Gale Force

driving, and the soft, lulling roar of road beneath tires took its toll. Before too long, I was leaning

against the passenger-side window, sleepily contemplating the headlights visible in the far

distance behind us, and slipping over the edge into sleep.

Or almost, anyway. I jerked myself awake with a start, banging my head against the glass, and

blurted, ''How are they still there? The truck? How fast are you going?''

David didn't even need to glance at the speedometer to say, ''About one-fifty.''

No semitruck on the planet was going to do more than eighty on these roads, and that was if they

were asking for trouble, especially at night. So at half our speed, more or less, he should have

been far behind us by now.

Invisibly far.

I checked the headlights again. They were still visible, and if anything, they were closer. ''How

fast is that truck going?''

It no longer mattered, because I felt a sudden snap of power out at sea, as if someone had pulled

a steel wire taut in front of us, and I had time to see a wall of water rise up, glistening and glass-

brick thick in the moonlight, beautiful and deadly. . . .

David let out an almost inaudible hiss and reacted instantly, faster than any human could have.

It was almost fast enough.

Plowing into a puddle of water three inches deep in a car going a hundred miles an hour creates

an incredibly strange set of physical problems. Forces shear in unpredictable directions, and as

the driver, if you don't get it right in that first second, you're out of control. Spi

flipping . . .

If only it had been that easy. But this was a wall of water, not just a puddle. It was at least a foot

thick, probably more than that, a huge amount of mass.

If we'd hit it head-on, the car would have been crushed. Instead, David's reactions were just fast

enough to throw us into a skid, which burned off some of the kinetic energy. In that extra quarter

second, he and I both reached out to snap apart the wall of water.

Again, we almost succeeded. It was evaporating into mist even as we hit it, but part of it was still

inevitably solid.

The impact was like being slapped by God. I heard crumpling metal and I was jerked violently

from side to side. The glass next to me shivered and cracked into a frosted geometric mess. I

heard David's voice but couldn't sort it out; there was too much to process, and my body

couldn't decide what to complain about first.

''I'm fine,'' I said, although I probably wasn't. David did something to the car, swore quietly,

and I heard metal grinding in the engine. Well, he could fix it. He was Dji

what they did; they fixed things. They were nature's great handymen.

''Hold on,'' he said, and his hand closed over mine. I turned toward him. Mist leaked in through

the window cracks. The water we'd vaporized had formed a thick, heavy, creamy fog that

swallowed us up. ''I love you. Hold on. I'm sorry I didn't believe you, I'm sorry-''

The fog was getting lighter. It wasn't anywhere near dawn. David was still talking, low and

quietly.

''I can't get us out,'' he said. ''I can get myself out, but not you. If I try to pull you out, I'll kill

you. So hold on. I'll protect you. Jo, I love you. I love-''

The semitruck burst out of the fog like the red fist of a vengeful god, and I felt the surge of

power around us as David pulled together a bubble of protection just before the world came to a

sudden, sharp end.

''Hey.''

I jerked awake, sweating and trembling. The sun was coming up, a hot blur on the horizon, and I

wasn't dead-we weren't dead, and there wasn't any truck. There hadn't been any truck for

hours, since we'd left it behind at the gas station.

We were alive. It had been a dream . . . no, not a dream, a goddamn nightmare, so real it still

ached in every muscle. My heart was thumping so fast it felt as if it were on the verge of needing

a shock to bring it back to normal rhythm. I was damp with cold sweat.

David was looking at me with worry in his eyes. His hand was on mine, just as it had been in the

dream. Exactly as it had been. I twisted around, sure I was about to see the specter of the truck

rising up behind us, but no.

Nothing but road, and early-morning mist, and the traffic of another normal, busy day. I

recognized the road. I'd traveled it before I'd met David, driving non-stop through the night,

heading for Lewis's last-known address in a desperate bid to save myself from a death sentence.

Why did it feel as though I were still on the run?

David chose not to ask about my all-too-obvious freak-out, for which I was extremely grateful.

He downshifted the Mustang and blended smoothly into the traffic as he reached down between

the seats and came up with a smoking hot cup of coffee. Not a word spoken. I cried out in relief,

grabbed it, and found it was exactly right-just hot enough, not one degree over, although I

would have gladly chugged it if it had been the same mean temperature as lava, damn the burns

and blisters. I felt badly off balance and unsteady.

When I'd taken enough in that I felt part of the world again, I sighed, tilted my head back against

the seat, and asked, ''So how far do we have to go?''

''Couple of hours,'' he said. ''We'll be there on time. Do you need a comfort stop?''

Of course I did. We found a small roadside diner with clean facilities and a pretty spectacular

breakfast. Probably not too smart to order the Heart Attack Special, given my earlier cardiac

fibrillations, but damn, eggs, biscuits, and gravy all sounded like heaven. If heaven came with a

side of bacon.

David watched me consume with a lazy sort of pleasure in his expression as he nursed a cup of

coffee and a bowl of mixed fruit. If he noticed that the waitresses kept whispering and looking

him over, he didn't mention it. ''That was some dream,'' he said. ''What happened?''

I didn't want to talk about it. Unlike most dreams, this one remained vivid and terrifying. ''We

died,'' I said. No explanations. His eyebrows climbed, and I saw him think about asking for

details, and then think better. ''That truck. Did you ever see-''

He was already shaking his head. ''There was nothing weird about the truck, Jo,'' he said. ''It

turned off and went its own way a little after you fell asleep. It was a Peterbilt, carrying a load of

television sets. The driver was a Haitian immigrant. Want to know his name?''

I paused, studying him. A forkful of eggs cooled on my upraised fork. ''You really did pay

attention.''

''Of course I did. He has six kids, a wife, and an elderly mother. I know everything about him,

everything about the truck, everything about its cargo. I wasn't taking any chances. Not with

your life. I've nearly lost you too many times.'' He said it without any emphasis, but it went

straight to my heart. I lowered my fork and put it down, and fought to catch my breath. He

leaned forward, cup cradled in both hands with exquisite care. ''Nothing will happen. You have

to trust me on that.''

I held his gaze. ''And you have to trust me that everything may not be as simple as you think it

is.''

''You're talking about the package.'' I nodded. ''Jo, I promise, I'll try to keep an open mind. No

matter how . . . unlikely all this seems to me.''

He really was trying. More than that, I knew it wasn't easy for him to devote so much time to

me; there were constant demands in the Dji

after all.