Like a Torrent

by Olivette Devaux

  Ash stirred next to him, bringing the scent of warm skin and masculine musk. “Good morning,” he grumbled. “What time is it?”

  “Fucking birds.” Cooper didn’t mean to sound resentful, but did they have to nest right above their window? Really? “I can’t wait to move to a quieter neighborhood,” he grumbled as he pulled Ash into an embrace that was too hot even this early in the morning.

  “We could close the window,” Ash suggested with a tone so serious, Cooper was sure he was mocking him. When he propped himself up on his elbow to see Ash’s face, that little smirk spoke volumes.

  What an asshole. “I love you anyway,” Cooper said, bent down, and kissed his temple. “And I’ll love you even more when we are in our own place. A quiet place, with air conditioning, where we can keep the windows shut and sleep in on the weekends.”

  Ash spun under him. “You really aren’t a morning person,” he said with a gentle smile. “And you said you love me.”

  Copper paused. He’d been meaning to say it so many times, it just slipped out naturally. “I’ve been thinking you’re an asshole for making fun of me, and I just felt guilty,” he prevaricated, but he couldn’t do so with a straight face.

  “Uh-huh,” Ash hummed. His eyes were bright with emotion, and that little smile just wouldn’t go away. Being in such good mood first thing in the morning should’ve been outlawed a long time ago. “And I love you too. I love you so much, I’ll put up coffee while you’re still in bed.”

  Ash began to stir, kicking off their thin sheet.

  Cooper pulled him back down. “Not so fast,” he whispered. “Can I take a rain-check on that coffee?”

  They kissed gently, Ash’s morning stubble scratching Cooper’s chin. When Ash pressed himself against Cooper, all sensuous skin and eye-rolling pleasure, Cooper’s morning took a decided turn for the better.

  Hands, lips, tender murmurings of promises Cooper would later dismiss as bedroom talk – all that and a load of sweet nothings, and the amazing and incredible Ash pressing into him, chest to chest and groin to groin.

  Cooper’s ground-stone began to heat up.

  He ignored it.

  The earth didn’t shake, but rain began to pour within minutes.

  LIFE WAS GOOD. Better than good – life was excellent as Ash measured pre-ground coffee into a French press carafe. Cooper was taking the first shower, and Ash busied himself with putting out just the basics for a quick breakfast. It was too hot to make an elaborate Saturday brunch, and they would go visit the crowd in Lawrenceville anyway, and see how they were doing.

  Maybe they could bring them lunch. Or donuts.

  Ash pulled up the waistband of his old, cotton boxer shorts. He wasn’t inclined to wear more at the moment, not with the rain-cooled morning breeze making its way through the apartment, into the kitchen window and out the bedroom one.

  By the time Cooper made his way up the stairs, with his short hair still wet but his expression at peace with the world, Ash was pouring hot water over the grounds. “Press the coffee when the timer goes off, will you?”

  “But of course.” Cooper just about danced his way to him, gave his ass an affectionate squeeze, and kissed his cheek. “How long will you be raining, do you think?”

  Ash burst out laughing. “It’s not me doing that anymore. This is just the residual moisture. As soon as it gets hot again, the clouds will be gone.” He closed his eyes and flung his senses out. “There’s a pretty big system forming over the Great Lakes, we should get that in about two days. The usual, you know.” The weather report came naturally, and Ash realized he couldn’t have done this before the time he had been instructed by uncle Owen. The visit with Cooper’s grandmother certainly helped, too. Just seeing what she was doing, and being part of it – it had felt as though he could tap into power centers and link with other talented minds.

  “We should get the team started on getting centered, meditations and all,” he said before he disappeared down the narrow wooden staircase to take his shower. “Think about them, will you? You know their personalities, their talents. I’d like us to work as a team, the way your grandmother and I did up at the farm.”

  BRAVING THE SATURDAY Strip District traffic was always an adventure. Pittsburgh pedestrians had wandering ways, which could be ascribed either to their faith in the drivers’ goodwill, or to a death-wish. Ash pulled into an illegal parking spot on 19th Street while Cooper hopped out to get some street food. He had a box and a roll of paper towels for napkins. That, ten skewers of chicken barbecue, and a pile of scallion pancakes from the Chinese vendor on the corner should keep the team happy for now.

  Fifteen minutes later, Cooper found Ash parked on the same street, but in a different location.

  “I got chased out by the meter maid,” Ash explained, “so I circled around the block, especially since the meter maid was this huge guy in uniform. What did you get?”

  Cooper told him. “And soda. It’s that kind of a day.”

  They rode along in easy silence, listening to a local radio station, as Ash threaded his way toward the nearby Lawrenceville.

  Cooper heard a snippet of something come through the car speakers. “Fracking within the county without permits?”

  He launched himself over the box of food and cranked up the volume. The announcer’s voice came through as tinny through the antiquated sound system, but the message was unmistakable.

  “Shit.”

  “Fuck.”

  They had said it in unison, but Cooper didn’t laugh, and neither did Ash. They remained silent, waiting, extracting every possible bit of information from the news report.

  When the station switched to the North Korean situation, Ash turned the radio off. “This means the node might turn more active,” he said.

  “Probably.” Cooper clenched the box as though for safety. The corners of the cardboard crumpled a little. “I’ve been thinking about the team concept,” he said, thinking hard. “We won’t have a lot of time to make this work.”

  Ash grunted his assent. They were close now – a left turn, two blocks toward the river, and the smooth asphalt of the road gave way to ancient cobblestones.

  “I can feel it already,” Cooper said. “I feel the energy pulsing, and yeah. It’s that same thing as up in Wexford.”

  “Fracking.” Ash didn’t ask a question. He merely commented.

  “My ground-stone will start getting warm pretty soon. I shouldn’t be around, unless we’re actually doing something useful about this situation.”

  Ash pulled by the key rowhouse, and honked a long, loud S-O-S. Three long burst, three short ones, three more long ones. When Cooper gave him a questioning look, he only shook his head. “We can’t stay here. We’ll go have lunch somewhere else, and use the time to formulate a strategy. There’s no time for training together.”

  “No, there isn’t.” Cooper only hoped they had enough reishi extract on hand for everyone – provided they all lived to tell the tale. He had heard of group workings that had ended up in tragic deaths.

  He’d mention that bit of trivia only once they were at a safer distance.

  CHAPTER 13

  A convoy of two vans and a motorcycle inched its way up Butler Street, past stores selling tea and guitars and upcycled clothing. The little cloudburst in the morning had washed the pavement, but the concrete sidewalks and the asphalt road didn’t stay looking fresh and hopeful for long. The sun leaned in with heavy insistence, and the humid air was so thick, Ash thought he could cut it with his sword.

  His sword.

  The blade was stashed it its case under the rear passenger bench, along with their practice bokken and spare tool boxes. He and Cooper had been at it, working their cuts and focusing their talent through their practice. The exercise had begun as a mere theoretical curiosity several years before Ash came to Pittsburgh. By now, he could interact with water a lot better when he had a sword in his hand.

  Getting his sword wet bothered him. The blade was an anti
que, with its wooden hilt wrapped in shark skin and bound in silk cord. Suppose he soaked it?

  The blade itself dated to the fifteen hundreds. It had a large nick in its bottom third, and a smaller one slightly higher up. The sweet-spot toward the end, the smooth, razor-sharp curve that did the business of cutting, was curiously unscathed.

  He intended to keep it that way.

  The blade’s material was high-carbon mild steel, and it had been forged the old-fashioned way. Every time he pulled it out of the scabbard, Ash made sure to wipe his fingerprints off its shiny surface. He kept it oiled. Blades like that rusted, or acquired fingerprint-shaped blemishes. Water was his element, however, and keeping this particular sword pristine was a special challenge.

  “Ash, make a right.” Cooper disturbed his musings.

  Ash slowed down and put a blinker on. A short driveway led to a massive gate made of stone and steel. “Wait,” he blurted out. “It’s a graveyard!”

  “Yeah. Jared said this place is pretty much devoid of energies.”

  Jared, who was hitching a ride with them, piped up from the back. “I’ve noticed this elsewhere, too. Cemeteries tend to be power-neutral places. I’ve never seen a ley line run under one.”

  “Did you check this one out first?” Cooper asked.

  “No. I had no reason to. But I don’t detect anything.”

  Ash pulled through the gate, and eased the van into one of the few parking spaces to the left. Patiently, he waited for Hank and Ellen to park their vehicles. “Why do you think that is?” he asked, meeting Jared’s gaze through the rear-view mirror.

  “I think some places just are that way, and people sense it. So they use them as sacred ground, or whatever.”

  “So sacred ground has no power running through it?” Cooper said as though in disbelief.

  “It has the average amount, but all the elements are balanced. That’s... that’s pretty rare, actually.”

  “That’s getting a little too metaphysical for me,” Cooper said. “Sorry, no offense. I just have a hard time seeing it. Power patterns shift over time, don’t they? So how would these places stay neutral?”

  They climbed out of the van. “I don’t know,” Jared admitted. “I just know that some places are really stable. They’re rare. And, by the way, not all churches stand on neutral ground. Having some guy in robes sprinkle holy water over it doesn’t make it neutral.”

  “So what does?” Cooper asked as they approached the rest of team. They all tuned in to the topic at hand. This wasn’t just esoteric incense shop crap – this was important, and real, and it had a tangible impact on their world.

  “I don’t know. Can you think of a geological feature that would, you know, not change?” Ellen prodded.

  Cooper grimaced. “Hot spots. But those are hardly balanced – those are mostly fire.”

  “Come on, man. Use terms we can all understand!” Paul said with an uneasy laugh.

  “Hot spots are places on the Earth where the magma wells up from deep in the mantle. Some volcanoes are known hot spots. Others make islands called sea-mounts. Hawaii and Yellowstone are both created by their own hot spots, for instance.”

  “And aren’t there some kind of spots on the sun that don’t change, or something?” Mark chimed in.”

  “Exactly,” Cooper rallied. “So the idea of holy ground isn’t really a case of cause and effect, you see. I think people who could sense these things placed churches and such over areas of neutral energy, and... well, religion being kind of nutty the way it is – sorry, Jared – the people running the churches adopted the idea. Maybe they even started to believe that it was their rituals that made the place special.”

  “And maybe, some of the priests were Talented, and used the rituals to channel their talent. Or hide it,” Jared chimed in. “It was a case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’ It sure beats being burned at the stake.”

  Jared’s last comment cast a chill over them all as they followed a paved, winding path up a hill. They let the conversation dwindle as they processed their thoughts.

  “Where are we going to eat?” Ellen asked sensibly, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “We can’t eat on someone’s tomb stone.”

  “I see a bench. Let’s...” Ash was about to haul them off to a small bench in front of an elaborate mausoleum, when Mark squealed in glee.

  “Look, look up there! That’s a hiking trail!” A hiking trail meant a natural space where they could all sit down and talk, and maybe even feel comfortable eating lunch while in a graveyard.

  They followed it, with Mark leading the way. A path climbed up an eroded, steep slope whose top was held together by old roots alone. Some adventurous soul had strung a climbing rope to ease the way.

  Once they clambered up the twenty-foot incline, they found themselves in a natural, wooded area. The path led on, but Ash didn’t want to investigate right now. He found a fallen log and pointed to it. “Shall we? Cooper had been kind enough to provide lunch.”

  “And carry it up the hill,” Cooper said with a faux grumble.

  They wiped their hands on their pants, or on the few napkins which were included with the food, and shared out the food.

  Ash always enjoyed the salty tang of the chicken and the feel-good texture of the eggy scallion pancakes. Having his stomach half-full prompted him to breathe, and enjoy whatever was smelling so nice and floral nearby. The quiet eating noises and the occasional rustle of an aluminum foil didn’t detract from the fact that they were sitting in nature – more or less – and were having a lovely picnic.

  He was enjoying the lull before the storm just then, and was fully aware of it.

  A blue jay alighted on the branch overhead, and trilled. Ash gave himself over to the sight and the sound of it, to the fragrance of recently moved grass and the cool breeze that had picked up and caressed his face.

  This place was neutral, and it was neutral because its powers were in a state of balance.

  He reached out with his water-sense, but felt only the clouds passing in the sky, and the river far away. To Ash’s surprise, he didn’t detect much groundwater, or drainage, or... or anything bad, or old.

  The Allegheny Cemetery was a happy place, a balanced place. “I wish I could make my land as balanced as this.”

  COOPER GLANCED AROUND as they sat in a circle, legs crossed, close enough to hold hands, but not touching.

  Not yet.

  Ash to his left – water to counteract his earth, with its mischievous touch of fire.

  Paul to his right, a walking human battery who couldn’t own a cell phone, and whom Cooper could easily ground.

  Mark, his twin, sat to next to Paul, because they were used to each other.

  Ellen, an Airhead with a bit of water.

  Jared, who saw but couldn’t act.

  On Ash’s other side, completing the circle, sat Hank. He called himself “the Void,” although whenever he tried to explain what that meant, he stammered. Nobody could make sense of his convoluted explanations, and Ash finally suggested they’d have to figure it out as they went along.

  Cooper swallowed nervously. His last – and only – group working had been with grandma Olga and Ash, diverting that twister. That had been a harrowing experience on many levels, and he hoped he could steer his team through something more peaceful than that.

  “Everybody, ground and center.” Ash’s voice now had that smooth, melodious quality that made him so easy to follow.

  Cooper found his center so easily, he almost felt something snap. He spread roots that appeared like sparkling mineral veins, reaching down, anchoring himself so fully that for the first time ever he felt truly one with the earth. All that practice had paid off. Relieved, he slowly cracked his eyelids, keeping them half-shut to limit his stimulus level, but still be aware of his immediate surroundings.

  Everyone sat still, like stone statues. Like him. A wave of relief washed over Cooper – people seemed to know what they were doing.

 
“Link your hands.”

  They all did as Ash said.

  Nothing happened.

  Cooper’s eyes flew open in alarm. Why couldn’t he feel Ash? He’d become so accustomed to the ebb and flow of his power, that not feeling it was like losing a limb. Much like wearing the ground-stone, but worse.

  Cooper shut his eyes and reached out with his senses. Ash’s grip soothed his left hand. Paul’s touch was tentative on his right. Yet, despite their physical connection, there was none of that frisson Cooper had felt when he had grounded Paul’s excess electrical charge before.

  “What the hell?” Ellen’s exclamation echoed Cooper’s feelings perfectly.

  “Remain calm,” Ash said. “What is everyone feeling? Cooper, you first.”

  Cooper squeezed both hands in search of reassurance. “It’s more what I’m not feeling,” he said, trying to keep the panic in his voice at bay. “It’s like you’re all regular people.”

  Ash nodded. “Okay. Paul?”

  “Same as Cooper, plus I’m not reading Mark.”

  “Reading him?” Ash said.

  “What he’s feeling,” Paul said. “It’s a twins thing, we think. Nobody else has it, and we can do it only with each other.”

  “Good.” Ash moved on. “Mark?”

  Mark couldn’t feel his brother, nor anyone else, and that’s how it went all the way around. Cooper experienced a curious mixture of panic and relief – panic, because feeling Ash had become more of a constant in his life than he had realized. Relief, because it wasn’t only just him.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of a neutral ground effect,” Cooper said uncertainly.

  “Hands off,” Ash said. They all let go. “How about now?”

  Cooper stretched his senses. The ground under him felt as inert as before, but Ash, to his right, vibrated with contained power. “I can feel you again.”

  “Good.” The relief Cooper heard in Ash’s voice made him feel a bit less idiotic for his previous wave of panic. He was relieved nobody else noticed, or was likely to. They all seemed preoccupied with analyzing their own perceptions.