Behold what cannot be seen:

the sour,

the sweet,

the truth of us,

and find the magic.

1

A narrow man in a black overcoat targets me with a small video camera. Alarm slices into my gloom, and I pause on the steps that rise to the Chicago Art Institute. His camera will pierce my glamére—an illusion of brown curls and a dark tan in place of my short platinum bob and flesh so white it sometimes looks bluish. I turn my face away—oh, for times past when only touching could penetrate the deception of a glamére.

The tale of my great-great-grandmother writhing in flames compels me to obey the clan imperative for concealment. The early days of torture to extort confessions of devil worship from those of us who failed to conceal our abilities are gone, but the fear remains. Every clan family has a like story, and we are weaned on secrecy.

From the side of my eye, I see the narrow man's lips move, and the wind carries his words to my ear.

He says, "I think I got one."

I look behind me. No thing of interest there. Shielding my face with my hood, I shift my gaze to the man, and he jerks the camera away to pan across the front of the Institute. I see yellow-green strands of deceit blossom within the aura around his head, and I believe that he seeks to conceal his purpose.

But what does it matter? It can have nothing to do with me.

The wind whips my long coat and thrusts icy talons under my dress, greedy for my warmth. Named the Hawk by the people of this city, perhaps it wishes it were a summer breeze instead of a harbinger of death. But it takes nothing from me, for I do not face a January afternoon in Chicago truself.

I call upon lledri to warm me, the living energy stumbled upon by a Celtic ancestress near death from ice-age cold. As the myriad, glowing motes of lledri leave my body, taking with them the heat of life, I bend them into a constant flow across my skin to keep my warmth close. Frustrated, the Hawk swirls away in search of a defenseless target.

I'm soft, the way I cushion myself from discomfort. I have been weak, the way I've hung onto life although my Graeme is gone, the random victim of a crazed homeless man.

No, it wasn't random.

I was there.

I was more than there.

If only I had . . . if only I had not . . . if-onlys torment me.

They say pain diminishes with time, but I can testify that the ache of guilt does not. It grows until it eats your life.

Today is its last bite of mine. After the Art Institute, I will surrender to the cold, and the eternal chill that I brought upon Graeme will be the waiter that serves me my just desserts.

The murmur of the wind becomes the reedy, old-man voice of our son. Cael calls my name. "Ailia." He would protest. "Mother, you never let me give up."

True. But I am two hundred years and a thousand times more fatigued than you.

Cael would persist. "But you taught me that to take human life is anathema."

Also true, but . . . I decide not to argue with a voice in my head.

Where I stand a meadow once opened, in wintertime cloaked with pure white snow, its future a summer of green grass and golden flowers. There was a time when I walked a deer path through that meadow to the lake that seems as vast as an ocean.

Now, shrouded with snow the color of ashes, its future void of life, the meadow is crushed by the Institute's massive pile of stone. The lake no longer spills onto a sandy shore but lashes at concrete revetments, its waters the color of metal instead of crystalline blue.

The Art Institute does have some virtue—high across the front, a huge banner heralds "Celtic Art Now on Display." I want to drink in the talents of my ancestors before I, too, become a thing of the past. It is my last meal.

The narrow man gives me a sidelong glance and I realize that, enthralled by my melancholy, I've failed to follow the cardinal rule of the clans--to avoid suspicious behavior when among the lessi. My brethren would chide me for idling in sub-zero cold instead of scuttling for shelter. I feign a cringe, clutch my coat tightly to me, and hurry up the steps.

The man again trains his camera on me. This time the lessi doesn't bother to pretend I'm not the focus of his interest. Instead, burgundy tendrils of enmity stream from him to join the bilious color of deceit.

Why? I cannot be known to him, and have done him no harm.

* * *

"Lieutenant!" The whispered word shivers in KB Volmer's earpiece. "I think I got one."

Oh, damn, not now!

"Lieutenant, where are you?"

KB isn't about to tell him she's enthroned on the john. "Ah, lower level, Michigan Avenue side." Her voice sounds too high, and she wonders if he'll figure out why it echoes.

The whisper comes again. "Damn, it's looking at me."

She snaps into focus. There's only one thing he can be talking about.

He says, "Okay, it's heading into the museum."

Speaking just loudly enough for her collar mike to pick up her words, KB zings him. "It would be helpful if I knew who this is and where you're stationed."

Voice still shaky, the agent answers, "Sorry, ah, this's Schultz, by the big lion outside the Michigan Avenue entrance."

Does Schultz's voice shake from the cold, or from excitement? His words sure as hell send a thrill through KB. She hopes to be the first of the couple-hundred Homeland Security agents staking out dozens of museums across the country to catch one of the Intruders—she knows in her gut that they're bad guys.

Settle down, settle down. Don't get excited like last time. You're in enough trouble as it is, though you shouldn't be, you were just taking initiative, no way did you exceed your authority. Hell, if she hadn't put her gun barrel into that creep's mouth they'd have never gotten answers. She knows she did the right thing, the captain just doesn't see it yet. Besides, nobody was hurt, and no way they're going to sue.

Maybe today's her chance to finally get into the captain's head what a woman can do. And Schultz, too, who's still a little pissed about a thirty-year-old female acing the exam and being promoted ahead of him.

She says, "You're sure it's an Intruder?"

"Gotta be. Compared to everybody else out here, its infrared output looks like a bonfire. Until a minute ago, it didn't even act like it felt the cold, and the wind chill is ten below."

"What am I looking for?"

"I'm turning down the gain now."

The new thermal imaging cameras with manual video gain controls were about to pay off. After an ETA terrorist blew up a roomful of Goya masterpieces in Madrid's Prado National Museum, Homeland Security had started searching for ways to check the crowds that poured into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During a test of thermal cameras, they'd spotted two bright infrared "blooms" strolling into the museum. The trouble was, without infrared the agents couldn't distinguish the whatever-they-weres from regular visitors and, without the ability to turn down the video gain, details of features were blown out.

Close encounters of the infrared kind have happened at art museums in five cities since then, but no captures. This is the first sighting in Chicago. Excitement clenches KB's gut. Even Schultz sounds tight now; his voice has lost that lame whine, no more bitching about working in the cold, muttering that the Intruders hadn't done anything, so why the big hunt?

Yeah, they haven't done anything . . . yet. That's the way terrorists operate, staying low until it's time to strike.

They aren't going to get away with it this time.

KB says, "What do you see? Your eyes. Did you look with your eyes?"

"Just a glimpse. Female. Dark hair, curly. Real tan. Tall and slender. Female. Wearing a long black coat with a hood up, and a dress. I'm zooming in."

Oh, man, this is it. Done at last with her business, KB tugs down her gray skirt, then pulls on the navy blue blazer bearing the Art Institute logo. Posing as an Institute security guard is perfect cover, but she resents the skirt--it makes her legs look heavy, and putting one on always feels like a demotion.

Her earpiece crackles. Schultz says, "It's going in."

KB hits the door and says, "I'm headed for the lobby. All stations, be alert for a tall, slender female that lights up your camera."

Reflex sends her hand inside her coat; the Walther 9mm automatic waits there, snug in its holster. Aching to break into a run, she forces herself to keep to a hurried walk, as near as she can come to the dawdle of a real museum guard. But when she reaches the stairs she goes up two steps at a time, charged with energy, electric, as if she were going into combat.

Who's to say this isn't combat? The enemy can be anywhere, is everywhere, and the war on terrorism is personal with her.