Werehunter (anthology)

eyebrow lifted sardonically. “You do rather spoil a girl for anyone else’s attentions.”

He was genuinely startled. “Mille pardons, cherie,” he stuttered, “I—I did not know—”

She managed a feeble chuckle. “Oh Andre, you idiot—I like being spoiled! I don’t get many things that are just for me—” she sighed, then gave in to his pleading eyes. “All right then, move in if you want—”

“It is what you want that concerns me.”

“I want,” she said, very softly. “Just—the com­mitment—don’t ask for it. I’ve got responsibilities as well as Power, you know that; I—can’t see how to balance them with what you offered before—”

“Enough,” he silenced her with a wave of his hand. “The words are unsaid, we will speak of this no more unless you wish it. I seek the embrace of warm water—”

She turned her mind to the dangers ahead, resolutely pushing the dangers he represented into the back of her mind. “And I will go bail the car out of the garage.”

He waited until he was belted in on the passenger’s side of the car to comment on her outfit. “I did not know you planned to race him, Diana,” he said with a quirk of one corner of his mouth.

“Urban camouflage,” she replied, dodging two taxis and a kamikaze panel truck. “Joggers are everywhere, and they run at night a lot in deserted neighborhoods. Cops won’t wonder about me or try to stop me, and our boy won’t be surprised to see me alone. One of his other victims was out running. His boyfriend thought he’d had a heart attack. Poor thing. He wasn’t one of us, so I didn’t enlighten him. There are some things it’s better the survivors don’t know.”

“Oui. Left here, cherie.”

The traffic thinned down to a trickle, then to nothing. There are odd little islands in New York at night; places as deserted as the loneliest country road. The area where Andre directed her was one such; by day it was small warehouses, one floor factories, an odd store or two. None of them had enough business to warrant running second or third shifts, and the neighborhood had not been gentrified yet, so no one actually lived here. There were a handful of night-watchmen, perhaps, but most of these places depended on locks, burglar-alarms, and dogs that were released at night to keep out intruders.

“There—” Andre pointed at a building that appeared to be home to several small manufactories. “He took the smoke-form and went to roost in the elevator control house at the top. That is why I did not advise going against him by day.”

“Is he there now?” Diana peered up through the glare of sodium-vapor lights, but couldn’t make out the top of the building.

Andre closed his eyes, a frown of concentration creasing his forehead. “No,” he said after a moment. “I think he has gone hunting.”

She repressed a shiver. “Then it’s time to play bait.”

Diana found a parking space marked dimly with the legend “President”—she thought it unlikely it would be wanted within the next few hours. It was deep in the shadow of the building Andre had pointed out, and her car was dead-black; with any luck, cops coming by wouldn’t even notice it was there and start to wonder.

She hopped out, locking her door behind her, looking now exactly like the lone jogger she was pretending to be, and set off at an easy pace. She did not look back.

If absolutely necessary, she knew she’d be able to keep this up for hours. She decided to take all the north- south streets first, then weave back along the east-west. Before the first hour was up she was wishing she’d dared bring a “walk-thing”—every street was like every other street; blank brick walls broken by dusty, barred windows and metal doors, alleys with only the occasional dump­ster visible, refuse blowing along the gutters. She was bored; her nervousness had worn off, and she was lonely. She ran from light to darkness, from darkness to light, and saw and heard nothing but the occasional rat.

Then he struck, just when she was beginning to get a little careless. Careless enough not to see him arrive.

One moment there was nothing, the next, he was before her, waiting halfway down the block. She knew it was him—he was exactly as Andre had described him, a nondescript Oriental man in a dark windbreaker and slacks. He was tall for an Oriental—taller than she by several inches. His appearance nearly startled her into stopping— then she remembered that she was supposed to be an innocent jogger, and resumed her steady trot.

She knew he meant her to see him, he was standing directly beneath the streetlight and right in the middle of the sidewalk. She would have to swerve out of her path to avoid him.

She started to do just that, ignoring him as any real jogger would have—when he raised his head and smiled at her.