Where The Hounds Are : 1

200km/h. The wind hit my teeth like a wall as she squeezed through two huge logger trucks.

"Jesus, Persie!" I pried my white fingers from the door sides. "Those weren't a coupla Beetles there. We coulda died."

Persie Fenny, faux-blonde and 24, snuck a glance over her shoulder. Checked the rear view mirror, side mirrors, over-shoulder again. Then her grip relaxed. So did the petite foot on the gas pedal. Gradually the needle dropped back to 120, 100, 80. I slumped in defeated relief.

Figured, huh? The first time in ten years since I'd had a proper girlfriend, and it had to be a cute little Anglo-Chinese speed demon. She had a face like a teenage Lucy Liu and a strangely recalcitrant vivacity. One that showed itself in flashes and only served to pull me in more.

It's not like she was Miss Danger-Is-My-Middle-Name. She had just moved out of her folks' place and now occupied a rented semi-D with three other girls, two students and two yuppies. Hell, she drove a modest white Jap car as petite as herself. The very same car that had just left two rumbling monster-trucks in its dusty wake.

In most aspects, she was the girl you'd bring home to your ma and pa. Sure, you were pressing 35 and she'd just landed her first job; but still. It happened all the time. We were right for each other. Us against whoever cared to damn us.

I just wished I hadn't wrecked my car on that drunken Friday night. So that I'd be the one behind the wheel instead of this charming, crazy girl who bobbed her head daintily when she laughed and broke every speed rule on the planet when she drove. I always knew when it was starting. About five or ten minutes into every drive, as soon as she hit the open road, her face would change. The slender limbs tensed, the eyes darting here and there – but always, always swinging round, finally, over her shoulder. To that invisible place in the horizon.

To where the hounds were.

"The hellhounds," she'd said.