Maya d'Angelo saw the proximity monitor light up like a Christmas tree and scaled the walls of the three story building as quickly as she could. Millennia  of selective breeding and perfected training along with state of the art equipment helped, but she could never be as fast a vampire, especially the older ones.  Bertram Toolidge as his current name was, was by any account middle aged at a mere three hundred years old, but he still gave her a run for the money. The bastard knew she was after him and had taunted and teased her for months. A few times he had almost trapped her as they played their deadly cat and mouse game. He had teased her, tried to lure her into his world. He had left hints, cards, even a couple of times gift cards for things from coffee to full body massages.  Son of a bitch was good, he was even good looking and kinda cute but thank goodness he was not as utterly seductive as Zoran Vacev, who over the course of almost a thousand years had made seduction of men and women, super naturals and normals, his hobby. Zoran had trapped her once and toyed with her for a full day, a fact she kept well hidden from her organization as they would no longer trust her and possibly relegate her to a desk job. If they only knew... She had taken a sabbatical to get her head back in the game. He still reminded her of that every now and then, knowing he was fairly safe from her organization, the really big supes were rarely caught and erased. Suffice it to say, Zoran didn't need to kill anyone, he could just turn them into his mindless sex slaves any time he chose to. Man, or Woman.<br/><br/>She jumped across the roof tops in pursuit of Bertram when she saw that Bertram himself was chasing someone else. The night air was cool and slightly foggy making the surface slick on some parts. Her breath was hot in her chest, and her legs beginning to burn after fifteen minutes of this damnable chase. Who the fuck was he chasing? No mere mortal could evade a vampire this skillfully for this long. But her proximity meter did not show any supe other than Bertram nor did the one being chased give off any electronic signature of being masked, so what was he?<br/><br/>First thing they teach you in Sparrow Academy is not to give chase when distracted. Yeah... she remembered that as soon she felt herself slipping on wet tile and then falling.<br/><br/>'Swell, Maya,' she thought, 'you'll be the first Eagle to die splattered after falling off a ten storey building,' as she slipped, bounced off something hard, and fell some more. At some point she must have reflexively cried out, even though they were trained to be silent. But she winced when bleeding and sore and realized she had fallen onto the glass ceiling of some old  Victorian  building, and a spider web of cracks spread around her. She knew she couldn't move because any pressure anywhere would cause the glass to fail and she would fall into the foyer several stories below her.<br/><br/>"You owe me one," said the deep and dignified voice with the hint of Caribbean  she knew belonged to Bertram.<br/><br/>"Well, crap, Bertie," grunted Maya, "couldn't you just move to another town, or country? continent maybe?"<br/><br/>The vampire chuckled. "If you'd rather  stay here and see what happens..." he let his voice trail off. Maya heard the glass crack more, and she grunted a "fine, I owe you one" between clenched teeth. Moments later, Bertram had grabbed her hands and swung her onto a ledge just as the glass gave way, and she lay panting looking up at the big, black man, with the Jazz voice looming over her.<br/><br/>"It's been a pleasure Maya, be more careful next time."<br/><br/>Maya closes her eyes in utter frustration, and heard him lightly land on the roof  above her, as usual his last words were..<br/><br/>and she finished them with him "...and don't call me Bertie!"<br/><br/>Maya sat up, feeling irate, sheepish, and ...yup furious. The person Bertie had had chased wasn't a normal. Why had she not noticed him before? Was he new? If the organization heard about this she would be demoted back to Hawk. She had just earned this promotion, much to the consternation of some board members who questioned her maturity and lack of religious devotion. She stood up and walked to the rusty old roof top door and tried the handle, it was locked. Not a problem at all.<br/><br/>She picked the lock to the roof top door and went down the conventional way via staircase, the way normal people did. The building appeared abandoned and she used a flashlight to guide her down the old and partly unsafe flights of stairs. Once downstairs she emerged from the building onto a small and dark side street. No one to be seen. Nothing moving other than an alley cat sitting like a comma and lapping from a puddle of water, and some newspaper rustling in the wind. She would find this man, and he would answer.