Chapter forty eight

Now that I had my accommodations all straightened out , next I had to get some transportation, aka a car. Sadly I had not been able to bring my Lamborghini with me but I had arranged to buy something that was nearly as awesome.

I left the hotel room with Delilah's cute butt planted firmly on the couch in front of the TV. I walked past the lobby and out the door. I kept on walking down the street until I was sure that no one was following me then entered an alley behind a bakery. I gathered up my hair into a ponytail and hid it under a baseball cap then I put on large glasses that covered half my face, it wasn't as good as my Persephone disguise but it'll have to do.

I hailed a taxi whose driver thankfully knew enough English to take me to the address that I told him to. The seller of the car had told me that she lived at the address she had given me so I had expected to find a house but when the taxi arrived at the location we found that it was a full blown auto repair shop. I thought that we might have made a mistake but the taxi driver was adamant that this was the address so I paid the man and made my way to the door under a sign that said Astrid's auto repair and customization shop.

When I knocked on the door a large muscular woman in a white tank top and blue coveralls whose top she had tied around her waist opened the door. Her brown hair was held back by a black bandana and she had smudges of grease all over her body. She was wiping her hands with a rag so dirty that I wasn't sure whether it was making her hands cleaner or dirtier. She spoke to me while vigorously chewing on some gum, at first she spoke Norwegian but when I asked her to she switched to English,

"I'm sorry, I can't help help you with your car. The shop has gone bankrupt and its closing down."

"I'm not here to get my car repaired, I'm here because there was an ad about a car being sold here. Are you the seller Astrid by any chance?"

She extended her hand out for a handshake," Astrid Christensen, mechanic . Yeah I'm the one selling the car."

I accepted her callused hand in a firm handshake , "You can call me Alice, I'm very interested in buying your car."

She invited me inside and led me to one of the many garages inside the workshop. When she reached the one in the deepest part of the shop she pressed a button and opened the garage door revealing what looked like a normal blue ford focus but I knew better and I started to salivate at the prospect of getting behind the wheels of this thing.

Astrid had a sad look in her eyes as she looked at the car, "This is my baby, a ford focus with special ceramic breaks, fully rebuilt suspension system and a special one of a kind power redistribution system I personally designed that is driven by a supercharged V12 engine that was also rebuilt from scratch as a tandem system so that it could fit inside the car by dividing it into two separate engines and placing it in the front and in the back. This is my pride and joy and it breaks my heart that I have to sell it."

I looked at the car in awe, putting a supercharged V12 inside of a light car like a ford focus was like putting a rocket engine in a toy car, the results were going to be spectacular, awesome, and probably deadly. I wanted this car so badly right now that I could taste it. Astrid must have seen the longing in my face because she cracked a smile and said, "Wanna start her up?"

We got into the car with Astrid in the driver's seat. Once we got comfortable in the racecar scooped out seats she pressed a green glowing button. The engine under the hood started to purr softly until she gave it a little gas and it made a deep growling noise, "That is the primary engine, this is what happens when I turn the tandem system on," she then pressed a red button with a symbol of an exclamation mark in a triangle on it and another engine suddenly erupted from behind us. When she gave it a little gas it was like we were in between two growling lions, the whole car started to vibrate with the amount of power that the two engines were producing.

I really really really wanted this car.

I turned to Astrid, " You wanted two hundred and fifty thousand for it right? Its yours. What is your account number."

"But you haven't even tested it out yet!"

"I don't need to , I know the work of an artist when I see it. You have put your soul into this car and I'm sure it will perform magnificently."

Astrid blushed and puffed her chest out in pride.

I called Kazimir and made him transfer the money into her account. She signed over the rights to the car and gave me the keys. I was getting into the car when she suddenly called out, "Wait! This is four times what I had asked for!"

"Yeah, but that is what the car is actually worth, I'm not going to steal from you just because you are in desperate need of money. This is a one of a kind car that is unlike any other out there and you are truly a genius for making it. I hope that you use the money to restore your shop and I will be back to buy your next masterpiece."

The car drove like a dream. The gauges had been replaced by a screen and the blue luminous numbers made me feel like I was playing a game, the special power distribution system made the car as nimble as a cat because it supplied the right amount of power to the right tire when it was necessary not to mention the fact that the tires gripped the asphalt like they were glued together. In normal mode it was quick and nimble but also civilized, when I turned the tandem system on it turned into an absolute beast. The power more than doubled , the steering became more aggressive and the whole car lowered a little to give it more stability. It was like driving a small rocket, if it hadn't been for the help of my power I would have died several times.

In conclusion the car was pure awesomeness.