The little one was leaning through the limo’s privacy window, intent on hearing the latest bulletin coming over the police-band radio. Trapped in the driver’s seat, McCreedy nearly gagged at the smell of its head. Pus and machine oil. Putrefaction and lubrication.
From what he could gather from the radio, cops were moving all personnel from a location in the Village to put out fires raging elsewhere in the city. The address meant nothing to him, but it got the little one very excited.
“Write down that address,” it snapped.
“Sure.” McCreedy took a pad and pen down from behind the sun visor and made a note.
As he was putting it back, the little one said, “We must go there at once. There must be no delays. Take the fastest possible route. Do you understand?”
“Not a problem,” McCreedy said. He looked up into the rearview mirror and winced at the nightmare visage staring back at him. “Do you want to leave the other one behind?” he asked. “It closed the trunk lid, like, three minutes ago.”
The littlest monster’s face sagged before his eyes; to be accurate, only half of it sagged because the rest of it was metal. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The fan blades of its retinas opened as big as cherry pits.
“Shouldn’t someone get out and check to see what’s happened?” he said, trying to be helpful.
“No, you imbecile!” the grating voice roared in his ear. “It’s too late for that! Drive. Drive! If you want to live, drive as fast as you can!”
“Where?”
“It doesn’t matter! Away from here. Get us away from here!”
Before the side doors slammed shut, McCreedy already had the heavy car in motion. If the little half-metal bastard wanted fast, he’d give it fast. He cut a tire-squealing turn and rocketed out of the parking garage. The streets were empty, reminding him of scenes from that black-and-white Gregory Peck movie about the end of the world, On the Beach. They were that grim and that empty.
He headed south, down the center line of a six-lane street. He had the gas pedal mashed against the fire wall; the big-block V-8 was at redline. Given the extreme load it was carrying, even on flat ground and the long straightaway, the limo strained to make ninety.
Behind them something flashed. It flashed so bright that it blasted through the black-tinted glass. Startled, McCreedy began to oversteer but caught himself and recovered. In the back, the little one let out a long, unbroken yell. A deafening explosion rolled over the vehicle. Then a shock wave slammed into its rear. On both sides of the street, huge ground-level plate-glass windows imploded one after another, like falling dominoes.
For a sickening instant the back wheels lifted high off the ground, spinning madly, even as the front end nosed down. Through the windshield, all McCreedy could see was pavement. Drive wheels lost, with ninety miles an hour of forward momentum, he was sure the long car was going to posthole, auger in nose first, then flip end over end. As a gale-force wind swept over them, bearing a seething mass of debris, the limo’s rear end came crashing down. His purple-hooded cargo hit the ceiling, then the floor. For a terrifying moment he had no control of the vehicle. It started to slew sideways. Instead of twisting the steering wheel, he let the limo find its own track.
As they straightened, the little one screamed at him from the rear compartment, “Don’t slow down! Don’t slow down!”
McCreedy took a quick peek at his side mirror. Something unthinkable was rising in a huge ball of fire from the heart of Manhattan.
“Not a problem!” he shouted back.