Shadowfires

finished
dressing Sarah Kiel.
    Benny put an arm around the girl from one side, and Rachael held
her from the other side, and although Sarah shuffled along under her
own power, she would have collapsed several times if they had not
provided support. Her knees kept buckling.
    The night smelled of star jasmine stirred by a breeze that also
rustled shrubbery, causing Rachael to glance nervously at the
shadows.
    They put Sarah in the car and fastened her seat belt for her,
whereupon she slumped against the restraining straps and let her head
fall forward. It was possible for a third person to ride in the 560
SL, although it was necessary for the extra passenger to sit sideways
in the open storage space behind the two bucket seats and endure a
bit of squeezing. Benny was too big to fit, so Rachael got behind the
seats, and he took the wheel for the trip to the hospital.
    As they pulled out of the driveway, a car turned the corner,
headlights washing over them, and when they entered the street, the
other car suddenly surged forward, fast, coming straight at them.
    Rachael's heart stuttered, and she said, “Oh, hell, it's them!”
    The oncoming car angled across the narrow street, intending to
block it. Benny wasted no time asking questions, immediately changed
directions, pulling hard on the wheel, putting the other car behind
them. He tramped the accelerator; tires squealed; the Mercedes leaped
forward with dependable quickness, racing past the low dark houses.
Ahead, the street ended in a cross street, forcing them to turn
either left or right, so Benny had to slow down, and Rachael lowered
her head and peered through the rear window against which she was
crammed, and she saw that the other car-a Cadillac of some kind,
maybe a Seville-was following close, very close, closer.
    Benny took the corner wide, at a frightening slant, and Rachael
would have been thrown by the sudden force of the turn if she
hadn't been wedged tightly in the storage space behind the seats. There was nowhere for her to be thrown to, and she didn't
even have to hold on to anything, but she did hold on to the back of
Sarah
Kiel's seat because she felt as if the world were about to fall out from under her, and she thought, God, please, don't
let the car roll over.
    The Mercedes didn't roll, hugged the road beautifully, came out into a straight stretch of residential street, and accelerated. But behind them, the Cadillac almost went over on its side, and the driver overcompensated, which made the Caddy swing so dangerously wide that it side-swiped a Corvette parked at the curb. Sparks showered into the air, cascaded along the pavement. The Caddy lurched away from the impact and looked like it would veer across the street and into the cars along the other curb, but then it recovered. It had lost some ground, but it came after them again, its driver undaunted.
    Benny whipped the little 560 SL into another turn, around another
corner, holding it tighter this time, then stood on the accelerator
for a block and a half, so it seemed as if they were in a rocket ship
instead of an automobile. Just when Rachael felt herself pressed back
with a force of maybe 4.5 Gs, just when it seemed they would break
the chains of gravity and explode straight into orbit, Benny
manipulated the brakes with all the style of a great concert pianist
executing “Moonlight Sonata,” and as he came up on another stop sign
with no intention of obeying it, he spun the wheel as hard as he
dared, so from behind it must have looked as if the Mercedes had just popped off that street onto the street that intersected from
the left.
    He was as expert at evasive driving as he had proved to be at hand-
to-hand combat, and Rachael wanted to say, Who the hell are you,
anyway, not just a placid real-estate salesman with a love of trains
and swing music, damned if you are, but she didn't say anything because she was afraid she would distract him, and if she distracted him at this speed, they would inevitably roll-or worse-and be killed for sure.
Ben knew that the 560 SL could easily win a
speed contest with the Cadillac out on the open roads, but it was a
different story on streets like these, which were narrow and
occasionally bisected by speed bumps to prevent drag racing. Besides,
there were traffic lights as they drew nearer the center of town, and
even at this dead hour of the morning he had to slow for those main
intersections, at least a little,