Discord's Apple

Evie pushed on the gas as hard as she could.

The car stopped as if she’d slammed into a wall, and the passengers fell forward. Evie’s foot leaned on the gas, the engine revved, the tires kicked up a spray of gravel, but the car didn’t move.

Hera didn’t have to raise a hand. She only stared, lips parted in wonder.

Frank picked himself off the floor, where the sudden stop had thrown him. He put his hand on Evie’s shoulder and squeezed.

“What do I do?” she said, bracing herself on the steering wheel. What did destiny think it was doing, trusting the Storeroom to people who had no power to face such magic?

“I don’t know.”

A feathered thing rocketed from above, toward Hera. The goddess saw it at the last second and flung an arm to shield herself against the falcon that came at her, talons outstretched. She was distracted only a moment, and she struck back with a hand that had grown claws of its own as the falcon veered away. Their battle took them off the road.

Hera’s concentration was broken. The sedan leaped forward, free from her grip. They continued on the road out of the cemetery. The falcon—Merlin, a shape-shifting wizard—screeched and veered out of sight. Hera looked after the car, then after the falcon, and seemed uncertain which to attack first.

Evie could only drive and hope.

In the rearview mirror, she saw Alex running after them. No sign of Robin. She slammed the brakes. Her blood rushed painfully in her ears for the few moments it took him to reach the car. When her father opened the door and helped pull him inside, Evie was already moving again.

A thump crashed on the trunk of the car, then sounded on the roof. Evie craned over the dash, trying to look up through the windshield to what had jumped on the car.

Above her, Excalibur glinted in Arthur’s outstretched arm.

She hit the button to open her window. His hand gripped the edge of the roof.

“Drive!” he shouted. “Don’t look back!”

“Bloody hell!” Alex said with a laugh.

In command of the fiery steed, Evie drove.

The highway was destroyed because of the earthquake. In her mind, she mapped out the way she’d have to take to get home, the dirt roads around the back of town that would get her to the farmland near the house, and from there she’d have to hope for tractor paths.

She still had to get to the other side of town, which meant she still had to drive through town. A block away from Main Street, emergency lights flashed ahead. The police had the way barricaded.

“I’ll go around,” she said, thinking aloud. Front Street to Third Street, along the neighborhood—

“Stop!” Johnny Brewster ran toward her, flanked by a pair of deputies. He had his gun drawn. Evie braked, swerving sideways as the car slid to a halt.

Arthur knocked on the roof of the car. Alex opened a door and leaned back as the warrior slipped inside and tried to look natural, his sword resting on his lap.

Now that wasn’t conspicuous.

“What do I do?” she said, glancing at her father in the rearview mirror.

He looked pale, his lips pressed nervously together. “Stop, I suppose. It’s Johnny. He won’t give us trouble.”

But there was a woman following the police, walking calmly, knowingly. She was lithe and predatory. Evie’s stomach churned. She was the one who’d come to the house to tell her her father had been kidnapped.

Johnny didn’t lower his gun. Even when Evie met his gaze, when he had to know it was her, his friend and harmless, a

nd that Frank was in the backseat.

Alex said, “You’re going to have to drive, Evie.” He stared ahead at the oncoming troopers.

“But it’s Johnny, we just have to explain—”

“We have to get out of here.”