“Oh shit,” I said as the wheel hovered over what was either a floor polisher or a goddamned Zamboni. It clicked one more time before settling on the square shape of a box truck. A box truck with windows.
“Carl, what is that?” Donut demanded.
The wheel disappeared with apop, which caused more Waldrip Chris bits and gourd pieces to splatter. The truck crunched into place, bouncing up and down on squeaking shocks.
I sighed. “It’s a food truck,” I said.
It did not have the exact same shape as the silhouette. This was much more... festive than the image on the wheel.
“Is that a real gun on the top?” Donut asked.
“I don’t think so.”
The colorful, gleaming truck appeared to have come right off the assembly line. It was about twenty feet long. It was, at first glance, a typical large-sized food truck. At least the body of it was. It was basically the same body of a package delivery truck, but presumably with a small kitchen within. The now-familiar logo of a chicken with a fedora and red tie was painted on the side under the bullet-hole-ridden logo.
Big Shot Chicken. I’d never heard of the restaurant chain before we’d entered the dungeon, but Donut and I had spent some time stuck in a Big Shot Chicken safe room on the second floor while we’d been trapped by the rage elemental. The whole restaurant was, apparently, a small chain from somewhere in the Southwest of the United States. A chicken restaurant with a 1920s gangster theme.
The truck was clearly a modern model, though the front was replaced with a faux-1920s-style hood made to mimic a Prohibition-era truck, complete with curved fenders made of shining chrome and round fluted headlamps. The whole front had kind of a plasticky, fiberglass look that gave the impression that maybe this food truck wasn’t really meant to be driven at all, and it normally sat at an amusement park or state fair somewhere, more for show than mobility.
Which gave me a very, very ominous feeling.
The most distinctive feature of the truck was the massive, clearly plastic tommy gun on the roof of the thing. The gun’s most distinctive feature—the gigantic round drum magazine—partially obscured the windshield to the point where the truck would be dangerous to drive. This pretty much confirmed what I’d already suspected. That this thing wasn’t street legal.
I hoped it had an engine.
Zev spoke with more urgency.
You may attack other vehicles, but you cannot steal them. You can’t use movement spells such asTeleporton your vehicle, and you can’t use movement spells to bring yourselfintothe vehicles of your opponents.
We’ll have more details soon! Use your garage attendants! Every heat must have a different driver, so only one of you touch the steering wheel or hold the reins, especially if it’s just two of you. Also, try not to kill more than one team, because if more than two teams don’t make it to the finish line?—
The speaker abruptly cut off.
The timer continued to tick down.
“Get in! Get in!” Hedy called. “Only one person drive!”
“Carl, how am I supposed to drive this thing!” Donut demanded as I rushed into the driver’s seat. There was no passenger’s seat at all. Just a gleaming metal floor with a no-slip mat. There was no divider between the front and the back, and a brand-new aluminum kitchen filled the back space.
I turned the key, and, thankfully, an engine rumbled to life. A good, healthy engine.
“Hang on,” I called.
[ 3 ]
There was a loud horn,presumably indicating the start of the race, and a device on the dashboard lit up.
I held my breath, and I hit the gas. The whole truck lurched. Donut yowled as her claws dug into my shoulder. I had to sit really low in the seat to see out the front because of the goddamned gun thing on the roof. Ahead, several opponents zoomed off at the sound of the horn.
The panel on the dash gave a few beeps. It was a navigation system of some sort. It was a square box with the wordsNavitron 1000over it. A map appeared on the flat-screen but minimized itself, and then words popped up, speaking in my head like it was an item description, but the words also spoke out loud into the cabin of the truck.
This was a distinctly female, strangely familiar voice I couldn’t place:
Heat number one of seven.
Driver: Carl.
Navigator: The Champion of Nekhebit, Harbinger of Doom, Assassin of the Great and Feral Sekhmet, Princess Donut, She Who Is Foretold to Bring the Gnashing of the Teeth and the Woe of All Who HarborHope and Is Known as the Oak Fell to Those Who Dare Utter Her Name.