Agon (12 page)

“
You are not helping,
love.” She looked over at him when Riss spoke. “He has been
forbidden to go after her. And he is not…let me just say he is not
a happy person. I have been trying to go to Boss on his behalf, but
He will not listen to me either.

“
You love her?” Agon
nodded at her question. “I’m assuming you haven’t told her yet
then. That would be one reason why you’re here and she’s not. Why
does it take you men forever to tell someone that you have feelings
for them? Are you afraid that we’ll want something more? Or are you
just stupid?”

“
I have not told her, no.
I only just discovered this last evening before I was summoned
away.” Agon got up to pace again and ended up at the window to the
backyard. “She will not be happy with my declaration, I think. But
as much as I did not want her in my life, I want her there now more
than I’ve ever thought possible. How was I to know that this would
be the best thing that has ever happened to me?”

“
You should have told her.
And we tried to tell you. But being the stubborn jackass that you
are, you didn’t listen, did you?” He nodded at Kala without turning
around. “What do you know about the man who took her? I mean, do
you have a name at least? Or a description of him?”

“
Her uncle, Jerry Craft.
He wishes to use her abilities to gain more than he needs. I do
believe that he will kill her when he has no more use of her.” Agon
heard Kala snort and smiled. “She will not give him anything, and I
fear…no not fear, but I almost feel sorry for the man. He will
understand stubbornness like he has never known.” Agon smiled,
thinking of how stubborn she really was. “Do you think it would be
rude of me to request to find her so that I may watch her make this
man mad? It would be a show worth watching, I believe.” Everyone
laughed, and Agon felt a little better for it.

“
She is a little on the
stubborn side. Did you know that she has a great deal of money in
the bank?” Agon looked at Kala when she spoke. “She has just over
ninety million dollars from investments she’s made with the money
her father gave her through insurance. She wasn’t going to take it
at first, but then about a month after she turned eighteen, she had
the bank set her up with a trading account and she started making
money hand over fist. Then there is the money that he left her in
cash. From what my investigator can find, she’s never touched a
dime of that either. But she does donate a great deal of her
millions to other causes. Her favorite place to make a difference
is at the local schools. She donates enough money to run them for
the first three months of the session.”

“
She will think it bad
money.” He turned and walked back to the chair he’d been out of
more than in and sat down. “I should like to know what else you
have found out. If I am to marry her, then having information would
be helpful.”

“
I don’t know why. She
knows nothing of you, yet you love her.” Agon nodded. “Tell me
something, do you know why you weren’t with her when this happened?
Do you think it was some grand plan that you were away when she
needed you most?”

“
I do. But I am not going
to question Him. I’m beginning to think that the more I ask Him,
the harder He makes it on me.” Agon leaned back in his chair. “I
think she must want me to come to her. I am not sure how that would
work, as she is, as we’ve pointed out, very stubborn. But Judith
will need to…she will need to need me, I think.”

“
And how is it that you’re
supposed to know that she needs you if you don’t know where she
is?” He didn’t have an answer, but it mattered little to Kala. She
was on a roll, as Riss was forever saying, and she would not be
dissuaded from her thought process. “I want you to think about the
places you’ve seen her at. I mean really think.”

He closed his eyes and thought of
every time he’d seen her. The building she worked in, the house
where she lived. He thought of the gardens behind her house that
strung along the building like rows of little soldiers on patrol.
Agon even thought of the images that Boss had shown him, the way
she’d been sitting on a porch swing with the breeze blowing her
long locks into her face. There was a number there, and he paused
in his need to look at her to see the numbers on the house. Then he
saw the mail laying in her lap.

“
Her childhood home is
nearby here. She has not been there in a good many years I think.
Not since her father was killed. There is a swing on the front
stoop that was green and yellow; planters on the hanger behind her
but the flowers are long since dead.” He focused on the mail and
tried to read what it said. “Humble Street. Her family home was on
Humble Street.”

“
I know where that is.”
Agon stood up and looked at Riss when he started for the door. “We
can go over there and see if there are any clues.”

“
I will go.” Riss started
to argue, but Kala cleared her throat. One look at her and Riss
nodded at him. “I will see what I can find out ab—”

Agon?

He stood there for several seconds, a
pain radiating from his mind to his heart. It had come onto him so
suddenly that it had taken his breath away. Agon could hear Riss
saying his name, but the pain was almost too much. When he looked
again, Boss was lowering him to the floor gently.

“
She has called for us.”
Agon nodded and started to stand. “We will leave directly. You must
rest a moment.”

“
I need to go to her.”
Boss nodded but wouldn’t let him stand. “She needs me. I need to
make sure she is well.”

“
As we will, but first you
must allow me to go to her.” Agon started to tell Him no, but Boss
spoke again. “She and I have to…she will need Me first.”

“
She is hurt.” Boss
nodded. “Badly? If so, then You must save her. I will not…I cannot
live without her, my Lord. Please, you must.”

“
I will do what she will
allow Me to do. I will call for you when I am ready.” He
disappeared before Agon could ask Him to hurry.

Agon stared at Galin when he appeared.
“You are to help me?” Galin grinned, but shook his head. “You are
to hold me here then. I will not allow you to do so, my brother. I
need my love.”

“
And I’m pretty sure in
your current condition that you will not get past me.” Galin
grinned wider. “Of course, if you promise me that should you hear
of me getting a wife you tell me straight away, then I might be
happy to allow you to hit me. Once. It would not be good for you to
simply get by me.”

“
You’d let me hit you?”
Galin nodded and put out his chin. “Then I would gladly concede to
your wishes.”

Agon knew enough about fighting to
know that to hit someone in the chin like Galin was offering him
would hurt them both. The face had a great many bones in it and its
purpose was to protect the head, not to give easily. So instead of
hitting him with his fist, Agon let go some of his power and tossed
Galin across the room, where he hit the wall. He was struggling to
get up when Agon stood. He was gone before Galin could regain his
feet.

The house was quiet, but he could hear
sounds. Some of them were animals beyond the house, other noises
were sounds of the house itself, creaking and groaning sounds that
only an older house would have. He entered the front door quietly
and found that he was in the room from the memory that Boss had
shown him. The cage was still sitting in the corner where she’d
been held.

The house didn’t smell of anything
that would tell him she was there. He could smell the faint smell
of cleaner as well as a lemony polish that one of Jerry’s charges
had used weekly on the piano no one played. He moved to the small
table that sat in front of the couch and could see a cup of
something steaming there. Leaning to it, he could smell the strong
coffee as the scent ascended from it. Someone else was there, and
he knew it wasn’t Judith. She did not drink this
beverage.

Moving toward the other room, Agon
stopped and looked back. Something was incorrect about the room. It
took him a few seconds to realize that there was a chair missing,
and it had been dragged out of this room toward the one he was
headed to. Going into what happened to be the kitchen, he wasn’t
surprised to find this room, like the one beyond, was cleaned as
well. He moved toward the three doors in the room.

The first one was to a pantry. He left
the door ajar once he saw that no one hid in it. There were no
foodstuffs within either, so he decided that if someone lived
there, they did not stock the large room. The second door, the one
that had a window boarded over, led to the backyard. Looking at the
floor when he heard an odd sound, he noticed the glass. Someone had
broken into this house and had tried to cover their tracks by
covering the broken window. Agon moved to the third and final
door.

The handle turned easily enough, but
he still did not open the door, moving through it in favor of not
alerting the person below. If there was someone there, he’d use his
powers to help Judith and to keep himself safe as well. He nearly
went to her when he saw the woman there.

“
You should not have
come.” He looked over at Boss as He stared at the woman. “She is in
grave shape, but she has asked that I not take her as
yet.”

“
Take her?” He looked at
the woman and only then realized it was Judith. “She is going to
die?”

“
She will if nothing is
done soon.” Agon started for her but stopped when Boss put His hand
on his chest. “Judith needs this as much as you do. Please do not
let her last wish be for naught.”

“
I love her. I do
not…please do not allow her to die. I have…please.” Agon dropped to
his knees and then lower, spreading his wings out in a way that
showed all that he was. “I beg of you, my Lord. Do not allow her to
die. Take me instead.”

“
I can only do what she
has asked of Me, Agon. Her wish, like yours, was to save you at all
costs. She has begged Me for this.” Agon looked up at Boss as he
wiped away a tear. “You must allow this to happen so that she will
come to Me.”

Agon was lifted up and held to watch
as a man entered the room. He did not see them, of course, but he
moved to Judith. He had a gun in his hand and before Agon could
have stopped him, he shot Judith in the leg. Blood poured from her
wound and yet she did nothing but lift her head.

“
You’re going to pay for
this.” Jerry laughed and lifted the gun again. But before he could
do anything at all, a sound from the upper levels made him pause.
“See, I told you you’d pay.”

He shot her again, this time in the
chest. As he fled, going toward an opening at the rear of the room,
Jerry was cursing loudly. As soon as Boss let him go, Agon went to
her side and put his hand over the wound in her chest. She looked
at him for several seconds before she smiled.

“
I thought of you, and
here you are.” He nodded, his heart heavy with her pain. “I never
knew that trusting someone could be so painful. But then I guess
love hurts.”

“
You love me?” Her head
rolled to the side just as two men came down the stairs with their
guns drawn. Even as one of them checked her pulse, the other was
calling for an ambulance. “I will not leave you.”

“
I think I might like
that. But you’re not sleeping with me again.” He burst out laughing
at her tone and watched as she was cut loose from the chair. The
officer that was lowering her to the floor told her he couldn’t
sleep with her right now, but maybe later.

“
He means to comfort her.”
Agon looked at Conley, another protector. He was watching the
officer. “My charge has been hurt before and knows that sometimes
things are said that mean nothing. He does not know she speaks to
you.”

“
She is going to be my
wife.” Conley nodded but said nothing as his charge covered Judith
with his coat. She was shaking now but he kept talking to her. When
Agon turned to speak to Boss, he realized He’d left him. He stayed,
holding her hand even when the medics came.

“
She has lost a lot of
blood,” Agon heard one of the men say. Others talked about her
wounds and how close they were to her heart. Then another said that
she was weak, and that if she made it to surgery, it would be a
miracle. Agon said nothing to these men, but did to their
protectors.

“
Tell them to be more
positive when speaking. She can hear them.” The newest protector
nodded but stood doing nothing. “You heard me, I said to give her
encouragement, not tell her she is to die.”

“
But she is to die.” Agon
had to take several breaths when the man shook his head. “You
should know that as well as we do. She had nothing going for
her.”

Agon called for Riss, and he was there
in seconds with another man, another protector. The first man
disappeared when Riss did, and the new man was talking to the medic
and telling him what to say.

“
She has a fighting
chance. Her body is strong and her heart rate not critical.” They
all knew that it was. Even the protector knew it for the lie that
it was, but no one was talking negatively to her any
longer.

The ride to the hospital was the
longest of his life. Agon moved into the operating room when she
did and watched as the men and women there scrambled to help his
one true love. They worked hard to bring her back to him. Her heart
stopped twice, and both times Boss appeared to whisper in her ear.
Agon watched as they retrieved two spent bullets, shot from the gun
that her uncle had used. The sound of them hitting the small silver
pans echoed loudly in the still room. Still he never left her, not
even when he was summoned by Michael.