Tong Elves, he thought dreamily as his legs turned to jelly and he circled the drain of consciousness.
That’s right: circled the drain of consciousness. You have a problem with that?
Mack barely avoided being completely flushed out of consciousness. He sank to his knees, and Jarrah hauled him back up.
The mob of Tong Elves on bikes shot past, braked, turned clumsily back, and came in a rush for a second pass.
“You got a magic spell for this?” Stefan asked.
“I miss Toaster Strudel,” Mack said.
Stefan and Jarrah correctly interpreted this remark as evidence that the blow to Mack’s head might have scattered his wits a bit.
“Run!” Stefan said to Jarrah.
“Got that right!” Jarrah agreed.
They each grabbed one of Mack’s arms and took off, half guiding, half dragging Mack, who was explaining why strawberry Toaster Strudel was the best, but sometimes he liked the apple.
“I had a s’mores flavor Toaster Strudel once but . . . ,” Mack announced before losing his train of thought.
The Tong Elves were just a few feet away. But they were awkward on their bikes. Stefan led Mack and Jarrah straight across their path, rushed into traffic, and dodged across the street through buses and taxis.
; The Tong Elves veered to follow.
Wham! A bus reduced their number by two. The unlucky pair went flying through the air and landed in front of a taxi, which hit them again—wham!—and flipped them bike-over-heels into a light pole.
“I like foosball,” Mack said. “But I’m not good at it.”
“This way! We can’t outrun them on foot!” Stefan yelled, and he and Jarrah dragged Mack bouncing and scuffling down the sidewalk and into a rack of parked bicycles. The bikes were locked, but Stefan still had the Skirrit blade.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
And there were three unlocked bikes.
“Can you ride a bike?” Jarrah asked Mack.
Mack drew himself up with offended dignity and said, “I could be a Jonas brother.”
“I think that’s a no,” Jarrah said.
Stefan lifted Mack up and settled him on the handlebars of a bike. With fluid strength Stefan swung a leg over, mounted the bike, held a drifting, ranting Mack in place with one hand, grabbed the handlebar with the other, and stomped on the pedal.
Down the street, past the now partly flame-engulfed market they rode, with a mob of Tong Elves on bikes behind them.
But then, just ahead, a pedicab.
Small digression: a pedicab is defined on wordia.com as “noun, a pedal-operated tricycle, available for hire, with an attached seat for one or two passengers.”
This particular pedicab had a wiry guy pedaling. And on the back it had a sort of cabin, bright turquoise with a red fringe and gold tassels.
The pedicab was speeding right toward Mack and Stefan. As fast as the guy could pedal.
And leaning out of the side of the cabin, with the naked blade of his cane-sword pointed forward like a knight with a jousting lance, was Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout.
Chapter Seven