Solomon's Sieve (39 page)

“You don’t have to see me off, Rev. I’m a big girl.”

“I don’t plan to see you off, Susan. I’m going with you.”

“You can’t go
with
me. There’s too much to do here.”

“Maybe this Sovereign learned some valuable lessons about how to live life from mistakes the last one made. I’m going with you.”

She couldn’t protest too much when she needed and wanted him to go so badly. Grabbing him around the waist, she planted kisses at eye level, on his shirt above his heart. “Thank you. That… means the world to me.” That was the tearful tipping point. A person could only contain so much emotion without spill over. She looked embarrassed about the stray tear that she swiped away.

“Check the weather before you pack.”

“I know.”

Rev watched her close the door. His next call was to the Laiken-Hawking residence. Ram answered.

“It’s Farthing.”

“Oh?”

“I need to speak to both of you.”

“You mean now? Where?”

“I could come to you if that’s easiest.”

“Suppose so. We’ll freshen the coffee.”

“Be there in five.”

“One thin’. No matter what, no yellin’ is allowed. There’s a baby that will no’ hesitate to interrupt a meetin’ no matter how important we say ‘tis.”

“If there’s to be any yelling, it will not be originated or instigated by me.”

“
Who is it?” Elora had muted the TV.

“’
Tis the new Sovereign. He wants to see us both now and he’s comin’ here.”

Five minutes later, Rev was lowering himself into a chair at the kitchen nook table with a mug of coffee.

“Something’s come up and I need to respectfully request a slight amendment to our agreement. Just for the next few days. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Well, hel, I may as well tell you. It’s not going to be a secret.

“Farnsworth had a baby when she was a teenager. Her parents made her give it up. We located the girl, er, woman and it turns out she’s a recent recruit. Works for us.”

“Paddy,” Ram supplied.

“Indeed. Based right here out of Jefferson Unit.”

“’
Tis a small world.”

“Yeah. Thing is, Headquarters sent her on assignment to Bulgaria. I sent Z Team to escort her. There was a tunnel collapse and now Farnsworth’s daughter, who she just learned about half an hour ago, is missing, along with Sir Nightsong.”

“Great Paddy. The Fates seem to have taken a bead on the poor woman.”

“Would seem so. Long story short, she’s going tonight and I’m going with her.”

Elora looked confused. “No disrespect, sir, and maybe it’s not my business, but why would you be going with Farnsworth? There are other people who know her better.”

“I doubt it. We’re engaged.” Rev looked at Ram and gave a tiny shake of the head.

“Wow,” she said. “That was fast.”

“Succinctly put, Lady Laiken, but you know how it is. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Wow,” she repeated. Elora seemed lost in thought for a few seconds, but then reengaged with the moment at hand. “So how can we help?”

“Well, I’m scheduled to patrol with B Team tonight. I was hoping you could get a babysitter and…”

“Yes. We’ll do it.”

Ram looked at her like he didn’t know her. “Do you no’ think we should talk it over, just the two of us?”

“Normally yes, but I’ve given this a lot of thought. I was going to bring it up after my patrol tonight when you’d had a chance to find out firsthand just how hard it is to sit home and not know what’s going on. This latest crisis has just moved my schedule ahead by a day.”

“Your schedule,” Ram repeated drily. “I was actually goin’ to have a talk with
you
today and let you know that I’m goin’ out tonight instead of you. I am no’ likin’ the idea of my child’s mother in the field. Particularly no’ in light of the way these new biters are behavin’. Allegedly.”

Elora gaped at him and Ram knew the flush in her cheeks was never a sign that an argument was going his way.

“You mean you were planning to make me fight my way onto B Team a
second
time?” She outrage-whispered so as not to wake Helm. “As for ‘badly behaving biters’, that’s exactly the point I was going to make and my practical demonstration couldn’t be more apropos to your phrasing.”

“What demonstration?”

“You know how Helm is going through a biting phase?” Elora turned to Rev to catch him up with a summary. “When the baby doesn’t get what he wants when he wants it, sometimes he turns red in the face, screams, and bites like a little pit bull. Three days ago he bit Ram on the shoulder.” She turned to Ram, who was wearing a gray metal band tee. “Come on. Show our guest how it looks after three days.”

Ram hesitated for a couple of seconds, eyeing her in challenge, but finally acquiesced and pulled the short sleeve up above his shoulder to reveal the bite mark . It was ugly. Helm had made a mold of his teeth out of his daddy’s flesh. It was bruised all around and had the red telltale signs of beginning infection.

“Your baby did that?” Rev asked incredulously.

Ram nodded.

“It looks worse, Ram. When we’re done here, you’re going to go down to the clinic and have them take a look.” Elora continued. “But back to my demonstration. Tonight, right here in this very high chair,” she pointed to the chair for dramatic effect, “the child threw a similar tantrum - which had Hawking stamped all over it, by the way - and he bit the bejuices out of
my
forearm.”

She then pulled up her sleeve and turned her arm over so they could both see that, from any and every angle, there was no sign she’d been touched.

Ram grabbed her arm and gave it a close inspection and then insisted on doing the same with the other arm. When he was satisfied with the inspection, he shrugged. “So you’re a fast healer.”

“No. The point goes much deeper than that. It’s not that Helm bit me and I recovered quickly. It’s that he didn’t do any damage to begin with. Unless you count the fact that I think less of him and question his love.”

Ignoring that last part, Ram said, “So you’re tryin’ to say you can no’ be hurt?” He made a rude noise. “Talkin’ to the wrong person, love. You’re forgettin’ that I happened to be there when we almost lost you to vampire bites. Made a righteous mess of that beautiful body if I’m recallin’ correctly.”

“I’m not forgetting that. But
you’re
forgetting that, number one, I wasn’t out with a team. I was alone. And number two, I wasn’t taken down by vampire. It was a fellow knight, which is why I didn’t see it coming.” Ram responded by slumping down in his chair and starting to thump a nervous rhythm on the table with his hand. “Don’t you see, Ram, if I’m on patrol, I can protect you. When the four of us are together, I may be able to protect Kay and Storm as well. That’s why I wanted to be a knight to begin with.”

Ram sighed deeply. He was going to give in for all the same reasons he had given in the first time. “That’s why you wanted to be a knight?”

“Rammel, if something happened to you, I would never forgive you for going out without me because I would always know that I might have prevented it if I’d been there. I owe that to you, to me, to Helm, and to B Team.”

“Are you plannin’ to play every card in your deck?”

Elora raised her chin and smiled. “I’m not playing, Ram. I’m standing by my man.”

“You know there’s a reason why Great Paddy ne’er married.”

Elora cocked her head and looked at Ram thoughtfully. “You
do
know there’s no Great Paddy, don’t you, Ram?”

“What do you mean?”

Rev interjected. “If this is settled, I need to go throw a couple of things in a bag.” He started toward the door and turned back. “Oh and take one of the kids we’re moving up with you. Have them take turns. They might as well learn from the best. They’ve already been informed and will be waiting for your instructions.” He closed the door and was gone.

Ram and Elora looked at each other.

“I think he paid us a compliment. He implied we’re the best. I did no’ know that Sovereign types know how to be nice.”

“He’s not being nice, Ram. He’s planning to put my kids on the streets years before they’re ready.”

Ram’s face softened. He took her hands, pulled her up out of her chair and repositioned her on his lap. “Well, see, here’s the thin’. In your eyes they’ll ne’er be ready whether they’re eighteen or forty. Same thin’s goin’ to happen with Helm someday. When it comes to life, lettin’ ‘em go ‘tis definitely in the hard column. But sometime you have to do it.

“Now I happen to know that they could no’ possibly have had a better teacher. You’ve given them every possible advantage to help them do the work and stay alive. This crop of trainees comin’ out of Jefferson Unit? In the whole history of Black Swan there’s ne’er been a bunch so well-prepared.”

She turned her face into his and smiled just a little. “Yeah?”

“’
Tis Paddy’s own truth. Now which one will we take with us tonight? And we need to get a babysitter. ‘Tis on The Order’s tab.”

CHAPTER 20

“Wait. Condom.”

He gaped at her. “I don’t have a condom, Mercedes. Who do you think I was planning on fucking? One of my team members? Or maybe the buttoned-up bitch who was looking at me like I was something pulled out of a stopped-up drain?”

“You did not just say that.”

“I… didn’t. Well, I guess I did. But I was talking about how I saw things
before
. Not how I see things
now
.”

“How do you see things now, Raif?” Her voice was soft and he loved the way her mouth formed his name. He’d never thought it was a particularly good name before, but he was starting to really appreciate the sound of it.

He looked at her with a question in his eyes. “I see the most beautiful girl who’s soft and naked, ready for me, and looking at me like I’m candy.” He moved his hands up and down the sides of her bare body under the water like he was double checking to make sure she wasn’t an illusion. “Do you like my name?”

There was confusion on her face. “Do you have ADD?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But do you like my name? And would it be a problem if I do have ADD? Never mind. Forget that. It’s the other thing I want to know. About my name.”

“All right. Your name.”

She looked away and seemed to be gathering her thoughts. She thought it was an odd conversation to have in a naked embrace with a man who was essentially a stranger.

“No,” he said. She brought her gaze back to his face not understanding what he was saying ‘no’ to. “No diplomacy or tact or Miss Manners. Just tell me how you feel about my name. The real deal right now.”

When she looked back at him, her eyes looked as liquid as the reflection of the navy blue water in the pool that surrounded them. “I don’t know why you want to know what I think about your name, but I’ll tell you what I think. No one has ever had a name more beautiful than yours. If you say it altogether, it sounds like what it is – a song. If you break it down to just your nickname, it sounds like a lover’s contented sigh. Now why do you want to know?”

He wasn’t sure he could articulate why his heart had forced the question out of his mouth, but he
was
sure that he was dumbstruck by her answer. She was perched partly on a flat rock that formed a natural step, with her legs around his hips. The water was warm and clean and heavenly, but nothing was as heavenly as the beauty he held in his hands. He looked down with hooded eyes. “Kiss me.”

“If there’s no condom, I don’t think kissing is a great idea. It could lead to things condoms are designed for.”

All of a sudden he started laughing under her. “You think we’ll die from an STD before we starve to death?”

“Well… no, but that’s not the only reason people use them. What about pregnancy?”

“You’re not on birth control? You weren’t kidding about giving up on love, were you? Okay.” He ran his hand down his face, his pale eyes sparkling in the ray of late afternoon sun that came through the cavern ceiling above. “Let’s have the mature, planned parenthood conversation. Take the one in ten thousand chance that we live through this and combine that with the one in a hundred chance that you’d get pregnant… What we have is essentially zero probability.”