Staying On Track

"Oh, so you are still alive." 

Chris was on his second lap around the track, and turned his head to find that Grundus had come up beside him and matched his pace. He gave the older wolf a look, then stepped up his pace. 

Grundus sped up to match him. Neither of them was breathing too hard to talk; even here in the Mundus, the wolves were built for this. Grundus had gray hair and a scruffy almost-beard, bronze skin and dark eyes; his build was slightly heavier than Chris' but still lean and broad-shouldered.

"Okay, but the official word is that you and Gillespie walked into a house full of vampires. Rumor has it that Dalmorden pulled your partner out and left you there with a master. That true?"

Chris considered that for the space of another dozen strides. "What's a master?"

"The ones who hunt the night, they don't really get old. A master's one that's been around long enough to grow strong and develop powers, maybe even learn sorcery if they put their mind to it." Grundus grinned unpleasantly. "Ask Cassie; she knows." 

Chris gave a slight nod, and stepped up his pace again. Grundus was perfectly capable of matching him, but he looked annoyed at having to actually do it, which was pretty much what Chris had been going for. 

"So was there a master?"

"Report's been filed," Chris said. Anything he told Grundus would be all through the ROs in a matter a minutes. It might not get back to the magi, but Chris didn't want to risk it. He was new here, and his position was precarious in ways beyond the obvious. 

"Yeah," said Grundus, "but people want to know, first hand-like."

Chris shrugged. "Then they can read the report." 

"You know," said Grundus, "you could make more of an effort to make friends." 

Never was much good at that, Chris thought, but all he said was, "Takes me a while to warm up." 

"All right. What I really want to know is, did old Dalmorden pull your partner out and leave you behind?"

Chris glanced at him, side-eyed. Innocently, he asked: "Would the Ministry do that?" 

"Shit," said Grundus. "So how the hell'd you survive? Just set fire to the place and run away?"

"Pretty much," Chris admitted. "Hunt was fucked anyway."

"Cernunnos' sacred left testicle, man." Grundus sounded grudgingly impressed. "That's cold hunting."

"It was pretty hot there at the end," Chris admitted. "Even with the gas line open, I had to move fast."

Grundus grinned at him. "How fast?" 

Chris grunted and shifted to an all-out sprint, as fast as he could go without actually dropping into wolf-form -- which wolves couldn't do here in the Mundus. Grundus surged after him, struggling to catch up, but gradually -- and then suddenly-- dropped behind. 

When Chris came around again and slowed to a walk, Grundus just looked at him. "All right," he said. "Blessings of the Silver Hand. Yeah, I can believe you pulled that off. Do the Magi know you can do that?" 

"No," said Chris, "and I don't intend to show them. I can't do it in public without violating the compact, and if they don't know it's possible then they don't expect me to try to do it in private."

Grundus nodded, looking more sympathetic than Chris had expected. "I'm trusting you here," Chris added. "Don't give me away."

"I won't," said Grundus, suddenly serious. Whether the older man's judgement would hold was another question, but he sounded serious, at least. 

"Look," said Chris, "if anybody asks, you can tell them that I had an emergency plan in place -- which I did, with the gas line -- and I moved fast and got lucky. And you can tell them I said so myself. Deal?"

"Deal," said Grundus, and turned and walked away. 

Chris waited until the man was well out of earshot before he drew a deep breath and let it out. He'd have to be especially careful around that one, but if he'd played this right then most people -- including the magi -- would write it off. Antoinette might suspect there was more to it; she'd seen him in the same room with the master. Or she might buy it completely, if she believed what the damned Ministry said about ROs in the Mundus. 

Registered Outsiders assisted the Ministry's magi with their duties, in return for being allowed legally into the Mundus and acquiring legal identities that would satisfy local governments. A few more years of this, and he could opt out, find a mundane job for income, and fade into everyday life in the Mundus. As long as he didn't show off any "supernatural" abilities, the Ministry would leave him alone.

Until then, he helped the Ministry deal with "intrusions": people or creatures of the Grey that had made their way into the Mundus without the Ministry's blessing. It was the sort of duty that might even see him facing off against other wolves at some point, a prospect that didn't bother him nearly as much as it probably should have. 

He walked off the track and back into the locker room. Judging by the scents, he was following Grundus at a decent distance. He showered, changed, and then headed back to his apartment to see if there were any new messages. 

He'd only just set his gym bag down when someone knocked on the door behind him.