I felt off as I stepped out of the tunnels the following evening. My thoughts were all over the place and I had a hard time focusing. I slipped out through the old boot-legging cellar and after no more than two or three blocks I heard someone clear their throat.

  If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with Gemini, I would have noticed that Wilson had come up from behind. “Why would a person with a price on his head meet with the mob?” Wilson asked as I turned.

  “Who are you talking about?” I flung back at him.

  “You, of course!” Wilson snapped.

  “Well, I don’t have to tell you.” I said with a bright smile.

  Wilson pulled at his coat’s lapel with one hand. “I got a call from a friend over at the feds who told me you took a drive with some high-profile mobsters the other day.”

  I leaned against the wall. I didn’t really like the sound of what Wilson was telling me. Either I had someone really sneaky feds on my tail, or they had been following my escort. Either way it would make my life harder. Having the feds dogging me would seriously curtail my actions.

  “And they love when you tell a suspect these things?” I asked just to be nasty.

  “I don’t think they’ll mind.” Wilson had a smug grin on his face.

  “Oh. You’re selling the angle that I’m somehow connected to the Big Case?” I said with an even wider smile. “Well, you do that, Wilson. It’s your career.”

  The smug smile was replaced with a stunned face. “How-“

  “How did I know? Simple, Wilson, you’ve got a one-track mind and once an idea get stuck in that blockhead of yours it’s almost impossible for you to give it up.” I gave Wilson an evil stare. “But this has nothing to do with that case, Wilson. You‘re gonna’ crash and burn!”

  Though the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that it did have a connection. I had to keep Wilson away from it though or he would die before he could say werewolf.

  Wilson gave me an angry stare. “You think that you can socialize with the mob and not get any heat for it? You think that we don’t know you know things about their operations?”

  “Well, I’m no rat. Do you really think that they tell me things about their operations? An outsider that is tolerated but is not a part of the organization?! After Marcello and Calabrese, people got really tight-lipped. Don’t come to me for information, Wilson. Solve your own fucking problems instead of adding to mine!”

  Wilson leaned in over me. “Well, we’ll have to chat some more another time, Ms Smith. In an environment where you can’t run away.”

  “You want another of my attorney’s cards?”

  “Fuck you, Maria!” Wilson whispered.

  I leaned towards him. “Oh, are they listening, Wilson?” I said and then added in a stage whisper, “Then perhaps you want your money some other time? Oops, I shouldn’t have said that out loud, right?”

  “You-“ Wilson was flabbergasted.

  “Have a nice day now, you hear!” I said as I walked away.

  My little comment wouldn’t lead to anything, I knew that, but it felt so good. Wilson was a good cop in the right way and everybody knew that, but he was annoying as fuck. A bit prone to take chances, but he couldn’t be bought. Whatever trouble he got from that comment would be minor.

  My thoughts kept going back to Gemini. There was no putting her off my mind. As soon as I didn’t focus, the image of her and the memory of her smell came back to me. I tried to focus the best I could. I had the scent in my memory. The scent of a were. Something I might or might not be able to track through the city.

  I kept putting off going to see Dimitri. I knew I would have to go and see him sometime, but it was a meeting I really wasn’t looking forward to.

  Holding the scent in my mind I headed for Tony’s neighborhood. If they had followed me there, there might be something I could track. I was sure they were looking for me, and Tony’s place would be the logical place for them to start.

  I was pretty sure that Freaky Fred hadn’t told his pack where I lived, or they would have come knocking by now. He probably thought that since I was only human, there was no need for backup or caution.

  No one could have been more grateful for that than me.

  Outside Tony’s shop stood unmarked police cars and some other agencies were staking the place out as well. I kept as far away from them as I could. Zigzagging through the alleys I was hoping to pick some trace of the scent or anything that would give me a lead.

  It was still hazy and foggy outside. It felt like a perpetual gloom had settled over Chicago and was sucking the joy out of the city. Gray, wet, and cold for days on end did make everyone grumpy. At the same time I was grateful, because the fog made me more difficult to spot. But then, it worked the other way around as well, unfortunately.

  Every now and then I picked up scents that lit up my brain in a way that said “Supe”, but nothing like the scent I was looking for. I did not have the time to socialize with the supe community. Did they do potlucks and shit? Perhaps bingo nights for the old werewolfs?

  No one had bothered me so far and few in this neighborhood would. I knew Shaun had told his guys I was off-limits and that I had the run of the ‘hood, but there were always the occasional idiot and the occasional freelancer. I still had that price on my head. And boy, were there a lot of people out there who would love to have me mounted on the wall.

  After a couple of hours of skulking in the alleys, I got bored. Nothing popped out and said, “follow me to the bad guys”. Even if that had been unlikely, it was what I had hoped for. The new abilities I had obtained needed training.

  I mean, you had to train a bloodhound to get a good search dog, right?

  “There’s a better way, you know.” Said Gemini’s voice above me.

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  I looked at the fire escape. There she was hanging upside-down looking at me. Short leather jacket, hair in Leia-braids, tight jeans and a white T-shirt. Yum-yum!

  “Oh, Princess, I’m looking for the bad asses of the dark side. Have you seen them, Your Highness?” I said.

  I had been dangerously lax again. I had been so focused on myself that anyone could have gotten to me, and I would probably been a goner. But seeing Gemini even took that irritation away.

  “Har-hardy-har. You really need to get your mind off Star Wars Movies. It’s really annoying.” Gemini flipped and landed next to me graciously.

  “Don't tell me that I'm the only one who gets off on those Leia-buns?” I was doing my best to leer at her, but it was hard to do that and laugh at the same time.

  Gemini made a face. “Annoying!”

  It made me see all kinds of possibilities. “I know. I do it to annoy you. Besides, you’re the one with the Star Wars hairdo, so don’t blame me.” I looked around. “So where is tall, dark, and sour cream?”

  “Dominic is attending other things.” Gemini said with an edge to her voice. It seemed she didn’t like me talking about Dominic.

  It made me jealous.

  “Attending....like a ball?” I quipped.

  “If you can’t be serious, I’ll leave!” Gemini’s eyes flashed electric blue.

  Oh, was she hot when she was angry, or what? And seven times out of ten she would whoop my ass. Perhaps even ten out of ten. Danger and beauty, what a cliché.

  “That’s a bit much to ask, but I won’t slam D-boy when he’s not here.”

  Gemini rolled her eyes at me. “Never mind. What are you doing skulking in the alleys?”

  I grinned. “Schhh, I’m hunting a wabbit!”

  “What?” Gemini looked at me like I had sprouted a new head.

  “Elmer J Fudd.” I sighed. ”Like you said, never mind. I’m trying to pick up some scent. From Tony’s store.”

  Gemini put her head in her hands. “You don’t think we’ve tried that? Idiot!”

  “Hey! What do you expect me to do? You're not in the book you know! Should I go around shouting your name in the streets hoping that you'd hear me?” I gathered what dignity I had left. “I needed the exercise anyway.”

  “Yeah, right.” Gemini snorted.

  “If you’re not going to be nice, I’ll leave!”

  “Nice comeback.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So, what were you saying before you got rude?”

  “I got- ah, well, I said there’s a better way.”

  I jumped up on the fire escape and took a seat. “I got that part. Question is what do you mean?”

  Gemini jumped up beside me. “I mean there are better ways to look for people than sniffing the alleys. There are people to talk to and places to go, if you want to know things.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.” I inched closer.

  “Almost everyone of the supernatural community are adrenaline junkies, Gh?la excluded. Hardcore stuff like extreme sports, rock climbing, insane endurance sports and so on. Not the professional events, but they’re in those kinds of communities. Some go for other extremes, S/M, hunting – and I don’t mean with guns – fights and bloody competitions, joining the Syndicates, and so on. Even though many are long-lived, we tend to want to live on the edge.”

  “But that would mean exposing myself, and I’m not sure that it’s a good idea.” I muttered. Showing up at some supe event saying “hey, I’ve got a price on my head, would you like to answer some questions for me?” It didn’t sound like a well thought-out plan to me.

  “There is always Papá Ourse.” Gemini said.

  “That sounds bad.”

  Gemini was silent for a while. “I can’t give you a lifetime of knowledge, Maria. You will have to catch up as best you can. There is just too much you don’t know and you don’t have the time to learn.”

  I nodded. Wasn’t that the truth!

  “Usually,” Gemini continued, “you’d have a morfigen that guide you and control you if you get out of hand. Ours is a dangerous society and many die, even after successfully transformed.”

  “Are many transformed?” I asked.

  “Among the Breed, about a third are born, the rest are transformed. Numerically that is still very, very few. Only a fraction of a percent of the candidates for transformation succeed. About a fifth die within twenty four hours, about half survive more or less intact, and the rest, except the one in a million survivor, dies within two months. No-one really knows who can survive the process. But enough of that. Come on, try and keep up!” And with that she started up the fire escape like a bat out of hell.

  Gemini climbed the outside of the fire escape like she weighed nothing. Straight up like rocket. I tried to keep the same pace, but her coordination was way better than mine. Still, I wasn’t that far behind when I reached the roof. Okay, that was a lie.

  We moved east. Towards downtown Chicago. Jumping rooftop to rooftop. Down on sheds, over walls, sprinting through backyards, underpasses, and through parks we ran. Gemini had set a mad pace, and I was having trouble keeping up again. She was putting me through my paces.

  I could smell the river long before we reached it. But instead of going for an overpass, Gemini went straight to a small building on the other side of the tracks and disappeared through some service door and into the underground passage.

  I followed the sound of her voice as it taunted me for being slow. Suddenly I was looking down at a dark shaft. Straight down with a nothing more than a steel wire going down.

  “It’s a service access for the main sewers and Deep Tunnel System. For the first bit we'll cross over into the CERA tunnels. We have made our own tunnel systems here and there, but mostly we use the survey tunnels and old forgotten parts of Chicago underground. We’ll go through some sewers and big drains on the way as well.” Came her voice from below. And it was not that close either.

  I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my right hand. “Fuck!” I muttered and went after her. “And we’re sightseeing because?” I shouted after her.

  With a tight grip on the wire my descent wasn’t too fast.

  “Because you need an education.” Gemin’s voice was a little closer. “And Underground Chicago – and I mean that literally – is a great way to move around. And you can really move down here!”

  “Yeah, but I want to see you move.” I said to myself.

  “What? You sound far away, Maria. I thought you had stamina.”

  The teasing laugh made me push a bit harder. Probably exactly the effect she was aiming for, but sometimes it is good to be predictable.

  I caught up with Gemini in a couple of minutes, but I suspected that she let me catch up. Didn’t matter to me though, as long as she was in my sight!

  I inhaled her scent as I moved to her other side behind her back.”Uhh...we were going where?” Again my brain lost nearly all coherency, and I had trouble finding words.

  “Not where you’re hoping, Maria.” Gemini answered acidly.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “Very sure!”

  Gemini fell silent after that. I don’t know what I reminded her of, but her mood had changed. I could smell it.

  There was an attraction between us. It seemed to pull at us both, and neither of us trusted it, that much was clear. I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t mind-mojo shit, even though Gemini’s reluctance spoke against that. But she could be a good actor. And if she wasn’t the she wasn’t, then she wasn’t really in-tune with her emotions.

  The way Gemini acted towards me confused me. She was playful one minute and sad the next. Or angry at first and then turned-on. I was having a hard time figuring out how to get closer to her.

  That much I was sure on – I wanted to get very close! I just hoped she would let me eventually. And, gods, her scent! It was intoxicating.

  I noticed that every now and again, Gemini was reaching out as if to touch me, only to pull back again. I kept moving from one side of her to the other, partly because she smelled so damn good, but also so she would know I was within reach.

  Being this close to Gemini could almost make me forget what I needed to do. But only almost. Somehow, I would get my revenge. Not only for my own guilty conscience, but also if I ever would have any hope of being able to look Mi in the eyes again. It wasn’t something that I could let go of or let someone else do.

  We moved through the darkness of the culverts like two swift shadows. Silent and grim, each with our own darkness within. Each unwilling to take another step of trust.

  Each not daring to dream.

  At first running through underground Chicago was fun, but as Gemini’s mood darkened, I became impatient and irritated. Mostly because I didn’t understand.

  We surfaced again somewhere north of Irving Park district. I had no idea how far we had run, but it was quite a distance. Perhaps four or five miles in the tunnels and sewers. Or perhaps even more. It was hard to tell.

  I couldn’t stand the distance Gemini was putting between us so I stopped walking. “What’s wrong, Gemini?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I knew it was something. “Come on, Gemini.” I pleaded.

  “You disturb me, Maria. You really do.” She turned and started walking. “Come on we need to talk with Papá Ourse before it gets too late.”