Kai. I was born a hellhound."
Inhuman Chapter 7
They called Midland the Tall City because of the downtown, where brick-and-steel stalagmites poked at the sky. The office buildings Nathan was headed toward weren't skyscrapers by any means, but in the middle of the flattest, most featureless land on the continent, they did stick out. To Nathan's mind the skyline looked like it was giving heaven the finger.
He kept that observation to himself. Religion turned some folks belligerent.
He was headed back to the sheriff's office, the hum in his blood clearer to him than the hum of his car's engine. His trip to the service station that morning had led to another lead, then another. Eventually he'd learned where Jimmy Shaw had spent his last night on Earth.
He'd been able to pursue those leads because Sheriff Browning had released him from desk duty for the duration of the investigation. That sort of pragmatic flexibility was one reason Nathan had lingered here longer than was probably wise. But only one.
Since his stranding, Nathan had been many things - mercenary, guard, rag man, monk, tinker, riverboat pilot, and more. So many more. In his last persona he'd been a private investigator, specializing in finding lost children.
He'd found them, of course. It was impossible to shift a hellhound from a trail he'd been set to - even, Nathan had discovered, when he'd been set to the trail by no one but himself. It had taken him a long time to learn how to put himself to the hunt when there was no true prey, but it had been worth the effort. Finding the children had been good. Satisfying. Even when they'd been brutalized, he'd been able to return them to people who loved them.
Sometimes there had been no living child to find, only a body - killed by exposure, by mischance, or by malice. All too often, by malice. When that happened, he'd hunted their killers.
Those had been true hunts.
Humans were peculiar. They were by turns squeamish and appallingly violent. Eventually Nathan had concluded it was their very bloodthirstiness that made them erect so many legal and social barriers against culling the vicious from their midst. They didn't trust themselves to stop with the obviously evil.
So he'd hunted the child killers in secret. Eventually he'd been caught - or as good as, since he'd had to abandon that persona. Eighteen years later, Colorado still had an outstanding warrant for Samuel Jager. The legal system might be ineffective, but it was tenacious.
It had taken time to build a new identity. The current age had much to recommend it - indoor plumbing, cell phones, various advances in medicine. He considered cars and television mixed blessings, and had grown to like computers, though airplanes were an obvious mistake. Humans were inexplicably fond of them, but Nathan had no intention of meeting death while strapped in a giant metal coffin hurtling through the air at the behest of some stranger.
But technology was seriously inconvenient when it came time to reconstruct himself. That was another reason he'd put off leaving Midland - the sheer nuisance of creating a new identity. But again, it was not the whole story.
He liked police work. It was a restful job, at least in Midland. He seldom dealt with real ugliness, and he worked mostly in the open. He liked being part of a team, able to contribute to the common good. If he ached sometimes for a real hunt, if his particular skills were seldom needed, he had a place here. Even those who noticed that he was different didn't always shun him for it.
Kai hadn't.
And there, of course, was the rest of the story. He'd been ready to leave eighteen months ago, needing a true hunt. Needing to return to his purpose. He'd met Kai and decided to stay awhile longer.
His heartbeat picked up. He'd told her. He could scarcely believe he'd done it, yet it felt right. She'd been shocked, yes, but not repelled. He could swear she hadn't been repelled. Even if she no longer wanted to be lovers, she would remain his friend.
But the timing... ah, Lord of Luck, why now? After all the aching years, would his exile end when he'd found a reason to stay?
There was little he could do about that. He'd never known the day or hour when his time here would be over. He still didn't, so he set that thought aside and