The Last Hero: Book 2 of The Last War Series by Peter Bostrom

Author:Peter Bostrom [Bostrom, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: Hyperspace Press
Published: 2017-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

The streets of Glasgow

Earth

Bratta gripped the sides of his seat, which logically—especially in the rush hour congestion—did nothing, but at least made him feel better. Jeannie scoffed, but she didn’t spare him any further attention.

“Relax, Steve, this isn’t going to be easy for them.”

“What? How so?”

“Visibility is low. The roads are difficult to drive, and there are plenty of cars around us that look like ours. They lost us for a while back there. If we’d been near a turnoff, we might have made clean away already.”

He hoped she had a point.

“Shouldn’t you, you know, be going a little faster? If we’re trying to get away and all?”

Jeannie snorted. “I arrest speeders for a living. Only thing we’re going to do by speeding is get pulled over, or, in these conditions, cause an accident. No,” she paused to jerk the gearstick—which seemed to be an actual gearstick, not the usual automatic affair. How old was this car? The engine sputtered and stalled, to an outpouring of disapproval from the other drivers. “The trick is to drive like a complete fool. It’s hard to chase an idiot when you have to anticipate their every move and they’re causing traffic jams.” She pretended to fumble with the keys, then she turned to him, smiling like the Cheshire cat, as the car fired back to life. “Want to swap seats? We’ll have time.”

Bratta peered through the window, and saw the next set of traffic lights a long way ahead. She had a point.

Behind him, he could see the car with the mismatched lights, just sitting there. Patient. Silent. Waiting for the kill, or whatever they were planning. And the only thing between him and his fate was joking about it. He shuffled more deeply into his jacket.

“At least you have a new car,” he said, because talking was better than thinking. “Your old monstrosity would have been visible for miles.”

When they’d been married, Jeannie had owned an ostentatious and overly-treasured truck to facilitate her dreaded camping and hiking trips. The vehicle had been his chariot to many midge-filled, muddy memories.

“New car?” She hopped across two lanes. Their tail dropped back a few cars, unable to cut into their lane. Bratta held down a giggle. Perhaps they’d win this, after all. “The Wee Beastie’s over in Edinburgh, where she lives. I came over on the train—this is my parents’ ride.”

“Your—your parents’ car?” And he’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse.

“I get to read on the train, and Mum and Dad don’t mind me borrowing this thing while I’m here.”

She had a point, at least about the reading thing, although if she’d just slow down a tad that would make him feel a lot better … but, at least a car like this was heavy, so if they had an accident, they’d be a fair bit safer. Still, that didn’t really make the situation any better. “Your parents are scary when they’re angry, Jeannie.”

“It runs in the family—damn, they’ve caught up again.”

Bratta turned just in time to see the mismatched headlights slot in behind them.

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