by Rowan Casey
A jolt of recognition slammed through me. The bike the sheet had hidden had been plucked right out of my memory, but it couldn’t be here. It had burned up to nothing when Kari hit the semi. Yet, there it was, a weapon on two wheels. All white. Shining slithers of stainless steel cut down its flanks. Designed and built from the ground up for one thing: speed. Kari’s own creation.
“How…?” I crossed the room with no memory of moving. The bike was smooth under my hand, but lean and hard, straining to be free even with the engine off. Almost impossible to handle, Ghost—as we’d called her—would chew you up and spit you out if you didn’t treat it right. Only Kari had tamed her.
“Not much was left,” Dev said quietly, suddenly close behind me. “I saved what I could. Rebuilt her over the last few years. Her soul is still there.”
“Have you raced her?”
“No.” He swallowed. “Wasn’t my place. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do with her, but it had to be done. She needs to be raced. And I can’t think of anyone better to race her than you.”
Ghost wasn’t street legal. Nothing about her was legal. She didn’t even look like she belonged on the road. The second she rolled out of the shop, I would risk LAPD’s new ADD unit impounding and crushing her. But there was always that risk, and worse. For the first time, as I looked at the machine built to win, a flicker of hope ignited inside. I had a chance. I could win the GSXR from Liam.
Dav’s half-smile was proof. His eyes glimmered with the promise of the race to come and my heart kicked up its tempo.
We could do this.
A knock at the apartment door drew Dav away. I was vaguely aware of Liau’s soft voice as I gazed at the bike that would help bring my sister back. Ghost being here, Davin having fixed it up: It couldn’t be more right than this.
“Jaz…” Dav’s tone yanked my thoughts back into the now. “The Five-O are here.”
Liau, Cate, Billy and Alex had spread themselves around the workshop, probably in strategically locations to conceal anything that might attract the wrong kind of attention.
The cops, two of them, a man and a woman, both in plain clothes but obviously cops by the length of the rods up their asses, scanned the shop with clinical detachment. They eyed the parked GTR like it was Christmas morning but didn’t approach the car.
“Officers,” Dav drawled. “Are you lookin’ to hire the stretch Lincoln or maybe the pink minivan for a PD office party?” He said it all as though being perfectly reasonable, but everyone here, including the cops, knew it was bullshit. What was said was one thing. What was meant, was another. Thankfully, they couldn’t arrest anyone for an abundance of irony.
“Carino,” the woman said, by way of hello. She wore a loose blouse and slim, gray pants with flat shoes. The type of clothing perfect for the office and chasing down the bad guys. Right now, that was us. Everything about her screamed practical, from the clothes to the dark, cropped hair.
Her partner drifted from her side and admired the array of parts scattered across the workbench. Older than she was, he moved like a snake, slowly and purposely, as he poked about the spare parts scattered about the benches.
They didn’t have a warrant, but pointing that out would it look as though we had something to hide. Without the warrant, they couldn’t look under the GTR’s hood. It must have been killing them to have Dav’s car right there and not be able to do a damn thing. They couldn’t even haul him in for a fictitious broken taillight. It wasn’t technically on the street. Dav had danced to this tune enough times with them to know not to leave the hot items in display. They knew it, too. This was a friendly reminder of exactly how closely we were being watched.
The woman showed Dav her badge. “I’m Officer Riley and this is my partner, Benson. We’re with the ADD.”
“I know who you are.” There was a sharpness to Dav’s drawl, edging it close to the tone he had used to tell me to get out of his office. “What can I do for you?” He folded his arms, then realized how that might look unfriendly, and casually leaned a hip against the GTR’s door. In the presence of the cops, in his shop, surrounded by his crew and his car, Dav was a whole lot more than these two could handle. Neither officer looked all that concerned. If they were good, they had done their homework and knew Dav wasn’t likely to start trouble; but he would finish it.
“We wondered if you know this man?” She showed Dav a picture and studied his face for a reaction. There wasn’t one.
“No.” He handed it back.
“Mind if I show your crew?”
“My crew?”
“These fine law abiding citizens just…hanging out?”
“Sure, go right ahead.”
Riley handed the print to her partner who dutifully did the rounds. Predictably nobody knew whoever was in the picture. When Benson got to me, I schooled my expression the second I recognized the man in the print. “No. Who is he?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Benson grinned. I had seen grin’s like that on pictures of snakes.
This picture was blurry and clearly taken using a phone in low light. Liam sat perched sideways on his bike, grinning like he was sitting on top of the world. Someone at the meets was snitching, but that wasn’t unusual. The cops were constantly trying to plant snitches and infiltrate the crews. Dav probably already knew who it was from the angle of the image and the others in the shot.
“We’ve had some reports of increased street racing over the last few days. You wouldn’t know anything about that, Carino?” Riley asked in her no-bullshit icy tone.
“If I did, I’d be sure to let you know.”
She wasn’t buying it, of course. “Make sure that you do, Carino. I’d hate to see you lose this shop.” Her smile said she would very much like to see Dav lose his shop, his license, and his rides.
“I didn’t know you cared.”
Like this, Dav sounded almost reasonable. This was the Dav that had convinced the cops to release Kari and me into his care, the same Dav who had talked Liau out of a fight that would have seen him beaten and possibly killed. He had helped every one of us in the past. He never stopped helping. I wasn’t sure if he knew how. Even now, after two years of living another life, here I was, asking for his help, after I’d told him how my actions had contributed to Kari’s death, he was still helping. People, like Officer Riley, underestimated him. He used their mistakes against them, over and over.
Benson looked at Dav like he was something he wanted to scrape off his shoe, but Officer Riley was different. She flicked her gaze over all of us and settled on me a few seconds too long. Maybe she recognized me or maybe my sudden appearance had her suspicious. I could bet she would be looking up my rap sheet the second she stepped outside the shop. She wouldn’t start something. Not here, but on the street we were fair game.
“Was that all?” Dav asked, turning his back on them and busying himself with some meaningless task.
“For now.”
They left, knowing we were racing. We knew they knew, but they lacked the evidence to do anything about it, and so the dance continued, the same as it had since the 70s.
I puffed out a sigh.
It was Billy that said, “Riley so wants you to ride her hard, Dav.”
Dav gave Billy the finger.
Alex’s bright and sudden laugh cut through the tension and as easily as that, the nightmarish events of the morning slipped to the back of my mind.
Liau was beside me, leaning over the bench. “Did you see Ghost?”
I grinned and whispered, “Yeah, and I get to race her.”
“No way! He doesn’t let any of us touch her. You’re back five minutes and you get to race her?!” Liau smooth, sing-song voice pitched high. He slapped me on the back. Alex joined the mocking dissonance, complaining that Dav had once caught her sitting on the bike and threatened to spray her car matte pink like the minivan.
Billy brushed by and grinned over his shoulder. “He always did have a sweet spot for the Ar
chers. Or was that a hard spot?” Billy had a rag thrown at his face.
“Sweet, huh?” My smile slipped sideways. “You all have clearly forgotten who you’re talkin’ to.”
The banter continued, easing me back into familiar territory as though I’d never left.
It didn’t go unnoticed by me or Dav how Cate lingered silently at the sidelines, her attention fixed on her cellphone.
“She’ll come around,” Dav later murmured. He tapped his knuckles on the workbench and said louder, “Time to wake Ghost. Are you ready?”
My wide smile was my answer.
Ghost was a bitch that had tried to kill me several times. It didn’t help that the strip’s concrete roadways played havoc on any available grip. The tight left-hand corner that swept into an old loading bay had so many patches that every single time I’d run over it the bike behaved differently. And I’d been over it countless times. I knew the circuit now, and had already shaved eight seconds off my virgin lap. But it wasn’t enough. I saw the doubt in Dav’s eyes every time I hit the start line.
This time, when I pulled up alongside him and he showed me the timer, he face was grim. “You’re hitting the wall.”
Ghost burbled beneath me, content as a kitten. A kitten that turned into a raging wild animal that would quite happily tear my throat out. The wall was the same in races everywhere; a psychological barrier. The problem wasn’t Ghost. It was me.
“I’m hitting the revs at fourteen thousand, getting everything out of her, Dav. I don’t know where else to find the speed.” The new helmet muffled my voice. It itched, too, and needed adjusting. I loosened the strap and yanked it off then swept my damp bangs out of my eyes. Sweat glued my racing leathers to my back. The sun beat down on the abandoned factory lot in waves that distorted the view of the racing line. I’d already tried blaming my wall on the heat, and the surface, and the bike itself. Dav wasn’t having any of it. He looked at me now with a strange mix of disappointed in the crease between his eyes and something else that I couldn’t place, something that kept him from looking me in the eye.
He waved a hand in a vaguely get off gesture. I rolled Ghost back onto her stand, lifting her rear tire off the floor and climbed off. Dav wordlessly handed me his timer and swung his leg over the bike. I lifted the stand, rocking Ghost off.
Dav tickled the throttle, listening to Ghost go from a purr to a growl. He lined her up at our start line—a deep crack in the asphalt—and hunkered down.
“Three…two…one.” I hit the watch.
Ghost was gone in a thunderous howl that as so loud the whole city had to be able to hear it. She didn’t care for mufflers that would quieten her. And damn, she was LOUD. It was a wonder ADD weren’t crawling all over us.
While Dav ran his warm-up lap, I plucked my cell from my pocket and dialed the casino. The office receptionist answered. “Hey Piper, is Grace there?”
“Are you coming in today, Miss Archer?” she asked, ignoring my question. “Jo keeps asking when you’re going to be back.”
Jo was the casino accountant. The beating heart of profit and loss. If she was asking after me, that meant the casino was losing money. Not a surprise when I hadn’t been there in over a week to keep luck streaming in the right direction.
“There are some others things, I think. Something about a glitch in security but Grace was on it. Carol from the poker tables has put in a complaint about Juan, and—”
Ghost screamed closer, her V-twin engine like a howling battle cry, and Piper’s report faded behind the thrill of seeing the bike bear down on me, man and machine as one.
Dav shot by me as fast as an arrow and as loud as an airplane. I hit the watch, captured his time, and set another lap running and somewhere behind the rapid beat of my heart and the receding roar of Ghost’s engine, Piper rattled of the agenda from the last meeting I had missed.
The thought of walking back into the casino closed non-existent walls around me. Expectations. Responsibilities. Racing was the old me. The girl with nothing and no-one stopping her from doing anything she wanted. The girl who lived for the adrenaline hit. I’d lost that girl after Kari’s death, but maybe I could be that girl again.
“I won’t be back for another week,” I told Piper, butting in on the latest bitcoin assessment.
“Oh. I… Okay.”
“When Grace gets in, tell her to call me.”
“Jaz?”
“Yes, Piper?”
“You are coming back?”
My lips twisted around a lie.
Ghost was coming around again. I watched Dav wrestle the bike around the last corner. The rear tire slid out, losing him a fraction of a second, but he caught it and flicked the bike upright, always in control, always on the edge. He opened the throttle, pushed it to the max revs and chased down the time.
He crossed the line, firmly cementing the fastest time yet, shaving a whole second off my best. He applied the brakes, bringing the bike to a controlled stop and brought it back around in a lazy arc.
When I looked at the stopwatch in one hand and the phone in the other, I realized I’d hung up on Piper, or she had hung up on me. Either way, CALL ENDED flashed on my cell screen.
“Shaved off an easy second, right?” Dav panted. His eyes flashed with brilliance and the lustful high of experiencing the kind of speed you know should have killed you but hadn’t. Racing bikes wasn’t like racing cars. A car wrapped you in a cocoon, offering the illusion of safety. A bike hung you out to dry and let you know it could kill you as quickly as you could blink. It was a kick in the gut and a euphoric high all at once and there was nothing like it.
I showed him the time and watched his smile creep higher. “For someone who hasn’t touched bikes in two years, you seem to be pretty damn good.”
“I’m not the one who needs to win.” We switched positions again. Dav handed me the helmet. “Stop being afraid.” I tugged the helmet on and he rapped his knuckles against it.
He was right, of course. I told myself I’d left to keep the crew safe, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Fear had chased me away. Fear of mortality. Fear of making the wrong decision, fear of myself.
“Hey.” He was all at once too close, too Dav, peering through my visor like he could see into my soul. He gripped my shoulder and gave it a grounding squeeze, digging his fingers into the leather. “You got this. You don’t need luck to beat that asshole. You can do this, Jaz.”
I chewed on my lip and latched the helmet straps. Stop being afraid. Make it right.
Dav let go and backed up. “The sun’s going down. Make it fast…”
I gave Dav a thumbs up and settled myself into the zone where nothing could reach me but the need to go fast, tighter, harder. I forgot the casino, forgot the baobhan, forgot Liam and the artifact. I forgot Dav and Kari. I raced, and when I did, it was all consuming. I wasn’t Jaz “Lady Luck” Archer. I was Ghost. I was the sound of the V-twin screaming as petrol combusted inside her chambers, the beating heart of speed. I was something old and something new, something timeless. Something real and unreal at the same time.
As the sun dipped behind the abandoned power station, and I began the final lap, I knew my time would destroy the others. I could feel the surface, feel the heated tires clinging to the asphalt in all the right places. Ghost was a part of me now. Kari’s whispers hissed through my thoughts, Make it right, make it right, they beat. The memory of Grimm’s voice echoed the same, Make it right. And I would. There was nothing else but making it right. Nothing else but the broken pieces of my past. I could fix them, fix all of this. A choice clicked into place; the missing piece finding its home.
Dav and the start line blinked by. I pulled on the brakes, my heart thumping somewhere in my throat and my whole body suddenly alive, nerves tingling.
As I pulled the bike around, Dav’s grin told me everything. He grabbed my shoulder and shoved the stopwatch in my face. I’d smashed through my wall. It shouldn’t have been possible to run the lap that fast, but
I had. A strange kind of adrenaline tingled through me. It hit me with the same rush, the same maddening need and rush of heat, but it was smoother, cooler. Power, a memory inside said. An old power from a part of me that had always been there but had only now begun to awaken.
Yanking my helmet off, I ran my hands through my hair, shaking it loose, and looked up at Dav, finding his smile to be an infectious thing.
His hand shifted from my shoulder to the side of my neck, where his thumb brushed my jaw, igniting the dregs of adrenaline all over again, seeking more thrills, more danger.
“Welcome back, Jaz.” His expression shifted, softened, and his thumb stopped its stroking. He searched my eyes as two small worry lines appeared between his. “Let’s go win ourselves an enchanted bike.” He straightened and swallowed, gently taking his hand back. “Take Ghost back to the shop.” Turning away, he took his keys from his pocket. “I’ve got an errand to run, I’ll see you there.”
LA’s sunset cast him in a warm red glow and pulled his shadow long across the ground.
Dav was never mine, I reminded myself. He could never be mine. He was Kari’s. It had always been that way. And if got her back, it would be that way again.
“Focus,” I told myself. I was close. So close to ending the two year nightmare. “Don’t screw it up now, Jaz.” Squinting into the setting sun, I knew, without any doubt, that I’d win the bike no matter what. Tomorrow night we’d call another race and this time, I wasn’t losing. Power tingled across my skin, leaving gooseflesh behind. Tomorrow night I’d see my sister again.
11
The shadows were alive and they were hungry. They came at me in the dream, speaking a language I’d never heard but understood. Knight, they called me. Betrayer. I had fought for a king, betrayed him, and killed my brother. But this was another time, another place where the air smelled like wet grass and the meadows sparkled in the sunlight. The shadows were not supposed to be here. They came like darkness, sweeping across the land, destroying, devouring, consuming the light. And they weren’t alone. Demons spilled from the skies and spewed from the earth. Grimm stood before them, a beacon, drawing them to him, and all around him a circle of silhouettes stood waiting. Ready. Wakened. The knights.
