"What's a Greebo, exactly?" Roland asked, later that evening, hand wrapped around the comforting cool of a soda. No more herbal tea. Please.

            Evan had decided to return after all, but he'd also returned to his maddening habit of staying just out of arms' reach in the windowsill. "It's a creature of the gray. They make excellent messengers, because they can travel so fast, and they're so easily hidden. And they speak almost every language from birth."

            "That's impressive."

            "Yes."

            "His name was Sam." The Bard continued, unasked, "He came about the same time as Pasha." Roland had curled defensively into the corner of the sofa on the opposite side of the room. His left hand idly stroked the white cat's spine, as she snuggled into the concave dish between his folded legs. Evan nodded in understanding.

            "He's one of the most active. One of the most arcane, but always willing to help."

            "Mm." The conversation died. Since the not-argument and Evan's sudden disappearance, the air developed a strained feeling that now could almost be cut with a kitchen knife.

            The mission. He could always count on that to wrench a few more words from Evan. Break a few more seconds of the unbearable silence. "How are we supposed to find the unicorn-hunters?"

            "We don't need to find them. We need to find who's turned them."

            "Oh. Well…how do we do that?"

            "I already have."

            "Oh."

            Strike conversation number two. Roland huffed. "Somehow I feel like a passenger in this whole thing."

            "You were sleeping again. I saw no need to wake you for something I could handle myself."

            Roland fought off a snarl, and buried his fingers in Pasha's ruff. She purred, curling her nearly prehensile tail about his wrist in comfort. At least the cat didn't find him useless. He could always function as a backscratch. And to think I didn't like cats…good old Tom. Too little, too late, I guess. He drew a long, last sip from his soda and set the empty can on its coaster. "Remind me of why I'm needed, again?" He asked, and quelled the urge to bite his lip as Evan winced at the word 'needed.'

            "Your music can turn the hunters from the Dark. Once I've subdued the demon, you can find the Darkened humans, and pull the Light out within them again, without damaging them…" his face fell, "as I would."

            Roland could see the flash of disappointment and pain cross the Adept's features, and he relocated Pasha to the cushion beside him before rising to stand at Evan's shoulder. Whatever it was he felt, or didn't feel, or that had gone on before, there was no denying this urge to offer comfort. "We."

            "What?" Evan turned slightly from his study of the grimy world beyond the window, the expression reflected in the glass so desolate that Roland's heart twisted within his chest.

            "We," He repeated, firmly. "You don't have to do any of this alone, remember? I was upset earlier…but I know that you can't be here all the time, and that you wouldn't want to be." One outstretched hand reached past the fringe of white-blonde hair to gesture at the concrete-and-steel land outside. "But you're here now because you have to be. So…as long as you're here…you've got me, too." Tentatively, he dropped the gesturing palm to brush Evan's shoulder. An overwarm hand fell across it, capturing it in a vise-like, desperate grip, as the strong, too-pretty face tilted back to pin Roland's gaze in the same powerful hold. "Why?"

            The Bard had the distinct feeling that Evan knew. But then, he always knew. And so…by denying it, he'd not only be lying to himself once again, but he'd be outright lying to this purveyor of the Light.

            "Like I can do anything else?" A corner of his mouth quirked, and his lips thinned in a humorless smile, "I love you. I can't just let you go galloping off alone, silver knight or not."

            He felt the void opening beneath his feet, and unable to turn away from the intensity of those blue-gray depths, Roland simply fell. The sudden, blazing heat of Evan's smile flashed with the power of the sun and washed over him.

            "Then for Heaven's sake," the Adept purred, "why didn't you Invite me sooner?" The vulnerability vanished from within the storming gaze that held Roland a willing captive, and reflected his own expression of confusion. And…thinly veiled anticipation.

            "Invite…?"

            "If you wanted me…you could have called out to me."

            "But the grove…I don't have the power to do that."

            "Maybe not the power to attract an Adept's attention. But you have the power to call to the Light. Everyone does. And…" A slender, powerful hand slipped up and caressed the blunt edge of Roland's jaw, "I would have heard you. I know your call. Sometimes I thought I heard you…but it was over too soon for me to find you."

            Roland recounted the times in these seven years that he had begged Evan to return, out of fear, or loneliness, or sorrow. If only he hadn't quashed the feelings before they'd drawn the Adept to his side...

            The invitation returned, tenfold. And too powerful to ignore. "Do we have time for this…?" Roland asked, half joking. But even then, freed from Evan's grip, his hands were finally free to explore the lean, golden lines of the other man's chest. He knelt beside the windowsill, tugging the Adept to face him…turn him away from the desolation and hopelessness of the gritty sublet district. Denim whispered on thin cotton as Evan's legs wrapped about his waist where he kneeled. The delicate touch of fingertips against his jaw brought Roland's regard up to meet the other's suddenly clear blue eyes.

            "We have all the time in the world," Evan replied. He bent down to brush his lips against the upturned, waiting mouth.

            The sweet shock of the touch was nothing in comparison to the almost-pain that followed as Roland at last found himself in these intimate quarters with the Adept. At last, he was holding the one thing that single-handedly turned his so-called normal world wrong side out, and then proceeded to rebuild it from the ground up. Without Evan, and Rebecca, and the quest to save the world, Roland would still be a half-grown amateur with little more than dreams and a comfortable, complacent state of mind. Without Evan, he would never have Seen the real power of the Light, and of the Dark, nor could he comprehend anything that he Saw before. And until now – a full seven years later – the one whom he owed so much had cleverly eluded him.

            Until now.

            Funny. Seven years ago, he would have freaked out, and thrown another fit of panic; would have had to be coaxed like a skittish colt through each and every obstacle. It wasn't like that now…

The old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder is true. Well, what do you know? Where's the fanfare? Where's the angelic chorus? Somebody could at least release a freaking flock of doves!

            Roland promptly forgot about his aching knees and the numb loss of blood circulation from his sudden deathgrip about Evan's waist. He could happily have let the earth crumble and fall around him without a second thought.

            Every Bard who goes on about the glories of unrequited love can stuff it up their rosy –

            "Roland,"

            The word was a tender admonishment, and only scant breaths away from Evan's face as he was, the Bard didn't need to look up. "Yeah?" He flushed, worried that the Adept had captured his latest thought – he still wasn't entirely sure if his guest could read minds.

            "You have to be uncomfortable like that."

            "Oh…" And suddenly, he was. How long had they been at it? His watch read a rough thirty minutes or so. Damn. Music and Adepts had the same effect, apparently. "I guess so, yeah."

            "Let me help you." With an agonizing slowness to accommodate Roland's screaming knees, Evan drew him to his feet, and turned him, guiding by the elbows to the bed alcove. A million clever things to say passed through Roland's mind, but none seemed appropriate as he meekly allowed the other man to lead. Perhaps he wouldn't need to be coaxed and cajoled as he might have needed years past, but the first steps were always the hardest. What was there to say…what does one say to an Adept of the Light at times like this…?

            And then…he knew.

            "Evan?"

            "Yes?" The lights flickered on, and then dimmed in the alcove as Evan closed the door gently behind them. From this proximity, Roland could feel the Adept's body as a listening entity, the whole of his concentration focused solely upon the Bard. He would know in an instant if Roland's words were untrue. The Bard turned in his arms, and met his gaze with the frank blue-gray honesty that had won over so many people in his past.

            "I love you…"

            The brilliance of Evan's eyes consumed everything in the flash, and for a few blissful hours, the fate of the world waited in patience.

* * *

            With a flourish, Roland produced a world map and unfolded it over the kitchen table, smoothing the creases with palms that still seemed to tingle faintly in memory…

            Get a grip. Roland ordered himself for the third time this morning. I've never acted like a lovestruck teenager before…twenty years later; it's finally catching up with me.

            Still, he strongly doubted that someone recovered from the thrall of an Adept of the Light in a day. Privately, he wondered if someone ever could. Rebecca didn't count. Goddesses probably had that sort of thing all the time.

            And that thought conjured several more that followed him stubbornly to the refrigerator for a shot of cold caffeine.

Evan hadn't noticed his reaction.

Thank God.

Subtly, Roland lifted the icy can of soda to rest against the nape of his own neck for a few precious seconds. Unfazed, the Adept pored over the map, eyes squinched as he concentrated his own unusual form of scrying.

            One fingertip brushed the map, and the print it left glowed against the paper.

            "Heh, who needs a highlighter?" Roland chuckled from his hunch over Evan's shoulder.

            "What?" Evan shoved errant strands of blonde hair from his face with an impatient hand and didn't look up.

            "Nothing." Apparently the Adept's sense of humor hadn't improved all that much in seven years. Or Roland's had degraded. He savored the closeness of the other, then, and dared to rest a hand in gentle camaraderie against Evan's shoulder. Of course, there was almost no resisting an Adept in little else but an old tee shirt…if he'd been shirtless, there would have been no possible resistance.

Goddess bless the little things in life.

Once again, he found his fingers clasped in a returning grip of affection, though the other still remained almost wholly focused on his task. Roland lowered the can of soda to the tabletop and flicked it open with his free hand. "Any luck?"

            "I've got one crossroads with enough traces of Dark power to be noticeable. But it's not enough to be the demon." Silken gold eyebrows drew down in frustration.

            "I thought you knew where he was…"

            "I did. Last night. It's apparently moved since then."

            "Oh." Roland's cheeks pinked with guilt. They should have been chasing down the Dark forces, instead of…

            "I wasn't at full power, last night. And because I got a good start, I know where to start looking…Roland," The stormy eyes turned on him, incandescent at a level that efficiently removed the breath from his lungs, "It wasn't your fault." Before the Bard could make a reply, Evan stiffened as if shocked and tore his gaze back to the map. "There." His index finger pressed to the paper, and a flare of brilliance pooled through the streets of downtown Toronto, parallel to the lakeshore. "He's there!"

            "Wait a minute…that's…what could possibly…?"

            "Are there a lot of people?" Tension shot through the shoulder rolling beneath Roland's thumb.

            "Well, yeah. It's summer. Lots of people at the beach. Evan, what are you…?"

            "It knows I'm here!" Evan hissed, and dashed into the alcove for his jeans. "How could I have been so stupid?"

            "I thought only Adepts could sense other Adepts…" The presence of a fully-clothed entity of the Light made concentration a little easier for the Bard, and at last he deemed it safe to follow the other into the bedroom.

            "Oh, Roland," Evan sighed impatiently, as he thumped onto the edge of the bed and rolled up the cuffs of his jeans to jerk his boots on, "isn't it obvious that any part of the Dark can sense the shift of the Balance?"

            Oh… Distantly, Roland remembered the would-be saint they'd encountered in their last adventure. He was a purveyor of Light, and had sensed the overwhelming presence of Dark. Roland's fists clenched. "But you're stronger than it is!"

            "Not with a horde of people turned to its cause!" Evan leapt up, and reached out to drag Roland close with a crushing grip on either shoulder. "Roland, I'm going. Catch up with me. I need you to stop those people…before…" Despite his golden complexion, Evan's face paled to the bleach-white of his hair tips. Suddenly, both men suffered an inescapable vision of the Adept…torn to pieces by an angry mob of Dark humans…

            Roland shook himself free of it with a cry of denial. "I'll be there. Get going!" And heedless of the mental alarms that fired in response, he hauled Evan's smaller mass against his chest and into a fiercely protective, possessive kiss. The Adept whimpered distantly against his lips.

            I won't let you down this time. Not now. Not ever again.

            With a last squeeze of the other's shoulders, Roland released him and turned him, propelling the other man towards the door with a nudge that brooked no argument. The Adept winked out of existence, startling a blink out of the Bard. He shook his head and sighed. I hate it when you do that.

            Shoes, shirt, and Patience in his hand. He was ready to move. A last gulp of soda snatched from the can waiting on the table, before Roland let himself into the hall and plunged for the elevator.

* * *

            The beaches of Lake Ontario looked like a war zone. Presiding over the chaos was a man who looked more than half god. A tall, broad, shining, and raven-haired demigod.

            To anyone with more than a gleaning of the Sight, the creature's shine inspired terror, rather than desire. When Evan winked into being at the top of the beachhead, he Felt the myriad of terrified souls behind him, pressed against buildings and staring after the impossibly attractive beach deity with utter horror. Those without that precious innate sense thronged the beach proper, yearning toward the tall creature of molten gold. Demons were known to take forms hideous to the mundane, and many were willing to waste ludicrous amounts of energy in shapeshifting for the simple purpose of dramatic effect.

            He scanned the beach, blue eyes darkened with righteous anger as he sought the demon's betraying signature of power. He found it...the largest massing of bodies gave his opponent away even before the sullen black-purple glow of Dark flared around them.

            Charming them. Guiling them. Turning the innocents to its vile purposes.

            If the unicorns were exterminated and their influence taken away from the Gray...others would follow. And more demons like this serpent of old would pass through the Barrier in their wake. Slowly, they would rob the world of hope. The Adept's gaze tightened and his aura blazed about him in a wash before he could halt it. Behind him, those with the touch of Sight dropped to their knees with a simultaneous cry of adulation. Evan looked back at the sound, and winced. Damnit! He turned to face the mob once more, only to see their ranks part obediently before a tall, broad-shouldered youth.

            It could have been a surfer. A very out-of-place surfer. If only. Dark, agile, and self-satisfied just to the edge of tolerance. The smirk it bore upon chiseled features was sculpted to aggravate, and the 'pack leader' posture of shoulders and head intended to intimidate. Evan arched an eyebrow. Demons. No belief in their own limitations.

The creature threw out its arms in a semblance of mocking welcome, and the irritating smile broadened. "They sent me an Adept? I believe a wise man once gave an apt description for such a situation..."

"Using a cannon to kill a mosquito." Evan's jaw pulsed as he cut the other off.

"Touché." The Dark minion inclined its beautiful head graciously, "But not quite what I was searching for."

"Leave these innocents be. Return to your land. This world is not for you." Evan demanded impatiently, tone and posture clearly implying that he had far more important matters to attend than vanquish a demon. The bronze god bristled, and its followers cowered in a nauseating mix of adoration and abject terror. It poured across the dunes with the sinuous alien grace of a stalking cat, hypnotizing, enchanting with otherworldly beauty that promised just as well as it threatened.

"Would you dare do battle with me, Adept?"

Pale hands fisted at his sides as Evan nodded shortly, once. The pleasure radiating out from the demon at the affirmation was nearly palpable. It flung an arm out toward the people beyond.

"Would you have them die?"

Evan stiffened. "What have you done to them?"

"What if I told them all to die, just now?" The demon asked, as pleasantly as if it were asking Evan to tea, "They would do it. They would turn on each other in eyeblinks. And even if you banished me, it would be too late." Suddenly, Evan found himself struggling to throw off a thick miasma of desire. A desire for the demon so powerful that it sickened him even as it beckoned him nearer the monster. He shook his head ferociously, teeth gritted as he realized that a glamourie – a spell of false appearances – glazed his eyes.

I am an Adept of the Light. I am above such things.

Whatever it is that you offer, I do not need it.

I am an Adept of the Light...

Over and over, echoing through his skull was the mantra. I don't need you...

"How far are you willing to go to protect the Accursed Beasts? Hm?" Smoothly masculine features tilted to one side, voice, gaze, and guise hypnotizing the Adept, "Would you be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents? Would you kill humans you knew? People you cared for…?"

Even as it spoke, the demon insinuated itself into Evan's mind with the deadly cool of serpent's coils, just out of the grasp of the Adept's awareness. It rifled his memories indifferently, until it hit upon one in particular. One that spun as an axis for all other thoughts.

Rebecca.

The bronzed features of the demon's incarnation twisted; took on a simple, sweet, be-freckled smile.

Oh, please, Goddess...no...

"Rebecca...?"

The voice sounded from only bodylengths behind Evan's rigid shoulders – a slap of cold water over the burning heat of the demon's glamour-spell. But even as the Adept won free, Roland was lost. The plastic handle of Patience's case slipped from nerveless fingers and the guitar thudded hollowly to the boardwalk.

"Rebecca..." The Bard gasped again, as velvet and long-lashed brown eyes turned upon him. The gaze of false innocence blurred with confusion, and narrowed in anger. They rounded on Evan, who desperately forced air into his throat again at the sight.

"What does this meddling human know? How does he know this girl? No…" The memory so callously ripped from Evan's brain magnified into focus, "this goddess. How does he know? Tell me! Tell me or I'll have them rip you to pieces!" It gestured wildly to the crowd, as the voice shrilled with a petulance that wasn't Rebecca at all.

A thousand brows darkened with rage, and be-sandaled feet stirred a step nearer the trio at the top of the beach.

It's not Rebecca. I am an Adept of the Light. I am above such things…

"I don't know."

All of the demon's focus honed in on Evan. He drew back his shoulders with defiance against its angry gaze.

Behind his shoulder, Roland gasped a third time, harshly, as though he'd just been coughed up by the sea. The heavy scrape and click of plastic registered that he'd collected Patience and was advancing with a hoarse cry of Evan's name. Only a glamourie, Evan realized with a flood of relief, it's only a simple look-at-me spell. We're not affected unless the demon looks at us…

"Roland! Shut your eyes!" The Adept commanded.

"What?" Roland asked automatically, and did as he was told.

Evan's palms came together before the doppelganger of Rebecca, and a flare of blinding Light engulfed his hands.

He thrust the burning ball forward.

The demon howled and writhed away, clutching at the soft brown eyes stolen from Evan's memory. It shrank, still whimpering senselessly, and lost the focus crystallizing Rebecca's appearance. Suddenly, it was no more than a shadow given form and substance, so black was its skin. A vaguely human shadow. An angry shadow.

"Cursed wretch," hot red eyes leveled blearily in Evan's direction. The Adept stood unflinchingly beneath the glare.

"Begone, foul thing! Return to your keepers, if only a blessing of the Light can fell you."

Typical response, Evan, Roland resisted the impulse to roll his eyes as he watched the creature in eerie fascination. "Why don't you just banish…"

"The people!" Two pairs of stormy blue eyes flicked up as Evan cut him off, and froze wide in horror at the onslaught of mobbing humans thundering toward them. Somewhere in the unending black of the demon's face, it smirked.

"Kill me. Try and kill me before they rend you and your mortal lackey. I doubt you can fend off all of us!" As it spoke, it leaped, inhuman claws stretching for Evan's unprotected throat.

The Adept met the challenge with a grim smile, fists closing together as a shaft of white brilliance fired between them. "Roland!" He shouted as he tumbled out of the way of the demon's leap and thrust up and into the shadow.

Roland nodded. He was more than a 'mortal lackey,' and he was about to prove it. If only he could think of a song...

Come on, you're a full Bard now. Surely there's something...

He flashed through a dozen first lines, names, titles, as quickly as though scanning the page of a playsheet. Without even thinking.

They all passed by, indifferently.

The crowd would be on them in a few more seconds...

Oh, come on....

His confidence faltered. The demon screeched.

One song stuck.

If the Beatles can thwart a Dark Adept, Bill Withers can stop a demon!

And he undid the catches holding Patience captive as he sprinted toward the morass of angry bodies hurtling the other way. The guitar's case dropped to the sand unnoticed, and he swung Patience's strap around his neck, fumbling for the chords blindly in haste. A gentle sigh of lyrics echoed free, and a soft rip that grew stronger with each passing measure, and thundered to the chorus, but still unhurried, unchanged.

Day after day, I'm more confused,

But I look for the light through the pouring rain…

There was a falter in the unending march toward the trio at the boardwalk. A few surprised glances. A glimmer of sense in the madness. Roland wrestled his heart out of his throat.

"You brought a Bard with you?" The demon blasted Evan with a bolt of Dark energy as he shouted. The Adept left a smile and a four-foot-long furrow in the sand as he was thrown violently back.

Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul,

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away...

The rapid footsteps of the mob began to slow.

The sword of Light petered out.

Roland played on, feeling as though he were standing in the path of a stampeding herd of cattle. The deep joy and comfort of the music reached out with tentative fingers to grasp the listeners, swathing, bandaging red-hot anger in cool blues and peaceful greens. No reason to be angry, it said, it'll be better tomorrow. Listen to the music. That's all you need. The mellow chords skipped slowly behind the lyrics, as Roland threw his best rasp into the throaty words. It hurt, reopening the damage to half-healed tissue only just closed by the Adept. He spared a look back to Evan with a hard swallow. Somehow, blue eyes found blue eyes, and a mutual anchor tossed between.

The world outside looks so unkind,

So I'm countin' on you to carry me through…

Evan blazed to his feet as his saber reappeared, thrust through the middle of the demon's gut. It roared in agony and tore free. A spatter of Dark unleashed power flooded around the Light Adept as a rock in a stream.

            The crowd walked on, nearer and nearer; more and more sluggish with every step. They swayed, rocking with the slow seething of the boiling sea at their backs.

When my mind is free, you know a melody can move me,

And when I'm feelin' blue, the guitar's comin' through to soothe me.

They stopped.

Thanks for the joy that you're givin' me,

I want you to know I believe in your song…

One after another, they began to smile. And in another heartbeat, they were laughing and talking; some were singing along. Roland drew an uneasy breath of relief.

The demon dropped to earth, bleeding from a dozen or more wounds. Vanished, as though it were no more than a heat-shimmer on the dunes.

Rhythm and rhyme and harmony,

You help me along; you're makin' me strong…

Evan staggered to Roland's side, and leaned heavily upon his shoulder as the crowd rocked from side to side. They raised their hands to clap in unison to the final chorus. There was nothing left now but the people.

Roland allowed himself a smile as he drew the song to its close. Thank you, Bill, old man.

The people applauded wildly.

"Forget," Evan whispered into their still-open minds.

They forgot.

Pasha came to rub against Roland's leg, and mewed piteously up at him as the crowd parted. The Bard started violently. "Where'd you come from?" Nevertheless, he bent with a grunt to scoop her up. Evan shook his head. "She's right, unfortunately. I didn't destroy it."

"You didn't? But…" Roland's eyes strayed to where the demon had only just been, as he ruffled the cat's cheek. "I thought…"

"It escaped before I could kill it. We won't have the luxury of surprise anymore…it knows what you are."

Roland sighed. He didn't want to think about that right now. And Patience needed to be protected. Pasha slithered from his shoulder as he knelt to collect the discarded plastic case and slip the guitar into it. "At least we saved those people."

"For now." The words had a hopeless ring to them. Evan turned for home. Roland watched him in silence. I hate it when you act like the world's ending just because you didn't win.

He caught the irony in the thought, smiled sadly, and stepped up to loop his free arm around the Adept's slender waist in sympathy. "We'll get it right next time."