Dead Harvest

  It wasn't till we picked up a tail that I realized what she was doing.

  He came screaming out of a Dunkin Donuts parking lot about a half a block back, siren blaring. Red and white lights strobed through the cabin of the Volvo.

  "Sam," Kate said, "we've got company!"

  I glanced back. The cop was gaining fast. A triumphant smirk flickered across our driver's face, and the speedometer needle began to drop as she coasted toward the shoulder.

  I held the knife up to her neck, and she went rigid in her seat. I said, "You do not stop, you hear me? You just keep on driving till you get us where we're going."

  The driver said, "I – I can't just ignore him."

  "That's exactly what you're gonna do."

  "There'll be more of them, you know, and not just behind. If they cut us off, I'll have no choice but to stop."

  "If you stop this car before you get us to the hospital, I swear you'll wish you hadn't. Drive through them if you have to. This kid is not dying on my watch. Am I clear?"

  She nodded. The fear in her eyes had returned. That was good. The cop was gaining, though. That was bad. The funny thing was, I didn't see any others. At the time, I didn't know why, but that fact – which should have comforted me – instead left me with a gnawing pit of worry where my stomach should have been.

  Of course, it didn't help that Anders stopped breathing.

  It wasn't a peaceful sort of thing, either, like drifting away in the quiet hours of the night. It was more like a flailing, writhing, drowning-on-dry-land sort of thing. Anders' limbs swung wildly through the cabin of the Volvo, one leg connecting hard with the back of the driver's head and sending the car careening onto the sidewalk toward a darkened storefront. I grabbed the wheel and jerked us back onto the street, receiving a glancing blow to the temple for my trouble. Kate was shrieking, and Anders was making a horrid, gasping noise that sounded like a pipe organ collapsing on itself.

  Our driver was shouting now, too, in fear and panic, and to her credit had us more or less back on track. Things got dicey for a second as we leapt the center divider, and the sudden glare of approaching headlights made a collision seem imminent, but she yanked the wheel to the right, and sent the car sailing back into our lane in a rain of sparks and a squeal of rending metal.

  And still, our pursuer remained.

  We were close now, the structure of the hospital looming over the tops of the timeworn Colonials that surrounded it. Anders' flailing had died down, but it was hard to take that as a good thing. Not to mention, I had no fucking idea what I was gonna do about the cop. One thing's for sure – planning's never been my strong suit. Eh – if I was right, and this girl's soul really did hold the fate of the world in the balance, at least I'd know that God has got a sense of humor. I mean, shit, he could've sent her a savior with a clue.

  In the distance, a backlit sign jutted from a wellmanicured garden, marking the hospital entrance. I pressed the knife to our driver's side. "You don't slow down until we reach the entrance, you hear me? No signal, no warning, nothing." She just nodded, her eyes never leaving the road. A good little trouper, that one. I confess I was relieved – the last thing I needed was more innocent blood on my hands.

  When the turn came, she didn't hit the brakes, she just yanked the wheel. The car skittered a second, and then the back tires caught, and we rocketed forward. Thank God she'd listened to what I said. If she hadn't, we would have all been dead.

  The police cruiser slammed into our car with a spray of glass and the sickening crunch of metal on metal. His front end connected with our back-left fender, and we one-eightied. The car rocked hard on its shocks as we slammed into the curb, but it could have been worse. Had we slowed to take the turn, he'd have caught us dead to rights, and we'd have rolled for sure.

  The cop was out of his car – which had beached itself on the hospital's now-ruined sign – in a flash. His gun was drawn, and he was running toward us, closing the gap between his wreck and ours with lightning speed. Our driver looked stunned, confused, but I wasn't – not anymore. It was clear now why he'd pursued us alone, why he'd never called for backup: this guy was no more a cop than I was. It was Bishop, back to finish what he'd started.

  The bastard was good – I'd give him that. I'd hoped Pinch's death had at least bought us some time. I'd hoped we'd lost him – that he was strapped to a bed in some old folks' home in Dubai or something, never to be seen again. I'd hoped that maybe, just maybe, we'd catch a little break. Turns out, I'd barely even slowed him down.

  Shows what hoping will get you.