born.
Trying to hide his tears, he turned away from her. “I belong to you,” he said, feeling the twin pulls of his fiercely divided loyalties. Again, he hugged her, and again felt Brooke’s absence in his arms.
Her eyes met his. The question that flickered in them now was a dark one. Then she held up her hand.
Her Electrum ring glowed softly. His ring. He took her hand and kissed it. She laughed a little, deep in her throat, and he wanted her. He wanted her so badly that he began to exude from under every scale on his neck. She brought a towel and wiped it gently. Her hands touching him evoked desire so great that it seemed beyond his trembling flesh, beyond belief, beyond body itself, a longing that was literally fantastic.
But if he did this then he could not leave her, not a second time, it was too cruel. And yet he had the children, the vow, and the other dear wife. And he knew, as soon as he was with Brooke again, he would lose himself in the wonders of human life and human love.
“It’s only a few minutes,” she said softly. She drew up the wooden blinds, and he saw in the evening light a diamond hanging in midair. In its facets, he could see another house, lights just coming on in the windows, and a small form at one of those windows looking out.
Kelsey was waiting for her daddy to come back.
“I have the permanent salve,” she said. “Choose.”
He took her hands. “We always knew the danger of the mission. I have a life there, now. I have children who need their father.” And he wished—he just wished.
“You won’t remember me.”
“You’ll find somebody else,” he said.
“Don’t mock my love, please.”
He would leave her forever wanting him. If only he had known it would be this hard.
He had known. She had known.
She began to apply the salve, and he let her. It sank deep into him, into the most secret corners of his deepest cells, and as it did, this old homestead began to look stranger and stranger. He noticed that blinds closed up here, that there were no chairs but only these strange, three-legged stools. He saw the spinning wheel and the loom, ancient and obviously heavily used, but who used looms nowadays? And the grate and the big iron cook pot, so strange and archaic, and candles instead of electric lights, all so just plain weird.
But then she did an odd thing. She applied salve to herself.
“But no, you mustn’t.”
“Look, the sun is setting and Kelsey’s gotta be getting scared. And Nick’s liable to blow our heads off if we come up in the dark.”
“Brooke?”
“Yes? Hello?”
Talia had been with him all along. Now, as they changed from seraph to human, fixed by the DNA salve, he threw his arms around her. “It’s you, it’s always been you! Did you know?”
“Not until I followed you through Samson’s little gateway. Then I knew.”
“But you escaped from the Corporation, you came home, you came to meet me even though you could’ve stayed back.”
“To protect you. Remember what I am.”
“The Guardian Clan.” He laughed a little. “You really are a guardian angel.”
“Who you need, Mr. Drinker and Smoker and hell-raising daredevil—the idea that any sane person would volunteer for an assignment like this!”
“It had to be done.”
“Which is why I love you so.” She smiled up at him, and as she did, her face shimmered, the scales smoothing in blurry waves, the brow widening, the cheeks growing less narrow, the eyes deeper, less wide, more human, the nostrils opening more, the lips softening and becoming red, the teeth thickening into human teeth. And he could feel by his own internal shivering that he was doing the same.
This was not shape-shifting. This was fundamental DNA transformation. When his brother ended his tour of duty, this would be his house. He would reenter his old body here, he would find his wife and bring her here, and there would be eggs here, and the egg ladies would brighten the house with their laughter again, in the coming years, in the ages.
But Talia and Aktriel were dying into the human form.
She took his hand more firmly. “Ready?”
“How do I look?”
“Perfect. Or no, you’re missing that mole under your left ear.”
“Whose gonna notice?”
“You know your daughter. She’s inherited your following and watching instincts.”
“Do we need to take salve for them?”
“Born of earth as they were? They have the DNA to shift, but not the skill. They’ll stay as they are, with their good seraphim hearts in those lovely human forms.”
“Are you gonna be on my case again?”
“Always.”
Then they were in their familiar woods, and for a fleeting moment his soul was in both worlds. Brooke said, “I’ve got something on the tip of my tongue.”
He shook his head. “I feel like I just woke up from a dream I thought I’d never forget.”
“Which was?”
“I forget.”
She came to him and kissed him. “We’ve all been through too much. And it has to end. It ends here.” She looked toward the house. “It’s time to return to normal life.”
“Can we?”
“I think we can. I mean, have you noticed that it’s six and nothing’s happened yet? No 2012 shift here.”
The moon was yellow in the eastern sky, coming toward full now, rising in splendor.
They both fell silent, and both for the same reason. “Why are we out in the woods, Wylie?”
“We’re—” He stopped. Why were they out here? “I came looking for you,” he said at last. “That’s it.”
“And I came to find you.”
“I was in the cave?”
“Well, you’re here.”
“I feel like I was on Mars or something. A million miles away.”
Suddenly she threw herself on him. In the gathering dark, he felt very alone. Odd. Homesick even, but for where? His house was a quarter of a mile away. His only house.
“I think our kids are gonna be missing us,” she said.
They headed up the hill.
The love that is so great that it cannot be seen, that seems not even to exist, but is in fact the silent binding that confirms the world, followed them, lingering close as if to enjoy the warmth of what they had found together.
“Where have you guys been?” Nick yelled as they came up out of the woods. “It’s getting darker and darker around here!”
“I got lost,” Wylie said.
“And he got found.”
“You got lost? How? I thought you’d been killed.” Nick threw his arms around his father, and Wylie felt his surging youth and his love for his dad and then Kelsey’s, also, from farther down by his knee, holding Bearish up like an offering to her household god.
As he entered with his children into the calm light, he heard the calling of another father whose desperation began pouring into his mind the moment he was inside the house.
He remembered the book and Martin and Trevor, and their quest to recapture their invaded world. “I’ve got work to do,” he said.
Nick followed him upstairs. “They’re in terrible trouble,” he said. Then he added, “I’ve written some.”
Wylie stopped. He turned to his son. “Oh?”
