Chicks Kick Butt - Rachel Caine, Kerrie Hughes (ed) Read online

  “Well, this is exciting,” I said. “And our champagne is getting warm in the car, you know.”

  “I know,” David said. “But she’s not here for the chance to look pretty.”

  “Then why is she here?”

  “She’s a sociopath and a thief, and as far as I know it could be anything. The thing is, if I leave, there’s nothing to stop her.”

  Whitney must have heard him, because she straightened from a casual lounging position against the shiny Bugatti, smiled with blinding intensity, and said, “Oh, honey, please. There’s nothing to stop me now!”

  In between one breath and the next, she opened the Bugatti’s door, slipped inside, and fired up the engine, which caught with a full-throated, intimidating roar. The director jerked upright, staring, utterly astonished, and dug in his pockets. He came out with a set of keys—the car keys, presumably—and stared from that to Whitney, who was playfully gunning the engine. “How—”

  Whitney held up a finger. Her middle one. White bolts of electricity sizzled around it and reflected in her purple eyes. “Greed is bad,” she said. “I’m just helping save all those people who’d see this ad and feel all inadequate about the size of their cars, that’s all.”

  And then she put the Bugatti in gear, and arrowed it straight for the cameras.

  Somehow, the people managed to scramble out of the way—David probably helped propel them, actually, from the way they were tossed around—and one of the cameras was blown into junk by a leading wave of invisible force before the car’s bumper could touch it. The other was just knocked over like a big, ungainly insect. There was screaming. Some of it, I realized, was coming from a suited man who’d been sitting off to the side. From the horror on his face, he was the owner of either the Bugatti or the diamond bikini, and his insurance had just lapsed.

  “Crap,” David sighed, and turned to me. “Would you mind…?”

  “Do you really have to ask? Of course I’ll do it.”

  I raced for the car, and David took the faster route, blipping directly through the aetheric from where he stood into the passenger seat. Fast as I was getting settled and the engine started, I knew that seconds were ticking. I didn’t think the car I was driving, sweet as it was, had a hope in hell of chasing down a Bugatti with a Djinn driver, but what the hell.

  I like a challenge too, Whitney. Let’s play.

  * * *

  I wasn’t the only one on the trail of the fleeing Bugatti. Behind me, the state troopers had finally gotten their act together and were blaring a siren in the distance, trying to make up distance. They’d never make it. Even their fastest car wasn’t going to catch me, much less Whitney.

  “They’ll block her in,” I said as I shifted, pushing the car faster around the next turn. The curves would get worse, and I knew I’d have to shed speed soon, but for now I had to try to make up as much road as I could. “She’ll never make it past the first crossroads.”

  “That’s a long way, and she can do a lot of damage before she gets there.”

  “Can’t you just—you know—blip over and stop her?”

  “Not without destroying the car,” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t want me to do that. I’m trying to disable the engine, but she’s already put a shield around everything I’ve tried.”

  He was frowning, and I could see something was bothering him. “What?”

  “Whitney’s crazy, but she’s not stupid. She knows this is a no-win chase. The police will block her in, or I’ll find a way to stop her without hurting anyone.”

  “Maybe it’s just a joyride.”

  “She’s a thief. Not a joyrider. She has a reason for doing this—watch out!”

  I saw it just as he did—an alligator, charging out of the swamp and onto the road. A gigantic one, ancient, and definitely nothing to be messed with under the best of circumstances. I didn’t think for a second that the poor gator was doing this of his own accord, though—she’d thrown him in front of us as a living speed bump, with armor and teeth. We’d kill him if we hit him. We’d also damage the car, probably so badly that we’d have to abandon the chase.

  “Hang on,” I said, and reached out with Earth powers to literally drag the gator off the road to the other side. Earth powers are not my strong suit, and it felt like picking up a safe with one hand—painful, and all but impossible, but I’m not one to let a little thing like pain and impossibility stop me, and the confused reptile waddled/slid safely out of our path just in time, with his scaly tail flicking to boom against David’s door as we whizzed past. I’d gone as far over to the left as I’d dared to leave plenty of room, and even then, it had been close. Very close.

  I looked back. The gator was already disappearing into the muddy swampland, grateful to be out of our affairs, I suspected.

  I caught a flash of metal up ahead. The Bugatti was still just barely in sight, which meant that even Whitney couldn’t—or didn’t want to—violate the laws of physics. We still had a chance.

  Behind us, I heard a crunch of metal. The police car had come to a bad end, presumably, from the disappointed wail of its siren that quickly tailed off into silence. “See if they’re okay, honey,” I said to David. He nodded and blipped out, and I was left alone, steering my roaring Viper at its absolute limit along the narrow, curving road. I was taking turns race-car wide, and I hoped nobody would come bumbling along in a pickup truck for me to sideswipe, but I figured if the Bugatti had managed, I would, too.

  The radio in the Viper suddenly let out a loud burst of white noise, and then Whitney’s honey-dipped voice said, “You’re just full of spice, little bit. I can see why David thinks you hung the moon. But just between you and me, I think you’re a little bit out of your depth, sugar.”

  The radio wasn’t a two-way, but I told her where she could shove it. It made me feel better. “Language,” she said reprovingly, which meant she could hear me. Or could guess how I’d reply, anyway. “I’m shocked, Joanne. You should slow that pretty little car down before you get hurt. Honestly, why do you care what I get up to? I can see why he cares, and he’s a funny old thing, isn’t he? But you shouldn’t. You and me, we’re a lot alike. We both like fast cars, right? And shiny things.”

  “Oh, are we sorority sisters now?” I shot back. “Bite me, Bayou Barbie. What are you doing? Where do you think you can go? That car doesn’t exactly blend in!”

  “Doesn’t have to,” she said. “You know, if we were sorority sisters, that would be one kick-ass ball of fun, don’t you think?”

  “Whitney, what are you doing?”

  “Having fun,” she said, and there was a second of silence. When her voice came back, it sounded different. “Until it’s time not to have fun. And that’s coming up quick.”

  “You know, Bikini Spice, you might try being a little less vague and a little more informative, if there’s something important going on.”

  “Where’s the fun in that? Oh, by the way, heads up. Incoming!” She giggled, and then the static washed over it, and she was gone.

  In the next instant, I saw something hurtling out of the sky into the path of my car, rolling out limply and lying flat on the pavement.

  This one was no gator.

  This was a man.

  Instinct took over, and I slammed the brake and clutch, screaming rubber and pulling the emergency brake for added force. I didn’t want to drag the guy out of the way—for one thing, I wasn’t sure what kind of injuries he had, but they had to be pretty grievous, considering the height from which he’d fallen. “You bitch!” I panted, and managed to skid to a sideways stop with the smoking tires about three inches from the fallen body.

  I scrambled out, legs shaking from the adrenaline rush, and fell on my knees next to him. The pavement was scorching hot, and the humid air felt suffocating; a swarm of mosquitoes instantly found me and started in on the bonanza. I blew them away with a pulse of Earth power and carefully put a hand on the man’s forehead. I didn’t know him. He was, as best I could tel
l, some stranger who’d just gotten caught up in things. I had no idea what he had to do with any of it.

  David had described Whitney as a sociopath. This was real evidence that he was right.

  The guy was alive, but he was unconscious and pretty badly hurt—internal injuries, a couple of broken bones. I was no expert at healing, but I did what I could, and as I did, I reached deep inside and tugged on the connection that existed between me and David—a kind of permanent cord binding us together. It didn’t take long for him to blip back in, landing at a run on the pavement and kneeling next to me.

  “The officers are okay,” he said. “Shaken up and bruised, but no significant injuries.” His face set like stone as he put his hand over mine on the stranger’s forehead. “This one’s different.”

  “You noticed,” I said. I had already expended a lot of energy, and now I felt waves of warm, thick, golden power flooding into me, through me, speeding relief to the injured areas of the man’s body. It burned, but I took it without complaint. If Whitney hadn’t felt compelled to stop me, this wouldn’t have happened. A little discomfort was the least I could do. “Okay, I think he’s stable now. Thanks.”

  David nodded and eased off the flow of power, which stopped being a painful burn and settled into a gentle mist that soaked into every fiber of my body. It felt glorious, and I took in a deep breath as I savored it. He knew how much power I’d already spent, and this was his way of evening the scales.

  “I need you to go back,” I said. “Get him help. I can’t take him with me—there’s no telling what else Whitney will try to pull, and he could get hurt or killed if I put him in the car. Would you?”

  He kissed me lightly and faded away in a golden blur on the hot, still air. I crouched down and grabbed the man—whose name I still didn’t know—under the arms and dragged him across the road to a narrow strip of shade, as far out of the way as I could get him without moving him into the swamp. Then I put down a layer of protections around him that soaked into the ground, a kind of keep-away perimeter for all of the biting insects and bigger, more predatory killers that lurked out here, including the snakes. It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep him safe and comfortable for a while.

  Best I could do. Whitney had hoped to weigh me down with responsibility, but that was the advantage of having David—we could split the responsibility. He’d return in only a few moments, and I could keep moving.

  I got back in the car, geared it up, and took up the chase. The Bugatti was, of course, well out of sight, so I let myself slide out of my body just a little, taking advantage of the aetheric to get a look at the power signatures at work in front of me. It was a kind of supernatural heads-up display, in a confusing array of colors and patterns that didn’t necessarily reflect the real world I lived in, but I’d learned how to process the information as effectively as anyone born human could.

  She was ahead of me, still driving, and the Bugatti was a hot silver scar on the riot of color and life around it. Djinn were difficult to see on the aetheric, but the Bugatti had its own signature, and a distinctive one at that. She wouldn’t be able to slip away quite that easily.

  And, frankly, she wasn’t even trying. Maybe she was just enjoying the chase.

  I concentrated on making up for lost time. In a sense, I was a little glad she’d brought this chase on, selfish as that was; I loved being so tightly bonded with the machine I was driving, feeling the power of the engine and the press of acceleration thrumming through my whole body. It gave me a sense of purpose, of control, of fierce joy that wasn’t like anything else I did. Not even working the weather.

  The weather.

  I was an idiot. David would have every right to say so when he caught up to me. Of course, working the weather patterns and driving like a bat out of hell on treacherous roads, in pursuit of a supernatural enemy, was a bit of a stretch, but what the hell. Whitney and I had a lot in common when it came to ambition.

  As part of my consciousness handled the necessary mechanics of the road, I split off part of it to do something that sprang from instinct, aptitude, and power—reading the flows of energy that moved through the air, the currents of disturbance and calm. Today was a beautiful day in Florida, which was (now) a little unfortunate; there wasn’t a lot of potential energy to work with. Not impossible, though. Never impossible, in a world where action always brings a reaction, and if you’re clever, you can create a storm out of a breeze without destroying the entire balance of the system.

  I didn’t say it was easy, okay? Just possible.

  Once you get a certain amount of air disturbed and bouncing off of other, less excited air, you get energy. Every collision of molecules creates energy, and that energy has to go somewhere—in the creation of heat. Heated air pushes on cooled air. Wackiness ensues.

  That’s an obvious simplification, but if you’ve ever seen a storm form from the collision of a warm front and a cold front, seen those clouds boil up and turn dark and tower up into the heavens … well. That’s how it works.

  And you can start a forest fire by rubbing sticks together, if you’re using the right kind of sticks and the right amount of force. The trick is being able to contain the beast you create, because once you get enough energy together, the dynamite is going to go boom. All you can do is direct the force the way you want it to go.

  Needless to say, this is not a job for the timid.

  The other complication was that Whitney could have known what I was doing … but then again, if, as David had implied, she was really young for a Djinn, she wouldn’t think of everything. She couldn’t. Someone like David on the run … that was something that was a much harder target. Whitney, in her see-me-from-space bikini and one-of-a-kind sports car? Not so much.

  But damn, I hated the idea of hurting that car. Which was why my first lightning strike came down on the road in front of the Bugatti, as close as I could nail it without actually hitting it, and I watched in the neon energy trails of Oversight as the sports car wavered, skidded sideways, and then started to straighten out again. That was okay. The lightning had been a diversion, anyway.

  What I was really doing was blowing out her tires with needle-sharp shards of black ice lined up on the road like shredder strips.

  Whitney hit them at a reduced speed, thanks to my lightning feint, which saved her from a fiery matinee-worthy crash. I zoomed in on Oversight and saw the wheels explode—both front tires, then both back. And the Bugatti instantly went from a precision racing machine to a hunk of metal clumsily trying to plow the pavement.

  Ouch. That was really going to hurt, but it was better than the alternatives.

  My radio spit static, and Whitney said, surprised, “You bitch! You are so sneaky!” She laughed, long and loud, and then said, “I think I like you.”

  Right about then, David blipped in on the passenger seat of the car.

  “The guy on the road?” I asked.

  “Safe in the hands of emergency help,” he said. “He’s stable. You blew out her tires?”

  “Had to try something. Are you ready to spank this little brat before she gets somebody killed?”

  “I’d better let you do it. You’d accuse me of enjoying it too much.”

  David knew me all too well, and it made me laugh as I pressed the accelerator and gained ground on our fleeing Djinn.

  She was trying all kinds of tricks now, including forming new tires out of random shreds of rubber left on the side of the road by other luckless drivers, but David was focused entirely on undoing whatever she was up to, and I was completely locked into the car, the acceleration, the chase. Overhead, the weather darkened, and clouds formed to block out the hot sun. We were going to get rain, as a consequence of my actions, but it was a good rain. A washing shower, not a flood.

  Suddenly, the Bugatti stopped. I could see it now, the silvery gleam of it unreal against the violent greens and dull browns of the swamp, like some crash-landed alien spacecraft. “What’s she doing?” I asked.

&n
bsp; “She,” said my radio, “is thanking you very much for completely following the script, sugar. Hang on, now. It’s going to get interesting.”

  And then everything changed, completely, because Whitney was not an idiot, a compulsive thief, or a sociopath after all—or if she was those last two things, she certainly wasn’t the first. Because Whitney had been taking us somewhere, and we had just arrived.

  I coasted the Viper to a stop behind the tire-less Bugatti—the shreds of rubber had fallen apart again—and David and I jumped out to check inside. No sign of Whitney. David turned in a circle, scanning, and then pointed off into the swamp. “There,” he said. “She’s there.”

  It’s useful to have a Djinn along for a run through the Everglades … there’s no good footing, but plenty of stinging, biting, and eating things to take an interest in your passage. I was an Earth Warden in addition to my Weather and Fire powers, but Earth was definitely my weakest skill set, and I was relieved I didn’t have to manage it on the run. David simply created a firm, dry path out of the swamp, straight as an arrow, and made sure that any creatures with an eye to taking offense at our passage were kept otherwise occupied. I saw a couple of alligators eyeing us coldly from the water, but they stayed as motionless as floating logs. The hot, humid air felt like running a treadmill in a sauna, and I was soaked with sweat and gasping for breath in a humiliatingly short time.

  We ran into Whitney about five seconds before I was sure I would drop of heat stroke and exhaustion, and I bent over, bracing myself on my knees, gasping and coughing. Whitney, of course, looked perfect. She was still wearing the diamond bikini, which just could not be comfortable on a cross-country trek; I was getting chafed, and nothing I was wearing came in measurements of carats.

  Whitney put her hands on her barely clad sparkly hips, and gave me a superior look that made me want to throw up on her high-heeled shoes. “Sweetie, you’re gonna want to pace yourself,” she said. “We ain’t there yet.”