Orleans. I’d become disconnected from my moorings, and nothing felt like terra firma these days. Feeling lost was one of the oh-so-fun side effects of almost dying. I’d been thrown down an open elevator shaft from over twenty floors up. No shit. And the only thing that had saved me was magic. Now part of me felt like I was supposed to be dead, but I was still haunting the world in a living form.
Near-death was weird.
I turned the radio back on, but the stations had gone fuzzy thanks to my distance from anything resembling civilized society, so I switched over to the default CD in my deck. Tom Waits’s eerie voice crooned about lost love, and I glued my attention back on the road. “Focus, Genie,” I whispered. Today would be a bad day to get into a car accident just because I was a hopeless flake.
A car appeared in my rearview mirror, coming out of nowhere, giving my pulse a kick-start. I’d been driving over an hour with almost no other signs of life, and the black sedan stuck out like a sore thumb against the green-and-gray backdrop of the previously empty highway.
He was driving awfully close to me, wasn’t he?
“Just pass,” I grumbled, cutting my gaze from the road to my mirror and back. He was riding my ass now, the front end of the sedan dangerously near to my bumper. What was this asshole thinking? The opposite lane was wide open, and he could have whizzed past me no problem if he was in such a damn hurry.
The sedan bumped me, and the realization of what was happening struck me at the same moment. He didn’t want to go by me.
He was trying to run me off the road.
My heart pounded, and my palms were instantly damp and itchy with nervous energy. Of all the things I’d prepared contingencies for, this wasn’t among them. I’d foolishly assumed when someone came to kill me, they’d do it when I was standing on solid ground so I’d have a chance to fight back. Ramming me off the road with a two-ton hunk of steel wasn’t playing fair.
Not that assassins cared much for fair play.
I gripped the wheel as my car jerked towards the shoulder of the road, and steadied myself, steering closer to the center to allow more rebound room. This plan would bite me in the ass if a car came towards me, but I was hoping to have enough time to react if that happened.
The music coming through my car stereo was slow, Waits singing “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You”, which was sweet and melodic. The pounding of my pulse in my ear bumped the tempo up a few notches, and my mind was racing.
The car slammed into me again, and I yelped. At least no one was in the car with me to see how pathetic I was in a time of panic. Some badass werewolf leader I would make.
Gritting my teeth, I scolded myself for letting my concentration drift. It wouldn’t matter how tough I was or wasn’t if this guy succeeded in killing me. The itch in my palm was a sign of magic, but as I tried to conjure a ward, he hit me a third time, making me lose my place in the spell. This was hopeless. I needed to be able to concentrate to perform magic, and he wasn’t giving me enough time.
Spotting a flash of daytime headlights in the distance, I had a truly terrible idea, one so idiotic it might be perfect.
I veered into the opposite lane, and the sedan followed me, scraping against my bumper, making my car jerk spastically. I was grateful for small favors because my attacker hadn’t opted for a higher car. There was no chance he’d be able to see around me thanks to how closely he was hugging my ass.
The lights in the distance drew nearer, and I sucked in a breath, issuing a silent prayer to the gods. It was a big gray delivery van, and hopefully the driver had quick reflexes, otherwise we were all in trouble. The van’s horn blared, and I yanked the steering wheel at the last second, hauling my car back into the right lane. The sedan wasn’t as lucky, not expecting the van to be there when I pulled aside.
Both the van and the car swerved, and I slammed on my brakes, sending gravel flying as I hit the shoulder.