Free Dark Legion by Rob Cornell Page B

shame sitting in here, collecting dust. Besides, I know you’ll bring it back to me.”
    “I have to bring it back?”
    Marty thumped Lockman’s chest with the back of a hand. “Don’t even joke. Thing cost more than Trump Tower.”
    “Where do you get all this shit?”
    “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you. At least, if I wanted to stay in business.”
    “Yeah. Maybe I don’t want to know.”
    “You don’t.”
    They loaded the car, Marty showing Lockman all the compartments and how to open them. It started with Lockman having to press his thumb against a scanner while Marty entered a code on a keypad. “All the doors on this thing will only open for you now.”
    Lockman got in behind the wheel, pressed his thumb against a pad in the steering wheel, and the engine came to life so quietly he wasn’t sure it had started at all. He pulled out of the storage unit while Marty watched. When he cleared the doorway, he buzzed down his window.
    “I forgot,” Marty said. “It’s a hybrid. So you should get pretty sweet mileage.”
    “Thanks, Marty.”
    “I’m not so bad after all, am I?”
    “You’re definitely full of surprises.”
    The ogre grinned. “Be careful, Lockman.”
    “Sure thing.”
    Marty reached through the open window and put a hand on Lockman’s arm. “I’m serious. No matter what you may think, you’re not done with Gabriel.”
    Lockman waved him off, but as he pulled away, he couldn’t ignore the sinkhole in his gut. God damned ogre had got him good and paranoid.

Chapter Seventeen
    Standing on the shoulder of the two-lane highway with her thumb stuck out like some freaking movie cliché reminded Jessie of that time Craig had left her at the side of the road in the middle of the desert. It felt like an age ago. Back then he had scared her more than anything. What kind of guy kicked a girl in her early teens out of his car in the middle of nowhere?
    Of course, he’d come back.
    What if he hadn’t? What if she’d hitched a ride and made her own way back home, never to see him again? Life would sure be a lot less complicated. But the truth was Jessie and Mom were bound to get wrapped up in this crazy shit. Her mom had married a freaking werewolf after all.
    Arm tired, she almost let it drop even as a car with more rust than paint tooled her way. No one was going to pick her up anyway. But the car slowed, pulled to the shoulder, and stopped about three feet from Jessie.
    The crappy car all but screamed serial killer, but the woman behind the wheel looked older than Yoda, and not much taller. Her head barely poked above the dash, and with her buck teeth she looked like a gopher peeking out its hole.
    The old lady honked the horn and gestured for Jessie to come over.
    Jessie shrugged and jogged to the passenger side, climbed in. The air-conditioning managed to capture winter inside the car. Goosebumps popped up along her arms the moment she closed the door.
    “Where ya headed, babe?” Her voice was one-hundred times bigger than her body.
    Jessie blinked, mouth open. “Uh…”
    “You ain’t going to catch no flies in here, so you might as well close your mouth.”
    “North.”
    “North where?”
    Jessie realized she had no idea where she was. Only that they had traveled south. But they hadn’t gone too far. “I need to get back home. We have a cabin in the woods.”
    “Going to have to narrow it down, babe.”
    “Can you just start driving? I think I’ll recognize the area when we get there.”
    “Why not?” The old lady put the car in gear and pulled back out on the highway. “I’m not much of a talker. You mind the radio?”
    “That’s fine.”
    She tuned the radio to a religious station. A priest was warning his congregation against the dangers of demons on this earth.
    Jessie smirked. Father, you have no idea.

    Sure enough, Jessie started recognizing landmarks about forty minutes into their drive. When she saw the Quik-Save on the corner of what qualified as