TASCHA
I wandered around town aimlessly for a time, wondering what I would do now. The last time this happened, about thirty years ago, I was in London. I was known, for the duration of my short lifetime, as a pretty bad girl. I did all sorts of drugs, had my own motorcycle…I wasn't promiscuous, though. I couldn't be.
My thoughts drifted back to those days, so dangerous and human…my mate, Robert, and I, snuggling in a seedy motel…speeding around on my motorbike on the East End, playing tag with cops…throwing bricks in the windows of huge office buildings…oh yes, and Robert dying in a burst of gunfire, bullets from the gun of a policeman…me bending over him, weeping, begging him to stay alive…trying to dig the bullet out of his head…I watched him die.
I mentally shook myself. That was a long time ago, longer than some humans had lived. "Get a grip, Tascha," I muttered to myself. "Find Tobias. Everything will become clear after that."
TOBIAS
After what passed for breakfast, I started looking for Tascha. I hadn't seen her, which was hardly surprising. I figured she must sleep during the day.
After an hour of fruitless searching, I wondered if she was invisible or something. Even with my excellent hawk vision, I hadn't been able to spot her. The only weird thing I had seen was a brown patch of grass where we had been the previous night.
I went back to my branch and brooded. God, Tascha, where are you?
I wondered whether it had even happened. Maybe I had dreamed the whole thing, and Tascha didn't even exist.
After a while, I got a little more paranoid. Maybe, I thought, it was just a one-night stand, and Tascha had gone on to some other sucker. Maybe I was tainted from trysting with her. Maybe I was doomed to…to…something, anyways.
I didn't realize that I had been thinking out loud until a voice behind me said, "Doomed to what?"
Tascha? I yelped, turning around. She had come back!
It was Rachel. She was standing in a clump of Queen Anne's lace, with her arms crossed. Her hair was tangled, and the sun shone on it, making a halo around her head. She was wearing her black leotard. She looked like an angel.
But I had been looking for a devil.