jetted forward, and the Jeep leapt to catch up. The engine thrummed, the tires actually lifted off the pavement when we breasted a short rise, and if I had to do something I was going to have to do it quick before Johnny Law got on the radio and reinforcements showed up to box me in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ditching the Jeep was a little easier than I’d expected. It was a good car, but two of her tires were busted and she was making a wheezing noise by the time I killed the lights and scrambled for the backseat. I kicked the rear passenger door open, bailed out with the duffel, and was on the roof of a nearby abandoned warehouse by the time the chopper found the car again, its bright white beam stabbing down like a shot from an alien abduction film. They’d get my prints, probably, but I couldn’t do anything to help that. The empty ammo boxes in the back next to the can of gas would perplex them a bit, too.
And there went the Tiger Tails, too. Dammit.
I shrank into the shadow of a big silver HVAC unit. It wasn’t humanly possible to get up here, so the cops should ignore it. I’d gone straight up the side of the building like I was a fish being reeled in, the aspect smoothing down over my body like hot oil and my wrists aching as my claws sank into the lip of the roof, my arm tensing to pull me and the duffel over. My left palm was a searscorch of pain, but that didn’t slow me down.
Landing with jarring force, sneakers skidding, and I’d actually crashed into the vent and stayed there. I almost didn’t think to twitch the duffel back out of sight against my feet, everything in me rabbit-jumping as if I still had to run.
Don’t be stupid now. Be smart. Be still.
My pulse dropped now that I was reasonably safe. It was hot, an oppressive wet blanket full of smog-taste and the reek of cooling pavement. More sirens bayed in the distance as more cop cars arrived, bouncing over the train tracks and sending up spumes of oily dust. I kept my eye on the chopper, though, lighting up the fenced railyard next to the warehouse. It was a good guess—through the busted-out parts of the chain-link fencing and among the confusion of the yard and the scrubby kudzu and trash wood was pretty much the only way to run with a hope of losing them.
For a human, that is.
I wasn’t even breathing hard. I watched as the cops swept the area, more of them arriving all the time and searching through the rail yard. The warehouse was locked up below; I know because they circled the whole building looking for a way in. Just in case.
Well, gee, that was easy.
I was just congratulating myself when my temples gave a flare of pain and a ghost of citrus wandered across my tongue. It wasn’t danger candy, but it was enough to make me stiffen.
In the distance, a high glassy cry rose like a spiked silver ribbon.
Suckers.
Shit.
Were they after me, or just hanging around? That was a hunting cry, but it was a long ways away. The suckers could be chasing someone else. Who knew I was here? Who could’ve tracked me when I still wasn’t sure where I was going?
You don’t know, and you can’t take a chance. Get the hell out of here.
Still . . . I was hidden, and the cops were still spreading out and searching. It could be unrelated.
Yeah. And monkeys could fly out your butt, Dru. Come on.
But I waited. I watched them swarm over the Jeep and look for me.
If I could go up a wall like this, evade the cops this easily . . . wow. It was a weird feeling. Creepy. Scary.
Powerful.
Was this what Graves was talking about when he said he didn’t want to go back to being normal?
Then I thought about finding a place to sleep tonight, getting a fresh set of wheels, and figuring out where the hell to go next and what to do while suckers were trying to kill me. I thought of the burned-down hulk of the Houston Schola and wondered if anyone, djamphir or wulfen, had died in the flames. I thought of a broken body lying in a hotel hall with red and blue hexing crawling all over it. I thought of Piggy Eyes Lyle slumped against the