Chapter 3
The rain had finally come to an end. Although it was the early morning hours, like any city of any world Chicago never wholly slept. As I Tracked after Mel we left the sounds of the motel circus of spectators, news media and police, of paramedics, crime-scene investigators, pathologists and the coroner's investigative team ever further behind. These were replaced by voices rising in angry argument mingling with the muted blare of dozens of TVs, stereos and radios drifting down from the buildings lining the otherwise quiet streets. Pedestrians were few in number and far more cautious than they normally would be in daylight. Now and again one or more of them would even cross the street to avoid me, just in case I might prove to be a threat.
If it ever even occurred to any of them that I was following after the woman who had just run by a few minutes earlier, no one asked any questions or tried to stop me or even raised any sort of alarm.
That's one big advantage this city offers me: unlike the cities of many other worlds, the inhabitants here mind their own business. If something strange or untoward is going on, Humans simply look the other way. Certainly not always an admirable trait, but useful under some circumstances.
Somewhere nearby a dog was barking, answered by another further away, and in an alley two cats were yowling in heated duet, disputing food or territory or breeding rights. The drone of traffic and the occasional rumble of the distant L' all mingled and merged to fill the night with a steady stream of constant background noise.
Closer at hand I felt the mental disquiet of another alien's presence scraping along my nerves, one of my fugitives – a Vardian – somewhere nearby, but I had no desire or inclination to investigate and pressed on, knowing that although I couldn't yet see her, Mel wasn't far ahead and had to be tiring.
Those knee-high heeled boots she was wearing were impractical for sustained long distance flight.
Soon I caught the scent of the Lake and of vegetation and I then knew exactly where I was. This was one of the areas Mel and I had visited when she was showing me the layout of the city.
I stood very still, senses tasting the night for the exact direction of her lifeforce.
Even with my vision the dark expanse of Grant Park could scarcely be made out through the heavy mist and haze now rolling in off the Lake and saturating the air. Its coils slithered around the trees like a living thing, lacing through the leaves and branches and undulating in a wooly gray blanket along the ground. It reduced the park's safety lamps to ill-defined silvery pools leaving plenty of shadow for anyone to melt into, muffled the sounds of the city and muted the noise of traffic moving along the lakeside, making everything seem faint and far away.
As always I could easily separate out the song of Mel's lifeforce from the few others in the vicinity for it was stronger, purer, more resonant than that of other Humans. Within moments I was able to obtain a fix: she had headed for the shoreline. And I heard her quiet whimperings long before I could actually see her. I called out her name as I neared, not wanting to frighten her by making a sudden appearance.
She was standing at the very edge of the water, facing out over the Lake as it frothed and lapped at her feet, tears steadily pouring down her cheeks. The frenetic turbulence I sensed in her aura told me that all wasn't yet right.
As I slowed my approach I called her name again and she whirled about, only to launch herself at me in a frenzy of flying fists, screaming, "You abandoned me, you bastard! How could you do that? How could you leave me?" among a torrent of curses and epithets.
Since she couldn't possibly hurt me I allowed her to flail away for a few moments to leach off the worst of her fury, then seized her wrists to stop her. I'd had more enough excitement for one night. We both had.
"Mel! Enough!" I cried out, my own voice pinched unnaturally thin by the fear, stress and madness of the past few hours. "I'm here!"
The anger and terror abruptly vanished from her eyes, replaced by lost confusion. She looked pale and stricken as the energy of her aura began to calm and mellow to its dearly missed familiar hum.
She was back. Equilibrium had been regained.
Finally.
"Cole...?" She uncertainly said my name as a whispered question. Her cramped fingers loosened their grip on my shirt, then a tentative hand reached up to touch my face, seeking reassurance.
"It's okay," I said as gently as I could. "It's over."
She sagged against me then, exhausted, her forehead resting on my shoulder.
"Oh, God, Cole," she snuffled in a very small and agonized voice. "I'm so very sorry. I ... I hit you! You! I ... I've never, ever ... Oh, God ... I'm so sorry..."
I was holding her very close, almost too tightly for her to move as she buried her face in my chest, pitifully sobbing and continuing to apologize over and over again.
Meanwhile, my shoes and socks were getting wet, uncomfortably chilling my feet.
"Sssshhh. It's okay, Mel. It's okay," I repeatedly tried to reassure as I picked her up and carried her back and away from the water's edge. The heartbreaking sobs were wrenching from her slender body in shuddering gasps so violent it seemed to me as if she might break apart. I carefully lowered us both to the sand and then just held her in a loose hug, stroking her hair and continuing to reassure, waiting for the last of the trauma's grip to dissipate.
"It's okay, Mel," I said yet again as her sobs finally began to ebb, pulling her yet closer against me to warm her and be warmed. "I know you didn't mean it and ... no harm done. I've been hit much harder than that in my life. Even my mother could hit harder than that."
Sniffling, she raised her head at that. "Your mother hit you?"
"No. Never." I smiled down into her wide-eyed gaze as I smoothed the last of her tears from her cheeks.
She looked so very young, so very innocent, and so very vulnerable. I had to close my eyes a moment as a fist seemed to be clenching my heart and holding it tight, refusing to let go. I was so very afraid for her. What had ever possessed me to seek her out and involve her in this mess? I kept talking in an attempt to distract us both.
"My mother had endless patience with me. How, I'll never know. I was a very..." I was forced to stop then, groping for the proper word.
"Precocious?" she offered almost timidly.
"Precocious?" I repeated, carefully sounding it out. "What is precocious'?"
"It means, um ... that you were likely a handful."
"Yes. I was a very precocious child," I agreed, liking the word. "I was very skilled at hiding ... stowing away ... on the system shuttles. By the time I was five I'd been to every planet in Migar. And many of the moons."
"You were only five years old and already exploring the neighborhood?"
"Yes. By the time I was seven I'd even visited a number of the nearer systems. And I was on my first Track when I was nine."
"Nine? You were Tracking when you were only nine?"
I shrugged. "It was more a matter of my ... following after a Tracker who was on a Track."
"Good Lord!" Shaking her head she began to laugh. "Your mother must've had remarkable restraint!"
"Yes. She did. But you should have seen her whenever she declared war on the saronth. Those things you really have to smash hard. She just hated them."
"Saronth?"
"Yes, Mel. Saronth are ... something like cockroaches. But bigger. And much, much uglier. And with ten long and very hairy legs."
"Oh, yuck!" I was gladdened to see that she was fully back to herself. "We're all doomed! Cockroaches have conquered the distant solar systems! They'll outlive us all!"
"My mother thought the very same thing," I said, resting my chin on the top of her head before asking, "Are you all right?" I still very much needed to hear her say it.
"I - I will be," she choked out. "But by all rights I guess I should be curled up and gibbering in a corner of a padded cell somewhere."
"What is Dante's Inferno'?" I then questioned to keep her talking.
"Dante's Inferno'?" she blankly repeated.
"Yes. A few minutes ago you damned me to something called the ... lowest level of ... Dante's Inferno'?"
"Oh! I ... I did?" She began to dither in that familiar way she does whenever she becomes flustered about something. "Um ... I guess I might have ... I mean, where else could you have heard it? Um ... Dante Alighieri was a, um, fourteenth century Italian poet. The Inferno is an allegory of the soul from his epic poem, The Divine Comedy. It's about a place we call hell, a ... um ... very hot place of fire and brimstone..."
"Fire," I sighed with longing. "Warmth. That would be good."
"Well, actually ... the lowest level is frozen solid," she dryly informed me.
"That would not be good." I was truly disappointed at hearing that.
"No. No, it wouldn't."
I felt an unexpected pang of loss as she then disengaged from my arms and moved a few feet away, finding myself oddly bereft at having the strange but quite comfortable physical intimacy of the past few minutes over with. She dug in her purse for a tissue to blow her nose then huddled down, hugging her knees to her chest to look out over the barely-visible fog-shrouded waters.
"Some useless, pathetic excuse for a partner I turned out to be, huh?" she spat in disgust. "Nothing but a freaked-out basket case in the clutch who then tries to beat the crap out of you ... God, I'm such a screw-up."
It took me only a moment to answer, the anger and self-recrimination in her tone allowing me to quickly make some sense of her references.
"It can happen to anyone, Mel. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Yeah, right," she mumbled. "Bet it's never happened to you."
"It has," I quietly told her as she looked over at me in surprise. I didn't care to elaborate so I kept the subject in the here and now. "No one is immune from trauma, Mel. No one. You were able to ... hold off its affects for as long as you had to ... And that's all that ever really matters."
"Omigod! The blood sample!" she blurted out. "Did we –"
"– I have it," I assured her. "You did very well."
"I did?" she questioned, searching my face, desperate to believe.
"Yes, Mel. You did. You collected the blood sample and I Collected Tevv."
She nodded and looked away, nibbling on her lower lip as she digested that.
A strong breeze was springing up from off the Lake and starting to thin and tatter the fog enough for moonlight to begin filtering through, etching everything in a surreal dazzle of bright luminosity.
I nearly choked. The quality of light reminded me too much of the night I had come home and found them, found what was left of them.
"You entrusted that little Desserian creep to keep an eye on me, didn't you?" she suddenly asked. "I thought I saw him back in the Club talking with a woman."
With an effort I pulled myself away from those violent and morbid mental images of the past, returning to the present.
"Yes," I admitted, deciding then and there that I was either going to have to force Nestov into line or Collect him before he gave me any more trouble. "I am sorry. I know you don't like him but I ... I'm all alone here and I'm trying my best to keep you safe. I have to work ... with what is available."
"But you're not alone, Cole!" she protested. "Don't you realize that yet? You have me!"
"Yes, I know I do but ... We can't do it like this, Mel. Not ever again like this."
"Because I freaked out on you, right?" she challenged.
"No, Mel. I told you. You did well. It's just that I cannot let you ... directly confront any of the fugitives again. I can't. It would be ... irresponsible of me. They are too dangerous and more than you can possibly handle."
"I managed," she said, her chin lifting in defiance. "And you got there in time."
"Don't make the mistake of having ... more confidence in me than I have in myself," I warned, perhaps a bit too harshly, then softened my tone to point out the obvious. "What of the next time, Mel? Or the time after that?" Her defiance was visibly deflating as I then added, "We can't take that risk, Mel. And I won't allow it to happen again. Too much can go wrong."
She mirthlessly laughed at that and shook her head. She seemed almost on the verge of tears again. "Wrong! Dear God, is that ever an understatement! I couldn't get Tevv into the alley where you were waiting. And before I knew it, he was pulling me into a taxi and we were on our way to that cheap motel ... Then I ... I couldn't get through to you on my damn cell phone and ... Oh, Cole ... When he grabbed me I ... I've never been so frightened in my life! The plan we had was so neat, so perfect. I should've known Murphy's Law was bound to kick in and ruin it!"
"What is Murphy's Law'?" I asked.
She gave a derisive snort. "Anything that can go wrong, will."
I couldn't help but smile, finding that I was genuinely coming to like this strange Human female more and more. She had just been through a very traumatic experience, was still recovering from it, yet she managed to retain a sense of humor about it.
"This Murphy must be very wise," I commented. "That is one of the Universal Laws."
"But I do want to help you, Cole! I really do! In every way I can. And I promised you that I'd –"
"– You are helping me, Mel," I assured her. "More than you can know."
"No, I'm not! Not really. I –"
"– Yes, you are, Mel. You are."
"How?" she bitterly demanded. "By teaching you how to read? How to handle currency? How to drive a car? You learn things so damn fast that soon there won't be anything left for me to teach you any more!"
I could just make out the shine in her eyes, revealing scores of complex shadings and highlights, a glimpse into the heart of her true self unlike any she'd ever permitted me before.
And at that moment I realized a great truth about her, one that well explained why she had so willfully put herself in harm's way and why she was still being so insistent, even after all she'd just been through: Mel was a woman who desperately needed to feel that she mattered, needed to feel wanted and needed. Why this was so I didn't know, but that was the part of her soul that I had unwittingly connected with in the beginning.
And she was now becoming anxious that it soon might not apply.
But even so, to allow anything like this to happen again would be insane. And while insanity and I are quite well acquainted, I knew that if I couldn't get her to understand and accept this, for her own safety my only option would be to take my leave of her and continue hunting the fugitives alone.
That thought really didn't sit well with me at all.
"I do not always need a teacher, Mel," I carefully told her.
"No. No, of course you don't," she agreed. "But I –."
"– And I'm not a child needing protection from all the evils of your world," I added, knowing I was repeating myself and wondering if this would always be my refrain with her.
"Then ... Then what do you want of me?"
And there was the real question. What did I want of her?
How many times in life does reality so far surpass any fantasy you've ever had that it makes a mockery of your own imagination? I had sought only her help and had found in addition something infinitely finer, infinitely sweeter, something far more precious. I had found someone who was willing to open her life and make a welcoming space for an alien stranger, someone willing to unstintingly share the warmth of her caring and friendship and look out for me.
But with so little knowledge of what my world is actually like, what my life is and has been like, how could she possibly understand all it meant to me to be living with someone again for the first time in so many years? To have someone there waiting for me to come home? To have someone who cares if I come home? To once again be part of a House? And how could I possibly tell it all without resorting to convoluted explanations of explanations to bridge the gap between our worlds?
The best path in anything is usually the simplest. So I told her the truth, or part of it at any rate, the part that could adequately translate between our very different languages.
"You have given me a home ... to come home to," I said, unable to think of any other words that would do as well.
"A home to come home to'?" she skeptically repeated. "And that's enough?"
"That is far more than enough, Mel. Far more than ... than I deserve."
"Alright," she grudgingly allowed after mulling it over. "If you say so. And you're probably right. First it was Zin ... Then Tevv ... As much as I might like to be, I'm not Wonder Woman. And I'm certainly not a commando. I'm only a civilian barkeep. Maybe we'd both be better off if I remain more in the background so you can do your job without having to worry about my safety." Before I could so much as sigh with relief her voice then hardened as her defiance returned. "But I'll do better the next time! I know I will! So if you expect me to just stay home all the time waiting and worrying and cooking dinner, forget it! We're a team! And that's not what teamwork is about."
I reined in my frustration. Mel can truly be an inordinately willful and stubborn female sometimes, but I know that at least some of it is a matter of her over-compensating for her fears and self-doubts, as well as her shame over having both. Again I tried to get her to understand.
"I'm a Tracker, Mel," I painstakingly began reminding her. "It's what I do, what I am. More, I'm also a field worker. Most aren't and don't want to be. I wield a Collector. Most don't and have no wish to. Most do their Tracking from afar and never directly engage with the ones they're hunting. That's left for those like me who can and who do. It's the Hierarchy. It's the way it should be done, the way it must be done, even here on your world."
"Okay! Okay!" she groused, reluctantly beginning to accept the sense in what I was telling her. "I get it! I know. You're the expert here. Even I have to admit that."
"And I do need you, Mel," I hastened to add, reaching for her throat to underscore how much I meant it. "Very much. But as you said, you're a civilian. From now on, whenever I bring you into the field it will always be ... when you can work with me, at my side ... so that I can watch over you. I can't allow you to become involved with any of the fugitives in any other way."
"Right!" She sighed and faintly nodded, finally capitulating. "Guess that means I shouldn't be volunteering myself for dangerous missions anymore, huh?"
"Yes, Mel. Thank you. We will be able to work together much better that way." Pleased and very relieved, I then put on my most innocent expression. "Besides, I wouldn't want to miss too many dinners."
That earned me a hard glare and a scowl, but then Mel rolled her eyes and laughed.
I so love hearing her laugh.