And plowed into the Suzuki.
The gray car caved around the fender of the truck, then slid backward, as if on ice. It rolled once, nearing Magda, Eureka, and the quartet of glowing people.
Eureka ducked across the center console. Her body shook. She heard the thump of the car landing upside down, the smash of its windshield. She heard the screech of truck tires and then silence. The truck’s engine died. A door slammed. Footsteps crunched gravel on the shoulder of the road. Someone pounded on Eureka’s window.
It was Ander.
Her hand trembled as she rolled the window down.
He used his fingers to force it down more quickly. “Get out of here.”
“What are you doing here? You just hit those people’s car!”
“You need to get out of here. I wasn’t lying to you earlier.” He glanced over his shoulder at the darkened road. The gray people were arguing near the car. They looked up at Ander with glowing eyes.
“Leave us!” the woman from the station shouted.
“Leave her!” Ander shouted back coldly. And when the women cackled, Ander reached into the pocket of his jeans. Eureka saw a flash of silver at his hip. At first she thought it was a gun, but then Ander pulled out a silver case about the size of a jewelry box. He thrust it toward the people in gray. “Stay back.”
“What’s in his hand?” The elder of the two men asked, stepping closer to the car.
Behind him, the other said, “Surely it’s not the—”
“You will leave her alone,” Ander warned.
Eureka heard Ander’s breath coming quickly, the tension straining his voice. As he fumbled with the clasp on the box, a gasp came from the foursome on the road. Eureka realized they knew exactly what the box held—and it terrified them.
“Child,” one of the men warned venomously. “Do not abuse what you do not understand.”
“Perhaps I do understand.” Slowly Ander flipped open the lid. An acid-green glow emanated from within the case, brightening his face and the dark space around him. Eureka tried to discern the box’s contents, but the green light inside was nearly blinding. A sharp, untraceable odor stung her nostrils, dissuading her from peering any deeper.
The four people who had been advancing now took several quick steps away. They stared at the case and the shining green light with sick trepidation.
“You can’t have her if we’re dead,” a woman’s voice called. “You know that.”
“Who are these people?” Eureka said to Ander. “What is in that box?”
With his free hand, he grabbed Eureka’s arm. “I’m begging you. Get out of here. You have to survive.” He reached into the car, where her hand was stiff and cold on the gearshift. He pressed down on her fingers and slid the lever to reverse. “Hit the gas.”
She nodded, terrified, then reversed hard, wheeling back the way she’d come. She drove into the darkness and didn’t dare look back at the green light pulsing in her rearview mirror.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Friday, October 11, 2013, 12:40 a.m.
Subject: second salvo
Dear Eureka,
Voilà! I am cooking with gas now and should have additional passages for you by tomorrow. I’m beginning to wonder if this is an ancient bodice-ripper. What do you think?
The prince became the king. Tearfully, he pushed his father’s blazing funeral pyre into the sea. Then his tears dried and he begged me to remain.
With a bow, I shook my head. “I must return to my mountains, resume my place among my family. It is where I belong.”
“No,” Atlas said simply. “You belong here now. You will stay.”
Uneasy as I was, I could not refuse my king’s demand. As the smoke from the sacrificial mourning fires cleared, word spread throughout the kingdom: the young King Atlas would take a bride.