The Agency, Volume II Page 3

  I half expected someone to pound on the wall to silence me, but no one did. They were probably used to my playing by now--I had been at it for weeks, dusk till dawn and sometimes all morning until sleep found me.

  I was not an empath, exactly, but had something like the gift that was almost as strong as my ability to read minds; Fox had spotted my ability to read emotion through music, and to manipulate it. He had intended to teach me to master it when I was powerful enough to call it forth at will. It had remained a bit unpredictable, and I was secretly glad we’d never gotten around to working with it, as the idea was frightening--I wanted to create beauty, not change people. It was one thing he and I had never agreed on.

  It meant, however, that the deeper I slid into the music, the more clearly I could feel what was going on next door. I could have blocked it off pretty easily if I’d wanted to, but something drew me in, and I let my awareness move through the wall.

  Fear. Fear, and pain. All was not well with the woman; she was too old for this baby, and had been sick and weak for months. Her husband had confidence in the midwife, but beneath it was more fear--he loved his wife, had known her since they were children, and he prayed continuously as he paced that she might live through the birth. She was a part of his soul, without her he would be a hollow thing, a ghost confined to a moving body…

  I knew that feeling. It had been my life for two years.

  The village men had laughed at the neighbor, who had two daughters and no sons--girls were worthless, he’d better pray for a boy this time. And it was true that he had been inattentive to his daughters and had hoped for a son--but if his wife could only live, it didn’t matter. If the gods gave him another girl it didn’t matter. They would find a way to afford three dowries. Just let his wife live.

  The wife, too, was afraid. The pain was wrong, it was sharp and strange. The baby had stopped moving in her belly. The midwife’s face was grave and ashen. There was too much blood.

  I’m going to die…oh, my poor husband, my poor daughters. Mother and Father, Grandmother, please take care of the little one, I will be there with you all soon.

  I found myself caught up in their struggles, in the immediacy of their world. I had tried hard to hate humans. I had tried to hold myself apart. Yet here they were, and they were just ordinary people, brave and trying so hard just to live…to live.

  And here I was--I would live forever, and I would never live at all.

  I altered the direction of the music, taking it toward a theme I had memorized as I stalked around the village streets. Traditional Japanese instruments were not to my taste, but I had heard something there, something serene and eternal that spoke of the land beneath our feet and the distant past shrouded in mist and memory. I wove that into what I was creating, and reached out to the woman as another contraction hit her.

  It’s all right, I thought, to her or to myself I didn’t know. Don’t be afraid.

  There was one last wrenching scream, and silence fell beyond the wall.

  I knew what I was sensing, but I refused to accept it, and wrapped a blanket of music around the little one who lay unmoving in the midwife’s arms.

  Was there a purpose to anything? Did my living and loss mean anything in this place? Did anyone’s? There seemed to be no answers, not even for the undying.

  I might live a thousand years and never love anything again the way this fisherman loved his wife--but damned if I was going to let something so small and precious slip away, not without a fight.

  And if there was one thing I knew how to do, it was fight.

  I imagined I could see the baby’s heart, its tiny lungs that had never drawn a breath of air, and together, the Tempest and I pulled.

  I heard a low murmur in Japanese--the midwife, telling the woman there was nothing she could do, that the cord had wrapped around the baby’s throat and it was too late. The midwife pressed cloths between the woman’s legs; she had fully expected the woman to die, but somehow the bleeding had slowed and stopped, her womb closing as soon as the baby was out. But the baby…the baby never had a chance.

  Suddenly there was a strangled coughing sound, and a tiny wail went up--heads all around the room snapped toward the bundle of bloody blankets that was now wiggling.

  Oaths, curses, exclamations followed, and the woman was weeping, everyone was weeping.

  Exhaustion swept up over me, and I nearly dropped the violin. I sagged back onto the bed, shaking, overcome by what had just happened—it had to be a coincidence. There was no way, it simply wasn’t possible…

  There is so much in you that you don't even see yet…one day you will be a force of nature, my darling.

  The last thing I heard before I passed out was the distant sound of the midwife, telling my neighbor he had a son.

  *****

  The path up the mountain wound and doubled back on itself as it climbed the steep stones. It took hours to reach the top and the night was half over before I surmounted the flight of carved steps that led to the temple.

  The guards remembered me, and moved back to let me pass. If they were surprised that I had returned, they gave no sign.

  I knew he would be waiting for me, and sure enough there he was, cross-legged on his mat as if he had not moved this whole time. He looked at me evenly, eyes traveling from my face down to what I carried, then back up again, waiting.

  I came to stand in the same place I had last time, in the pool of light shining down from the sky overhead. I bowed.

  He inclined his head toward me, still unspeaking.

  I smiled, lifted the Tempest, and began to play.

  Breathing Lessons

  150 years he has walked the Earth, and in that time he has learned a few things, among them the sad fact that something wished for, longed for, ached for, if obtained, is almost always a disappointment.

  Almost.

  They sway, his hands resting at Rowan’s waist, the Elf’s arms around his neck, one hand curved warm beneath the collar of Jason’s shirt. Jason takes a breath, the combination of scents intoxicating: curry, chai, books, Elf. Spice and softness, the ancient and the moment, and he wants to wrap himself up in it and etch every second in his memory.

  Rowan’s head rests against his shoulder, and he can feel their pulses slowly coming into synch; it’s something vampires do, gradually bringing their prey’s heartbeat lower and lower to calm them and make it easier to feed. Contrary to the myth, it isn’t in his kind’s best interest to harm anyone. Rowan isn’t his prey, but he can’t help it—he wants to disappear into his would-be lover, to dissolve breath by breath and beat by beat.

  He slides his hands around Rowan’s back, up along his spine, feeling muscle and vertebrae, fascinated by the way he moves. So human, and yet so alien. Jason has had many, many men in his bed, of many shapes and sizes, but few immortals, and never an Elf. There’s something subtly different here, some wild grace that defies description—he hopes fervently that he’ll have a chance to find the words, as he learns every last inch of the slender body in his arms, inside and out, and soon.

  He has absolutely no idea where to begin. The night has been as close to perfect as he could manage, but now that they are alone in the candlelit safety of his quarters, he is nervous again, his mind trying over and over to run down the list of things that could go wrong. This isn’t a back alley blow job or a quick fuck in the file room…it’s Rowan. His Rowan.

  His Rowan, who leans back to look in his eyes, smiling. “I’m nervous too,” he says. “All of a sudden this is very, very real.”

  Jason breathes him in again, wishing for a second that the Elf also smelled like Xanax. “We can stop here, if you want…if you’ve changed your mind.”

  In answer, Rowan removes his hands from Jason’s neck. The abrupt loss of warmth and the possibility that the Elf might, in fact, have changed his mind both make Jason’s stomach tumble down to his knees. But Rowan takes a step back, reaching up to his ears, and removes the inhibitor, then the control on
his wrist. He places them on the coffee table and returns to the embrace, this time ignoring the music as he covers Jason’s mouth with his own.

  *****

  Sara had come over to help Rowan get ready, but really all she was doing was making him even more anxious. He’d been trying to think of the evening as just an outing between friends, and not dwell too much on the terrifying possibility—no, probability—of more, but her giggly presence sitting on the bed made him feel like he was preparing to sacrifice himself in some bizarre sexual rite, or worse, a wedding.

  “So where are you two lovebirds going?”

  He stared at himself in the mirror, wishing it were autumn. Thanks to the unrelenting sun and humidity of the Texas climate his summer hair was a dusty sort of grey-brown with a few stalwart strands of dark green. In a couple of months it would be a brilliant cacophony of browns, gold, green, and red-maple-leaf scarlet, and it was one of his favorites. At least his eyes were interesting right now, a green-blue-silver combination that mirrored perfectly the reflections of the trees on Lady Bird Lake.

  “Dinner,” he answered belatedly. “There’s an Indian restaurant I wanted to try. I’m not sure what, after that.”

  She gave him a Look. “Oh, really?”

  His hands were far too white, he noticed, as he buttoned up his shirt. “Sara…I’m nervous enough as it is.”

  “Why? You should be overjoyed. You’ve been wanting this for how many years?”

  “That’s exactly my point. Years and years, and what if…”

  She smiled affectionately, reached out, and squeezed his hand. “Honey, it’s going to be wonderful. You’re not starting from scratch, after all. You already know each other. You don’t have to go through half the bullshit of new relationships.”

  “No, we have unique bullshit all our own,” he pointed out. “What happens if he wants to go to bed? What if I can’t do it, or I do and I have an episode, or worse?”

  “You can’t go into it like that,” she said. “It’s going to be fine. You love each other, and you’re perfect for each other, that’s what matters.”

  He looked at himself again, thinking back to before he had come here, before his clan had been slaughtered and his life destroyed. He had been so self-assured back then—everyone knew and respected him, and the honor of his calling had been evident in his every word and step. People had made appointments weeks in advance to spend an evening in his bed. And now, look at him…quaking in fear before a date!

  Granted, this was all new and perplexing to him, this business of going out and spending time with one person with intent to keep that one person for more than a single night. What if they did become a couple, and he got bored, or Jason demanded monogamy he simply couldn’t give?

  “You look fantastic,” Sara said, plucking a stray thread from his arm. “If you weren’t going out with someone else, I’d shag you myself.”

  He turned to her and frowned. “Are you sure you’re all right with this? We haven’t really talked about what’s going to happen now between us.”

  She pulled her knees up to her chin thoughtfully. “I’m all right with it. I’ve always known that one day you’d be with someone else, or rather, that you’d be with him. I tried to keep in mind that I was helping you heal for exactly that reason. I can’t guarantee I won’t be jealous.”

  “I don’t want to stop seeing you,” Rowan said. “I don’t want our friendship to change.”

  “It will, though, one way or another. Things always do. And I’d love to find myself in bed with you again, trust me, but if that’s not possible, I’ll understand.”

  He hugged her fiercely. “You are remarkable, anama. There will always be room for you in my life.”

  The knock came, and his pulse barreled into orbit, his nerves turning the butterflies in his stomach into drunken turkey vultures. How on earth was he going to eat? He wasn’t sure about the mating customs of vampires, but usually, vomiting on one’s date was considered rude regardless of race.

  “I’ll get it,” Sara said mischievously. Rowan nodded, suddenly unable to speak. “You take a deep breath or ten and ground yourself, mister. Remember—it’s Jason. You’ve hunted bad guys together and saved each other’s lives. Surely one meal can’t be any harder.”

  As she left him in his room for a moment, Rowan couldn’t help but think she was dead wrong about that one.

  He gave himself one last once-over in the mirror, glad he’d let Sara help him decide what to wear; he wasn’t used to spending time outdoors in Austin summer evenings, and aside from “hellish” he didn’t know what to plan for. He'd chosen green, his best color, and it set off his eyes. It really was too bad it wasn't autumn. He was so much more attractive in autumn.

  Rowan sighed. He was being ridiculous.

  He left the bedroom and was immediately confronted with the sight of Jason waiting for him, dressed in his usual black from head to foot, this time in a jacket instead of his signature coat—he was off duty and didn’t need so many places to stow gadgets and guns. He looked magnificent, and the way his blue eyes widened slightly when he saw Rowan made the Elf think the opinion, and possibly the nerves, must be mutual.

  “Good God,” Jason said, “you look…fantastic.” He held out his hand, and Rowan saw he had been as good as his word—he’d brought flowers.

  Rowan felt himself blush. “Thank you.”

  “What, no roses?” Sara asked with a devilish grin.

  Jason gave her a withering look. “These are his favorite.”

  Rowan smiled, taking the bouquet of wildflowers—including two giant sunflowers no doubt chosen with some irony by the vampire—and inhaling deeply of them. “You remembered.”

  “I’ll take those and put them in water,” Sara said.

  As Rowan handed them off to her, his eyes still on Jason, the vampire produced a second gift: a small paper bag. Rowan took it, still smiling, and peeked inside: blueberries.

  It was the first time Jason had ever given him his nightly offering directly, and Rowan found his throat constricted with surprising emotion. “Thank you,” he repeated, the words half-whispered.

  Jason seemed to understand, and took Rowan’s free hand and kissed it. “You’re welcome.”

  Sara had returned from the kitchen and was watching them, all but beaming. “You two crazy kids go out and have fun,” she said. “Rowan, do you have fifty cents for a pay phone in case he gets fresh?”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow. “You want me to call and brag?”

  She snorted. “Go. I’ll put that in the fridge and I’ll lock up behind me. You’ve got the inhibitor, right?”

  “Yes, mother,” he replied. She made a face, snatched the bag away from Rowan, and swatted him playfully on the ass. He chuckled, and let Jason lead him out the door into the hallway.

  *****

  Jason is thankful that for once he remembered to make the bed. Somehow the thought of tumbling down onto a rumple of pre-twisted sheets with pillows scattered hither and yon borders on blasphemous. This moment deserves linens far finer than he can afford, but at the very least the room is clean without any random shoes serving as landmines in the dark. He isn’t slovenly by any means, but life as an Agent tends to use up all the energy chasing demons that one might normally use on, say, dusting.

  He hasn’t been able to tear his mouth from Rowan’s since that first kiss in the living room. They make their way slowly through the apartment, hands seeking bare skin and impatiently undoing buttons, Jason’s tongue snaking between Rowan’s lips. The Elf’s hands tangle in Jason’s hair, his kisses surprisingly hungry. The taste of him is driving Jason slowly mad, and it's a madness he has been craving for years.

  Rowan nibbles his way along Jason's shoulder, hands gradually pushing his shirt off and onto the floor, and they are a mere inch apart, the Elf's body heat seeming to rise with each kiss. Jason's fingers skim his belt around to the front and fiddle with the buckle, waiting just a little longer to undo it, but using it as a
sort of steering wheel to direct Rowan through the kitchen, into the hall.

  At one point he pushes the Elf against the wall, flattening into him so hard Rowan gasps. He can feel Rowan’s desire quite firmly through his jeans, which is surprising given what Sara has said about his self-control, but now is not the time to concern himself with questions. Jason rocks his hips slightly, pressing against him as if they are still dancing, and Rowan makes a low growling noise and digs his nails into Jason’s arms and his teeth into Jason’s neck.

  It takes every scrap of will he has not to tear into the Elf’s throat then and there and fill himself with what he knows would be the sweetest blood he’s ever tasted. Perhaps Rowan knows that a vampire's neck is more sensitive than any other body part, and perhaps it’s just chance, but Jason feels the heat wash through his blood, his teeth getting that familiar painful yet delicious itch that precedes their extending like a cat’s claws, into the waiting flesh of his prey.