The rain is banging a heavy drumbeat on the cab roof as we crawl through the traffic. I tell Elena about the guy who'd been following us; she tells me she doesn't like it one bit and that he must be an agent and the I.D just has to be fake.

"You guys were that bad?" I retort. "That you'd walk up to your mark in a bar and talk to him? Then let yourselves get seen at an airport? And drive directly behind him when you're meaning to surreptitiously follow?"

She concedes that they probably weren't that bad. And that he might not have been an agent. But she still doesn't like that someone was hired to watch me.

"That makes two of us," I say. The answerphone number is weighing heavy in my jacket pocket, and I'm wondering whether to try get it traced or to just give it a call. Probably the former's smarter -- I'll just need to find someone who can do it.

The clouds are roiling grey masses above us, and the late afternoon has been swallowed whole by their shadows. The hotel -- Grand Lake Resort -- is a white-brick art nouveau affair, that looked like a museum in the daylight, but now, with its domed spires that twist up to the clouds, it looks more like a gothic cathedral.

I pay the cab driver and heave Elena's luggage through the wide double doors. It's not where I'd meant for her to stay -- I had enough spare room at my apartment, and would only have needed to kick a couple of spiders out to accommodate her. But I don't like the thought that my place was being watched.

"I like it," she says, twirling around the reception, taking in the quasi-religious frescos on the walls and ceiling. Angels sipping tea civilly, or playing cards with one another. "What a wonderful place. So grand and dramatic."

I grunt and head to the reception. Different fella tapping keys today, but he takes my card just like they all do.

"I got you a room on the twelfth," I say when I return to Elena. "If the rain clears up, you'll get a pretty good view of the lake behind the hotel. Hear it can be kind of pretty."

We're at the lift waiting for it to come down when the patter of shoes on marble floor causes us both to turn. Then, small hands are wrapped tight around my waist and I'm finding myself in my second embrace of the day. And I'm trying to recall the last time I was hugged prior to today -- but nothing comes to mind.

I barely recognize her in the yellow dress. Her hair's gone from a tangle of auburn knots to something like silk. Her skin's clean and I'm realizin' she's actually kinda pretty.

"Hey, Lilly." I don't know whether to pat her head -- never been too instinctively paternal. In the end, I give her a quick squeeze.

"Lillith!" comes a voice that's in hot pursuit. A member of staff is red-cheeked and panting as he plods after her. "Come. Here."

Lilly looks up at me. "They found me a tutor."

"Ah, well, that's my fault. I asked them to. Education is important, I hear. Teach yourself to fish and you can keep on catching fish. Or somethin' like that."

"I know you did." Those big saucer eyes are staring at me like a cat. "Thank you."

She looks at Elena.

"Hello," says Elena, puzzled but smiling.

"Are you his girlfriend?"

She frowns. "No."

"You're pretty enough to be."

Elena laughs. "Why, thank you. And you are...?"

"He might not be the most handsome guy, but he's plenty handsome inside."

"Gee, thanks."

The staff member finally catches up. "Come on, Lillith. He'll be here in a minute."

I nod to her. "Good luck. I'll come check on you soon, okay?" My glance switches to the guy who is now holding her hand. "And if anyone here doesn't treat you so good, you just tell me, okay?"

The man's cheeks turn a strange mix of pale white and hot red. He turns and trots Lilly away.

The girl looks back over her shoulders at us; Elena gives her a wave, and Lilly returns it.

Then the lift arrives with a ding and I tell Elena about Lilly as I take her to her room.

I wait at the bar until Elena comes down again. She wanted to freshen up, so I suggested meeting downstairs in an hour and getting dinner in the hotel's restaurant when she was ready. Could talk over what we needed to with a little food in front of us. Talking was usually better that way.

I didn't expect the floral dress, saffron and ochre in weaving twists and bright bursts of color. Maybe it's a casual dress on some ladies, but it ain't causal the way it fits her curves. I didn't expect Elena's eyes to be darker either, lips to be redder, legs to be more on show. Didn't expect the stir of blood in my groin.

"You ready?"

I feel like I'm on a date, which is dumb, 'cause this is the opposite. All the same, I wish I wasn't wearing a jacket older than Lilly, especially when I could have afforded something nicer. Cleaned my boots, too. That would have been smart.

I down my pint and get to my feet, "You look good. Not that you need the makeup or nothing. Just mean... You know..."

A pretty, painted smile. "Thanks."

We go to the dining hall and I ask for a table in the corner. Shame, 'cause Elena looks like something that deserves to be shown off, but our conversation don't need extra ears.

I order a bottle of red and a bottle of white. "Don't usually drink plonk," I explain, "but--"

"Plonk?"

"Wine. English call it that. Musta picked it up when we were stationed over there, back when the London got, well, you know."

She nods. "We were still allied with them back then, weren't we?"

I wonder how much younger than me she is? A few years, at least. I'd ask, but it's rude to do so. So I'll wait until she's had a couple of glasses of wine before I do. "Yeah. We were allied up until then. So the Whitehouse sent us over to help maintain the status quo while a new government could be set up in Manchester."

"You were like a riot squad?"

"Right. But on a nationwide level. Shit was pandemonium."

She nods and looks concerned, but she doesn't probe too far, and I'm glad she doesn't. Civilian deaths weren't what any of us wanted, and not only did we play our part in killing an old alliance, but we gained a lot of bad publicity from the whole circus. Took years for the Guards to repair that image even in America.

A waiter pours a puddle of wine into my glass and asks if I'd like a taste. "Better she does," I say. "I don't know good wine from rat poison."

He obliges. Elena approves with a curt nod and the waiter fills our glasses.

Small talk over, I dive in. "What happened to the baby, Elena?"

She takes a sip of her white then leans back, shaking her head. "I don't know, exactly."

"What do you know?"

She shrugs. "I know that you woke up on a sickbed, rolled out and then left without asking to see her again."

That stings like a dagger to the heart. I want to tell her I regret it, but just say, truthfully, "I had to get out of there as soon as I could." It hadn't been quite as quick as she'd made out though. I'd first been debriefed, filled them in on most of it -- but not on the beak, not on the message scrawled next to the baby. Then, after making sure they'd wired me my money, I'd been wheeled out and driven home.

"What happened to her?" I repeat.

"You know what that baby was capable of better than anyone. Saw what she had already done. She would have been dangerous to keep fully conscious, so for most of her time with us, she was drugged into a stupor. As bad as it sounds, it seemed to stop the contagion."

It takes me a moment to realize how tight I'm holding my glass.

"She wasn't hurt, not as far as I know," Elena adds to placate me the tiniest fraction.

"And then?"

"Then she was taken away by another agency. I wasn't involved and don't know anything about it, other than one day I came in, and she was gone."

"How do you know she was even taken, then? And not buried in a shallow grave somewhere out back?"

Her eyes are moist by the time she replies. "I was told that was what happened. By Rupert. And I asked around, and a guy who worked nightshift told me a bunch of vans had turned up about two AM. So, I think it's true." A pause. "It could be true."

She wants to believe its true. Needs to, maybe. But I need the real truth. "But you don't know it's what happened for certain. And if it is, where the fuck is she now?"

She shakes her head softly. "I don't know. We weren't told where she was taken, just that she was no longer our responsibility. That if we spoke about this to anyone -- family, friends, press -- then..." Her voice trails off.

"Then what?"

"It was never exactly said. But we all knew. There had been deaths in the organization already. I don't mean the Storm Borns."

We pause as the waiter returns, topping up our glasses and taking our orders.

"Look, Sammy, that's not the only reason I decided to talk to you. The baby, I mean. There's other stuff too, that's... It's eating away at me. And it might be related, or it might not be."

I wince, not wanting to want to hear other stuff if it's worse than what she's already said. But I have to hear it.

"How long did you work for them?" I ask.

"Eight months."

"Okay. That's not long."

"Long enough. Sam -- can I call you Sam?"

I always hated the name. Formal and stuffy. Not "Samuel" level, but one step below. But hearing Elena say it, it sounds maybe not so bad. "Sure."

She gives me the ghost of a smile. "Sam, my job for most of my time in the agency was to chase Storms -- chase the natural disasters that created them."

"Right. To find people like me. 'Cept there ain't been people like me in a decade, 'part from the baby I found."

"That's... I don't think that's quite right."

I'm getting used to this familiar sinking feeling -- the feeling that says: boy Sammy, you had it all wrong again and things are probably a lot more fucked than even you thought. "What's not quite right, exactly?"

A long sigh. "I don't know this for certain, Sam. I doubt many people did, except those right at the top. Maybe some of the Storm Guard too. It would explain a few of their deaths, like the Pitt twins."

Ah Jesus, now I really don't want to hear it, because I think I know what's coming."

"I think we found plenty of new Storm Born, Sam."

The glass of wine hovers before my mouth for what seems like an hour, but it's probably only a second in reality.

"And I think we killed them all."