Page 48 of The Elementalist
“Nice!” yelled Crystal.
“Not nice…” I sighed, staring at the Caddy’s headlights, still following us. “I just killed a bunch of people.”
“People who were trying to shoot you, Max. Self-defense. And they might be vampires… in which case, they’re going to get back up and continue the chase on foot, perhaps.”
A bloom of orange flames illuminated the quarry behind us.
“Or not,” said Crystal.
“Still.” I took a deep breath, held it a moment, and let it out my nose. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“Wow, you’re a sentimental kinda guy, aren’t you?”
“Killing is wrong.”
Bang!An orange flash came from the Caddy’s passenger side. My truck’s rear window disintegrated into a rain of little snowy bits, and a two-inch hole appeared in the windshield.
“Tell that to them!” shouted Crystal, swerving back and forth across both lanes.
At least on the straightaway, we had the luxury ofknowingno other cars came at us from the front.
The gun went off twice more, missing both times.
“Can I suggest you throw that car into the quarry, too?”
I stared at the headlights through my missing back window. “You want me to kill them?”
“The thought has crossed my mind, yes. Or at least dosomethingto get them off our ass.”
If they hit another rock column dead on, it should stop them cold. But, they’d try to swerve and might go spinning into the quarry like the truck. I didn’t want to risk killing them. Bah. I’d rather risk revealing myself to be something paranormal than slaughtering people, even idiots trying to kill me. Somewhere, I’d read about a thing the cops had to kill engines with an electrical jolt. Maybe I could do the same thing.
Since they’d obligingly destroyed my rear window, I pointed a hand at the front of the car chasing us. Lightning movedmuchfaster than stone. Concentrate… desire…
Boom!
A thick, jagged shaft of blinding electricity connected my fingertips to the grille of the Caddy. Sparks and smoke erupted from under the hood, washing up over the windshield.
Crystal screamed in surprise at the painfully loud blast.
The Caddy’s headlights went out, and the car limped to a halt. My companion slowed down and stopped as well, then glanced over at me. “Should we deal with this now or keep going?”
I took out my cell phone and started recording video of the car, hoping I’d be able to later read the license plate. “Nah. There’s at least one guy in there with a gun. Keep going.”
The rear driver side door flew open. A thin white-haired guy in a nice suit jumped out, raising a handgun toward us.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted, ducking.
Crystal stomped on the gas. The guy opened fire, hitting the truck a couple times, but in the tailgate, or somewhere that didn’t blow out a tire or cause a gasoline fire. At the end of the straightaway, with no one in hot pursuit, Crystal slowed again to a speed that wouldn’t make a cop working a radar trap spill coffee all over themselves.
Finally, I allowed myself to breathe again and sighed at the hole in the windshield. It didn’t even occur to me how close I’d come to death, no… I only saw dollar signs.
Damn. That’s my luck for you. Replacing the windshield and rear window, patching body damage… my truck is going to set me back more than I charged for this case. Can’t exactly drive around with a giant hole in my windshield... or bullet holes everywhere. Ugh. At least Hank—the mechanic I always go to—lets me pay him when I can... which was few and far between.
To distract myself from financial misery, I tapped the phone screen and played the video. After a few repeats, I paused it on the clearest shot of the old bastard and zoomed in so his face filled the screen. Other than a strong suspicion he came from the Farrington family, I didn’t recognize him. Never did understand how that happened. Those families basically owned Shadow Pines and controlled ninety percent of what went on in and around it, but almost no one outside of their circles knew what the hell they looked like.
That didn’t make any sense to me. What’s the point of having all that money and power if you spend every waking moment hidden away somewhere?
“Hey, you know who this guy is?” I held the phone out so she could see.
