Chapter Six

Axle answered the knock on his door, expecting a tuner needing a repair or some new lighting to go with the latest paint job. What he found was not one tuner, but four, accompanied by Finn McMissile and a lime green racer he didn't recognize. "Take it you need to hide these cars?" he asked Finn.

"Just the tuners. They're not safe in London," Finn replied.

Axle gestured to the lime green racer "Who's this other car, then?"

"I'm his escort," the car replied in a light English voice. Axle almost thought the racer had no accent whatsoever.

"His escort, huh? What's he need an escort for?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"How bad is it?"

"It's finally happened," a voice in the garage said. "Didn't Rod warn you?" Axle turned toward his dimly lit garage and sighed, closing his eyes. His six guests drove into the garage, and Leland Turbo's semi-transparent form appeared toward the back. "I swear," he said. "You've got to be six different kinds of stupid."

"What're you raggin' me for?" Axle snapped. "It's not like my brother said, 'Oh, by the way, Montgomery's some psycho who's gonna try to kill you'." Finn and deAngelo exchanged looks, and the tuners looked at Axle, who turned toward the group. "By the way, I'd like you to meet one of my resident ghosts."

"Leland," Finn said gravely, his gaze fixed on the red sportscar. "Leland Turbo."

"Actually it's nice to know I'm not the only one seeing these things."

"Oookay," Boost said, backing up.

"Wanna meet the other one?" another voice asked. A dark blue Dodge Challenger drove out of the mirror and approached the group. deAngelo fainted, and the tuners huddled together, facing outward in something of a circle.

"What's going on?" Snot Rod asked, panic seeping into his voice.

"Easy, Snotty, easy," Wingo replied. "Lots of weird shit's been happening lately, so why not have ghosts?"

"It could be worse," the Challenger said. "We could be Grem and Acer."

Finn found himself cracking a smirk. "That would be bad," he replied, turning toward the Challenger. "You must be Rod Redline, I take it."

"The one and only."

"Can't you just drop us off here and be done with it?" DJ asked.

"Well, we have to wait for deAngelo to wake up," Finn said. "Then we'll leave."

"Now that you've met the resident ghosts, there's a guest room in the back. Should be fairly easy to find," Axle said. The four tuners nodded and drove to the back of the garage, leaving Finn, Axle, an unconscious deAngelo, Torque, and Leland in the garage proper.

Finn closed his eyes and turned away. "I'll be outside," he said. "Let me know when he wakes up." He drove down the ramp into the street, and Axle looked to Leland and Torque.

"That might've been a little much," he said, narrowing his eyes. The two ghosts exchanged looks, both seeming to accuse each other, and Axle drove into the kitchen.

CARS

deAngelo drove out of the garage, and he and Finn made their way through the streets of Los Angeles. "You are on your own, Finn," deAngelo said. "I don't have the oil pressure to deal with all of this."

"And you think I like seeing two agents I couldn't save?" Finn replied. "Especially Leland." He looked away, his voice falling to a whisper. With a sigh, he looked up and added, "The point is, deAngelo, that this is such a shock to both of us that I fail to see the point of your argument. If you wish to leave me here, that's perfectly fine, but I'll be out of Los Angeles before you're thirty thousand meters above it."

"You're going to leave four rookie agents in the custody of a car who runs a haunted garage?"

"I know our tuners are in good tires."

"And what of you? Where will you go? You can't run from ghosts."

"I didn't know I needed to run from ghosts."

"Even so, where will you go?"

"If I tell you, someone else will find out some way. You should know that better than anyone else."

deAngelo nodded. "So be it," he said. "So be it." He turned a corner, setting a course for LAX, and Finn drove toward Route Sixty-Six.

CARS

Lexie settled into her bed and closed her eyes, but a strange feeling kept her awake. She glanced at her dad and then drove out of the cone and into the neon-lit Radiator Springs. Mater and Holley were just driving into a town, presumably after a movie or evening spent tractor tipping. She met them under the roof at the V8 Cafe and asked to speak to Holley alone.

Lexie led Holley into an abandoned building just beyond the edge of town and asked, "What happened?"

"How do you know something happened?" Holley replied.

"Gut feeling. I get those a lot, and usually they're right."

Holley looked around and rolled closer to her. "There's been a jailbreak last night in London."

"Montgomery escaped?" Holley nodded. "What happens to us now?"

"I don't know, but I do know that Finn's keeping both the tuner agents and our jailhouse informant safe, with mechanics, no less."

Lexie closed her eyes and shook her hood. "Montgomery's out of jail. I knew there was a reason I didn't feel safe." She licked her lip. "What do we do?" she wimpered, looking at Holley.

Holley shook her hood and then rolled even closer to her. "Tell Alex. Talk to him about this. He can help you."

Lexie nodded. "Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow."

"Agreed."