Page 41 of Warmongers and Wands
Surely there was an angel looking over me. Or maybe a demon.
“Let me carry you back to the cabin,” Hadur rumbled. “I’ll make something for you to eat. I’ll brew some hot tea. I’ll kiss you and take your mind off everything that saddens you.”
The funny thing was, he could. Not just with sex or food or tea, but just by his presence. I was a bit of a loner, but I’d spent a week with this demon. I’d spent the whole day side-by-side with him just reading journals and spell books. And I was completely happy doing that. With him by my side, my injury wasn’t a big deal. With him by my side, that tiny cabin was a home.
“I’m okay.” I told him, sniffing as I pulled away. “I do want to check the truck for anything Diebin may have missed, though. And I want to check something else. I’ll need your help.”
“I live to serve.” His voice was teasing, his hands smoothing back my hair.
“Good, because you’re going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting here. And I do mean heavy lifting.”
I made my way over to the remains of my truck while Hadur pulled limbs and boulders out of my way, throwing them with admirable strength off to the side.
“You know, you’re totally turning me on,” I told him as I peered into the driver’s side and shuddered at the scene. Blood. Glass. Mangled dashboard. Deflated airbag.
“I’ll remember that. The witch likes feats of strength.”
“Well, bring your feats over here, will you? I’d like you to open the hood. Or rip it off if you have to.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “Planning on starting it and driving out of here?”
I laughed. “Nowthatwould be magic. No, I want to see what happened to my brakes. Maybe I’m just being paranoid about the werewolves. Brake lines fail. Shit happens. I don’t want to start a war over a mechanical failure.”
He moved to the front of the truck, snapping off a thick branch and tossing it aside. “You’ll be able to tell if it was tampered with or not?”
I shrugged. “A clean break on an otherwise solid brake line? I’m assuming so. Of course, with the truck smashed up like this, I might not be able to evenfindthe brake line.”
Another branch flew off to the side. I heard the squawk of metal. Hadur grunted, then the metal squawked again, the hood peeling free from the car like the skin from an orange.
“Can you make it over here to look?” Hadur asked. “I’ve got no idea what I’m seeing.”
“Guess Diebin never brought you any issues of Popular Mechanics or Chilton manuals,” I teased, carefully making my way to the front of the truck. I took good care of my vehicle. There hadn’t been any brake noise, no vibration or pulling to one side when braking, no spongy brake pedal, no distinctive smell of burning brake fluid or puddles in my driveway. So, either this had been a sudden, catastrophic failure—which could happen—or someone had messed with my truck.
I leaned against what remained of my left front fender and looked down into the engine compartment. Setting the crutches aside, I bent over, trying to get closer.
“Shit. I can’t…damn this broken leg. I can’t get close enough to see.” I straightened up with a huff of exasperation. “Forget it. This was a dumb idea. I can’t crawl around under the car or get myself in the places I need to be to check this out. It’s just going to have to wait.”
“Let me do it,” Hadur said. “Tell me what to look for, and I’ll do it.”
I pointed. “See that there? That’s the master cylinder and the reservoir. They hold the brake fluid.”
“Now you’re turningmeon,” he commented, half-crawling over the car. “Here?”
“Yep, that’s it. The lines are those tubes there. They lead to a combination valve, then to the wheels. There’s a hydraulic control unit under the car for the lines running to the rear wheels. It’s a closed system. The fluid circulates.”
“Maybe they cut it by the wheels,” he suggested. “If so, I’ll have to flip the truck over and check from the bottom.”
I loved how he casually suggested flipping the truck over, like that would take no effort at all.
“I don’t think that’s where the break is. If it happened by a wheel, then the fluid would leak out each time I used the brake. The others would work the first few times I applied the brake pedal, getting soft then not working at all as the fluid squeezed out the broken section by the one wheel. No, they either cut the line at all four wheels, or they cut it here by the master cylinder.”
“Sounds quicker and easier to do it here,” he said.
“Yep, that’s what I’m thinking. A cut line, or bust the master cylinder with the reservoir, and it’s all going to hell. I’d maybe get one soft braking in, then it would be pedal to the floor.”
“I have no idea what that means exactly, but okay.” He looked down at the master cylinder. “It looks smashed, but everything under here looks smashed.”
“But was the hood smashed there? Because the hood should have a big ole dent right there if it happened from the wreck.”
