"Talon! Uh - heel!" Elena shouted and began to race as fast as she could to get out of the room. This was strategy. Would the owl become even smaller so as to get through the door or would it destroy its sanctuary in order to stay on top of Elena?
It was a good strategy, but it didn't amount to much in the end. The owl shrank to dart through the door, and then resumed gigantic size to attack Elena as she ran down the stairs.
Yes, ran. With all of her Power channeled to her eyes, Elena leaped from step to step as Damon had before. Now there was no time for fear, no time for thinking. There was only time to turn over in her fingers a small, hard, crescent-shaped object.
Shinichi and Misao - they did make it into her nest.
There must be a ladder or something made of glass that even Damon couldn't see, in the flowerbed where Saber had stopped and barked. No - Damon would have seen it, so they must have brought their own ladder.
That's why their trail ended there. They climbed straight up into the library. And they ruined the flowers in the bed, which is why the new flowers weren't doing so well.
Elena knew from Aunt Judith, from her childhood, that transplanted flowers took awhile to revive and perk up again.
Leap...jump...leap...I am a spirit of fire. I cannot miss a step. I am a fire elemental. Leap...leap...leap.
And then Elena was looking at level ground, trying not to leap into it, but a prisoner to her body which was already leaping. She fell hard enough to numb one side, but she kept hold of the precious crescent clenched in a deathgrip in her hand.
A gigantic beak smashed into glass where she had been a moment before she slid. Talons raked her back.
Bloddeuwedd was still after her.
Sage and his group of sturdy young male and female vampires traveled at the pace of a running dog. Saber could lead them, but only as fast as he himself could go. Fortunately few people seemed to want to instigate a fight with a dog that weighed as much as they did - that weighed more than many of the beggars and children they encountered as they reached the bazaar.
The children crowded around the carriage, slowing them further. Sage took the time to exchange an expensive jewel for a purse full of small change and he scattered the coins behind the carriage as they went, allowing Saber free reign.
They passed dozens of stalls and crossing streets, but Saber was no ordinary bloodhound. He had enough Power to confound most vampires. With perhaps only one or two of the key molecules stuck to his nasal membrane he could hunt down his goal. Where another dog might be fooled by one of the hundreds of similar kitsune trails they were traveling through, Saber examined and rejected each of them as being not quite the right shape, size, or sculpture.
There came a time, though, when even Saber seemed defeated. He stood in the center of a six-way crossroads, regardless of traffic, limping slightly, and going in circles. He couldn't seem to choose a path.
And nor could I, my friend, Sage thought. We've come so far, but it's clear they went on farther. No way to go up or dig down...Sage hesitated, looking around the crimson-colored wheel of roads.
And then he saw something.
Directly across from him, but to his left was a perfumery. It must sell hundreds of fragrances, and billions of scent molecules were deliberately being released into the air.
Saber was blind. Not blind in his keen liquid dark eyes. But where it mattered he was numbed and blinded by the billions of scents that were being blown up his nose.
The vampires in the carriage were calling to go on or go back. They had no sense of real adventure, them. They just wanted a nice show. And undoubtedly many had slaves who were recording the whipping for them so they could enjoy it at leisure at home.
At that moment a flash of blue and gold decided Sage. A Guardian! Eh, bien...
"Heel, Saber!"
Saber's head and tail drooped as Sage randomly picked one of the directions and had him race alongside the running vampire to get out of the thoroughfare and onto another street.
But then, miraculously, the tail went up again. Sage estimated that there could not be even one molecule of the kitsune's scent left in Saber's nostrils now...
...but the memory of the scent...that was still there.
Saber was once again in hunting mode, with head down, tail straight, all his Power and intelligence concentrated on one goal and one goal only: to find another molecule that matched the three-dimensional memory of the one in his mind. Now that he was not blinded by the searing smell of all those different concentrated odors, he was able to think more clearly. And thinking alerted him to slip in between streets, causing a commotion behind him.
"What about the carriage?"
"Forget about the carriage! Don't lose sight of that guy with the dog!"
Sage, trying to keep up with Saber himself, knew when a chase was about to end. Tranquillit��! he thought to Saber. He also barely whispered the word. He had never been certain if his animal friends were telepathic or not, but he liked to believe that they were, while behaving as if they were not. Tranquillit��! he told himself.
And so, when the huge black dog with the shining dark eyes and the man ran up the steps to one particular ramshackle building, they did it silently. Then, as if he'd had a pleasant stroll in the country, Saber sat and looked at Sage in the face, laughing-panting. He opened and closed his mouth in a silent parody of a bark.