By the time we reached home it was about 6 at night. The sun was once again a hazy blurb on the horizon patchworked over by mismatched clouds. You could see the moon just barely, like a faint reflection on the sky. It was bright rather than the pitch black the midwestern world takes on in the deep of winter. I shucked off my shirt and felt the air convolute around my bodily pillar as I took lazy, loping steps to the front porch. It was an uncharacteristic 65 degrees, cold considering the sultry summer weather of the past week.

But still I loved it, loved the sky and the wind and the stars just starting to pinprick their way into the night’s tapestry. When you live about 15 minutes from any other houses, you start to see the stars as they really are. Suburban surface lights strobe around on industrial clouds wafting in from who knows where and before you know it you don’t even realize you can only see the closest planets and the North star. And in the city, there isn't a chance to see much of anything at all.

The stars stretch like spattered drops of milk, dappling the deep dark cerulean glow of the void beyond. I’ve always wanted to fly into space and see the world spinning on its axis, pretend that I’m going to touch the stars.

Lana didn’t bother to stick around; ringlets of feather-light dust spun around the air as if floating on a receding tide. I couldn’t see her in the distance.

My cell phone rang, an incessant mosquito buzzing in my pocket, tainting my carefree moment.

“Ciaran,” I monotoned into the receiver, a little grate on the bottom of my phone. It’s funny how your entire demeanor changes even though you can only transmit sound when you communicate by phone. I was standing straight as a board, my right hand falling into the comfortable pattern of fingering my knife: edgy. Ready to react.

“You’re needed at Franklin Celestia. Hephaestus. Ermine infestation.”

“Understood.” The line cut out. Labs, Olivia, and esps, oh my.

I kicked the half-foot long grass surrounding my house and groaned. I had to get there without Lana, my missing-in-action car. Frowning, I looked up into the blob of sky. I could maybe make it in time if I ran.

It’s usually a good idea to have a spare car in times like these. Unfortunately, mine was driven off a cliff two weeks back and I hadn’t found a replacement. Lucky me.

I ran into the house and got dressed in suitable work attire, a slick black pair of slacks and a matching jacket. Underneath I wore a light single-piece shock absorbing armor suit. Not like it’d stop bullets, but it was a regulatory requirement.

Now the one freedom I was allowed besides all black - coat, pants, shoes, even shirt - was my tie. Not only did it not have to be black, some blessed moron had forgotten to include any specifications about ties in the dress code. And why would you restrict ties?

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The last guy who wore a tie?

Garroted his would-be killer with style.

That would be me.

Because I like to stay alive, and heaven forbid I let anything come between me and my way forward into the gates of tomorrow. There really is a gate. It shines bright, like the stars, even when you can only vaguely remember the stars in your memory, like in a dream. That’s why the Waiting gather there, trying to hold onto something they cannot understand or remember. After you’ve waited for enough time in the shadows, sulking and perhaps canvassing the abyssal plane for hopes of a way out, you start to lose yourself. When that happens, like moths to brilliance, you find your way to the gate’s locked doors.

The rest of us avoid it; it’s pitiful to keep company with the mindless ghouls who've stayed in the realm for too long. Unless you’re a New Spirit, and then you visit it as an attraction more than anything else.

But it is possible to find a hole in the plane, a way out of Respite, a gateway to earth that you can keep using forever. Unfortunately, they’re rare and near impossible to find. Even more are impossible to return to. And supposedly not even all of them go to Earth; I’ve heard you can go to other worlds through them, but I’ve never seen evidence.

I thought back to the calm of the final desolation as I kept a steady pace, padding on through the night now dropping like the guillotine’s ax onto the world, severing all light. The stars were glistening angelically as I rushed past the fields of grass separating rural from suburban-like a crisp green divider.

I inhaled the scents around me, relishing the wind as it streamed over my body. I can move pretty quickly when I need to. It’s been a while since I received the gift to move the wind, maybe 60 years. I have it written down somewhere. Let's just say it became much easier to use that gift once I could feel the wind everywhere.

You have to pull the wind into a tight spiral around you so that it resembles a gyrating spearhead, sharp and pointed at the head but tapering out behind. And as you funnel the air, it pushes you forward. The only trick is to move your feet fast enough to avoid a faceplant, the ingrained response to being pushed from behind.

Or if you push the air fast enough, and angle the point of the spiral slightly upward, you can take strides 15 meters long. You'd need them to be assisted by enhanced strength. And thus comes the wonderful trick of combining Glories.

And then you’re gliding, skipping on the ground like a stone over water and breathing in the air as it blisters against your face because you’re moving so fast. The only danger is that when you trip, you fall hard. And when you’re moving that fast, tripping is assured.

But all I needed to do was reach the suburbs in ten minutes, where I could probably find alternative transportation. Ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, my mind was reeling from constantly concentrating, my stomach heaving from the vertigo of sustained vertical movement, my head aching from impacting the ground like a wayward meteor, and my feet and legs burning from temporarily assuming the duties of steel springs.

Oh, and I had windburn on my exposed body parts, namely my face, but I reached the suburbs in eight minutes flat. To my chagrin, people avoided me like pestilence. The wind might imbue a haggardly appearance into those who ride her, but I was still a paying customer.

After three minutes of chasing down cars while waiting for my taxi app to find a driver, I found a train station with five parked taxis just waiting for people like me: desperate, car-less individuals willing to blow money on a few miles.