The old Crown Vic had a decent engine and he quickly overtook the ambulance. He pulled alongside first, but didn’t recognize the driver. He hoped to sense some tingling of magic, or perhaps the demon prince’s presence, but there was nothing. Franks pulled in front of the ambulance and hit the brakes. The driver barely had time to stop before hitting the police car’s bumper. Franks was out and walking, stolen 9mm leveled on the driver. The paramedic saw him coming and raised his hands.

Franks smashed in the driver’s side window and stuck the Glock in the paramedic’s face. “Whoa, man! I—” but Franks grabbed him by the throat and choked off the response. He stuck his head inside to see in the back, but it was just another startled paramedic and two badly injured MCB employees. Franks let go of him. The paramedic rubbed his throat. “What the hell?”

His wild goose chase had probably put those MCB employees in greater danger, but two lives were nothing compared to what would happen if Kurst reached his goals. “Get them out of here.” He got back in the police car. There were lights in his rearview mirrors. Then he heard the sirens. They had vectored in on him already. Franks gunned it.

There were two cars behind him. Franks had worked in Washington since they’d first drained the marsh, so he knew his way around the city rather well. He also had faster reaction times than a Formula 1 driver, so normally he could probably lose the cops long enough to pick up another ride, but finding Kurst was far more important than his own survival. Franks squealed the tires around a hard corner, down a block, then cut through a park, taking out a bench and a few bushes in the process. That bought him a few seconds out of their visual range. He shut off the headlights and reversed through a narrow alley as the cops’ cars went by, sirens blaring. Franks came out the other side, then went back toward MCB headquarters.

If they weren’t expecting pursuit, then they would want to take one of the fastest routes out. That presented a few options. However, if they were smart, they would want to initially leave in a direction that would make sense to any observers. Which meant they’d be heading toward a hospital. Franks picked the most logical route to the closest hospital and drove as fast as he could. Stealth really wasn’t an option at a hundred miles an hour on surface streets, so he turned on the lights and siren. Franks dodged cars, veering in and out of oncoming traffic as the opportunity presented itself. Only the lack of traffic kept him from killing anyone, though he did hit a bum’s shopping cart. The impact sent the cart flying into hundreds of pieces. He was lucky. Franks considered running over the homeless acceptable collateral damage.