My lungs are burning and I desperately want to pant, but I continue to hold my breath, relying on my mouse-instincts to keep me perfectly still.  I can feel the ground tremble slightly each time one of my pursuer's enormous paws settles against the asphalt.  I've been lucky so far, but I don't know how long this can last.

However the Mystics of Lisbon organize themselves, they're pretty efficient.  Within a couple of hours of the incident with the armored car, I passed one of those honest-to-god shop windows with working tv's in it, and saw part of a news story.  My Portuguese wasn't good enough to get all the details, but the gist was they were blaming the "white-out" on some accidental chemical leak from a military helicopter.  Presumably they were also tracking down witnesses and hypnotizing them into believing the same story.

They can't find me easily, because they don't know who they're looking for.  But they are giving it a good try anyway.  I don't know if the dogs are transfigured mystics or just dogs with spells on them, but while I'm in human form, they seem to be able to sniff me out from an unfairly large distance.

The latest one nudges the discarded crisps bag I've ducked into, and it takes all my willpower not to squeak, or bolt.  But I stay still, and after a moment, I can hear and feel its thunderous footsteps as it moves away.  I allow myself to breathe, barely, but force myself to count to a hundred, then another hundred.

I can't hear or smell anything but my own heartbeat and fear, so I cautiously step out of the foil package, trying to look in every direction at once.  But the hound seems to be gone, for now.  I take off toward a pile of pallets and other junk that decorates this stretch of the riverbank, winding my way through passages far too small for a dog and trying to put as much distance as possible between me and my relentless pursuers.

I have no idea what to do, though.  I haven't had enough time in my human form to find some way of getting the bank-bag open.  Every time I shift back, I hear barking and howling and they never seem to be more than a minute away.  Plus, it's hard to problem-solve because I have to use practically all my concentration to keep the strange words from spilling out of my lips and doing God-knows-what-else.  Maybe I should just give in and let it.  But I'm still horrified about the white-out...I'm convinced I've permanently blinded who knows how many people, and bleached them as well, the way I did myself.  At least in my mouse form I seem to be immune to that temptation, I just wish I knew why.

In hindsight, I wish I'd just ripped off the girl at the second-hand store.  As ethical dilemmas went, it was slightly worse than armored-car robbing, since the latter was undoubtedly insured, and the store might not be.  But everything had gone so wrong.  It's hard to trust my own judgement anymore...what if I am still Demon-tainted?  It makes me want to just lie down and cry in frustration for a few hours.  But my years living on the street taught me that stopping is just a step away from giving up, and that in turn a fingernail from dying.  I'd seen it happen to others, and I'd sworn that I would never quit, I'd do what I needed to stay alive and free.

Patience.  I just have to be patient.  Somehow get into a car or a truck heading out of the city, get far enough away that I might have some breathing room from their Mystics, get the bag open, get home, grill Jacques for answers, assuming I can restrain myself from doing something to him...

I make my way back towards the more well-traveled parts of the city and try to think of a way to crawl onto a moving car without getting killed.  But my thoughts are interrupted as I see a burst of Aura-light around the corner of the alley ahead of me, followed quickly by a woman striding out, her eyes swiveling left and right, intently.  It's the "doctor" from the hospital, the Council contractor.  She's wearing normal clothing now...normal for a tv-assassin anyway, a durable-looking ensemble of tight black leather.  She's also got a gun in one hand and something else small in the other, and once again my exhausted heart kicks into high gear.  Augusta must have told them about my mouse-Transfiguration, so unlike the hounds, she'd know exactly what to look for, and she somehow knows where I am in general...maybe a Seer again.

Before panic can quite get hold of me, I feel a rage building instead...this unnamed bitch of a Sorceress had ruined everything...if nothing had happened at the hospital, if I'd been allowed to release Augusta more carefully, on my own terms...

I shift.  The woman's eyes widen as she sees me appear...I'm not sure what I look like, a seriously pissed-off ghost maybe, but she's definitely a bit off-guard even if she was expecting something.  Good.  I feel vengeful words rising from my heart and open my mouth to let them spill out and do what they will to her.

But before the first syllable escapes my lips, she hurls something she was holding in her hand straight at the pavement, shattering it.  There's another burst of Aura-light as an effect swells out, encompassing us both.

My throat seizes.  I can feel the words piling up inside me, foreign and meaningless but full of deadly intent, yet somehow I can't force them out...all I can produce are strained groans and choking sounds.  My heart skips a beat.  A Language Block.  Fuck.  Fucking fuck.

I can see her expression become satisfied, and realize my panic must be showing on my face.  She opens her own mouth to say something, then grimaces and closes it.  The Block must've hit her as well...poor planning on her part.  The words inside me subside and are replaced with a desire to tear her apart, spread every bit of her across the walls of this alley and then scrawl warnings to others into the gore until all the fluids dry.  I take a step forward, and she raises the gun.  Only barely does it penetrate my furious disapproval...and the sane part of me recognizes how peculiar that emotion seems to drive such violence...but I stop, and she nods.

The Sorceress reaches her free hand slowly into the pocket of her jacket and withdraws a set of silver manacles, etched with runes, glowing brightly with Aura-light.  She tosses them lightly towards me and they skitter to a stop at my white boots.

The rage subsides for a moment, such is my surprise...she still wants to take me alive.  I'd been so sure that they would kill me on sight.  Not that there was much of a difference...after all the things I'd done, even after a trial they'd kill me for sure.  But something different was going on with me.  It wasn't just Demon-taint or even standard Between-madness...if I just let her take me, maybe they'd let me explain about the Between, about the strange language.  Maybe it was important enough that they'd show some leniency?

I let my eyes fall to the manacles, tracing the runes idly, imagining securing them to my own wrists, finally being able to just rest.  But somehow this produces an incoherent flare of rage from somewhere inside me, an unstoppable desire to end this woman's existence.  I was already subconsciously leaning forward to pick the manacles up, but instead I topple forward over them into a roll.  A shot rings out along with the sharp clack of an impact against the ground behind me.  The roll brings me back to my feet and I spring upward, one hand seizing the woman's wrist to manage the gun...another shot rings out...my other hand clawing for her throat.  I feel a crunch, somehow horrifying and satisfying all at once as her wrist bones splinter and snap...how strong am I?  She screams as my momentum carries me into her and she topples backwards with me atop her, the gun clattering from her whitened hand, her other arm trying to block my fingers from her throat.

But the scream somehow changes in mid-stream, growing lower and louder into a roar.  I'm kicked by her hind legs and fly across the alley, slamming into the wall of a building.  Red blood drips down my stomach through my bleached clothes from where I'd been punctured by large claws, and something about the sight seems familiar, but my thoughts are a bit fuzzy from the impact.

I raise my head and she's back on her feet, watching me.  Her eyes are wary, and she's not putting her full weight on her right paw, but there's no question she's still a serious threat.

She's a fucking tiger.  Obviously she's a threat, at least if I can't use incants.  I consider Vanishing, whispers-be-damned, but my irrational anger towards her vetoes that...and it's weirdly mixed with petty professional jealousy too, she must have actually had some training in Vegas.  I focus on my compass and take a mental step back...I could shift back into a mouse and then Vanish, presumably without interference from whatever was steering my emotions, but the tiger was watching me too closely...there was little chance I'd find cover and Vanish before she was on me.  Plus, something about turning into a mouse directly in front of a tiger seemed awfully stupid on basic principles.

Although...I'd broken her wrist with my bare hand.  Whatever was happening to me...could I actually take a tiger?  Visions of precisely where to strike, to grip, flood my mind, accompanied by a wordless song of righteous battle.  At the same moment, my compass spins and points directly at the manacles.

I dive for them, and the tiger leaps.