Black Cat, White Moon

Chapter Six
Romejul

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Love of two is one

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"So, Razielle… you found him, after all this time?" Gideon asked, watching the shaking Night Child sitting in his chair.

The others – minus Reid and JJ – were gathered around him and Razielle. Gideon stared at the pale girl covered in blood. Her hands were clenched tightly around the coffee mug full of mint raspberry tea. The fragrant steam soothed her, but it was obvious even to the most casual observer that it wasn't soothing enough. Her knuckles were white, and there was a white line around her lips. She didn't even sip the tea, just let the heat emanating from the mug warm her hands.

"You finally found him?"

"Yes…. Lord-"

"Uh-uh. None of this Lord stuff. You saved me and my agents. I figure it's enough to forget any bad memories. We're family, baby girl."

Razielle glanced up at Gideon, blinking in surprise. A tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a track in the drying blood. He knew how she felt. It had been a very long time since he'd let her call him Uncle Jason. Not since she'd become an assassin. Not since they'd fought all those years ago, when he'd thrown the peach and yellow roses he'd brought for her in the fire and left after slamming the door. But he could see past that veneer of cold indifference now, the mask she'd worn since Dragon had first approached her. Now he could see past it, and he could see the little girl he'd sat on his lap all those years ago, the little girl he'd taught to swim, taught to pitch a baseball, taught to play the piano.

"Who is this, Gideon?" Garcia whispered.

Razielle glanced at the buxom blond woman in the stylish black glasses and smiled wanly, whispering, "Jason Gideon is my uncle. He's my mother's adopted brother."

Hotch stared at her for a long time, and she turned and cast her soft, green gaze to his face. The softness vanished, leaving jagged glass behind. She bared her sharp, white teeth, hissed, "I know you. Don't think I've forgotten you, Agent Hotchner. You taught me to kill."

"I saved your life."

"Aye," she whispered, but her gaze grew no less fierce. Her lips peeled back further. "And why did my life need saving? May I remind you that your mother tried to kill me."

"Your mother attacked my sister," Hotch replied, his steely eyes desperate in their attempts to stab into her chest and pierce her bullet-shredded heart.

"Your sister attacked my father," said the preternatural huntress as she glared with slitted eyes at the head of the BAU unit. Her green eyes were like jagged emerald blades slicing at the air in front of the special agent, but he appeared unfazed by her obvious animosity towards him, and his reply was with a calm voice. Only his gaze like a sword gave him away.

"Your father attacked my sister's husband."

"Your sister's husband tried to rape me, Hotchner."

"Aye," he admitted softly. "That is why I saved you from my mother, after your mother took out my sister."

"She left her alive, on purpose. Which is more than your sister planned to do to my fa-"

"Enough, you two," Gideon snapped, rubbing his temples. "That was a long time ago. Move beyond it. We have more important things to worry about now. Like why Dragon sent not one, but two assassins after the same mark. A human mark. And what we're going to tell Rossi when he gets back. We've got to explain my presence here somehow."

"Are uh, are you gonna introduce us, by the way Gideon, to this assassin?" Morgan demanded, sliding his hand across his shaved scalp. "Who exactly is she? Name, age, home town? Social security number? Work history? Anything?" The dark-skinned man eyed Razielle with something akin to mistrust, but it was too mild for that. It was as if the special agent with the mocha skin and dark eyes didn't care that she'd been hired out to murder Special Agent Reid, but only that she was covered in blood and obviously wounded, yet no questions were being asked of her.

"Razielle de Carabas du Hunter. Her age is not important, her home town is not important. She's my niece, and she's okay. She's not going to try to kill Reid again, are you, baby girl?"

"No. I couldn't if I wanted to. He's the one, Uncle Jason. He's the one." The girl shook violently, her voice soft and broken now, but she sounded so sure, so certain. "He... he is. Is he all right? Is Spencer okay?"

"Can't you feel him?" Gideon asked, wondering just how the bond of romejulen worked.

Razielle shook her head, whispering, "I'm too tired. He's too tired. And we haven't bonded yet. If we had, nothing could shake it. But… please, Uncle Jason, can I go find him? Please?" On please, tears welled up in her cat green eyes.

"I'm here," a voice murmured from behind her. "Don't cry, Raze, please."

Everyone glanced up as Razielle twisted in her chair, cried out, and scrambled to her feet. Gideon was amazed. In the last half hour, Gideon had seen every shield and barrier the girl had spent most of her life building crumble, and now the agent knew just what Shekinah had meant when she'd told him that the bond of romejulen made you a child again.

Reid slowly walked toward Razielle until they were inches apart, then suddenly she threw her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

"I'm so glad you're safe, baby," she whispered.

"Oh, Raze, you did it, you did it. Are you okay? He hurt you, I felt it," Reid whispered softly in her ear. A strand of curly, dark hair caressed his gray-tinged cheek, and he smelled her perfume – something humid and tropical. She mumbled, "I'm okay, I heal fast, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he whispered, kissing her temple. "Just some stitches. It was a clean shot, through and through. I'll be okay."

"Um… do you two know each other?" Rossi, the man who at one point had been Gideon's replacement, asked incredulously. He'd never seen Reid more happy to see someone alive and unhurt before, not even a member of the team. Was this Reid's girlfriend? Reid didn't have a girlfriend! Who was this chick?

"Yes," Reid whispered, palming the nape of the girl's neck. "Yes, I know her. I know her."

"For how long?" Hotch demanded. He knew the truth – they had never seen each other before tonight. The agent could taste the truth and the lies on the air currents swirling around them like mini-whirlwinds. There was something here he didn't quite understand, but he had more than the vaguest inkling that his friend, Gideon, had information that the rest of them didn't.

"Seems like forever," Razielle whispered, pressing her forehead against Reid's sharp collarbones.

"Eternity." Spencer laid his cheek against her soft, dark hair.

Reid's arm around her waist was probably the only way she managed to stay on her feet in the wash of this tenderness, this warmth.

"Do you guys have to do this here?" Gideon demanded. Razielle whispered, "The longer we wait, the weaker the bond. It could cause problems. Spencer…." She stepped back, forcing his head up, and reached up to him, a flitting white butterfly against his cheek. The throbbing pain in his shoulder dimmed at the touch. He brought his own hand up to cover hers. "Spencer…."

"Razielle-"

"Just relax, Spencer. I'll keep you safe." She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed a very, very soft kiss to his lips. In that instant of intimacy, Reid felt himself being sucked into something sweet and warm and dark, and let himself go.

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Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity

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Reid was a little boy again, only twelve. His father had just walked out, his mother slept upstairs, and he sat on the front porch of his house, staring into emerald green eyes framed in black fur. The panther padded toward him silently, and he gently rubbed its soft, black head. When he scratched behind its ears, she purred loudly.

"You're Razielle, aren't you?" He whispered. His voice was back to being a boyish soprano, but he didn't care. "It's you."

Yes, Spencer. It's me.

The panther was suddenly a girl about his age, with a long, vulpine ponytail of rich, auburn and chestnut hair, and eyes as emerald as the panther's. Her lips were glossed with pale pink glitter, and pale green shadow across her eyelids like jade frost sparkled in the porch light. "It's me."

And they were both teenagers, sixteen, and her head was laying on his shoulder, and she was cuddling against him. He rested his cheek on the waves of her hair.

"Razielle… what are you? I know you're not human. What are you?"

"I can't tell you. I can't explain it." She kneaded his shoulder with her fingers. He knew it was a subconscious thing, he could tell by the way she lay so relaxed in his embrace, so unresisting. Unresisting… pliant, soft, perfect….

She looked up at him, glanced for a nano-second at his mouth, then back into his eyes. "I can't tell you, I'm sorry. Because I… I don't want to scare you. Make you afraid of me."

"I'd never be afraid of you," he whispered, stroking her soft cheek with the knuckle of his index finger. "Never. I… no. Never."

He'd been about to say he loved her, and maybe he did, but he'd just met her. The first time he'd seen her had been about six hours ago, aiming a gun at the monster that had shot him, Emily, and JJ. You didn't fall in love with someone in six hours. You might be suffering from transference, but not love. He wasn't in love with her. Not her. He was in love with a lot of things – the satin softness of her skin, the thickness of her beautiful hair, the glimmering crystal quality of her eyes, the way her full, lush lips parted when she whispered his name – but not with her.

At least, he could pretend that it was so.

"I… Spencer, I… have you ever heard of the Children of Cat's Cradle?"

"The original Puss-N-Boots legend. Most people don't know it. The story was a warning during the years of the Black Plague to stay away from black cats because people thought the cats spread the Plague. Supposedly, the cat in the story was actually a demon, and he possessed the man who eventually became the Marquis de Carabas. Then it took on the lines of the Pied Piper story. De Carabas summoned a bunch of demons, put them inside the bodies of cats, and the cats possessed their male owners, and the owners followed de Carabas into the mists of myths and legends. But supposedly, de Carabas and his men took witches for wives, and the women gave birth to children, the children born from the… Cat's Cradle…."

He stared at her in shock and recognition. "You're a Child-"

"Half. Most of the Cradle take human mates. It's the only way to make sure the cat demonics in the blood breed true. My Father didn't. He actually married. My mother is anything but human."

"Who… what did he marry?" Reid asked in a soft whisper.

"The daughter of the archangel Gabrielle and the King of the Hunters."

"You're a… you're a Nephil. The child of an angel. One of the fallen. The Nephilim are where legends of vampires and werewolves came from. Nephilim were the original demons. Blood drinkers, succubi and incubi, nightmares, devils…."

Razielle hung her head, hiding behind a curtain of her hair from Reid's penetrating gaze. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. She glanced up at him through her curls.

"Gideon knows."

"Yes," she whispered.

"How?"

She told him. He thought about it for a while, then said, "This bond that we have. We're not bonding yet, are we? This wasn't what you meant when you said we needed to bond. What did you mean?"

"I wanted to give you the chance to back out, knowing what I am. Do you still want…."

He didn't let her finish. Cradling her face, he pressed his lips to hers, and knew exactly what it was she meant by "bond."

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Flash of pain, so swift it was inconsequential, then bliss. Liquid gold flowing through his veins, warmth behind his eyes. Her hair was like a silken cloud around him and he could feel cool satin underneath him. His hands burrowed in her hair as her soft lips brushed his pulse, once, twice, a butterfly touch against his skin winding him tight. He felt as if his bones might snap.

"I love you," he whispered, "I love you…."

"I know," she whispered, and sank teeth deep into the artery on the side of his neck.

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Baby I'm your man

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The two of them fell to the floor in a heap of limbs. They were back in Gideon's office, Razielle was back to being covered in dried blood, and there was a stark white scar on the side of Reid's neck. He touched it wonderingly, knowing that here, in the real world, Razielle hadn't bitten him. But there was a smear of blood on her lips, and she stared at Reid in wonder, as if she'd never seen him before.

The minute they'd fallen, Gideon had thrown up his arms to keep the others back. No one could touch them until they were back on their feet. He knew the Rules of Romejulen from his years with Shekinah. Any interference, and the bond could be disrupted, damaged.

"Raze…."

Reid moaned softly as he struggled to get into a position which would yield him standing on his own two feet.

"Are you hurt?" She asked Reid.

He shook his head, and got shakily to his feet. Raze hauled herself up, and stumbled into Reid's arms. He rubbed her back soothingly, pressing kisses to the top of her head. She gripped his shoulders, trying to anchor herself to the real world. Reid's kisses helped a lot.

"So… did it work?" Gideon asked softly.

"Yeah," she said. "But we're not done yet. Not by a long shot. We'd have to go to the Cradle to make it complete, but we're good for now, at least."

Gideon replied, "Good. Because I just got two phone calls. The hospital that's taking care of Reid's mother called; she's missing."

"WHAT?!" Reid yelped, jerking his head around to stare in shock at Gideon.

"And Raze, baby girl… Lilya, Morgaine, and Azrael are missing."

Razielle paled at the mention of her youngest sisters and brother. If her brother and sisters were missing, and Spencer's mother was missing….

"Blood, Shadow, and Moonlight!" She tore herself away from Reid, pressing her knuckles to her forehead. She took several shuddering breaths. The livid hunter was shaking violently with suppressed rage.

"Raze?" Reid whispered.

When he finally got her to meet his eyes, the unadulterated anger in them frightened him for just a moment. How could anyone feel such fury and not go mad from it? Her eyes were almost black with rage. The one word she whispered made chills run down his spine.

"Dragon."

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Don't fear the reaper
Nor the wind, nor the sun, nor the rain
Don't fear the reaper

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So, that's chapter six. You like it? I love it. But then, I'm biased about my work. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. I look forward to hearing from you guys about what you think about the chapter. Lemme know, okay? Lots of loves to my devoted readers!

PS – the song lyrics are from Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult.