Instead, he stared after them through a red haze.

“So they want to play, do they?” he said out loud.

Dropping his shift lever to low, he popped the clutch and stood on the gas, charging back onto the expressway with a spray of dirt and a roaring engine.

It didn’t take him long to overtake the pickups. They were driving below speed limit now, back in their old formation one behind the other in the slow lane.

Dropping his speed, Griffen slid in behind them, making it a line of three vehicles. He figured if nothing else, it would make them nervous enough to spark a reaction. It didn’t take long.

Studying his opponents at leisure, he noticed something he had missed before. Both truckers had CB radios, and were talking back and forth as they watched him in their rearview mirrors.

Apparently they reached a decision. They reduced their speed, seeing if he would fall into the old trap and try to pass them.

No deal. Griffen lowered his speed to match theirs, sitting about ten feet behind the tailing truck.

The lead truck pulled out into the fast lane, then started to drop back as his buddy held his speed. Unless he dropped his speed even further, Griffen was going to end up in the same box he was in before, with one truck ahead of him and the other alongside, pinning him against the soft shoulder.

This time, he had something else in mind. Instead of dropping back, he moved onto the soft shoulder and eased up on the truck in front of him. This placed him in the blind spot of the second truck, while that truck in turn was blocking the line of sight of the truck dropping back. For a moment, neither driver could see him.

Confused, the driver in the trailing truck craned his neck around trying to get a fix on Griffen’s position, while his partner dropped back quickly to try to establish the box.

With a tight smile, Griffen dropped down a gear and floored the accelerator. With a snarl, the Goblin responded, darting along the soft shoulder to pass the truck alongside. Startled, the driver shied away for a heartbeat, then gunned his own engine and moved toward the soft shoulder, trying to crowd Griffen into the ditch.

Too late. The Ford V8 engine was wide open and Griffen slid past, pulling back onto the highway ahead of his attacker.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, Griffen could suddenly see only one truck.

Not having encountered the expected resistance, the truck which had tried to run him off the road had itself gone into the ditch. Its front wheels were mired and twisted at a painful angle, and the hood had popped open.

That only left one.

The truck still on the road slowed momentarily, as if hesitant. Then roared to life again, surging forward. With his lead, Griffen could outrun him, but his blood was still up. Anger and adrenaline making him act foolish. He let the truck gain.

Not even Griffen knew what he was thinking. No longer was he acting off a plan, but merely following the heat of the moment. He let the truck start to pull up along his side, not quite at an angle to run him off the road yet. He only had ill-conceived notions of taunting his adversary before flooring it and leaving him in the dust. He glanced back, catching sight of the driver through the window.

Caught sight of the driver, past the length of a shotgun.

Startled, Griffen almost wrenched himself off the road in shock. That involuntary jerk was the only thing that saved at the very least some damage to his car, if not preventing total disaster. His engine screamed, drowning out the roar of the blast behind him, and the shot went wide as the Goblin tore down the road, finally outdistancing his attacker. In his rearview mirror, a now thoroughly panicked Griffen watched the truck slow. His last glimpse of it was to see it turn, pushing over the divider, presumably to go rescue the other driver.

Putting his car back in gear, Griffen continued along his way at a much more reasonable speed. His fingers gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white, as his pulse pounded through his ears.

As his heartbeat slowly returned to normal, he found himself wondering at his recent actions. Even though things had eased considerably in Michigan since the late sixties, when the crumbling auto industry inspired frustrated laid-off line workers to retaliate by running imported cars off I-94, it was not unheard of for such incidents to occur even today. Griffen himself had survived three such attempts in the Goblin. In those cases, he had dodged the initial attack, then pulled off at the next exit, shaken and glad to be alive.

He had never felt moved to retaliate…to counterattack the way he had just now. It had been a mistake, a nearly fatal one. Even though he had no way to know just how hostile the truck drivers had been, it had been utterly reckless to give up his lead without a clear plan of action. This sudden shift in his reactions both puzzled and bothered him.

What bothered him even more was not the final attempt, but the quick burst of savage glee he had felt when his initial plan had worked and he saw his first attacker in the ditch.

It wasn’t until he pulled off the expressway to refuel that he noticed his steering wheel was bent slightly out of round.

Ashe approached his sister’s apartment, Griffen spied her striding down the sidewalk ahead of him, obviously bound for the same destination. He’d know that rump anywhere.

Not that the rest of her was unremarkable. While he had never actually lusted after her, being her brother did not keep him from noticing that Valerie had a stellar bod.

A bit over six feet in height, his sister’s shoulders were a bit too broad and her face a bit too round to be considered a classic pinup beauty. Still, she was short waisted with ample breasts and legs that ran forever so that she had no difficulty drawing male attention whether she wanted to or not. What was more, Valerie moved with the easy, confident grace of a natural athlete, which she was. Whereas Mai always reminded Griffen of a doll, Valerie always made him think of a panther…or a wide receiver after a really good sex-change operation. With her blond hair, it was easy to see why he thought of her as Valkyrie rather than Valerie. Especially when she wore her hair in braids.

Passing her, he pulled his car over to the curb and got out, leaning against the vehicle as he waited for her.

She spotted him a dozen yards out and lengthened her stride to an easy lope.

“Hey, Bro!” she called. “What are you doing here?”

Still moving at speed, she swept him up in a bone-crushing hug and held him aloft.

“Val…I…QUIT!” Griffen managed, prying himself from her grip.

He tried to recompose himself, while not making it too obvious he was trying to get his breath back. His sister’s greetings always left him feeling like he knew what Godzilla was like as a puppy.

“Hey, brat,” he said finally. “Still working out, I see.”

“My God, Grifter. What happened to the Goblin?”

She was staring at the recent damage to his vehicle. He had been avoiding looking at it too closely, himself, and her attention made him uncomfortable.

“A couple guys in pickups decided to contest my right to use their road,” he said quickly. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. Right now, we’ve got to talk.”

“Yeah? What kind of trouble have you got yourself into now, Big Brother?”

Instead of answering immediately, Griffen peered closely at the hand she was waving.

“Speaking of trouble, Val,” he said, “would it be impolite to point out that you’re bleeding?”

Valerie glanced at her hand briefly, then licked the wet and drying blood from her knuckles like an animal before answering.

“No big deal,” she said. “Just some muscle flexer who wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”