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And then the car took off, leaving me hanging out in the open.
Fortunately, Ray had decided to move it only a few yards, apparently having the same trouble retrieving his missing part that I was. It jerked to a stop, scraping along the side of a rock wall, and stymieing Christine’s attempt to climb out over the side. She turned around the other way, scrambling into the backseat just as I slid back behind the protection of the bumper.
Louis-Cesare was holding on to her with one hand and trying to return fire with the other, which wasn’t working out too great, judging by the number of bullets that peppered the ground around me—half of them his.
“Would you cut it out already?” I snarled. “If I’m going to get shot, I’d like it to be by the bad guys.”
He glared at me over the head of a hysterical Christine, who had him in a sobbing neck lock. “And if you will hurry up, we can get out of here before they manage to fix their vehicle!”
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
More bullets slammed into the back side of Radu’s baby as I peered under the car. But I could see the whites of two small, angry eyes glaring at me from near the right back wheel. I swept out a leg and hit the side of the head, and it rolled out from under the car—just in time to get drilled through the forehead with a bullet.
“What? What was that?” Ray demanded, his eyes crossing, as I snatched him up by the short and spikies.
“Nothing,” I said, and dove over the backseat, and we were off.
The vamps abandoned their car and took off after us on foot, which was a smart move considering the number of obstacles in our path. They were gaining and Ray was cursing and Christine was sobbing. “Please, please let me out!”
“If I let you out, they will shoot you!” Louis-Cesare told her in French.
“They won’t!” She shook her head hard enough that a spill of ebony hair flowed down over her shoulders. “I know them; I can talk to them!”
“I don’t think they’re in a talking mood,” I said as Louis-Cesare thrust her at me. I thrust her back.
“You cannot drive a stick shift,” he reminded me.
“I also can’t return fire and hold on to your girl-friend at the same time,” I snapped, scrambling over the seat.
“Relax—we’ll lose them,” Ray told me as I tried to take the wheel. “I got a portal right up ahead.”
“We can’t go through another portal!” I said as we bounced across grassy hills, apparently not missing a rock or a root on the way.
“I’m not looking forward to it, either, but you got a better suggestion?”
“Any suggestion would be better!” I said, dropping his spare part in his lap and trying to ease in behind him. “If we go through a portal, we’ll explode.”
“We didn’t explode last time.”
“I didn’t have my duffel last time!”
“What difference does that make?” Ray demanded, his cheek smushed against the steering wheel.
“The putty’s in there.”
“What putty?”
“The putty I was going to use to blow up the portal at your office,” I panted, finally realizing that he had the damn seat belt on. A bullet parted my hair as I worked frantically to get it undone.
“So don’t shoot at it and we’ll be—”
“It doesn’t need to be shot!” I told him as the seat belt slithered free. “If it comes into contact with a portal’s energy, it detonates automatically. And that much would not only kill us, but take out a full city block!”
Ray paled. “Then you might want to turn here,” he said as a familiar flash split the air right ahead.
I swerved hard to the right, sending his hairy butt tumbling into the passenger seat. We plowed through a park bench, skidded into a road and were back on asphalt, if not out of trouble.
I leaned over the seat. “Where to?” I yelled.
