The Agency, Volume III Read online

  She found herself comparing him to Ardeth—Rowan was thinner, and a little shorter, and while the last year had built up his muscle considerably he didn’t have the chiseled upper arms of a blacksmith or the pure physical power. The power he did have, however, more than made up for it; he knew instinctively what she wanted, and how to build the energy between them. Every flick of his fingers drew an intensity of pleasure from her body that no one else had ever even approached. Their friendship gave them both insight into each other, but Rowan had knowledge beyond that, able to read her instantly and deliver on every promise made by lips and tongue. He kissed his way along her shoulder, sucking hard on her skin, but not hard enough to leave marks.

  The falling water caught the light of the candles she’d lit in lieu of turning on the overhead light, and for a moment she felt again some of the magic she had felt on Beltaine, something bigger than both of them quietly entering her skin in rhythm with their bodies. By the time Sara’s knees gave out and she had to lean back against him, his arms holding her up long enough for her to come screaming with an echo off the tiles, the steam-filled room had become a temple all its own, holiness passing between them, leaving her close to tears…and nearly sending them both to the floor.

  Her limbs shaking, Sara climbed out of the shower and groped for a towel, sinking wet and naked onto the closed toilet lid. She simply couldn’t stand up anymore.

  She held the towel out wordlessly and Rowan took it, wrapping it around his waist and following her example to sit down on the side of the tub. His wet hair was sticking out at odd angles and he was still dripping wet, both of which would have been incredibly arousing if Sara had had any energy left to feel it.

  “What’s going on?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know.” Rowan reached over and twisted the cold water faucet, which had a habit of leaking, until the drip stopped. “That dream I told you about…in it my mother said everything was going to change.”

  Sara yanked a second towel from the rack behind her head and started drying herself off without standing up. “Rowan…there’s something I didn’t tell you about my dream…in it, your mom told her friend that she had to protect you, that you were their only hope. She said you were Jenai.”

  Rowan’s eyebrows shot up, and he half-smiled at the seriousness on her face. “She may have believed that,” he said, not seeming surprised or disturbed. “She was a scholar of our history and myths, and though she was loved by most of the Clan, there were some who thought—quite rightly—she was a bit of a…I think she would be considered something of a conspiracy buff if she had been human. To her everything was part of a story, usually something grand and dire. A lot of Merry-Begotten children are attributed the Goddess and God as parents, but for the most part no one actually believes that; it’s just assumed that the mother and father don’t want their coupling to be common knowledge. But Mother was adamant about it in my case.”

  “You’re not worried it might be true? Even after what she said in your dream about the Sibyl? Doesn’t that mean the Jenai are real?”

  “Not necessarily. I fully intend to try and find out—she warned me about the Seraph, after all, so there may be something to the rest. But Sara, try not to read too much into it. We don’t know where this has come from or what the full meaning of it is. Besides, whether the Jenai were real or not, they’re gone now. I was born to an Elven woman who was born of an Elven woman, not a demigod.”

  Sara let him pull her to her feet and guide her back into the bedroom, where she dug out some clothes for both of them. He’d been keeping a change or two in her apartment for a long time and it had come in handy more than once.

  “But what about what happened to us on Beltaine?” she asked, pulling on her faded jeans with the worn-out knees and a battered grey bra. “What if the legends are talking about trance possession, like Drawing Down the Moon? If that happened to both your father and your mother when you were conceived, you could be considered a child of the gods.”

  Rowan looked thoughtful. “I suppose. But there’s no way to know if that happened. And there’d be no way to prove it—I haven’t exactly started manifesting godlike powers lately. Now, let’s go eat. I’m starving and I’m sure you are too.”

  Sara didn’t want to drop the conversation, but she could tell the subject was wearing on Rowan, and after the week he’d had she decided to just let it go for now. She wondered if Frog would be up for helping her do a bit of side research about the Jenai; she knew how to search the species database, but he had access to a lot of information banks all over the country that most people didn’t as head of his lab. Plus, he had a knack for finding just the right thing at the right time, often purely by accident. Sage always had him do her Googling for her.

  She managed to put it all out of her mind while they had dinner; quite a few people came up to their table to welcome her back, and between that and the delicious veggie lasagna that was on the menu that night she was grateful for the distractions. Life was already weird enough without making it weirder with talk of gods and goddesses walking the Earth.

  "Tell me about this new thing, the Seraph," Sara said as they were starting on dessert, she a piece of chocolate cake--the Elves of Clan Willow didn't grow chocolate, so most of them had never tasted it, which might be the only bad thing about them--and Rowan an enormous bowl of tropical fruit with some kind of whipped tofu cream concoction on top. "Has the kid woken up yet?"

  "Only briefly, and only once. He didn't recognize anyone, not even Jason, and he had no idea where he was. He was in pain from whatever the hell is happening to him and they sedated him. I wasn't there, but Nava said things got a little scary."

  "Poor thing," Sara said. "I think. I'm still not convinced this thing is a good guy, if it was willing to take over an innocent person's body like this and use Jason to get its own way."

  "It was desperate," Rowan replied, though she sensed he was inclined to agree with her. "People do desperate things to survive." He stared down into his fruit, pushing it around with the spoon. "Besides, it's not as if Jason was struggling all that hard against it."

  Sara looked up from her cake, surprised. "Are you jealous?"

  The Elf sighed. "I don't know. I shouldn't be, should I? It's just...all this time I've been with other people, and he's never even looked sideways at anyone, and now he decides to take a lover, and not only does he bring him across, he heals him with music, and brings him home into our lives, and I'm supposed to...what, pretend it's fine because I've slept with other people perfectly within the parameters of our relationship? Is that fair? Does this whole thing really operate on zero sum?"

  "I hope not," Sara said. "You two are supposed to be more enlightened than the rest of us."

  Rowan made a noise halfway between a laugh and a snort. "Older doesn't mean more enlightened. It just means we tend to fuck up on a grander scale."

  Sara reached across the table and took his hand. "Honey, you know Jason loves you. I'll bet you a dollar he never lets another guy within ten feet of him after this. He'd stake himself with a box of toothpicks before he'd hurt you."

  "I know." Rowan held onto her hand for a while, and Sara felt a stab of guilt for staying with Clan Willow instead of coming home to be there for him when he had needed someone to talk to.

  The Elf looked up at her. "Don't you dare feel guilty, Sara Larson."

  She smiled. "Get out of my head, pointy-ears."

  "I'm serious. I'm glad you're home, but I'm even gladder that you had a chance to have the week you did, weird dreams notwithstanding. You deserve to be happy. Don't ever doubt that."

  Sara contemplated his words all evening, through the rest of dessert and after when she went back to her own place to finish unpacking and get things together to start a new week. Her apartment was stuffy and needed tidying, and she had to pacify her cat, so she puttered around folding laundry and putting away the odd misplaced book, wondering how she had ever come to have the life she now led. Had it be
en that long ago she'd been a temp file clerk going from job to job without purpose or place? She hadn't been happy, really, but it had never occurred to her she deserved anything more. Most people could never imagine a life like hers--she still couldn't, some days. Even on a terrible day she woke up amazed that she got to inhabit a world full of such incredible people and unbelievable things.

  Elves, vampires, Naiads, demons, and now some sort of strange angel...truth was weirder than science fiction.

  Of course, even Witches working with supernatural creatures and having spectacular adventures were subject to certain unfortunate side effects of real life, as Sara learned the next morning when she woke dizzy and nauseated and had to run to the bathroom to throw up.

  *****

  "I don't understand," he said.

  Neneva was standing beneath the Blessing Tree, her fingers caressing its rough bark. The Tree was still tied with ribbons from the last Equinox celebration, festive reds and violets fluttering among its new Spring green leaves. Neneva's eyes, the same bright green, lifted to his. The terrible urgency of their last meeting had been replaced with the quiet calm he remembered so well from his childhood. She had never once raised her voice to him, or to anyone that he could recall.

  "A storm is coming," she remarked. "The Winter shall be washed away and Spring will come at last."

  He shook his head and walked closer to her. "Mother, please--I need to know what's happening. Who is the Sibyl? How do I find her? And what am I?"

  Neneva leaned her forehead against the tree, and she sounded tired as she replied, "I've been looking for you for so long. It broke my heart that you left behind your name, but I understand why." Her eyes fixed on him again, and he saw that they had changed color, fading to a soft blue-violet while her hair began to lose its browns and greens and lighten, shade by shade, to white. "I did the same myself after I lost you."

  "Mother--"

  "Return to the Clan," she said, cutting him off. "Look for the Silent among them. You never did enter the Temple, did you? To think that after all the years of training by my side, you would forsake your Goddess...I am sorry for that. But She is still there."

  "The Clan--Clan Willow? You want me to go back there and go to the Temple? What will I find?"

  But the dream was fading, her image breaking up into static as something beyond sleep pulled him back from its painful grasp. He strained to hear if she replied, but it was too late; he could feel his body around him again, and feel the weight of blankets and arms around him.

  Rowan's eyes flew open, and he came fully awake breathing hard and struggling against something he couldn't name. But there was a body against his in the bed, a murmured voice at his ear, and after a moment he let the comfort it offered seep in.

  "It's all right," he heard, as he felt fingers carding through his hair. "You're safe."

  He turned toward the voice and met deep blue eyes. "Jason?"

  An amused smile. "Very good, amori."

  Rowan took a deep breath and relaxed, realizing where he was and that he was awake now, his mother only a memory that had come back to haunt his sleep. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you."

  Jason nuzzled his ear. "You didn't. I had just come back from the bathroom and you were thrashing around muttering in Elvish about your mother. I wouldn't have woken you but you seemed afraid."

  Rowan couldn't help but smile at that; even when it was only a dream Jason couldn't stand the thought of him hurt or in jeopardy. "I'm okay. Really."

  "Good..." Jason wound himself around Rowan, and the Elf noticed that he had elevated his body temperature just enough to soothe Rowan's nerves, his warm skin more comforting than a dozen blankets as he wrapped one leg around Rowan and curved one hand around his neck.

  Rowan breathed in the scents of shampoo, coffee, and immortality, settling happily and closing his eyes. "What time is it?" he asked.

  "Two in the afternoon," Jason said without looking at the clock. "It's raining again."

  "Mmm...that's one of the few things I miss about living above...listening to it rain."

  "I can hear it down here. It makes me have to pee."

  Rowan chuckled. "So that's what woke you up."

  Jason's tone was serious as he said, "You've given up a lot for me. I hope it's worth it."

  Rowan opened his eyes and regarded his lover, blinking at the change in subject. "I don't feel like I've given up anything. The rain is still there, after all. So is the sun--I can still see it when I want to. But I'd rather be awake with you than with the sun."

  "I hope nothing ever happens to change your mind. When I think about how stupid I was, bringing Alex here, I..."

  Rowan laid his hand gently on Jason's mouth, shushing him. "Don't. Listen to me...are you listening? I won't deny I was angry with you. And I won't deny I'm not still conflicted about the whole thing. But one way or another we're going to get through this, and we'll deal with whatever happens. I'm with you, and I'm not going anywhere." Rowan lifted his arm and clinked his bracelet against the vampire's. "Now stop beating yourself up about it or I'll have to kick your ass."

  Jason laughed. "All right, all right. I'll try."

  "Good. Now go back to sleep. We both have work tonight and I have a feeling we're going to need the rest."

  "Yes, sir," Jason said. "Anything you say."

  Of course, before either of them could fall asleep, a good-night kiss led into hands meandering over muscles, then to Jason's mouth meandering down over Rowan's navel, the two of them touching sleepily but hungrily, the vampire leaving a trail of firm bites along the Elf's hip, promising more with each kiss--

  --until the emergency message erupted from the computer in the living room, startling Jason so badly he nearly bit down somewhere he really shouldn't, and causing Rowan to almost fall off the bed entirely.

  "Fucking hell," Jason swore, trying to untangle himself from the covers and Rowan's limbs and reach the computer before whomever it was calling resorted to the overhead intercom and woke up half the base.

  Rowan let him go first, then got up and grabbed his robe from the door hook, tying it around his middle as he half-staggered into the living room. Jason was standing in front of the monitor, and Rowan noted thankfully that he'd found a pair of sweats somewhere between the bedroom and there, so he wasn't addressing Ness naked again.

  "We need you both at the research suite," Ness was saying. "Immediately."

  "What happened?" Jason demanded.

  The Director's face was grim as she said, "He's awake."

  Part Nine

  The bedroom of the research suite was dark, lit only by a single lamp on low. At some point all the furniture had been removed except for the bed, which was pushed back against the wall.

  “Who did this?” Jason asked softly as he, Rowan, Nava, and Ness carefully entered the room.

  “He did,” Nava replied. “He asked for the rest to be taken out, to give him room.”

  “Room for what?” Rowan asked.

  “Just watch.”

  Nava moved out in front of them, peering into the darkness that had gathered around the bed, where curtains had been hung, creating a sort of cave. Jason could sense the presence inside it, and his mind went blaring into overdrive trying to figure out what exactly he was feeling—it was Alex, and yet…deeply not. Something was very, very different, and his heart hammered in his chest in fear of what it might be.

  “Alex?” Nava called. “You have visitors.”

  There was a long silence, then a whispered voice asked, “Who?”

  Jason stepped forward. “It’s me, Alex. It’s Jason. Come out where I can see you.”

  The whisper took on a tone of longing. “Jason…my sire…”

  “Yes.”

  “You saved me. You healed me.”

  Jason closed his eyes briefly, trying to accept what he knew was the truth. “I saved Alex. I don’t know who you are.”

  There was movement, and a hand moved out of the shadows to
curl around one of the curtains, drawing it aside. It was Alex’s slender hand, one Jason knew well…but the way it moved was completely different, slow and graceful. As the boy emerged from the cavern of bed linens, he tilted his head to one side, breathing them in, seeing and hearing things he shouldn’t be able to, his eyes a dark silver-black that they should not have been.

  “In your expert opinion, SA-7,” Ness asked, “Is this a vampire?”

  Jason watched Alex move, watched the almost serpentine way he swept his gaze over them, watched the odd light in his eyes that was strangely familiar and yet more alien than anything Jason had ever seen before. “No.”