there. It slid behind me and promptly rode my ass.
Keystone Mall.
Fifty years old and looking every bit of it, Keystone Mall sat near the new 290/610 interchange. It had been dying since I was a kid. Hurricane Ike had killed its Macy’s a decade ago, leaving the mall with just one anchor store—JC Penney, which bit the dust last January. The mall closed shortly after. Bayou City Fright Fest had rented it this last Halloween for their annual Haunted House and Arabella dragged me to it. We spent seventy dollars apiece to wander through the dilapidated husk of a building, while zombie clowns jumped out at us from every dark corner. It had been horrible, and I didn’t talk to her for two hours after that. Predictably, she’d loved it.
If I got out of this alive, I would thank her.
I dropped my speed by about five miles an hour. The Subaru looked for a way to pass, but the lane to the left of us was clogged with big rigs. He settled for getting within a hair of my bumper. Perfect, stay right there.
The exit sign for 762B flashed by. One mile.
The Subaru honked at me. You stupid jerk. All the lanes are full. Even if you get in front of me, where do you think you’re going to go?
The exit lane peeled off the freeway to the right. One, two, three . . .
I wrenched my wheel to the right, cutting into the exit lane mere feet from the black impact barrels cushioning against a head-on collision with the concrete barrier. The Subaru slammed on its brakes out of sheer surprise. Behind it, the Guardians screeched, trying to avoid plowing into the smaller vehicle.
I tore down the exit lane at top speed, caught a green light on Old Katy Road, made a left, then a right onto Post Oak Road, and sped north. It wouldn’t buy me much time, but hopefully it bought enough.
I crossed the railroad tracks and drove straight into Keystone’s parking lot. At night, it had looked scary. The daylight stripped the horror mystique from it and now it just seemed grim and sad, gazing at the world with dark, empty windows. I parked near the entrance, jumped out, and popped the back hatch.
A large metal safe box waited for me. Grandma Frida had bolted it to the floor in the back, so there was no chance of it being stolen. I keyed the code into the lock. It popped open and I flipped the lid. A row of blades lay on black fabric, secured by leather straps. Two pistols rested in the top corners, a Glock 43 for the times I needed a subcompact for concealed carry and a Beretta APX.
Unlike Leon, my mom, and Nevada, I couldn’t rely on my magic for flawless targeting when it came to guns, but Mom made sure that all of us knew how to handle a firearm. My accuracy was decent. I was a simple, no-nonsense shooter and the Beretta was a simple, no-nonsense gun, designed for daily use by the military and law enforcement. Roughly seven and a half inches long and five and a half inches tall, the gun weighed twenty-eight ounces empty and had a six-pound trigger. Firing it felt very deliberate; it was solid, and the heavy but crisp trigger guaranteed I wouldn’t accidentally discharge it.
I grabbed a tactical belt, put it on, and clipped the black nylon holster to it. The Beretta went into the holster. I had opted for the .40, which gave me fifteen rounds, and the spare magazine in the built-in holster pocket brought my ammo count to thirty.
The sword was next. I had a choice between a tactical saber, a machete, or a gladius. I went with the gladius. Solid black, with a sixteen-inch double-edged blade of 80CRV2 steel, it weighed a pound and a half and let me cut or thrust with equal efficiency.
A canister of mace was last, just in case.
I locked the box, locked the car, and ran to the front doors. Logic said that whatever security this place had, if it had any, would clear out the moment the two Guardians pulled into the parking lot. They would take pictures of the license plates, submit a report, and let the cops and insurance company sort it out.
The door was locked. I smashed the butt of the gladius’ hilt into the lower glass pane of the entrance door. The glass panel fractured. I cleared it with