“Advantage over others,” suggested Merlin. “Mortals aren’t bound by the same strictures as those of the Old World. If you had both mythic entities and mortal servants at your beck and call, it would make you more powerful, right? I mean for things like breaking wards.”
“Yes,” said Vivien. “It’s just so unusual. Or it has been, before now.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but at the same time, was clearly unable to dismiss the concept.
“It doesn’t change our main objective anyway,” said Merlin. “Which is to get the hell away from here, and then identify Susan’s father—”
“And take me to him,” interjected Susan.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Merlin.
“We need more information,” said Vivien, looking back to smile at Susan, taking the sting out of Merlin’s curt dismissal.
Susan wanted to say they had to take her, she felt the compulsion inside so strongly. But she kept her mouth shut, and thought about that. Maybe this feeling she had really was a compulsion. Perhaps her mind had been meddled with in the same way as the Birmingham thugs or the police who’d tried to shoot Merlin.
She didn’t think so, because she otherwise felt fine and perfectly compos mentis. But she still worried about it.
The lane they’d been following had no traffic at all, but there was an intersection up ahead with a more significant road, with a steady stream of vehicles flashing across.
Vivien consulted the road atlas as Merlin slowed down for the stop sign. Susan looked across at yet another nondescript field, a new-mown expanse with rolls of hay. She was surprised to see a scarecrow on a cross in the middle of the field, since there were no crops to protect. She hadn’t seen an old-fashioned scarecrow since she was little, and even then it had been made by a local farmer to entertain his children, not for any practical use. This one was a classic Worzel Gummidge type of scarecrow, straw stuffed into old clothes, with a partially decayed pumpkin for a head and oddly pink paper cups for eyes, the fancy kind with the ruffled edges used for making cupcakes. . . .
The scarecrow’s head turned. Susan felt its gaze, those pink eyes meeting her own.
“Scarecrow!”
Vivien and Merlin looked over. The scarecrow lifted one stilt-like leg, pulling it out of the earth, and then it lifted the other and stepped forward, leaned down, and hunched over so it could also use its long, stick-straight arms to scuttle forward, all too like some horrible, frightening insect.
“Damn!” exclaimed Vivien, and Merlin gunned the car, sending it rocketing around the corner with a squeal of rubber and a blast of the horn from the car on the main road that’d had to slow down to let them in.
The scarecrow changed direction, leaping forward, but as Merlin overtook a slow Fiesta and accelerated again, it clearly realized it could not catch up. Instead it rose up to its full height, tilted its horrid, putrefying pumpkin head back, and let out a ghastly screech, audible even over the roaring engine.
Then it fell apart, sticks and straw and old clothes tumbling end over end in the direction it was scuttling, leaving a line of debris across the field.
“Watcher,” said Vivien. “Why’d you look at it, Susan?”
“What? I was curious!”
“It felt your gaze,” said Vivien. “It wouldn’t have noticed us in the car otherwise.”
“What are the birds doing?” asked Merlin. “We might be far enough away they didn’t hear its warning.”
“Still spreading out from the wood in all directions,” said Susan. “I can’t see any coming this way in particular.”
“That scarecrow won’t be the only Watcher,” said Vivien. “If you see another scarecrow, don’t look directly at it. Or at any strange sculptures or things like that.”
“How am I supposed to not look?” asked Susan crossly. She was weary, and hungry, and still damp, and tired of being the center of inimical attention.
“You can look. But don’t meet their eyes,” warned Merlin. “Damn!”
He swore as a farm tractor towing a long trailer loaded with hay turned into the road about two hundred yards ahead of them, instantly slowing the three cars in front of Merlin’s. It was doing no more than ten miles an hour.
“The starlings aren’t on us, and the helicopter’s not in sight,” said Vivien. “We’re good.”
“I guess so,” grumbled Merlin, slowing down to join the line of traffic behind the tractor.
A second later, a police Ford Granada came into view, coming towards them on the other side of the road. It cruised along, not in any hurry, and they could see the driver and the officer next to him looking at the cars behind the tractor and trailer.
“Sit up straight, Susan,” said Merlin. “They’re looking for two people, not three, remember.”
The Granada drew closer, still at the same speed. It slowed down as it came level with the Capri. Merlin glanced over and smiled, Vivien looked, too, and Susan tilted her head up, wondering if, like the Watcher, she shouldn’t meet their eyes.
The police car drove past, and there was a general sigh shared by Merlin, Vivien, and Susan. Followed a moment later by a similar shared, sharp intake of breath as the Granada screeched to a hard stop, began a swift three-point turn, and the blue light on top flashed on and the siren whooped into action.
Merlin put his foot down, the Capri lurched out into the opposite lane and roared down the wrong side of the road, swinging back in front of the tractor just in time to avoid a head-on with a Mini that veered off the road on to the muddy verge, unfortunately not blocking the police car, which was now in pursuit.
Merlin changed gear, the speedometer jerking from thirty to fifty and then seventy, which to Susan felt much, much faster than she’d traveled with the wolf even though it wasn’t, because the narrow, badly surfaced country road was definitely not the motorway.
“They’re onto this car,” said Merlin grimly, working the steering wheel as he lost traction on the back wheels around the next corner, a quite gentle veering that would have been fine at thirty miles an hour. “They’ll have the helicopter back as well. Tighten your seat belts.”
“Uh, there’s no seat belt back here,” said Susan.
“Brace yourself, then!” snapped Merlin. “Vivien, can you put them under when I stop? I can’t shoot another innocent person.”
“Yes!” said Vivien, who had tightened her belt and was holding on to the dash with both hands. The knuckles on her ungloved hands were white. “Stopping is good!”
“Get ready!” shouted Merlin.
There was a village ahead, with houses clustering close to the road, narrowing it even more, a blind bottleneck impossible to take at speed. But there was a gated track off to the right before that, leading into a field.
“Stopping!” yelled Merlin. He braked suddenly, dropped back several gears, dragged the hand brake on, and spun the wheel. The right side of the car lifted up off the road and for a heart-stopping moment it felt like it would go over before it thumped back down again and they were sliding backwards with a terrifying squeal of rubber. The Granada was coming straight at them until Merlin blipped the accelerator again and the police driver jinked his car to the left and kept going, while Merlin slowed the car’s backwards progress enough that when the rear end of the Capri collided with the gate to the field it was not so much a full-on crash as an arrested stop, sending the gate flying in pieces and crumpling the back of the car.