His hands tangled in her hair, pulling her head back, and she shoved backwards, taking him in as deeply as she could, loving the delicious heat and friction, loving the force, her whole body slammed forward over and over again, her arms locked to keep her from sliding over the far side of the counter. She was distantly aware of pain in her stomach where the edge of the counter was digging into her, but she ignored it, pushing back even harder, tightening her muscles around him, eliciting a low groan she'd never heard before.
One of Rowan's hands wrapped around her thigh, slipping expertly in to stroke and tease her, driving her closer and closer, higher and higher, while his other hand held onto her hip so tightly his nails left half-moons of blood in her flesh.
She came screaming, her entire skin seeming to catch fire, the universe rocking through her as she spasmed and slammed her hands into the counter. And this time she wasn't the only one, either; the eruption hit them both, and though he didn't cry out, she knew, even as she fell back onto him, that if he had, it wouldn't have been her name on his lips.
They ended up on the floor, collapsing into a heap of sweaty slick limbs and hair, and the thoughts on the surface of his mind were wild and chaotic, but clear.
Sara smiled to herself, panting. She might have known. There was only one person who could undo Rowan's years and years of practice serving without desire, and it definitely wasn't her.
She didn't ask, and she didn't mind. One day, this was going to end; she would lose him to the one he loved, and that was all right. For now, he was hers, as much as he could be, and that was all right too.
More than all right.
She turned over, her muscles protesting, and propped herself up on her elbow, looking at him.
His eyes were closed, and he was breathing hard, but otherwise there was no sign of immanent danger. That was both a surprise and a relief; on the one hand he hadn't really engaged his gifts, so the likelihood of triggering an episode was lower, but on the other hand, something that intense might have easily overwhelmed him.
Rowan looked at her, and the confusion was still there, as were tears.
She smiled gently and put her arms around him, drawing his head to her shoulder. He clung to her, but didn't cry; it wasn't the past that was haunting him, it was the present, the newness and strangeness of it all. He didn't know how to be in love, and he didn't know how to want, yet he loved, and he wanted, and it frightened him.
"It's all right," she whispered.
He leaned back slightly to look in her eyes. "Are you hurt?"
She grinned. "Not at all. I feel fantastic."
"Good…" His head dropped to the cool tile floor, and he blinked, some measure of clarity returning. "I really need to mop in here."
Sara chuckled. "Especially now."
A tired smile. "I'm sorry to have been so…forward?"
"Forward, backward, whatever it was, don't apologize." She kissed his nose, pushed herself up, and groped around for the discarded robe, which was halfway hanging off the oven door. "Come on, let's get you in bed."
He nodded and let her help him up; he was a bit shaky, and come to that so was she, but they leaned on each other and made it to the bedroom, leaving behind a pile of clothes and two forgotten glasses of wine.
Part Five
"You know," Sara said, watching Jason beat the living hell out of a punching bag, "As much as this sucks for you, it's working out great for me."
He stopped and glared at her, then at the punching bag, then back at her.
"Sorry," she said, taking the hint. "It's just…after that little UST stunt you pulled in the lounge last night, he practically fucked me in half. Considering he's not supposed to have actual desires like that, I'd say we're making definite progress."
Jason hit the bag again, so hard the chain holding it up shuddered. "UST?"
"Unresolved Sexual Tension. A standby of bad fan fiction and good television the world over."
"So he told you about that," Jason said, stopping again, grabbing hold of the bag with both hands. "It was stupid of me. And unfair."
Sara grinned. "He didn't have to tell me about it—I could feel it, see it, bubbling around the surface of his mind. Personally I think it's hilarious, in a sick sort of way."
"Hilarious?" He turned the glare back on her, and most people would have flinched, but she was getting used to his moods by now. "Just what part of this, exactly, is hilarious?"
"Oh, come on. You're in love with him, he's in love with you, you know it and he doesn't. You could so totally fuck with him in so many ways. Just like last night, only worse."
"That would be cruel," he snapped. "Why would I do such a thing to someone I care about?"
She shrugged. "I'm not saying you should. I said it was sick, didn't I? I’m warped on the inside."
"You've got that right. Aren't you supposed to be doing something right now? Running, shooting, learning anything useful?"
"I'm waiting on Carlos. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm always—"
"Fifteen minutes early for everything, I know. It's an admirable trait, except when it pisses me off."
"All right, all right. Look, Beck's here. Maybe you should beat on her for a while."
Sara headed over to the free weights, passing by Beck as she went, and the two greeted each other cordially. They were getting along a lot better now that Sara wasn't so painfully bad at shooting, and Beck wasn't angry at her for sleeping with Rowan. Jason had explained everything to his twin, of course, and though she didn't like it any more than he did, she didn't try to sway him toward any other course of action. She was bossy and stubborn as a mule with everyone else, but for some reason, she never argued with him unless it was absolutely necessary. Deferring to his judgment had caused them trouble more than once, but she still did it.
"Evening, brother-mine," Beck said, strolling up in her workout clothes, which showed off the splendid chaos of her tattoos. She had a variety of symbolic images on her neck and right side, but on her left, there was a single continuous piece, a vine, trailing all the way down from her shoulder to the top of her foot. The whole design was in black, but every ten years, she added a flower somewhere to commemorate another decade survived.
She also had a lemniscate tattooed on her inside left wrist. So did he.
"Looking for a sparring partner?" she asked. "You seem to have a charge of powder that needs to go off."
"You don't know the half of it. Let's go."
They weren't alike in many ways, but one thing they both excelled at was fighting. He'd learned mostly in order to defend himself, and then honed his skills in Japan before returning to America and eventually joining the SA; she had decided to take up martial arts, pretty much as she did everything, because it looked like fun. And where they both taught trainees techniques with firearms and a few other weapons, for the most part they didn't inflict their superior strength and speed on other humans, so it was either fight with each other, or use the simulator that was, for all its uses, pitifully slow compared to a vampire.
They circled around each other, trading blows here and there, neither willing to yield the advantage until, her impatience overcoming her, Beck dove in for the attack.
He spun around, kicked the side of her head, and threw her on the floor. "Too much pot, little girl," he said with a smirk. "You're slowing down in your old age."
She grabbed his foot and flipped him onto his ass, but he rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the blow that was coming. "Right," she snorted. "You're older than me, remember?"
"Older and better."
Now, she laughed, and several other Agents and trainees in the gym stopped what they were doing to watch the goings-on in the ring. "Brother, I'm better than you at everything except self-denial and brooding. Ooh, hey, you should start a blog!"
He punched her in the stomach, and she grunted, but recovered and returned the hit plus several more. "Come on," she taunted. "Is that all you've got? The finest Agent in America can't be
at up a girl?"
"Not working," he said. "You're not going to get me to let down my guard with your juvenile little barbs."
"Too Zen for that, right?" Her eyes darted sideways, to where he knew Sara was standing, and he knew what she was going to say before she even said it, smirking. "We should get Sara up here to fight in your place. I bet she can get the job done."
Blood red, reason-stealing rage rushed through him, magma bursting from his every cell, and he attacked her viciously, snarling like an animal. She hissed and fought back, and they tore into each other the way only their kind could, moving so fast the humans outside the ring would barely be able to see them. Pain lanced through his arm and forehead, and he felt a sickening crack as her knee impacted his ribcage.
Finally he drove her to the ground, and when it ended he was holding her to the mat, murder in his eyes and the taste of blood in his mouth. Her eyes had gone silver, and her nails dug into his arms.
"Yield?" he breathed.
She rolled her eyes, and when she looked back, they had faded back to blue. She slapped him on the shoulder. "Yield, dammit. Get off me, your knee's in my crotch."
They pushed away from each other, standing up, and he looked over to see Sara staring at them wide-eyed, her face ashen. Several of the other mortals had similar expressions.
Beck touched her face. "You gave me a black eye, you bastard!" she exclaimed, and sure enough, the skin around her left eye darkened and in a few seconds was deep purple.
"So? You broke my fucking ribs. You need to learn some grace, little girl. You're like a marionette in a hurricane."
He sagged into the ropes around the ring, pushing energy into his injuries, and as her black eye faded to greenish yellow and then pink and then ivory, so too did the crushing pain in his chest fade as the ribs knitted themselves. Their various other wounds healed within minutes; he didn’t bother with a few of the more superficial scratches, as they’d be gone in a few hours on their own without wasting any energy on them.
"Go on about your business, citizens," he heard Beck announcing. "Nothing more to see here."
"You're done showing off, eh?" came a voice, and Jason turned to see Carlos, Agent and personal trainer, appear in the gym's double doors. He was a broad-shouldered, imposing man, and most people would have assumed he was some sort of Latino gangster based on his manner and off-duty wardrobe, but he had a truly kind heart, a good sense of humor, and a bit of a crush on Beck.
He also had a pet Chihuahua named Taco. Jason knew this because their apartments were next door to one another and that damned dog barked its entire first year of life. He'd threatened to pop its head off and drink it through a straw more than once.
"Now if you'll let us mere mortals have the ring, please," Carlos said. "Hey Jason, maybe you should consider some therapy. Or at least a boyfriend."
"Was that an offer?" Jason asked, feeling blissfully numb on the inside as he always did after fighting, feeding, or fucking. "You're not much to look at but you'd make a great bottom."
Carlos laughed. "You couldn't handle this much man, gringo."
"I could if I had much bigger hands." As Jason walked by he slapped Carlos on the ass, earning a good-natured punch to his shoulder.
Behind him he heard Sara ask, "Can you teach me how to fight like that?" and Carlos's responding, "Oh, fuck no."
"Want to go to the simulator?" Beck asked, falling into step beside him. "I've got a new protocol installed that mixes hand-to-hand and gunplay."
"Is it actually working, or do you just need something to have it shoot at? I'm really not in the mood to have bullets pulled out of me again."
"It's almost perfect. Just needs a couple more calibrations. Hey…are you feeling any better?"
He paused and turned to her, nodding. "Some. Thank you for pissing me off."
"Any time. Have you had your briefings on the new case yet?"
"Not for another hour. Just enough time for a rinse off and dinner. Do you want to sit in on the briefing, or have me just email you what I get from R&D?"
"Email, definitely. I've got a session with Sara after Carlos is done with her—I'm going to try her out on the simulator tonight. The bunny slopes," she clarified, seeing him about to protest. "Easy peasy stuff, with rubber bullets and armor. She'll be sore as fuck but not hurt. You go save the world, I'll go try and save the SA from Sara."
"Good plan. So…did Rowan like his peach?"
She smiled, and it was a real smile, without any sarcasm or irony. "I don't know, but he sure did look happy when he saw it. He might not mind getting another one tonight."
"Later. Duty calls."
"Right, right. Have fun. Catch bad guys. Buy fruit. Drink coffee."
Fifty minutes later, he got to his office just in time to meet Frog, Dr. Patel, and the rest of the team. "Let's go to Conference Two," he said.
"Yes, sir," Frog said, wiping his glasses on his lab coat.
When he was just talking straight-up science, Frog was in his element, and his love of his work shone through; person-to-person, however, he was flustered and forgetful and, well, a bit of an idiot. Jason didn’t talk to Frog much outside of casework; he knew that he and Beck intimidated a lot of the younger staff. The vampire didn’t bother trying to lift the veil of mystery that seemed to lay over their kind; people’s reactions amused him.
He took his seat at the head of the table and waited for everyone to get themselves together, then, "All right, let's get started. Frog?"
Frog cleared his throat self-consciously and queued up the chart he'd probably spent hours making. "This is the breakdown of the sugars used in the Unholy Altoid, er, Pentecost. As you can see by comparison, it most closely matches Imperial Sugar's, and Imperial's refinery is here in Texas. We also traced the gelatin back to a rendering plant near Fort Worth. In addition, the pill contains gum Arabic, a common ingredient used in confectionery, but we also found traces of gum Tragacanth, which is derived from legumes grown primarily in the Middle East, in the same region where the Grimoire of Soldaris Bathsheba originated."
"So can we assume, then, that our manufacturer is, if not from the Middle East, at least connected to a supplier and a magician who is?"
"I would say that's a reasonable assumption, but there are variables. Most occult suppliers in Texas could get hold of gum Tragacanth—it would be expensive, though, especially in quantity. That's the primary reason gum Arabic is usually used instead; it can be cultivated here and Tragacanth can't. So, if we're looking at a huge sale, thousands of pills, it's more likely that the manufacturer has a direct connection to a supplier overseas."
"Good, Frog. SA-13, what do you have?"
"Nothing, sir," the Agent replied reluctantly. "I checked with all the agencies and hospitals that have anything to do with the drug trade, and there haven't been any unusual cases in the last six months, or an increase in numbers. The most recent thing the DEA could tell me about was a shipment of bad MDMA that killed two people at a rave. There certainly haven't been any junkies brought in speaking in tongues. I also checked with Austin State Hospital and several private mental health institutions and rehab facilities. No love. If these guys are selling here, it hasn’t been for long."
"SA-15?"
"Nothing significant is showing up on the energetic monitors," she reported. "I've got all the Eyes on alert, but so far it's just an ordinary summer. It's usually pretty dull around here until the nuts come out in autumn."
"Nuts do love their Halloween candy," Jason observed. "Dr. Patel?"
"This Devouring Fire is proving difficult to track down," she said. "That region is very unstable so there's not much left to dig through. We have a couple of pertinent volumes coming from the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. All I know for sure at this point is that this Devouring Fire is equated with both the spirit and the judgment of God—it all links back to the myth of the Pentecost, and how the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. In the Biblical telling, the Apostles were overcome by the ecs
tasy of their knowledge, hence the speaking in tongues. But there are some references to this being a day of judgment, and from there, the Devouring Fire arises. Those who can withstand the descent of the Holy Spirit are exalted, and those who cannot are devoured."
Jason considered. "Let's assume, for the moment, that this Devourer is a demon, albeit a big nasty one. A demon requires energy to keep it on our plane, and an anchor—an amulet, talisman, reliquary, et cetera. The Devourer would need an endless supply of souls—psychic energy—to remain manifest on Earth. Frog, what did you say the percentages were on victims?"
The Agency, Volume I Page 20