Nyx, stood and gently but firmly helped her terrified prisoner to his feet. Her blade was at his throat and she was whispering something in his ear - and it didn't seem to be exactly putting him at ease as she wrapped her free arm around his body, caressing him. She kissed his neck, leaned her head on his shoulder and looked up at me with those big, wide eyes.

"He say he is SO sorry for shooting the guns at us and wants to help by answer all question."

The guy was nodding like his head was on spring. Nyx ignored him and kept talking.

"Mr. Furious - I assume you have plan? You know where we go now?"

She had assumed correctly - smart kid. I knew exactly where to go - the parking lot. We needed to grab a car - a fast one - then after that… I was pretty much out of ideas.

I grabbed the terrified stumble-bum she was holding and immediately regretted it. The stench hit me like a toxic fist from hell.

"Aqua-fucking-VELVA?!"

I shook him like a doomed harp seal and watched his terrified, face ripple like jello.

"As if you didn't already have enough to answer for…"

I wanted to smash him against the wall like a rotten pinata, but I needed to ask this guy some questions and that all too familiar sound of sirens was getting close again.

Deja - fucking - vu...

We burst out the back kitchen door and my targeting reticles were immediately poppin' and snappin' on all the different cars makes and models in the back lot. I was pulling up all the specs on everything in sight. And it was a pretty sissified selection too. An Audi TT with a cast-iron waffle mold stuck in its windshield (that was the car making all the noise), Porsche 911, and one of those stupid Cayenne things… your garden variety Lexus and a lame Infini -

"HOLY SHIT!"

My reticle had just locked onto a mutha-fuckin' unicorn riding on an albino dragon! I double checked my internal readout just to be certain - and sure enough - right there, in the back of the lot, next to the faded green dumpster… A Mercury Cyclone - N-code 429 Cobra Jet!

"That's our ticket outta here!"

I was over there in a flash and put my fist through the driver's side window as quick as thinking. I stuffed our petrified prisoner headfirst through the broken window before he could even gasp. He slid into a back seat that was the size of a living room sofa, like a boneless hippo. I flopped the driver's seat forward and Nyx floated right in there next to him like a shadow.

The police had arrived out front and so I needed to get creative about our next move… there was a back alley - about as wide as the car we were in.

"Hang tight!"

I grabbed the plastic shit around the steering column and ripped it off like an old corn husk. I tossed it out the window and before it even clattered into the drive, I had grabbed the loose hanging wires and crushed them together causing them to spark in my fist.

There was a sputter, then a cough - followed by a growl and a deafening roar as an 8 cylinder demon from hell woke up - and it was hungry!

We blasted through the thin wooden fence and drifted into the alley then rocketed out of sight - hit the main road and spun off into the darkness.