The city hums with power on nights like these. Nights where the populace is alive, moving with a purpose, like a dance of giants played out in miniature. When I was younger, I used to drive around, just to feel the ebb and flow, the life and death, the excitement. The pulse of the city. Some nights it would sing me to sleep, gentle like the ocean on the shore; some nights I would stay awake crying, as the city's hurricane stormed around me. But the nights when it throbbed, when it pulsed, I would be there - out there - a part of it, no matter how small.

"Misssstresssss, Iiii've ffffounnnnd hiiiimmmm."

The strange voice reached my ears, but didn't, whispering just below my skin. The garbage at my feet shifted uneasily, as if in a wind that my skin didn't feel. The voice sounded labored, unused.

"Good. Where is he?"

"Ffffollllllowwwww."

Sam was already looking at me - he'd heard me speak. Good. I smiled at him, then sat down, leaning against the wall. He turned away and looked away up the alley as I let my consciousness slip into the astral. The world went away in a glittering rainbow, and I followed my spirit into the sky.

It still thrills me now, just being here. Seattle is like the hub of the world, a vortex that will draw you in and hold you tight. A web, tingling, like the spider's on its way, but never quite there, no matter how stuck you are. That hasn't gone away in the ten years since I started feeling it. My old master said it would, that I'd grow old and tired. I've never been worried; I intend to die young.

I followed the spirit into the street. The street was jammed with cars, the sidewalk packed with people, even at almost midnight.

There! My spirit was hovering about his head, and I saw him. He looked... Nervous. Tired. Worried. I dipped closer, breathing in his emotions. Scared. Yes, scared. He was afraid of what was about to happen. He was in a crowd, but alone.

Strange.

Where were the bodyguards? He couldn't be here by himself. The corp... Hmm. Never mind. Fix the location; find the scent.

I smiled, amused, and flickered back to my body. Either way, it'd be over soon.

Now, of course, I know far better why the city would sing to me, and why my parents couldn't hear it. My latent magical abilities were awakening even then, waiting for me to see them as clearly as they saw me. I grew up in the city; I expect to die in the city. As a child, I always thought I'd marry the boy next door, take care of the kids; as a teen I always thought I'd run away. Eventually I found my place, and my need. It just took a few years for me to realize that the city was waiting for me as much as I was waiting for it.

"Pixie."

Sam didn't look back as I stirred, but he noticed anyway. Maybe he heard my breathing change. I smiled, wondering if he could hear that.

"Yes, Samson. I've found him. Tell the others."

He turned and nodded.

"Lead, Samson. Subject spotted. I'm moving in with Pixie."

It was unnerving, watching someone communicate through an induction rig. Hearing his voice but watching his cool, un-moving face sent a shiver down my spine.

"Samson, lead. Roger. Team, check in ready status."
"Lead, Razer. Null sheen."
"Lead, Eyesore. In position."
"Lead, Slider. In position."

I shrugged it off, and let my eyes slip back into the rainbow jumble of the astral as I walked down the alley into the rushing flow of the city's veins.

Learning, at first, was slow. It always is. It took months just to master the simplest things, like astral sight. My first astral voyage almost killed me; I almost didn't find my body in time. But the speed picked up, and eventually I found another magician - a shaman, like me, who breathed in the pulse of the city. He taught me much.

I moved down the street, Sam at my shoulder, and my spirit at my feet - following me like a puppy. I smiled at the thought, but kept moving; the crowd was thick, and we needed to find him quickly.

Soon, I found him again. I almost needn't have sought him out before walking the streets; I could taste his emotions from a block away, even on the crowded sidewalk. Punkers and chipheads and beetles and whores, bikers and corp-rats and any number of others. But only one corp-rat worried me tonight. As I saw him I nodded, and Sam picked him out, following my gaze.

"Target in sight. Corner of 20th and Southern, moving northwest. We are following." Again, the shiver. Damn my nerves!

"Roger. Transport in motion." Slider sounded distracted, and I wondered how many places his brain was tonight.

I couldn't worry, though; drawing my spirit behind me, calling up my power like a cloak, I strode confidently, safe in the city's embrace. Sam moved, his own form of magic clearing a path before the six-foot-tall man. A car honked as a motorcycle swerved in and out of traffic. The pulse kept beating.

Richard taught me much. The secrets of spirits, and how to call them from the warm embrace of the city. How to shape spells, how to sing the city into helping. How to run freely on the astral plane; how to sharpen my mind and soul into a razor-sharp edge. I became a shaman in truth, as well as in nature, and the city grew to love me as I loved her.

The corp-rat didn't even see me coming, hidden in the city's embrace. I touched his elbow gently, smiling, and he jumped. "Mr. Yeung?" When he saw me smiling, a shy smile of his own face.

"Yes. And you are?..."

"Pixie. Please, come with me."

He looked startled, but his mind tasted of fear. "Here? Now? But we agreed - "

I gently slipped an arm through his, and leaned close to whisper in his ear, letting the life-blood of the city flow through my mouth. "Life is a journey, not a place. Lets go."

As I steered him through the crowd, I saw Sam in the corner of my eye. Some people couldn't tell when he had stepped up his reflexes, but I caught the slight jerkiness, and I tasted his resolve on the edge of my tongue. The crowd between us tasted... Bored. Neutral. Strange. What did he see?

Sam's voice cut through my ear-mike, "Bogies in the crowd."

"Roger." "On it." "Ready." "Got it."

I stayed quiet, but I steered the mark closer to the wall, closer to the alleyway.

Richard just wanted what every other man seems to want; a trophy slut. My parents grew concerned at the nights I spent away when he showed me off to his friends, until I ran away and they didn't know any more. I didn't care what they thought of me, but one day he assumed too much. He and his three friends didn't realize just how much Richard had taught me... Or how much I'd learned by myself, with the city whispering in my ear. When they found it, it was far too late.

I couldn't see who made the first shot, but I assumed it was Razer with his rifle as someone in the crowd went down. Screams erupted, my mark being just one of many; I pushed him down into the gutter against the wall, and ordered my spirit to hold him safe, before turning back to scan the crowd.

I turned just in time to see Sam rip someone's arm off. The arm had a pistol in it, so I assumed it was someone unfriendly. The huge, horned form of Eyesore seemed to materialize from an alley, and his SMG flared as another man in the crowd went down. I frowned... Something was still wrong. The crowd was wrong. The street was wrong. Everything smelled... Smelled...

Dammit! Where had I smelled that before?

Another man went down, and then Eyesore disappeared as bullets walked across the wall and into his chest. No way to tell if his armor had stopped them, but the read smear on the wall wasn't promising. Horns blared, tires screeched. A white van squealed to a halt, and suddenly I knew what the smell was. Even as I sought the threads to unravel with my mind, I screamed into my microphone "Illusion! The van! WATCH OUT!"

Seattle is cruel to those who live on the street. Little to eat, little to wear, Lone Star always on your ass about everything they can fake up. I'd grown up watching the horror stories on the news, seeing the winos and the homeless in my neighborhood. I was determined not to be like that, and I soon found my way into the shadows. Seattle is cruel to those who live on the street... But Seattle loved me, and I loved her back.

I slammed a wall of force over the door even as it slid open, and the first man who tried to leave slammed into it. If it weren't for the gunfire, I'd have laughed. Flying bullets always make me nervous, for some reason. The city squealed in my mind as a bullet clipped my personal barrier, and I ducked low behind a stoop.

A loud whirring heralded the arrival of a drone; apparently, Slider WASN'T completely asleep, which was good. Heavy machine guns tore into the van. Gunfire erupted on the other side of the street, but I couldn't see who it was in the press of vehicles trying to get away. The sidewalk was almost empty, but now the earth was rising. A man-shaped monster extruded from the ground, and reached for Sam, who was busy holding off three men in poorly concealed body armor. Slider's drone was busy with the men still trying to escape from the van; Razer wasn't equipped to handle this thing, and Honcho wasn't here. I sighed, I put my hands to my mouth and whistled.

"Hey! Ugly! Over here!"

The stone head turned slowly, looking confused, but it felt the power behind my words, and turned to approach me. My body dropped into a martial-arts stance, hands visibly glowing, and in my mind I screamed to my lady. She screamed in pain, but answered my call, and a glowing man flowed out of the ground to stand on the astral plane between us, before springing forwards and attacking the elemental head-on.

Half-slumping, I looked around. They obviously had a mage, and I was sure he'd...

A mana bolt slammed into my shielding, and in shock the wall of force slipped. I saw the man in a nearby alley, glowing like a nova to my eyes, strands of power still dribbling from his fingers. The elemental and my spirit struggled against each other in the street, my team was out-numbered, my mark was pissing his pants, and now this man wanted to come and play.

Dammit.

It took me a long time to make friends. Enemies came quickly; they're the easy part. Every step into the shadows brought people who wanted to put me under. Friends took time and effort, usually painful.

Raw power flared in my eyes as the mana flowed between us in darts and balls and evil convoluted matrices of death. He was a mage, all right; plenty of power, very elegant structures, but no subtlety worth a damn.

I parried a massive powerblast, stopped a mana bolt short with my shields, shuddered through what must have been a death spell of some sort... But my shielding held. My normal spells didn't scratch him; he never even blinked while shouldering aside a sleep spell and a finger of fire. I put a little more juice into the next spell, and the one after that, but all it was doing was making me tired.

He had more juice, and it was going to cost me.

A telekinetic spell got past my defenses and clipped me, spinning me into the porch next to me. My arm... Wasn't working right... Dammit, how many of those guards WERE there on the street? Or was that just my eyes going blurry? Or was that Sam?

My fingers fell upon a talisman on my coat, a fetish. A small piece of stone I'd found, and worked, and chanted over. I'd had it identified, and I'd been told it was brick. Who'd have known brick could polish like that? I looked back at the mage, at the alley mouth he was standing in. Summoning whatever reserves I had, my mind spun a circle on my jacket, pulling to life any focus I thought might work, and the rest just for the hell of it. The mana, in my faltering vision, leapt and danced like a mad animal, and the mage could see it. He looked at me, eyes blazing with astral sight, and his hands came up to ward off whatever it was I was preparing. He could stop short or brush aside any mana bolt or power ball I could lob at him... But he never expected the rush of raw force that went over his head and smashed the wall behind him. He barely had time to realize what was happening before the bricks buried him, and the glow went away.

Dust sifted through my fingers as the world went away with it.

When I first left home, I knew - absolutely knew - everything there was to know. It was all about how strong I was. I didn't need my parents, or my siblings, or my friends of the time; I could take care of myself, with Seattle on my side. Now I know, it's all about the people around me... And finding this team was the beginning of my real life.

"Pixie, are you awake? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

My fingers reached instinctively for the mic trigger, until I realized it hadn't been a transduction, but actually a spoken word. Opening my eyes was a struggle; but well worth it, to see the mirror-shades and grim frown of Sam's narrow face over me.

"Pixie?"

"Yes, Samson, I hear you."

He moved back, letting me sit up and look around. My left arm was splinted and in a sling, probably because of my argument with the steps... Was it today? Yesterday? Damn, I couldn't tell. The room was lit by a single bulb, and the bunk was barely worth of the name. No windows, and probably no mop for the last two years. Through the doorway, lacking any form of a door, I could see a larger room with six matresses on the floor, a microwave, and a jury-rigged telecom. The rest of the team, as well as the mark, were out there doing their things - Razer cleaning a seemingly endless pile of guns, Eyesore growling at the corp-rat who was trying to change bandages on the troll's chest, Slider tinkering with a drone on an overturned crate in the corner, Honcho talking to an asian woman on the com.

"Pixie, are you okay?"

I smiled and reached out to hug him with my good arm, resting my head against his chest. He couldn't see my smile, but I'm sure he could feel it.

"I'm great, Samson. It's good to see everyone."

Cat shamans are supposed to have nine lives; Dog shamans never leave their packs. Dragon shamans are fierce but arrogant; Bear shamans are powerful but slow. Rat shamans can never be trusted, and Eagle shamans are too proud for anyone's good.

And me? I'm just always glad to be home again.