Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(36)

“My heart is always with the rebels, Simon, in any struggle. But America is a failed experiment. A chaos country where mages have lost all sense of themselves. Where they live off the Normals like parasites—like dark creatures.”

He’d flip if he knew I came here. If he were alive to know it.

That goat devil had his hands in Baz’s back pockets. As soon as the badger took his eyes off me, I finished the goat with Baz’s wand. (Maybe I’d have had more luck with my own wand if I’d wielded it this way.) Anyway, I think I finished him off. I don’t know if goat devils have windpipes.

Baz went for the badger that was holding Penny. That should have been the end of the badger—Baz could have cracked it in half like a Kit Kat. But for some reason, he didn’t.

I’m ready to do it for him when something else jumps on my back. A womanish monster with hot hands. We’re properly brawling now, which was always the only way out of this. I’m flying above the red-handed thing, slapping her with my tail. Wishing I had something to swing at her.

I can’t see Penny—where’d she go?

And why hasn’t something shot us yet? Even toddlers in America have access to guns. Surely more of these dark creatures are armed.

I hear an engine start and spare a glance over my shoulder—it’s the silver truck. The Normal must be making a run for it. Baz is chasing after him. Let him go, Baz, we have bigger problems.

I kick Hot Hands in the teeth. I wish I was wearing steel-toed boots. I look around for Penny—

Oh. There’s the gunfire I was expecting.





29





PENELOPE


“Hey! Witch girl.”

Baz had just pulled that skunk off me, and I was still lying on the ground. I thought I might be bleeding—I’d hit the gravel hard.

“You, in the plaid skirt!”

I lifted my head and spotted the Normal, crouched behind a rock and hissing at me. “Come on!”

I looked back at Baz, still wrestling with the skunk, and Simon, fighting some sort of fire fiend, and crawled over to the Normal.

He put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “We’re going to my truck, all right?”

“I can’t,” I said. “My friends—”

“Are very tough customers. They’ll catch up with us. Our only job here is not to get shot.”

“How do I know this isn’t all part of your trap?”

“Come with me or not. I’m getting out of here.”

He ran towards his truck, staying low, and I followed him. (Because he was the least of at least six evils.) Fortunately the creatures weren’t paying attention to us; Baz and Simon are sufficiently distracting, in nearly every scenario.

The Normal started his truck, then we both yelled at Baz, who seemed to immediately get the drift. An animal of some sort was trying to open my door, but Baz tore it off—while running alongside the truck. Baz is truly frightening when he’s not pretending he’s not a vampire.

He’s in the back of the truck now, calling for Simon—calling over the gunfire, when did that start? The Normal is hunching over the steering wheel, and I’m practically squatting on the floor. I crawl up to my window to look for Simon: He’s back at the monument, still flying over the creatures. There are at least half a dozen waving guns at him.

I roll down the window and scream, “Simon!” as loud as I can, worried that he still won’t hear me—but his head whips around, and then he’s streaming our way, climbing higher and higher in the sky.

“Go, go, go!” I shout at the Normal, even though he’s already going. The truck crunches back onto the gravel road and tears forward.

“They’ll follow us,” I say.

“They’ll try.” The Normal is grinning.

“What’d you do?”

“Slashed their tyres.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. They were totally focused on you guys. I don’t smell like anything interesting.”

“That’s … a bit good,” I concede.

“I mean, they could catch up,” he says. “They’ve still got magic. But the treaties work both ways. They can’t touch you when you’re back in Speaker territory. And most of the country belongs to the magicians, not the creatures.”

“When will we get our magic back?”

“The far side of Nebraska. An hour or so.”

Baz is tapping on the back window. I make eye contact with him. His eyebrow is raised. I nod to tell him I’m okay.

The Normal unlatches the window and slides it open.

I reach through. “Simon?”

Baz takes my hand. “Keeping up.”

“Hang on back there,” the Normal says.

Baz looks at the Normal. And then at me. And I think Baz is asking me if we can trust him. I don’t have an answer. But we need the Normal now. He’s getting us out of this mess—even if he’s getting us into another one.





BAZ


I lean back against the cab of the truck, looking up.

Simon is flying just above the clouds. I want him to land, I don’t want to lose track of him.

I hope he isn’t hurt.

I am, I think.… Hurt.