Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(19)

I don’t know how long we ran through the night streets. On a moon hunt, the pack would run for four or five hours at a time, for the sheer joy of it—so, outside of a few lingering aches from the wreck, I was in good shape. Better than she was, half-starved as she appeared.

Certainly in better shape than I would have been after being Bonarata’s guest for weeks. I’d have to thank Charles if I made it out of this alive.

Eventually, condition counted. I started to pull away from her, very, very slowly. About that time, the walls on either side of the road fell away, and I found myself running along a country lane with vineyards rising on gentle hills on both sides. There were still fences, but that was okay, I could deal with fences—vineyards were a godsend. There are vineyards all over the TriCities. I know about vineyards and werewolves and coyotes.

I slipped through the bars of an ornate steel gate and ran along the length of the first row of grapes. I think she knew what I was planning—maybe she’d hunted smaller prey in this very vineyard before—because she sped up and closed the distance I’d opened between us. But, once again, she was too late.

I would have hated to face her if she’d been in top condition, if she hadn’t been half-crazy. But if she hadn’t been Bonarata’s pet . . . mistress . . . something, she wouldn’t be trying to kill me.

Grapes are grown in rows. The path between rows is kept clear, and it is easy to run through the vineyard from that direction. But the grapevines are trained to spread tidily on a wire or rope fence, so running through the vines themselves is difficult—unless you are a coyote. The fence the vines are grown along leaves plenty of space for a coyote to slip through between strands.

I turned into the vineyard.

After the second row, I got a feeling for the spacing and didn’t have to slow or shorten my stride as I ran through the gracefully draped vines.

The werewolf was a lot bigger than I was. She had to jump every row. It wasn’t the additional effort that won the race for me—it was just that every time she jumped was that much time she wasn’t propelling herself forward. It slowed her down, and it required more energy.

She was moving roughly ten times as much mass as I was, which hopefully would tire her out faster, though that didn’t seem to be happening with any appreciable speed, even given her poor condition. I kept waiting for her to break down the row and run on the road beside the vineyard instead, where her speed would be less hampered than mine was. But she just kept following me as if she was incapable of more tactical thinking.

By the time I reached a road again, ducking beneath the tall hedge-and-fence that the werewolf would have to vault over, I’d gained nearly forty yards. This road traveled straight uphill for about a half mile, then, from the sign on the verge, intersected with another road.

The last steep bit I managed by ignoring my tiredness and occupying myself with the very important decision of whether to continue straight or turn left or right. My life hung in the balance, but I had nothing to draw upon to make the decision an informed one. The high hedge lined both sides of the road I was traveling on, and I could not even see the new road.

I hesitated a moment . . . one second and two, right at the intersection. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the satisfaction in her eyes. My indecision had given her the hunt. She was still stronger than I was, and the long uphill stretch had eaten most of the lead that the vineyard had given me.

She was so busy seeing me as her prize, she didn’t pay attention to anything else. So when I bolted across the intersection, she did, too—and the bus that I’d waited for hit her and rolled over the top of her with both sets of wheels.

I turned right, the direction the bus had come from, and kept going. Behind me, I heard the bus slow and stop. I hoped that she was dead—or dead enough to leave the bus driver and the people riding in it safe.

After a while, I heard the engine sound change as the bus pulled out again and headed away on its original course. I dropped from a sprint to a jog. She might still be alive, but she wasn’t going to be chasing me again until she’d had time to heal. Without a pack, it was going to take her a few hours at least.

It was still dark, though, and there was the possibility that the vampire hadn’t left his—what? lover? food?—to kill me on her own. I needed to find a safe place. I needed to contact Adam. I needed to eat something. Not necessarily in that order. Water, the most immediate need, I found in a trough set out for some cows. They watched me curiously, but I didn’t alarm them.

I thought about cutting through their pasture and into more vineyards, but I wanted to go home. Following the road until I found a familiar setting seemed to be a better choice. The road I followed was, other than the small cow pasture, bordered on either side by vineyards until civilization crept very slowly back in, but not in any useful fashion.

I traveled for another hour or four, until the first rays of the next day dawned, without finding anyplace that seemed safe. I think if I hadn’t been so tired, I might have done something smart, like changing into a human and going looking for help. Though maybe not. Bonarata would not be kind to any human who thwarted his will and helped me—that was his reputation, anyway. Instead of looking for help, I found railroad tracks and followed them for a while, exhaustion leaving me very focused on putting more miles between me and the vampires. On getting away safely. A train seemed like a very good idea.

In the end, I didn’t take a train. I found the station, right on the edge of where village turned into tight-packed city. As I was trying to figure out just how to jump on a train without anyone’s seeing me—pack magic could make people not pay attention to me only as long as I didn’t do anything too interesting—I realized that there was an easier ride to be had.