Destiny shook her head in denial. He wasn’t going to leave, and as hard as she tried, she could not believe him evil. He wasn’t going to make it simple for her by disappearing. Did she really want him to? The thought came unbidden. Sneaking in and tugging at her conscience.
“I’m fragmented.” She said it aloud as she looked up at the sky. She wished she were truly friends with MaryAnn and could talk to her about Nicolae. “A part of me would be disappointed in him if he didn’t stay. If he didn’t want me.” There, she had admitted it to herself and she hadn’t used the word devastated.
The word might have floated for one second in her brain, but she hadn’t acknowledged it aloud. Given it life.
How could she survive without him? She had lived with him for years. Shared his mind on every rising. Listened to the magic of his voice. She didn’t know, hadn’t known when he had begun invading her heart. She had known she needed him for the continual battles with the undead. She hadn’t realized she needed him to be alive.
Destiny could find him now, anytime, anywhere. There was a blood tie between them. She could monitor him at will, touch his mind to see what he was doing. It gave her an advantage over him. She would know when he was hunting her. And she would know if he made a kill.
Resolutely she turned toward the city teeming with life. She had left her business with Mary Ann for too long. She preferred to get it over with. Three running steps and she launched herself skyward, spreading her arms as feathers sprouted and the wind took her higher. The earth fell away, taking her fears with it. She blocked out all thoughts of Nicolae and Vikirnoff and allowed herself to indulge in the sheer joy of flight. She would never tire of taking on the form of an owl and used it often when she traveled.
The world was a thing of beauty when she soared through the sky, when the air washed her body clean and she felt whole and pure and alive. She cut through the clouds, not taking the time to play. She had business. She searched familiar places, looking for traces of MaryAnn. Her scent. The sound of her voice. Her soft laughter. She found what she was looking for in a small bar where the locals hung out to exchange the latest gossip.
Destiny sat on the roof of the deli across the street from the bar and surveyed the street. Despite the lateness of the hour, Velda Hantz and her sister Inez sat in their chairs on the sidewalk in front of their apartment building, watching the world go by. Both in their seventies, they were permanent fixtures on the street, greeting each passerby by name and yelling out friendly advice or motherly admonishment if the situation warranted. It was impossible to miss either of them, dressed as they were in their favorite colors of fluorescent pink and chartreuse green. Velda’s pink-tipped gray hair was in its usual artsy windblown style, while Inez’s rich purple do was swept up on top of her head. They both wore the latest running shoes, which they carefully scuffed as they sat in their chairs. Destiny found the sisters oddly endearing. More than once she had allowed them to see her, and always they called out friendly greetings and waved her over for a quick interrogation.
Knees drawn up, her chin propped in her hand, Destiny watched the two women, unaware of the smile on her face. She had moved often from city to city, state to state, always hunting the undead. Always staying ahead of Nicolae and his relentless pursuit of her. She knew the way his mind worked. He had given her access to his battles, his strategies, his very thought process. She had soaked up his knowledge, knowing her life depended on it, knowing other lives would depend on it. That had enabled her to stay ahead of him. Until she had heard Mary Ann Delaney speaking, counseling a young woman whose life was a shambles. That soft, clear voice, the things Mary Ann had said, kept Destiny chained to Seattle. To these streets. Eventually she had come to secretly think of all the people in the neighborhood as her responsibility.