turned the bike onto the main road and accelerated into the night.
CHAPTER 14
THE ROAD CURVED THROUGH flat-bottomed glacial valleys, over rivers, and up through the hills, twisting back on itself. The frost heaves became more frequent, the bike rolling over them like a ship in a stormy sea. Even the modern, crack-resistant road surface began to give way, with pothole after pothole flashing up in her headlights.
Sometimes Kelsa could avoid them, but often she was on them too quickly, and the bike slammed over them, rattling her teeth.
She should slow down. Neither she nor Raven had a helmet or any kind of protective gear. If she slid out they could be badly injured or killed. But it wasn't till the fourth spine-jarring jolt that she finally slowed, and she still had to pay close attention to the road. It almost distracted her from the red bar creeping slowly up the gauge in the corner of the bike's display screen - but there was nothing she could do about that except pray.
The adrenaline created by running for her life gave out, leaving her more tired than she'd been when they pulled into Pickhandle Lake. The flat gray twilight of the northern night was giving way to sunrise when the battery died. The engine shut down, and the bike rolled to a stop. Kelsa took it onto the shoulder at the last minute. They'd passed a few all-night truckers, and after they'd slowed several trucks had passed them. In a few hours the RVs would take to the road - not high traffic by city standards, but being stalled on a blind curve was never a good idea.
She'd hoped to make it to a station before this happened, despite the rising red bar on the gauge. What kind of moron set out without enough charge to make it to the next town?
The moron who'd owned this bike, apparently.
Raven lifted his head from her shoulder, where it had settled for the last half-hour.
"What's wrong? Why are we stopping?"
"The battery's empty. We have to recharge it before we can go on."
"But couldn't you tell it was wearing out? Can't you just let it rest for a while?"
Kelsa's eyes were burning. With weariness, she decided firmly. How much sleep had she gotten in the last three days? Four hours? Five?
"Letting it rest won't help. I did know the charge was running out, but sometimes there's more depth in a battery than shows on the gauge. Unfortunately, it looks like this gauge is accurate."
Raven looked around, and Kelsa followed his gaze. They'd been riding around the base of a hill, and a bog dotted with scraggly pines lay on the other side of the road. The trees' silhouettes looked odd, with thin bottom branches and heavy drooping tops, but it was too dark for Kelsa to see them clearly.
"We can't stay here," Raven said. "If my enemies find us, they'll send those bikers after us again."
"How did they find us at the lake?" Kelsa hadn't had time to think about that before. "How could they possibly know we'd pulled off there to spend the night? You said they couldn't use birds and things to spy on us."
"They can't," Raven said. "The thing is..."
Kelsa waited in grim silence. She was too damn tired to put up with his stalling now.
"The thing is, I'm afraid they might be tracking you the same way I have. Following that." He gestured to the bulge the medicine pouch made under her shirt.
Kelsa's heart sank. The medicine pouch was the one thing they couldn't leave behind. "If they can track the pouch, why didn't they find us earlier?"
"Until you started using it, they couldn't know what it ... smelled like, for want of a better term. But that scent, the unique feel of its magic and yours working together, have been dumped into the ley several times now," Raven said. "And Otter Woman spent too much time with you. Thank goodness you were smart enough not to let her touch the pouch. They probably only have a vague sense of its magic. But the song of your human magic mixed with it is very distinctive. From now on, staying in one place for a long time is probably a bad idea."
"Wait. Are you saying that Otter Woman, all your enemies, are going to be able to sense me? Wherever I go?"
"Yes. So how do we charge this battery?"
Kelsa rubbed her eyes. She wasn't going to cry. She was tired, that was all.