Walking along the bike path, Tasìa got lost in the scent of hyacinth.

She hummed to herself.

She recalled the melody her mother sang while caressing the strings of her guitar with long, dagger-sharp nails in brittle strum.

The words of the old Andalusian folk tune came back to her.

- Esa sensación de estar abrumada, las lágrimas se lavaron.

- That feeling of being overwhelmed, the tears washed away.

Tasìa let no concern enter her mind but the scent of flowers, and the call and cah of the crows she had just noticed, though they had been present ever since she merged onto the path.

Tasìa arched her head up for a better view of them. She saw the birds; they were not those of the Old Watcher.

These birds were not so lithe as his, nor were they curious to examine her.

They were wild and feral, unknowing things, not overseers over humankind.

Ninety more minutes of walking on the bike trail, Tasìa had made five miles of progress when the trail crossed a roadway leading into town.

She also caught a bit of good fortune.

A food truck had stopped beside the road for a moment and Tasìa walked briskly to catch up with the two women occupants who emerged from its cabin.

Tasìa took out a roll of bills from her fanny pack and waved the money in the air.

"Senoras! Senoras!," she yelled to the pair as they attempted to furl an unraveled canopy back in place.

"I will buy you your gas mileage for the day, and some food and a drink if you can get me into town."

She waived two twenty USDs in front of the two fortyish women. "It is yours for a ride into town."

The two strangers were glad to accommodate.

As they rode down the road, the two ladies proved to be too polite to ask questions about the grungy T-shirt Tasìa wore. Nor ask about the blood-stain where the shirt clung to her abdomen.

Tasìa examined the wound before she had run into the women. It was mostly calloused over.

She also concluded that the jag created in the stitch work was minimal in its damage to how the flesh would set.

Tasìa supplied them with a story. She told the workers that she had been mauled by deer while hiking. A soiled rip on the back of the shirt from where she barely dodged the ascospore only made her story more believable.

"The hell with walking, I'm buying a bike," she told them to explain why she continued her journey toward the town.

Tasìa dared not tell them the truth of the spore's attempt to trap her.

Though everyone experienced the dreams, and everyone knew of the Manifest and many had also seen their kin succumb, what Tasìa experienced would have sounded like a bout of schizophrenia to most people who lived in the Quadra.

Such was the effectiveness of the Salvage's social engineering, as it had been designed to allay fear and unrest.

Tasha found out she needed not to have worried.

One of the ladies, who gave her name as Ramona, told her many people now avoided the bike paths. Strange things were known to happen.

Raising her head in an expression of ominous affectation, Romana held Tasha's attention with narrow dark eyes and long brows cast like a gypsy fortune teller.

The woman proclaimed.

"The old troubles, they are returning."

In return, Tasìa gave her a nervous stutter, feigning naïvete to such matters.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

They soon reached Villa Marròn.

When the food truck stopped at a light where they faced the familiar statuary of a feminine angel leading soldiers heavenward, Tasìa looked up and then towards the Southwest.

Still no crows.

There were always crows here at Plaza del Centro Muerto.

Tasìa turned towards Romana.

"Where have the crows gone," she asked.

The lady grinned as she nodded forward.

"They have followed their master."

A few blocks forward, Tasìa could make out the shape of cages atop a five-story building. Indeed, crows flew to and fro from the cages with strident purpose in the span of their wings.

It was the administrative building of their destination, the open market square.

The truck stopped in the parking lot Romona took Tasìa's hand.

"I can't have you go into town looking so grungy."

She grabbed an advertisement t-shirt for their food truck franchise from the back seat of the cabin.

It read, La Cocina Fusionistas.

Tasìa insisted on paying for it.

"The money is nothing to me compared to having your respect as my peer, Romona."

Tasìa gave her yet another pair of twenty-dollar bills, USD, for the shirt before she jumped out of the truck.

Her eventual target was a half-of-a-mile to the southwest. She could see the uneven rooftops of the brownstones from where she now stood.

However, Tasìa was famished. The aroma of the food packed in the back of the truck worked on both her appetite and her senses as she listened to Ramona tell her about the experiences she had as a young cook working in Lima, Peru at the cross-cultural restaurant Chiba's.

There were a fair number of people of Japanese descent in that city whose zest for the vida loca and haute couture of Miraflores made her experiences there the most memorable in her life, Romona so proclaimed.

Tasìa purchased three ceviches rolled in steamed rice paper as the ladies set up their business. They were not really ready for any customers.

Still, they were eager to accommodate their new little friend who didn't mind throwing her money around.

Tasìa preferred to eat fish with a white wine or a light, fruited liquor instead of a soda, but her lips were too parched to be choosy.

After the kind of morning she had had, Tasìa was glad to have the hydration and the protein from the fish.

Even still, though famished, Tasìa relished every delicious bite.

With that taken care of, and her lunch out of the way, Tasìa concentrated on her mission.

She wanted to surveil her destination before she approached any closer to it.

In prison, a friend who was from this very region told her that the stoner cult, her target, had grown distrustful and insular since Tasìa had last been in Villa Marròn, nearly two years previously.

Casing the place, as she was planning to do, had to be done with care. This close to the downtown, it was too easy for her to appear conspicuous. Strangers were assumed to be grifters if they did not blend in very well.

Tasìa looked to her first destination.

The maze of booths along the asphalt car lot was centered around the old five-story high red brick building she had spotted earlier. She had in mind to pay the Old Watcher a visit.

The ladies Tasìa accompanied were already entering the building to pay their lot rental fee.

Tasìa caught up to them.

"Do you think they would mind if I used their restroom," Tasìa asked.

"All you can do is ask," answered Ramona.

Tasha noticed the other woman looked off into the opposite distance. A reflective glass surface on the door beside the lady revealed a sly smile.

Otherwise, the woman had proved to be quite capable of keeping her opinions to herself.

Tasìa had squatted and pissed an hour before along the trail after convincing herself nothing else crazy was going to happen in the nearby woods.

However, she had another purpose for the private occupancy a restroom would provide.

Once inside the lobby, to her fortune, the staff ignored her as they were too busy with other matters. One merchant was loud and complaining about some contractual obligation owed him; he made a show of himself.

Thank you, asshole, thought Tasìa.

She could talk her way into almost anyone's good graces, but it was better to avoid unnecessary contact while casing a target.

She made her way to the public restroom. It was a small accommodation where one was expected to lock the door when using it.

Tasìa didn't bother.

Tasìa checked the window over the sink. It was small but she could slip through. She saw that it opened to a rear lot. Four cars, none of them occupied.

She watched the lot for any activity as she took a few minutes to clean herself up with soap and paper towels. The latter she used to scrub her face and dab her underarm downy dry.

It was not likely anyone else would show up in the back lot before noon break. The staff whose vehicles occupied the lot were stuck inside at work until then.

Tasìa slung her fanny pack around her shoulder. Even her tiny size zero waist was a tight fit through the window.

Once through the window, she scooted up the side of the building, and onto the roof. A crow whose piercing eyes were as old as two lumps of coal greeted her with a low polite, 'cah.'

A cochlear implant, a miniature twin of Felicité's own, set on the side of its head.

She pulled herself onto the roof. An old man stood before her and smiled as he offered his hand.

"Tasìa, old Mel there told me you were on your way."

"Cuervo, it has been a long time coming," she said to the father of the only man with whom she had ever fallen in love.