The girls grasped the handle, Tobias waiting for Attie to give him a nod. In the next breath, he hit the brakes. As the roadster came to a screeching halt, the hounds soared over them.
Iris could feel the frigid air that haunted their long legs, rushing a mere arm’s length above her head. Their claws stirred her hair, and she could smell the dank, rotten scent of their flesh. She could nearly taste the under realm—shadows that were never touched by light, stone floors that were slick with blood—as time moved achingly slow. It felt like a year had come and gone with the hounds arcing overhead like three meteors, the roadster shuddering beneath her.
But when the hounds hit the ground before them, the world came back to alarming focus. Two of Dacre’s creatures seemed confused, but one turned around quickly to double back.
Tobias was ready for it.
He smoothly shifted the engine into first gear, then second, the roadster leaping forward. At the last minute, he cut the motorcar sharply, and they spun in a tight circle.
The tension in Iris’s chest was almost unbearable, as if gravity had been suspended. She was rising from the floorboard like she had been caught in a levitating spell, her mother’s locket hovering before her face. A flash of gold that reminded her to hold on, don’t let go.
The side of the roadster slammed into the returning hound’s hind leg. There was a sickening crunch followed by a piercing keen.
Tobias kept the car going, the wheels churning over the divots in the road until they launched eastward once more. The roadster slipped between the other two hounds, who lost time turning around again to pursue. Their angry growls shook the ground like thunder.
Iris tentatively rose to her knees, one hand clinging to the handle, the other to Attie.
She dared to glance back.
Only two hounds were in pursuit now, the third left behind to flounder in the road. But the pair were gaining on them again, as if wide open spaces and straight paths fed their mythical speed.
This time, Iris didn’t look away. She stared at the creatures as the distance waned once more. And she counted each time Tobias shifted, until she knew he was in the highest possible gear. The roadster was at its top speed; there was no power left for the engine to give them. They were all but flying over the road, and still the hounds came.
Iris stiffened when the hounds lunged forward with yawning, rotten maws. They surged like a tide only to ebb as Tobias drove through a sharp bend. Their pace at last faltered, and they slowed, slinging drool from their mouths along with snarls of defeat.
Still, she would not believe it. She could hardly trust her own eyes this night.
Iris kept her gaze on the road behind them, marked by tires, rutted by storms. She kept her gaze on the shrinking hounds until their hearts winked out, like candle flames being snuffed into darkness.
{24}
What Truly Happened in the Bluff and Beyond
Roman was sitting at a desk when the news arrived. He was in a room on the upper floor of the factory, watching as Dacre paced before a wall of windows. A few of the officers were standing in a group to the left, stoic and silent, and while Roman was waiting for Dacre’s command, he couldn’t deny that, in his mind, he was very far away.
He was in another small room, a cozy chamber in Marisol’s B and B, and there was a host of candles burning, casting soft rings of light along the walls. There was a pallet of blankets on the floor, and a pile of crinkled letters that Roman had read more times than he could count. He wasn’t alone, and he had never felt more alive, his blood singing when he looked at her, when he breathed in the lavender scent of her skin …
The door banged open.
Roman blinked, letting the memory shatter in his mind. He returned to his body where he sat dutifully at the table, kilometers from home, waiting for a god’s command.
Dacre, the officers, and Roman all looked at Lieutenant Shane, who was panting on the threshold despite his perfectly composed salute.
“What news?” the god asked. His tone was impassive, but Roman wasn’t fooled. He could tell Dacre was furious about the foiled attack in Hawk Shire. He was like a frozen lake, seemingly placid until one noticed the hairline cracks expanding across the ice. The dark, frigid water seeping through the gaps, hungry for a drowning.
“Lord Commander,” Shane began hoarsely. “The hounds have returned. One of them is gravely injured. The other two show no signs of spoils.”
“You mean that Enva’s scout got away.”
“It appears that they did, sir.”
“Appears.” Dacre smiled, a cold crescent of a moon. “Tell me, Lieutenant, how does an entire army evacuate before we arrive? How does a mortal girl evade multiple rounds of bullets in a wide-open meadow? How does a motorcar outrace three of my finest hounds, injuring one in the process?”