It didn't matter. Rowan was home. He could have grown scales and sprouted a second head, and everything would be okay as long as he was home.
The look on Nava's face when Sara climbed awkwardly out of the van was absolutely priceless. The doctor's mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide with shock until she looked like a cartoon of herself.
Sara, visibly and obviously pregnant, had to move more slowly than before, but still looked quite comfortable in her own skin. Her face was a little fuller, but she didn't look tired and sick anymore, and had put on weight besides the belly itself. Still, judging by Nava's expression, their ideas of how quickly she'd progress had been a little conservative. Jason didn't know all that much about pregnancy but he guessed she looked about four months along...at less than two months from conception. In another month she'd be as big as a house, at this rate.
A moment later, Rowan got out, and the van pulled away from the curb.
Jason tried not to stare, but it was difficult. He hadn't seen his partner in a month, unless you counted the night before, and now...it was hard to pinpoint the change, but anyone who had ever known the Elf would know immediately that he was different.
Rowan looked at each of them in turn, evaluating, as if he was reminding himself who they were and what their roles were. When his eyes lit on Jason, the vampire felt the warm kiss of energy run through him, just as it always had.
He finally felt like he could breathe again.
He figured there would be the usual noises made by Ness about debriefing and returning to duty, but before the Director could open her mouth, Rowan said quietly but firmly, "Just as a reminder, Ness, I'm still technically on vacation until Monday. We can debrief then."
For a wonder, Ness didn't protest at all. "Of course, SA-5. I only wanted to welcome you both back and say that you've definitely been missed around here." She turned to Jason and said, "SA-7, I'll need to see you in the conference room as soon as the team returns from the raid on the sorcerer's home. In the meantime I would like you to send me your preliminary report on the necromancy case. I believe you mentioned your notes were on the computer in your quarters?"
"Yes ma'am," he replied with a grin.
"See that you go there immediately, then, and get that put together for me. I'll see you in a few hours."
With that, Ness turned and left, her heels clicking crisply on the concrete.
Nava was already peppering Sara with questions, and Sara sighed and said, "Okay, okay. Let's just go on up to the infirmary and get the poking and prodding over with." She cocked her head toward Jason and added, "Speaking of poking and prodding, aren't you supposed to be headed back to quarters?"
Jason rolled his eyes. "Have fun with your paper gown and speculum, Agent 9."
Sara stuck her tongue out at him and followed Dr. Nava through the sliding doors into the base.
Finally, Jason turned to Rowan.
They stood for a long moment staring into each other's eyes.
"Am I allowed to hug a Jenai?" Jason asked, his voice hushed with emotion despite the weak attempt at humor.
Rowan's only answer was to cross the space between them and fling himself into Jason's arms.
Part Twelve
"Federal Agent! Make your presence known!"
Beck held her gun out in front of her, but even as she finished the sentence she knew there was no one in the house.
The reason for that became apparent as soon as she took a breath.
The Agent behind her made a gagging noise.
"Lower your weapons," she ordered. "SA-17, go outside and get yourself together, then send in the Seraph."
He ducked back out the front door, where the rest of the team, plus Lex and the forensics boys, were waiting for the all-clear to enter.
Beck lowered her own gun but kept it at the ready as she sidestepped her way into the house, crossing through the foyer and into the living room. The smell was coming from deeper in the building, probably a back bedroom--the unmistakable sweet-rancid stench of decomposition. Her senses decrypted the smell as easily as Frog could interpret a chemical formula: the human had been dead for about five days, and with the house closed up and the AC off, decomp had been rapid and nasty. Hopefully Pierrault hadn't had pets.
She followed her nose through the kitchen and down a short hallway. The house was dark and cramped, stacked floor to ceiling with books--alchemy, astrology, ceremonial magick, various forms of occultism. She spotted several black market titles and at least three contraband magical tools.
The back room was locked from the inside, but even a deadbolt was no match for a steel-toed boot if that boot happened to belong to a vampire on a mission.
As soon as the door splintered and flew open, the stench of decay rolled out in a cloud, as did a host of flies, all over the lingering smell of Abramelin oil and frankincense, just in time for Lex to appear behind her. She looked back over her shoulder and saw his face turn green.
"Serves you right for running off to almost get killed without me," she muttered.
In a rather uncharacteristic move he'd learned from her, he shot her the finger.
She leaned over and licked him soundly on the mouth.
He tried to grab her hips, but she wiggled out of his grasp. Beck grinned, trying not to look goofy in the act lest one of the other Agents see her acting like a horny teenager, and turned back to the scene and back to business.
The sorcerer, Pierrault, lay in a bloated heap at the base of an enormous altar. The ground was painted with symbols from corner to corner, as were the walls. Beck recognized many of them: symbols meant to imprison, and command, angelic beings.
She gave the body a cursory inspection without touching it, trying to ignore the maggots. There was no visible cause of death, but given the degree of decomp it would really be up to the lab to figure that one out. She didn't see a weapon or an obvious wound. What was left of his expression looked utterly horrified.
Beck stepped over the corpse and went to the altar, Lex in her wake, wrinkling his nose at the body but otherwise composed again. She admired that about him.
"Okay," she said, clicking on the recorder on her Ear. "Adams, Rebecca, Shadow Agent 8, field notes on case 40524A. The scene is a workroom for ritual magick; symbology is consistent with Enochian conjuration ritual. On the altar are six blades in various stages of completion, identical to the one recovered from the last Seraph attack as well as those seen in the accounts of SA-7, SA-5, and SA-9."
She made a circuit around the room, describing her impressions; the forensics team would do a detailed study, but as the lead Agent on the raid her notes were equally important since the evidence had yet to be disturbed.
"Over here," Lex called.
He was standing over a secondary table stacked neatly with handwritten notes and several bound journals, as well as a thick leather-bound volume open to a page of symbols that were annotated in the same precise notation as the journals.
"Look at this," Lex pointed out, indicating a particular passage. "This is the outline of his conjuration--he did it five times and planned eight more, for a total of thirteen. He was creating an army of Seraph to do his bidding."
"But why?" Beck wondered. "Just to kill you and the others? If he needed thirteen for that, he acted a bit rashly the other night."
"No...his plans were bigger than that. Here he says that an archangel of God spoke to him--a female. She commanded him to conjure an army to smite a list of people who stood to bring about the Apocalypse. If this is true, he was as duped as Joshua Cohen was. Just a zealot following orders from on high."
"Where's the list of targets?"
Lex dug around a moment before coming up with another sheet of paper. It held thirteen names, and several had check marks next to them already.
"Lex, the Seraph," Beck read. "Jason Adams. Beck Adams. I don't recognize the rest of these names--we'll have the Eyes check them out and see if they're all human, or all alive."
"Rowan an
d Sara aren't on here," Lex said. "Neither is Joshua Cohen. So the Seraph weren't meant to kill them."
"There's no mention of Joshua anywhere in these notes," Beck replied. "What do we make of that?”
Lex crossed his arms, looking both deeply concerned and thoughtful. "Pierrault conjured the Seraph to kill me, and you, and your brother, and we're all protecting or involved with Rowan or Sara. Joshua has no connection to any of us. I don’t see the pattern."
"Shit," Beck said, staring down at the papers. "I think I do."
She paged through the journal on the bottom of the stack until she came up with what she was looking for, and held it out to Lex. "Recognize this?"
Lex's eyebrows shot up into his hair. "That's written in Elvish."
"No, it's not," Beck said, feeling a little sick at heart as the truth came home to roost. "It's Jenai. The archangel that set Pierrault after us wasn't an angel, it was a Jenai."
"The Sibyl," Lex concluded, shaking his head. "God. She wanted to separate Rowan from the rest of us so she could get him through the Dreaming Gate and convince him to take up his old powers again for her cause. She couldn't hurt Sara because Sara's carrying the Singer, but I'd bet the minute she gives birth her name would be on this list too. And any of these other people could be connected to other unawakened Jenai. We have to find them and warn them. The Sibyl could be working through anyone with the ability to conjure Seraph."
"You know what's weird," Beck said, leading him out of the house and back into the night, "is that Pierrault summoned the Seraph that went to Joshua Cohen, but it was summoned to kill you, not spark off Cohen's psychic gifts. Where did the Seraph get the idea to go to Cohen at all?"
"The Sibyl might not be the only player here," Lex murmured, watching the forensics and crime scene teams sweep into the building with their equipment. Moments later they saw flashes in the windows as photographers began their rounds. "That would explain something else as well."
"What's that?"
"Me." Lex sighed. "I wasn't summoned by Pierrault, and I don't have the urge to kill anyone in the name of the Jenai. I only want to protect the baby Singer, and as soon as I heard what happened with Rowan and the Sibyl, I knew I was never letting the baby get anywhere near that Gate. That doesn't sound like something the Sibyl would do, which raises the question...who did? Who called me forth, knowing that I would be different from the others and not an unquestioning soldier? Who has the power to do that?"
"Probably whoever got the stone to that mute priestess in Clan Willow," Beck added, complicating things further. "Nobody can get her to say where it came from, just that she found it during her travels and was told to save it for the Weaver. But did the Sibyl arrange for her to have it? Did Rowan's mom? We still don’t know whose side she's really on."
"I just hope that Rowan can keep the Jenai from banding together with the Sibyl," Lex said, his eyes on the house and on the medical examiner techs wheeling out the corpse of a man who had already been caught in the Sibyl's net. "If Rowan is anything to go by, the Jenai are capable of some very, very scary things."
"Yeah," Beck agreed, surreptitiously taking his hand and squeezing it behind her coat. "I just hope that Rowan stays on our side."
*****
In the candlelit darkness of Rowan's bedroom, they lay entwined in each other, and Jason slowly and carefully affirmed, inch by inch, that the Elf in his arms was in fact still Rowan.
His skin was still as silken and smooth, and there was still a ticklish spot inside his left elbow. He still moaned softly when Jason's tongue flicked against the back of his earlobe. His nails still tore tiny holes in the sheets as they moved together in a slow, sweat-slickened undulation. He still cried out in Elvish when he came.
Jason laid his cheek on Rowan's chest, his fingers curling over the surface of the stone the Elf wore around his neck. For the better part of an hour, the only sounds had been gasping and moaning, punctuated with curse words and deity names in equal measure, but finally Jason broke the silence to ask, quietly, "Are you sure you want to keep that?"
Rowan laid his hand over Jason's. Every time Rowan touched him, it was electric, then euphoric. "I have to," he replied. "It's the only key in existence. I have to keep it safe so that the Sibyl can't drag any of the others into her plans."
"Couldn't they just make another key?"
"No. Making things out of nothing is harder than it sounds. And making something to copy what's been made by another's hand is nearly impossible, magically speaking."
"So who made it?"
"The same hand that raised and carved the Rune Tree and build the Dreaming Gate. My hand."
"You made this?”
"Yes, long ago--or, the version of me that was the Weaver back then did. And there may come a time when we need to get back through the Gate. So I'll guard it, and hopefully one day if there's wisdom to be had, I can lead my daughter there safely."
"Do you think that Beck and Lex are right--that the Sibyl put a hit out on us? And that there's another significant figure in all of this who brought Lex and Joshua into the mix for his or her own reasons?"
"I'm afraid so."
Jason closed his eyes, fighting back the gut feeling of fear that squeezed him every time he remembered the stake biting into his chest, and the pain engulfing him along with the knowledge that he was dying, alone, and worse yet failing to protect Rowan from whatever monsters might have him beyond the Gate. He remembered what Joshua had said: that he was Rowan's guardian angel as much as Lex was the Singer's. So far he'd done a bang-up job.
"Don’t," Rowan whispered, kissing him softly. "There will come a time when my life will depend on you again."
"What do you mean, again?"
Rowan chuckled warmly and ran his hand down over Jason's torso, whisking over sensitive spots and lingering in others. "What do you think kept me alive all that time I was so broken and desperate? Sara was my healer, but it was you I was healing for."
"So...this month, while you were away, did you...have time to do the thinking you needed?"
The Elf sighed. "I'm so sorry I put you through all of this, amori. I was afraid of losing my freedom, my autonomy--when if I'd thought about it for even a second, instead of simply reacting emotionally, I would have seen that you never demanded I sacrifice either of those things, or anything else. All you asked for was my love, and the commitment of my heart. I ran for the hills like a frat boy after a blind date. It was unfair, and I'm sorry."
Jason held his eyes, and said, "I forgive you. Can you forgive me for bringing Lex into our lives when you and I had barely had time to solidify our own relationship?"
"Already done, my love. I'm thankful for him now, most definitely. He has a part to play in our future together. He may very well save my daughter's life, or even Sara's."
"Not to mention he's making Beck almost unbearably happy," Jason added.
Rowan's eyes widened. "He's what?"
"I didn't tell you, did I? I guess there hasn't been time. Well, settle in, darling, you're in for quite a story."
Rowan burrowed under the covers beside him, arms encircling his middle, head on Jason's arm, with the candles burning low and the night waning beyond the walls, though the world and all its cares could have fallen away, for inside the cozy subterranean bedroom, for now and perhaps for always, all was well.
*****
"Okay," Dr. Nava said. "This is going to feel cold--"
Sara yelped. "No shit!"
"Language, Agent 9," Jason said mildly from where he stood just behind Rowan, his arms around the Elf's waist. Rowan was staring anxiously at the screen.
On the opposite side of the bed were Lex, Beck, and Ardeth, along with Ness. Everyone's eyes were glued to the blue image slowly taking shape as Nava passed the cold, lubed-up wand over Sara's exposed belly.
"Hang on," Nava said, "I think I can get this clearer...one second..." She adjusted a couple of dials on the machine, and the picture on the screen grew less fuzzy. Then, she
turned up a knob, and the room was suddenly filled with a wet, echoing fwub-wub-wub sound keeping a rapid time.
"That's the heartbeat," Nava told them. Several wide-eyed looks were exchanged. "Hold on..."
Sara, too, stared at the screen, heart in her throat, Rowan's hand clasping hers while Nava rooted around for a good image. The SA had state of the art 3-D ultrasound equipment, but first the traditional imagery had to be used to locate the tramera, and that involved several uncomfortable minutes of push-pulling Sara's midsection to arrange her burgeoning belly for more convenient display.
"Aha!" Nava said triumphantly. "Right...there."
Silence fell, and there were only the sounds of people breathing and the tramera's heartbeat whoosh-whoosh-wub-ing over the speakers.
"Okay," Nava announced, "I'm switching to the higher resolution with 3-D. This might be a bit of a shock."
She sent several commands into the computer, and the screen blanked out; Nava gestured at the second monitor to the right, where pixels were coming together, row by row, like a photo mosaic.
Sara stared, unable to exhale, watching in speechless awe. Rowan squeezed her hand even tighter as the image grew clearer and clearer...
...and there she was.
The monitor showed them all a peek inside Sara's body, deep within the watery safety of her uterus, where a creature the size of a grapefruit was floating in warm darkness, her long legs curled up, her thumb in her mouth.
Her eyes were closed, but long silvery lashes fell against her pale cheek. Her tiny hand already had fingernails, as did her equally tiny toes. A dusting of dark hair crowned her oversized-looking head, and her ears, about the size of Sara's pinky nail, were pointed. She was pink and fuzzy and clearly unfinished, yet eerily beautiful.
No one could speak. Hands slipped into hands, arms around shoulders, and they all stood watching the little miracle, their magic fish, swim in her dream of peace.
Behind her, Sara heard Lex draw a shaky breath, and he whispered, "Do you hear that?"
The Agency, Volume IV Page 13