As Josie fled through the carefully preserved forest that cradled Augua Clara Acres and Salad Fingers made himself WAY too much at home in somebody else's corner of the Liminal, Patador, usually seen toodling around Salem in a little zero-emissions mail vehicle delivering mail, downshifted the lumbering salt truck he was contentedly steering down I-5.
Patador enjoyed his seasonal side gig with ODOT – the money was good, and oomans RESPECTED a warrior encased in a 65,000 pound bright orange truck that could spray salt water out the back while sending fans of snow twenty feet or more into the air from the fully deployed blades on both sides.
The big blade in the front, though… wow!
Anyway, all those flashing lights were just NEAT, not to mention a cab that was not only heated but BUILT for his 400 pounds of muscle, gristle, and chiton; nothing like a zero-emission postal vehicle that assholes in Teslas never saw until almost too late.
Downshifting, Patador leaned forward, small, deep-set armored eyes behind thick lenses peering through the twin fans of his truck's wiper blades through the now heavily falling wet snow. Was that a shingle on the slushy pavement?
There, another one.
And another.
And another… no, an entire trail, leading to a Wolf contractor's truck rolled over on its roof in the mud of the median, a swathe of dirty snow in its wake of loose ladders and tools.
Pulling out the iPad he used as a cell phone, Patador eased to a rumbling crawl, the growing line of angry commuters accumulating behind him unheeded as he tapped in a number that wasn't 911.
Wolf's crew were RADS; there'd been an accident, a bad one.
Wait a clicking minute... Patador paused mid-report the location of the accident, head cocked, dreads spilling out from beneath the huge orange beanie Sargent, his wife, had knit for him last Christmas.
How very interesting.
Patador finished his report, pulled his heated breathing mask up over his mandibles, and turned off the stream of salt water behind him while coming to a full stop in the passing lane, emergency flashers blazing.
Minutes later, Patador was loping through the trees, truck forgotten, following the huge set of footprints in the snow heading towards Augua Clara Acres.
Marlene stood dazed and wobbling on her now badly scuffed rainbow Amina Muaddi's in the remains of Bekka's parent's tacky living room: it had all happened so fast.
There had been a pounding at the door, like some bitch demanding to come in, plus the doorbell –Bekka's parents were in a Zoom meeting doing some sort of business bullshit or other so they told Bekka to deal with it, but Bekka didn't want to. Mindy was too fat and slow, and Maggie? well Maggie could get lost in the girl's bathroom at school with a MAP so it was all up to Marlene, the only one with brains, to deal with the maniac at the front door all because the doorbell camera was fucking broken…
She'd stormed down three flights of stairs to deal with the intruder, yanking open the door, ready to show them what the Queen of Merston High could do with her tongue alone—
Only Josie was out there, staring wild-eyed over her shoulder at someone, something, coming up fast behind her, all scratched and bleeding, pine needles studding her dreads.
Marlene was more than just a pretty face – she grabbed Josie, slamming the door before taking off, dragging Josie behind her like a ragdoll in a puff of blue feathers.
They were in Bekka's room without realizing they'd run up all three flights just as the front door exploded in burning fragments, the burglar alarm going off as the built-in sprinkler system cut loose – Marlene herding Bekka, Maggie, and Mindy ahead of them into Bekka's monstrosity of a bathroom and locking the door, barricading it with Bekka's dressing table, Bekka's shoes, and Bekka's beauty supplies before climbing into the free-standing marble tub, turning on the shower, and pulling a pile of Egyptian cotton bath wraps over them as whatever it was sizzled on the other side.
When the bathroom door burst into flames, Marlene realized that somehow in the chaos of exploding perfume bottles and melting lipstick, she'd lost Josie.
Oh shit.
Marlene suddenly tipped to one side as the heel of one of her once beautiful sandals snapped unheeded. Sobbings, Marlene landed bonelessly on the charred remains of the huge leather recliner that had been blown into the front yard, hands covering her face.
Oh shit-shit-shit.
Whatever it was, it got Josie.
Which was Marlene's fault.
The tracks Patador followed were joined by something that burned everything in its path as it moved through the trees, which were now burning overhead, melting the snow as it fell so that it was now hot rain.
It had been a long time since Patador allowed himself the pleasure of the hunt.
He lumbered through the burning tunnel in the forest, sap hissing and bubbling from the burning trunks; if only the rest of his family could be with him!
He slowed, one of the houses on his regular route was burning, a fiery tunnel bored straight through, the occupants stood on the front lawn, all of them calling the fire department. Patador, a born predator, jogged past them unnoticed, mandibles clamped protectively over his mouth beneath his heated mask.
His prey was dead ahead of him as the full moon rose, mirrored on the ice of Lake Agua Clara.
After the school shooting incident, SRO Mike Smith had himself a little talk with Frankie Stein's father, Victor, and his wife so that when Puck and Josie met Sebastian, their terror triggered a newly installed alarm deep inside him.
Too bad about Wolf's truck – Mike's automatic response to their panic caused him to slam on the brakes on the unsalted portion of I-5 on his way home, sending the truck skidding sideways into the median and into a spin before hitting a culvert and rolling over.
It wasn't as if he wasn't up to his ass in debt already.
Horn blaring and half-blinded by pale synth blood, he'd ripped the driver's side door off and was already among the trees before he realized that Charlie or somebody the bitch had sent, must have grabbed the girls.
No problem.
Mike Smith grinned, face flapping in the wind, exposing square, metal teeth and the multiple razor blades hidden behind them.
He could deal.
In fact, it would be a pleasure.