Walking around for hours trying to calm down had been a waste of time. I could still feel the rush of Simon's fear and his submission.

  Prey! My thoughts were telling me. But I ignored it as much as I could.

  I glided among people as a shadow, never touching, not really connecting. I focused on nothing as I made my body become that void; the lack of real scent, apart from what I had already rubbed off on my clothes.

  But I kept on scenting and it was getting easier by the minute.

  To be honest, I had hoped that some freelancer would see me and go after me, but it was only crickets. All the Chicago hitters seemed to have wandered off the edge of earth and disappeared, and that was concerning. There should be droves of idiots roaming the street looking for me, and droves of smart people letting them play the hounds for their hunters. Not even the gangs were out and about.

  I opened my phone, and was thinking about hitting the forums and sites, but after a few steps I caught a familiar scent. I smelled bad cologne and tic-tacs. A scent I knew even before I turned into a freak. Wilson was stalking me, probably hoping I would do something stupid. Wilson couldn’t really have spotted me at Simon’s place, so he must have just run across me after that and decided to follow me. He should have skipped the cologne. But he definitely needed more Tic-Tacs.

  I kept to the darkest parts of the streets and alleys. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. If he wanted to follow me, he would have to work for it. I would drag him through all the nasty places I could find, before I ditched him.

  There were too many people out and about for me to just disappear in a burst of speed, so I would have create an opportunity to sneak away. Some of the alleys had a few too many eyes for me to go full supe and flash away.

  I was heading for Stephen’s Corner, a pool café, not far from Duke’s, and a hangout for the Russians in Chicago. Russians like in the Russian Mafia. I needed to get them and as many others as I could off my back. I knew Dimitri would be really unhappy to see me, but either way he would see me. And he would damn well call off the amateurs, or there would be blood. There was also the possibility that I had to do something permanent to Dimitri. He was a mad dog, but not as twisted as some of his subordinates. That didn’t say much though.

  I used a wan side mirror to spot where Wilson was. He was more than fifty meters behind me, trying to look inconspicuous. That wasn’t really his forte. He also wasn’t alone. He had brought his two friends with him. Probably to switch places or to herd me somewhere where they could talk to me. I had no intention of letting them push me anywhere today. I could smell them as they spread out. Perhaps it was time to lose them in the alleys. I wonder if they just had been cruising the streets hoping to find me, or if I was incidental to what they were doing in the first place.

  Right as I neared the corner where I was going to give Wilson the slip, someone stepped out of a doorway just behind me and moved towards me from behind with haste trying to catch up. I hadn’t caught their presence at all, even though I was hyper-focused on my surroundings. The steps were light, but the walk was purposeful as they increased their pace. I turned the corner and when I was ten paces into the alley I stopped but didn’t turn around. I wasn’t really sure why I continued to do stupid things like turn my back on a potential enemy, but

  “I don’t really like being followed,” I said in a pleasant tone.

  “Keep walking, you idiot, the…” said a woman’s voice from behind. She stopped a couple of steps behind me.

  “…police is behind me. And so are you. I know the police - I don’t know you! Get lost, please!” I kept my voice civil. The police were far enough back that wouldn’t reach the mouth of the alley within a minute.

  “Idiot!” She hissed “We need to talk.”

  I laughed a quiet laugh. “Then you move in front of me or piss off. Or to be more polite; get lost! I know the Police won’t shoot me in the back, but I don’t know what you might do.”

  I could smell her now, and she was not an animal. Not a were, that much I could tell at least. But she had another scent, different from mine. Something not human? Or superhuman? Didn’t know and didn’t care right then. Still, the scent bothered me. There was nothing normal about the scent, it was like I could scent the power and…something else. She was dangerous all the same. I wasn’t sure how I could tell that, but the sense of power and danger was exciting as hell.

  I sensed an arm sneaking out, quick as lightning, seeking to grab my arm. I could hear the hand streak towards me. I expected something like this, something non-threatening but forceful. I leaned back lightning-quick, grateful that it was too dark for people to see too much.

  “Let’s not do anything stupid here!” I caught the hand and locked her elbow and walked forward forcing the woman, who was considerably shorter than me, to skip along at my stride. I didn’t hyperextend the arm much but kept my grip firm enough to give her problems without it being too aggressive. “If you want to talk to me, let’s do it somewhere pleasant. I’ll meet you somewhere and we can talk. And please don’t threaten me, because I have had a shitty day so far and don’t need any more shit today. Okay?”

  I glanced at her and saw nothing but amusement in her face. No fear, no surprise, no nothing. She had long glossy black hair and gray eyes. And I mean gray, not pale blue or anything. Her eyes were metallic graphite gray. They even had the metallic sparkle to go with it. The woman had an angelic face, but her eyes told me there wasn’t much angel in her, no matter how nice she looked. She pulled back her arm with more speed and strength than I would have thought she had. Then she skipped a step to the side so quickly that I couldn’t quite follow. This was new. If I hadn’t caught the blur, I would have called it teleporting. I was experiencing way too many crazy things these days. I wasn’t even sure if I was dreaming or not. Everything seemed too damn weird.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Dominic might actually be right this time. Perhaps you are what we’re looking for. I have some info you might want, if you would like to survive…catch me if you can.” She laughed and slipped away down the next dark alley and with a speed I wasn’t sure if I could match even with my new abilities.

  I could hear Wilson nearing the corner. He was increasing his speed as he was telling his colleagues to hurry up. This was the perfect opportunity to be rid of them. Maybe my day was looking up, unless I was out of the pan and into the fire.

  I ran after the woman, going as fast as I could from the start.

  We were going flat out down the alley. She was wearing one of those long dark leather coats. I would have to ask why leather was so popular in their circles if I caught up with her.

  She turned down another alley. An alley that I knew was a dead end with a four-meter-high wall and no real way to get over. But she just continued running towards that wall. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that she would run straight through it, or perhaps just stop and laugh. She did neither.

  She ran a bit faster and then jumped and bounced off the right-hand wall perhaps three meters up and then disappeared over the wall, slick and impossibly fast. The speed of the jumps, the speed of the bouncing off the wall was insane. You shouldn’t be able to move at that speed unless you cracked the stones in the brick wall with the energy you needed to get that speed. It was like a movie playing at triple speed.

  And me? I took it in one jump vaulting over the wall and cutting my hands on barbed wire on top of the wall in the process. I swore as I landed on the other side but kept on running as soon as I hit the ground.

  “Never grab the top of a wall. You never know what surprises they have bolted to it. You smell tasty, by the way,” she said from even further away. I was losing ground. The woman had the gall to laugh at me and I wasn’t catching up.

  Shit!

  I pushed myself even harder struggling to get closer to the woman running ahead of me. It took some doing but I was getting closer.

  “You’re faster than most of your brethren, girl She said as she ran. She wasn’t even a little breathless.

  “Sorry, no brothers. I was an only child.” If we kept this up for much more I was going to start panting. I had thought I was in pretty god shape, but this woman didn’t seem to strain at all.

  “You know what I mean.” She slowed down a little and let me catch up with her.

  “No, actually I don’t, but never mind.” I offered no more. If she wanted to tell me what she was so eager to talk to me about, she would do so in her own time. And there was no need to sound too eager.

  I could hear someone else running above us on the roof tops. “You might want to tell your friend to join us, so I don’t do something stupid and try to kill him. Or you for that matter,” I said calmly and slowed down.

  Ten meters ahead of me a guy dropped from the sky. That was what it looked like anyway. And of course it was another dude in a black leather coat. I swore that I would never wear one. And I would be suspicious of anyone wearing one in the future. It was like a supernatural uniform.

  I stopped some distance from the guy. It wouldn’t be good to stand too close.

  The woman joined her friend, and it was the first real good look I had of her. She was small, but I knew that already, perhaps one hundred and fifty-five centimeters, that would be about five foot one inch, all in all. That was with the boots and the hair. She had a heart-shaped face with very straight and very, very white teeth - all of which she was flashing at me with a wide grin.

  There was something about her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew there was something that both bothered me and excited me about her. There was something I could almost sense, but not quite. Like something evoking a feeling, but you just cannot pinpoint why.

  Her friend wasn’t short at all. Perhaps two hundred and twenty centimeters, around seven foot two inches,broad-shouldered and chestnut hair tied up in a ponytail. His irises seemed yellow, perhaps a bit of amber in them, and he was also showing a lot of teeth. He was the kind of guy you called giant. But tall as he was, it was the woman who had the most presence.

  They were the kind of people you automatically stepped out the way for. They were serious opposition, real bad guys. Now I had to figure out if they were good bad guys or bad bad guys. I guess I would find out soon enough.

  I cleared my mind and readied myself for a fight, should I need to escape. My mind quieted as my senses focused, and I was ready to move if I had to. The knife releases were tight, just about ready to drop in my palms. This wasn’t a family reunion, and these weren’t nice people. Friendly for the moment, perhaps, but not nice people. But then, of course, they weren’t your regular people.

  “He’s doing something!” The man growled.

  “Yes, Dominic.” The woman answered.

  “I’m getting ready to fight you if you try anything,“ I said calmly.

  The guy glared at me. “Why?” he demanded.

  “The leather coats.” I answered.

  They both looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,“ the woman said with an sardonic smile. “What about our coats?”

  “Everyone of, ah let’s called it the Supe Troupe, that I have met wore leather coats. Dark or black leather coats. I hope you’re not going to do the ‘I’m dangerous’ or ‘I’m death’ routine, because I’m getting tired of supernatural wackos running around being bad stereotypes.“ No need to tell them I had only met one, before them. “So can we please go for a coffee?”

  The big guy startled me with his laugh. He had a deep rumble of a laugh, and it was infectious. The woman just stood there with a grin, looking amused.

  I laughed a bit myself. It seemed like they weren’t there to kill me. Not that I trusted that feeling, in light of Freaky Fred’s manners. Crazy people didn’t need reasons. They didn’t react like people either.

  “Coffee it is then, Maria,” the woman said. “The big guy there is Dominic and I’m Gemini.”

  “Nice to meet you, but let’s move somewhere public where I don’t have to strain my muscles waiting for a fight. And so that I don’t have to feel so short.” I nodded towards Dominic’s towering figure. “He’s a bit on the tall side.”

  “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Gemini turned and walked towards more populated areas. I hoped there was a coffee somewhere ahead.

  Dominic walked after her keeping his distance to both me and Gemini. Probably not to give me a single target if something went wrong. Prudent, but it wouldn’t help if something really happened. Dispersal wasn’t always the right thing to do. It could give you a one-at-a-time opportunity.

  I followed them with a shrug. Dimitri would keep, and so would Wilson. But these two new acquaintances, probably wouldn’t. Considering the effort they put in to getting me alone to talk, they might try something stupid if they didn’t get to talk to me. I wondered if I could hold my own against those two. Probably not.

  The woman was deadly fast, that much I had seen. Faster than anything I ever imagined. I could perhaps get a few shots in by surprise, but I believed she would win a shot-by-shot fight between us. I had been lucky when I caught her arm. I only managed it because I was expecting it. I didn’t really care about who would win a fight just then, because all I wanted was strong black coffee and some answers.

  Gemini intrigued me. I did not know why, but there was something that pulled at my senses, telling me…something…I don’t know.