Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,108

the steering wheel. He hurtled past the T-bird close enough to shear the rearview mirror off. And do the same to Red’s head if he hadn’t jerked himself back inside.

I braked and checked the other rearview mirror. The Humvee was spinning. “Flip over, you son of a bitch!” I said.

It came so close that I suspected Timon used magic to set it back down on all four wheels in front of a Chinese restaurant. I swore, and then Sylvester dashed—well, lumbered, really, but for him it was a dash—out from behind a freestanding neon sign in the shape of a dragon. He stooped, grabbed the Humvee under the passenger door, and, straining, rolled it over onto its side. As soon as it overturned, he shambled away again, maybe hoping to get back under cover before Timon ever spotted him.

I followed his example. I burned rubber out of there before Timon could get his act together to do anything else to me.

With the boss distracted, the puppets in the cars ahead gradually stopped driving as recklessly as I was. It was still bad for about a block, but okay afterwards. I sped through a yellow light and turned left, heading down a two-lane street toward Hyde Park. Standing in front of a dentist’s office, the Pharaoh struck a flame from his lighter.

So far, we hadn’t seen any more of Timon. “Do you think he’s dead?” asked Ren. “Or at least knocked out?”

“No such luck,” I said. “But he hasn’t caught up to us yet, and I’m starting to feel a strain—”

Shadow snapped around to glare at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “But that’s how it is.” I reached with my mind and pulled the four of them back inside me.

Hyde Park’s a historical district, full of big old houses that yuppies spend big bucks to renovate. Timon’s version looked like the original except that it was empty, with no puppet drivers on the road, and nobody strolling on the sidewalks or sitting at the outdoor tables in front of the bars and cafes. He didn’t have unlimited mojo, either, not even in dreamland, and had evidently decided not to populate the back leg of the course.

That was fine by me. No traffic meant I made better time. For a little while, I wondered if I might even make it to the finish line before he caught up with me again.

Then a low shape with blue headlights like long, slanted eyes appeared in the rearview mirror. As it sped up on me, closing the distance fast, I saw that it wasn’t quite a Maserati MC12, just like the Humvee hadn’t quite been a Humvee. But near enough.

I tensed, waiting for Timon to open up on me with more machine guns, a rocket launcher, or whatever 007-style aftermarket features he was packing. But, maybe because Old People thought it was tacky to use the same trick twice, he didn’t. Instead, he cut left of center to pass.

Why not? Maserati built the MC12 for racetracks. It wasn’t even street legal, and it was way faster and more maneuverable than the T-bird.

But I was out in front, and, just from watching Timon charge up behind me, I already knew I was a better driver. I spun the wheel and shot left of center, too, before he could pull up beside me, and then kept matching him zig for zig and zag for zag.

He tried bumping me. It jolted me forward in my seat, and I had to jerk the wheel to keep from jumping the curb. But it was still a really bad idea, because the impact actually made Timon lose control. The MC12 veered, clipped a parked car, spun through a one-eighty, and came to a stop. I laughed, and then the street went black.

Suddenly there were no traffic signals hanging in front of me, no streetlights on either side, and no neon. Except for the moon and stars, the only light shined from the two cars and the windows of a couple of the houses. But I didn’t see why that mattered until the T-bird changed.

That happened in a split second, too, most of the car melting around me while the rest heaved me higher off the ground. That, and the instant slowdown, confused me. By the time I figured out that I was now pounding along on top of a black horse, I was already slipping sideways off its back.

I spotted the saddle horn, grabbed it, and held myself in place. Realizing that it