Shadowfires

passenger's
seat, where she could grab it quickly.
    The car started without hesitation. The windshield wipers flung
the rain off the glass.
    Outside, the desert beyond the concrete-block comfort station was
rendered entirely in shades of slate: grays, blacks, browns, and
rust. In that dreary sandscape, the only movement was the driving
rain and the windblown tumbleweed.
    Eric had not followed her.
    Maybe the rattlesnakes had killed him, after all. Surely he could
not have survived so many bites from so many snakes. Perhaps his
genetically altered body, though capable of repairing massive tissue
damage, was not able to counteract the toxic effects of such potent
venom.
    She drove out of the rest area, back onto the highway, heading
east toward Las Vegas, grateful to be alive. The rain was falling too
hard to permit safe travel above forty or fifty miles an hour, so she
stayed in the extreme right lane, letting the more daring motorists
pass her. Mile by mile she tried to convince herself that the worst
was past-but she remained unconvinced.
Ben put the Merkur in gear and pulled onto
the highway again.
    The storm was moving rapidly eastward, toward Las Vegas. The
rolling thunder was more distant than before, a deep rumble rather
than a bone-jarring crash. The lightning, which had been striking
perilously close on all sides, now flickered farther away, near the
eastern horizon. Rain was still falling hard, but it no longer came
down in blinding sheets, and driving was possible again.
    The dashboard clock confirmed the time on Ben's watch: 5:15. Yet the summer day was darker than it should have been at that hour. The storm-blackened sky had brought an early dusk, and ahead the somber land was fading steadily in the embrace of a false twilight.
    At his current speed, he would not reach Las Vegas until about
eight-thirty tonight, probably two or three hours after Rachael had
gotten there. He would have to stop in Baker, the only outpost in
this part of the Mojave, and try to reach Whitney Gavis again. But he
had the feeling he was not going to get hold of Whit. A feeling that
maybe his and Rachael's luck had run out.