Curse the Dawn
Page 63

“Energy potion,” Marsden said, catching my eye. “It’s harmless.”
And foul, judging by Pritkin’s expression. “If I take it, will it help me shift us out of here?” I asked as a ceramic water pitcher danced down a counter and crashed against the tiles.
“Oh, no. It isn’t that strong. Just adds a bit of pep, so to speak. But not to worry; I have another way out.”
Pritkin groaned. “Tell me you didn’t bring that damn thing with you!”
Marsden looked affronted. “That damn thing won me six titles, I’ll have you know!”
“And almost got you killed at least as many times!”
“A hazard of the sport.”
Pritkin grabbed his coat and weapons while appliances rattled in their places and the dishes chimed together in the cupboard. One glance out the window showed why: bolt after bolt of energy was exploding against a bubble of protection that began just beyond the garden. None got through, but every hit shuddered the foundations of the house.
Marsden threw open the back door and led us quickly across the garden. Beyond the cultivated area was a patch of weeds surrounding a small brick structure. He flicked on the lights and dragged a tarp off what turned out to be a gleaming red convertible. It was obviously a classic, with a long, low frame, high fenders and an odd arrangement of three headlights.
“An Alfa Romeo Spider,” he informed us, grinning. “Finest sports car ever made. Bought new in 1932.” He slid behind the wheel, and Orion, the demon-possessed dog, jumped into the passenger seat. That was a little creepy since I hadn’t even noticed him being there. “Get in, get in!” Marsden said impatiently.
“It only has two seats,” I pointed out, and Orion’s bulk pretty much filled his.
“We’ll all fit,” Marsden said with the confidence of a man who was already seated.
“You think we can outrun them?” I asked skeptically as Pritkin and I tried to squeeze two bodies into a negative amount of space.
“I know we can!” Marsden yelled, starting the engine.
And then the garage shuddered, and the door opened on a dozen mages all trying to fit through at once. Pritkin mumbled something, and I glimpsed several of them being plucked off their feet by vines as big around as my leg. But it didn’t matter because the rest came for us even as we started moving—straight at the garage wall.
“Marsden!” I screamed, but he just floored it. And the old car jumped ahead with a growl that shook the frame, leaping straight for the very solid-looking brick wall.
But instead of hitting brick, we sailed straight into the middle of a pulsing beam of white light. It was blindingly bright, shedding a killing radiance that made the sunny day look dark by comparison. The garage disappeared behind us, winking out of sight with a pop.
I slid into the seat, pushing devil dog onto the floor-boards between my legs. Pritkin found a perch behind me, his bottom on the trunk, his feet knotted into the seat belts to keep him from flying off. My eyes finally adjusted to the glow, allowing me to look out on a glimmering white landscape. Blazing but cold, it reflected diamond-brilliant off of the surface of the car.
We were in a ley line. But this one made the Chaco Canyon Line look like a backwoods road. I couldn’t even see an end to it on either side. But I could see dark shapes behind us, like tiny clouds obscuring the sun.
“You know, I think this is where I came in,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
“Don’t worry!” Marsden told me, flooring the gas pedal. “I won three world titles in this car!”
“Jonas is a former champion racer,” Pritkin explained.
“You race in the ley lines?”
“Used to. Gave it up a few years back.”
“You mean they made you quit,” Pritkin corrected.
“Why?” I asked fearfully.
“Jealousy,” Marsden said, hitting the dashboard. “Pure and simple.”
“Because it is fantastically dangerous, even with youthful reflexes,” Pritkin amended. “No one wanted to see you explode.”
“Explode?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Marsden assured me. “We’re shielded.”
And that’s when I noticed the pale golden shield all around the car, flowing over us like an elongated soap bubble and about as sturdy looking. I’d seen something like this before, a magical ward that allowed craft carrying multiple passengers to navigate the lines. It made me feel a little better . . . for about ten seconds. Until a jolt of power sizzled past us from the pursuing mages—the same ones who had just collapsed a much sturdier-looking shield around the house.
Pritkin twisted around, lying over the trunk of the car to fire a spell at them. “Do you remember what happened last time somebody did that?” I screeched, grabbing him by the waistband.
“The Belinus Line is perfectly stable!” he told me just as Marsden hit a patch of turbulence. If I hadn’t been hanging on, Pritkin would have gone flying, taking my body with him. As it was, we both hit back down hard, while Orion howled and Marsden cackled like the madman he undoubtedly was.
Something smashed against the shield around us, almost rolling the car and threatening to give me whiplash. “Marsden!” I screamed. “They’re gaining!”
“Not for long!” He jerked the wheel to the right, throwing me half out of the car. Pritkin grabbed me, pulling back hard enough that I almost kept my seat. We burst free of the line in a shower of silver-white fire—right into the middle of thin air.
It took me a second to realize what had happened, because piercing cold hit me like a fist, knocking the breath from my lungs. It felt like my body had been encased in a sheath of ice. I tried to move, but nothing happened. I decided that I should probably worry that it didn’t feel like I had any legs, but I was too busy freaking out about the fact that I couldn’t seem to breathe.
Most of my senses were useless: everything was utterly silent, and if there was any wind, I didn’t feel it. I gazed around, but there wasn’t much to see. The only clouds were miles below, leaving the sky an incredible, dazzling blue. . . .
It was the view from an airplane, I realized, except we weren’t in one. We weren’t even in the shield because it was designed only to operate within a ley line. We were thousands of feet above the ground in a car that had no business being there. I stared at the Earth, so ridiculously far below, but I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs to scream.
And then I was thrown back against the seat as Marsden nose-dived straight for the ground. The wind caused by our sudden plummet hit my eyes and I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think through the sheer terror of it. We were going to die, I thought blankly, we were all going to die—and then we hit another ley line head-on.
This one was tiny, barely large enough for the car, almost brushing us on either side of the newly re-formed bubble. In the few seconds we’d been outside, my eyebrows had frosted up, my skin had turned a vaguely purple shade of blue and I swear my eyes had iced over. I blinked them rapidly, trying to see, and finally managed it—just in time to watch us slide straight down into a tunnel of leaping red fire.
I’d gotten my breath back, so I used it to scream, but the engine noise mostly drowned it out. I eventually trailed off, my throat raw, and yet we kept falling. It was like being on a roller-coaster ride with no bottom. The seat belt was cutting into my lap, threatening to bisect me; devil dog’s hair was floating straight up; and Pritkin was gripping the back of the seat with both hands to keep from being thrown against the top of the bubble. And still we dove.
Then the brilliant red suddenly shifted to crimson as we plunged through some kind of border. The car went from an almost perpendicular plummet to a steep slide, throwing me half out of the car. My arm flung out in an attempt to grab something, anything, to steady me, and plunged straight into freezing water.
Part of the car was outside the narrow confines of the line, creating a hole in the shield. My arm had gone out the hole and a flood of water was coming in. It hissed against the line’s energy, throwing a cloud of steam in my face.
“Get back in!” Marsden yelled. “I can’t see!”
“I’ll get right on that!” I snarled as the forward momentum did its best to rip my arm off.
Pritkin tried to drag me back. But with only my strength to work with, it did no good. I turned, bracing my feet against the side of the car, and pulled. My arm popped out of the hole, the car swerved back into the line and devil dog shook himself, spraying me in the face with waterlogged fur.
“The Channel,” Marsden yelled, looking perfectly normal except for the high energy in his eyes. “And I’d keep your hands inside the car, if I were you. The energy of the line tends to attract attention. Went a little offsides once and next thing I knew, there was this great dolphin in the passenger seat, flapping and writhing and thwacking me with its tail. Took me forever to get it out. Cost me the race.”
I just stared at him until my attention was caught by the huge, dark shape that coasted by outside the line. It was indistinct through the jumping energy, but was easily as big as a house. “Whale,” Pritkin said from over my shoulder. “Some animals can sense the lines; we’ve never determined quite how.”
“Damn nuisances!” Marsden declared. “That’s how Cavanaugh died, you know. Middle of the All Britain back in ’fifty-six, and this great blue decides to breach the line. Dove in right in front of him. Must have been daft.”
“Then perhaps we should attempt to leave this one behind,” Pritkin pointed out.
Marsden apparently agreed, because he floored it. We flew ahead along a twisting, perilous course, but the whale kept pace, ducking and diving and following the same crazy path from the outside. Until we suddenly shot up again, leaving the ocean behind along with the ley line.
I hung over the side of the car, staring down at the ocean and the huge head that bobbed for a moment among the iron-gray waves and then disappeared. We continued upward for another few seconds and then started to drop like the large hunk of steel we were. I kept waiting for another line to snatch us away, but nothing happened and the waves were close enough that I could see the foam cresting on them and—