Agave Kiss

Sands of Time

While Shannon arranged for a car to pick us up and Kel lay exhausted on the sofa, I helped Booke gather his things. He did have a birth certificate, but without a current passport he wouldn’t be able to leave the country. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to apply and wait for proper channels. We had to figure this out now.

Then it hit me.

“Eva,” I muttered, already dialing.

“You’ve thought of something?” Booke asked.

I waved him to silence, and he went back to packing, his movements slow and measured. Fortunately, the time difference worked in our favor, as it was earlier in Texas. Eva answered on the third ring.

“It’s me,” I said. “How are you?”

“Good. Tired. Cami keeps me hopping.” Cami was Chuch and Eva’s daughter. I was fuzzy on how old she was, given the time slippage in Sheol, but this didn’t seem like the time to ask.

“Chuch and the baby?”

“They’re both fine. Are you all right? Is Shannon with you?”

Dammit. I had explanations to make, so I summarized as fast as I could, leaving out the ineffable account of Chance’s death. When I finished, she said, “I get the feeling this isn’t a social call.”

“I’m with Booke. If you have contacts in the U.K., I could use them.”

“My contacts,” she repeated. “Not Chuch?” Obliquely, she was asking if I needed papers, not weapons.

“Yeah, do you know anyone?”

“I used to. Let me make a few calls and get back to you.”

So strange, but my friends Chuch and Eva had a colorful past. Chuch had been an arms dealer before he met the love of his life, Eva, who was a talented forger. They’d left their lives of crime to settle into connubial bliss in Laredo. Now Eva was a stay-at-home mom, and Chuch restored classic cars. But they both had helpful underworld contacts at moments like this.

“Can she help?” Booke asked.

I turned to him; in the few moments I had been otherwise occupied, he’d already aged. His features reflected another five years in fine lines. His hair was a little thinner, his shoulders more stooped. At the rate the real world was catching up to him, he might not have more than a day or two. Part of me desperately wanted to find a Luren, no matter what Booke thought . . . but it would be wrong to make such an enormous choice for him. I had to respect his wishes.

Fifteen minutes later, we stood waiting outside the cottage with luggage in tow. A different driver arrived in a Range Rover, as Shannon had told him there were four of us. I suspected Kel was hanging around to have the conversation about my destiny, but I preferred to delay it as long as possible. That said, I owed him to hear him out, especially after he’d half killed himself for Booke at my behest.

I helped Booke into the back, Kel climbed in after me, and Shannon got in front with the driver, who was peering at the ghost cottage with a puzzled expression. “It looks different,” he said. “Less ominous. Like any regular house.”

“It’s just old,” Shan told him.

The guy shrugged, clearly uninterested in further debate as he maneuvered the vehicle around. “Where am I dropping you?”

It was an excellent question. I hadn’t thought much past getting Booke out of the cottage where he had been trapped for so long. But before I could reply, the phone rang. Eva’s number showed in the ID box, and I answered.

“Got something for me?”

She didn’t protest my terse response, knowing the situation with Booke. “Yeah. The guy I know is working in London. I’m texting you his address.”

That was the answer to the driver’s question. I thanked her, disconnected, then said, “Take us to the train station, please.”

“Very well.” The driver turned to Shannon, who responded to his overture with a tired yawn.

Booke reached for Butch, who went without protest. I watched as he petted my dog with fingers that held a slight tremor. It must be overwhelming to be moving after so long. I mean, he’d been in cars before, but it had been half a century. I couldn’t even imagine the isolation. He was watching the scenery with a fierce focus, even when it got too dark to see.

I turned to Kel with a questioning glance. “Do you want to have the discussion I deferred now or later? Are you on a schedule?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve withstood many punishments over the years.”

Guilt flared in a hard, awful twinge. “I don’t want to be the reason you get hurt, Kel.”

He shook his head, his smile haunting and melancholy in the dying light. “Don’t concern yourself with my fate. It will not change, however much I wish it.”

That sounded ominous. But he turned away, shoulders toward the door, making it clear he was uninterested in pursuing the conversation right then. It was hard to credit that we’d been close—he’d confided in me. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The ride went in silence until the driver stopped at the train station. I paid him in cash, then we unloaded. I had lost my sense of time in the real world; how long had it been exactly since Shan and I got off the train? Now we were heading back to London to look for Eva’s contact. I checked the address in my phone, then bought us all tickets. It was late by the time we boarded, and Booke was looking worse. What’re you doing? I asked myself. Maybe it would’ve been better to let him die in familiar surroundings, but it seemed so wrong. That he should pass on without ever seeing anything of the modern world firsthand. I wanted to show him everything, but there weren’t sufficient moments left for that. So I had to pick and choose.

I helped Booke get settled. Then Shannon sat beside him, which left me to take a seat behind them with Kel. It was full dark by this time, no scenery to admire. But I needed to talk to him anyway. And I could tell that he was looking at my blurry face in the glass, not peering beyond the reflection at the night sky.

“Go on, then. I’m ready to listen. You’ve been cryptic in the past, talking about me being important, hinting I have a destiny. Now, you’ve said you’re to recruit me?”

“Time to give the pitch,” he said tiredly. “The archangel to whom I report has been building alliances, preparing to wage a war against demonkind.”

“What has that got to do with me?” I asked, puzzled.

“The duality of your nature. You’ve tasted white magick and demon power. Ultimately, you rejected the demon queen and returned home. Thus, my archangel believes you’ve chosen a side.”

“That seems . . . far-fetched. Just because I didn’t want to stay in Sheol, it doesn’t mean I want to . . .” I trailed off, unsure what I was being asked to do.

“Fight?” he supplied.

“Would it come to that?” It didn’t sound like a viable option for me. I wasn’t exactly the warrior princess type.

“If Barachiel has his way, it will. He wants to conquer demonkind utterly. He’s been building toward this confrontation for centuries.”

“Why does he want me? What would I be doing?” Already, the rejection trembled on the tip of my tongue. I had learned the hard way that if powerful creatures sought you out, it was almost never to your benefit.

“If you agree, he’ll explain everything to you personally,” he answered.

I stared. “Isn’t that like asking me to sign on the dotted line without reading the contract first?”

“He’s not accustomed to being refused anything he wants. To his mind, you should be honored to be chosen.”

“Like in the old days when an angel appeared in a halo of golden light and the peasant scrambled forth in an adoring stupor to do his bidding?”

A reluctant half smile curved Kel’s mouth. “Precisely. He has not adapted well to the Information Age.”

“Then . . . I have to decline. I’m sorry. But it’s not fair to ask me to accept something like this without more details.”

“Nobody ever said life was fair,” he murmured, turning away.

“Ignoring me won’t work,” I whispered.

He shifted, so he was gazing at me full on again. “What is it, Corine?”

“What aren’t you telling me? I know you well enough to realize something’s bothering you about all this.”

Surprise flickered across his impassive features. Doubtless it was my assertion that I knew him. He tried to be remote and untouchable as a mountaintop, but I had scaled his heights, breached his imperturbable silence. And now I knew how to interpret his minuscule expressions.

Kel clenched both hands into fists, balanced them upon his knees. “I’m trapped, Corine.”

“I know.” That wasn’t news, however.

His mouth firmed into a taut, angry line. “You don’t. When I report that I’ve failed to recruit you to our cause, my next order will be to kill you.”

My blood chilled in my veins. “You wouldn’t—”

“I don’t want to,” he said, low. “But I am incapable of rebellion.”

“But . . . you were flogged in the arena.” I remembered his scars, and the way he’d trembled when I ran my fingertips across them, how he flinched when I traced the place on his shoulders where his wings used to be. “What for, if not refusing to fall in line?”

“For being a half-breed. For being insolent and irreverent.”

“You were whipped for . . . mouthing off?” I asked, trying to understand. “But you never actually denied a command?”

“If I could, I would have.” His anguish sharpened the words, made a weapon of them, until I had to reach for him.

My palm covered his knotted fist, and I stroked his knuckles until his fingers unfurled beneath mine. Then he turned his hand slowly under mine, until our palms aligned. A small part of me still loved him. Not as you build your dreams around a man, but in the way you love the stars for shining, showering ephemeral brightness.

“What did they make you do?”

“The archangel learned I had a lover,” he said quietly.

I was afraid I knew where this was going. “Asherah, the goddess of desire.”

He shook his head. “Like you, she was human, though she was a priestess.”

“He ordered you to kill her?” It seemed like the logical conclusion.

“Yes.” The raw syllable told me how much the memory still hurt him, two thousand years later.

“And you couldn’t refuse.”

“Only humans have free will.”

“But you’re so strong. There must be a way to resist your orders.”

“Do you think I would not walk away from endless war, endless death, if it were so simple?” Kel angled a hard look at me.

He had a point. His archangel—or whatever the hell the creature was—had a powerful hold on him. Maybe magickal compliance was in effect, making Kel think he didn’t have free will, due to the bullshit mythology he had been fed since birth. Regardless, it also meant I was in a hell of a mess. If I didn’t sign on with a being I wasn’t convinced had humanity’s best interests at heart, Kel would kill me. And then he’d spend two thousand years grieving.

Shit.

“How long do you have before he gets suspicious?”

“I’m not sure. He has many concerns, many agents. And I’m not his most important emissary.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I said tiredly.

Kel laced his fingers through mine. “Nor do I. Even before I met you, I was weary of war, sick unto death.”

“But you can’t die.”

“No.” The word carried infinite sorrow.

“I don’t understand what the archangel wants from me. I’m not the Binder anymore. My mother’s magick doesn’t work. Which just leaves the touch. What good could that possibly do him?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But this I promise . . . I won’t hurt you, Corine.”

“You can’t know what the future holds.” If I had the option, I’d take a do-over in Sheol, find some way to save Chance. “Anyway, it’s not our most pressing concern. Can you stall?”

“A few days at least. He won’t expect instant capitulation from you, I think.”

That sounded as if the archangel knew me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “What’s his name, anyway?”

“Barachiel.”

“Is he an utter bastard?”

The question startled a quiet chuckle out of Kel. “Yes, rather. I used to tell myself that he got his orders from a higher power. It was the only thing that made my mission bearable.”

“Is the bloom off the rose?”

He inclined his head. “I am unable to grasp how it can matter to a divine being whether you work for Barachiel or not. Lately, it seems as if his will has supplanted any other . . . if there ever was anything more.”

I hated to see the pain engineered by such a crisis in faith, but it might be better that he had lost his blind fanaticism. “I can’t answer that. The demons said a few things that made me think maybe . . . but mostly, it seems like we’re on our own.”

“I thought so too, long ago. But after Asherah died . . . they broke me. Made me believe, somehow, that every horrific deed served a higher purpose.”

“Maybe you had to accept that,” I offered. “Or go crazy.”

“You mean my belief was a form of self-preservation?”

“Possibly. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.”

His smile was fleeting. “You are an odd woman, Corine Solomon. I’ve slain many, but you’re the only prospective victim who ever tried to console me.”

“Is it working?” I wondered aloud.

“Somewhat.”

That seemed like a good place to let the conversation rest. I left my hand in his as a comforting gesture and didn’t protest when he turned his face toward the window. He closed his eyes, tilting his head against the seat; gods, I hoped we could wake him up when the train stopped.

To my relief, it wasn’t a problem.

When we arrived in London, Shannon hailed us a cab, and I helped Booke climb into the back. It was late enough that we should be ashamed of turning up at Geoff Stenton’s door, but I’d drag his ass out of bed if I had to. Booke needed this passport urgently.

Fortunately, the forger lived on the ground floor. Otherwise, I’m not sure whether Booke would have made it. He looked older and frailer with each passing moment. My heart broke a little as I thumped on the knocker, relentless, until I heard movement within.

The man who flung the door open was short, balding, with a pair of smudged glasses hastily perched on a broad nose. His shirt was undone and it looked as if he’d put on a pair of sweatpants that he’d grabbed from the floor. They sported a number of interesting stains, particularly around the knees. I hoped his documents were better than his hygiene.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

“Eva sent me,” I said.

“Good for you. Come back at a decent hour.”

“You don’t understand, it’s an emergency.” I indicated Booke, holding my arm for balance. “He has to get out of the country right away.”

Stenton studied my friend, frowning. “Is he a war criminal or something? Never mind,” he added. “I don’t want to know. Since you’ve gotten me out of bed, you may as well come in.” I didn’t know that much about British regional dialects, but when Geoff said “something” it sounded like “somefing.”

We all traipsed inside. Within, the place was a typical townhome with a front room, a hallway that had a half bath on one side and ended in a small kitchen. The place was cleaner than the forger’s pants. He beckoned us upstairs with an impatient wave of one hand.

“My studio’s upstairs. Can you make it?” Stenton asked Booke.

“I’ll manage,” he answered.

With my help, he clambered up the stairs, but I could tell by his expression it was painful. How old was he now? Eighty? I wished I could calculate the rate at which the years were catching up to him. Then I might be able to predict how long he had left. My sense of urgency built even more; I had to show him something lovely before he died. I’d promised.

If my mother taught me anything, it was the importance of keeping my word.