Good luck, everybody.
“Shit,” I said, looking up in the air.
“Wait,” Donut said from her spot. “Does that mean we won’t be racing with Imani and Elle anymore? Or in the jungle?”
“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll find out in a few minutes.”
Florin nodded. “We’re leaving in ten minutes. Just got the notification. Me and Lucia moved from the desert to Satan’s Water Park.”
“I’m staying in the desert,” Chris said a minute later.
“And I am moving to the jungle,” Prepotente said, walking up. “Unfortunate. I had the water park tunnels all mapped. Sweety will be most upset. You just want to make certain you don’t take a wrong turn, as they come quickly. It’s very high-speed. This jungle appears to be more leisurely.”
The leading team in your heat, Team Sparkles, will soon be allowed to disembark. Rolling now for your track... You will be moving from the jungle track to Satan’s Water Park.
We still had almost an hour before we could leave, which meant we were way behind team Sparkles.
Before I could announce our new choice, I received a pair of notifications.
Your trap has activated! You have dissolved a Tigran! That hairy fucker is dead!
Again! Another trap has activated! You dissolved another tiger!
Team One Fine Pig has been eliminated due to the expiration of both racers. Five teams remain.
I held my breath, waiting to see if there was a notification about Penelope the pig. There was not.
“Looks like we’re in the slums,” Elle said. “Great. What did you get?”
“We have the water park!” Donut said.
“Okay,” I said. “Florin, we are with you. But we’re an hour behind. We need to win our heat. We need to win because we need to get that key. We need that key because we need to get that pig.”
“Mate, I don’t know what pig you’re talking about,” Florin said. “But if there’s a team in your heat you need slowed down, you just let me know.”
I grinned. “Let me tell you about a unicorn named Dwight.”
[ 48 ]
“Ahedgehog,”Donut said for the hundredth time. “This is just ridiculous.”
“Just ignore it,” I said. “Apparently this thing’s kids were on the first or second floor, but we never fought them. If we do this right, we won’t have to deal with it at all.”
We pulled out of the garage, turned the corner, and moved to a jerking stop at the starting line with about one minute left. We left Hedy and Jamal in the garage, and Donut had Mongo back in her inventory.
I sat in the passenger’s seat with a white-knuckle grip on the dash, Donut on my shoulder. Even Dorota had stopped complaining once the seat realized what was happening.
From the driver’s seat, the resurrected corpse of Olga made a slurping noise. Her head was completely caved in, but the toad’s long tongue still lolled out of the ruined mess, bobbing and oozing like a yo-yo that had been dipped in slime.
Donut’sSecond Chancespell was currently at level 11, which brought it up to level 12 with her Brain Trust skill. The spell brought the dead corpse back to life for a maximum of fifteen minutes, and she’d already been resurrected for five.
Florin had left forty minutes previously and was giving me a blow-by-blow on the track so far. He’d offered to go after the boss on our behalf, but we’d decided that he should instead pursue Dwight and Lucienne and attempt to slow them, as they most likely wouldn’t be taking the same path we’d chosen.
Thankfully, we had a way to catch up, assuming we could talk these corpses into driving in a straight line.
Osvaldo had also moved ahead of us, and he was following Florin’s route. If this worked out correctly, we would still be able to overtake him along with everyone else.
I spent a moment just staring at the biggest wild card in this insane plan.