"N-No, I don't--" Liya stammered, flinching as the bird drew the white blanket around her shoulders. She clutched it around herself and got out, "I was with Vlad du Russi, h-he had a phone...but I don't know the number--"

"Ah, Vlad!" the spirit said brightly. "I know Vlad. I'll call."

"You--?" Liya started to ask, teeth chattering. The spirit reached into their tunic and pulled out--not a birdlike construct, but a chunky black cell phone. It gave off an aura of hazy yellow light as they flipped it open and looked at the masked bird.

"Veyd vid thyr?" they asked, and the bird nodded.

"At."

The spirit turned, crossbow and masked tucked under one arm, cell phone to their ear, and stalked off a short distance into the fog.

A long silence fell. The statue behind Liya cast a thin, ghostly light on the prone figure of the monster, whose dark form was beginning to be swallowed up by the fog. Liya looked at this for a while, running her mind over the night--first the newspaper in Shinobu's office, then the diving figure of the bird and the spirit in the night sky--and how much both had made her think of Hawk. She shifted slightly, shoulders hunched in the cold.

"I don't wanna be here anymore," she whispered.