Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (37 page)

Rake made a motion up above, and w
eapons
hidden in the vehicles
revealed themselves.  Chain-guns and blades popped out of
secret
compartments. 
T
he
siblings
discover
ed
hand-held firearms in their du
ne buggies, and Jorgo lifted a m
orningstar out of the
seat in the
pickup. 

Danica
searched around the motorcycle.  There was nothing there – no weapons, no secret buttons or compartments. 

That piece of shit!

Her skin grew hot.  Cold wind raced against her
and
slipped
through
her fingers like a pulsing electric tide.  She breathed it in, and her lungs turned to ice.

Her spirit was back.  He was weak
and
dazed, like he’d just
woken
from a deep sleep.  His
vaporous presence flushed her skin
.  She focused her
mind
, and with each passing breath he grew more solid.  He flowed
through
her
with
pulsing liquid force. 
R
age burned
behind
her eyes and boiled
in
her blood.

She readied herself.  The crowd
up above
counted down loudly
.

“
THREE!
…
TWO!
…
ONE!
…”

A booming klaxon wail
ed
from somewhere deep in the prison
and
signaled
the
beginning
of the race
. 
V
ehicles sprang to life and roared down the hill in a burst of
mechanical
growl
s
.  C
louds of dust kicked up
behind
spinning
armored tires.

The racers wasted no time getting to the violence
.  Creyzak’s vampire wagon launched smoking spikes sideways into Jorgo’s pickup, and Danica rain
ed
cold sparks
down on the
damaged truck with her spirit and finished the job
. 
Jorgo’s vehicle
only
made it twenty feet before it exploded and buckled in a
roar
of blue fire. 
Flaming debris rolled down the hill.

Danica raced ahead. 
Her heart hammered painfully against her chest. 
Wind rushed at
her
. 
Her spirit
roared
after
her in a trail of spectral smoke. 

The bike launched over the side of the hill and
sped
down the
slope
towards the top of the mesa
.  The
sound of the
roaring
engine filled her head, and she
drove
so fast the ground almost seemed to vanish beneath her. 
Her head felt suffocated in the tight helmet, even with the wide visor.

She
rocketed
across the dark earth
and dodged sharp stones and
debris.
 
Bullets tore into the ground
behind her
. 

Danica twisted the bike
as she came to the bottom of the slope
,
veered sideways,
and
almost tipp
ed
into the
gully
. 
Chunks of mud and rock exploded everywhere as shots hammered down. 

There was only a narrow stretch of mesa top to either side of the gully. 
Danica was between
the cleft
and the
cliff edge.  She could see the floor of the blasted subterranean valley several hundred feet below. 

She
righted
the bike and
followed
the
gully
.  It
was about twenty feet wide and
ten
deep
, and its
interior walls were
lined with barbed iron stakes
.  A
small horde of
grey-skinned
zombies waited at the bottom, slathering and moaning and pushing each other
’s rotting bodies
out of the way
in a desperate
attempt
to climb
out
. 

Markos and Cassandra
’s dune buggies
r
ac
e
d parallel to Danica
on the other side
of the
gully
.  Danica
look
ed back and saw the El Camino locked in a tight race with the vampire
war wagon
. 

She whipped her head forward. 
Up ahead, t
he
mesa
came to an abrupt end
just
before
the
forest of sha
rp stones
. 

Cassandra vaulted her dune buggy
across the
gully
.  The armored hulk
soar
ed through the air
straight
towards
Black’s motorcycle. 

Danica
hit
the
brakes
. 
T
he dune buggy
landed
awkwardly
and bounced
down
just
ahead
of her
, barely missing
the
gul
f
. 
Cassandra spun her vehicle around
and
race
d
straight at Danica
.  The pale woman
fired
her
M16 at the cycle.  Danica
twisted her vehicle sideways and
us
ed
her spirit to shield her
body
from the ground.  Metal sparked and rained around
her.  Danica barely missed the dune buggy as she dodged around it
. 

She glanced behind her
.
 
Cassandra spun her vehicle around. 
T
he vampire tank
chased
down the El Camino.  Cole did her best to keep her distance. 
C
hain guns tore up the earth around
Lara’s
car.

Come on, Lara.

Danica
looked ahead, and her
heart
jumped
into her throat.  She
and Markos reached the end of the gully at the same time.  He
steered his
dune
buggy
around the edge and
straight
towards her
.  Danica
aimed for the stone forest,
lowered her head and hit the gas.  The cycle roared forward.  Her
spirit
flowed around her
in
a fire shield.

Markos
barely missed her and instead smashed into
Cassandra
.  The
dune buggies
bounced away from each other. 

Danica
raced
into the columns of bladed rock.  An explosion
shook
the air
behind her
. 

I
hope Lara
can
get through
all right
.

The cycle was perfect for dodging through the
sharp
pillars of stone.  The s
pace was tight, and a single wrong turn would
throw
her
against
a sharp
edge
and end
the
race
for her
right there.  The columns seemed to twist and snake as she darted back and forth
across
the smooth ground
. 
She rocked with the cycle, dart
ed
in and out of the columns and
moved
deeper into folds of roiling crystal smoke.

A cloud of necrotic matter boiled overhead
, and seconds later i
t belched
slippery
oil rain
all over the stone forest
.  Danica nearly lost control
of the cycle
.  The bike slipped, and she had to right it several times to make sure
she
didn’t
fly
into a razor-edged pillar.  She pushed her spirit ahead and used him to blast the
oil
out of her
path
.  Slick dark fluid
splattered
the columns. 

Gunshots ricocheted off the stone.  Markos and Cassandra
now shared a
single
dune buggy, and they
blazed around
a column
and
bore down on
Danica
.  Streams of fire
billowed
out of
their damaged vehicle
,
and
they dragged a stream of smoke in
their wa
ke.  Cassandra’s face was burned
.  S
he grit her teeth
a
nd
fired at
the
bike. 

A bullet ripped into
Danica’s arm.  Pain lanced through her body,
and she nearly spiraled out of control.

“Shit!”

The w
heels skid, and the columns seemed to circle round her.  Her spirit flew in and grabbed her, slowed
the bike
so she didn’t
fly
into the
rocks
.  Danica bit through the pai
n
, took
hold of
the handles and straightened
the cycle
out.  She’d lost her sense of direction.

The dune buggy came straight at her.  Markos and Cassandra were laughing. 

Danica turned and squeezed into a
narrow
gap between the
oncoming
buggy and
a
stone
column
.  A sharp
rock
sliced her leg
open
, and she screamed
.

Markos wasn’t able to right his course in time.  The buggy slammed into
the
rock and exploded in a noisy blast of metal and flame.  Bits of steel rained down.

Danica caught her breath.  Adrenaline raced through her veins.  Blood dripped
down her limbs
, and he
r spirit quickly and painlessly sealed
her wounds
.  She sensed his fatigue – she was asking a lot of him, and his spectral form was flushed with panic.  He was afraid she wouldn’t make it out of this.

That makes two of us.  But right now we have to save Cole.

She took stock of her position.  Gunfire blasted in the distance to her left.  She kicked the cycle into gear and raced on.  Her
left
arm and leg ached like she’d been beaten, but
thanks to her spirit
the bleeding had stopped
, and the pain wasn’t near
ly
as bad as it should have been
.

She
emerged
from
the
forest
of blade
d stone
and
raced down
a steep
hill
that curved around the far edge of the arena.  A maze of short wooden bridges spanned
pits
in the dark
hill
side.  G
eysers of orange acid fire
blasted
out of the holes
at random intervals
.  The track circle
d
down
the hill
for almost a mile.

The other two racers had somehow gotten in front of her.  Lara’s
El Camino
race
d
just
ahead of Creyzak
’s
vampire
war wagon
.  The Camino’s tail was on fire.  Thin bone needles jutted
out of
the top of the car
like porcupine quills
, an
d the driver’s side door looked
ready to fall from its hinges.  The
war wagon
had taken
some
damage from small-arms fire and
collisions
, but it
s
till
moved
ahead
at full speed.