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groped across the console, grasped the hilt. His fingers were slick with blood.
Really not good at all.
He jerked the knife free, and used it to cut away the safety belt. Without its support
he sagged dangerously towards the tree branch. His ribs scratched and rubbed in an
unnatural and painful way.
Extra strength fast relief, my ass.
Using the steering wheel as leverage, he pulled himself upright. His head blossomed
into stars and danced in orbit around them. He breathed through the pain, waiting for his
vision to clear. The Mercedes was wrapped broadside around a tree trunk. The passenger
door was warped, crumpled and impaled by a sapling growing in the larger tree s
shadow.
A tickling twinge ran the length of one of Paul s damaged ribs. Already the curse
was working to put him back together again. He looked at the driver s door, and saw
through doubled vision the star fanning out through the glass, the blood spattering across
the cracks. That s what went wrong. He d been anticipating a frontal crash and the airbag
saving him from a head injury.
Shit.
Losing consciousness meant losing it all.
He pushed at the door. It jarred against the wet ground of the slope and wouldn t
open all the way. He used the knife pommel to break the cracked window glass. The
sound made him dizzy. He stopped for a dozen deep breaths. Once he got clear of the car
he could lay in the rain and let the magic heal his bruised brain, but he had to get clear of
the car first. He had to be ready when Sander found him. He d only have one chance to
strike.
Paul tossed the knife through the broken window. It landed flat against the sopping
wet leaves close by the place he hoped to end up himself. He released the steering
column, pushing the wheel up and away, trying to find enough room to maneuver. He
curled one hand through the glassless window frame and tried to pull himself farther up
on the seat. His body flopped like a dead fish.
He subsided against the car seat, panting after breath and clenching his jaw against
the need to vomit. The sound of the rain against the car roof plinked against his brain,
each sound a flare of pain, a ticking countdown. Sander was coming, and he was trapped
in the Mercedes. Even through the pain, he could appreciate the irony of that.
Paul grabbed on to the severed remains of the seatbelt hanging above the seat. He
tried to brace himself against the car floor, but his ankle exploded in agony.
How the hell did I break my ankle?
This wasn t going according to plan.
Shit, shit, shit.
He had to get out of the car.
Pulling himself up with the seatbelt, Paul swung himself inch by inch, his vision
swimming, until he could put his good foot outside the car. He fell back against the seat,
gasping. The tree branch poking through the passenger window scratched at the back of
his head. He picked up his other thigh in his hands and lifted it until the broken ankle
hung uselessly beside the good one. He slithered on his back until his good foot touched
mud. Using the seatbelt, he hauled himself forward. The broken ankle gave way, and he
fell forward. His knees hit the door and his face fell through the open space where the
window glass used to be. A shard still clinging to the frame caught the top of his head.
Liquid pain ran across his skull. The world blinked like a camera shutter, open-closed-
open-closed. His good foot lost its grip in the mud. Sliding helplessly, his upper body hit
the side of the door, bounced, and then with a muscle-straining flop, he met the mud full-
body.
I m out.
That one thought kept him on the edge of consciousness. He slid toward oblivion,
breathing mud and blood. The rain splattered the back of his skull. Each drop was a little
teardrop blade trying push him into the abyss of unconsciousness. The demon reached out
of the looming internal darkness to buoy him. Paul came to full awareness lying on his
stomach, his fingers scrabbling in the wet leaves and mud, lying halfway under the
mangled Mercedes.
Out of choices, Paul lay in the rain as the magic started re-knitting his body. It
passed through his ankle first, and he felt the pain subside.
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