Stole Soul Picnic 12/?
Previous
Chapter 11
Turning the Tide
“What in the seven hells were you thinking, leaving Josie alone with Henry when he was blind drunk?” Gabriel asked Castiel.
Castiel blinked. “She said she’d look after him.”
“She took advantage of him, kiddo!”
“They were already in love. I thought-”
“No, you didn’t think! If you had, you might have recognized how suspicious the timing was!”
Castiel frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Clearly.”
Raphael finally spoke up. “That Henry should have a flashback after being startled by the alarm heralding Menva’s return was natural enough. Its severity was not. Something wanted Henry sidelined.”
Castiel’s frown deepened. “The wards had not been breached, nor was Josie possessed.”
“That doesn’t rule out the possibility of a remote spell, inflaming and manipulating weaknesses that were already present in both Henry and Josie. Even simple suggestion could have been at work, depending on how low their defenses were against psychic assault.”
“Abaddon?” Gabriel suggested.
Raphael nodded. “Possibly, or one of her lieutenants. Even with Henry’s location both hidden and inaccessible, his pain would have been easy to spot for even a Screwtape-grade tempter assigned to watch for it.”
Castiel sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “I sensed no danger. I’m sorry, brothers.”
Gabriel huffed. “Well, no use cryin’ over tied knots. Question now is, where do we go from here?”
The sound of a throat clearing interrupted. “’Scuse me,” said a tenor voice. “I think I might be able to help you.”
The angels looked over at the newcomer at the door, who... looked like Chuck Shurley, except that he was dressed like an Ancient.
“Chuck?” Castiel asked.
The newcomer smiled apologetically. “Actually, it’s Caltus. Of Atlantis. I’d always been psionic, even before my ascension, but Zachariah couldn’t manipulate any of the human prophets the way he wanted to, and then the real Chuck Shurley died suddenly as an infant, so... Zachariah forced me back into mortal form to replace him and hid my memories. My-er, Chuck’s parents were none the wiser, and of course, I had no idea I wasn’t an average human until Zachariah started force-feeding me visions. But the memory block started to break down after his death and failed completely when Michael and Lucifer fell into the Cage. So I finished the last chapter of Swan Song and... here I am.”
Raphael tried and failed several times to say something. Finally, he managed, “I had no idea.”
Caltus nodded. “I know. I felt your surprise when I ascended. Sorry I didn’t stick around to explain; I just... didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire again.”
“Which you would have,” Gabriel said flatly, “knowing my brothers. The other Ancients know you’re here?”
“They do. They sent me.”
“Why?”
Caltus walked over to the table where the angels were sitting. “Menva is our problem. Abaddon, technically, is yours. Neither you nor we can deal with either problem without the other’s help. But as a better writer than I once said, ‘’Tis most sweet / When in one line two crafts directly meet.’”
Raphael leaned forward. “We let Menva and Abaddon take out each other?”
“We don’t let anyone do anything. We plot their course before they can plot ours.”
Gabriel smiled slowly and manifested a lollipop. “Now you’re talkin’ my language. Where do we start?”
Caltus met his eyes with an equally slow smile. “Samuel Campbell.”
Henry struggled to keep his focus on the page from Janus’ journal that he was staring at, or that was staring at him. And he wasn’t sure why. Bobby and Rufus hadn’t come back yet-Henry couldn’t remember whether they’d said they were going to Sioux Falls or to Colorado Springs-but as much as he missed having them there to steady him, he wasn’t sure he wanted them to see him like this.
Josie was fixing supper, he thought, maybe. That was good, if so, because he was hungry. But it was bad, too, because mealtimes somehow kept turning into playtimes, followed by guilt that he’d moved on from Millie so quickly and more guilt that he wasn’t getting any work done. Yes, he and Josie were married now, but still, he ought to have more self-discipline than this. Yet even though he hadn’t touched another drop of alcohol, he couldn’t help himself. It was like he was losing his mind, the way he kept thinking about her and only her.
He ached. He wanted. He needed-
A hand landed across the back of his neck, and he swayed forward as power surged through him, nearly blinding him. Hauling in a lungful of air with a deep gasp, he straightened again... and realized that his mind was clear for the first time in days.
“There, now,” said an unfamiliar male voice, as the hand moved down between his shoulder blades. “Easy. Deep breaths.”
Henry obeyed, taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly until his heart mostly stopped racing.
“That’s it,” said the stranger gently and took his hand away.
Henry turned to find a tall black man standing beside his chair, but it wasn’t Rufus. “Who are you?”
“My name is Raphael. It seems these wards can defend against anything but a psychic assault, at least not one as sophisticated as the spell Abaddon ordered laid upon your mind and Josie’s.”
“I-it-spell?”
Raphael nodded. “I have lifted it from you and placed wards upon your mind so that you can’t be attacked again in the same way. In a moment, I’ll do the same for your wife.”
And bang went any hope Henry had that the whole thing had been a nightmare. His eyes dropped to the table as his heart dropped to the floor. His left hand curled into a fist, as if to hide the ring he was wearing, and his left arm curled around his churning stomach. He wasn’t hungry anymore.
Raphael put his hand on Henry’s shoulder again. “There will be time for grief and rue later. Tonight you and Josie will need to talk. But tomorrow Bobby and Rufus will need you both to research-they’re on their way to a very dangerous hunt in Rhode Island.”
Henry swallowed hard and nodded. Then he looked up at Raphael again. “You’re much kinder than the boys had said.”
“I am now,” Raphael replied sadly. “They knew me as I was, and they told you the truth. The last few decades, I had forgotten God’s will and lost my way. But know this, Henry Winchester: if an archangel can find redemption for crimes beyond your comprehension, this weakness of yours can be forgiven, too.”
And then Henry was alone.
Library lights off, he commanded, looking down at the table again, and the library went dark. Somehow, he felt the need to hide, even though he didn’t think he could move because he felt so sick. Raphael’s words notwithstanding, he couldn’t believe he’d been such a fool.
A few minutes later, however, the lights came back on as Josie called, “Henry?”
He looked up to see her standing in the middle of the doorway, hugging herself-and too far from any of the manual controls to have turned on the lights that way. And the knot in his stomach tightened further.
“Hi,” he breathed.
She hesitated a moment before drifting further into the room with a wry chuckle. “Well, this is another fine mess I’ve gotten us into, huh?”
“I started it,” he replied, looking away and running his right hand over his face. He couldn’t remember much, but he did remember that.
She huffed. “Like I couldn’t have handled you. Do you have any idea how many idiots have made passes at me? I could have pushed you away. I could have knocked you out with a spell. I... I could have....”
“Josie.”
“Henry, you were drunk. Out of your mind drunk. But you were hurting and looking for comfort, and you wanted it from me. And you’re the only man I’ve ever loved, and... all I could think was, this was something I’d wanted for so long, and it was right there, and... God help me, I took it. And I shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have pushed you to marry me, either.”
“I could have said no.”
“But you did, and I still pushed. And I’m... I’m sorry.”
He peeled his arm away from his stomach and buried his face in his hands.
After a moment, she pulled out a chair at the next table and sat down. “Can you ever forgive me?”
He dropped his hands. “Kind of have to, don’t I?”
“No. You don’t owe me anything. You’d be within your rights to divorce me.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He finally looked over at her.
And she looked at him warily, still curled in on herself. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t noticed, have you?”
“N-noticed what?”
“You don’t have the ATA gene. I do. But suddenly the bunker is responding to your commands, like when you turned on the lights just now. That was you, not me.”
She was too bright not to reach the same conclusion he had, but he could tell from the fear that reared up in her eyes that she didn’t want to believe it. “What are you saying?” she pressed, her voice wavering.
He looked her in the eye. “Josie, you’re carrying my child.”
After a frozen moment, she lurched out of her chair and into his arms, sobbing. He held her close, unsure whether her tears were of terror, remorse, joy, or all three. He suspected she wasn’t sure, either.
As for him... well. He’d told her the truth. He loved her, and so he forgave her. He just didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself.
There was nothing Atlantis could do about Earth’s disasters right now. John hated it when there was nothing he could do, and he knew Dean felt the same way. Sam had just uncovered something in Janus’ journal and was going over it with Zelenka and McKay to see whether there was anything in Janus’ Atlantis lab that might correspond to whatever it was, but Dean didn’t have any projects at the moment, and with all the demon inhibitors delivered, John didn’t have any offworld missions in the offing.
So he and Dean were hanging out in the gym, watching Teyla teach Lisa a few new banto moves. Lisa was in a sport top and yoga pants; Teyla was in the sleeveless Athosian top and split skirt she often wore to teach in. And while Teyla was, well, Teyla, John could appreciate what Dean saw in Lisa as the two women practically danced through the banto routine.
“You gonna marry that girl?” he asked Dean quietly.
“Might,” Dean replied at the same volume. “You?”
John decided to dodge slightly. “I’m up for promotion next year, and so’s Lorne-good chance O’Neill’s gonna want me flyin’ a desk from then on, promote Lorne’s team to SGA-1. And TJ turns five next June.”
“Mm. Time to start school.”
“Yeah, although he’s already watching Ben and wanting to do school stuff with him. He may talk Teyla into starting him this fall. Whenever he does start, though, she’ll probably want to spend more time with him, homeschool.”
Dean gave John a sidelong look and smiled a little. He had his answer. But all he said as he returned his attention to the women was, “Bird colonel, huh? Awesome.”
And speaking of bird colonels, Cas appeared on the other side of Dean. “Dean, I owe you an apology.”
Dean didn’t turn to look at him. “What for?”
“My part in Henry and Josie’s marriage. I know you’re still uncomfortable with their relationship, and the marriage can’t have helped. But the situation was not what it seemed, and I was not aware of it.”
“You sic the cupids on ’em?”
“No, but-”
“Then it ain’t your fault, Cas. Forget it.”
Cas didn’t look like he was willing to forget it, but he did at least let the subject drop by not responding. Yet he didn’t leave, either.
Dean finally looked over at him. “What?”
“Where’s Sam?”
“Janus’ lab. Why?”
“I need to brief you both, and your superiors,” Cas added with a glance at John. “The Ancients have suggested a new strategy.”
“The Ancients?” John and Dean both echoed.
“You mean Henry found something in Janus’ journal,” Dean continued, “or....”
Cas shook his head. “No, the Ancients themselves. Because Menva is one of their number, they finally consider it their duty to get involved.”
John huffed. “Goa’uld, Replicators, Wraith, Ori, monsters, demons, fallen angels-not their problem. But one rogue scientist....”
“Menva is hardly just a rogue scientist,” Cas interrupted. “Many of her creatures worship her as a goddess, and their numbers are growing rapidly, both because Menva herself is giving birth to new monsters and because she has ordered all monster kinds to multiply as quickly as they can. Plus, with so many of the pagan gods now being dead, she is also harnessing the worship still offered to the great mother goddesses. Both kinds of faith are sources of immense power.”
John never had learned Goa’uld, but he had at least figured out from context when Dean was swearing in it. “How the hell do we fight her, then?” Dean continued in English.
“You don’t,” Cas said flatly. “There are few who can. But one is the Queen of Hell.”
“You want us to start working for Abaddon?!”
“No. There’s no need. We want you to make contact with someone who already does.”
Whether or not Dean could figure out where this was headed, John understood and tapped his radio. “Woolsey, McKay, Ronon, Winchester, Campbell, this is Sheppard. Need you in the conference room in five minutes for a briefing with Castiel.”
Various affirmatives followed in quick succession.
“Do you need me as well?” Teyla asked, not taking her eyes off Lisa.
“’Course,” John answered. “Don’t need to radio you when you’re in the same room, do I?”
Teyla smiled and launched into one last flurry of attack, which Lisa countered mostly with the correct moves but occasionally with something that looked more like tai chi. Dean yelled encouragements to Lisa, but John just sat back and enjoyed the view for two minutes. He was just about to call time when Lisa stumbled and tapped out.
“Are you all right?” Teyla asked as she helped Lisa to her feet.
Lisa smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Nothing injured but my pride.”
“Good. You’re improving. And I look forward to being fully repaid in our next yoga class,” Teyla added with a mischievous sparkle.
Lisa laughed, and Cas transported Teyla, John, and Dean to the conference room. The weird thing was, John was almost as used to Cas doing that by now as Dean was.
Abaddon lounged with diminishing patience on the throne in the heart of the alien ship, waiting for the Lucian Alliance delegation to arrive. The ship was once Goa’uld property; more than that, she neither knew nor cared. She wouldn’t even have bothered coming all this way to the middle of nowhere, but the Trust operative who’d summoned her had insisted, truthfully, that the Alliance was about to become troublesome. And she’d had too much success lately to let anyone stand in her way now, least of all some alien.
Finally, the doors to the chamber parted to admit the Alliance warlord who’d requested the meeting. The woman was human, though she had traces of something else in her blood, and she was furious.
“You’re late,” said Abaddon, unmoved.
“And you are reckless,” returned the warlord. “To expend lives in pursuit of one’s goals, that is the nature of war. But these assaults on other galaxies have decimated our fleet.”
“Build more ships.”
“We do not have the means.”
“Then steal them.”
“These ships were stolen! And there are no more like them being built!” The warlord advanced toward Abaddon. “If you continue to jeopardize the might of the Lucian Alliance, we will terminate the agreement and send your followers back to Earth by force.”
Abaddon pretended to consider the ultimatum-and then flowed out of her current meatsuit, which was no longer fit to house Raphael or anyone else, and into the warlord. She rifled through her new host’s memories just long enough to glean what she needed to know to fool the rest of the Alliance, then locked the warlord’s consciousness away. One quick spell later, and the air was filled with demon smoke for a moment before her underlings possessed every human on the ship. A group of them entered and bowed low before her.
“Take care of that,” she ordered, gesturing to the corpse on the floor. “And continue the takeover as planned.”
Two of the demons came forward to collect the body while most of the rest scattered. Only one, who in life had been a priest of Moloch, remained after the others had gone.
“My queen,” he said, bowing low, “I bring news.”
Abaddon settled herself back on the throne. “Good or bad?”
“Both, Your Majesty. More bad than good, I fear.”
“Start with the good news, then.”
“Henry Winchester and Josie Sands have wed.”
She chuckled. “Saps. I’m sure she’ll keep him occupied.”
“Perhaps. The spell has been broken, but that much damage has already been done. And the tempter who cast the spell said he sensed a child’s conception.”
“Good. Have they been found?”
“Regrettably not, o queen.”
“That’s all right. Wherever they are, she’ll have to give birth sometime. And even if they don’t surface, we’ll be able to trace the child.”
She expected him to lick his lips at the thought. Instead, he said gravely, “We may not have nine months, Your Majesty. The dragons have betrayed us. Eve has returned. And she has commanded her offspring not to slay, save only at need, but rather to turn.”
“Very well. If the nerd wants a war, she can have one. We’ll just pull her power source out from under her. Tell Samuel Campbell to work on his collections faster.”
“He cannot. Four of his prisons have been destroyed since Eve’s rising, and we have not been able to discern how.”
She frowned. “Destroyed? As in....”
“There is a flash of light, and the building and all who were in it are vaporized.”
Her frown deepened into a scowl.
Gwen worried. She always worried-that she’d be caught, or Mark would, or that family members she cared about would die. Not that she wanted any of the family to die, but most were all gung-ho about Samuel’s catch-and-collect plan, even helping him torture the monsters for information, and that disgusted her. But she didn’t want Mark or any of her cousins to get killed.
Even so, when the time came, she stifled her qualms, activated the device Chuck had sent through a military courier while she was off on a solo hunt, and slipped it into the pocket of a djinn she was loading into the van for transport to another detention center. And when the van doors were shut, she smiled brightly at Christian, who was driving this trip, and walked away as if nothing were wrong.
Chuck had sworn that the device was only a locator beacon that broadcast through something called subspace, totally non-magical, and warded against anything detecting it other than whoever it was meant to signal. But Gwen knew it was no coincidence that every time she or Mark sent a prisoner off with a beacon in its pocket, its destination was wiped off the map within hours. She didn’t expect Chuck to tell her how it was done, but still... she worried.
“An arachne?” she heard Samuel bellow as she walked past the building that housed his office. “How the hell did you let Singer and Turner beat you to an arachne?!-Well, fine, but do you have any idea how rare those things are? We could have.... WHAT?! How the hell did they know how to kill it? Last I heard, the Men of Letters weren’t....”
She tuned him out, silently congratulating Singer and Turner, whoever they were, for getting rid of whatever the hell the arachne was. And then she spotted Mark, with whom she’d left her phone after replacing it in her pocket with the beacon, coming toward her.
“Hey,” she said as they walked up to each other.
“From Chuck,” he reported quietly, handing her the phone.
Email was all the text said.
She pocketed the phone with a glance around to see if anyone was watching them. As the van pulled out, she could clearly see Christian in the driver’s seat, and he waved to her and Mark. She waved back, knowing that he’d stay in that seat now-because she’d painted a devil’s trap under the seats of all the vans before launching the first beacon. Then she nodded for Mark to follow and headed into the building where her family was staying. Together, they went down to the heavily warded basement room where she kept her laptop now, and he watched silently as she pulled up the subspace connection the courier had installed to let her access a super-secret, super-secure email account. Only Chuck, and whoever set things up for him, had the address, and only Gwen knew the password.
So far, Chuck had only emailed her instructions for when and how to use the locator beacons. This time, though, he sent a much stranger request-and in some respects more dangerous, since it meant approaching Samuel personally with something technological.
“I’ll come with,” Mark said, putting a hand on the shoulder he’d been reading over. “Back you up.”
She bit her lip as she considered the offer, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
After acknowledging the email, they waited a couple of hours, got food, and shot pool until the time Chuck had instructed them to start their end of the mission. Then she gathered up her laptop and carried it to Samuel’s office, arriving just in time to see Samuel hang up his phone with a heavy sigh.
Sensing Mark’s reassuring presence arriving at her back, she knocked on the door jamb. “Have a minute, Samuel?”
Samuel looked up and took a deep breath. “Sure, Gwen, Mark. C’mon in.”
“Somethin’ wrong?” Mark asked as he followed Gwen into the room.
Samuel sighed again and looked down at his desk. “We’ve lost another one, and Christian and Johnny with it. I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on-it’s not nukes; it’s not angels.”
Gwen silently drew in a deep breath. “Well, I might have some good news for you for a change.”
Samuel looked up at her. “Great. Let’s hear it.”
“Kind of a long story, but there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”
“Okay. When and where?”
“Here and now. They, uh... it’s called Skype.” She held up her laptop.
Samuel groaned. “Gwen, you know I hate computers.”
“Mark and I can set it all up. All you have to do is look at the screen and talk.”
“Is this some intranets thing?”
She couldn’t help smiling; they’d given up trying to correct him over a month ago. “Yeah, it connects through the Internet.”
“Why can’t we just meet them in person?”
“They can’t come here. I don’t know why, I swear. And they won’t tell me where they are.”
Samuel huffed. “Oh, all right. As long as I don’t have to push any buttons on anything.”
Mark made short work of getting the computer set up and connected to the right network, and Gwen pulled up the right program and checked her watch to make sure she made the video connection at precisely the right moment. She didn’t know why they never had more than thirty-five minutes to talk whenever she Skyped with Chuck, but she did know it was important not to waste a second.
Then she got out of the way as the video image filled the screen-a darkened room, lit just enough to reveal the silhouettes of two men sitting in front of the camera, kind of like one of those exposé interviews where the source’s identity needed to be hidden. Not even the wall behind them was clearly visible, although if she squinted, Gwen thought she might be looking at the room where she normally saw Chuck.
“So, Samuel,” one of the men said, but his voice was distorted beyond recognizability. “We hear you’ve been looking for us.”
Samuel frowned, tilting his head a little this way and that as he tried to make out who was speaking. Then his eyes widened. “Dean?”
Next
Chapter 11
Turning the Tide
“What in the seven hells were you thinking, leaving Josie alone with Henry when he was blind drunk?” Gabriel asked Castiel.
Castiel blinked. “She said she’d look after him.”
“She took advantage of him, kiddo!”
“They were already in love. I thought-”
“No, you didn’t think! If you had, you might have recognized how suspicious the timing was!”
Castiel frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Clearly.”
Raphael finally spoke up. “That Henry should have a flashback after being startled by the alarm heralding Menva’s return was natural enough. Its severity was not. Something wanted Henry sidelined.”
Castiel’s frown deepened. “The wards had not been breached, nor was Josie possessed.”
“That doesn’t rule out the possibility of a remote spell, inflaming and manipulating weaknesses that were already present in both Henry and Josie. Even simple suggestion could have been at work, depending on how low their defenses were against psychic assault.”
“Abaddon?” Gabriel suggested.
Raphael nodded. “Possibly, or one of her lieutenants. Even with Henry’s location both hidden and inaccessible, his pain would have been easy to spot for even a Screwtape-grade tempter assigned to watch for it.”
Castiel sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “I sensed no danger. I’m sorry, brothers.”
Gabriel huffed. “Well, no use cryin’ over tied knots. Question now is, where do we go from here?”
The sound of a throat clearing interrupted. “’Scuse me,” said a tenor voice. “I think I might be able to help you.”
The angels looked over at the newcomer at the door, who... looked like Chuck Shurley, except that he was dressed like an Ancient.
“Chuck?” Castiel asked.
The newcomer smiled apologetically. “Actually, it’s Caltus. Of Atlantis. I’d always been psionic, even before my ascension, but Zachariah couldn’t manipulate any of the human prophets the way he wanted to, and then the real Chuck Shurley died suddenly as an infant, so... Zachariah forced me back into mortal form to replace him and hid my memories. My-er, Chuck’s parents were none the wiser, and of course, I had no idea I wasn’t an average human until Zachariah started force-feeding me visions. But the memory block started to break down after his death and failed completely when Michael and Lucifer fell into the Cage. So I finished the last chapter of Swan Song and... here I am.”
Raphael tried and failed several times to say something. Finally, he managed, “I had no idea.”
Caltus nodded. “I know. I felt your surprise when I ascended. Sorry I didn’t stick around to explain; I just... didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire again.”
“Which you would have,” Gabriel said flatly, “knowing my brothers. The other Ancients know you’re here?”
“They do. They sent me.”
“Why?”
Caltus walked over to the table where the angels were sitting. “Menva is our problem. Abaddon, technically, is yours. Neither you nor we can deal with either problem without the other’s help. But as a better writer than I once said, ‘’Tis most sweet / When in one line two crafts directly meet.’”
Raphael leaned forward. “We let Menva and Abaddon take out each other?”
“We don’t let anyone do anything. We plot their course before they can plot ours.”
Gabriel smiled slowly and manifested a lollipop. “Now you’re talkin’ my language. Where do we start?”
Caltus met his eyes with an equally slow smile. “Samuel Campbell.”
Henry struggled to keep his focus on the page from Janus’ journal that he was staring at, or that was staring at him. And he wasn’t sure why. Bobby and Rufus hadn’t come back yet-Henry couldn’t remember whether they’d said they were going to Sioux Falls or to Colorado Springs-but as much as he missed having them there to steady him, he wasn’t sure he wanted them to see him like this.
Josie was fixing supper, he thought, maybe. That was good, if so, because he was hungry. But it was bad, too, because mealtimes somehow kept turning into playtimes, followed by guilt that he’d moved on from Millie so quickly and more guilt that he wasn’t getting any work done. Yes, he and Josie were married now, but still, he ought to have more self-discipline than this. Yet even though he hadn’t touched another drop of alcohol, he couldn’t help himself. It was like he was losing his mind, the way he kept thinking about her and only her.
He ached. He wanted. He needed-
A hand landed across the back of his neck, and he swayed forward as power surged through him, nearly blinding him. Hauling in a lungful of air with a deep gasp, he straightened again... and realized that his mind was clear for the first time in days.
“There, now,” said an unfamiliar male voice, as the hand moved down between his shoulder blades. “Easy. Deep breaths.”
Henry obeyed, taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly until his heart mostly stopped racing.
“That’s it,” said the stranger gently and took his hand away.
Henry turned to find a tall black man standing beside his chair, but it wasn’t Rufus. “Who are you?”
“My name is Raphael. It seems these wards can defend against anything but a psychic assault, at least not one as sophisticated as the spell Abaddon ordered laid upon your mind and Josie’s.”
“I-it-spell?”
Raphael nodded. “I have lifted it from you and placed wards upon your mind so that you can’t be attacked again in the same way. In a moment, I’ll do the same for your wife.”
And bang went any hope Henry had that the whole thing had been a nightmare. His eyes dropped to the table as his heart dropped to the floor. His left hand curled into a fist, as if to hide the ring he was wearing, and his left arm curled around his churning stomach. He wasn’t hungry anymore.
Raphael put his hand on Henry’s shoulder again. “There will be time for grief and rue later. Tonight you and Josie will need to talk. But tomorrow Bobby and Rufus will need you both to research-they’re on their way to a very dangerous hunt in Rhode Island.”
Henry swallowed hard and nodded. Then he looked up at Raphael again. “You’re much kinder than the boys had said.”
“I am now,” Raphael replied sadly. “They knew me as I was, and they told you the truth. The last few decades, I had forgotten God’s will and lost my way. But know this, Henry Winchester: if an archangel can find redemption for crimes beyond your comprehension, this weakness of yours can be forgiven, too.”
And then Henry was alone.
Library lights off, he commanded, looking down at the table again, and the library went dark. Somehow, he felt the need to hide, even though he didn’t think he could move because he felt so sick. Raphael’s words notwithstanding, he couldn’t believe he’d been such a fool.
A few minutes later, however, the lights came back on as Josie called, “Henry?”
He looked up to see her standing in the middle of the doorway, hugging herself-and too far from any of the manual controls to have turned on the lights that way. And the knot in his stomach tightened further.
“Hi,” he breathed.
She hesitated a moment before drifting further into the room with a wry chuckle. “Well, this is another fine mess I’ve gotten us into, huh?”
“I started it,” he replied, looking away and running his right hand over his face. He couldn’t remember much, but he did remember that.
She huffed. “Like I couldn’t have handled you. Do you have any idea how many idiots have made passes at me? I could have pushed you away. I could have knocked you out with a spell. I... I could have....”
“Josie.”
“Henry, you were drunk. Out of your mind drunk. But you were hurting and looking for comfort, and you wanted it from me. And you’re the only man I’ve ever loved, and... all I could think was, this was something I’d wanted for so long, and it was right there, and... God help me, I took it. And I shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t have pushed you to marry me, either.”
“I could have said no.”
“But you did, and I still pushed. And I’m... I’m sorry.”
He peeled his arm away from his stomach and buried his face in his hands.
After a moment, she pulled out a chair at the next table and sat down. “Can you ever forgive me?”
He dropped his hands. “Kind of have to, don’t I?”
“No. You don’t owe me anything. You’d be within your rights to divorce me.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He finally looked over at her.
And she looked at him warily, still curled in on herself. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t noticed, have you?”
“N-noticed what?”
“You don’t have the ATA gene. I do. But suddenly the bunker is responding to your commands, like when you turned on the lights just now. That was you, not me.”
She was too bright not to reach the same conclusion he had, but he could tell from the fear that reared up in her eyes that she didn’t want to believe it. “What are you saying?” she pressed, her voice wavering.
He looked her in the eye. “Josie, you’re carrying my child.”
After a frozen moment, she lurched out of her chair and into his arms, sobbing. He held her close, unsure whether her tears were of terror, remorse, joy, or all three. He suspected she wasn’t sure, either.
As for him... well. He’d told her the truth. He loved her, and so he forgave her. He just didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself.
There was nothing Atlantis could do about Earth’s disasters right now. John hated it when there was nothing he could do, and he knew Dean felt the same way. Sam had just uncovered something in Janus’ journal and was going over it with Zelenka and McKay to see whether there was anything in Janus’ Atlantis lab that might correspond to whatever it was, but Dean didn’t have any projects at the moment, and with all the demon inhibitors delivered, John didn’t have any offworld missions in the offing.
So he and Dean were hanging out in the gym, watching Teyla teach Lisa a few new banto moves. Lisa was in a sport top and yoga pants; Teyla was in the sleeveless Athosian top and split skirt she often wore to teach in. And while Teyla was, well, Teyla, John could appreciate what Dean saw in Lisa as the two women practically danced through the banto routine.
“You gonna marry that girl?” he asked Dean quietly.
“Might,” Dean replied at the same volume. “You?”
John decided to dodge slightly. “I’m up for promotion next year, and so’s Lorne-good chance O’Neill’s gonna want me flyin’ a desk from then on, promote Lorne’s team to SGA-1. And TJ turns five next June.”
“Mm. Time to start school.”
“Yeah, although he’s already watching Ben and wanting to do school stuff with him. He may talk Teyla into starting him this fall. Whenever he does start, though, she’ll probably want to spend more time with him, homeschool.”
Dean gave John a sidelong look and smiled a little. He had his answer. But all he said as he returned his attention to the women was, “Bird colonel, huh? Awesome.”
And speaking of bird colonels, Cas appeared on the other side of Dean. “Dean, I owe you an apology.”
Dean didn’t turn to look at him. “What for?”
“My part in Henry and Josie’s marriage. I know you’re still uncomfortable with their relationship, and the marriage can’t have helped. But the situation was not what it seemed, and I was not aware of it.”
“You sic the cupids on ’em?”
“No, but-”
“Then it ain’t your fault, Cas. Forget it.”
Cas didn’t look like he was willing to forget it, but he did at least let the subject drop by not responding. Yet he didn’t leave, either.
Dean finally looked over at him. “What?”
“Where’s Sam?”
“Janus’ lab. Why?”
“I need to brief you both, and your superiors,” Cas added with a glance at John. “The Ancients have suggested a new strategy.”
“The Ancients?” John and Dean both echoed.
“You mean Henry found something in Janus’ journal,” Dean continued, “or....”
Cas shook his head. “No, the Ancients themselves. Because Menva is one of their number, they finally consider it their duty to get involved.”
John huffed. “Goa’uld, Replicators, Wraith, Ori, monsters, demons, fallen angels-not their problem. But one rogue scientist....”
“Menva is hardly just a rogue scientist,” Cas interrupted. “Many of her creatures worship her as a goddess, and their numbers are growing rapidly, both because Menva herself is giving birth to new monsters and because she has ordered all monster kinds to multiply as quickly as they can. Plus, with so many of the pagan gods now being dead, she is also harnessing the worship still offered to the great mother goddesses. Both kinds of faith are sources of immense power.”
John never had learned Goa’uld, but he had at least figured out from context when Dean was swearing in it. “How the hell do we fight her, then?” Dean continued in English.
“You don’t,” Cas said flatly. “There are few who can. But one is the Queen of Hell.”
“You want us to start working for Abaddon?!”
“No. There’s no need. We want you to make contact with someone who already does.”
Whether or not Dean could figure out where this was headed, John understood and tapped his radio. “Woolsey, McKay, Ronon, Winchester, Campbell, this is Sheppard. Need you in the conference room in five minutes for a briefing with Castiel.”
Various affirmatives followed in quick succession.
“Do you need me as well?” Teyla asked, not taking her eyes off Lisa.
“’Course,” John answered. “Don’t need to radio you when you’re in the same room, do I?”
Teyla smiled and launched into one last flurry of attack, which Lisa countered mostly with the correct moves but occasionally with something that looked more like tai chi. Dean yelled encouragements to Lisa, but John just sat back and enjoyed the view for two minutes. He was just about to call time when Lisa stumbled and tapped out.
“Are you all right?” Teyla asked as she helped Lisa to her feet.
Lisa smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Nothing injured but my pride.”
“Good. You’re improving. And I look forward to being fully repaid in our next yoga class,” Teyla added with a mischievous sparkle.
Lisa laughed, and Cas transported Teyla, John, and Dean to the conference room. The weird thing was, John was almost as used to Cas doing that by now as Dean was.
Abaddon lounged with diminishing patience on the throne in the heart of the alien ship, waiting for the Lucian Alliance delegation to arrive. The ship was once Goa’uld property; more than that, she neither knew nor cared. She wouldn’t even have bothered coming all this way to the middle of nowhere, but the Trust operative who’d summoned her had insisted, truthfully, that the Alliance was about to become troublesome. And she’d had too much success lately to let anyone stand in her way now, least of all some alien.
Finally, the doors to the chamber parted to admit the Alliance warlord who’d requested the meeting. The woman was human, though she had traces of something else in her blood, and she was furious.
“You’re late,” said Abaddon, unmoved.
“And you are reckless,” returned the warlord. “To expend lives in pursuit of one’s goals, that is the nature of war. But these assaults on other galaxies have decimated our fleet.”
“Build more ships.”
“We do not have the means.”
“Then steal them.”
“These ships were stolen! And there are no more like them being built!” The warlord advanced toward Abaddon. “If you continue to jeopardize the might of the Lucian Alliance, we will terminate the agreement and send your followers back to Earth by force.”
Abaddon pretended to consider the ultimatum-and then flowed out of her current meatsuit, which was no longer fit to house Raphael or anyone else, and into the warlord. She rifled through her new host’s memories just long enough to glean what she needed to know to fool the rest of the Alliance, then locked the warlord’s consciousness away. One quick spell later, and the air was filled with demon smoke for a moment before her underlings possessed every human on the ship. A group of them entered and bowed low before her.
“Take care of that,” she ordered, gesturing to the corpse on the floor. “And continue the takeover as planned.”
Two of the demons came forward to collect the body while most of the rest scattered. Only one, who in life had been a priest of Moloch, remained after the others had gone.
“My queen,” he said, bowing low, “I bring news.”
Abaddon settled herself back on the throne. “Good or bad?”
“Both, Your Majesty. More bad than good, I fear.”
“Start with the good news, then.”
“Henry Winchester and Josie Sands have wed.”
She chuckled. “Saps. I’m sure she’ll keep him occupied.”
“Perhaps. The spell has been broken, but that much damage has already been done. And the tempter who cast the spell said he sensed a child’s conception.”
“Good. Have they been found?”
“Regrettably not, o queen.”
“That’s all right. Wherever they are, she’ll have to give birth sometime. And even if they don’t surface, we’ll be able to trace the child.”
She expected him to lick his lips at the thought. Instead, he said gravely, “We may not have nine months, Your Majesty. The dragons have betrayed us. Eve has returned. And she has commanded her offspring not to slay, save only at need, but rather to turn.”
“Very well. If the nerd wants a war, she can have one. We’ll just pull her power source out from under her. Tell Samuel Campbell to work on his collections faster.”
“He cannot. Four of his prisons have been destroyed since Eve’s rising, and we have not been able to discern how.”
She frowned. “Destroyed? As in....”
“There is a flash of light, and the building and all who were in it are vaporized.”
Her frown deepened into a scowl.
Gwen worried. She always worried-that she’d be caught, or Mark would, or that family members she cared about would die. Not that she wanted any of the family to die, but most were all gung-ho about Samuel’s catch-and-collect plan, even helping him torture the monsters for information, and that disgusted her. But she didn’t want Mark or any of her cousins to get killed.
Even so, when the time came, she stifled her qualms, activated the device Chuck had sent through a military courier while she was off on a solo hunt, and slipped it into the pocket of a djinn she was loading into the van for transport to another detention center. And when the van doors were shut, she smiled brightly at Christian, who was driving this trip, and walked away as if nothing were wrong.
Chuck had sworn that the device was only a locator beacon that broadcast through something called subspace, totally non-magical, and warded against anything detecting it other than whoever it was meant to signal. But Gwen knew it was no coincidence that every time she or Mark sent a prisoner off with a beacon in its pocket, its destination was wiped off the map within hours. She didn’t expect Chuck to tell her how it was done, but still... she worried.
“An arachne?” she heard Samuel bellow as she walked past the building that housed his office. “How the hell did you let Singer and Turner beat you to an arachne?!-Well, fine, but do you have any idea how rare those things are? We could have.... WHAT?! How the hell did they know how to kill it? Last I heard, the Men of Letters weren’t....”
She tuned him out, silently congratulating Singer and Turner, whoever they were, for getting rid of whatever the hell the arachne was. And then she spotted Mark, with whom she’d left her phone after replacing it in her pocket with the beacon, coming toward her.
“Hey,” she said as they walked up to each other.
“From Chuck,” he reported quietly, handing her the phone.
Email was all the text said.
She pocketed the phone with a glance around to see if anyone was watching them. As the van pulled out, she could clearly see Christian in the driver’s seat, and he waved to her and Mark. She waved back, knowing that he’d stay in that seat now-because she’d painted a devil’s trap under the seats of all the vans before launching the first beacon. Then she nodded for Mark to follow and headed into the building where her family was staying. Together, they went down to the heavily warded basement room where she kept her laptop now, and he watched silently as she pulled up the subspace connection the courier had installed to let her access a super-secret, super-secure email account. Only Chuck, and whoever set things up for him, had the address, and only Gwen knew the password.
So far, Chuck had only emailed her instructions for when and how to use the locator beacons. This time, though, he sent a much stranger request-and in some respects more dangerous, since it meant approaching Samuel personally with something technological.
“I’ll come with,” Mark said, putting a hand on the shoulder he’d been reading over. “Back you up.”
She bit her lip as she considered the offer, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
After acknowledging the email, they waited a couple of hours, got food, and shot pool until the time Chuck had instructed them to start their end of the mission. Then she gathered up her laptop and carried it to Samuel’s office, arriving just in time to see Samuel hang up his phone with a heavy sigh.
Sensing Mark’s reassuring presence arriving at her back, she knocked on the door jamb. “Have a minute, Samuel?”
Samuel looked up and took a deep breath. “Sure, Gwen, Mark. C’mon in.”
“Somethin’ wrong?” Mark asked as he followed Gwen into the room.
Samuel sighed again and looked down at his desk. “We’ve lost another one, and Christian and Johnny with it. I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on-it’s not nukes; it’s not angels.”
Gwen silently drew in a deep breath. “Well, I might have some good news for you for a change.”
Samuel looked up at her. “Great. Let’s hear it.”
“Kind of a long story, but there’s someone who wants to talk to you.”
“Okay. When and where?”
“Here and now. They, uh... it’s called Skype.” She held up her laptop.
Samuel groaned. “Gwen, you know I hate computers.”
“Mark and I can set it all up. All you have to do is look at the screen and talk.”
“Is this some intranets thing?”
She couldn’t help smiling; they’d given up trying to correct him over a month ago. “Yeah, it connects through the Internet.”
“Why can’t we just meet them in person?”
“They can’t come here. I don’t know why, I swear. And they won’t tell me where they are.”
Samuel huffed. “Oh, all right. As long as I don’t have to push any buttons on anything.”
Mark made short work of getting the computer set up and connected to the right network, and Gwen pulled up the right program and checked her watch to make sure she made the video connection at precisely the right moment. She didn’t know why they never had more than thirty-five minutes to talk whenever she Skyped with Chuck, but she did know it was important not to waste a second.
Then she got out of the way as the video image filled the screen-a darkened room, lit just enough to reveal the silhouettes of two men sitting in front of the camera, kind of like one of those exposé interviews where the source’s identity needed to be hidden. Not even the wall behind them was clearly visible, although if she squinted, Gwen thought she might be looking at the room where she normally saw Chuck.
“So, Samuel,” one of the men said, but his voice was distorted beyond recognizability. “We hear you’ve been looking for us.”
Samuel frowned, tilting his head a little this way and that as he tried to make out who was speaking. Then his eyes widened. “Dean?”
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