The Agency, Volume V, page 14
“I’m sure he’d love to know he’s just a failed experiment,” Sara said acidly. “And to think that his life was leveled for nothing.”
“No, no, not for nothing. It was accidental, but providential. I sent him to live with a human family hoping he would grow up normally and never know, but the Seraph woke in him. The original purpose I gave him bred true, and now your child has a guardian. I look forward to seeing how his potential is fulfilled.”
“But if the Astaerath and the Jenai are enemies, why create a guardian for one?” Sara demanded. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me when the Sibyl is? Did you switch teams or something?”
“Things are different now,” Sita insisted. “The Jenai are not yet fully reborn. Many of my kin disagree, but I believe we can stop the war before it starts, if we can keep the new Jenai from following the Sibyl. It was she who began the first war, and she who can take the blame for the Clan-by-Clan extermination of Elvenkind.”
“How so?”
“Long ago the Jenai declared that humanity was a stain upon the Earth and set about wiping them out. The humans called upon their own gods for help, and the Astaerath were brought forth as warriors. The war went on for decades, and the Jenai almost won. Our numbers were decimated until we created the Seraph to fight for us. But then, seeing the evil in the Sibyl’s intentions, one of the Jenai tried to end the fighting, and the Sibyl murdered him. The Elves learned of the Sibyl’s actions and rose up against her and the Jenai; only the Sibyl survived, for she foresaw their defeat and fled, never to be seen again. Since then humankind has tried to eliminate the Elves for fear that the Jenai would be reborn as the Sibyl foretold. They care not that the Elves saved their race—they are too afraid of the Jenai, and with good reason. Once the Sibyl turned them all to evil and unleashed their power upon the Earth, it was as if hell had engulfed all creation. It must not happen again.”
Sara’s mouth was dry, her hands shaking. “So the Archangels will want my baby dead…and Rowan too.”
“They will indeed. But as long as I draw breath I will not allow it. My grandmother told me of the war, of the blood and the suffering that were endured by all races for generations. But before that…for millennia…the Jenai and humanity lived in peace, until the Sibyl’s soul became corrupt. As long as the Jenai are kept from her influence there is no reason we cannot have another era of peace, with the Jenai using their power to aid creation, and the Astaerath guarding over humanity. Such is what the Great Mother has commanded of me.”
Sage and Sara exchanged a look. “If you guys created the Seraph, then how did anyone else know how to summon them?”
Sita looked chagrined. “The rituals were not guarded closely enough. You do not have to be Astaerath to summon a Seraph, but the methods they are using…they are cruel, and create mindless automatons, because only the Astaerath understand how to transfer and blend the souls. As I said, I have been trying to find gentler methods, and until I do, no Seraph will come of my blood.”
“Your blood?”
“Yes…our blood, combined with the blood of a host body. In many ways the true Seraph are our children. The one you call Lex is essentially my son, although he would probably not see himself as such.”
Sara held onto her teacup, staring into it, trying to form a question; she was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t think straight. On cue, the tramera kicked, jolting her out of her confusion.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Sara asked…although it was a pointless question. She knew, just looking at Sita, that the woman…Archangel…wasn’t lying. She could feel the deep, ageless power thrumming through the woman’s form, more and more since they’d sat down together. The polite young spice merchant was a brilliant glamour, but a glamour it was—she was allowing Sara to see the truth in her eyes.
“You do not, I suppose,” Sita answered. “But perhaps you will let me give you a gift—or, rather, a gift for my Seraph child. Consider it a peace offering from my people to your daughter’s.”
She rose gracefully and disappeared through another door, leaving Sara and Sage staring at each other.
“Holy crap,” Sage said. “I think my head may explode from too much information. How is it that the Elves don’t know any of this stuff about the war?”
“They probably didn’t want to,” Sara reasoned. “If it’s all true, and they turned on the Jenai and helped kill them off, they probably didn’t want the new ones to appear. So they squashed the knowledge that they’d ever existed, only it backfired on them—the Jenai are coming back anyway, and there’s no history or lore to tell them not to join the Sibyl.”
“I’ll bet Lex will want to meet this woman,” said Sage. “He’s probably got a lot of questions for her.”
“No kidding. I’ve still got about a thousand.”
Sita returned minutes later, carrying a flat wooden box with a carved lid.
“If you’re an Archangel, why don’t you have wings?” Sage asked her as she sat down.
Sita smiled. “I do. But the Astaerath are more powerful than the Seraph. We have magical abilities they do not have, including the ability to draw a glamour around ourselves and appear human, as we once were.”
“So you were summoned too? By whom?”
“The priests and priestesses who entreated the gods for divine intervention—they came from many faiths and many cultures, and acted together for the good of their people. Into each body an Archangel was invoked. My grandmother was a priestess once, as was I, before I left India. My mother merged her blood with a human’s—mine. We must be invoked into the bodies of those with powerful abilities and strength. A woman like yourself, for example, would make a wonderful Archangel.”
“No thanks,” Sara said.
Sita lay the box between them on the table. “I have had this for many years. It was once the sacred weapon of the Seraph who went into battle against the Elven armies.”
She flipped the lock on the lid and opened the box, revealing a gleaming silver knife with a gently curved blade, carved with more Enochian symbols. It was very similar to the ones the sorcerer had given his Seraph, but looked…real, Sara decided, as if the others were no more than cheap imitations. This one shone in the workroom’s light, and rather than the dark intention the others had been created with, had the pure, clean energy of a waterfall.
“Your people may test it all they like,” Sita informed them, “but only a Seraph may unlock its potential. Have Lex anoint the blade with one drop of his own blood so that it will know him, and the knife will teach him its uses.”
“It’s beautiful,” Sage breathed. “Frog is going to have a stroke when he sees it.”
Sara frowned. “He’s not going to see it, not yet.” She took the box gingerly from Sita. “We’re taking this to Lex. If we turn it over to R&D he may never get to touch it—he needs this. We need him to have it.”
Sage gave her a doubtful, and worried, look. “That’s breaking about fifty rules.”
Sara looked at Sita, who was watching her silently. “I don’t care. This belongs to Lex.”
She sensed the Archangel’s approval, but still Sita said nothing.
Sara stood up awkwardly, and Sage followed suit; Sita led them out of the workroom and back into the shop itself, where the “closed” sign had somehow flipped of its own accord. “I hope that you will tell Lex where to find me,” Sita requested—it wasn’t a command, but it was close. “If he chooses to come and see me…I can, perhaps, help him. And please feel free to return yourselves, if you need my assistance. I would prefer not to have my life disrupted by your Agency unless it is very, very important, but you are welcome any time. Also…when your Rowan emerges from his incubation, I would like to meet him. We must broker peace between our peoples if we are to survive the coming storm together.”
With that, she ushered Sara and Sage through the door; before Sara could come up with another question, she heard the door lock behind them, and the shop’s window shades lowered as the lights went out.
Witch and Witch stared at each other again.
Sara opened her mouth to speak, but right then her phone shrilled in her pocket; she yanked it out, saw who was calling, and said, “Agent Larson.”
Ness’s words made Sara forget everything she had just heard.
*****
A team of five Agents met Sara and Sage outside Ten Percent, where a perimeter had been set up. Two Agents were questioning a cute redheaded bartender, and over by one of the Agency cars, Ness herself was waiting with an agitated Beck.
Sara turned to Sage. “I need you to take this,” she said, handing Sage the box from Sita. “Take this to the Winchester building, to Lex. Tell him what Sita said, and that Jason’s missing—he won’t know unless Beck has told him. Please, Sage.”
Sage was pale, but she nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. Just find him, okay?”
“We will.” Sara climbed out of the cab as quickly as she could, and the vehicle pulled away to take Sage back to the base.
“SA-9,” Ness said, “Good. We need you to talk to the scene.”
“What do we know?” she asked as Beck handed her an Ear. Sara clipped on the belt receiver and put the earpiece itself on, then coded onto the network.
“Not much,” Ness replied. “SA-7 spent nearly two hours here and left inebriated at 19:47. He called for a cab home, and six minutes later when the cab arrived there was nobody here. We found this.”
She held up an iPhone, standard Agency issue. It had been smashed, probably stomped on.
Beck saw it and turned green. “Fuck.”
“Nava is still receiving readings from the EKG lead he was wearing, so we know he’s alive—he had a mild cardiac episode about thirty minutes ago but recovered on his own. Unfortunately the lead isn’t a tracking device; we’re working on triangulating the signal, but the Eyes are having trouble. We think he may be shielded.”
“But why? What would somebody want with him?”
“It could be a lot of things,” Beck said. “The base’s location is a secret but there are a lot of people who would love to find it. Maybe your old coven wants to find you. Or maybe its just a pissed off vampire or someone he arrested once. It’s not like we’re well liked by outsiders.”
“The timing’s too much of a coincidence.” Sara looked around at the otherwise quiet Fourth Street intersection; the Agency didn’t use flashing lights like APD, so aside from the crime scene tape and the bar’s handful of patrons being questioned by uniformed Agents, it could have been any Saturday night.
Ness nodded grimly. “I’m inclined to agree. But the only way to know for sure is to have a look.”
“Right,” Sara said, stepping over to the front of the bar and addressing the others. “Clear the area, please!”
She caught the bartender just as he was going back inside. “What did you see?”
He looked confused and more than a little scared. “Nothing. I told the other guys. He was in here, he got drunk, and he left. I didn’t see anyone go out after him. He didn’t talk to anybody but me the whole time.”
Sara turned away from him and waited until he was back in the building before lowering her shielding enough to decide where to start. She half-shut her eyes, letting her body move itself into position a few feet to the right of the bar’s front door, and sought out with her senses for traces of Jason’s presence.
She found it, fading fast. “Here,” she murmured. “Sean, are we recording?”
[Affirmative,] her Ear said. [Audio and psionic. Eyes are on you.]
“Okay.” She thinned out the barriers between her mind and the rest of the world, reaching out to the Earth and the buildings around her, holding onto the feeling of Jason the way a bloodhound would hold a scent.
A lot of people had passed by here in the last few hours…people, cars, pigeons…bats overhead…the building was old by Austin standards, about as old as the building that housed the Clay Pit, dating back to Prohibition or earlier. It had been a variety of establishments, and was currently a gay bar.
That was interesting. As far as she knew Jason hated gay bars, and vampire bars too; he really wasn’t a social creature. She found the track of his coming in, right when Ness had said, and felt around the afterimage.
“He was depressed,” she said, though that was an understatement. “What happened today that was worse than the last week?”
Sara heard Ness say, “Nava put him on indefinite medical leave.”
Beck cursed, but Sara ignored her and went back into the trance. “He went inside…” She let the minutes scroll by, barely a blink of an eye to the building and the street. “When he came out, he was drunk. Really drunk. Called a cab…then…”
She watched the scene unfold, horrified. “There was a guy. A human. Brown hair, hazel eyes…six-one, say 180 pounds…wearing a black hoodie and faded jeans. Looks like he’s into yoga or something, he has a hemp necklace with a pewter Om on it. He keeps Jason from falling over…shit, shit! He’s got a needle. A hypodermic. Jason goes down and he catches him, and…there’s a van. A plain white van, no plates, no markers. It’s a Ford. Blacked out windows. The guy drags him to it, and…they drive off. West. Turn right at the corner. The brakes squeal. And…and that’s it.”
Sara focused hard on the image of the human, and hit “send” on her Ear.
[Transmission received,] Sean said. [I’ll get a search running.]
Sara pulled herself out of the trance and back into her body, suddenly nauseated; she hadn’t done a full crime scene evaluation since she’d found out she was pregnant, and it had taken a lot out of her. She wavered back and forth on her feet.
Hands grabbed her arms, and she was surprised at how gently Beck steered her toward the Agency van. “Watch it there,” Beck said. “Good work, SA-9. Now you go home and let us take it from here.”
Sara nodded, her head pounding like a jackhammer. “Does Lex know?”
“Not yet. I’ll call him.”
“Wait…” Sara took her arm weakly, pulling her closer so Ness wouldn’t hear. “I sent Sage to him with a gift. From the Archangel.”
Beck’s mouth fell open. “The Archangel that summoned him? You found her?”
“Yeah. I’ll explain it all later. But I wanted you to know.”
The vampire stared at her, then nodded. “Thanks, Sara.”
Then, she handed Sara off to the Agent in charge of the van, and Sara climbed in and immediately fell asleep.
*****
The young woman standing at the door looked utterly petrified, but determined. She was wearing a peasant sort of blouse over jeans that showed off a curvy, attractive body with creamy cleavage, and she clasped a flat wood box to her chest like a life preserver.
Lex tilted his head to one side. She had to work for the Agency; nobody else had the elevator code. “Can I help you?”
“Um…Um…”
“I think I remember you,” he said. “You’re Sara’s friend…Sage, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Would you like to come in?”
Another nod.
Lex smiled to himself and stepped back to allow her entrance to the aerie. She was staring at him openly, not bothering to push back her brilliant red hair where it had gotten windblown.
“Please, sit,” he said, gesturing at Beck’s usual chair. She did as he said, and he took his stool in front of her.
It was a full minute before she spoke.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he finally said. “I’m not dangerous. In fact I’m a bit of a wuss.”
Sage smiled a little at that. “Apparently not,” she said, swallowing. “Um…Sara sent me. She had to go…Jason, SA-7 is missing.”
Lex felt a crashing sensation in his stomach. “What?”
“They don’t know what happened yet. He just disappeared tonight. I guess Beck will know more. But earlier, we…I mean, Sara and I…we met this woman, and she…I guess I should start over. At the beginning. God, I’m not usually this much of a spaz, I swear, it’s just…I’ve never seen anything like you before.”
Lex smiled. “I figured not. I’d never seen anything like me before either.” She was doing what most people did, staring at his wings. Grinning, he leaned forward slightly and unhooked them. “Would it make you feel better to touch one?”
Sage looked mortified, but she didn’t say no. “I’ve dealt with vampires, and I’ve seen all sorts of demons being Jason’s Ear and all, but…vampires basically look human, and Elves look like Elves, and demons look like animals. You’re…weird.”
“Tell me about it.” He extended a wing toward her. “Go on, it’s okay.”
She held the box to her chest with one hand and tentatively reached out with the other. Luckily she went for the outside, not the inside; it was hard for him not to react when the undersides were touched, as they were so sensitive. They told him about changes in wind currents, temperature, that sort of thing, but they were also one gigantic erogenous zone when an actual hand stroked them. Sage really didn’t need to know that.
