The Agency, Volume IV

by Dianne Sylvan

  And he was powerful. He himself seemed unaware of just how much potential he had--denial was a strong shield, but the time would soon come when he would have no choice but to accept the truth.

  Nothing like him had ever been seen among their people before.

  That was precisely what gave her hope.

  Part Two

  To the rest of the Austin underworld she was known as Lola. She wore a platinum blonde wig and stiletto heels and hid behind her bass and her scarlet lipstick. She wore leather that covered most of her tattoos, and bolstered her onstage presence with a healthy dose of perception-shifting energy, one of the talents she'd acquired after years of traveling the world with a brother who tended to leave a trail of corpses wherever he went.

  Fang Porn would never be famous, but that suited Beck just fine. She preferred small crowds of immortals, demons, and occultists, preferably in dark smoky bars where no one would ever recognize her.

  There was nothing to connect Lola to Shadow Agent Rebecca Adams. Only a handful of people at the Agency even knew she played, much less where and when; nobody in the band had the slightest idea what she did for a living.

  She snarled into the microphone, sweat pouring into her eyes from the intense heat of the tiny club, and held up the bass line through the last number even though the drummer was fucked up on coke and could barely keep a beat.

  No one she knew from the real world--the world of guns, drug busts, and interrogating felons--had ever seen her onstage...until tonight.

  She tried not to let it distract her, but she could feel his presence across the room, watching her from the corner, deep in the shadows. No one would have noticed the young man in the unseasonable trench coat, auburn hair falling around an angelic ivory face, his preternatural blue eyes similar to many in the room and yet holding within their depths a secret, a mystery even they would not recognize.

  When the set was finally over, she waited through the applause just long enough not to attract attention to her hurried exit, then unplugged her bass and took the back stairs down from the stage. In the back of her mind she could feel the presence leaving the club, and she knew he'd be waiting for her by the back door. She tried to take her time, and not betray her impatience, as she placed the guitar in its case and snatched her bag from behind a stack of speakers.

  She waved goodbye to Trevor, the lead guitarist, and slipped out of the club into the cool late Spring night.

  Once upon a time performing had made her feel free, sexy, and powerful. Now, it was starting to grate on her. The same songs, the same band bullshit--the drugged-out drummer, the singer nailing the manager, club owners grabbing her ass when she passed by. The glitz had worn off over the years, and meanwhile her musical ability had stalled, her hands numb as they sought out the same chords night after night.

  "Excuse me, ma'am," came a gentle voice, "have you seen a gorgeous redhead in combat boots?"

  Beck paused and grinned. "Hey, baby."

  Lex stepped out of the darkness, eyes flashing in the streetlight, and immediately took the guitar from her to carry as they fell into step together.

  "Around the block," she said. "Out of sight, so I can take this damn wig off.”

  He nodded and walked beside her in silence for a while until they were far enough from the club that Beck felt comfortable ducking into the alley and yanking the blonde bob from her head. She shook out her real hair, currently mostly blood red, and regarded the handful of fake tresses in her hand with disgust.

  "You know what?" she said. "Fuck this shit."

  She threw the wig into the nearby dumpster, kicking its metal side and resisting the urge to toss out the pinchy, uncomfortable shoes as well.

  Lex was watching her with his head tipped to one side, as he often did, and asked, "Are you all right?"

  "I don't know." She glanced up at the night sky, smudged with clouds. "I used to love playing bass. Now it's just...it's fake. It's all fake. There used to be art to it, now it's all...fuck it."

  "You're very talented," he observed. "But it doesn't seem like your heart is in it."

  Agitated, she slammed the dumpster lid down. "God, I don't know what's wrong with me lately."

  The problem was, she knew exactly what was wrong, except that it wasn't really wrong, it was right, and that was why it was wrong.

  The Seraph reached out and took her hand. "Let's go back to my place," he said. "You can shower and change clothes, and I've got tequila."

  "Yeah. Good."

  They walked most of the way back to the Winchester building unspeaking, but that was normal for them; they had only known each other a couple of weeks, but somehow it felt a lot longer than that, and they could fall into companionable silences as easily as they could talk or shag for hours.

  "How's your arm?" she asked when they were almost there.

  He thought about it--he almost never answered a question without thinking first--and rolled his right shoulder, then said, "Not bad. A little sore, but the scabs are already falling off. I had no idea we healed so quickly."

  "That's how we cheat death," Beck explained. "It's not that we're invulnerable so much as that our healing process is about fifty times that of a human's, so we almost never even have time to bleed to death from a bullet to the heart."

  "So the breathing exercises you taught me before we went to the artist weren't for the pain, they were to slow down my energy," Lex mused, nodding.

  She smiled. He was either extremely clever or just tuned into her; he often completed her thoughts or answered questions she hadn't asked. "Right. Are you still liking the design?"

  He smiled back, and she felt her toes curl. "I love it. I'm already anxious for the next section."

  Beck laughed. "I told you, you get hooked. Give it until this one heals completely. Trust me, I'm pretty keen to get you under the needle again--that was fucking hot."

  Lex lifted his eyes to the marquis of the Paramount Theater as they passed beneath it. "A woman who likes to watch me bleed," he said. "Lucky me."

  They took the elevator up to the roof of the bank hand in hand, Beck using her own key to unlock the doors.

  Once inside, she dropped her bag on the chair, and he set her guitar carefully on the table. She turned to him, grinned, and said, "Okay, show it to me."

  Another smile, this one almost shy. "Don’t you want a shower first?"

  "Only if you take it with me."

  He chuckled and reached up to pull off his coat, hanging it on its hook by the door; then he untied his shirt, giving her a spectacular view of both the splendidly defined muscles of his torso and the stark black tattoo that now wrapped around his right shoulder and over his collarbone.

  It had taken six hours and two artists, both magicians who were used to tattooing vampires; they had to work quickly and in tandem or he'd heal too fast and his skin would reject the ink. Beck had designed the piece based on her research into the ancient angelic languages and their medieval cousins, mapping out invocations of protection and strength that were now carved into the Seraph's body. It was more than beautiful--it was perfect. He already looked more complete than he had before, more at ease in his skin.

  And he was right; most of the scabs were already gone three days later. She carefully ran her fingers just over the skin, feeling almost incandescent heat rising from him, and fought the urge to trace the lines with her tongue...not yet.

  His voice was low, half a purr. "What do you think?"

  She looked up into his eyes and knew what he saw in hers. "I think you need to fuck me," she said softly. "Hard. Right now."

  There was light in his eyes, perhaps even stars. "I think you're right."

  She all but pounced on him, clamping her mouth to his tightly, her tongue snaking through his lips and wrenching a groan from his throat.

  He was well acquainted with the ins and outs of her clothing by now, and had her stripped to the waist in mere breaths, lifting her up as if she were made of air and lowering her gently onto
her back in the nest. One hand wrapped around her lower back, pressing her up into him, the other sliding between them, down over her breasts to the familiar landscape between her thighs. She tried very hard not to clamp his hand--she'd broken a guy's fingers that way once, and though it was highly unlikely with Lex, still, she couldn't bear the thought of breaking him.

  They knew this dance well. Grinning, she lifted a hand and unhooked his wings, letting them unfurl to either side and block out the lamplight. She loved touching them, watching him shiver at the sensation, feeling them wrapped around her cooling body after hours of intense sex and laughter. She almost never needed blankets here.

  He peeled the vinyl pants down over her hips with both hands as she lifted herself back onto her knees, twining her legs around his waist as she finally found her way naked. Getting him undressed could have been a very awkward enterprise, but as with everything he did there was a poetic grace in the shift of his weight from one leg to the other, finally discarding the last thin layer of fabric that kept her from drawing him in.

  Just friends, her mind intruded, repeating the two-word litany almost angrily in her head. Just friends.

  Beck wasn't very good at self-delusion. All in all she wasn't much of a liar. She changed the subject when Jason brought up Lex, and she hadn't breathed a word to anyone else. There was really no one else she could talk to anyway--that was part of what had brought her here in the first place.

  She dug her nails into his sides, desire making her clumsy and impatient, and though she wanted to believe the lie of just friends, the litany was gradually drowned by screams from the outside, and the quiet cadence of song lyrics in the back of her mind:

  It's like trying to fight gravity on a planet that insists

  That love is like falling...and falling is like this...

  *****

  Sunset came and went and found Shadow Agent 5, Rethla, and possibly Elven myth Rowan still sitting where he had been at noon, leaning back against the leeward side of the Blessing Tree, staring off at nothing in particular.

  Behind him he could hear all the familiar sounds of a Clan settling in for the night, and smell cook fires and incense. The faint sound of chant rose and fell from inside the Temple, squeezing ever so slightly around his heart. Footsteps came and went along the path, and even one or two Elves came up to the Tree to tie a prayer onto a low-hanging branch or simply touch the bark in greeting.

  He might have laughed at himself if he'd had the energy. As it was, he was hiding and he knew it.

  Every day since they'd arrived he left the guest house and rarely reappeared before dusk. He let Sara think he was visiting friends or gathering information, but in reality he spent the long hours wandering the forest paths, or curled up in the roots of the Blessing Tree waiting for...what, exactly? Direction? A flash of inspiration? The Wizard to grant him courage?

  Time was running out. Yesterday Sara had finally acquiesced to the Healers and let them examine her thoroughly, an experience she said was a lot like a massage and not scary at all. Mellis had concluded that her pregnancy was proceeding perfectly within healthy boundaries, at least for their race, if a bit fast for a human. She judged that they could probably go by Elven physiology for the timeline since so far everything was practically textbook, so most likely it would be an entire year, and the third through sixth month would be the most hazardous. Up until then the fetus could spontaneously abort without harming Sara, but between three and six development would be fast and furious and depending on how her body reacted she might well be bedridden until the fetus's growth slowed.

  Sara was scared, of course, but he knew she had decided to carry the tramera if she could. They hadn't really talked about it; he could simply sense her determination. They hadn't talked about much of anything.

  Up until today that had been fine with him. He had in fact been avoiding everything they'd come here for, and everything they'd left. He had told Jason he wanted space and peace, and now he had them, and he was greedily filling his mind and heart with blessed emptiness while he could.

  Not much longer. They had ten days.

  He wasn't sure what made him more uneasy: the thought of the next ten days here, or the thought of going back to Austin.

  Last night he had spoken to Jason for the first time in several days, and like all their conversations so far it had left Rowan feeling hollow, unhappy, and strangely afraid. Jason always seemed so overjoyed to hear from him, he tried to sound enthusiastic, but the truth was he spent hours in hiding fingering the band on his wrist, wondering what exactly he'd gotten himself into, and if he could stand it much longer.

  He looked down at the bracelet again and, out of curiosity, undid the clasp and removed it.

  The second the air hit his bare wrist, he felt such an overwhelming sense of loss that it bordered on panic, and he snapped the bracelet back on with fingers that shook.

  Rowan shook his head. “You’re an idiot,” he told himself. “An idiot and a coward and you’re skulking around like Gollum waiting for life to figure itself out.”

  “You know,” someone said from surprisingly nearby, “talking to yourself is generally considered a bad sign.”

  Rowan might have jumped, but the energy that had appeared next to him felt safe and familiar, and he sensed that rather than sneaking up on him his visitor had simply been trying not to intrude.

  He looked up at the young Gardener and smiled. “Perhaps I was talking to the Tree," he replied. "Elves are supposed to talk to trees, aren't we?"

  Aven sat down cross-legged in the grass facing him and cocked his head to one side. "If you're calling the Blessing Tree an idiot and a coward, I'd suggest you not talk to her at all, lest she drop a limb on your head."

  "Point taken." Rowan reached out and took the lad's hand, and Aven sighed and smiled as Rowan sent a short surge of healing energy into his slender body. The Gardener was healing beautifully, still something of a recluse but adjusting to life in Clan Willow, and it helped that he lived with three other tenders of the harvest who were gregarious and cheerful and not likely to let him dwell in sorrow. Rowan had been to see Aven several times since they'd returned to the Clan, and was both impressed and pleased with the boy's progress.

  "I'm working on it," Aven said with a shrug, picking up on the thought easily. "I'm still not leaving the house much. The others don't seem to mind; they're busy with all the early Summer gardening and are satisfied that I'm lurking around the house keeping the mint from running wild."

  "Be patient. You've been conscious for less than three weeks." Rowan rubbed the already-fading scar on Aven's wrist; the Gardener's eyes went to the one on Rowan's, which was still distinct even after so many years.

  "I wish you'd had a Healer," Aven said quietly. "Or better yet, someone like you."

  Rowan lifted his hand and kissed the scar lightly. "I have no complaints. The Agency doctors did the best they could, and they saved my life."

  "They and your amori." Aven smiled. "What does he think about you staying away so long?"

  Rowan felt himself flushing and looked away, and Aven immediately looked chagrined. "I am sorry," he said. "I didn't realize..."

  "No, it's all right." Rowan hastened to reassure him. "We're all right, we just...a lot has happened since you and I met."

  "I see." Aven didn't press; like every Gardener Rowan had ever met, he was patient, and quiet, uninterested in gossip but a devoted listener. Gardeners were never in a hurry and tended toward solitude--or, at least, away from the company of other Elves, more toward that of plants. More than once Rowan had happened across a Gardener standing perfectly still amid an ivy bower, eyes half shut, simply...listening. He had no doubt they understood all the voices around them. When people thought of Elves, they were usually either thinking of something like a Gardener, or a Warrior, depending on which fantasy novel they'd read.

  "Let us not speak of our sorrows tonight," Aven finally said "I was actually sent forth--pushed out the door, rather--b
y my housemates to invite you and the lady Sara to dinner with us. Merian brought in some early blackberries and she says that they aren't terribly sweet but will make an excellent pie."

  Rowan was tempted to decline the invitation, but he knew he couldn't keep hiding forever. Besides, he knew Sara was going stir crazy in the guest house but wasn't sure how to go about making new friends, and the brief walk to the Gardeners' quarter would do her good.

  He'd also heard tantalizing rumors about Merian's pies.

  "I would be honored," Rowan said. "Let's go and see if Sara's up to it."

  Aven grinned and rose smoothly, lending a hand to help Rowan to his feet...

  Before he could take the offered hand, dizziness struck Rowan's mind, and he sagged backwards toward the Tree with a gasp. Sound and color drained from the world, and he felt himself falling, far away...down...and inward...felt something pulling at his consciousness...calling him...

  Thunder struck his mind, a beat as loud as the world ending, a pulse--then it, too, faded, and darkness closed around him.

  [Weaver.]

  He groped after the telepathic voice, trying to identify it, but it was nothing he had ever heard before. It filled his head so thoroughly that he couldn’t speak back, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but listen.

  [Come to us. Come. To the Rune Tree, and the Dreaming Gate.]

  Calling...calling him...somewhere buried in the shadows, somewhere out of time...

  [Weaver. Jenai.]

  "Rowan!"

  Pain exploded into his body and he felt his muscles spasming, every nerve catching fire the way it had for so many years. He was thrown back into his skin by the sheer force of trying not to scream.

  "Stay with me--"

  He tried to speak, but couldn't; the pain was so great he could feel himself blacking out, but couldn't do that either. There were gentle hands holding him, trying to keep him still, but everywhere his skin touched anything, it burned.