A Book of Dust and Breath

Chapter 15.1

Max pulled his bike to the side of the highway and killed the engine.

The sun shone brightly, the road was clean, and dry, and smooth. There wasn't an exit or entrance ramp anywhere in sight. No one would expect to die on this stretch of road. And yet, someone was about to--a twenty-seven-year-old mother and her five-year-old son.

A sleek black Mercedes with dark tinted windows pulled up behind him. Apparently, the woman and child wouldn't be crossing alone.

Humans were too careless. Whatever was about to happen would be the result of someone's bad judgment.

He thought of Lily's long, smooth legs wrapped around his waist. Her hands, flung to the sides and clutching the sheets, a position that put her perfect breasts on display for him. He could be there with her, instead of here, waiting for disaster to strike.

This reap needed to end so he could go home.

Two men stepped from the Mercedes, dressed in identical black suits with crisp white shirts and silk ties knotted at their throats. They approached him with smiles, reaching to shake his hand. "Maximus Metit! We haven't had the honor of working with you in a long time."

"Aspectus. Similis. You look well. Both of you."

They laughed, simultaneously.

Aspectus slid his hands into his pockets and tapped the toe of his flawlessly polished wingtip. "No sign of anything, eh? Less than two minutes to go."

"Not a thing." Max let his eyes glide across the flowing river of traffic. If the Termination Twins, as Daniel called them, were there, that meant there would be at least half a dozen dead.

"Oh, my!" Similis exclaimed.

Max followed his gaze to the little yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulling up behind the Mercedes. The man behind the wheel blended into his vehicle. His yellow hair hung shaggy around his ears, his pale skin had a ghostly appearance behind the glass. He hopped out and strode across the gravel shoulder toward them. "This is going to be quite a pile-up," he declared.

"So it seems," agreed Aspectus, shaking hands with the new-comer.

"Max! I heard something about you," Lux exclaimed, his trademark charming smile stretched across his white-skinned face.

Max glanced at his watch. Less than a minute to go. "That's me. Talk of the town," he replied.

"Oh, the town is talking, brother."

Similis raised an eyebrow. "We haven't heard any good gossip in ages. Just grumbling about the breaches."

"Breaches?" Max asked.

At the same moment, Lux said, "Max married a human."

The twins gasped and, as one, turned toward him, mouths hanging open, but Max was saved from answering. "Look out," he said, pointing at a school bus that was drifting in and out of its lane. Even at this distance, it was easy to see the driver hunched over his phone, but the bus passed by without incident. Just as it disappeared into the river of cars a little white sedan came from the opposite direction. With a terrible bang, the back tire exploded.

The car next to the sedan weaved hard to the right, taking two other vehicles off the road with it in a clatter of screeching metal and then, somehow, the sedan was airborne, upside down and flying toward the concrete median. Bits of the low wall exploded into the road at impact and the battered vehicle flipped into an upright position, landing in front of a tanker truck that ran three-quarters of the way completely over it before tipping onto its right side, crushing a little black Ford under it. The vehicle behind the truck slammed into the tank, and a domino chain of five more vehicles crumpled into one another in quick succession. Four cars went into the grass on that side of the road in the instant before a fireball erupted from the toppled semi.