We were heading through Chow Down, where we put the seriously extreme ethnic restaurants (cuisine red in tooth and claw), when Ms. Fate glanced in her rear-view mirror and made a clucking noise of disappointment.
"Take a look behind, John; we seem to have acquired unwanted suitors. Really uncouth types."
I turned around in my seat and looked behind me. Screech gave every indication of being fast asleep, his mouth hanging slightly open. I looked past him, through the rear window, and winced. Walker had put Hell's Neanderthals on our tail. Now, that was just mean. There were twenty of the massive, hairy creatures, riding souped-up, stripped-down, chopper motorcycles. Great muscular specimens of another kind of human, brought to the Nightside from the ancient past via some travelling Timeslip, and put to work by anyone who needed brawn untroubled by much brain. Hell's Neanderthals were always ready to do security, body-guarding, or menace for hire, for anyone with hard cash to offer.
They wore long, flapping coats made from the tanned skins of enemies they'd defeated. And eaten. They wore Nazi helmets, lots of trashy jewellery, and a curious mixture of all the major religious symbols. They also wore lengths of steel chain wrapped around their bulky torsos, to use as flails in close combat. Their leaders had swords sheathed on their backs, and I knew from experience that they would be brutal jagged butcher's blades. Hell's Neanderthals don't do subtlety.
They moved up fast behind us, their outriders lashing out with steel-tipped boots at anyone who got too close. I could hear the pack-leaders hooting and howling at each other in their prehuman language, and something in those brutal, primitive sounds made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I must have made some kind of noise myself, because Screech's eyes snapped open. He turned languorously to look out the rear window and pulled a face.