I swear her attention zoomed in on that squirrel like a moviecamera lens, tighter and tighter, judging range and running speed and distanceto safety, and she launched and dropped and I followed her down and across thestreet and cars and pedestrians, over the fence, between bare limbs, a sideslipand turn standing on one wingtip so fast it left my stomach somewhere five feetto my left and sudden flashing fur and thump and the grabbing talons and abrief thrash and quiver of death. A pause. Panting, wings mantled over the killbeneath me. Talons flexing, a change of hold.
Labored wings, takeoff with prey that weighed nearly as muchas she did, we did, and beating upinto the tree and resting again and a quick bite to the base of the skullmaking sure of our kill and lifting again to labor up and up and finally landingon the same stone ledge over the street. Stare around for threats orcompetitors. Bend down and tear at fur.
I found I could breathe again, could see the world around me again. I watched tufts of fur floatdown from the ledge as she cleaned and opened her kill.
In our mind-mesh, almost communion, I sent her my memory ofKratz, of his set-your-teeth-on-edge signature, and felt her question back. “What’sin it for me?” But not in words. I sent images of squirrels torn open, ofpigeons crippled and easy for the taking. Of a puzzle and, almost, a quest.That last seemed to catch her interest. I got the sense that hawks, red-tailsat least, knew curiosity.
“John.”
I shook off the spell and turned to Sandy, worried that she’dcaught me in my sin. No. She held her binoculars focused lower, along the edgeof the park, across brown grass and down two intersections with asphalt paths,intent.
“John, check out that man on the bench, reading. Fat man,black hat, long black coat, Yid ear-locks and gray beard. I think that’s Kratz.”
“Yid.” There was that unconscious racism again. Sandy didn’teven know the word might be offensive. She’d told me she’d never seen a Jew before she went to college.She’d thought they were an extinct species, like Carthaginians.
She’d been people-watching instead of birding or reading magicin the air. I found the corner in my binoculars, maybe a hundred, hundred-fiftyyards away, found the bench and hat and coat, found the man. I’m no expert, butI guessed Hasidic Jew by the dress and hair, Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox. Commonenough in the city.
Except something about him seemed a bit . . . off.I found it hard to focus on him, like heat-shimmer between us. I couldn’treally see his face that well, what with the shadow of the hat, the beard, thenewspaper he was reading. What I saw,that could be Kratz with a bit of magical fog around him, a few more years onhim. He’d worn a beard before, part of the Albertus Magnus shtick. It had beenglossy Mephistopheles black, then.
He’d never been an observant Jew, as best I could remember,much less Orthodox. That would be a costume, an act, if it was really Kratz. Itseems funny, on the face of it, choosing a costume that makes you stand outfrom the crowd, but that kind oflook, people see it and then look away, see the uniform and not the personwearing it. It’s not polite to stare. I think a wheelchair would do the samething. A person in a wheelchair becomes invisible.
It could be Kratz.The shimmer certainly looked like the “don’t notice me” field in action. Sandythought it was Kratz, and she had more powerful binoculars and more practiceusing them. And of course she had wizard senses, never quite the same from oneperson to the next.
I pointed Sandy across the street to a bench fifty yardscloser where she’d have a good sight-line and maybe a clear field of fire,hand-signaled my circling around behind the maybe-Kratz using park paths, shenodded, and we split up. No words. We dropped back into instant tactical team,the years vanished like smoke. She knew what I was doing, I knew what she wasdoing, and we trusted each other.
A team like that, it’s pure joy. Sandy and I fit together onthe hunt like we did in bed. When she quit the force, she took part of me withher.
I didn’t bother to watch her. I knew she’d follow thehalf-baked plan and be where I needed her, the “gun” I’d drive my “game”against. If that was Kratz, he’d bepaying more attention to his back than what stood in plain sight in front ofhim.
I strode through a maze of park paths, asphalt or gravelunderfoot, not shielding myself, not fogging my image. I didn’t want tobroadcast my signature as a warning. People jogged or race-walked or strolledthrough the park all the time. Saturday in an office district, the crowds weredown from weekday noon or after work. I didn’t have a lot of company, whichmeant Kratz didn’t have a lot of hostages or civilians to mess up the line offire. That’s the way I was thinking, protect and defend. I had a badge again,and it felt like I’d never left.
I circled behind him, slowed, felt ahead of me with theweakest, faintest tendrils I could manage, the sort of thing I remembered froma curious dog sniffing the other airaround him. Something there, alright. I kept my breathing calm, kept myheartbeat down, a steady hand for the SIG still lurking in its shoulderholster. I may keep up a semblance of physical condition, but I’m no winterbiathlon guy. I can’t ski for miles and then shoot targets and ski again andshoot again.
Still casual, I worked my way up the final asphalt path,closer to the traffic noise,
