Laure glared down at the greasy engine, then down at her equally greasy hands. Raising up, she whanged her head on the hood of her new black Jaguar and hopped around cursing for several minutes. Glaring at the world, she stuck her head back under the hood and gingerly drew out the object that had stalled her car.

A rusty, greasy railroad spike.

"Damn it, Spike," she yelled to the sky. "I'm going to H.S.U. and you can't stop me!"

The sky ignored her. A bird squawked angrily from the tree above her and a few dust particles swept down the emptyroad. Dropping the spike, she grabbed a rag and wiped furiously at her hands. Once most of the grime was off, she reached into the car and grabbed the cell phone. She punched numbers rapidly, cursed again, hung up and tried again a bit moreslowly. It rang four times and an answering machine picked up.

Seething silently, Laure listened to the long ass message, then, at the beep, started talking. "Okay, I'm stranded in...the middle of nowhere. I got about two hours from Sunnyhell and my car started making this awful clanking noise and then just died. It just frickin' died."

She took a deep breath and continued. "Spike put a spike in my engine, and now I'm stranded and..." The other end hungup.

"DAMNIT!"

Furiously dialing the number again, she leaned against her car and tapped one foot impatiently in the hard packed dirt. "Why do you have the longest message in the...never mind...I'm going to be late. I think there's a motel about a mile back down the road and I'm going there and charging it to the university. When my car gets fixed, I'll show up. Don't burn the place down and keep the tigers out of my office. I wanna meet the General when I get there, and, if he's not available, I'll take a certain nutty emperor."

Hanging up, Laure slammed down the hood of her car, grabbed her purse and her smallest suitcase, and started stomping down the deserted road, mumbling under her breath about platinum blond pain in the ass vampires, and really uncomfortable purple pumps that were already pinching her toes.

End