The distance between us shrank.
"Almost got him," Bern said, his face savage.
The sign for the exit for Westgreen Road came up ahead.
"Take the exit," I prayed.
The truck laid on the horn. The line of cars parted and he tore through the gap.
"Damn it."
Bern laid on the horn. Sergeant Teddy roared. The cars slammed on their brakes and we shot through the same gap. I stuck my finger into my left ear and shook it to clear the ringing out.
The Ford was only a few dozen yards ahead now, but picking up speed. It grazed the cars on the left and bounced into the concrete barrier. My heart skipped a beat.
The barrier held.
The truck looked old, the back of the bed chipped. Likely stolen. Stolen truck probably meant it didn't have the fancy run-flat tires.
"Keep it steady." I leaned out of the window.
"Kids," Bern reminded me.
"I remember."
Either I shot the tires now, or they would wreck and go off the highway. I aimed at the right rear tire and squeezed the trigger.
The shot popped off.
"Did it hit?" Bern asked.
"It did."
At that distance and at the relatively low speed, .40 caliber ammo would punch through the tire and likely exit on the other side. The tire would gradually deflate.
Seconds ticked by.
The tire went flat. The black truck slowed slightly.
"I have eyes on the black truck," Bug said. "The children are in it. I repeat, the children are in it."
Another burst of red magic flared in the truck bed. Zeus wasn't done yet.
Mason Road exit. He didn't take that one either.
"The chopper is coming," Bug said.
"ETA?" I asked.
"At least four minutes."
A hell of a lot could happen in the next four minutes. It would only take a second for the black truck to hit something and roll over that concrete barrier to the ground far below. The image of a crushed, overturned truck flashed before me. We couldn't let it happen.
Sergeant Teddy growled low.
"If we go any faster, we'll wreck," I told him. "Or he'll wreck."
"Do you understand what he says?"
"No, but I can guess. We have to keep the kids safe. We just need to follow him."
Frontage Road exit flashed by. An electronic sign offered words glowing with orange. Exit Closed Ahead. An orange sign followed. Right Lane Closed Ahead.
Crap.
Road Work Ahead.
Traffic Fines Double.
A white and orange roadwork barrier went flying ahead. The black truck tore through the flimsy plastic barricades and shot onto the overpass exit to the Grand Parkway. What the hell was Vincent doing?
Ahead the black truck turned right sharply and screeched to a stop, blocking the lane, the passenger side toward us.
A man jumped out of the truck, holding Matilda with one hand and a gun in the other. She was still clutching her white cat.
Bern slammed on the brakes. The Ford Explorer slid to a stop. I jumped out of the car before it even stopped moving and aimed my gun. "Don't move!"
"I'll blow her fucking head off!" The man aimed the gun at Matilda's head.
Matilda dropped the cat. The white beast yowled and lunged at the man's legs, clawing his way up. The gunman cried out and spun, trying to shake the little cat free. Matilda fell to the ground. The cat ripped at him in a feral frenzy, writhing too fast to give me a clear shot. Zeus leaped out of the truck bed and crushed the man beneath his bulk. The huge maw gaped open and the saber teeth sank deep into the side of the man's neck. His feet drummed the ground and went limp.
Zeus spun toward us, his muzzle bloody.
Sergeant Teddy charged past us, heading toward the truck.
Zeus snarled, grabbed Matilda by her sweater as if she were a kitten, and sprinted past us, back the way we came. The white cat chased them.
I ran to the truck. Bern and I reached it at the same time. Behind us the thumping noise of the helicopter rocked the air.
Magic punched me, a terrifying avalanche of power. I struggled to draw a breath and couldn't. Bern and I gasped at the same time.
I craned my neck and looked around the truck's rear. Sergeant Teddy was backing up toward me one foot at a time, snarling. In front of him Vincent stood in the middle of an amplification circle, clutching Kyle to him. Behind them the overpass split, one exit going to North Grand Parkway, the other to the South. Construction vehicles and concrete barriers blocked both. The only way out was on foot.
Above Vincent an angry darkness churned, shot through with purple lightning, growing larger. It flashed with bright purple and tore. A giant spilled into existence. Upright, vaguely humanoid, and completely hairless, it towered above us, its cloven feet bigger than the black truck. Its skin, the color of duct tape, stretched too tightly across its frame and formed what looked like rocky outcroppings on its shoulders and the top of its round head. Black, three-foot-long claws tipped its paw-hands. The creature had no nose, only a wide gash of a mouth, filled with long slender teeth and two slanted red eyes, glowing as if lit by fire from within.