The Frenzy Way (23 page)

Mace and Willy watched the Rabbit pull into traffic.

“What the hell is
she
doing?” Willy said.

Following at a distance, Mace checked his rearview mirror and saw Landry and Morrissey bringing up the rear.

The Rabbit sped along Broadway, flanked on either side by office buildings with dark windows. Traffic had decreased at this hour, but the sidewalks and pavement were far from deserted. As they approached a traffic light, Patty felt a twinge of apprehension. She wanted to reach Jason’s apartment and bring this charade to a close, but she also dreaded deviating from the plan. Candice, Kramer, and the four uniforms waited at the decoy apartment for nothing. She knew she could handle Jason on her own. The question was when to spring the trap.

“Are we almost there yet?”

“Relax.”

Patty checked the rearview mirror again. Mace and Willy were half a dozen car lengths behind her, Landry and Morrissey following them in the next lane.

Jason glanced in his side mirror. “You can go faster, you know. Idon’t see any police around.” He smiled at her. “I like to go fast.”

Patty smiled back and accelerated the car three miles an hour. The traffic light ahead turned yellow, and her stomach tightened.

“Don’t slow down,” Jason said.

She did as he said, passing beneath the light. When she looked into the rearview mirror, she saw the Cavalier and the carpet van stranded at the light.

“Damn it!” Mace said.

“Don’t worry,” Willy said. “They’re headed toward Astor Place. There are plenty of traffic lights ahead. We’ll catch up to them.”

Mace drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The Rabbit shrank ahead of them. “Screw this.” He stepped on the gas, surging forward.

With his left hand, Jason reached over and caressed Patty’s right thigh, just above her knee. His electric touch quickened her heart rate. Swallowing, she looked in the rearview mirror. The Cavalier and the van were moving again. Jason slid his hand up her thigh, stopping as it touched the hem of her skirt.

My gun
, she thought with alarm. But his fingers stopped short of her blue steel weapon. “Much farther?”

Astor Place loomed ahead; young people crisscrossed the intersection and taxis discharged passengers.

“No,” Jason said, sliding his fingertips beneath her skirt and rubbing the inside of her thigh, millimeters from the barrel of her gun.

She swallowed, then slowed down, pulse racing. As soon as he touched the gun she would have to slam the brake, draw the weapon, and be ready to fire it.

Jason squeezed her thigh, and she regretted glancing down at his hand as soon as she did it. In the blink of an eye, the fingers upon her flesh changed.

“Jesus Christ!” Willy said as Patty’s scream came over the speaker.

Mace raised his hand radio. “Take him down!
Take him down!”

Patty disbelieved her eyes: in the span of seconds, Jason’s hand had transformed into a long claw that raked her flesh, drawing blood. She screamed not from the razor-sharp pain in her leg but at the sight of the horrible thing beside her.

“Oh, my God!” Mace said as the screams continued over the speaker and the Rabbit weaved from lane to lane ahead of them. They heard the sound of fabric tearing.

“Jesus!”
Willy said again.

Mace floored the gas pedal and held down the horn, alerting the pedestrians crossing the street.

“Holy shit!” It took Mace a second to identify Candice’s voice over Kramer’s and to remember that she had a visual of whatever was happening. “What
is
that?”

Patty flailed her arms and kicked her feet as Jason’s clothing burst at the seams. He had become a wild creature, all fangs and fury, bearing down on top of her. She clutched the steering wheel with her left hand while groping for the butt of her gun with her right. The black shape descended on her like wrath personified, and she felt its teeth tear into her stomach. As she thrashed from side to side, she saw blood splatter the windshield, obscuring her view, and she knew that it had once belonged to her.

Oh, dear God
, she thought.
Please save me!

But she knew it was too late for that.

Mace thought he glimpsed a hulking shadow inside the Rabbit, but then dark red sprayed the car’s back window.

“Don’t do it! Don’t do it, you bastard!”

And then they heard it. Growling. Snarling. Snapping. Tearing.

“Get her out of there!” Kramer yelled over the radio.

The Rabbit jumped the curb of the concrete island in the middle of Astor Place, scattering startled onlookers in all directions. The car crashed into the Alamo, a massive statue known to New Yorkers as the Cube. Metal impacted steel, and the front end of the car flattened. Steam billowed from the Rabbit’s hood, and people encircled the car, staring at its bloodied windows. Then the driver’s-side door exploded from its hinges, and a mass of sinew and black leapt out after it, provoking a chorus of screams.