"I don't think he's as fast as we are," Elyssa said, her words coming between pants.
I spared a look back and saw we were indeed gaining distance as we sped down the straightaway. "Yeah, but how much longer can we keep this up?"
"Oh, I'm fine. Then again, I'm not carrying a bimbo on my back."
"Who are you calling a bimbo?" Katie said, apparently forgetting all about the mortal peril we were in, her voice jolting with every step I took.
I looked ahead at the busy intersection and groaned. Cars jammed the road. "What are we going to do about that?"
Elyssa cast a glance back at our pursuer. "If he punches through those cars, he might kill someone."
I imagined a trail of crushed and smoking cars as the Incredible Hulk's white brother plowed through them like the Kool-Aid man.
"Look." Dad pointed toward some high-voltage power lines to our left. A swath of green clearing ran underneath them, vanishing over a hill in the distance. It wasn't a road, but we could avoid automobile carnage and earn the gratitude of insurance claims adjustors everywhere.
I sucked in a breath and veered in that direction. "Let's go."
We made it up the long hill and dashed left into some woods, hoping to lose our follower while we were out of his line of sight. After what seemed an eternity of backyards, playgrounds, and even a nature trail, we emerged from the woods near a park and a familiar overpass. I tried to get my bearings, panting and looking behind us to make sure we'd really lost the guy.
Katie groaned and almost fell off my back. Dad helped her down. She staggered. I caught her and held her up until she stood on her own feet. "I can't take this anymore," she said. "I feel like I just got off a bull. My legs are killing me."
"You should be safe now. Call someone to pick you up and take you home."
"I'm going to look for a bus stop," Dad said, and jogged toward the four-lane road nearby.
"Where are we?" Katie asked, casting her gaze at our surroundings.
I glanced at the nearby Atlanta skyline. "Somewhere near Freedom Parkway."
"Maybe big tough Brad can pick you up on his Harley," Elyssa said.
Katie narrowed her eyes. "Justin is my boyfriend now, thank you very much."
Fire glinted in Elyssa's eyes. "Since when?"
Katie took my arm. "Since the football game he won for us, right, sweetie?"
The look in Elyssa's eyes could have melted steel. I felt myself withering under her gaze as I separated myself from Katie. "No. We're not."
"What? But, Justin, we slept together. How could you do this to me?"
"You what?" Elyssa shouted, striding towards us, death and destruction carving a scowl on her face.
"We didn't!" I said, backing away from both of them and holding out my hands. "I swear to you, Elyssa, we didn't."
"I may have been drunk," Katie said, "but you were going for my panties and I had my hand on your—"
"Shut up!" I said, heart pounding from fear as much as exertion. "We didn't sleep together. We just made out."
"How convenient," Elyssa said in a snarl. "What happened to losing our virginity together? True love? The Princess Bride?" Tears glistened in her eyes.
"I love that movie," Katie said.
A lump lodged in my throat at the hurt in Elyssa's eyes. "Elyssa, I swear to you on all that is holy in this world I did not sleep with Katie. Besides, you weren't even talking to me then. You hated me."
"That doesn't excuse anything."
My inner nerd chose that moment to remind me just how crazy women were, and also the fact Elyssa probably knew a hundred different ways to cause me immense pain, being a trained fighter for the Templars and all. Unfortunately, he didn't have any brilliant suggestions for handling this situation.
"Justin didn't sleep with her," Dad said from behind me. I almost jumped ten feet straight up.
"How do you know?" Elyssa said.
"Because I jerked him off her and slammed him into the wall while they were both fully clothed. Didn't you see the dent in the drywall?"
A smile lit her face. It grew even bigger when she saw embarrassment turning Katie's face a brilliant hue of red. "Good."
My own face felt like it was burning by that point. "Can we lay off talking about my sex life and figure out what to do next?"
Katie crossed her arms and sniffed. "I'm not going another step until you tell me what you are. I've never seen anyone move so fast or jump fences like that. It's not normal!"
I looked at Dad. He looked at me. I looked at Elyssa. She rolled her eyes.
"What's the protocol here?" I asked, not wanting to break the Overworld secrecy code, or any other pact for that matter. I was the supernatural newb of the group and still had a lot to learn about, well, everything.
"Katie, we've involved you in something very dangerous you shouldn't know anything about," Dad said. "Believe me when I tell you it's for the best if you go home right now."
"Oh, no you don't." She pursed her lips. "I'm sticking with Justin."
"Elyssa is my girlfriend," I said. "I'm sorry to be harsh, but I love her, and you sticking around isn't going to change anything."
Tears pooled in her eyes. "I really screwed up, didn't I?" She slumped against a tree as sobs shook her body. "I was such a total bitch to you."
I felt horrible all of a sudden. What was it about women and crying that made me feel like crap? They must have guilt pheromones in their tears. I knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay. You'll find a really great guy one day." This was one speech I never in a million years would have pictured me giving to Katie Johnson. I'd crushed on her so hard at one point I'd actually thought she was the one for me. And then I'd met Elyssa and found out what real love was.
"We've got to get going," Dad said. "The tracker will lead them to us at any moment."
"Who or what is this guy chasing us?" I said. "The way he just knocked a car around like it was a toy is impossible, even for spawn."
"And my knives didn't even faze him," Elyssa added, her gaze meeting Dad's.
"Is he spawn like you?"
Dad shook his head. "No." He ran a hand through his tangled brown hair and glanced at the snarled traffic on the highway leading downtown. "I'm not sure, not a hundred percent, anyway, but I think they're hellhounds."
My jaw went slack. "What? Why are they so hell-bent on catching you anyway? Are you really such a disappointment to the family?"
"I have a lot to answer for in their eyes," Dad said, his lips going tight. "Marrying your mother, a human, was just the first slap in their faces. There's a lot you don't know about our kind, Justin. They're obsessed with social order and ranking. I broke all those rules and they despise me for it."
A cold lump formed in my chest. "Are they going to kill you for it?"
He sighed. "I honestly don't know."
Katie lifted her tear-streaked face. "Will someone please tell me what's going on?"
I glanced at the darkening sky. Night would settle in soon, and I couldn't just leave Katie in this part of town to fend for herself. "Hop on my back if you want answers." Did I really just say that?
Apparently I had because she climbed wearily onto my back.
"This is a mistake," Elyssa said. "You're going to get her hurt, killed, or worse."
"What could be worse than dying?" I asked.
"After all you've seen, do you really have to ask?"
I thought back to the vamplings, those half-zombie, half-vampire creatures and shuddered. "I guess not." I blew out a breath. "Let's just find her a cab."
Car tires shrieked behind us. I spun and saw the limo bounce to a halt against the curb. The front two doors sprang open as the massive driver and his slightly shorter twin leapt out. Company had arrived.
And they looked pissed.
Chapter 3
I think someone shouted, "Run!" at the top of their lungs. It might have been me, but I was way past rational thought when I saw we had two of those crazy mofos after us. I streaked toward downtown, using the tallest skyscraper as a beacon. Dad and Elyssa pulled up alongside me, faces strained with exertion.
"Just how bad," I said, taking a deep breath, "are hellhounds?" I panted.
"Worse than you can imagine," Dad said. "They won't stop hunting us." He glanced back. "Even if we cut off the tracking spell with a circle, they could sniff us out anywhere so long as we leave a trail. We need a car, something to keep our scent off the road. Otherwise we'll drop from exhaustion long before they give up.”
If only I had a bottle of Axe Body Spray to dump on the ground. If such a concentration of manly odor didn't confuse their canine noses, nothing would. The men behind us obviously didn't look like dogs, but I was too out of breath to ask more questions. We reached a huge apartment complex. Leapt the razor-wire atop the chain-link fence. We'd already gained some distance on the hellhound dudes, but I didn't expect our lead to last long, if what Dad said about their tracking abilities was true. The apartments were five-story, flat-roofed affairs with a courtyard in the center and two parking decks flanking each side of the complex.
Elyssa motioned us to follow her inside the nearest parking deck. "You said we needed a car?"
"You know how to hotwire one?" I said, impressed.
She shook her head. "No, but with any luck we can carjack someone."
Before I could offer a morally outraged response, she raced around the garage and up the ramps, her gaze sweeping the area for a target. But we reached the roof without finding a victim.
Elyssa looked across the apartments to the other parking deck. "We'll have to take our chances in the next one."