The Síochán Ch. 03

Lucas shot her a grateful smile. "We represent what I suppose you would term individual virtues," he began, moving away to stand beside the Scrying Fountain. "Harlan is Perseverance. He is more congenial than Marcus but has a tendency to anger quickly and become dogmatic. He calms down just as quickly but he is pretty fierce when he blows. Stand up to him if he tries it with you. He respects strong people. Anton is Impartiality. Very quiet and doesn't speak much but when he does it is usually something worth listening to so we tend to pay attention when he speaks. He views all angles before commenting. Kincaid is Detachment. He is pretty cold and ruthless. He doesn't suffer fools gladly and he detests emotional displays. He and Harlan tend to ignore each other for the most part because they are such polar opposites in character. They seldom find a middle ground."

Lucas paused to turn and look at her. Her expression was carefully schooled so he didn't know what she was thinking. He sighed softly. "Marcus is Defiance. He has a tendency to swing in the opposite direction of the group just for the hell of it. He likes to upset the equilibrium as you have already noticed." He stopped talking again, turning back to look in the swirling waters of the Fountain.

"They all sound so formidable," Summer said quietly. "You didn't describe yourself, Lucas. Don't I need to know that too?"

He shot her a slightly pained glance, the physical distance between them not even beginning to reflect the engulfing chasm now between them since the first abortive attempt of the meeting. He silently mourned that distance even though he had been prepared for it. He knew he should have better prepared her for what would go on in the meeting.

"Me?," he sighed softly. "I suppose I am viewed as Justice. We all have an equal say in all matters, yourself included, Summer. But once we have reached a decision it is ultimately up to me to make the judgement on our course of action. I suppose I am a little bit of all of them, with a cold, hard core running right through me."

She swallowed hard as she tried to come to terms with how very different he was and how little she really knew him. She had only ever seen his softer side and that was the part of him she loved so much. It was sad to find out that it was only a very small part of the man she had come to care for and rely on so much. She gave him a sad smile.

"So what does that make me in this group of egotistical men?" she asked curiously, wondering how Lucas really viewed her.

He smiled softly, his expression turning warm. "You are our Temperance, Summer," he answered quietly. "You may be new to us but we need you so very badly. We need a clearer voice to help us make the right decisions. The Síochán are fractured, Summer. When Nathaniel left, it quite literally had us reeling for a couple of centuries. No one has ever left us before and we didn't know how to deal with it. We have become hardened in our ways and we need a fresh pair of eyes to get us back on track." He didn't tell her everything but he told her enough. The rest she would find out soon enough.

Summer contemplated his words with a thoughtful expression on her face and then she nodded her head at him. "What about Nathaniel? What was he when he was here?"

Lucas sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. "Nathaniel was Zeal," he answered quietly. "I told you he was one of the best of us. It was his zeal which made him so. Once a judgement was pronounced he was the first to offer his services to execute that judgement. He believed so strongly in what we do that sometimes it was hard to rein him in. That was until he decided one day that he didn't want to be one of us anymore."

Summer tried to picture Nathaniel as a zealot. He had definitely shown signs of being very determined when she had met him. She wondered what could have possibly turned him from being so dedicated into wanting nothing further to do with the Síochán. It must have been something very important to him.

"I'm ready to return to the meeting now, Lucas," she announced quietly. If she was Temperance and the group needed her so badly as Lucas said, then it was up to her to learn all that she could to try and help them.

He accepted her decision without argument, relieved that she was calmer and apparently more accepting of everything. Together they returned to the meeting room. This time Lucas didn't leave her side immediately, instead he took her hand and steered her over to a chair where a tall, dark skinned man sat. He was young in appearance but completely bald. To Summer's eyes it looked like a natural occurrence rather than a preferred choice.

"Summer, this is Harlan," Lucas introduced her. Given her recent disappearing act, she was surprised when he answered her smile back with one of his own.

"An honour to meet you, my lady," Harlan said with a slight twinkle in his green eyes before he turned to survey the room quickly. "That is how one behaves like a gentleman," he tacked on with a wide grin and Summer found herself laughing even as her cheeks reddened slightly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Harlan," she smiled and let Lucas escort her to the man sitting in the chair beside him.

"Kincaid," the man said, brushing his long brown hair back across his shoulders, his brown eyes were intent on her face as if he was trying to size her up. She had no idea what decision he came to but his features relaxed slightly and his mouth almost quirked into a little smile.

"And I'm Anton," a voice said from the left and Summer turned to find herself looking into a pair of hazel eyes which were twinkling slightly as a hand appeared in front of her.

"Anton," she smiled, accepting his hand and starting when he raised hers to his lips and brushed it gently with his mouth.

Anton was dark haired, not quite brown and yet not exactly black either. He wore his hair shorter than the others, it merely brushed the bottom of his collar though it was all one length and slicked back from his forehead. He did not share the same exquisite beauty as the others in the room but Summer found herself liking him immediately. He was handsome more in a human kind of way, whereas the others were almost angelic in appearance.

"Come, sit with me, Summer," Anton was saying, patting the sofa he was sitting on as he tugged at her hand to pull her down beside him. A quick recap of what Lucas has told her reminded her that Anton was supposed to be the quiet one of the group and yet, he appeared to be the friendliest so far.

She sat down beside him as Lucas once more drifted back across the room to sit beside Marcus, who was watching her with a slight smile curving over his lips.

"Ignore, Marcus," Anton laughed softly. "He views himself as a lady killer and is deeply disturbed that you not only prefer Lucas over him but that he also managed to scare you from the room."

Summer dampened down a scowl and tried not to react to her love life being brought up yet again. It appeared they thought it amusing to try to fluster her and she was determined not to react the way she had the last time. She took a deep breath and smiled.

"I apologise for leaving so abruptly earlier," she said to the room. "I am not used to being in such a formal environment. I dare say I will most likely do other things to offend until I get my bearings. I hope you can all be patient with me."

"Hah, remember when Marcus first joined us," Harlan laughed. "He caused much more upset when he....."

"Harlan!" Marcus growled angrily and the other man laughed harder but didn't continue with what he was about to say.

"Maybe we should begin?" Lucas sighed trying not to roll his eyes. It was bad enough putting up with Summer's little foibles at the meeting but if the others started they would achieve nothing. "I've explained a little to Summer but she needs to be fully briefed on our purpose and what that means for her." He looked around the room and was very surprised when Anton was the one who chose to speak.

"It's really quite simple, Summer," Anton smiled. "We monitor the timeline through the Scrying Fountains as you most probably already know. We go back and forth on the mortal plain because time had no real meaning up here, not in the linear fashion the mortal world experiences. Usually when we see a course of action about to play out which will seriously endanger the balance between good and evil, we meet to discuss it and then decide what course of action to take. Occasionally an event will come to pass that we do not notice and we receive an alert to it. This alert is quite noticeable. The water in all the Fountains turn red and each one will show the time period that the danger relates to. We decipher the event that triggers the danger, then as usual, we act."

"How many Scrying Fountains are there?" she asked curiously. She had assumed there was just one and that the others viewed it when she was occupied with Lucas.

"Oh, there are seven," Harlan answered with a smile. "There were six and then you ascended to join us so a new Fountain was born for your use."

Summer frowned slightly, her eyes moving swiftly around the room. "But there are only six of us. If each person has their own Fountain then why are there seven now?"

The room fell silent and everyone turned to look at Lucas who was staring off at the far wall as if pretending he hadn't heard the question.

"The second Fountain belongs to Nathaniel," Kincaid finally said in a hard voice.

Summer's eyes flew to his and she saw a deep anger in his brown eyes before his gaze dropped from hers. "So, no one can use anyone else's Fountain?" she asked, her heart picking up slightly at the mention of Nathaniel.

"Limited use can be made of another's," Harlan answered, "but not to the depth that is required to do the work we need to do."

Summer nodded slowly as she took in what was being said. Her Scrying Fountain belonged to her alone. She actually quite liked the thought of that though she hadn't felt territorial about it before. She smiled slightly at the thought that there was a Fountain somewhere that Nathaniel had used as his own. She wondered if she would be allowed to view it.

"So once an intervention is required and we have all discussed it, how do we go about righting the wrong?"

Again all eyes turned to Lucas and this time when her eyes turned to his, he was looking at Summer. His beautiful face was carefully neutral as he regarded her intently for a moment and then he almost seemed to sigh without quite doing so.

"We go down to the mortal world and we remove the problem permanently," he said quietly. "We do so as discreetly and quickly as possible. Our existence is to be guarded at all times. Only one person down below knows of our existence. We ensure it is kept that way."

She knew he was alluding to Nathaniel again and she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "We go down and we eliminate the threat," she said, just so she could get it clear in her own mind. She knew she was trained to kill, but she hadn't really thought about it too much because it had always seemed such a long way off before she would have to confront it.

"What if the balance is swinging too much onto the side of good?" she asked with a frown.

"Good, evil, it doesn't matter what side the swing is. We take care of the problem," Lucas said coldly.

The inherent wrongness of killing someone who was good hit her hard. She could justify killing an evil person but a good one? She had been a good person and she had been murdered. Her family had shed who knows how many tears at her loss and she was expected to go and do that to other families?

"I'm not doing that," she said firmly, her face setting in a determined expression as she met Lucas' eyes. "I'm not going to kill someone whose only fault in life is being too good."

"You don't have a choice in the matter, Summer," Lucas answered coldly. "If the assignment comes up and you're the only one available for it you will accept it and do your job."

She jumped up from the sofa and glared hard at Lucas, completely oblivious to everyone else around them as her anger flared. "I am not killing good people, Luc, and there is nothing you can do or say to make me do so. It's just wrong and you can just find someone else to do it."

"You don't get to pick and choose what jobs you do," Lucas grated out, rising too and glaring back at her. He had known she would balk at the necessity to do so but after their last talk he had hoped she would have taken the time to think it through and at least voice her objections in a less strident manner. He could feel the other Síochán's eyes on them and he was annoyed she was putting him in this position again so soon.

"You don't get to tell me what I do or don't do anymore," she retorted. "I'm no longer your student. You told me that yourself. You said I had an equal right to voice my opinions in this meeting and I'm voicing my opinion now. I'm telling you I will not cause the same heartache on another family that mine went through when I was murdered by Frederick!"

She detected a slight tightening around his eyes as she brought up her own death. If she hadn't spent so much time with him she would most probably have missed it. She felt a sinking feeling deep inside her as she looked deep into his eyes and tried to determine what that involuntary movement meant.

"You knew," she breathed softly, the sinking feeling starting to get worse as she stared at Lucas in shock. "Was I too good, Lucas?" she asked in a hard voice. "Was that what you meant when you said you had been waiting for me for a long time? Was I one of the good people who needed to be eliminated only you realised you didn't actually have to do it yourself because Frederick was already in place to do it for you?"

The accuracy of her words hit Lucas hard and his lips tightened ever so slightly but it was enough to confirm to Summer that what she was saying had some merit to it. "Summer," he said calmly, using a soothing tone because he knew she was ready to come apart and he didn't want her to do so in front of the others.

"I'm right," she suddenly yelled at him, her eyes filling with tears though they didn't fall. "You were all set to kill me. Which one of you was going to do it? You, Lucas? How convenient for you that Frederick came along and did it for you."

"Will you please calm down, Summer," Lucas said sternly. "Shouting and getting all emotional about it isn't going to solve anything."

"I'm standing in a room full of men who were calmly sitting around discussing which one of them was going to murder me and you think I don't have a right to be bloody emotional about it?" She stared at him, a feeling of such betrayal rippling through her as she looked into his beautiful face. He didn't even look the slightest bit ashamed. He had taken her into his bed, when all the time he had known that he could have been the person chosen to end her life, if Frederick hadn't done so.

Summer felt something break inside her and realised it was most probably the last of her innocence finally shattering from her soul. She suddenly understood why they were all such cold people despite their smiles and twinkling eyes. They had to be like that because it was the only way they could survive doing what they had to do. It didn't make it right but she could at least understand it.

"What else haven't you told me, Lucas?" she asked in a voice devoid of all emotion. He had told her she would hear worse than her sex life being discussed. What she had heard so far was pretty bad but she had a feeling there was still more to come.

Lucas watched her very carefully, seeing the light die in her eyes. It twisted painfully at his heart to see her so shattered, but he knew she was strong enough to deal with it. She would be angry for a long time but she would eventually come to understand sometimes difficult choices had to be made for the greater good.

"We discussed whether or not to let your meeting with Nathaniel go ahead," he answered quietly. "Whether to let the natural time progression occur or step in before you came into contact with him. It was agreed to allow you to meet."

His answer stunned her. What did Nathaniel have to do with this? He wasn't one of the Síochán anymore. He had walked away from these people and she couldn't blame him for doing so because it was what she wanted to do herself. "Why was my meeting Nathaniel so important?" she ground out hoarsely, the pain inside her chest getting worse the more she learned.

"We want Nathaniel to come home, Summer. We saw his attraction to you. For a moment there were two paths open to you. The one where Frederick killed you and the one where Nathaniel took you with him that night. It was why we had to consider intervening earlier. If you had gone with Nathaniel then that would have been problematic."

Her mouth dropped open in shock as she stared at him. "Nathaniel wanted to take me with him?" she whispered, completely rocked by this knowledge. She had though the vampire had walked away with no further thought of her.

Lucas nodded solemnly. "He thought about it and dismissed it, freeing the timeline up for your death. He changed his mind and came back for you the next night but by then it was too late, you were already dead and here with me."

Nathaniel had come back for her and Lucas had known this. Just as he had known how much she loved the vampire even though she had barely known him. And he had still talked his way into her bed, knowing all of this. There appeared to be no depths Lucas wasn't willing to sink to. "Spell it out for me, Lucas. The whole thing. What is the significance of Nathaniel coming back for me?"

"He loves you, Summer," Lucas said quietly. "And you love him too. We need you to bring him back to us."

Nathaniel loved her! The very thought filled her with such joy and such heartache. Not only had he come back for her, albeit too late, but he had come for her because he had loved her. The bittersweet irony of the situation wasn't lost on her. Nathaniel had left the Síochán and centuries later they had met and despite knowing each other only a handful of hours, somehow fallen in love. Now she was a Síochán and Nathaniel walked the mortal world, and the others expected her to go back down there to convince him to return to a life he had given up for probably very good reasons.

Her green eyes shone with unshed tears even as her face twisted into a bitter mask as she looked at the man who had shared her bed and used her so shamelessly to further his own ends. She felt so betrayed by Lucas.

She tried hard to get control of her emotions, tried to remember to think logically about it all but it was hard to do so when it was her heart, her very life which had been used as a plaything to achieve their goal. Lucas was getting the brunt of her anger because he had been the face of the Síochán to her for the last fifty years. It didn't make the others any less culpable but she didn't care about them, not like she cared about Lucas.

"I don't blame Nathaniel for leaving you, Lucas," she said bitterly. "He probably couldn't stand being in the same room with a monster like you. I will not help you bring him back to this life and I will not join you in this life either. I'd rather be dead than spend one more precious second of my time in your company. Release me, Lucas. I don't care how you do it, just do it. Kill me if you can somehow do it, or make me mortal again so you can kill me. Just let me go."

Lucas stared intently at Summer, carefully keeping a neutral expression as he saw the hurt and betrayal in her eyes. He knew it was unavoidable that he would be the target for her anger but it didn't make it any less easy to stomach. He had considered telling her the truth earlier but decided against it. She had a better chance of dealing with it now she was fully trained. He could wait for her anger to subside. They had eternity to work out their personal differences.