The Passion Season

by Libby Doyle

  Although Pellus nodded, his disquiet showed in his hesitant gait. Barakiel was glad when they reached the rift. Travel would distract them.

  Philadelphia

  The two Covalent peered through the front window of the brownstone the monks had used while they were in Philadelphia. It appeared to be empty. Barakiel cursed himself.

  I had to let myself get injured and force Pellus to lose track of the followers.

  He and Pellus were concealed, so they entered on the off chance someone had left a clue. There was nothing. Each room appeared to have been meticulously cleaned.

  “If only I could ask Zan for help. She could find them for us,” Barakiel said.

  “What would she do? Do you know?”

  “Well, it seems likely they rented the house. She could get their names from the property manager.”

  “Perhaps I could do something similar,” Pellus suggested.

  “Of course you can,” Barakiel said, feeling a bit foolish this had not occurred to him. “We need only look up the company that manages the property in the public records.”

  Really, it was only a matter of time before they found the followers once Pellus focused on their pursuit. He could break into any computer system, no matter how secure. Even asymmetrical encryption did not pose much of a problem. Like an earthly computer, Pellus could search for the encryption key by testing millions of combinations, but he didn’t normally need to rely on such pedestrian methods. Usually, the origin of the key would furnish small bits of information. He could detect the electronic fingerprints of previous users.

  Pellus assessed probabilities in the behavior of subatomic particles when he traveled through the rifts. To direct such skill to computer encryption was a child’s game to him.

  Lucky for Barakiel, his prowess extended to the systems over which stocks and commodities were traded. Pellus could identify buy or sell orders at their origin and trade ahead of them. In this way, ever since trading became mostly electronic, he’d made an obscene fortune. When humans began to engage in the practice with so-called high-speed trading, Barakiel and Pellus had had a good laugh. They imagined the giant server farms in North Jersey required to engage in this activity, compared to the size of Pellus’ brain.

  Barakiel looked at the adept with appreciation, despite the recent frostiness of their relationship. No human stood a chance against him.

  “Can we check the public records at this hour?” Pellus asked, the faintest hint of satisfaction in his eye.

  “Not unless the records are online. I’ll check when I get home, or at least find out where we need to go.”

  But right now, I am going to Zan.

  “You should return to the Covalent Realm, Pellus,” Barakiel added. “Come back tomorrow. I may have obtained the information by then.”

  CHAPTER 2

  ZAN DROVE UP I-95 like she was delivering a vaccine for an outbreak of a deadly virus.

  Why do I let that man affect me like this?

  Rainer had called her around 7:00 p.m. and said he wanted to see her, his voice so urgent that she got aroused just hearing it. Unfortunately, she had to do some research for Nguyen. Rainer tried to act as if he understood, but she heard his disappointment.

  She rushed out of the office as soon as she finished, but now she was annoyed with herself, and with him. Her job was her job, and he had kept her waiting, too. Early in the morning two days previous he had texted her. He had to go on one of his mysterious business trips. That’s all he said. An unexpected business trip. In a text.

  Whenever Zan thought about Rainer’s apparent reluctance to share that part of his life with her, she felt suspicious and hurt. Then she would tell herself she was being neurotic.

  We haven’t been together that long. And there will be plenty of times when I won’t be able to tell him a thing about my job.

  Still, Zan made herself slow down. She wanted to make him wait. When she arrived at his place, he was in the small outbuilding he’d done up like a Japanese dojo. He had thrown the double doors wide open and he came out as she parked, wearing only gym shorts, his body glistening with sweat.

  Mmmmm, now that’s a sight. The man practically glows.

  “Hey there,” she said. Rainer broke into his megawatt smile. He picked her up and she pushed her face into his neck, breathing him in.

  You’re forgetting to be annoyed with him. To make him wait.

  She asked him to put her down. She knew from the look on his face that he expected her to do something that would whip him into a frenzy, but she had succeeded in pissing herself off.

  “So, what were you doing in there?” she asked, pointing to the dojo.

  “Sword practice.” Rainer frowned as he answered. “I was working out various possibilities for handling five simultaneous attackers.”

  “Five attackers at once? Huh. As much as I like blades, I think for that scenario I’d go with a fully automatic assault rifle. What guns lack in elegance, they make up for in efficiency.”

  “That’s true, but I’ll keep to my sword.”

  “Why don’t you give me a lesson?” Zan bounded into the dojo, untucked her shirt and started to roll up her sleeves. Rainer followed.

  “You want a sword-fighting lesson now?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But Zan,” Rainer said. “I’m desperate for you.”

  Zan laughed, ran across the dojo and grabbed a wooden practice sword.

  “And I’m angry with you. You text me to say you’re going out of town, without really telling me what’s going on. I don’t hear another peep out of you. Then, when you get back you summon me over here. You expected me to run right over, I could tell.”

  “I did. I’m sorry. I’m desperate for you.” Rainer stared at her so intensely she felt that if she moved a muscle, he would pounce on her.

  This is new.

  She raised the practice sword in front of her.

  “Show me how you disarm someone.”

  Rainer’s expression did not change, but he grabbed a wooden sword, quickly covered the distance between them and brought the sword against hers.

  “When blades meet,” he said, “you must feel the resistance. Your opponent’s blade will tell you which side she favors. It may express what she hopes will happen.” He pressed his sword against hers, his eyes ablaze, his voice controlled.

  “See? Do you feel that? You must learn to detect the slightest pressure.”

  Zan loosened and tightened her grip on the practice sword, a bit mesmerized by his demeanor.

  “Use what you detect. Make a small circle with your sword in the direction you choose. Make the circle around your opponent’s blade with your whole arm, not just your wrist, like so,” Rainer said, his muscles tensing beneath his sweaty skin. “As you complete the circle, increase the speed of your motion as much as possible, and just as the circle is about to close, travel away on a plane along the circumference, applying force to your motion with your breath, your arm, and your hips.”

  At the word hips, Rainer made a slight movement and Zan’s practice sword flew onto the mats. She looked at the sword and back at Rainer.

  “Take off my clothes,” she said. He smiled and tossed the wooden sword he had used to disarm her behind him. He took off his shorts and her shirt and her bra. He fell to his knees, slid off her pants and buried his face in her, his giant hands cupping her ass, holding her in place. Zan pressed against him, arching her back, her hands tangled in his hair. A stab of pleasure made her cry out. Rainer spread his knees apart, put his hands on her hips and slipped her beneath him. For a second he looked at her, almost like he didn’t know what she was, then he was in her, moving slowly and forcefully, down and up, while throaty moans of pleasure escaped him.

  Give yourself to me, Rainer.

  His thrusts grew stronger. He let his body cover her completely, pressing her into the mat, his hands flat on the ground. Zan grabbed his arms to brace herself, holding her body to him as he moved into her
, her hips rocking in the delicious fullness, answering his rhythm.

  “Ahhh, deeper, go, deeper.”

  Her voice splintered with need. He wrapped her in his arms then, pushing into her with a rolling motion, her face held to his chest.

  When he gave one of his long, beautiful growls the walls inside her contracted, juices gushed into her chamber, and pleasure went sailing up her body. She started to cry and moan, completely unable to comprehend how she could feel so good.

  Rainer rolled onto his back, holding her pinned to him by her hips. He continued to gyrate inside her, she now looking down at him. His eyes glowed with emotion and a strange focus as he held her gaze, like he saw a vast distance within her eyes. Zan had a sensation of receding as if she was being pulled by a powerful undertow, but when it passed she felt him pulsing inside her again. She went crazy with hunger, grinding and grinding, not even understanding what she was seeking. She started to moan and he pushed harder. A feeling of tremendous strength flowed into Zan and every muscle in her body strained. She flung her arms back away from her body and yelled, half in triumph, half in confusion.

  I feel like I could raise a mountain. I feel like I could dance with the sun.

  As Rainer stroked her, the friction brought her body to release once more, delivering another flood of juices. Her body gripped him, making him come with a roar before he gathered her in his arms and brought her beneath him, covering her face with mad kisses.

  “My mate,” he whispered.

  Zan lay still, welcoming the pressure of his body on hers, feeling devotion in his strange words. He rested his head on her chest. Not a thought entered Zan’s mind, except wonder at being infused with an emotion more pure and clear than she knew was possible. When the magic had subsided, she gently urged Rainer to the side and slid down to look into his eyes. She caressed his face. He looked as though he had witnessed a miracle.

  He feels it, too.

  “That was the most incredible experience I have ever had in my life,” Zan said.

  “Me too, my love.”

  “But what the hell was it? What the hell is going on with us? I feel like I’m on drugs.”

  “I, I don’t know. I don’t understand it.” Rainer continued to look at her like he was amazed she existed.

  “Well, all the songwriters have failed, because I’ve never heard a lyric from anyone anywhere that comes close to describing that.”

  After Zan went to work the next morning, Barakiel sat for a long time on the riverbank, trying to sort through his emotions. When he’d opened his eyes to see Zan lying beside him in bed, he’d reached for her in the soft gray light. She’d let him seek her again, let him reach deep inside and unlock her. Now, he was vibrating in the sun, making himself ready for the next time he could immerse himself in that belonging.

  How am I feeling this? By all reckoning, it should not be possible.

  He closed his eyes and breathed rhythmically, trying to separate what was real in him from his imagination.

  I used to dream of love. Have I been seduced by my own dreams?

  The sun cast long shadows from the trees onto the river by the time he went back inside. He walked up to the mezzanine and pushed aside a bookshelf to reveal another hidden behind it, from which he removed a rectangular device made of a coppery-golden alloy. He entered the weapons room to sit in a leather chair by the window. With a musical tone from his language, words cascaded down the face of the device. Barakiel hummed another tone, and the words became fixed on the surface. He read.

  The Covalent stand in reverence before the sacrifice of the ancient ones who fused their minds to create the Turning. To become Guardians, they gave all that they were, their loves and memories and choices, so the Covalent Realm would not be destroyed by the hunger of the Creative and Destructive Forces to join and transform, one into the other. The hunger of the forces to make all that is, new again.

  This legacy is revealed when healers join their minds, steeped since birth in the love of the shared womb. Their connection is profound, selfless and private.

  A few other fortunate Covalent—the most powerful among us—may know the Guardians’ legacy. Through carnal love, they may discover what it means to share themselves so profoundly with another.

  Warriors of the Rising may experience Union with their mates, the joining of minds for a short time when the barriers of the individual fall away and the pair perceive the realms through each other’s senses. All fear, weakness and evil deeds are laid bare, all secrets absorbed. The mind is suffused with love, trust, and strength. Need is met and bodies join in beauty.

  To achieve Union is rare. Those of the Rising born of Union are much more likely to reach this harmony themselves. When these mates join, they hold the energy of the elemental forces in their hands. They are the Realm’s most powerful beings.

  The traveler adepts have tried and failed to comprehend the mystery of Union. The fabric of existence shrouds the mates as they become one, and so it should be. Union belongs to the bonded. Some things, we are not meant to understand.

  Countless turns may pass from the first stirrings of Union until the mates bond. They follow their own expression of the same path. The mates feel the power well up within, a power that will evolve into true understanding, perhaps for the first time, of what they have in each other. The mates will sense the limitless expanse of each other’s minds and grow terrified to leave behind the solitude of their perception, which may be all that they have known. They will need each other, a dangerous need. They will know they could be left bereft, destroyed.

  For those brave and strong enough to embrace this power, Union awaits. Warriors of the Rising are driven to their purpose, but the performance of their duty is as nothing to the strength and fulfillment of Union. The Covalent bow before this mystery.

  Barakiel was born of the Union of Yahoel and Lucifer, two of the most powerful Warriors of the Rising the Covalent Realm had ever known. He wondered if this power would allow him to bond with a human, now that he’d spent so much time in the Earthly Realm.

  Union with Zan. Dare I want this?

  He thought about what he had seen in Zan’s eyes the night before. What he had felt. Flashes of mind. He could not hold onto them. Flashes of courage, pain, integrity, and fear. Of humor, and the joy she felt at his touch. Of love. He would never be the same, even after so fleeting a taste. He understood what the scholars had written of this terrible power.

  If I embrace Union, when I lose her I will be destroyed. When I lose her, all that will be left for me is to meet the Stream and dispose of my empty shell.

  The ancient writings said nothing of the consequences of Union with a human. Why would they? Barakiel wished he could seek advice. Healers understood transcending the barriers of the mind because they bonded with each other to amplify their power, and in some small way, experienced the minds of their patients. But even the Sylvan Three had never known the mind of a human.

  He thought of Pellus. Travelers entangled the energy of their passengers to guide them to the destination, but he did not understand much about this temporary connection. Because they were not Warriors of the Rising, Pellus and Jeduthan could not achieve Union despite their boundless love. Not only was Barakiel unsure that Pellus had any advice to give him, he was certain the adept would add it to the list of reasons his love was a mistake.

  I can almost hear his voice telling me that to follow the path to Union would place Zan in jeopardy.

  No, he would not speak with Pellus, but the imagined warning was not without truth. Some humans dreamed of overcoming the limits of their solitary minds. Some told stories of telepathy. Some believed, but in reality, humans were locked within a mental fortress. And the purpose of a fortress is defense. If Barakiel flooded Zan’s mind he would turn her into something other than human. He would leave her without defense. He had no way of knowing what the consequences would be. He could not place her in that danger.

  I must contain my great love, but
any doubt Pellus managed to seed within me is gone.

  New York City

  As she and Rainer walked hand in hand down the teeming streets of midtown Manhattan, Zan noticed that almost everyone stared at them.

  No wonder, if we look anything like I feel.

  Since their strange experience in the dojo, Zan was convinced she had gone a little nuts, but the more time she spent with Rainer the less she cared. She felt stupid that she’d been so angry about his unexpected business trip. Sure, he could have called her instead of sending that lame text, but work was work. His secretive tendencies annoyed her, maybe even worried her, but she told herself to get over it.

  I’m too suspicious. He’s not like those losers in my past.

  She was ready to accept that he was her lifeblood. When she thought about it in the abstract, it scared her.

  But when I look into his eyes, I feel like nature.

  Rainer had made good on his promise to name an auction house to help with the spleen case. Zan had cajoled some time off from Nguyen—for personal reasons, she told him—and she and Rainer were on their way to meet with the antiquarian. When Rainer emailed this woman a photograph of the dagger, she said she’d encountered similar pieces. Rainer knew the woman. He’d bought several old blades from her.

  The interior of the auction house was as opulent as Zan expected. Dark wood trim bordered wallpaper patterned in gold and midnight blue. Large crystal chandeliers covered the entranceway in fractured light that reflected off antique tables. The employee who showed them in had just shut the door when Charlotte Emory swept into the hall in a pricey suit and a mist of fine perfume.

  “Rainer. So wonderful to see you again.” She nodded briefly to Zan and then turned her attention back to Rainer, placing her hand on his arm and beaming up at him with big, brown eyes framed perfectly by ovals of smoky blue. Rainer smiled politely and introduced Zan, who showed her badge, considering the nature of their visit.

  “Yes, the FBI. So exciting! I always look forward to your visits, Rainer, but this time you’ve outdone yourself.”