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And that wasn't even the worst part. It was growing.
It spread left to right across the median and both strips of the freeway, and it didn't spare anything it touched. The asphalt buckled and split like crushed-up crackers, chunks of debris flying through the air. Trees split and fel with thunderous cracks.
A reflective green mileage sign folded in half as if made of construction paper instead of construction-grade steel.
And the distance between us and the wal of destruction kept shrinking.
"It's going to catch us," I yeled out over the howling wind.
"We'l make it," Ethan said, knuckles white on the wheel as he worked to keep the car on the road. Another sign flew past us, barely missing the Mercedes and skittering across the road and into a field on the other side.
The back of the car began to rattle as the wal grew closer, and the world outside went white as fog and mist surrounded us.
"Oh, God," I muttered, grabbing the door handle with one hand and the shoulder strap of my seat belt with the other.
Immortal or not, life felt suddenly fragile.
The wheel jerked to the right, and Ethan swore out a curse as he tried to maintain control. "I can't hold it, Merit. Brace yourself."
He'd only gotten out the words when we ran out of time. It felt like we'd been nailed from behind by a locomotive - in this case, a completely impossible, out-of-nowhere magical storm of a locomotive driven by a would-be book thief with no apparent qualms about kiling those who got in his way.
The back of the car lifted and sent us into a spin, passenger side first, toward the road's shoulder - and the guardrail that separated the car from the shalow ditch below.
"Guardrail!" I yeled out.
"I'm trying!" Ethan yeled out. He puled the wheel back to the left, but his effort was for naught. Winds swirling around us, the car made a complete circle as it skidded across the road.
We hit the metal guardrail with a head-thudding jolt, but not even steel could stop the momentum of a Mercedes pushed along by magic. The car screeched along the rail with al the subtlety of nails on a chalkboard, before another burst of wind or magic or both tipped the driver's side into the air.
I screamed. Ethan grabbed my hand, and over we went, the car roling sideways over the guardrail and down the hil, somersaulting into the guley that separated the road from the neighboring land.
Our fal couldn't have taken more than three or four seconds, but I remembered a lifetime, from childhood with my parents to colege to the night Ethan made me a vampire, and from his death to his rebirth....Had I gotten him back again only to lose him again at Tate's hand?
With a final bounce, we landed upside down in the guley.
The car rocked ominously on its hood, the metal creaking, both of us hanging from our seat belts.
There was a moment of silence, folowed by the hiss of steam from the engine and the slow squeak of a spinning tire.
"Merit, are you okay?" His voice was frantic. He put a hand on my face, pushing my hair back, checking my eyes.
It took me a moment to answer. I was alive but completely disoriented. I waited until the roaring in my ears subsided and I could feel the parts of my body again. There was an ache in my side and scrapes along my arms, but everything seemed to be in place.
"I'm okay," I finaly said. "But I realy hate that guy."
He closed his eyes in obvious relief, but blood from a cut on his forehead seeped into his eye.
"The feeling is entirely mutual," he said. "I'm going to get out; then I'l come help you. Stay there."
I wasn't in much of a position to argue.
Ethan braced himself and unclipped his seat belt, then scampered out. A second later, his hand appeared at my window. I unclipped my belt, and he helped me climb out of the car and onto the ground, then wrapped me in his arms.
"Thank God," he said. "I thought that might be the end of both of us."
I nodded and put my head on his shoulder. The grass was wet, and mud seeped through the knees of my jeans, but I was grateful to be on solid ground again. I sat there for a moment, waiting for my stomach and head to stop spinning. But my panic only swirled faster. Tate apparently wanted us dead. What if he was stil up there?
"We have to get out of here," I told Ethan. "He could come back."
Ethan wiped the blood from his head and cast a glance up toward the road, body tensed like an animal scouting his territory. "I don't feel any magic. I think he's gone."
"Why go to the trouble of pushing us off the road without checking to make sure he'd realy done us in?"
"He's in a hurry to get to the book," Ethan said. "Maybe he only wanted to get there before we did."
He offered me a hand. I stood up and looked back at the car, covering my mouth with a hand. Ethan's car - his beautiful, sleek Mercedes - was a wreck. It lay upside down in the ditch, two of its wheels stil turning impotently. It was undeniably totaled.
"Oh, Ethan. Your car..."
"Just thank God it's November and we had the top on," he said. "We'd be in a world of trouble otherwise. Come here. Let's see if we can get our things out of the trunk."
The trunk had popped halfway open in the fal, so we maneuvered and tugged until we could wedge our bags and swords out of it.
"You didn't hear me," he suddenly said.
"Didn't hear what?"
"Before he threw us off the road, I caled you. You didn't hear me?"
I shook my head. Vampires had the ability to communicate telepathicaly, that power usualy, but not always, limited to Masters and the vampires they'd made. Ethan and I had talked silently since he'd officialy Commended me into Cadogan House as its Sentinel.
"I didn't hear you," I said. "Maybe that's a side effect of your coming back? Because Malory's spel got interrupted?"
"Perhaps," he said.
We'd only just puled our swords out when a shout echoed down from the road. We looked up. A woman in a fluffy down coat waved at us. "I saw that twister throw you off the road.
Came out of nowhere, didn't it? Are you okay? Do you need help?"
"We're fine," Ethan said, not correcting her about the twister comment, but casting one final glance back at his former pride and joy. "But I think we're going to need a ride."
Her name was Audrey McLarety. She was a retired legal secretary from Omaha with a brood of four children and thirteen grandchildren scattered across Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Al the grandchildren were in soccer, dance class, or peewee basebal, and Audrey was on her way back to town after watching a dance recital for three of the girls near Des Moines. Late as it was, it hadn't occurred to her to spend the night with her children afterward.
