log: chicago - atticus/matt
It only took two days for Matt to reach Chicago in the sleek rental. A few hours of sleep here and there were more than enough to keep him on the road. They felt like a luxury, really. He could have driven straight through, but he knew he'd be better off with a little rest every once in a while.
There was no chance that he would take a commercial flight to Chicago and drive back from there. He hadn't set foot within five miles of an airport since he left scorched earth behind him in Europe, and that wasn't going to change now. He might be employed by Aegis these days, but there were others in half a dozen countries who might want him. He had earned enough credit with the government for a couple days leave on the other side of the country, and it wasn't as if they wouldn't know where he was every step of the way.
A car rental wasn't ideal, but it was a clean, cash-only transaction. He couldn't account for every risk, but he went out of his way to pick a tiny rental lot well outside the Capital, far enough from Repose that it was unlikely to be watched for its vicinity to the facility. The car was the best on the lot, in black.
He put it through its paces over the next 48 hours. When he slept, he slept in motel parking lots and splayed across the leather seats, hat tipped across his face. He spent a lot of the time playing music and thinking about Atticus' decision. When he stopped to eat, he read about werewolves on the internet. Probably inadvisable. Werewolves were apparently monsters from another dimension, or mentally ill human beings, or fighting with vampires for a mousy girl's love. Apparently.
He'd brought his improvised medkit on the trip, and that was all he carried with him to the door when he finally pulled up in front of the house in Oak Park. It was a well-appointed street of old houses within spitting distance of the worst neighborhoods in the city. That closeness of the middling in old places and the poor next door that rang a faint, warm chime in his head, along with a number of other, less friendly, equally familiar sensations.
He wore a battered black baseball cap and a worn t-shirt under an equally worn black jacket. His clothes were clean, and he was clean-shaven, surprisingly enough. He'd had a shower in Oklahoma, but there was no question he smelled like the road.
Was someone playing a saxophone?
The man who answered the door was handsome, young, dark-skinned, and maybe a little pensive. Matt knew already that the full moon had been the night before - there was no avoiding it in his idle werewolf research. "You're good," he said, when the door opened. He liked to think he knew good jazz when he heard it, and this handsome guy and his playing surfaced something very old and deeply contented, something a little dangerous. Whatever he felt about Atticus being here (who bit him? Was it this one?), Matt put on his best smile. The old memory made it easier. "I'm Matt," he added. He was expected, he assumed.
Apparently so, because he got a kind welcome from the saxophone-playing wolf and an escort up the stairs two steps behind him. The house was warm inside against the late winter chill. Snow clung to his boots from the walk, and there were a few inches on the ground outside. The saxophone player made small talk about the weather (Late in the season for a storm like this) and Matt wondered to himself whether this was the kind of place wolves usually lived. He didn't know enough to tell. PJ lived out at the garage. Atticus would be a wolf at a bed and breakfast.
The thought cast a shadow over his expression, and when they stopped at the top landing, he nodded curtly to saxophone-playing Stephen and pushed the door open.