Chapter Eight
Shagruk was bigger than his brethren, both in height and girth. His shirt stretched around his frame nearly to bursting and the hat perched on his head like a doily on a dining room table. The tusks jutting from his mouth looked like lances. The recent wounds still oozing on his face made him look all the fiercer.
Silas felt his heart sink. “Jeez. Did that guy get bigger and uglier?”
“You know him?” Stacy asked.
“Not socially.”
Shagruk hooked his forefinger in his belt and hoisted it up as he approached Silas’s window. “What have we got here? Silas Danger speeding through my jurisdiction like he’s got somewhere better to be. Almost like he’s not happy to see me again so soon.”
“Funny you should mention that, Shagruk,” Silas interjected.
The troll sergeant winked. “Well I think you’re gonna make time for me now. My deputies have the road blocked in both directions.”
“Not behind us,” Stacy said.
The big troll lowered himself to get a better look at her and tipped his flat-brimmed hat back. “Do I understand the little lady to say that there is some problem with my deputies on the road behind you?”
“They might have gone off a bad bridge,” Silas said.
“And that wouldn’t be on account of you two, would it?”
“Not my fault we made it across, and they didn’t.”
“Uh-huh. Well, we might be having a problem if you’re responsible for any damage done to county property.”
Silas looked the troll in the eye. “I am not responsible for the upkeep of your county’s highways or bridges, or anything else on the road, for that matter. Your deputies chose to follow me. Now, why don’t you let me get out of here? I have things to do.”
“Not sure I’ll be letting you off so easy, this time.”
“I don’t recall that you’ve ever let me off before. Remember that I do work for you and your bosses, too, Shagruk.”
The troll ran a finger along a jagged scab on the right side of his face. “I am indeed familiar with your work, Danger.”
“I gave you what you asked for,” Silas pointed out. “You wanted that egg. Were you surprised that the egg’s mama wanted it, too? I don’t have time for this. Just give me the speeding ticket and get out of my way.”
“Speeding ticket? Oh my, no…you were resisting arrest.”
“Arrest for what?”
The troll gave a toothy smile and leaned in closer to speak in a voice as low as the Mississippi River bottom. “Your girl’s got something everyone wants real bad.”
“I’m not his girl,” Stacy said. “I’m not anyone’s girl.”
“What a waste.” Shagruk shrugged. “Anyway, this thing is calling out to all the big-time sorcerers and witch doctors and I’ve been given orders. Give it over to me and we’ll be out of your hair.”
Silas kept his cool. “I can appreciate that. Really, I can, and you putting this ‘good cop’ face on it for us, well done, but we don’t have any such wizard-attracting item. So let me roll on.”
The troll stood up straight, once more hitching his fingers into his belt and pulling it up under his massive gut. He stepped back from the car. “Boys, read him his rights.”
A pair of trolls approached behind the car, but Silas was quick to lock the doors and roll up his window.
“You think your little demon Pontiac is gonna stop us?” bellowed the troll sergeant. “Looks like we gotta do this the hard way. Grab the GTO! Get the truck over here! We’ll tow ’em back to Pittsburgh and let the Fire Eaters talk to ’em.”
Silas threw Betty into reverse and backed down the road a few yards. The trolls behind him tried to grip the GTO, but then scattered left and right to avoid being hit. The trolls at the barricades raised their shotguns, but didn’t fire.
He spun the GTO’s wheel hard and gunned it, spitting gravel and dust in their faces.
Silas pulled away. The trolls scrambled into their squad cars to give chase.
“Why is that guy so mad at you?” Stacy asked.
“I gave him a snallygaster egg,” Silas said.
“What’s a snallygaster?”
“Sort of a flying dragon lizard bird thing with tentacles,” Silas size. “Size of a bus. The mama snallygaster messed up his face, I guess.”
“What kind of egg does a thing like that lay?”
“A big one,” Silas said. “Medium-sized dog big, gray, with blue-and-green metallic streaks.”
“Huh.” Stacy glanced back. “You think we can make the jump back again?”
“Gonna have to give it a shot.” He hated to put Betty through the shock twice in such quick succession. He considered Rabbi Birnbaum’s painkiller scroll, but didn’t have time to search his pockets for it.
“Was he saying they could sense the deck?”
“I thought he was saying they could sense you and wanted you. I ain’t giving either one of ya to ’em,” Silas said as he spun around a tight corner. “He was lying. He was just trying to scare you into giving up. It was obvious they didn’t want a fight. They don’t want to damage you. Or the deck, or whatever. Or maybe it’s a condition of the magic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Some kinds of magic can only be handed over willingly, or they lose their power. Anyway, it’s just a guess. All I’m saying is, if they really wanted us so bad, they would have grabbed us back there.”
“What if they could sense me? Or it?”
“Trolls are known for many things,” Silas told her. “Powers of perception ain’t on the list.”
“What’s a Fire Eater?”
“Hand me a vial.”
Stacy rummaged in the glove compartment and passed a dose of the holy water to Silas, who got ready to pop the cork.
He spun around another foliage-covered corner in the road, seeing the expected squad of trolls crawling out of the river. But also, he saw several new cars at the far end of the bridge, showering doubt on any jump to safety.
Not pa-troll cars. Black Lincoln Continentals.
Silas slammed on the brake, grateful he hadn’t dumped the holy water yet.
“Who is that?” Stacy asked.
“You don’t recognize ’em?” Silas chuckled grimly. “New Yorkers. The gargoyles. How did they find us here, unless…”
The trolls shouted and began lumbering in his direction.
Had Shagruk been telling the truth? Was the deck some kind of magnet for the creatures of Other America? Or was Stacy herself a magnet? The gargoyles’ big cars were blocking the bridge, trolls were clambering up out of the river, and more trolls were coming from the other direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring. There was no way to drive more than a few feet on either side of the road, the trees were far too thick.
He was trapped.
Except…
A small strip of open space ran along the riverbank. It wasn’t a road, but it was open. And maybe, if he was lucky, it might connect to a road. He accelerated and turned hard, spitting gravel and dirt at the dripping trolls.
The open strip was overgrown with grass, but the land beneath was flat enough to be serviceable as a road. It cut alongside the river for more than a mile, and Silas clung to it, both hands gripping the wheel and both eyes on the terrain ahead. Silas took the path as fast as he dared, gaining speed with each shift. Betty caught air on a low rise and came down with a hard slam.
Two Lincoln Continentals pursued, thudding along on the opposite bank. To Silas’s irritation, their path was flatter and broader.
“Ugh,” Silas grunted, then felt self-conscious. “I’m not grunting at you. I’m just worried about the underside of the car.”
“What?” Stacy asked.
“That was hard, I hope I didn’t scrape the oil pan too bad.”
“Greek, you’re speaking Greek.”
Silas chuckled. “You can’t complain that I’m not speaking.”
A gravel road appeared beneath his wheels and Silas took it gratefully, heading south, toward the highway. The ground around them rose precipitously, a gray-walled canyon forming.
“Are they still following us?” Stacy asked, looking back over her shoulder.
“I’m sure they are, but if this lets us out on the interstate, we’ll ditch them just fine. Given those New Yorkers…maybe there’s something to what Shagruk said. If people are after us, maybe we need to head in an unexpected direction.”
“The direction is San Francisco. Going to, say, Toronto, is not an option.”
Silas nodded. “I can take a more southerly route and throw them off the scent.”
“Like, go through Texas? Do we have time?”
“Not that far. Like a coon jumping the river to fool the dogs. You ever been on a coon hunt?”
“No, and I think I’m glad I haven’t.”
“You haven’t lived, City Girl.”
The canyon widened and then ended abruptly. Tumbles of stone were arrayed in every direction against the steep sides, and the only road out was the one they had taken in.
“Dammit!”
“Is this a quarry?” Stacy asked, looking around.
Silas nodded. “They’ll leave someone blocking the entrance if they have a lick of sense.”
“How much time do we have?” Stacy asked.
“Not enough time to get back out the canyon.”
“We could run on foot,” Stacy suggested.
“I’ll give you up first!” Silas snapped.
“Okay, okay.” Stacy shrank against the door. “Maybe I could hide us again, at least until we can get out?”
Silas ran a hand through his hair. “It may be our only shot. I’ll find a spot close to the entrance, and we’ll have to see if there’s any chance of it opening for us to slip through.”
He spun Betty around and headed back toward the quarry mouth. He slid behind a boulder the size of a car carrier. He wasn’t really hidden—his headlights faced any entering vehicles—but maybe Stacy’s craft could make up the difference. “Now, if they just don’t barricade the road.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Stacy asked.
Silas shook his head. “Whoever comes through that canyon. See what you can do.”
Stacy said, “Don’t distract me, please.”
“I’ll just sit here and grunt.” Silas turned the engine off and watched the quarry entrance, not more than fifty yards away. The sky overhead was a deep indigo, but marked by large sheets of cloud. The clouds cast shadows on the gray floor and walls of the quarry.
Stacy closed her eyes and murmured her unintelligible mantra.
Silas thought he caught a slight shimmer over the outside of the car. If he were standing outside, would he be able to see the GTO? “One of these days, you should practice doing it with your eyes open and without whispering the words.”
“Shhh,” Stacy objected. “But maybe I will, when we aren’t in such dire straits.” She gave him a slight smile.
“You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Almost?” she said, opening her eyes. “Why, I oughtta!”
“Oughtta what?” Silas asked.
She growled in answer. The shimmer faded away as Stacy relaxed her concentration.
“You better get that glamour back up,” Silas suggested.
“Then don’t distract me.” Stacy dove again into her mantra.
Flitting dark shadows raced over the ground. Silas glanced as high as he could up the windshield, then out the back, but saw nothing. A fast-moving cloud, probably.
Or gargoyles. They weren’t great flyers, heavy as they were, but they had wings and could get off the ground.
Flashing red and blue lights lit up the edge of the quarry’s entrance.
“They’re almost here,” Silas warned her.
A trio of highway pa-troll police cars came careening over the threshold of the quarry, splitting up slightly to better cover the area and see where their quarry might be hiding. To Silas’s chagrin, one car did remain at the mouth of the road, turning and parking itself at a perpendicular angle, blocking off the road.
Flying not more than thirty to forty feet above the pa-troll cars were a half dozen gargoyles.
Just in case Silas had any ideas that he only had one enemy to confront.
But at least Stacy’s cantrip seemed to work. The trolls drove around the quarry as if they couldn’t see Betty, and the gargoyles circled as if they were still searching, too. Soon enough, he guessed they would all fix on his position, just like the pa-troll cars had earlier when he had been stopped off the side of the road.
What was it they could sense? The deck? The girl? Could they all sense it, or were they carrying around trackers with a special gift? At least for now, Stacy was concealing them.
But how to get past the barricading car at the mouth of the quarry?
“I’m getting tired,” Stacy said. “I can’t keep up the illusion much longer.” She resumed her murmuring.
Time to try ramming the barricade.
The shimmer outside the windows flickered. Just as Silas reached to turn the key, a heavy gargoyle landed on Betty’s hood. It glared at Silas, screaming and gnashing its teeth.
Silas fired up the engine and roared forward, sending the gargoyle over the top. It hit the back of the car but grabbed on to the fender and hung on. For the moment, it disappeared from view, but Silas could feel its weight as a drag on the car’s forward motion.
Stacy blinked as she was thrown back by the force of Betty’s acceleration. “Lost it!”
“Hang on!” Silas spun the car about, shaking the gargoyle free and sending it tumbling across the gravel.
But he was now facing away from the exit. The pa-troll cars had whipped around and were right behind him, and Silas was forced to head back into the quarry and away from the blocked entrance. He hoped it might make the troll’s hunter instinct kick in and have that final car come and chase him, but as he glanced in the rearview mirror, his hopes were dashed. The barricade kept its discipline, bottling him in.
“Holy cow,” Stacy said, “did you say the snallygaster has tentacles?”
Silas grunted. “Imagine an octopus crossed with a falcon, a Gila monster, and a Greyhound.”
“A dog?”
“A Greyhound bus.”
One of the troll cars managed to get in front of Silas and stopped hard, braking and throwing the wheel to change direction. He felt the GTO’s left tires rise off the ground, but it didn’t roll. But then a second pa-troll car screeched to a halt in front of him, and a third darted in to complete the surrounding triangle.
He was trapped.
Shagruk squeezed himself out of the car behind him just as two massive gargoyles landed on the hood and trunk of the car in front. Seen outside the Seeming, the gargoyles were still wearing their narrow-lapeled pin-stripe suits and waistcoats.
The larger of the two New Yorkers cracked open its masonry-like jaw and rumbled, “We understand you’re doing your due diligence in the matter, but Don Gargolio would appreciate you stepping down and letting us handle this.”
“Don Gargolio?” Stacy murmured. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“One of the five big ones,” Silas whispered back. “Along with Don Gnocchi, Don Aglio e Olio, Don Foccaccia, and Don Parmesan.”
“You’re having me on.”
“Yeah,” Silas admitted, “but Don Gargolio is real. I warned you, it’s puns all the way down.”
“Like hell!” Shagruk bellowed. “I’ve got my orders, too, and they don’t involve kowtowing to no New York city-slicking scum!”
“Easy,” said the second gargoyle, putting a hand on the big one’s shoulder. “Don Gargolio will want you to be fairly compensated for turning the other cheek. We are quite prepared to offer you and your men a substantial sum, to just walk away and forget.”
“Forget,” urged the bigger gargoyle, squinting with red eyes.
Shagruk didn’t relent. “I ain’t forgetting nothing. You will put your tails between your legs and get the hell out of here, and we will take the prize back to Philly for the Clan Mothers!”
“Loyalty is good, real good,” said the second gargoyle. “But I wonder, do the Clan Mothers want you to serve them…or die for them?”
Shagruk shook his head. “I ain’t gonna die for them. Boys…” he called. “But I’ll sure as hell kill for them.”
The trolls exited their cars holding weapons such as might have been carried into battle in the Hundred Years War. One had an ax, another a maul, and a third a mace.
Another gargoyle landed beside the troll with the ax. He held his hands outward, showing they were empty.
The troll snarled, but then lowered the ax slightly and looked to Shagruk. The instant he turned his head away, the gargoyle’s tail whipped up and sliced across his throat. The pa-trollman sank to his knees, blood gushing onto the gravel.
Wild, red-handed chaos erupted. The two opposing parties went at each other with everything they had, fangs and tails and talons against crushing and chopping weapons and tusks. Blood splashed across the windshield. Stacy screamed.
Silas gunned the car and smashed the foes in front of him. A troll bumped across the hood and was tossed aside, and then a gargoyle’s talons battered Silas’s door. He rammed Betty’s nose into the space between two of the pa-troll cars, forcing them apart and grinding through the opening.
Silas couldn’t tell who was winning in the bloody melee. He couldn’t even count the casualties or see all the action, so he focused on running straight ahead to escape. Just as he thought he was about to break free, two of the big gargoyle brutes dove, one to either side of Betty, and attempted to pick up the car, gripping it by its front wheel wells.
Jaws snapping and pinstripes rumpling, they hefted the front of the car off the ground ever so slightly.
“Idiots,” Silas muttered.
“Idiots?” Stacy yelped.
“The ’68 GTO is rear-wheel drive.” Silas threw Betty into reverse and gave her gas. The two gargoyles lost their grip and stumbled in front of the car. He struck a troll behind him, sending the big lunk sliding across his rear windshield.
A big shadow crossed the car, briefly darkening the gargoyles.
“That’s too fast for a cloud,” he muttered.
Stacy was leaning out the window. “It’s not a cloud.”
Silas accelerated forward, battering aside the two gargoyles and racing toward the quarry exit. There was nothing for it, he was going to have to ram the barricade and just hope the demon could protect Betty.
He hated himself for even thinking that.
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said.
“It’s that thing,” Stacy told him. “That thing you said.”
“What?”
But Stacy didn’t answer. She was murmuring. Silas cursed silently. What did the wizard girl think she was doing now? Even if she made the car invisible, that wasn’t going to get them through the roadblock.
The shadow whipped overhead and grew.
The troll waiting behind the car saw Silas racing toward him, but refused to move. He pointed his shotgun at the sky and fired a single blast.
Hooked talons and multiple squiggling tentacles of the mama snallygaster gripped the pa-troll car and picked it up, carrying it off entirely. Left standing on his own without cover, the pa-trollman took a second shot with his weapon and then broke right, scrambling for cover behind a boulder.
Silas wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He charged through the exit and into the gray canyon beyond.
Stacy stopped murmuring and asked, “Did it work?”
“You did that?” Silas asked. “The snallygaster?”
Stacy nodded. “I made the car look like a blue-and-green metallic streaked egg.”
Silas started laughing. He didn’t stop until they reached the interstate.