blessed goodness of life in spite of everything. The urge to walk away from it all was powerful, but she held the two children before her like a talisman, her still center in a maelstrom of threat and desire and confusion. Jason and Dulcie would be asleep, but she decided to take the long way around and lay the palm of her hand on their door in passing, a silent goodnight. Snores came from a few of the rooms, most were still, but when she got to the children's door, to her surprise she heard low voices coming from within. She tapped very lightly, and the room went instantly silent. She tapped again, and heard movement inside, and then the door cracked a couple of inches.
She started to put her mouth to the opening and say that she just wanted to wish them a good night, when the door flew back and Jason—taciturn, undemonstrative, cool and aloof Jason Delgado—lunged out and flung his arms around her. She grunted at the pain and he immediately let her go, but Dulcie squeaked 'Ana!' and they hushed her and scurried inside the room, closing the door behind them.
In the end all three of them huddled together on one of the beds, Dulcie tucked in between them and fading fast.
'Are your shoulders as sore as mine are?' Anne asked him when Dulcie was limp.
'It's my back that kills me, when I bend over.'
'Here, take one of these,' she said, and tapped out a couple of the pills from the bottle. 'If it doesn't help in an hour or so, take the other.'
'Thanks.' He reached for the half-glass of water next to Dulcie's bed, and winced at the movement. She put a third tablet down next to the one she had left on the table, just in case.
'So what did you think of all that?' she asked, very casually.
'I don't know. I mean, they're good people, but I've got to say, I don't understand half of what they're saying. And that alchemy stuff—it's weird shit.'
Her heart sang even as he apologized for his language, and she reached over and squeezed his hand. 'It's okay, Jason. We'll figure it out. Just give me a couple of days. Now, you get some sleep.'
She stood up and moved to the door, where she paused for a moment to look down at Dulcie nestled in her bed and at Jason sitting on the edge of the other bed, bending stiffly to take off his socks. This might be the last time she was alone with them for days, weeks even. If she brought in the authorities (as she intended to do) and if they broke Change up (which they would), the truth of who she was and what she was doing here would be revealed to these two, and the trust of their relationship with her would be shattered.
Jason looked up, and frowned at the expression on her face.
'What is it?'
'Nothing,' she told him. 'My dear Jason, it's nothing at all. Sleep well. We'll talk tomorrow.' She left the room and closed the door on the two children, blessedly unaware that there would be no tomorrow.
Chapter Thirty-one
page 2 of 2
Change: Are you sure you're okay, Jonas?
Seraph: I told you I was fine. Stop harassing me, Steven.
Change: Okay, okay. You just sound troubled, is all. Are you sure the Social Services thing is off your neck? I could come over and-
Seraph [shouting]: Steven! Enough!
[a silence]
Change: I'm sorry, Jonas. You know best, of course.
Seraph: And before you ask me, no the work has not progressed. But I think it shall, very soon. I think I've seen the problem. Your friend Ana showed me it, in fact.
Change: Oh, that's really great news, Jonas. I don't suppose you want a hand with keeping the fire hot? Like the old days?
Seraph [laughing]: No, Steven, I don't think that will be a problem.
Change: She'll be helping you, I suppose. Ana. The boy can't be that far along yet.
Seraph [laughing]: Ana Wakefield will indeed help me in the great work.
Change: The great work? Jonas, what are you going to do?
Seraph: I am going to perform a transformation, Steven.
Change: But what kind, Jonas? Jonas, what do you have planned?
Seraph: You're not listening to me, Steven. I told you. Transformation.
Change: Jonas, listen. You're not—
Seraph: I have to go now, Steven.
Change: Jonas, Look-I was thinking today that maybe it's time to go on that trip to Bombay we were talking about. I could phone…you know, and see if he could see us.
Seraph: Good bye, Steven.
Change: Jonas, wait! don't hang up. I need to—[connection cut]. Damn.
[end of transcription]
Excerpt from the transcription of a telephone conversation between
Steven Change and Jonas Fairweather (aka Jonas Seraph)
1:34 a.m., GMT, May 24, 199-
Anne Waverly continued upstairs to her own room, and to bed, and she drifted away into the first easy sleep she had found since getting on the plane. It was such a vast, earth-shaking relief to know that she was just plain nuts, to know that her poor twisted imagination had simply carried her away, to know at last that everyone was safe. Not least of all was the half-humorous satisfaction of knowing that after the mess she'd made of understanding Change, Glen McCarthy would never ask her to do another job for him, ever again.
She had thought Jonas Seraph capable of insane violence. However, now it appeared that the most violent act the Bear was interested in was a sort of Tantric union with her. His primary goal seemed to be convincing another generation of followers that they, too, could make gold. She had thought Jason locked inside an alembic; instead, he had been set the task of a medieval apprentice. She had even believed that Jason was converting to Change doctrine, but now—the joy of his phrase 'weird shit' rang in her ears, and she slipped into sleep with a smile on her lips, allowing herself to wonder what the two Delgado children would make of Anne Waverly's silent cabin in the woods.
She slept, and the house slept, unaware that below in the depths, the signs and portents of the last day were coming together in the mind of Jonas Seraph, freeing the fiery serpents from their mortal bondage. He gloried in this Woman, in what she had brought him and what she would do for him, and he labored hard to finish the preparations for this last and greatest Work of his lifetime. After so many trials and failures, after the disastrous mistake of thinking Sami would be the moon to his sun, the silver to his gold, after so many petty deceptions of gullible minds for the sake of perpetuating the whole, all the years of seeing one Work after another go dead and dry, at last it was upon him. Sami had been a mistake. Her energies in the end proved insufficient, her dedication no match for his own. That last Work with her had nearly robbed him of his confidence, reduced him to a thing as dead as she. Not this time. Soon, very soon, the final Transformation would be his. Every so often he paused to look up through the narrow windows, until at last he saw what he knew would be there, waiting for him: a delicate crescent, the first night of the new moon. And it was good.
The house slept, the moon rose and faded, and then at two o'clock in the morning, the peaceful, dignified Victorian mansion seemed to exhale sharply. The heavy cough jolted the building from one wing to the other; it startled the birds from their nests, set the dogs to barking, and reached down through the thick layers of fatigue and drugs to jerk Anne Waverly upright. She did not know what had woken her, but she heard the dogs and after a minute became aware of a strange vibration in the air, a distant roar almost too low to register as noise. She thrust her bare feet into her shoes and opened her door. Down the hall she saw movement as another person stepped out of a door on the opposite side.
'Did you smell smoke?' the woman said tentatively.
'Oh, God,' Anne cried in despair. 'Call 911,' she ordered, starting down the hall in the other direction. 'I'll
