It wasn’t until I turned down the block, I realized that mrs Cheng had not tried to kill me or turn me into a puppet, like she did those four poor sods. That could only mean that she either she already knew I was not a normal human or she sensed it. Probably the former, after Dominic and Mark spreading the tale of the evil mimic to everyone and all.
Moving down another street, the air should have bit through fabric and skin alike, carrying that faint metallic edge that comes before winter fully takes hold. The cold had settled in the way it does this time of year — not really noticeable at first, then chilling to the bone. Unless you were werewolf. I guess not every were or supernatural could ignore cold. There were several types of mythological beings that didn’t like the cold, so maybe it wasn’t universal.
My shivers had very little to do with the cold. I had not been ready to see whatever mrs Cheng was. It made my mind go blank. It was so unreal, even with all I had seen so far. My expectation of the supernatural was werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and other wereanimals - not this…this weird other mythological shit. I was not expecting wereinsects. But I guess it wasn’t really wereinsects, it had to be some kind of supernatural being with powers and not an insect as such, just like werewolves weren’t just wolves after their change.
The streetlights cast long, sodium-yellow pools across the pavement, broken by the skeletal branches of parkway trees and the occasional parked car dusted with frost. Most of the buildings sat dark this time of night, their windows blacked out or dim behind drawn curtains, but here and there a screen flickered blue against a wall, a brief reminder that people were still inside, still awake. My breath came out in steady plumes, hanging just long enough to blur the space ahead before dissolving into the night.
As I walked toward Humboldt Park, the streets widened slightly, giving me a better view of my surroundings. The wind picked up without warning, cutting across intersections and funneling between buildings, carrying the dry scrape of leaves that rattled along the curb. Somewhere in the distance, a siren rose and fell, muted by the cold. Even the sounds from the steady hum of traffic seemed muted somehow. The closer I got to the park, the darker it became — fewer lights, longer stretches of shadows, the outlines of trees gathering into something a denser darkness. It felt like stepping toward a boundary, where it thinned just enough for something else to press in from the edges. A boundary that influenced you.
It was the kind of feeling that makes you do something else than what you intended. Kind of like, “no I’ll go around the park, so to not get my shoes dirty” or “if I take another route, I can pick up those groceries I need for tomorrow.” People would not have noticed that they had been influenced to not enter the park.
I on the other hand noticed. And that wasn’t all I had noticed. There was a shift in my mindset and attitude. Overall, I had become more mercurial and aggressive. Some of what I considered common sense did not apply in my new reality. The external pressure was getting to me, demanding an outlet. The more immersed in the supernatural world I became, the more predatory I became. I would have to try and suppress the instincts that drove me to react with force or violence.
The closer I got to Humboldt Park, the more obvious it became Simon Burns and Company were covering all bases. The park should have felt empty at that hour, or nearly empty. Cold November nights usually drove people indoors long before dawn started threatening the horizon, especially this close to real winter, but not these guys.
Bouden and Shaun had done their job well, that was obvious.
My Simon Burns issue was coming to a close. That realization settled into place with an odd mixture of eagerness and rage as I crossed the street toward the edge of the park. The yellow streetlights gave way to longer intervals of shadow beneath bare trees and old lamps that hummed faintly overhead. Beyond them, the lagoon lay black and still, reflecting only fragmented specks of light where the surface shifted under the wind. The air smelled different near the water. It smelled both stale and dirty. Beneath it lingered the scent of damp leaves, old mud, stale alcohol, and…something not human.
I slowed as I entered the park proper keeping to the shadows, making sure not to draw attention, to let my senses stretch outward. The paths ahead curved through the darkness in long arcs broken by benches, patches of dead grass and clusters of barren trees that looked almost black against the dark sky that only had a hint of lighter darkness in the east. The city noises seemed muted here, muffled by distance, mist and cold. Even the occasional passing car sounded distant and unreal.
There were people here. Too many people for this park, this time of night. I could see several skulking around, hiding behind trees like it was some damn B-movie.
Even if I hadn’t spotted them, I could feel them in the darkness. Small disturbances in the rhythm of the place. The faint scrape of a shoe turning against gravel. Breathing that stopped when they heard a sound and resumed only after the sound gave way for silence. Someone standing as still as they could behind a cluster of bushes trying very hard seem like they don’t exist.
That thought came with more contempt than amusement. Simon had gathered exactly the kind of people I expected him to gather—wannabes, small-time wanna-be gangsters, desperate boys trying to climb higher by attaching themselves to someone who talked bigger than they were. He had probably sold them some fantasy about becoming rich and being initiated into the big boys club.
Most of them were damn amateurs. They were fidgety and noisy, but there were two that didn’t fit the picture. One moved differently, not human, and the other seemed like a pro - human, but experienced.
The wind shifted as I moved deeper into the park, carrying a scent that immediately stood apart from the others - a scent I knew. Cheap aftershave layered too heavily over stale sweat and cigarette smoke. Simon. Even from a distance he smelled exactly like I remembered. He was still that barely clean, chain smoking, self-important asshole. I could almost smell the self-important asshole bit.
I almost smiled. He had ignored my warning and stayed in Chicago, and for that I was grateful. Not that he knew the warning had come from me. That was the amusing part. Somewhere in that thick skull of his, he probably still believed one of the “real monsters” of Chicago had leaned on him after our little meeting in his apartment and that his new friends had connection enough to get him out of any trouble. The thought gave me a small, vicious sense of satisfaction. I had offered him an exit. A chance to leave the city alive and never come back.
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And Simon Burns had done what Simon Burns always did. He had mistaken restraint for weakness.
Ahead of me, one of the men hiding among the trees shifted and I caught the movement and saw the hand signals they were using. He was trying to pinpoint something that had disturbed him while staying behind cover, but he kept glancing sideways toward another group further ahead. His hand was shaking giving away his nervousness. Probably worried someone else would get to me first.
I watched him scan for whatever he had reacted to, while I crept through the shadows towards him. I threw a bag of dog shit I found to land behind him.
The reaction was immediate. He chambered a round as he turned towards the sound, uncertainty overtaking whatever confidence he had been feeding himself, and by the time he realized I wasn’t where he expected me to be, I was already behind him.
I caught him by the collar and slammed him face-first into the trunk of a tree hard enough to knock the air out of him. The impact sent frost and dead bark scattering down around us. He made a strangled noise, one hand clawing at the rough bark while the other tried fumbling toward a backup gun under his jacket.
I twisted his wrist before he reached it.
The thud against the bark wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough for the others further into the trees.
“What was that?” A voice called out.
“Wrong fucking night for this,” I growled low into his ear as he sucked air through clenched teeth.
The fear hit him fully then. I could smell it, sharp and immediate, cutting straight through the sweat and cheap deodorant. Whatever story Simon had sold him, it hadn’t included this part.
I pulled up his hood and shoved him away hard enough to send him stumbling onto the path.
“Run,” I whispered, “or I’ll break your neck!”
And he did. Well, a stumbling run.
I moved closer to the position where he had stood before he moved. “He’s running away!” I shouted, after he had gotten a bit further down the path, trying to sound like someone and no one.
Three other people started running after him. Two of them were fast and shot out of the trees at an impressing speed. The third was getting left behind, him being overweight and out of shape.
I caught the third one as he passed the tree I was standing behind. I really could have stood right in front of him, and I don’t think he would have spotted me.
I did with him what I did with the first guy; smashed his head into a tree. Why change a winning concept? This time though, I did not need him to stay conscious, so I wasn’t as gentle as before.
The first head smashing into a tree, were probably recognizable for the one non-human I had picked up on. I was pretty sure that the first encounter wasn’t enough for them to pinpoint me. This time though, the dull thud, meshed with breaking cartilage, breaking bones, and an a gurgling exhale of breath would give my position away because they would be expecting it.
I felt the supernatural move towards me, like a disturbance in the force. Somehow this presence felt strong, but also alien in a way that was different from the others I had met before. It also felt…alike in a weird kind of way.
I ran for a more empty part of the park, not hiding my speed.
A flicker of movement near the lagoon drew my attention.
The old man with the fishing rod still stood near the water, exactly where I had noticed him earlier. He hadn’t moved more than a few feet, his line hanging slack over the dark surface. At first glance he looked ordinary enough—old coat, knit cap, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold—but there was something about him that resisted normality in the same way Nefti had.
An unnatural stillness. Not human stillness. Controlled stillness, were limbs don’t move because of ache or twitch from biological functions like breathing and blood pumping through the body.
My gaze passed over him briefly and for just a second the weak light from a park light reflected strangely in his eyes, producing the same faint shine I had seen in nocturnal animals caught in headlights. It vanished almost immediately, subtle enough that I could almost convince myself I imagined it.
Almost.
A guardian maybe. Or something like one. I still had Nahanha’s permission to hunt in Chicago, so anyone within her sphere of influence would know to keep out of it.
He watched me without truly looking at me, and I got the distinct impression that he had already decided not to interfere unless forced to. That suited me just fine.
The supernatural was catching up fast. If I thought I was supernaturally fast, this one was the Flash.
I stopped at the only place I could find that gave me clear space around me and turned towards the approaching being.
What arrived shocked me. A woman came jumping into the clearing and glided on the wind, without any assistance, and landed a cars-length from me.
The woman had dark hair, a sharp and angular face that reminded me of a raptor, with piercing brow eyes, and big black talons where her fingers should have been.
She stood there cocking her head first to one side and then to the other, like a bird assessing the situation, all the while clicking her claws against each other.
Then she attacked.
With hiss more than a screech, and a flash of talons, she launched herself at me. She had some command over wind or air, and was changed direction at the last second, raking my side with her talons in an insanely fast movement.
Instead of backing off i closed my hand over her wrist as I stepped in with my free hand side, giving her an elbow uppercut that sent her somersaulting in the air.
She was tough though, and stopped her backwards momentum like the very wind assisted her, and glided down to land gracefully to the ground. Again, she did that freaky bird tilt with her head as she looked at me.
Then she crouched and instead of flying at me, whipped up dirt in my face, trying to blind me.
I turned as to shield myself from the dirt, and when I heard her move, I dropped to ground and rolled left. I heard her pass over me, and could almost feel the talons pass millimeters from my neck. I rose up pulled my gun and pointed it at her.
“While this is fun, I’m not really here for you. If you push it though, I’ll have to brain you.” I said in a cold voice.
“So, you’re the abomination?” The woman’s voice was warm and pleasant. Her face - not so much.
“Ah, been talking to Marc and Dom-Dumb?” I asked.
She started to move in a circle around me. I turned with her, facing her whichever way she turned.
“We have our laws about mimics,” She said, voice still pleasant.
“Funny that,” I said, “Papa Ourse didn’t seem to mind, or even think that I really was a mimic. From what I hear it is more of an agreement, and not a law. But I guess that Dom-Dumb didn’t want anyone to speak to Papa Ourse.”
The woman stopped. “You say that you met with the Oracle?”
“He doesn’t believe himself an oracle, only someone with limited talent. But, yes I met with him.”
She cocked her head like curious crow. “And you say that he said you’re not a mimic?”
“I think his words was somewhere along the line of ‘Uoh don’ taste like ah normal mimic.’” I said trying and butchering the French accent. “And before he could specify what, the gigantic asshole, and I mean that both figuratively and literally, Marc turned bear and started roaring.”
Her head did the bobbing thing again. “You’re telling the truth! Or at least what you believe to be the truth.”
“Yes.”
“I still want to kill you!”
“Then go for it, Polly! This cracker has a gun though, but that just how the cookie crumbles.”
“I can wait. But if you’re wrong, I will come for you!”
And then she vanished even faster than she had moved before.
“I will come for you,” I said in sarcastic sing-song voice. “Everyone and everyone’s cousin are coming for me, so you’re not that special, princess!”