The finish line loomed.
“Geez,” I muttered, moving to the back of the truck, looking at the carnage. I started to cut all the chains loose. “The AI was right. We might’ve been overprepared for?—”
“Bah, this bores me” came Satan’s booming voice, followed by a mighty crash.
“Carl, Carl! The loop thing!”
I turned just in time to see the massive loop-de-loop tumbling in our direction, having been headbutted over by Satan. Florin’s tuk-tuk and team Sparkles’s vine had almost been done with their loop when they’d been swatted, and they both tumbled through the air, spinning in our direction.
The vine was on fire and covered with goo, having been hit by a Denial of Service missile. It splotched onto the ground just as the entire structure of the massive loop crashed around us, rock and metal exploding everywhere. We were peppered with chunks of metal, all of it sparking and burning.
Florin was hanging out the side of his tuk-tuk, shotgun in hand, firing over and over in the direction of the unicorn as they tumbled and hit the ground, like they were performing a stunt. Lucia, in her beautiful-woman form, appeared to be sobbing and crying and laughing all at the same time as they spun out on the ground. Still, they landed firmly on their tires like this had been their plan all along. The small engine revved, and they zoomed ahead of us, pushing past a piece of the fallen track and moving toward the finish line.
Behind us, the Lady Dominators and the gnu suddenly appeared, though they were still far behind us. They had to angle around the crashed pieces of the loop track.
The bush seemed to be floundering. It had the rocket accessory that gave them their incredible speed, but it was still smoldering, and it was just spinning in circles, with Dwight screaming. I didn’t see Lucienne, who I knew was supposed to be the one driving.
And then I did see Lucienne, but she wasn’t in the bush. She was on the hood of our truck. The bug-eyed rodent thing was standing there, smashing herself against the windshield. The finish line loomed.
Donut’s spell,I realized. Lucienne was a rodent, and she’d been summoned.
Holy shit.We’d had that spell this whole time. I had no idea when and how she’d gotten here.
“Let me in! Let me in! I’m coming to you, swine!” Lucienne shrieked as she pummeled the windshield with her helmeted head, choking and gasping for air. Her bug eyes were getting bigger and bigger by the moment, like they were about to explode. She’d been poisoned by the air, yet she was still charmed by Donut’s spell. “Let me in! Let me fucking in!”
We started to pass under the checkered finish-line arch.
“Get off,” Donut shouted at the weird rodent on our hood. “You can’t pass the finish line outside your?—”
Our windshield cratered as Lucienne, the driver for team Sparkles, was pushed through the glass by the invisible barrier of the finish line. The rodent exploded against my face as she was pressed into my mouth, into my teeth, and ultimately through the back of our truck.
[ 51 ]
“Stop, stop!”Donut called as I gagged and choked. I had dead Lucienne all over my face. My teeth ached where her helmet had ricocheted off me. I’d swallowed some of her.
The camel hit the brakes, and we lurched to a stop. I continued to cough and hack, some of her bits coming out of my nose. I pulled a water bottle from my inventory, and I drank, my sinuses burning. I spent several moments just coughing and sneezing, getting red blood everywhere.
Now that the race was over, I could touch the controls again. I reached over and yanked the car into park.
“You, out,” I coughed at the camel corpse.
“Okay,” the corpse rasped, sounding dejected. He opened the door, started to step out, but faded away into dust before he could exit.
I slid into the driver’s seat and moved the truck over so it wasn’t blocking the entrance, and just a minute later, the Lady Dominators passed through, followed by Osvaldo’s team.
I sent a quick note to Jasha and Radoslav. Despite my warning, they’d gotten stuck in the basement. They’d be at least another forty minutes.
Jasha: You really think we should save him? He’s the worst one!
Donut was currently attempting to fish Lucienne’s small, cracked racing helmet from the soupy gore on the floor of the truck.
She shrugged and looked up. “I don’t want to race another team of crawlers, that’s for sure. On the other hand, if we let the unicorn live, we might regret it. He hates us. Though maybe he’ll be nice now that his girlfriend is dead. But probably not. Got it!” The gore-soaked racing helmet disappeared into her inventory. A moment later, she scoffed. “Carl, that helmet has a curse! It’s worthless! What is Michale Graves’s disease?”
I sighed and then sent a message to the bugbears as we exited the truck.
Carl: You should probably tow him in if he’ll let you. But be wary.
Lucia turned her attention to us. I stood tense, looking at the woman with the skull head. I felt a chill.