Prowlers: Wild Things (15 page)

"We can only do what we can do," Molly told him.

Jack actually smiled. "I know that. But don't try to pretend you don't feel exactly the same way I do. This prick, Ford? He told her he wanted to say good night. Let me into the cab so we can say good night. She thought he wanted more. Maybe she was going to turn him down, but it flattered her, I could tell by the tone of her voice. He said he wanted to say good night and it made her feel good.

"I want to find him and burn him down. Bury him."

Molly reached up to touch the back of Jack's neck, to push her fingers through his hair and stroke his skin there. He pulled the Jeep into a parking spot not far from the side door of the hotel.

"I feel the same way," she told him. "It kills me to say it, but unless Artie comes through, we've got nothing. We were a few feet away from him last night and he was probably laughing at us the whole time. When there's a pack, maybe we can do something about it. But if there's just one or two, and they don't want to be found, I'm not sure what more we can do."

Jack killed the engine and slipped his keys out. They jangled in his hand as he turned to Molly, bent toward her and kissed her forehead. "We'll figure something out. Maybe after we have something to eat and a little down time, we can figure out another approach."

Molly said nothing. She doubted there was going to be another approach and she figured Jack did too, but he was trying to give them both a chance to talk and think about something else for a few minutes, and so she said nothing.

They climbed out of the Jeep. As Molly slammed her door, she saw a dark-skinned guy with a blond girl who was maybe seventeen get out of a Toyota a few spots down. The two of them were parallel to Molly and Jack as they moved toward the motel, and yet they did not so much as look up. There was something about the man that drew her attention, a sense that he did not want to be noticed, as though he were doing something wrong. It occurred to her that he might be sneaking off for some rendezvous with this young girl, and the thought repulsed Molly.

The girl cast a quick, furtive glance in her direction, then looked away immediately. Molly might have continued to think they were involved in some sort of tryst if not for the grin that spread across the girl's features just then, a mischievous, even sinister smile that stopped her in her tracks.

Molly turned to look at Jack as he was coming around the front of the Jeep and as she did, she caught sight of the two men coming out the side door of the motel. They stared at Jack intently, a dark recognition in their gaze that made it clear he was their objective. An aura of danger emanated from them that was palpable.

"Jack," Molly muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

He glanced up, eyes darting from the two at the door to the man and girl coming around the front of the Toyota a few cars down, and then his gaze locked on Molly's. She shivered as a chill went through her, spiders scuttling up her spine, for in his eyes she saw confirmation of her suspicion. Molly cursed silently. She had hoped she was just being paranoid.

"Hang on," Jack said, face expressionless. "I forgot something."

His keys jangled as he went back to the Jeep, quickly opened the door and climbed in. Molly drifted back toward her door, but even as she did so, she heard them begin to snarl. Her head snapped around and she saw the dark-skinned man and the girl changing, fur tearing through skin, even as they leaped up on top of a Saturn sedan. The hood buckled with a metallic pop and the female leaped to the next car's roof, gnashing her teeth, her gleaming jagged row of teeth lengthening.

"Shit," Molly whispered. She grabbed at the Jeep's passenger door, but it was locked. "Jack!"

The two at the side door of the hotel had transformed as well, but they were going for Jack. One of them raced around to the driver's door as the other leaped on the hood of the Jeep. It ignored her, staring through the windshield at Jack. But the other two . . . the female was in the lead, her fur a bright golden yellow, and she landed on the roof of the car in the next parking space and issued an almost sensual growl as she tensed to attack.

Molly heard the click of the door unlocking behind her.

The golden-furred Prowler lunged at her, the other close behind. Molly reached back and grabbed the handle, then swung the door open with all her strength, ducking behind it like a shield. The female hit it with enough impact that the window splintered into a web of thousands of cracks. Molly cried out in pain as her legs were slammed between the door and the Jeep, but even as she shouted, she rammed the door open again, threw herself inside and slammed it shut.

The automatic locks clicked all around even before the door was completely closed and the engine roared to life. The beast on the hood kicked at the windshield once, twice, trying to break it, but could not get the right angle or enough strength behind the blows. Out her splintered window, Molly saw the blond female's mate leaping toward her, the image fractured into a thousand different facets in the cracked glass.

"Go!" she screamed.

"Going!" Jack replied, even as the Jeep shot out of the parking space, tires squealing.

The one on the hood went tumbling off backward onto the pavement. The blond's mate crashed into the right front quarter, went down hard and the Jeep jerked as a tire went over his arm or leg. Jack cut the wheel, the Jeep slewed sideways and the read end crunched into a rusty blue Cadillac. The impact snapped Molly's head back and she wanted badly to put her seatbelt on, but could not seem to pry her own fingers off the sides of her seat, where she held on for dear life as she stared out the windshield. The one that had been pounding on Jack's door was running toward the grill of the Jeep. The female stood up as well, shaking off the blow Molly had given her with the door, but she wasn't fast enough.

The other, though, he raced at the front of the Jeep without a trace of hesitation.

Jack popped the shift into drive and floored it. For a moment Molly thought they were going to run him down. She squinted her eyes and tensed in preparation for the bone-crunching impact, but if she had ever needed an illustration of the superior speed of Prowlers compared to humans, this was it. The beast leaped aside at the last possible second, and then the Jeep was thundering out of the parking lot into the street, cutting off a VW Beetle headed the other direction. Molly glanced back and saw the monsters scrambling for the shadows again, their silhouettes there in the darkened parking lot already shifting back to human. They moved toward the Toyota and Molly swore.

"They're going to come after us," she told Jack as she went to strap herself in.

"Good."

Stunned, she turned to stare at him. Jack gripped the wheel with whitened knuckles and kept the accelerator pinned as they approached the on-ramp for Route 87. Molly reached back to grab her seat belt and Jack gave her a quick sidelong glance.

"Not yet, Mol. Get the key, climb in back, and get the shotguns. Maybe a couple of nines too. I want them to catch up to us."

She reached down and grabbed the release catch on the front of her seat, then pushed it backward as far as it would go. Sliding down onto the floor she reached up under her seat, where a small black box was magnetically attached to the metal springs. Inside the box she found the key to the trunk, but before she crawled between the seats, she turned to Jack again.

"Are you sure this is the best way to do this?"
"No. I'm not. But let's face it, as investigators, we're not Sherlock Holmes. We know what questions to ask, or at least some of them, but we don't have a lot of luck getting answers. Thing is, we ask the questions often enough, and look what happens. We find what we're looking for."

"Or they find us."

"Same thing. 'Cause they always underestimate us, Molly. We're human, so they always think we're nothing but prey."

Molly nodded grimly and pushed into the back seat, then over and into the cargo section of the Jeep. The trunk was covered with a couple of blankets that she pushed back just enough to get to the lock. Hurriedly she unlocked the chest and, with a grunt, threw open its top. Blankets slid off and bunched up while she reached in and pulled out two pump shotguns and a pair of nine millimeter pistols. The irony was not lost on her that Bill had procured the weapons from Prowlers, for them to use against Prowlers. Right now there was something delicious about that.

Molly snapped the lock back on, tossed the key onto the floor in the back seat and lay the guns on the rear seat as well before climbing over. She put the nines in the front, then slid up into the passenger seat with her shotgun in hand. Twisted around in the seat to reach for the other shotgun, she glanced out the back windshield and saw the Toyota racing after them. Jack had to be doing eighty, but they were going much faster.

"It's them," she said.

"Good. Strap in."

But just as she began to turn, bright light washed into the Jeep from behind. In the middle lane, right beside the Toyota, an eighteen-wheel rig roared, bearing down on them. The driver of the Toyota, the blond girl, waved urgently at the truck and pointed to the Jeep.

The sky was split by the deep bellow of the tractor-trailer's horn and then it came on faster.

"No," Molly whispered. She spun around, dropped into her seat and scrambled to grab at her seat belt. "Faster, Jack. I think that's Ford."

"Yeah?" Jack replied. He shot her a quick glance. "Pick up the shotgun."

"Jack!" Molly warned as the horn blared again, the lights seemed brighter, blinding as the truck bore down on them, sliding into the fast lane just behind them. There were plenty of other cars on the road but the lane ahead of them was clear, the nearest car a hundred yards up and going even faster than they were. Other motorists honked or swerved to be sure they were out of the way, but Molly knew that even if one of them called the police, time would have run out before anyone could help them.

"The shotgun, Molly, come on!" he snapped. "I can't outrun them, not now."

Heart drumrolling in her chest she grabbed the shotgun and pumped a shell into the chamber. "What are you going to do?"

Jack stiff-armed the wheel with his right hand and reached with his left to hit the button that rolled her window down. The second it started to be drawn down inside the door, the splintered glass gave way and shattered, cascading down inside and outside of the speeding Jeep like a shower of rock candy.

"Hang on," he yelled.

The sound of the truck's engine filled the Jeep now, so close was it behind them. Molly saw the driver of a minivan shoot them the finger as they passed. Jack cut to the right and the Jeep swayed and slid all the way across to the slow lane. They had a couple hundreds yards of straightaway with no other vehicles in that lane, but Molly could see red taillights far ahead. A lot of them.

"The exit's coming up for Hollingsworth," she told him anxiously. "Just get off, Jack."

"Come on, come on!" Jack muttered to himself, ignoring her as he stared in the rearview mirror and then at the lanes ahead.

Molly glanced back and saw the truck make the same insane cut across the highway. Horns blared, cars swerved, and a station wagon actually slewed off the road and onto the shoulder, nearly careening into the forest on that side. Then, again, the truck was gaining. Beyond that she saw the Toyota as well, and it began to accelerate as well.

"Sit tight, Molly, and get ready."

Her throat was dry, her hands damp on the shotgun as they raced along the slow lane. Again she glanced over her shoulder and saw the truck roaring up behind them. Ahead, to the left, there was a Chevy in the middle lane going far too slow, but beyond that, the lane was clear. Jack punched the accelerator a second before the big rig would have slammed into the back of the Jeep. They shot forward, past the faded red Chevrolet. The wind coming through the broken window blew Molly's hair in her face and she pushed it away.

"Now!" he snapped.

Jack cut the wheel to the left, the Jeep darted into the middle lane, and then he hit the brakes, pinning the steering wheel with both hands. The driver of the Chevy laid on his horn but Jack wasn't stopping, just slowing down. A lot. The engine of the Jeep groaned and the driver of the tractor-trailer started to brake as well, but at eighty-five miles per hour there was little he could do without jackknifing his rig. The truck plowed along in the slow lane, moving past them.

"Do it. Shoot him!" Jack snapped.

They had dropped back almost the entire length of the truck but now Jack began to accelerate again. The Jeep crept up beside the enormous, roaring gray dinosaur of a truck and Molly turned in her seat. The shotgun's barrel poked out her window and she aimed at the cab of the rig. The second she could see the silhouette of the driver, she pulled the trigger.

The shotgun roared and glass blew out of the driver's window. Divots of metal were torn from the door as well. The driver ducked, but she could see he was bleeding. The rig wavered as he righted it, trying to avoid driving off the shoulder, crashing the same way it had been made to appear that Suzanne Robinson and Chet Douglas had crashed.

Molly pumped another shell into the chamber. Even as Jack raced up next to the truck again, the driver turned to glare down at them.

It was John Ford, all right, lips peeled back in a grimace of such fury that although he still wore a human face, he looked as savage as any Prowler. Molly pulled the trigger, but even as she did, Ford swerved the truck into their lane. Metal shrieked and tore, her shot went wide. The rear tire of the truck dug into the side of the Jeep and for a moment they were up on two wheels. She dropped the gun and screamed, eyes wide as the horizon tilted, and Molly was certain she was going to die.

Then the Jeep's tires touched ground again.

But Jack had lost control. He jerked at the wheel and he slammed on the brakes to try to keep it from spinning. The Jeep swerved, the station wagon coming up behind them jerked left and crashed into the Chevy.

The Jeep started to skid sideways.