by Rowan Casey
The dream shifted sideways, shadows turned to asphalt and the glowing light became a river, streaming past me. Luck. I cut through it, travelling too fast—knowing it could all end in a blink. My sister pulled up alongside, her eyes were a brilliant sparkle behind her visor. But in a blink, it wasn’t her, it was Dav. Stop being afraid, he said. His words cut through the sound of the roaring engines and cut deep.
A wall rushed in.
Not a wall, an eight-wheeled semi.
Luck spooled around me, stripping Dav, leaving him exposed. I leaned over, tipping the bike low, and just as it had happened before I slid under the trailer. I didn’t see Kari hit the rear wheels, didn’t see the inferno throb like a monstrous heartbeat and consume her, her bike and the rear section of the semi. But in the dream I saw it all and heard the twisting-metal sound of her screams.
“Jaz.”
I was awake and pushing back into the couch as the memory of the fire—its heat, the smell of burning fuel—boiled around me. Dav was here, standing inside the flames. A scream bubbled up my throat, but at the sound of my name on his lips the fire vanished, and Dav frowned down at me, those two worry-lines back between his eyes.
“Bad dreams?” He set a fuel can down on the floor beside the table.
I blinked at it, knowing that was where the smell of gasoline came from. The odor of choking black smoke clogged my nose and throat. The memories pressed in, trying to drown me all over again.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, squeezed my eyes shut and listened to the real sounds of Dav moving about his apartment. Slowly, so slowly, my racing heart returned to its normal pace and the sweat on my skin cooled as the dream became memory.
Opening my eyes, I found Dav leaning against the table, flicking through his mail. The smell of burned plastics and something like decay hung in the air.
“Long night?” I croaked out, sounding as bad as I felt. I’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him to return after our session with Ghost.
“Yeah, sorry, I… I went back out to that house and torched it.” He dumped the unopened letters down, spread his hands on the tabletop and stared at the wall. “Couldn’t just leave it, knowing what was inside.”
“Maybe you should be the knight, huh?”
He didn’t smile and when he turned his head and looked at me, the seriousness there cut through my sheepish grin. “That Grimm guy, the illusionist. I got to thinking that if those things in that house are real, and if your Siobhan can bring Kari back, then maybe he’s legit too.”
The dream memory came back, stark and strong. Grimm among his knights, facing a force too large, too dark, standing against an impossible tide of darkness.
“Maybe. But if he is, why isn’t he here right now, helping me? I’ve called him dozens of times. I could have used his help, and he’s ignored me.” Pushing to my feet, I dragged a hand down my face and yawned into a fist. The dream-memories tried to insert themselves into my thoughts again but I shoved them back.
“If he wants the bike, he and Siobhan can fight it out. After she’s done as she promised.” My gut twisted, hunger gnawing at me, or maybe it was guilt, or fear. I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Can I use your shower?”
“Sure.”
“You could use one, too,” I said, passing behind him. “You smell like a trash fire.”
His chuckle was a deeply delicious sound. I wanted to hear it again, and caught myself wondering what it would be like to feel his smile on my lips.
“Figured some arson before breakfast is a great way to start the day that we raise the dead.”
I glanced over my shoulder, hearing a slight tremor on the words, but found no sign of any fear or regret on his face—just the truth of him in the honesty in his mildly amused expression.
“Go on,” he jerked his chin toward the bathroom door. “I’ve got a meet to organize.”
Rematch.
That word bounced around cellphones across LA. Lady Luck—the girl who never lost, not even when her sister raced—was back, and Liam and his stock bike had kicked her ass. But the rematch was on. Racers liked nothing more than a grudge playing out beneath an accelerator. I was old school. Liam was an enigma. We had a story to tell.
“It’s gonna be big,” Dav remarked, watching the crews roll in from the quiet cocoon of the GTRs interior. VWs, Mazdas, BMWs. The stream of cars prowled in, their headlights sweeping through the street. “And hot.”
Hot meant the ADD would be all over us if word got out, and word would get out. There had to be twenty crews here already, with more from Vegas on the way. Too many crews, too many voices. It would stir up a social media storm.
“All or nothing,” I mumbled from the passenger’s seat. We had to guarantee Liam and the bike would be here. It had to be big to draw him out.
Ghost sat on her paddock stand next to Dav’s GTR. Headlight beams slid over her white bodywork, making her shine in the darkness. This felt right. Kari’s bike to win Kari back. It felt like something larger than me and bigger than this race was in play and about to fall into place.
“You’ve got this,” Dav repeated, peering out of the windshield. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself.
I dug my dice from my pocket and handed them over. “Take these. Keep them safe.” I didn’t need the temptation of having them close.
Dav tucked them into his pants pocket with a nod.
Billy sauntered up to the car while Liau walked beside him. Dav opened the car door and instantly the growling thunder of countless car engines poured inside.
“This is charged, man.” Billy beamed. He caught Dav’s arm in a familiar greeting. “I haven’t seen some of these crews for years.”
Liau opened my door and offered me his hand, always the gentleman. “Why, thank you,” I teased.
“You’re going to win this right? I may have a few bets riding on you.”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? The last race was the warm up. Besides, I have Ghost this time.”
He stepped back and admired the bike with an appreciated grin. “Feels right,” he remarked.
“It really does.”
“Chī yī qiàn, cháng yí zhì.” The words rolled off his tongue in his native Chinese. “Good luck, Jaz.”
I wanted to ask what he had said, but his gentle smile and too-old wise eyes seemed to say enough. “Who needs luck when you have talent?” I softly replied.
“Where’s Cate?” I heard Dav ask Billy.
“Haven’t seen her all day. She’ll be here though. There’s no way she’d miss this.” Billy swooped in and threw an arm around my shoulders. “Jaz making her big entrance!” he boomed, steering me toward the circus of noise and light. “When you die, can I have your Evo?”
I elbowed him in the ribs, hard enough to remind him who he was messing with. He oomphed theatrically. “If I die and you touch my Evo, I’ll come back and haunt your ass.”
“Promises.” He blew a kiss and peeled off into a crowd of friends, going straight for the women with the least amount of clothing, inflicting his pseudo-charm on them.
Dav’s presence simmered beside me, larger than the man alone: a reminder of the family I once had and the family I was about to get back.
“Don’t fuck it up,” he grumbled.
“Gee, thank you for the words of encouragement,” I replied. What he had really meant was, Don’t die chasing your sister’s ghost.
“I mean it. I’ve already lost one Archer.”
Guilt, nerves, and a whole load of other emotions I’d been dragging around churned in my gut. “I’ve got this,” I said.
We walked into the circus, becoming Lady Luck and Davin Carino. Dav moved among his people, commanding the kind of resect I imagined generals inspired in their troops. Or should that be a king to his knights? The ghost of Grimm’s words swirled about my head as I spotted Liam cruise into the fray on his stock GSXR. The crowds moved aside without looking, instinctively parting before him and that smooth, co
ol, shiver tricked down my spine. He flicked a salute in my direction and rolled up to the start line. The crowd flooded back in behind him.
It was time.
I collected Ghost, feeling her twitch beneath the throttle as I rolled her to the line, both of us eager and hungry. Pulling the helmet on and rolling my shoulders into the top of the leather racing suit, I wrapped myself up in the illusion of protection. At the speeds I was about to do on a public street, a second skin of colorful leather wasn’t going to save my life, but it would keep all of me together if the worst happened.
Focus.
I pulled Ghost up alongside Liam and his GSXR. No helmet, no leathers; he was either insane or not entirely real. I was beginning to suspect both.
“I win this, I win the bike,” I told him, raising my voice through the helmet and above the burbling engines.
His white teeth flashed. “If that’s what you truly want, knight.”
The starter stood between us, arms raised. I flipped my visor down, hugged Ghost’s fuel tank and watched the rev-meter needle tickle on idle. Despite being late at night, the traffic wasn’t as light as I’d hoped. Farther ahead, as we looped through Santa Monica, the streets would be busier, but the roads wider, easier to maneuver at speed.
My heart thudded hard, pumping a heady concoction of excitement and fear through my veins. In a few minutes, it would all be over, one way or another.
The starter dropped his arms. Ghost shot off the line like an arrow from a bow. I heard the crowd roar, heard screams, smelled baked dirt and blood, but I couldn’t process what was real and what were memories. The racing line took shape in my head, streaming through the slow moving traffic in a river of optimal speed, just like luck. Instincts tried to pull me into the sight where I could be sure I’d carve through the streets, knowing I would win, but I blinked and discarded the urge, doubling down on the power. The shift indicator winked red. I shifted up, pulling more power from Ghost’s thundering heart. The street snapped and thrashed, passing beneath Ghost’s tires too quickly to fully process. I knew only the racing line and the bike.
An intersection loomed. I changed down the gears and leaned Ghost to the left, coming in tight and hot with my knee down, brushing dust off the road surface. Liam cut off my line in a blur, braking late and shooting ahead, almost kissing my front wheel on his way out. Ghost twitched, the rear tire slid out and the icy grip of fear clutched at my heart. No, damn him! This was my race. I snatched control back before Ghost could break free and focused on Liam, now a few yards ahead. Ghost was on him, riding his slipstream, just like before when he’d hit a manhole. I couldn’t think about that, or the hundreds of things that could go wrong and how in a blink, I could lose everything, including my life.
Liam pulled ahead. His GSXR screamed, finding power when there shouldn’t have been any left inside that riddle of a bike.
You must retrieve the artifact, Archer. Make it right.
Ghost had more to give. I flicked her out like a slingshot past Liam, then anchored up hard and took the next intersection to the right, cornering like Ghost was on rails. Goddamnit, I had this. The race was mine, the artifact was mine. I was fucking made for this!
A semi-trailer pulled forward like a wall of steel. It swung out wide to take the turn. Kari’s scream sliced through my elation. Fire licked across my face. No, no… The memory wasn’t real, but the semi was.
I kicked Ghost to the right, travelling too fast, freewheeling out of control. The semi’s horn blared, but I was already past it. Headlight beams flooded my vision. I twitched the bike left, hitting a loose patch of dirt. Ghost wobbled, threatening to kick me off. Too fast… I couldn’t control it.
Ahead, colors bloomed in the night. The finish. Liam was close, too close, breathing down my neck. I opened the throttle, powering out of Ghost’s wobble and hooked the tires into the road, launching the bike forward with everything she had. Her engine roared, her heart beat. Resurrected, she was everything Kari had built her to be, and more.
We shot across the line.
I won.
Leaning on the brakes, I brought Ghost to a burbling halt. I won!
People pushed in. Hands slapped me on the back, the shoulder. They cheered and whooped, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t won for them. Sitting up, I scanned for Liam and spotted him by the side of the road, smiling that never-ending smile, as if he had never had a doubt. He pointed up.
I tracked the line of his finger. A floodlight exploded above, too-bright, too-big; a helicopter.
“Cops!” I barked. The crowd erupted into chaos.
I spun Ghost around and brought her alongside Liam. “I won,” I told him.
“You did,” he acknowledged with a sedate nod.
“Your wheels are mine.”
“There’s more to racing than winning.”
Police sirens wailed. The heli’s searchlight skimmed across the cars and people. There wasn’t time for this. We had to leave, but if I let him out of my sight there was every chance I’d never see him or the bike again.
“Don’t preach to me about racing. I’ve lived it. I’ve lost everything to it. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Don’t I?” He looked up just as the searchlight fell over us. His eyes flashed unnaturally green. “Run, knight.”
“I’m not running anywhere without that bike,” I yelled. The heli’s downdraft buffeted us, whipping Liam’s hair about his face. “Stay and the cops will take you in, same as they will me. Leave with me now and I’ll show you how to shake ’em.”
The powerful searchlight hollowed out his cheeks and darkened his eyes, bleaching human from his features and turning him into something…alien. In the next second, the strangeness in his features vanished. He nodded and we raced away from the chaos. The helicopter stuck high and close, forcing us to take one of the nearby storm drains. Emerging near Marina Del Rey, Liam peeled off, taking a sharp left. The helicopter followed.
“Damnit…” It wasn’t likely the cops would catch Liam. But neither would I.
I doubled back through the streets into familiar territory, parked Ghost down a tight little side street, wedged between a Starbucks and real estate agent’s office, and not far from Dav’s shop. I stripped off the leathers, folded them up and tucked them under some flattened cardboard boxes. I’d be back to collect both the bike and the leathers once the heat cooled off.
Sauntering onto the street, I tucked my hands into my pockets and made like it was perfectly normal for a young woman to be walking down the street in sweats without a coat or bag in the middle of the night.
I thought I’d gotten away with it until I heard car tires crunch on the gravel behind me, and the sound of the siren, blip-blip.
Officer Benson was behind the wheel of an unmarked police car. He cruised to a halt so Riley could climb out and peel her jacket back, exposing her badge and sidearm, as though I needed to be reminded who she was and what she stood for.
“Been riding any illegally modified motorbikes, Archer?”
I was about two blocks from Dav’s shop, but there wasn’t anything Dav could do now. I was on my own.
“Just out for a walk.”
“Uh-huh. And you weren’t at the illegal street race fifteen minutes ago?”
“Are you arresting me, Officer Riley?”
“No, but I would like you to get in the car so we can talk somewhere more comfortable.”
She said that like I had a choice, which we both knew I didn’t. I climbed in and smiled sweetly at Benson’s leer. Every minute I was with them was another mile Liam had under his tires. By dawn, he would probably be halfway to Vegas. I’d won the bike. I had earned it. That bike was mine, even if I had to track him around the globe. But I couldn’t do any of that until I ditched the cops.
“How long is this going to take?”
Benson made a long, drawn-out hissing sound. “Could be a while. I hear the rest of our team busted nine cars at the race. But you wouldn’t know anything about
that?”
“No.” I plastered on an innocent smile over the anxious twist of nerves. “I wouldn’t.”
12
They put me in one of the more comfortable interview rooms with a view of the bullpen so I could watch the Department staff through the blinds while Riley wasted my time.
She finally showed up, dumped a file on the otherwise empty table, and offered me coffee.
“Sure.”
“It’s that machine crap, but it’ll fill a hole.” She started pressing buttons and shoving coffee pods into a machine. “It’s the damndest thing…”
“What is?” I snuck a peek at the file but couldn’t see much more than a few color prints of various cars.
“We had footage of you and a white male we’re very interested in.”
“You did, huh?” By the fact she hadn’t yet arrested me, I could only assume that something, somewhere had gone wrong for her and right for me. “This white male, what’s he done?”
“Racked up enough traffic violations to embarrass traffic division and flaunted a general disregard for about forty-nine state laws.”
“Oh.” I figured Liam didn’t care much for the law.
“We didn’t get a good look at your face. And when we tried to clean up the footage, the file corrupted.”
“Ouch. That’s unlucky.”
She handed over the steaming cup of coffee and sat at the interview table, gesturing for me to do the same.
So if she didn’t have any evidence that I was involved in the meet, why was I even here, sharing coffee with a cop?
“You got out,” she said, regarding me with a measure of professional indifference that made her difficult to read. She couldn’t have been much older than me—maybe early thirties—but she carried herself like someone who had aged more than her years could account for. Officer Riley had seen some things in her career and her gut instincts were firing. She wasn’t about to let me or Dav slip through her fingers. Riley was good at her job.
