Michael strode angrily through the crowd, scowling. It seemed everyone else but him was smiling and enjoying themselves. His mood, in contrast to theirs, was as black as his clothes. This is a waste of time, he thought.

He finally came to the tent he was looking for. Madame Zila, Psychic. He had already been by several tents just like hers. Phaedra, Mistress of the Tarot. Alexander, Psychic Astrologer.

He had also passed booth after booth of people hawking crystals, healing herbs, jewelry, and assorted New Age hocus pocus. Michael pursed his full lips in distaste. He didn't believe in any of it. He didn't believe in intuition.

He was here because Madame Zila was part of a mission. In fact, she was the mission.

Her real name was Tracy Oldham. An ordinary woman who had helped the police on four murder cases, now all solved because of her hints. She had also helped locate two missing children, brother and sister who had wandered away from their campsite. Both were found alive and well in the exact location in the woods that she had told the police they would be.

Madeleine was toying with the idea of recruiting her into Section One. Michael had been disgusted when Madeleine had assigned him to come here to the Physic Fair and check her out. He was the one who was to make the decision about whether Madame Zila would be of help to the Section or not.

He had tried to protest. "Madeleine, why send me? Why not one of your people who is more... attuned to this sort of thing? I don't want any part of it..."

He wasn't being insubordinate, just honest. And surprised. It wasn't his kind of mission.

Madeleine had looked at him, smiling, and said gently,"I'm sending you because if she is good enough to impress you with her gifts, then she may be good enough to be of use to us..." She paused. "Go test her, Michael," Madeleine ordered.

Now Michael sighed and entered the tent.

************

Michael sighed and entered the tent.

It wasn't exactly what he expected. Two armchairs sat on either side of a table. There was no crystal ball and no dark colors. The interior of the tent was plain white; the only adornments were several tall house plants. Soft music played from a tape deck in the corner.

Madame Zila got up from one of the chairs to greet him. "Please come in and sit down," she said.

Her voice was friendly and not at all dramatic. She wore no dark clothes, either. Her dress was simple, an attractive shade of lavender-blue, adorned only with a silver-filigreed angel pin.

She was statuesque and full-figured, and very pretty. Her thick, honey-colored hair hung down past her shoulders, framing blue eyes and pink cheeks. She looked.....wholesome.

"Madame Zila?" said Michael.

"Yes." She laughed. "I'm afraid I have no Gypsy blood. And I didn't go to Drama School like some of the others here. Perhaps Phaedra could help you..." Her eyes twinkled in amusement at his surprise.

No, that's O.K. You'll do, I guess." Michael had decided to be deliberately rude. "Are you any good?" he asked.

She took it good -naturedly. Tracy sat down again in the chair, indicating for him to sit also. "Well, just this morning I gave myself a reading. I predicted I would meet a mysterious, insolent stranger..."

He sat down in the chair across from her, relaxing a little. "I thought that was supposed to be 'mysterious, HANDSOME stranger..." he said, smiling.

She laughed again. "Oh, yes. VERY handsome." She looked at him appraisingly, and said smiling,"But insolent."

She paused, then said, "The truth is, I do have a gift. I am able to help people, and I thank God for that. The Psychic Fair isn't my usual thing, my regular gig." She looked at him. "I see it isn't yours, either. I do it once a year because the money I make here goes to charity."

She leaned forward in the chair. "I'll help you, if you want. If you don't think I'll be entertaining enough, you are certainly free to go elsewhere, with my blessing."

Michael took some money out of his pocket and laid it on the table. It was three times her usual rate for a reading.

"Thank you," she said, placing it in a jar marked with the name of a children's hospital. "You are very generous, as well as being handsome. And insolent." She smiled at him again.

"Let's begin. What is your name?" she asked.

"Michael. You can call me Michael."

She shook his hand, saying, "I'm Tracy. Zila is a stage name, could you tell?" Her eyes twinkled again. "First, I'll answer any specific questions you have. Then I'll give you an over-view of your life, past, present, and future, plus any advice I have for you. All right?"

"All right," Michael agreed.

Tracy got up and turned the sign on the outside of the tent to notify others not to disturb them, that the tent was occupied.

She seated herself again and smiled at him. "Do you have a question for me, Michael?"

"Yes," he said.

************

Michael held out a photograph to her. "What can you tell me about this man?" he asked.

"Excellent!" Tracy said. "Pictures and objects a person has owned are a great help." She took the photo from him.

"You must give me a moment..." She closed her eyes to center herself, saying her usual prayer of protection before opening herself to the images she knew would come.

Michael almost smirked, thinking it was all part of the act. He wished he were anywhere but here.

She opened her eyes and looked at the picture. She wasn't quite prepared fo the images that came to her mind.

She saw Michael entering a building and being relieved of not just one gun, but two. Men with guns surrounded him. A gleaming wood conference table. The cold eyes of the man in the picture, taunting him..."I know how much you care about your operatives..." A horrible, but seemingly innocuous box...

"Aaaahh!" She gasped and dropped the picture. "A box," she said. "A box... His name was Lang.." Her stomach lurched, and she looked into Michael's face.

He was startled by her hit, but he needed more proof. "Go on," he said calmly.

She stared at him a moment. "If you opened your coat, would there be a gun there? And another one at the small of your back?"

Michael looked back at her, his face impassive. "Go on," he said again.

She sighed and closed her eyes again. The images came again. A woman. Beautiful, tall, bright blonde hair. And a beautiful smile. Strolling slowly with her boyfriend, also blonde, around a park in winter.

The images shifted. The same girl, being tossed in the air, suddenly gone in a smoky explosion.

A necklace?

She spoke slowly. "A woman, blonde, young.." A name came to her. "Nikita?" Tracy realized that Michael was attached to her. "A necklace...a bomb in the necklace... This man..." Tracy tapped the picture. "... .this man blew her up. I see it. But she's not dead. I feel somehow she's not dead..."

Michael gasped, no longer skeptical. Would it be possible to find out about Nikita's whereabouts now, after she had been lost in the Shays mission, with Tracy's help? A thrill of hope rippled through him.

His rationality told him it was ridiculous to hope to hear anything this way, yet something else told him to try. His intuition, maybe?

"What can you tell me about her? About Nikita?" He tried to stifle the eagerness he felt, and the embarrassment of practically begging a psychic for information. His head told him to get up and leave. His heart told him to stay. Michael allowed himself to listen to the latter's insistent command.

************

Tracy pushed the offensive picture of Ilya Benko away from her and took a deep breath. "Do you have anything of hers with you? A picture, perhaps, or a piece of jewelry she wore, anything?"

"No." Everything of Nikita's was gone. She was gone. All he had was the torment of wondering where she was, if she was alive.

Tracy thought she should be afraid of this Michael, with his guns and his familiarity with violent death. But she wasn't. she was familiar with that world, too.

When she accessed the information for the police about the murder victims, she experienced it not as a detached observer, but first-hand, as a participant. Sometimes she saw things from the victim's point of view, sometimes from the killer's.

Tracy felt she had experienced first-hand being raped, killed, entrapped. She had felt the "death terror," as she called it, several times.

Being the victim was always terrible, but being the criminal was worse. The callousness and the cruelty, too, were hard to bear... Somehow she thought Michael understood both of these viewpoints, as she did.

She sighed. "You and Nikita, there is a closeness between you..."

"Yes," Michael admitted. Despite everything he and Section One had done to break it, he knew the bond between them was there. It pulled mercilessly at him since Section had had her "killed."

"Michael, it may help if I could touch that connection. May I have your hand, please?"

Silently he brought up both his hands from his lap and stretched them out to her on the table top, palms up.

She laid both of her hands lightly on top of his. She centered herself and said her prayer again.

The images flowed. Michael was dancing with the young blonde woman. With Nikita. He was saying,"Let's not fight what's between us..."

Tracy repeated this out loud to him. Michael startled. Unconsciously, Tracy began to caress his hands lying under hers, running her fingernails down his palms, then stroking them gently with the backs of her hands.

"Let's take what we can get," she whispered. Tracy intertwined her fingers with his. Her eyes still closed, she said, "She kissed you then. You always cherished that. It meant a lot to you that she kissed you first..."

She opened her eyes then. They were dreamy and far away from the romantic vision she had seen. She sighed, and then realized she was still holding his hands intimately in hers.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." she said, embarrassed, trying to collect herself. She attempted to lift her hands from his, but Michael gripped her fingers tightly.

"No," he said. "Please. Please tell me more. Tell me where she is. Tell me if she's all right..." His grip tightened. "Please..."

"O.K., Michael," she said.

************

"O.K., Michael," she said. "Why don't you help me....to link with her..."

"How?" His eyes roamed her face, searching.

"Michael, take a deep breath..." She waited until he had done so.

"Good. Close your eyes..." After a few seconds, he did. "Another breath, now..." Tracy encouraged him.

"See her in your mind's eye. See a time you felt close to her. Be there with her through the link..."

Michael still gripped her hands, but his hold was more relaxed, less desparate. He saw her! He saw her beautiful face, her luminous blue eyes. But her hair wasn't as blonde; it had a hint of red, like his... The hair was fanned out around her head. It fanned out on....a pillow.

She was sleeping, or trying to. Michael could feel her thoughts. He could feel her longing and despair, the same as his..

"I wish things could be different," said Tracy softly, her eyes also closed.

"Me, too," said Michael to the link, to the dream image of Nikita.

She was alive. She was alive missing him. He leaned back in the chair and covered his face with his hands. Would it always be this way? Would he always have this pain? Would they always be apart, needing each other?

"The future," he said suddenly, sitting up straighter and looking at Tracy. "You said you would tell me about the future..."

Tracy looked away from him. There was an unwritten rule among people with her talents. Even if you saw it plainly, one never told a client about an upcoming death. She was afraid to look into his future. She was afraid she might see his death there; the tortured young man lived so closely with it.

Michael reached across the table to take her hands again. He captured them in his, holding them firmly down on the table. Determination shone from his green eyes. "Tell me what you see," he demanded, fixing her with his gaze.

Tracy nodded. She was reluctant to look, but she knew Michael would not allow her to refuse his request.

They both closed their eyes together; both took a deep breath.

************

The images were not as sharp this time. They were hazier, more distorted, but still distinct.

"I thought I lost you," Michael was saying, holding Nikita down on the couch. He had reached the limit of his endurance, his desparation and need at their maximum. He could no longer hold back.

Nikita was distressed. She wanted to be with Michael, but did not want to be pulled back into his world. The world she had escaped from. The world of violence and death.

"Michael, please...." Tracy experienced the link from Nikita's point of view. She felt what Nikita felt. Reluctance at first, which quickly passed. It was replaced by overwhelming desire....

Michael was lost in the link, too. He felt Nikita's soft lips as he took them with his hard kisses. He was frenzied, impatient,the pent-up frustrations of the past three years were now released; they spread like fire through him, tingling in his blood.

He tasted her lips, then her throat, then her breasts. His hands moved over her, his hips pressed hard against hers.

He stretched his legs out on top of Nikita's, molding his body to hers, trying to feel her body all along his. He wanted to touch every part of her at once, not wanting any part of him to be without her touch.

There was pain for them both; emotional pain from the separation they had endured. But there was also sweetness. It sang in their blood---the sweetness of the long-awaited union of their bodies and their souls.

Michael took her then, roughly, fiercely. Maybe in some future time and place he would have a chance to make love to her leisurely, gently, but not now. Now his need was too great.

Tracy felt Nikita's frisson of triumph at causing the so self-contained Michael to lose control completely. It was a fleeting thought, lasting only a moment before she, too, was caught up in the mindless depths of passion.

Her cries of pleasure encouraged him; he tried to capture them by possessing her mouth, kissing her deeply, groaning in the back of his throat.

Nikita clutched him fiercely, her arms around his shoulders, her fingers thrust deep in his hair. In her mind, she whimpered,"Hold me. Don't ever leave me. Hold me...."

They reached fulfillment together, climaxing powerfully. It washed over them like a wave, leaving in its wake an even greater feeling.

Nikita thought this was the most tender moment she had ever known; Michael lying relaxed on top of her and in her, his face buried in her neck, his arms holding her, his heart against hers.

She was overwhelmed by the sweetness of it. the sense of completion and fulfillment. "You're mine," she whispered. "You're finally mine..." She caressed his hair, holding his face against hers....

************

"Ilove you, Michael..." whispered Tracy. Michael was still gripping her hands. She slowly became aware of herself again as Tracy, not Nikita.

She opened her eyes.

Michael was looking at her, gratitude in his eyes. Tracy smiled at him. Neither one was embarrassed. The moment had been too sacred for that.

"Thank you," Michael said. The assurance of knowing Nikita was alive, that they would be together, had brought him a sense of peace and healing. He thought now it was possible to survive, to go on until that future moment occured.

Michael would repay Tracy for this healing by making sure she would never meet Madeleine, never enter the world of Section One. Michael would lie, saying he was unimpressed with her gifts.

He released her hands and stood up. Tracy rose from her seat also. "Goodbye," he told her, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

As he was turning to leave, she said, "Michael, please wait..."

"Yes?" His eyes were kind now, no longer angry like the first time he had looked at her.

"Would you let me pray for you?"

He was startled, but said softly,"All right..." He stood still, unsure what to do, but trusting her.

She approached him and put one hand lightly on the crown of his head. The other she lifted palm upward to the heavens.

They both closed their eyes, and Tracy began. "Lord Jesus," she said softly,"Bless this man and keep his paths safe. Please send your angels to watch over him. Grant him his heart's desire. May he blessed with Love and Peace. Amen." She finished and dropped her hands to her sides.

"Take care of yourself, Michael." Tracy smiled. "And Nikita," she added.

"You do the same, Tracy." He hugged her tightly for a moment, then left.

Tracy made no effort to turn the sign to "OPEN" again on the outside of the tent. Instead, she sat down in the chair again, thinking. "I really should pray for Nikita, too..."

She laughed suddenly. God is good. she thought. God had already answered her prayer before she even said it. Nikita was already blessed. She already had an "angel" watching over her.

Tracy shook her head and laughed again. "And a very sexy angel, at that," she said aloud.

Sill smiling to herself, she closed up shop and went home.

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