Nightstruck (15 page)

“For God's sake, Becket!” Piper said. Her face was turning red. I think she was actually embarrassed for me.

Aleric inclined his head. “I will consider myself warned.”

His lips were still shaped into a half smile, and he showed no sign of taking offense at anything I'd said or done. Which I thought was a clear indicator that I wasn't overreacting. If he were just some normal boy who was letting himself be fixed up on a blind date, surely he'd be hurt, insulted, or royally pissed off about the way I was acting. Instead, he looked amused and unsurprised. This was not only how he
expected
me to act, it was how he
wanted
me to act.

I wished suddenly that I could have handled the situation with more grace and subtlety. I didn't like the idea that I was showing him my fear, that I was giving him what he wanted. But it was too late to change that now.

“Enjoy the movie,” I said, sweeping my gaze over both Piper and Aleric. I would have liked to get Piper away from him, too, but she was obviously never going to listen to me. Besides, Aleric didn't seem even remotely interested in her. He was just using her to get to me, for reasons I didn't want to know.

It took an effort of will to turn my back and start walking briskly back toward Walnut Street, where I could catch a bus home.

*   *   *

I had the really uncomfortable sensation that I was being watched the whole time I walked to the bus stop. I looked over my shoulder only once, when I reached the end of that first block, but neither Aleric nor Piper was in view. I supposed they went into the Bourse to get that cup of coffee and have a good laugh at my expense.

There was a small crowd clustered at the bus stop, which I thought was a good sign. An empty bus stop usually means you just missed the bus. However, I stood there for over ten minutes before a bus finally roared its way toward us—and then roared right on past because it was already standing room only inside. Everyone at the bus stop gave a little groan and settled in to wait some more. Except me. I looked at the sky, which was now almost completely dark, and thought about how little I wanted to stand here for who knew how much longer waiting for the damn bus. And hoping the next bus that came by would have room.

On a sunny spring day, I would have happily walked home. It would take a while, and my feet would end up hurting by the end, but it would have been doable. Tonight, in the cold and gathering dark, the walk seemed impossibly long, and fraught with danger. Then again, at least if I was walking I'd be able to keep a little warmer. The temperature was steadily dropping, and I wasn't super bundled up because I'd thought we'd be inside, shopping, most of the time Piper and I were out.

I decided to compromise and walk part of the way, stopping at each bus stop and taking a look behind me to see if there was a bus on the horizon.

For fifteen blocks, I kept to that same pattern: walk a block, stop, look behind. And for fifteen blocks, I saw no sign of another bus coming. Each stop was crowded with irritated people, and maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I sensed a strange feeling of tension in the air. Everyone I passed seemed furtive, and my threat radar was going off constantly. I also couldn't help noticing that the sound of sirens split the night way more often than usual. I tried to be aware of my surroundings for safety purposes, but not so aware that I'd notice any uncomfortable details, like railings displaying phallic symbols.

I was in the home stretch, beginning to feel like I would actually make it back to the house safely and without any undue weirdness, when a familiar car passed by me and pulled into the driveway of a parking lot in front of me, blocking my way. The window hummed down.

“Get in,” Piper said, leaning across the seat so she could make eye contact.

I stopped in my tracks and shook my head at her. “You're kidding, right?” It was going to take some serious effort on my part—and a lot of sincere apologizing on hers—before I would even consider forgiving her. I realized with a pang that I was very likely in the process of losing my best friend.

Piper heaved an exaggerated sigh. “No, I'm not kidding. I just realized I was being a total bitch about this. I went about everything the wrong way, and I don't blame you for being pissed at me.”

I folded my arms across my chest. I'd started home about forty minutes ago, and if she was just now catching up with me, that meant it had taken her a damn long time to come to that realization. Enough time for her to have a leisurely cup of coffee while chatting up Aleric, the two of them maybe commiserating about how badly I'd treated them.

“You're at least a half an hour too late with your apology,” I told her. “I don't think you're a bit sorry, and I don't believe you even understand you did something wrong.”

It was hard to see Piper's face in the darkened interior of her car, but I thought I caught a hint of an eye-roll.

“Of course I do,” she said in a tone that was supposed to be placating but somehow grated on my nerves even more. “It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that lying was a stupid move. I was just so proud of myself for talking Aleric into meeting you that I got tunnel vision.”

My jaw clenched and I stared daggers at her. “Congratulations on achieving your impossible quest to get a guy to condescend to meet little old me. I'm sure it took a lot of lying and cleverness to make that happen.” To my shame, my eyes were burning as if I were on the verge of tears.

Piper groaned. “You know I didn't mean it that way, Becks. I honestly thought you would like him. I admit, I'm an idiot, and my execution sucked ass. But my intentions were good.”

Maybe so, but she had still lied to me. Still treated me as if what she wanted was way more important than what I wanted.

“Come on, Becks,” she wheedled. “Let me drive you the rest of the way home, at least. You don't have to say you forgive me. Hell, you don't even have to talk at all, if that's what you want.”

My feet were killing me. The temperature was still dropping. And the usual city dangers were magnified tenfold by my knowledge of the changes that were taking place. Walking the rest of the way home just to prove how angry I was seemed pointless.

Wordlessly, I climbed into the car and closed the door. I stared straight ahead as I fastened my seat belt, and I was determined that our short car ride would pass in silence. I expected Piper to start chirping at me with either more apologies or pointless small talk—she was never any good with silence—but she seemed to sense it would only make things worse.

We made it a little more than a block before Piper suddenly slammed on the brakes so hard I might have flown through the windshield if it weren't for my seat belt, which I had a feeling would be imprinted on my chest, come morning.

“What the hell?” I cried, bracing myself against the dash. I'd been staring out the side window, pointedly ignoring Piper, so I hadn't seen what made her stop. I turned to her and saw her staring forward, jaw dropped, eyes wide.

I followed her gaze, and couldn't contain a shriek.

Driving around Center City was a challenge to any car's shocks. Manholes, construction sites, potholes—you couldn't go a block without hitting one or even all three. So seeing a big pothole in the middle of Walnut Street wasn't exactly unusual. But the one that yawned across the street right in front of us was practically a canyon.

And that canyon possessed something that looked an awful lot like teeth.

As I watched in mute horror, the canyon opened wider, the asphalt moving as fluidly as flesh, until there was no way to move forward without driving into it. Behind us, someone was leaning on their horn. There are two lanes on Walnut Street, so when Piper didn't move forward, the guy behind us tried to veer around. He was yelling something through his side window and holding up his middle finger at Piper when his front tires hit the pothole.

There was a sound like nothing I'd ever heard before—a snap and a crunch and the bang of tires exploding, as the pothole … Well, I don't know any other way to describe it but that it bit down on the car that dared to try to drive over it.

The toothlike protrusions on each side of the pothole sank into the tires and then started crushing the wheels themselves. On the sidewalks, people had started to notice something was wrong—they couldn't have missed that noise—but I didn't think they had a clue what was actually happening. Not at first.

“Back up!” I ordered Piper breathlessly as the pothole widened to take in more of the car and then crunched closed again. The teeth had sunk in right at hubcap level, and the car lurched forward, its grille banging down on the road. The driver was screaming and fumbling with his seat belt, even as his back wheels spun and his engine revved futilely.

“Back up!” I said again, more loudly, as Piper just sat there and stared.

Pedestrians were starting to scream and panic, while behind us more cars were honking in annoyance. Piper finally broke out of her paralysis and put the car in reverse. Without bothering to look behind her, she floored it.

It was a good thing the car right behind us had stopped practically on our bumper. We didn't have time to build up any speed before we crashed into him. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that people in the cars behind us were starting to get out, trying to get a look at what had brought traffic to such a complete halt. When they were passed by screaming pedestrians, some of those drivers caught the panic and abandoned their cars, running blindly away from an unknown danger.

We were trapped, fenced in by the cars parked on the sides of the street and the ones that had come to a stop behind us.

“Maybe if I gunned it fast enough…” Piper suggested in a shaking voice.

The pothole seemed to rise up out of the street, sinking its teeth into the fender of the car it had caught, and tearing it off. The frantic driver finally tumbled out and joined the sea of fleeing, screaming people, until it felt almost as if Piper and I were alone in the street.

I didn't know how much mobility that pothole had, but I very much wanted to get out of there while it was still chewing up that other car. Piper sat frozen and staring in the driver's seat. I unhooked my seat belt, then reached over and put the car in Park, pulling Piper's keys from the ignition. Her hands were glued to the steering wheel, the knuckles stark white.

“Piper,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster, “we have to get out of the car.”

She shook her head frantically, gripping the steering wheel even tighter. I wanted to open my own door and start running, but it was obvious that Piper was too panicked to function. I couldn't just leave her.

“It's not safe in here,” I said. “Let's get out of the road.” The pothole didn't seem to have any interest in the cars parked along the curb on both sides, nor did it show any signs of wanting to pursue the fleeing pedestrians—assuming it was capable of moving from its current spot. I figured that meant getting out of the car and running away was a damn good plan.

I opened my door, hoping the movement would inspire Piper to do the same, but she was still frozen. I closed my door and ran around to the driver's side, keeping a careful eye on the pothole while I did. It still seemed to be happily munching its kill, biting off hunks of metal from the car's exterior and then sinking its teeth into the engine. I opened Piper's door, grabbed her arm, and bodily yanked her out of the car. She fell to the asphalt with a little cry of distress, but at least that seemed to break her out of her paralysis. When I tugged her toward the sidewalk, she lurched to her feet and followed.

Feeling eerily removed from the situation, I dug out my phone and snapped a quick picture as the pothole reared up and snapped the car's front axle in two. Then Piper and I turned and ran.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

No other impossible creatures attacked us on the way to my house, though there was a marked increase in the number of sirens. From the sound of them, they were converging on Walnut Street. I also thought I spotted Aleric once, out of the corner of my eye, lurking in an alley on the other side of the street, but when I turned my head to look, he was gone. Assuming he'd ever been there.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when I closed and locked the front door behind me. I had no particular reason to assume I was safe indoors, except that every bizarre thing that had happened had happened outdoors.

Piper was shaking and glassy eyed, her face made even more ghostly white by her stark new dye job.

“Should I, uh, get you a drink or something?” I asked. I couldn't blame her for being freaked out, but she was beginning to worry me.

Piper blinked and shook her head. A hint of intelligence returned to her eyes. “What
was
that thing?” she whispered.

“Have you seen anything else strange at night lately?” I asked, because I couldn't answer her question. Maybe I was having an easier time accepting what I'd seen because of my previous experiences. My pulse had calmed, and though thinking about the pothole and its teeth made it pick up again, I wasn't anywhere near panic. Hadn't been even when we'd been in the car. I wondered if I was storing it all up for a nervous breakdown somewhere down the line.

“What do you mean?”

“You know.
Strange.
Things you can't explain. Things that seem to be impossible. Like a moving pothole with teeth. That kind of strange.”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times as if struggling for words. You know Piper's in bad shape when she can't find words.

“Never mind,” I said as gently as I could. “Why don't you just sit down for a bit. You're safe here.”

Piper nodded and plopped down on the sofa. Bob, who seemed to have mellowed out while we were gone, walked over to her and nosed her hand, begging for a pet. Or maybe he just had that uncanny dog sense that told him she was upset and needed a little furry companionship. She stroked his head idly, and a hint of color finally came back to her face.