The Passion Season

by Libby Doyle

  Mel shook her head but stayed silent. By this time they had reached Franklin Square, filled with people out enjoying the day’s sunshine and low humidity. Zan entered the square, drawn by the coolness of the fountain at its center. It took Mel a few seconds, but she followed. They both stood staring into the water, not looking at each other.

  “You know, you can’t have it both ways, Mel. Either Rainer is a criminal sophisticated enough to use shell companies, or he’s nuts. Pick one.”

  “He’s sophisticated, all right. Maybe he’s also possessive. Maybe he’s a controlling son of a bitch.”

  Disappointment flooded Zan. She grabbed the wrought iron fence that surrounded the fountain.

  “Rainer loves me,” she said, surprising herself with the intensity of her voice. “He comforts me and supports me more than any man ever has. He would never hurt me.” She continued to stare into the fountain. She knew Mel was looking at her.

  “You keep telling yourself that, Zan. You’re letting that man fuck you stupid.”

  Zan gripped the fence harder. She wedged her feet against the bottom and pushed back, straining her muscles.

  I can’t believe she’d say something like that to me.

  She let go of the fence and leaned toward her friend. “You’re the one who’s controlling. You were all for me being in a relationship as long as you thought you’d get to choose some milquetoast academic for me.”

  From the look on Mel’s face, Zan’s milquetoast comment wasn’t lost on her. Mel’s husband Emmett was a poet and a professor at Temple University.

  “Fuck you, Zan. You need to check your denial. Last I heard, drunks are good at that, even reformed ones.”

  Mel walked off, past the fountain. Zan gripped the fence again, her head filled with noise. A few minutes later she headed toward the office. She had no choice but to go back to work, where they’d have to sit a few feet from each other.

  This should be an interesting afternoon.

  As she walked, her anger faded. Mel might still be pissed about the raid, but Zan knew the woman cared about her. Loved her even. Her reaction to Rainer was simple overprotectiveness, and Zan should give her a damn break.

  When she entered the office Mel looked up from her screen, her brown eyes soft and liquid.

  “I’m sorry, Zan. You asked me for advice and all you got from me was an attack. It was wrong, but I worry about you. I know what you’ve been through with men. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “It’s okay. When I calmed down, I realized you were trying to look out for me.” Zan tilted her head and gave Mel her best little-girl smile. “Never claimed I didn’t have a terrible Irish temper.”

  “We’re both a little hot-blooded, huh?” Mel laughed. “I’m glad you don’t drink anymore. You probably would’ve beat the shit out of me.”

  “Well, you were armed.”

  “Right.” Mel snickered, but her expression grew serious. “I’ll back off, Zan. Your relationship is your business. As for my advice, if I ignore my flashing yellow warning sign, then yeah, it’s far too soon to expect to know everything about him. That’s what I’d say about a normal guy, anyway.” Mel’s eyes got big when she realized what she’d said. Zan chuckled.

  “Don’t worry. I think we’ve established what you think of Rainer.” She mused for a few seconds. “The problem is, you don’t know him.”

  Mel peered at her for a few seconds with her chin in her hand. “You’re right. I don’t. We’ve been so busy we’ve had no time to socialize.”

  “Hey, isn’t the joint task force softball game in a couple weeks? The rules aren’t strict about who can play. I’ll ask Rainer. We’ll hang out. He can meet Jamal.”

  “Does Rainer play softball?”

  “I don’t think so, but who cares? Our team stinks. He can’t make us any worse.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The Camargue

  TENDRILS OF DYING LIGHT reached into the sky as if the sun were trying to stop itself from falling below the horizon. Pellus stood in the yard of the ranch in the Camargue, watching as some of the false monks returned home through the shadows. Twelve in number, they wore jeans and white shirts. A few men who appeared to be servants carried bags filled with groceries. Concealed under his curtain of twilight, Pellus followed them into the house.

  For an hour or so, the false monks read books and drank cocktails in an airy parlor stuffed with couches, its walls adorned with paintings of the saints in gilded frames. Their servants busied themselves with mundane tasks like cleaning, distributing linens and making dinner. When the meal was ready, about fifteen other false monks joined the dozen or so he had already seen. Pellus wondered who among them had performed the human sacrifices. Two days remained until the summer solstice.

  If they are going to Philadelphia, it will be soon.

  During dinner, they did not discuss travel plans. When they had finished eating, they retired to their quarters. As they separated, a false monk who appeared to be the leader told a few others that they were to leave at 6:30 the next morning. Pellus thought it likely that the monk was speaking of a trip to Philadelphia. He began to glide quietly through the house, searching for anything that could shed light on their purpose or their plans.

  Pellus did not find any of Archibaud’s daggers, but what he found in a dark space at the back of the house made him retch. It was a screening room lined with shelves full of circular, gray metal cases. A set of large square cases, like those for art portfolios, sat on a table. He picked up the nearest circular case and opened it. A film. He held the strip of celluloid before his eyes and used the refracted light around him to reveal images of a woman, bound facedown, struggling as a group of masked men approached her. Subsequent frames revealed a gruesome progression of blood, fear and sexual violence. Pellus did not want to go any further.

  From the way the men in the film were dressed, it was some decades old. He knew he had to investigate the other materials. He did not want to. Disgust balled in the pit of his stomach, spreading upward to his chest. He went to the nearest portfolio, unzipped it and opened it on the table. A strong wave of nausea hit him. Two glossy photographs showed two women trussed with olive-drab straps and chains, their legs spread, their arms bound at unnatural angles, their eyes devoid of life, their suffering reduced to fetish. Pellus closed his eyes. He hoped the images were fake. He suspected they were not.

  Humans. No wonder we fear them. Their depravity is worthy of Lucifer.

  The photographs were newer than the film. When he checked the cabinet at the end of the room, he found that the fiendish monks had continued to modernize. The cabinet was filled with memory cards and flash drives. Pellus grabbed a few to put in his bag, trying to quell the rise of bile and anger within him. He turned to the repellant task of photographing the photographs. They featured women being raped, tortured, mutilated and killed. He struggled to stay focused. He brought his hand to the wall to steady himself as he remembered the basin to catch the blood of sacrifice in their twisted shrine to Lucifer not far from where he stood.

  I don’t see how you could pay a price for killing them, Barakiel. It so needs doing.

  When he had finished with his odious task, Pellus began to search the rest of the house. Before long he came upon a library, crammed from floor to ceiling with books. Most of the tomes were those that could be found in the library of any scholar or student of divinity. A massive wooden desk sat in the center, fronted with myriad drawers. Pellus began to search through them and found what he was looking for in the top far right drawer, a copy of a travel itinerary with receipts. Three of the false monks were booked on a flight to Philadelphia the next morning, returning on a flight shortly after the solstice.

  Pellus systematically reviewed the books, surprised to find nothing out of the ordinary. He paused for a moment, rethinking his approach. Breathing deeply, he surveyed the walls and floors, as he had done in all the other rooms, his eyes passing over the surfaces in a steady sweep. His gaze came
to rest on a painting of St. Bernard in an ornate wooden frame. Pellus concentrated for a moment more, piercing the painting’s illusion of solidity to see its true form, its molecular framework. He saw through it to the space behind, where he detected density enclosing a lack of density. He quietly removed the painting to discover a large safe. It was a simple matter for him to open it. He could see the internal mechanism through the metal door. He could see the structure of the drive pins, the flywheels, and the notches that must align to open it. He dialed, pushed the lever and heard the click.

  Inside the safe, he found three heavy leather pouches that contained collections of engraved plates bound with luminous wire. Pellus carried the collections to the desk to examine them under the light. As he lifted the first plate, his heart began to thump. The molecular structure of the alloy told him it was not a blend of metals that existed in the Earthly Realm.

  A Covalent made these engravings. Lucifer.

  As he inspected the plate, his chest seized with anxiety. It depicted Barakiel in his battle with the demons, the battle that the monks had witnessed centuries ago. In the image, Barakiel’s face radiated hatred and contempt. The beasts appeared helpless before his sword, which Pellus would have to say they were, but something about the depiction disturbed him.

  Their faces. In the image, they are filled with fear. But demons do not fear, not even when they flee.

  Pellus hoped the engraved plates would explain these murderous monks, but he could not remove them. If the monks knew someone had been there, they might disappear. He decided to snap a photo of each plate as he examined it. He stayed in the library for hours, studying and photographing. Through the detailed images, he learned the story presented to the monks by Lucifer as he sought to control them, his seductive power not lessened though it gripped them from another dimension.

  Earlier in Barakiel’s exile, before human society grew too complex, Lucifer would send demons through the branches of the axial rift to examine the places his son had left each time he changed locations. Pellus knew this because he had visited these places as well, to make sure the warrior’s sudden departures went mostly unremarked. The adept surmised that Lucifer wanted to see if the demons could discover anything useful. He must have learned that the brothers of the Camargue had witnessed his son’s battle and decided to use the incident to his advantage.

  The next several plates portrayed Barakiel as an unreasoning force who would seek to control the brothers simply because he could. They depicted the warrior slaughtering helpless demons and driving the medieval brothers before him as they cringed in fear. Other images showed Barakiel raping the monks, forcing them to service him, and demanding tribute.

  A separate group of plates depicted a growing relationship between the demons and the brothers. They showed the demons bringing hordes of treasure to the Abbaye, no doubt pilfered from the great cities.

  As Pellus expected, Lucifer made his appearance as the shining lord of the demons, the source of all their power and largesse. He was depicted as beautiful and wanton, intoxicated on wine and given power over the demons not through fear, but rather based on what he could procure for them. He promised the indulgence of every appetite, a promise made by the extravagant land in which his figure stood.

  He offered the monks a life of pleasure with no consequence and wealth with no work. He understood their weakness.

  The false monks grew affluent, thanks to Lucifer and the demons. Though there was nothing to indicate when the engravings had been delivered, Pellus assumed the demons had done so gradually, as Lucifer created a tale and served up riches to bind the greedy brothers to him as his earthly servants.

  This may not be the subjugation of humanity Lucifer envisioned when he rebelled against the Council, but he has these men in his thrall nonetheless.

  The final plates depicted the false monks passing on their vile traditions. All scenes appeared to be set in the Camargue. None seemed set in modern times. The adept hoped against hope that they had not managed to spread their fiendish message to other places in the Earthly Realm. Barakiel would pay a steep price for their slaughter, even with one settlement.

  Pellus was surprised to find no depiction of Philadelphia, given that the monks knew it was the home of the being whom Lucifer had convinced them was their sworn enemy and would-be violator.

  No matter. I will observe and discover whether they have followers in Philadelphia soon enough.

  Philadelphia

  The leaf-heavy trees swayed in a slight breeze, their movement creating whispers in the shadows beneath them where Pellus stood concealed under his curtain of refracted light. His eyes were pinned to a large brownstone near Rittenhouse Square where the false monks had gone as soon as they left the airport. Apparently, what he had feared was true. The monks had followers in Philadelphia.

  The summer solstice was early the next morning. Pellus had called Barakiel on his cell phone, telling him in basic terms what he had discovered, leaving the details for later. Barakiel offered to deal with the murderous monks, but Pellus told him he could address the problem alone. He said Barakiel should rest before his solstice battle, by this time little more than six hours away.

  To kill the monks could weaken him. That cannot happen. Not before a battle.

  The strained relationship between the two Covalent also made Pellus wish to work alone. Barakiel had been perfectly civil, but Pellus felt the coldness and the hurt. Although he dared not travel to the Covalent Realm for fear of losing track of the monks, Pellus wished he could speak with Jeduthan. He was unaccustomed to the murkiness of his thoughts and feelings.

  Am I avoiding pain by avoiding Barakiel? Am I doing this in the hope that he will forgive me?

  His anxiety was all the more unpleasant for its novelty, and Jeduthan was not there to calm him with her clear-eyed wisdom.

  I will just have to cope. I will lessen Barakiel’s burden. I can do that, at least.

  Pellus snapped out of his gloomy reflections at the sound of three monks emerging from the house. They got in their rental car and drove north. Pellus followed on foot, an easy matter for a Covalent.

  The monks parked on the street near the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Two of them walked a few blocks to an expanse of lawn and bushes near the neoclassical façade of the Free Library, where men lay passed out along a fence among scattered shoes and filthy quilts. The monks rousted the smallest of the men.

  “Brother,” the head monk said. “We are men of God here to help you. Come with us. We will give you a hot meal and a warm bed.”

  The man mumbled incoherently. They walked off, one fiendish monk holding each arm of the drunken man. The other monk soon pulled up with the car and they got into the back seat. They returned to the brownstone.

  Once they entered, Pellus stood near the entrance, staring. He could separate the monks’ moving bundles of atoms from the rest of the house. He could see the room where they took the homeless man. He went inside, crept up the stairs and slipped quietly into the large bedroom. Two of the French monks were milling about with a few others, presumably Americans. Pellus noted their faces. One monk had brought the man into the bathroom.

  They are cleaning him. Preparing him for sacrifice.

  Before long the false monk emerged from the bathroom. He had dressed the man in a white vestment. He sat him down at a table and set a plate full of food in front of him. The man bobbed his head, perhaps still questioning whether this was real. He ate, slowly at first, but then as if he hadn’t eaten in days. The man asked for a drink and they obliged, handing him a tumbler of brown liquid. After a while, the man could barely keep his head up.

  Drugged. No doubt they wish to keep him physically inept.

  Once more the monks bundled the man in the car. They drove to a stretch of empty lots and abandoned piers at the foot of the Walt Whitman Bridge. Pellus followed close behind them, ready to deny them their sacrifice.

  What do you think you accomplish with this blood?
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br />   Near the bank of the river, in a muddy field oozing with the stink of petroleum, they leaned the drugged man against a stubby weed tree. One of Archibaud’s daggers emerged. The false monks paused and looked toward the bland sky, few stars visible, the moon having long since set. They chanted in a language Pellus did not understand. They moved toward the man, who drooled on his chin, his head hung slightly to the side. As the head monk approached, his dagger at the ready, the other monks arranged daggers at three points of the compass, the eastern point left empty, awaiting the blade that would perform the evisceration.

  I will help Barakiel rid this realm of Lucifer’s slaves.

  Letting his vision penetrate to the core of the head monk, Pellus saw his beating heart. He gathered and transformed the light and air around him and sent it rippling outward as an electromagnetic wave that reached the fiendish monk in an instant as he bent to the drugged man, dagger in hand. The adept shaped and molded the wave to surround the monk’s carotid artery, which pulsed with the thick ribbon of blood it carried to his brain. Pellus caught the sliding, rolling particles of blood in the wave, imposing a structure, limiting movement, until the viscous liquid became solid, causing a massive stroke. The monk fell dead to the ground as the atomic reaction crackled and stilled.

  Pellus collapsed to his knees and pitched forward onto his hands, his vision going dark, all his breath gone from him. He gulped in the air of the polluted landscape, wondering whether his weakened state was due to the enormous amount of energy he had just expended, a loss of Balance, or both. The other monks ran to their fallen brother, but when they saw he was dead, they fled.

  If you think you are afraid now, wait until Barakiel comes calling for you.

  The drugged man still lolled against the tree. Pellus shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He desiccated the dead monk’s body, relieved that he could still accomplish this simple task. Before he left to pursue the monks, he retrieved the daggers and threw a roll of $20 bills. If the drugged man’s eyes had been open, the money would have seemed to appear in mid-air, to arc down neatly into his lap.