Page 28 of Soothsayer

Ha-fucking-ha.

“You should let me drive,” Sören said after midnight, once the highway traffic had cleared a bit. We were headed south toward Missouri—it wouldn’t be long before we crossed the border and hopefully made it that much harder for Papa Egilsson and his crew of vicious offspring to find us.

“Do you know how to drive?” I asked warily.

“Sören knows. I have familiarity with all of his skills.”

“Yeah?” I remembered playingMario Kartwith Sören in the hotel room. He’d crashed on every other lap. “Isheany good at it?”

“He’s never harmed anyone but himself with it.”

Well, that sounded ominous. “What does that mean exactly?”

“Sören has totaled four motor vehicles since he began driving. One was a motorcycle,” the landvættir added helpfully. “He broke a collarbone, two bones in his right hand, and five ribs. Overall—not all at the same time.”

“He’s a menace on the roads, then.” I glanced at Sören. I had promised him entertainment, and if driving was something that would fulfill the requirement… “Do you know about cops?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you know it’s important that we don’t get pulled over. We don’t want them to notice this car, we don’t want a ticket, and we don’t want to be reported. Got it?”

Sören smiled politely. “Got it.”

Was that chill crawling down my spine a premonition, or just plain old fear? “Fine.” I pulled over onto the side of the highway. “Switch with me.” We each got out and changed sides, and I shut the passenger door with a distinct sense of foreboding. I couldn’t see my own future, and I couldn’t see Sören’s, not with his body under the landvættir’s control, but that didn’t mean my talent wasn’t working. It just meant it had nothing to focus on. “Shit.”

“What?”

“This is a friend’s car. Be good to it, okay?”

“The friend who helped you capture me?” Sören asked. “A brave man, but a foolish one.” He revved the engine, revved ithard. I pulled my seat belt on as fast as I could. “Brave because he stood by you in battle, foolish because he knows little about you and even less about me. It was foolish of him to entrust you with his vehicle.”

“I sort of made him give it to me.”

“You believe he had no choice in the matter?” I could smell burning oil, see smoke start to rise from the hood, and still Sören didn’t let off. “That free will doesn’t exist?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Look, can you justgo?”

“Humanity is shrouded by a veil of perception,” Sören said conversationally, as if our car wasn’t about to catch on fire. “Free will, predestination…none of it really matters to mankind. Belief is largely dependent on circumstances. You and your kind, framsýnir, you cut through the veil on occasion to see more clearly, but your picture is still incomplete, influenced by your own natural solipsism. I think it would be good for you to let go of the idea that you, more than anyone else, have control of your own life.” Sören grinned at me, teeth glowing in the moonlight. “Because it simply isn’t true, Cillian.”

The Buick Electra leapt forward with a hellish squeal, all that pent-up energy finally let loose. The tires probably left three layers of rubber on the asphalt as we peeled out, going from zero to sixty in way too short a time. And Sören didn’t stop at sixty.

“Sören,” I managed once my heart had settled back into my chest. “We can’t afford to get pulled over, slow down!”

“That’s a funny thing to say,” Sören replied, still grinning as he swerved around the few other cars on the road.

“Why the fuck is it funny?”

“Because you say it as though it should mean something to me.” We surged past a BMW, whose driver looked at us like we were insane. Which, okay, was fair. “I am the object of a competition. I am a prize to be won, and just because I’m with you right now doesn’t mean I’m going to stay with you if I’m not satisfied by your performance.”

“You stayed with Egilsson for two years!”

Sören shrugged. “His magic compelled me. If you hadn’t found this body untethered, I wouldn’t have been able to leave with you. Now that a new bargain has been struck, his hold on me isweaker, but yours isn’t strong yet. Nor will it be until you fulfill the deal.”

“So…” I saw where this was going, and I didn’t like it. “You can leave me at any time. You could run right back to him and leave me high and dry.”

“I don’t want to. I want Sören to be happy. You would make him happy, but I will not be disrespected or judged as though I’m human.”

“You’re wearing a human body!”

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