Free Edge of Oblivion by J. T. Geissinger Page B

beneath his skin.
    Then, without noise or warning, he dissolved into mist.
    It was the same every time, effortless as breathing, a mere focus of the will. As if an eyelid had been peeled back to reveal everything around him in vivid color from all angles, he perceived above and below exactly as he perceived forward and back. There was no impediment to his sight, though he lacked eyes through which to focus or even, for that matter, a head. He existed as a part of the very air itself, weightless, and moved through it by applied thought—
up, down, fast, slow
.
    The one inconvenience was his clothes. Anything he wore or held in his hands simply dropped to the ground as his body dissolved into mist. He’d never been able to take things with him as Vapor, but he had another utterly unique and powerful Gift at his disposal for that.
    He’d come back for his clothes and knives later. Right now he had a runaway to catch.
    In a sinuous, pale gray plume of mist, he rose into the air and caught the heated updraft of wind from the boulevard below. He used it to lift him, riding it until he was far above the Colosseum, far enough that anyone looking up would see what appeared to be a small cloud, if oddly swift. Beneath him Rome was laid out in glittering splendor, bedecked in shimmers of copper and gold. The streets were pulsing arteries filled with traffic, snaking away in all directions in streamers of red and white.
    Above him was the night sky, sapphire dark, dusted with stars.
    And there, standing fixed on the sidewalk as pedestrians parted around her like flowing water around a rock, stood Morgan.
    Even from this distance he saw her shock, her blank disbelief. She’d gone pale, almost as white as her blouse. She’d felt his Shift; that much was obvious. Had he lips he would have laughed out loud.
    Yes, I can Shift to more than just panther,
meu caro.
I have my mother to thank for that.
    He pushed through the atmosphere, up and forward, flying, easy as air, knowing without a doubt that at this exact moment she was cursing his name and recalculating plans. No matter. She could run, she could hide, but she wasn’t getting away.
    Ever.
    He kept well above as she turned and began to push her way through the throngs of chattering tourists and strolling lovers and elderly women in head scarves and sensible shoes heading out to evening mass. He felt curious and unhurried, the luxuries of self-confidence, and tried to keep out of easy sight as he tailed her, camouflaging himself with varying degrees of success around belfries and chimneys, in the foliage of trees. She kept looking up and behind as she ran but never stopped or even slowed her pace.
    She went north, keeping to well-traveled and well-lit streets, darting in and out of churches and trattorias and coffee shops, entering in the front and exiting the back or some other side door, trying to shake him. It was amusing, and he found himself hoping it wouldn’t soon end.
    He was having something like—fun.
    Then she ran down a flight of steps into an underground entrance to the Metro and he began to worry.
    He flashed down the steps behind her, startling a bunch of chortling pigeons on the rail into shrieking flight. He followed the sight of her bobbing dark head—easily identifiable from behind with that fall of shining dark hair that gleamed like sunlight on water, so different from all the others crowding around—into one of the sleek silver cars just as its doors were closing. He flattened himself against the ceiling, spread as thin as he could go around the fluorescent tubes that illuminated the car.
    It was packed. Morgan was nowhere in sight.
    “Terribly foggy in here,” remarked a white-haired man in Italian, squinting up at the ceiling from his plastic seat below.
    “It’s your eyes,” replied his dour wife, waving a dismissive hand at him. “How many times do I have to tell you to get new glasses?” She fumbled around in a lumpy knit handbag, came up with an