Striper Assassin (43 page)

“Is it safe driving this fast?” Raman asks, now sitting up straight.

“You want to get out?”

Raman grins. “Stupid question.”

“Which?”

“Both.”

Probably, he’s got a point.

They’re north of Trenton when the voices coming over the console comm start talking about a hijacked cop car.

That was inevitable, but Tikki’s idea seems to have paid off. They’re a good fifty or sixty klicks north of their last-known position. True, every cop in the region will soon be looking for them, but as soon as they dump the car they’ll become virtually invisible.

Tikki pulls the Interceptor off the road just short of the next rest stop. They hike through some woods to the rest stop’s parking field. Raman hotwires another chopper. By morning, they’re near Hartford. Two nights later, they’re riding down to the end of an overgrown dirt track somewhere in a place called Maine. There’s a clearing at the end of the track and an old cabin made of logs. Raman rolls the chopper straight into the cabin, where it’ll be out of sight. The interior of the place is dusty and old, but it’s good enough for stashing their gear, and Tikki doesn’t plan to spend much time indoors, anyway.

By midnight, they’re lying on a grassy bank beside what is probably the last pond in all of North America not polluted by toxic wastes. The half-devoured carcass of a deer lies nearby. The night is cool and quiet and filled with the cloying sweetness of summer, a sweetness Tikki ponders and imagines she might even come to enjoy. Her time in Philly has dampened her fascination with humans and their cities. She’s glad just to have gotten out alive. She’s been spending too much time with humans, too little time in the wild. She isn’t sure who she is anymore. Ruthless killer? In human terms, she supposes, that’s all she’s ever been. She wonders if she was meant to be more. Better. A thing she’ll have to think about, a thing to figure out.

Raman says he doesn’t like cold weather. That makes sense for one from somewhere north of Bombay, but she’ll worry about it later, like when autumn beckons.

For now, it’s just the two of them, for however long it lasts. She flicks her tail lazily across his face, and he responds by growling and moving around toward her rear. The noises he makes and the smells he sheds tell her clearly how enthusiastic a response is in the offing. Tikki is more than willing to cooperate. She supposes this is what her mother meant in saying, “When your season comes, you’ll know it.” It’s a time for changes. And other things…

Raman soon has her growling with excitement.

Roaring, even.