Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
There was no way not to wonder what the hell had been welcomed into the residence at the Wheel, into FT. The story Allhan had supplied at Safe Place had been blinded in a lot of ways—the parental, names and the bloodline particularly—but that wasn’t that unusual. Young who were homeless and without resources were still allowed to have pride and want to protect their families.
Even if they’d been left high and dry in the big, bad world.
And Christ, the fucker had been so damned timid. Al had always given off the vibes of a frightened forest animal, all stutters and lowered eyes, looking like he was going to bolt at any moment—
A low rumble vibrated through V’s shitkickers and he glanced at the snow he was standing on. Moments later, the clinking, metal-on-metal rise of a garage door rippled upward, and then there was a hot breath of gas and oil. That wasn’t what he tracked. The engine was big, loud, and nasty, and every car-guy neuron in his brain exploded with gimme, gimme, gimme.
He even leaned forward a little farther than he should have.
What rolled out was a straight-up thing of beauty, and he didn’t even like trucks. Fully murdered, a dually, and naturally aspirated, which had to be special order, the Ford F-whatever-the-fuck was badass and then some.
“Don’t know how this is getting released,” the human said as he got out from behind the wheel. “I thought this was part of that helicopter ch—”
The guy grunted and put his hand up to his head like it hurt.
Al went around to the driver’s side. “Thanks for your help.”
“Whatever.”
As the human disappeared back into the building, Al peered into the truck like something in the cockpit was going to sting him on the eyeball. It was a good full minute before he pulled himself into the cab and shut the door. And then there was another long pause, as if he was maybe looking up “how to drive” on his phone.
Either one of his phones.
Finally, the red taillights flared, there was a change in engine cadence, and the—
Talk about going at an idle. The truck rip-roared at two inches an hour while approaching the gate, which retracted on its own. After that, there was more granny driving out to the street and then a turn signal like Al was breaking into a traffic jam even though there were no other vehicles around. Once on the road proper, he puttered off to the left and stayed to the center as if the parallel parked cars were sporting box cutters.
V dematerialized to the roof of a storage unit place. Then a parking garage. Next up was a series of data processing buildings, at least going by the humming.
It was not hard to follow the truck. Hell, if he’d been on the ground, he could have gone at a stroll’s pace.
Also good job this wasn’t at a busier time of night. The male would have had a streamer of pissed-off drivers behind him, and maybe a cop-bot or two pulling him over to make sure he wasn’t under the influence: He pumped the brakes at every intersection, whether or not there was a stop sign, even if there was a green light.
Finally, the creeping speed increased to a whopping fifteen miles an hour. In a thirty.
And he just kept going.
It was a triathlon at a turtle pace, all the way out of downtown to the ring of strip-mall suburbia that had rebounded when people decided they’d had enough of online buying and wanted to play touchy-feely again with things like clothes, books, and home goods.
But confidence was gaining by the mile.
Now Al was cruising at a blistering twenty-five miles an hour on the four-laner that had stoplights, turning lanes to cut across opposing traffic, and cars that wanted to actually make it to wherever they were going before the close of this century. And every time he was passed, he topped the brakes like he’d panicked and then took a while to get back up to speed.
Eventually, he eased off Route 9 into the Latham Plaza.
A weird tightening squeezed the back of V’s neck as he recognized the place. God, he hadn’t been here in over thirty years.
Mr. X’s martial arts studio had been here. The Fore-lesser who had abducted Beth all those years ago, when she’d first come into the vampire world, first learned who and what she really was.
That bastard. If you could dig a slayer up and kill it all over again, that one would be high on the list.
There were all kinds of tall lights shining down on empty parking spaces and snowbanks, and V stayed with the rooftop hops as the murdered truck proceeded all the way to the back corner and around behind the horseshoe-shaped building.
Al rolled to a stop at a freestanding, warehouse-sized box that declared itself “Mac’s Detailing and Body Shop. Est. 1987.”