This wasn’t going to be an instant process, so I left the kitchen and went to look out the tall front windows. The snow had stopped falling during the night and the wind must have died with it. The trees had a nice coating a few inches thick, but three-foot high drifts rolled across the ground like waves on the sea. We wouldn’t be riding out on motorcycles today. I briefly wondered if Rowle had gotten Alex a motorcycle, but then thought no, Rowle had never been a biker. He had his familiar possess that enormous Chevy Suburban. I guess there was a certain logic in that when you had an apprentice, but Walt and I had managed with just the bikes.
I stoked the remains of last night’s fire, but only a few embers remained. I moved enough wood from the bin to the andirons and triggered my fire tat. When the wood was burning, I killed the tat, and heard footsteps behind me on the hardwood. I turned to fine Rowle walking down the long hallway from his master bedroom. As large and nice as his guest rooms were, I figured his master suite must really be luxurious. Who stayed in these posh quarters before us? I’d never had anyone to visit me and damned few people I visited. What had made Rowle decide to settle down in one place? Was it the years? Did more than two centuries of wandering the world give you an itch to settle down, to have a place to call home? Maybe, if Tess and my moving into Joe’s cabin was any indication. I knew I was staying at the cabin to make life a little easier on my apprentice, but to be totally honest with myself; I was enjoying our time together in the cabin. Getting out of bed in the morning and fixing a nice meal, drinking coffee in front of a crackling fire, going to bed together at the end of the day. They were all pleasant, but I did feel like we should be on the road, as things had been when I’d been alone.
Well, we’d have to see. Tess was learning fast and when she could control her magic well enough, we would hit the road permanently. Okay, maybe not permanently, we could still stop by Joe’s cabin for a break between jobs.
“Good morning, Raphael,” Rowle said.
“Good morning to you too,” I responded.
“Did you get any sleep?” the old rogue asked.
“Some, although I must say a visit with Cris doesn’t allow for much sleeping.”
He smiled at that and came to stand beside me at the fire. “I don’t imagine it does. I’m getting old enough that I find the rest almost as nice as the pleasure.”
I grinned. “Come on, Rowle. You’re about two hundred and seventy or maybe eighty, but you look like you’re still in your forties. Surely the pleasures of the flesh haven’t become jaded to you.”
“Hah, jaded, certainly not, but my body isn’t barely out of its teens like yours. I’m old enough to understand that one of these days, even if I’m careful and stay out of battles involving that apprentice of yours, I will pass on to whatever awaits us all.”
“Please, you’re probably good for a few more centuries. That’s a lot longer than mortal man has.”
He held his hands to the fire and nodded in agreement. “Yes, much longer, than mere men, but I can see that one of these days I will welcome the peace that comes with death.”
“Why are you two being so morbid?” Cris asked from the hallway.
We both turned to greet her.
“Not morbid, just recognizing that all things die,” Rowle said.
“Even the gods?” Cris asked coming nearer. She was wearing jeans and a beautiful silk blouse that was open at the collar to reveal the lovely swell of her breasts. Her boots were on and the hills made little clicks as she walked. She stopped at the couch and sat down on one arm.
“Yes, they too, if their believers die off. The old gods are only as powerful as their disciples are. When the last one dies, so too does the god.”
“You know this for a fact?” Cris asked.
“I’ve not seen it with my own eyes, but I’ve heard of it happening. The last one I know of was the jaguar god of some Central American natives. I never heard what the tribe’s name was, but I heard that the last believer died about two hundred years ago of some disease or other. The god then faded from existence and there was no one to mourn his passing.”
Cris gave a little shudder. “Sad.”
She turned to me. “You were supposed to be getting me coffee.”
“I had to make it first.” I activated my senses tat again and my nostrils were filled with the aroma of fresh coffee and some kind of subtle perfume that Cris had applied just below her chin and other places that I’d like to sniff out. I smiled at her.
“What?” she asked.
“I like your perfume.”
“You can smell it from there? Did I use too much?”
I went to her and bent to kiss her neck.
“Not too much, just enough,” I whispered into her ear. “And not just on your throat.”
