Geometry

Chapter 12

That evening after Fraser and Ray dropped Marina and Diefenbaker off at the wharf, she coaxed Dief into the tub and gave him a bath, apologizing for the indignity the entire time, then took a thorough shower herself to get rid of the remaining lake water, sand, and wolf fur. Once that was done, Mina toweled her hair dry, threw on jeans and a tank and got back to business.

The last twenty-four hours had been more sheer fun and pure unadulterated happiness than she'd had since her exile, but she had an Immortal to track down and possibly rescue, and a pack of rogue Watchers to track down and possibly kill. If any of the jerks on this detail were on the team that murdered Darius, she might even take a little time and kill them slow. Very slow. The old adage 'if you're captured, never let them give you to the women' would take on a whole new meaning if she got her hands on those bastards.

Ye gods, she better not let Fraser or Ray ever hear that. Falling for cops did have it's down side, even if they were truly in love with each other, not her. It hadn't escaped Marina that while Fraser and Ray weren't shy about voicing their love for each other, neither said the same to -or about- her.

Still, Mina reminded herself firmly, take what you have and be grateful for it; don't spoil what you do have by being pissy over what you don't. An Immortal knew better, even a fairly young one. Hell, her century day hadn't been all that long ago, and good friends were hard to come by in any lifetime.

And the search would make for a busy evening, even if she didn't have any real hope of finding Saladin tonight and would have to wait until after nightfall to begin anyway. Chicago was a big city, and with a half-mile range on her ability to sense another Immortal, a grid-pattern search of the whole city would take time. But an air search would be a hell of a lot faster than a ground search.

Diefenbaker was up on her bed snoozing as he waited for her to finish dressing, and he'd obviously waited until his fur dried after his bath before hopping up on the bed, as the duvet wasn't damp. She could really learn to like Canadians- even the wolves were polite!

She hadn't anticipated having Dief along tonight, but when Fraser asked Dief to watch over her while they packed up the rest of Ray's apartment that evening, she sure hadn't minded. Truthfully, if she was going hunting, backup was far from being a bad idea. Provided a) Dief didn't mind flying, and b) she could get the wolf to keep his mouth shut about their search... and okay, so it was way past time to c) come clean to her best friend.

"Hey, Dief? You get airsick?"

An answering negative double-yip.

Thank the gods above and below for that weird, wild, wacky mission all those years ago with the B.P.R.D., the one that left her with a crescent moon mark on the underside of her left wrist that only showed up under the light of a matching crescent moon and the ability to understand some -not all, just a select few- unusually intelligent animals. Mostly whales, dolphins and the odd Siamese cat, at least until she encountered Diefenbaker and fell head over heels in love.

She plunked down on the bed nose to nose with Diefenbaker, scratching gently in the hollows of velvety fur behind his ears. She loved those ears, so alert and responsive even after being silenced, twitching with delight at her lingering caresses.

"I need to tell you a few things, love. Do you want to go hunting with me? Thing is, you can't tell Fraser and Ray, because... well, I'll tell why while we hunt. But if you don't want to keep secrets from them, I understand, and you can hit the third floor and visit Theresa and the other girls while I search. I don't want to force you to keep secrets from your friends if you don't want to."