Reditio Soteri -8-

The watcher raced through the city streets, but he already knew the run was hopeless; the Hounds always found their quarry. Even so, he needed time to think up something for his defense, because while they were relentless in their pursuit, the Hounds would always listen to a plea. The watcher wasn’t sure if they were pursuing him in the belief that he represented a threat, or whether it was just long habit. For now, it hardly mattered.

The watcher had initially tried to run with speed appropriate for the form he held, but as the hounds gained steadily he gave that up for something faster, and pelted off the side of a building into the air, shooting like a rocket. The hounds made a similar movement, yet managed to retain most of their form, which the watcher felt was just a bit unfair, but he was hardly able to argue the point to anyone.

The watcher gained speed, shooting skyward and desperate to put distance between him and his pursuers, as his mind raced to come up with something to keep him from suffering once the hounds caught up, as they inevitably must. Of its own whim, the watcher’s mind pondered whether the chase would show up on radar, and if so whether he was going to mess with someone’s flight patterns. Oh well, he thought, he wasn’t trying to cause trouble on that point, but there was nothing he could do if that was the case, and worrying about being taken for a UFO was not going to tell him how to keep from getting thrashed by those hounds.

The watcher dived suddenly down through a thunderhead, hoping the hounds were depending on sight and might lose him for a while in the cloud cover. As he saw them shoot away, ahead and above him, the watcher thrilled with delight, but when they banked around and came back down after him, he knew it was no use. The chase was just wearing him out, and he couldn’t think straight while flying, anyway. The watcher looked down and chose a remote wooded area for the meeting, wondering how bad he would get hurt.