The bloodsuckers ripped into the vehicle, clawing at the armor. The lines of the car flowed, reshaping themselves as the armor grew thicker, covering the wheels. Two of the vampires managed to pry open the top panel. It went flying and a new armor plate snapped into its place.

“I don’t get it.” Julie swerved. “So the djinn takes over the body after three wishes?”

If the ifrit didn’t kill us, her driving would for sure.

“That’s the theory.” And because the djinn wanted to take over a host for reasons unknown, he would’ve actively pushed his victim to make the wishes. For a weaker-willed person, the compulsion to wish for something would’ve been impossible to resist and the more wishes they made, the greater their break with reality would become. Under normal circumstances, Lago wouldn’t have tried to kidnap me. He was a self-proclaimed Casanova, not a rapist. And the Oswalds’ neighbor probably wouldn’t have let a deadly monster loose in a residential neighborhood. We had to stop this now, before anyone else got hurt.

“But Lago already had his three wishes. Why is the car making armor?” Julie asked.

“Because the ifrit needs time for the transformation. If we kill Lago now, we stop it, so he’s protecting him.”

Julie stepped on it. The Jeep squeezed another small burst of speed out of its engine. We were ten feet behind Lago.

“But why is he making giants?”

“If we knew that, we would have this problem solved.”

The armored scales sprouted spikes. The bloodsuckers dodged in unison. One of the undead squirmed, impaled, pulled himself off the spike, and kept clawing at the armor.

“Team Leader Two, stop and dismantle.”

We were barreling down the road when Lago turned again. Great. We had zigzagged through the three-square-mile block of the city and now we were almost exactly where we had started . . . Hmm. If we kept going straight, we’d run right into the Mole Hole. The Mole Hole, once the site of Molen Enterprises, was a 140-yard-wide crater lined with a foot of glass. It formed when one of the richest Atlanta families tried to hatch a phoenix. All kinds of fun activities took place at the Mole Hole, from roller derby to street hockey tournaments, but right now it would be deserted.

“The car is glowing,” Julie reported.

The metal scales shielding the car had gained a soft bright glow on the left side. Lago was transforming and if we didn’t hurry, Rowena would be cooked alive.

I knocked on the roof. No answer.

I unbuckled my seat belt.

“Are you going to jump onto his car?” Julie asked. “I can get closer.”

“What are you, out of your mind? No, I’m not jumping on his car. That only works in movies.” I stuck my head out of the window. “Ghastek!”

The bloodsucker swiveled its head toward me.