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  “We can’t just take the buggy with him watching,” Johnis snapped. “Maybe he’ll give it to us.”

  And then he was pulling the door open and stepping inside the building. Silvie released his arm and followed him past the glass door.

  They stood at the entrance, side by side, facing the attendant, who didn’t seem too surprised or put off by their presence. He stood taller than they did and was at least twice their weight. His head was bald and a black goatee hung off his thick chin. Tattoos ran up from each elbow and disappeared beneath a light blue shirt, then coiled up the sides of his neck and around the back of his lumpy skull.

  This one had seen his share of fights. Silvie’s heart pounded, but the fact that this tattooed slugger with blue eyes wasn’t reaching for a sword under his counter was only a small relief.

  She removed her fingers from the bone-handled knife at her waist when she saw his eyes flitter to it.

  “Pardon two wearied travelers,” Johnis said in his most polite voice. “We’ve lost our horses to the desert and need a buggy to finish our journey to the city.”

  The man just stared. He wore silver earrings in each lobe. No indication that he was a Scab beyond the feet that he looked to be a bit stupid.

  “Can you help us?” Silvie asked. “Or are you just going to stare at us?”

  She felt Johnis’s elbow in her ribs.

  “This look like the Excalibur?” the man asked evenly. “We got gas; we got junk food. Buy what you need and take a hike.”

  Johnis glanced at Silvie. Evidently encouraged by the man’s nonsensical response, he stepped in and took on an air of supreme confidence.

  “We would fit in at the Excalibur? How is that?”

  “You’re gladiators, right? So buy what you need and go die somewhere else.”

  “Our mission is beyond the talk of fools and commoners,” Johnis said. “Not that you look like a fool or commoner—far from it.”

  “You deaf?” The man wasn’t interested in whatever Johnis was trying to serve up. Neither was Silvie.

  Johnis snatched up a rectangular package marked Snickers, ripped it open, and stared at the brown square exposed. He sniffed what looked to be a food bar. “We’re quite hungry,” he said, then shoved the food into his mouth and bit deeply.

  The bald man didn’t budge.

  Johnis smacked his lips and took another bite. “Oh! That’s simply … Oh, dear Elyon, this is fantastic!” And by all that Silvie could see, Johnis was truly enraptured with the brown food in his fist. “Try it!” He shoved the bar to her.

  Back to the attendant: “You wouldn’t happen to know about the Books of History, would you?”

  Judging by the man’s stone face, he was either a complete imbecile or he was so unprepared for Johnis’s arrogance that he had lost track of his thoughts. He was the kind who thought with his fists.

  “Johnis, I really think—”

  “I thought not. If you hear anyone mention the Books of History, tell them Johnis and Silvie are alive and well and wish to meet with them. In the meantime, we need a buggy. Can you help us?”

  Beat.

  “What about the red one on the far side of the feeding station? It looked unused to me.”

  “The Chevy? It’s a car, not a buggy.” The man’s lips twitched into a barely discernible grin. “You have no idea how close you are to a slap upside the head. And I doubt the boss would have a problem with me taking care of a couple of fruits trying to steal his little cherry while he’s in LA.”

  “Perfect! We’ll take the cherry Chevy, Have you had a go in it?”

  “Look—”

  “No, you look, you thick-headed fool! I’m going to throw you a bone here, but you have to go with me. We may look like fruits to you, but there’s far more meat between these ears than you are used to. If you play with us, you could walk out of these stables a rich fellow. That doesn’t interest you?”

  Johnis had lost his mind. Silvie knew what he was trying, but she had no confidence he would succeed. She inched her hands to the blade at her side.

  “Now, tell me if you’ve ridden the Chevy,” Johnis said before the man could respond.

  “The Chevy—yes.”

  “Good. Then making it go can’t require too much intelligence. I’ll make you a bet: one gold coin says I can make the Chevy go and leave you standing by your feeding trough before you can stop me.”

  Johnis pulled out a roughly hewn gold coin from his pocket, one of five he had on him. Thomas had instituted them as one form of currency in the forests after nuggets of the soft colorful metal had been found in the river near Middle and claimed by the Guard. The chosen had each received twenty coins upon their return from the desert with the Catalina cacti.

  He flipped the coin through the air. It landed on the counter with a loud clunk, bounced once, and toppled next to the throater’s hand.

  The man exchanged looks with both of them, then picked up the coin. Bit it. Eyed them again. Perhaps Johnis’s ploy was working after all. Thomas’s words during fight school rang in Silvie’s ears: “When you deal with a throater, put on the skin of a throater. They are too stupid to respect anything other than arrogance.”

  “Real gold,” the man said, placing the coin on the counter. “You do realize that this one coin is worth more than that Chevy out there. What makes you think I shouldn’t just take this from you now?”

  “Because you know that something’s not normal with us. We’re smaller than you and have half your muscle, but we act as though we can wipe the floor with your guts. And we act that way because we know it’s true. Show him, Silvie.”

  A dozen thoughts raced through her mind. She grabbed one out of thin air and put as much bite behind it as she could muster, “I don’t want to hurt the poor fellow,” she said.

  Johnis, who now stood a step ahead of her, turned back, and for the first rime she saw that his face was red. “Show him. Or do you want me to show him?”

  He was furious. Anger was pushing him to confront the man.

  “Show him how?” she asked.

  “With your knife. Cut off one of his earrings or something! Or should I do it?”

  “You’d miss and rip out his cheek! Why the aggression toward me? I’ve done nothing!”

  “Then just show him! We walk in here and make a simple request in good spirits, and he treats us like were dogs!”

  Silvie was right: Johnis’s entire ploy had been born out of rage toward the man, not some crafty ploy to persuade him. He’d risked their necks because of his need to satisfy his anger?

  “How dare you!” she snapped.

  “What? How dare I what?”

  “You’re more interested in making a point with this fool than protecting me or finding the books.”

  She could see by his sudden stillness that she’d connected with him. For a moment they just stared at each other.

  “Sorry,” he said. Then to the tattooed man, “Sorry, she’s right. If you’ll just show us how to ride the Chevy, we could save you the pain of learning what a mistake it is to cross Johnis and Silvie— or any member of the Forest Guard, for that matter.”

  The man’s face remained fixed for a moment; then a hint of smile nudged the corner of his mouth. “You guys are a real trip.” The smile flattened. He flipped the coin back toward Johnis. “Out. Now.”

  The doorbell clanged, and a visitor walked in, eyed them once over, dropped what appeared to be two square leaves on the counter, and walked out, not bothering to give them a second glance.

  “That’s the feed for these steeds?” Johnis asked.

  “Look, enough’s enough, dude. You’ve done your crazy show, now hit the road before I lose my good nature. Don’t push it.”

  But they’d already pushed it. It would be a mistake to retreat without playing this hand to the end. Regardless of why Johnis had pushed things this far, he’d been quite brave. Silvie plucked the coin from his hand and walked gracefully up to the counter, aware of the man’s eye
s on her as she approached him.

  She smiled and held the coin up between thumb and forefinger to keep his eyes from wandering. “Answer a few questions and you can keep it. Just a few questions and we leave. It’s worth your while.”

  She winked.

  The man’s blush was nearly imperceptible. Silvie set the coin before him and leaned on the counter.

  “My lover is right, you know,” she said, wanting to make it clear that she was taken. She withdrew her right knife and twirled it in her fingers. “We can do a few things.”

  And then, so that he would remain off balance, she whipped the blade toward Johnis with a hard flick of her wrist.

  The knife flashed through the air, severed a single lock of hair next to his right ear, and thudded into a carton with the phrase Diet Coke printed boldly on its side.

  A brown liquid spewed at the tip of the blade and pooled on the floor.

  “What’s your name?” Silvie asked the man.

  “Ray.”

  “Well, Ray, I think Johnis wants to know how to make one of these car things go. Isn’t that right, Johnis?”

  “Yes,” Johnis said, walking up to the counter. “Tell us that and you can keep the coin.”

  “You guys are serious? You don’t know how to drive?”

  “We throw knives, we kill Scabs, we put fools in their place, but we don’t drive,” Johnis said. “Not yet.”

  Ray humphed, picked up the coin, and rounded the counter. “You’re both nuts.”

  He led them from the station, explaining that the “feed,” as they called it, was actually gas, and the buggies, or more properly “cars,” had motors that made them run as long as you kept the tank full of fuel. He showed them how to operate one of the upright feeding troughs, called a “pump.”

  Johnis took it all in with supreme confidence, though Silvie doubted he was retaining as much as he let on. Then again, he seemed completely taken by the whole business.

  When they approached the red Chevy parked next to the station, his eyes stared like a spiders and his jaw remained slightly parted in dumb wonder. Silvie was more taken by his reaction to the contraption than by the car itself.

  “Fantastic!” Johnis breathed, stepping lightly around the car. “Cherry Chevy. How long have they been around?”

  “Chevys? You can’t be serious. You guys really haven’t seen a car before? You grow up in a monastery in Tibet or something?”

  “Something like that.” Johnis held out his hand. “How old is this one?”

  “2008.”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “Long as you don’t scratch it. The boss has won his share of races in this. Modified. I’m a Harley guy, but I don’t mind saying she’s a beauty.”

  Johnis let his fingers run along the dark red skin. “Fantastic. It’s like silk!” Silvie followed his example, impressed by the hard shell. She was still more fascinated by him than this cherry.

  The attendant opened the doors and let them both sit inside, talking them through the “fundamentals of driving,” as he called them. “Insert and turn the key to start it, like this. Put it in Drive. Most street racers are manual, but Joe likes the automatic. That’s the brake to stop it. That’s the gas to make it go. You steer with the wheel.”

  “Fantastic!” Johnis stared at the wheel in his hands, ran his fingers over the workings on the black dash, kneaded the leather-wrapped gear stick. It was enough to make Silvie jealous!

  “Okay, come on, that’s it. Out. I have a customer.”

  Johnis crawled out, then stuck his head back in and took one last long look. “Where’s the key?”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal. You mess with this car and you’ll be sorry you were ever born. In case they didn’t teach you this in Tibet, knives don’t do too well against shotguns.”

  The man left them at the door, and they headed behind the building.

  “Come on,” Johnis said, running back up the hill. He slid to the ground over the top of the hill and spun back on his elbows, giving him a full view of the Texon station below.

  “Now what?” Silvie demanded, dropping in beside him.

  “Did you feel that skin, Silvie? The smell of the leather, the smooth lines of that body—”

  “It’s a mechanical beast, not a woman!” she whispered.

  “I have to have this Chevy!”

  “There are hundreds—”

  “No. I have to have the cherry Chevy.” Johnis tried to explain, stumbling over his own words. “It’s a dangerous thing, this driving … This is the only car I’ve touched … I know where the levers are … It’s calling me, Silvie.” Then in a stern voice, “We have priorities. We have to get to the Books of History, for the love of Elyon! We’re wasting time here!”

  He jumped to his feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Wait for me by the Chevy. I’ll meet you there.”

  “No, Johnis, not without me. You can’t leave me!” “I have to get the keys! Meet me by the Chevy!” “He has a shotgun …”

  Johnis plunged over the slope. “What’s a shotgun? I need that Chevy!”

  And then he was racing down the sandy hill.

  o change?”

  “You speak as though I should know more than you. I expected more considering your power.”

  “The moment you stop watching the girl is the moment you become useless to me. Is this difficult to understand?”

  “Forgive me,” she said. “Meeting here, below the earth, among the dead in Romania, affects my judgment. No change.”

  He held her in a steady glare.

  “And the others?” she asked.

  “They’ll show up eventually. When they do, I have a feeling the whole world will know about it,”

  “How so?”

  “They’re not the quiet type.”

  “Foolish.”

  “No, chosen.” he said. “Which makes them as dangerous as they are loud.”

  “Then we’ll just have to shut them up, won’t we?”

  ilvie crouched beside the Chevy, peering through both windows at the gas station’s front entrance. The doors to the car were locked, but even if she’d found them open, she wouldn’t have dared to enter the small space alone. Johnis might have found a new love in this Chevy, but to her it was still a pile of leather and metal and strange smells, finely crafted or not.

  “Come on, Johnis,” she muttered. Her nerves had her fidgeting like a young girl. He’d been gone too long! “Come on, come on! I knew it! He’s in trouble.”

  She had to do something. Silvie stood and was about to run for the glass door when it slammed wide and spit Johnis out in a full sprint.

  A horrendous boom shook the air, and the glass door shattered.

  Johnis’s feet slid on the flat concrete as he spun through his turn. Then he was pelting for her, arms pumping like batons.

  The Chevy chirped like a bird, and Silvie jumped.

  “Mount it!” Johnis cried. “Inside, get inside!”

  Silvie jerked the lever that operated the door, flung the contraption wide, and piled in. The car had unlocked on its own?

  Ray rushed from the station, bearing what appeared to be a long stick. A shotgun. If the weapon in his arm was responsible for the shattering glass, they were in trouble. Her knives were worthless in such a tiny space!

  She nearly dove back out, but Johnis was there, jerking his door open. “He won’t harm the Chevy!” he screamed. “You can’t put a scratch on the car, can you, Ray?”

  The shopkeeper used the shotgun again. Twin blasts of fire belched into the air, chased by a thundering volley. But he’d held the weapon high.

  “Don’t touch it!” he roared. “I’ll fill your backsides so full of lead you won’t be able to stand straight.”

  Johnis dove in and slammed the door shut. He fumbled with a small metal object, searched for the hole that Ray had pointed out earlier as being the ignition.

  “I ran into some trouble,” he panted.r />
  “Really? And it doesn’t look to be over.”

  “He won’t hurt the car.”

  “He’s coming …”

  The man was storming toward them, shotgun cradled in his arm.

  “He’s coming, Johnis!”

  Johnis wasn’t having luck with the key, so he pulled it back and pushed at several small buttons on a black knob attached to the device’s metal portion.

  The car suddenly chirped again and the locks clacked shut.

  Johnis looked at her, unable to hide his smirk. “Fantastic …”

  A hand slammed on his window. “Out!” the tattooed man thundered. “Get out before I blast this door open!”

  “He can’t! He won’t!” Johnis ignored the man and went back to work on the key, this time with more deliberate concentration.

  Ray was cursing bitterly, but Johnis was right; he couldn’t risk damaging the car. They were safe in this cocoon—for the moment. But they would face even greater danger when an overzealous Johnis got the contraption moving.

  “This doesn’t look good, Johnis!”

  “He’s a stubborn thug!”

  “What were you thinking?”

  The man stood outside the car, voice muted, message clear.

  “You’re dead meat! You can either get out now, and I might send you off with a good kick in the behind. Or you can make me go back in for the other set of keys, but if I do that, I’m going to take it out on you. You hear me?” He slammed his palm against the window to drive his point home.

  Silvie felt like a small child cowering under a monster. “He’s got another set of keys?”

  The man whirled around and stormed off, leaving a trail of furious words behind him.

  “He’s got another set of keys! Stop fumbling with that thing and get us out of here!”

  “I’m trying, but I can’t see …”

  She grabbed the key from him, lined it up as she saw it must go, and slid it into the hole. Without a second thought, she twisted the key as their instructor had shown them earlier.

  The Chevy roared and she jerked back.

  Music boomed, louder than she could bear. Not just any music, but the sound of a man screaming, as if the musician was trapped in the motor and was protesting in no uncertain terms.