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“But when?” he asked aloud of the watching city, flinging the challenge to the night. Nothing answered it. He passed gray parking meters with empty faces, reviewing the cold and passionless troops of the streets. Faces in the brick alleys and the black storefront windows changed and stretched as he passed them, peered after him until he was out of their sight. He felt no heaviness of evil in the air. Where was Mir hiding? The wind kept the night clear of the gray fog he had come to associate with its wickedness. A reckless boldness settled on him. So he was going to defeat, was he? Gray Mir wasn’t making it easy for him to meet his fate. He shrugged his shoulders and drew his cloak more closely around himself. It was warmer. than he expected it to be, and for an instant he imagined he felt a rippling of power through it. But it was only the wind tugging at me blue cloth- He paced on.

He could always run away. He tempted himself with possibilities. He could hide from il, could leave the city on foot and take to the woods. It would have to come and hunt him down. He shook his head. He had been hunted before and remembered it only too well. He would meet it face to face in the night, not be dragged out from behind some dumpster in an alley.

He had been walking without thinking, but his feet had led him well. He stood at the mouth of his old alley. It was. littered with charred rubbish from the fire. Well, why not here? Me had felt it here more often than any other place. He ventured into the alley and turned his eyes up to his fire escape. There was a terrible smell here, of wet charred wood and melted plastics. It was the burned odor of ruin and decay. No heat remained of the fire that had gutted the upper stories of the building. All was silent and dark. More than hours had passed since the fire. A day and most of a night, he guessed. That would fit in with the lightheaded weariness he felt. He was running on nerves and adrenalin, his reserve energy long spent.

He wouldn’t last much longer. It seemed to him that his strength had been slowly leeching away from him since the day Estrella had warned him. When Mir chose to attack, it would find him no adversary at all, crushable as a dried-out eggshell.

“Where are you?” he called out bravely into the darkness, but the alley swallowed his challenge without an echo.

He crouched beneath his fire escape, tensing himself for me spring. Then he straightened slowly and shook his head. Not up there, on charred floorboards, if any remained at all. Not before the burned specter of a foodocker, if it had survived.

No. He would not be hunted, but he would not be lured into ambush either. He turned soundlessly and let his body do what it had been clamoring to do. He opened it to the night. His senses expanded and he walked as one with the darkness. No magic this; a skill learned in a night that had shrilled with insect noises and screamed with sudden silences. An easy awareness spread out around him, searching as any light of flare. It had guided him alive through trees and vines and grasses. Could brick and steel and glass be any worse? He moved with slow grace, in no hurry at all. Let it come to him.

He could not have told what made him turn and look up.

There might have been a rustle of cloth, some scuff of skin against metal. He was in time to see the figure leave the fire escape, see it silhouetted, however briefly, against the far lights of the King Dome. It landed lightly, its legs bending nearly double to take up the shock. He pivoted slowly and silently to meet it- He had not expected a human form, but he sensed it an electric prickling along the edges of his perimeter. A chill of readiness ran over him. He smiled in the dark, and when he felt it looking at him, he gave a slow nod of acknowledgment. Mir.

0h, there you are!“ she cried and rushed at him, her arms held wide. In the next instant she had engulfed him and was covering his face with wet, panting kisses. ”My god, I am so glad you’re safe! I saw it in the papers this morning, and it said signs of recent habitation, but no remains discovered yet, and when I read the address I just about collapsed. The first thing that hit me, was, oh, god, he did it on purpose because we didn’t make it last night! and I felt like I had killed you myself. I had to sit down and the boss asked if I was taking my break now, and I couldn’t even talk, all I could do was point at the paper and shake. I guess I really looked bad, because he told me to take a day off, sick time. So I did and I looked for you everywhere. I musta fed those stupid pigeons ten pounds of popcorn, hoping you’d show up, and everyone kept walking by and staring at me; I guess I looked pretty stupid, sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons and bawling.

I am so glad you’re safe.“

As she talked, she kissed, hugged, and shook him at intervals. He could conjure no emotional reaction to her greeting.

It reminded him of the noisy greetings of a sheepdog he had known in his childhood, complete with wet tongue and cold nose. He knew he had to feel something for her, but all he could find was a quiet acceptance of her. This was what she was. No more man that, but certainly no less.

“Lynda!” he told her firmly. He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her out to arm’s length. She waggled happily in his arms and tried to move into his embrace, but he held her back. After an instant of struggle, she calmed and looked at him. He tried to catch her eyes, to peer past the dumb devotion and electric lust to see what else might be lurking there. But she focused on his doming instead and gave a squawk of dismay.

“Have you been running around dressed tike that all day?

It’s a wonder they didn’t lock you up! Look at your feet! Poor baby! Come on, you’re going home with me.“

There was an energy to her that verged on a natural magic.

She had taken his arm and turned him and was walking him away before he realized that she was taking command. Her tongue was rattling like a pocketful of loose brass, and she plowed down the center of the sidewalk as if nothing in the world could wish her harm. Wariness was impossible with her around. When he tuned in to her words, she was still going on about hot showers and clean sheets. He dug his heels into the sidewalk and brought her around to face him. The look on his face stopped her chatter.,

“What is it?” she demanded. “There’s nothing back there to go back for, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He took a deep breath. “Lynda. There is nothing wrong with liking men, any number of men, as long as you still like yourself.”

Annoyance creased her brow. “What’s that crack supposed to mean? Hey, I’ve been walking around down here all day, crying my eyes out over you, and when I finally find you, you say something like that. What do you think I am? Do you think I’d take in just anyone?”

“That’s not what I meant!” he protested.

“Then just what the hell did you mean?” Color was staining her cheeks, and with amazement he realized he had hurt her.

He was surprised at the strength of the remorse he felt. He touched her face quickly, stroking the hair back from her cheek as he might smooth a pigeon’s rumpled feathers. She quieted under he touch. He took a deep breath.

There’s no way I can explain dial you will understand. But I’ll tell you anyway. I’ve got to put me magic back in balance.

That means I have to give more man I get, always. There were questions you asked me when we first met. You asked me why you should keep on going, you asked me if you had to live like a nun because your sister thought you should.“

“I don’t remember any of that,” Lynda began, but he put a soft finger over her lips.

“Maybe not in those exact words, but you asked me. And I had things to tell you, but I didn’t answer because I didn’t want to talk to anyone who might endanger me later. I unbalanced things, and I owed you. The more you gave me, me further unbalanced it became. After tonight, mere may never be another chance for me to put things back in balance. So I have to do it now.”