I could, then stuffed my shiny new key into my pocket and exited. I had no idea whether my Otherworldly babysitters were geared up for running or not, but it really wasn’t my problem. I shrugged to myself. If they could keep up, then bully for them. Without acknowledging their hovering presence on the other side of the street, I started to jog, slowly at first to warm up. One of the major drawbacks of living in a city was the number of roads and traffic lights that I’d be forced to wait for, so it made no sense to start pelting my way along in a sprint. At least there was a sizeable park not too far away.
It took around fifteen minutes to reach the park itself. The sky was already starting to darken, despite the fact that it was now summer and the nights were considerably lighter. It didn’t really make much difference to my run, but it might make it harder for my little troupe of followers to keep up. I grinned slightly to myself and began to speed up.
The park was fairly busy: numerous families out enjoying the last of the daylight, groups of kids playing games, and, of course, several joggers on the same track as myself. I did my best to ignore them, not wanting others to set a pace for me, and stayed on the tarmacked path for a while, but with the night drawing in it was becoming too annoying having to keep veering out of the path of those leaving so eventually I gave up and moved onto the grass. I cut round the bend, skirting the large trees then began to run more cross-country. It felt much more peaceful this way and I could almost imagine I was no longer in London, but instead out in the fresh air of the countryside. Keeping my breathing even, I picked up the pace further, and allowed my mind to empty. A couple of rabbits saw me coming and quickly scampered out of my way, dashing into nearby burrows. Other than that, and the distant hum of traffic, I felt as if I was completely alone.
Of course that was until I caught the flicker of green out of the edge of my eye. I frowned. It was too ephemeral and just too green to be a jogger. And there was no way that a tree or a bush moved like that. Interested, I headed in the direction of it. A small thought nagged at me that curiosity killed the cat, but, let’s face it, I needed something to take my mind off all my other humdrum worries. However, when I reached the area where I’d thought I’d seen the flicker, there was nothing there. I heard some footsteps behind and, slowing to a jog, glanced round my shoulder. The Fae, naturally, was keeping up, although there was no sign of either the shifter or the mage. Either of them could of course draw on their Otherworldliness to produce a better showing, whether by casting a tracking spell or by shifting, but this was a pretty public area and I doubted that they would try it. Whatever might have been lingering in the trees had either been frightened off by my own approach or by the faerie’s. It was time to find out.
Without warning, I sped up again, this time using every ounce of energy that I had. I zigzagged to my right, hoping to confuse the Fae behind me. With lightning fast reflexes, there was little I could do to outrun him, but I was fairly confident that I could outsmart him. I’d been regularly using this park since we’d taken the lease over on the bookshop almost three weeks ago, and it wasn’t so large that I didn’t already know my way about it well. I knew that coming up was a small annex used to house gardener’s tools. It wasn’t the most pleasant of places and the local youths also tended to use it as a dumping ground for their discarded cans and bottles, but it would serve my purposes. I ran to the side of it, making it appear as if I was going to pass it by without a second glance, and then started to lean over to the right even more, as I knew that both the building and the trees would camouflage my actions. As soon as I thought I was hidden from view, I halted abruptly