.
"Oh… shit," said Ms. Fate.
"What? What?" I said.
I looked back again; even more Hell's Neanderthals were coming. Walker must have press-ganged every rogue Neanderthal in the Nightside. I counted forty before I gave up, and more were joining the chase all the time. I was beginning to grow somewhat annoyed with Walker. Time to show him what I could do when I really got annoyed and put my mind to it. I concentrated, firing up my special gift. My inner eye slowly opened, my third eye, my private eye; and my gift made clear to me all the things that could go wrong with a motorcycle. And then it was the easiest thing in the world to reach out, find what was nearly wrong with each motorcycle, and push them all over the edge.
Some bikes crashed, some exploded, and quite a few went up in balls of flame, burning fiercely bright against the night. Neanderthal bikers were thrown through the air, roasted with their machines, or blown apart into scattered pieces quickly churned up by the passing traffic. In a few moments the whole pack was gone, nothing left behind but bits and pieces of wrecked machines and ruined riders. I sank back into my seat, closing my eyes. Using my gift so widely really took it out of me.
"Hardcore, John," said Ms. Fate. I couldn't tell from her voice whether she approved or not, and I didn't feel like looking at her.
"Turn the music down," I said. "I've got a headache."
I don't like to use my ability too often. It takes a mental and a physical toll, and sometimes a spiritual one, too. I don't like to think of myself as a killer, just a man who does what's necessary, and I only ever act in self-defence… But sometimes the Nightside doesn't care what you want. And so you do what you have to, and live with it afterwards as best you can.
I don't like to use my gift too often because the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long; and I do blaze so very brightly when I send my mind out, into the night. I can't use it too often without killing myself by inches. And I have relied on my gift so very often these past few years. There are days when it feels like I'm only held together with duct tape and will-power.
But some days you don't have a choice. Ms. Fate needed directions, and I was way past the point where I could do it from memory. So I fired up my gift again and sent my mind soaring up out of my body, to look down upon the Nightside from above, and See the whole dirty mess stretched out below me. Walker's roadblocks and barricades showed clearly in the night, and I sent Ms. Fate running this way and that to avoid them. We were making progress, but the Osterman Gate was still a long way off.
My head ached abominably, and my chest felt like it was full of razor blades. There was blood in my mouth, filling faster than I could spit it into a handkerchief. More blood dripped from my nose and seeped out from under my eyelids. It was getting hard to think clearly. I shut down my Sight, closed my inner eye, and slumped in my seat. I knew better than to push myself so hard, but the job decides what's necessary, not me.
Whatever Lord Screech had to tell me, it had better be worth it. Or I would drag his nasty arse right back to Walker and dump him at his feet.
Ms. Fate was darting glances at me, clearly concerned, but she knew better than to say anything. She understood the price we have to pay to be the kind of people we have chosen to be. (I saw him naked once, in a sauna. He had scar tissue like you wouldn't believe.) If Lord Screech was aware of what his precious mission was doing to me, he kept it to himself. He just looked out the windows, admiring the scenery and smiling happily to himself, occasionally singing along to the music in the car. Figures he'd like Amy Winehouse.