As the Hyundai sped away from the alley, Lucan knew he wasn’t going to last long under the damn thing’s belly. His hands were sweaty from the effort of holding his two-hundred-and-sixty-pound weight up off the blur of pavement—and the engine was transferring more heat down every piece of metal he was gripping or next to. And the woman was continuing to accelerate.
She was swerving, too. So if he timed the drop wrong, he was going to get mowed flatter than grass.
Meanwhile, his abs were screaming in pain from this death plank, his pecs and biceps were worse—and the going was rough, every manhole and sewer-access panel in Caldwell passing under the car like the woman was steering for the things.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” he growled through gritted teeth.
The car lurched around a corner—
The brakes were hit so hard that he didn’t get a chance to form an opinion about releasing his hands. His body just shot forward as the car stopped short, momentum taking control of his destiny as he was propelled out from under like a missile.
Lucan had a brief image of the front wheels passing on either side of him and then the front bumper—
Blaring. Honking. Flashing lights.
Sudden death.
As he exploded into the intersection, the vehicles traveling through on a green light swerved and stomped on their own brakes. Twisting onto his side, he bounced along the asphalt and the car chaos, Ping-Pong’ing off the box grille of an old Toyota, before rolling up the sloped hood of a low-slung Pontiac from the eighties. As the firebird stencil made an impression in spite of the danger he was in, he thought of his female from the night before.
Not that she was his.
And then it was time to stop with the freestyle acrobatics. Kicking out on the windshield of the Firebird, he jumped himself into a change of direction, and got the fuck out of the way on a tight tuck—
Just as a series of impacts crunched and crackled in the center of the intersection, vehicles crashing into each other.
Lucan’s boots landed flat on the ground and the second he felt his feet under him, he burst into a run. Zeroing in on the shadows in front of him, he plunged himself into darkness to get cover. When he was sure he was out of sight—not that those humans were focused on anything other than their airbags—he slammed his back against a dumpster that was empty, given the hollow clang!
Panting, he caught his breath and focused on the pileup. Out under the dangling traffic lights, a collection of body-repair jobs had replaced the previous going concerns of five vehicles—but his blond unknowing Uber driver was not having it. Even though she still had the red light and there was a junkyard of automobiles in front of her, she shot up onto the sidewalk, bypassed the accidents she’d played a solid role in creating, and hit the gas.
Given the asshole who’d come after her, Lucan couldn’t say he blamed the woman.
Closing his eyes, he listened to the humans as they got out of their cars and had one of two reactions: Half got onto 911, and the other half started yelling.
He’d never thought of a pileup as a personality inventory test before, but there you go.
When his breathing had calmed and his heart slowed, he had one good thing going for him: His wolven side had fully retreated, and it was a relief not to have to rein it in.
As sirens sounded from far away, that was his cue to split. But when he tried to dematerialize, there was no shift of his molecules, no ghosting.
He tried again.
Nothing.
And that was when he realized that one of his feet was soggy in its boot, like he’d stepped in a puddle. Looking down, he shook his head because he was not seeing what his eyes seemed to be reporting: He was absolutely not staring at a dark, spreading stain on the outside of his jeans’ pant leg. He just wasn’t.
When his eyes refused to follow orders, he thought, okay . . . fine. There might have been a stain running down the outside of his calf, but it was motor oil. Yeah, that was it.
It was not blood. In spite of all the copper in the air.
Out in front of the trap house, José tripped over his feet as he bumped right into his unmarked. When his body hit the front bumper, he had to put his hand on the hood to steady himself—especially as he got a clear shot at the man getting out of the Escalade.
His dizziness did not improve as he got a proper look at the driver.
Across the street, standing straighter, taller, and broader than José remembered . . . was his old dead partner. Sure as if José had conjured Butch O’Neal out of thin air by wishing the guy was still around for backup.
And what do you know, Butch seemed equally poleaxed.
The two of them walked forward like a pair of zombies, meeting in the middle of the road.
As José blinked, he decided that he knew what this was. This was a dream, conjured up after he went home from the scene he’d been at all day long. With his wife in school, and the kids busy, he’d obviously had too much of that leftover carne asada from Tuesday and had fallen asleep on the sofa. Preoccupied with his own retirement, his subconscious had burped this little not-actually-happening over the ol’ brain transom and—
“Hi,” Butch said roughly.
“You’re taller.” As José spoke the words, he had the weird conviction that they’d done this before. Not in the middle of this particular street, but in other alleys, roads . . . and at church. “Than I remember.”
“It’s the shoes.”
They both looked down, and José whistled. “Nice boots. What brand are they?”
“We just call them shitkickers.”
“Badass.” José smiled a little. “Are you okay?”
The moment he asked the question, he winced, that headache coming back.
“I’m thinking I need to ask you that.” Butch cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you again, old friend.”