[Oxrun Station] The Last Call of Mourning Read Online Free PDF

when they'd argued over something she'd already forgotten. A cliche like most, not entirely without substance.
    Spoiled, too, she decided, was a good enough word. Everything when she needed it, everything when she wanted.
    "You know," she told the windshield that fogged at her words, "if you keep thinking like this, lady, you're going to have to find a decent cliff around here to practice your diving."
    She grinned, almost laughed, and drove down to Chancellor where she turned right with a glance to the police station, and had nearly reached the Chancellor Inn when a movement above her made her look in the rearview mirror.
    The limousine.
    The steering wheel shook under her hands, and she wished for no reason that she'd worn her driving gloves.
    Coincidence, she thought. The man's done his business in one place, probably over dinner with a banker or two, and is now on his way to somewhere else. There are lots of limousines in Oxrun, they're practically a dime a dozen. Coincidence. It would be irrational to believe anything else. And paranoid. Not, she told herself, to mention stupid.
    She obeyed the stop sign at the avenue's end and   looked  out   to  Mainland   Road   and   the deserted fields that stretched to the horizon on the opposite side. She remembered an orchard that had been there once, one she used to raid with friends until the grower had died and the trees had gone with him. A fire. She thought she recalled a fire had destroyed them; but now, with no moon, she could see nothing but black.
    The windshield fogged again and she switched on the blower, lowered her window slightly and was ready to move onto the highway when the car jumped forward, the wheel twisting in her hands. She swore and looked over her shoulder. The limousine was directly behind her, its bumper and half the grille below her line of sight. It pushed at her again, and she shook a fist at it. "All right, all right," she muttered. "Idiot bigshots think they own the road." And before it could bump her a third time she accelerated and spun right, heading for the traffic light that marked Williamston Pike.
    Looked in the mirror and saw the limousine following.
    Rapidly. Closing.
    Passing beneath one of the mercury arc lights, its grey now blending to cover its windows.
    And its headlights were dark.
    Instinctively, she pressed her foot down and the car responded in kind. It shuddered once, almost faltering, before barreling ahead, past the Pike, past the light, and into the hills.
    The limousine followed.
    She gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, tried for a deep breath and failed. Sat as straight as she could to keep tension from her spine and stared at the headlights boring through the black. She was glad she could not see the trees, knowing they would be little more than a blur to measure her speed. Her left foot tapped the worn carpeting impatiently, her left hand's fingers releasing and regripping the beveled wheel one at a time. A dust-devil of leaves swirled in front of the car and was flattened, another stayed on the shoulder to tell her of the wind. The car swayed to the left; she righted it with barely a touch, grinning until she looked up to the mirror and saw the Greybeast following.
    Its lights were on now, their glare catching her gaze and almost blinding her.
    Stupid, she thought. What the—
    The car hissed around a sharp bend and, before she could fully understand what she was doing, she slammed on the brakes and fought the car's skid as she thumped onto the graveled shoulder and punched off the lights. She was facing slightly downhill, beyond the curve, and within moments the limousine flashed behind her, its headlights stabbing at the sky as though searching for bombers, dipped and swung past her in absolute silence.
    She wasted no time waiting for the driver to realize his error. Immediately the taillights were no more than a prick, she made a clumsy U-turn that   scraped the right front fender against a