The Passion Season

by Libby Doyle

  “That does not sound pleasant,” Rainer said.

  “Oh my god, Zan, do you remember those outfits?” Mel asked.

  “Remember them? They are the stuff of my nightmares.”

  “What did you have to wear?” Emmett asked. Zan just snorted and waved her hand at Mel.

  “Super-short, skin-tight dresses and stilettos with four-inch heels. Zan had to practice in the hallway because she could barely walk in those heels. All the straight male agents stuck their heads out to watch her until the boss came out and yelled at them. What did he say, Zan?”

  “Back to work, dick slaves.”

  They doubled over laughing.

  “And oh god, the hair!” Mel said, wiping her eyes. “Do you remember that big hair?”

  “Ha! The hairspray gave me a sneezing attack when I was trying to get cozy with Perez. Lucky for me he thought it was cute.”

  “Trying to get cozy with Perez? What kind of a case was this?” Rainer asked.

  “I was the new kid then. I had to keep Perez occupied while agents searched his house and office before they raided the club. We were worried someone might tip him off, and he had the means to flee.”

  “Tell him the rest. You’ll love this one, Rainer,” Mel said.

  “So, they’re taking too long and I’ve been in this asshole’s company for a while. He tells everyone to leave the VIP room and he thinks he’s going to take off my dress,” Zan said.

  Rainer scowled. “I thought I was going to like this story.”

  “He pins me on the couch and gropes me and I have no choice but to let him do it, you know, because I can’t blow my cover. When it’s getting just about intolerable the tactical agents finally bust into the place. I push Perez off me and yell, ‘FBI!’

  “And Perez is pissed, royally pissed,” Zan continued. “He screams, ‘You fucking bitch,’ and grabs me by the big hair. I can’t get to the .22 in my purse, so I take off my shoe and stab him in the eye.”

  “Excellent!” Rainer said.

  “And the guy is staggering around with his hands over his eye,” Mel added. “And the agents grab him, and the boss comes over to Zan and says, ‘Nice work, Agent O’Gara,’ and Zan says, ‘They don’t call them stilettos for nothing, sir.’”

  When Mel said this Rainer delivered a laugh so booming that everyone stared at him with startled eyes.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. The children,” Rainer said, smiling meekly, trying to sink his head down between his shoulders. “I usually mind my laugh, but I really enjoyed that story.”

  The party spent most of the next day at the campground’s beach, a crescent of white sand they trucked in from somewhere. The lake was calm and not deep. The kids ran around screaming and splashing with total abandon, but by afternoon the weather had changed. Thick, charcoal clouds hung in the sky to the southwest. Zan checked the forecast on her phone.

  “Christ. Yesterday the forecast said thunderstorms overnight, but now it’s predicting them for around 5 p.m. It says they could be severe.”

  “Camping in the pouring rain is always a lovely experience,” Victor said.

  “The good news is, storms often come and go quickly,” Caroline said. “Why don’t we go for dinner at that place down the road with the good pie? Maybe it will have passed by the time we’re finished.”

  “Good idea,” Brian said. “I love that pie.”

  They walked back to the campsite for a change of clothes and then to the bathhouse to get cleaned up. Mel asked Zan to help her with Lucy.

  By the time they got back to the campsite, the wind was blowing so hard the tree limbs were creaking and shuddering above their heads. They all stashed their stuff inside the tents then headed to the cars. Mel and Emmett were in front with Lucy, followed closely by Zan and Rainer with everyone else behind.

  The wind got worse. Mel asked Emmett to go pick up Lucy, who was wobbling around about fifteen feet behind them, next to a giant old maple tree, its wizened bark revealing its age.

  As Emmett turned to get her, a powerful gust came through. Zan watched, bewildered, as Rainer snapped his head up to look at the maple, then dashed over to Lucy. He stood over her, his arms spread, as a massive limb tore off the tree with a sickening crack and fell on him, careening to the right as he leaned in that direction. Mel froze in terror. The others screamed as Zan ran to Rainer. As deep red blood stained his side. They all stood still as if they weren’t exactly sure what they had seen. Lucy started to cry. Rainer crouched down to talk to her.

  “It’s okay, Lucy,” he said in a gentle voice, pointing to the massive tree limb. “It missed you, see? You’re all right.” As he said this, Emmett ran to Lucy and scooped her up.

  Mel reached them a moment later. She put her arms around both Emmett and Lucy. Over and over, she kissed Lucy’s face. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Lucy, my baby.”

  Lucy stopped crying. Once she was safe in her parents’ arms, Zan found her voice.

  “Rainer, honey, oh my god, your back. We need to get you to a hospital.” She placed her hands near a foot-long bloody scrape along his right shoulder blade.

  “I’m all right, Zan.” Rainer lifted his right arm and rotated it. “You see? A trip to the hospital is unnecessary. I’ll just wash it off.”

  “Are you crazy? You are not all right! You’ve got a giant bleeding gash on your back!”

  The others stood there for a few seconds with their mouths hanging open before joining Zan to insist that Rainer go to the hospital. Sarah ran back to her campsite and got a towel to stanch the blood.

  “I’m fine,” Rainer insisted, as Zan applied the towel to his back and held his arm. She scowled at him and tried not to cry.

  I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, ever.

  Mel and Emmett came closer, Emmett still holding Lucy. Mel looked at Rainer like she wasn’t quite sure what he was.

  “You risked your life to save my child,” she said.

  “Ah, Mel, you exaggerate. Injury, yes. Not my life.”

  “No, Rainer,” Emmett said. “Your life. That limb must weigh 300 pounds. It fell right on you. I watched it fall right on you.”

  “It may have looked like that, but it didn’t hit me squarely. It fell to the right of me. Glanced off me, really.”

  “It fell right on you,” Emmett repeated.

  “If that were true, I’m sure I would be lying on the ground,” Rainer said. By this time, the wind had eased and the first fat drops began to fall from the sky. “Let’s get out of this weather before something worse happens.”

  Mel hugged him, taking care not to touch his wound.

  “Rainer, thank you,” she said, tears in her eyes. Zan squeezed his hand. She knew he was touched. The group moved off toward the cars then, after agreeing to go to the hospital in Bloomsburg, a nearby town.

  Philadelphia

  Zan sat in her office reading news online and drinking coffee, mulling over the camping trip. What she’d first thought would end with mutual dislike between her boyfriend and her best friend had turned completely around.

  Too bad it was at the expense of Rainer’s body.

  When the group of campers had arrived at the emergency room in Bloomsburg, Rainer insisted they go to dinner per the original plan. He said there was no reason for them to wait around for hours in an emergency room. Then the stubborn man refused an X-ray. Zan tried to convince him, as did the doctor, but he wouldn’t be persuaded. On questioning from Rainer, the doctor admitted that his arm and shoulder joint seemed fine. He cleaned out the wound and bandaged it. After Zan and Rainer got back to Philadelphia, she insisted he do nothing but rest, eat, and submit to her massages.

  She had a great time spoiling him rotten, but the incident—and the whole trip—had an unexpected effect. Zan’s worry over whether the others would like Rainer slapped her out of her own perception. Viewing him through their eyes helped her understand Mel’s initial reaction to him. She felt bad she’d ever got angry.

  I need to tell
her this.

  When Mel arrived, Zan marveled at her partner’s early morning cheerfulness.

  “Good morning!” Mel said. “Happy to be back at work?”

  “Meh.”

  “Hey, I think I can use a little routine after that dramatic camping trip.”

  “That’s what you get with Rainer along. Drama seems to follow him around.” Zan took a sip of her coffee. “Hey, remember how I got mad because you said Rainer is strange? Well, I’m sorry, because you’re right. Do you know that man refused to get an X-ray? It’s like, tree limbs falling on him, no problem, but god forbid he be exposed to a little radiation. What a flake.”

  “Watch it now,” Mel said with faux-sharpness. “Don’t you dare say anything bad about Rainer. That’s my boy.”

  “Oh, it gets worse. He insisted on using this smelly salve on his shoulder. That his business manager gave him, no less. It had a strange texture and kept shocking me with static electricity. I’ve been forced to accept it. Rainer is a weirdo.”

  “At least he’s weird in a superhero kind of way.” Mel started to laugh but stopped at the look on Zan’s face. “What’s got you thinking like this?”

  “I can’t figure him out. I get that he grew up in a different culture, but you know, I’ve met Europeans. Rainer seems like he grew up in a culture unto himself.”

  “Some people are eccentric.”

  “He’s rich enough for that label, eh? What do people say? If you’re poor you’re crazy and if you’re rich you’re eccentric?”

  “Jesus, Zan. I didn’t mean to make you feel insecure about your relationship. I just wanted you to be cautious. And really, I was out of line. Rainer is a wonderful man.”

  “I know, but he’s giving me serious cognitive dissonance.”

  “How so?”

  “Sometimes he seems so devoted to me, I expect him to fall at my feet and ask me to marry him. But like I told you before, there’s this huge part of his life he won’t let me share. He should have asked me to move in with him by now.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “What? Invite myself to move in?” Zan rose abruptly to pace. “I don’t want to do that. I would suggest we get a place together, but he lives in that fabulous compound. Who would give that up? I’m in a bad spot. He has to ask me.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Has he gotten any better about the business stuff?”

  “He’s trying, but even with that, he’s just so weird. Case in point, when we talked about it I said to him, ‘When you’re on a business trip you never call or text to tell me how your day went, like if you met some asshole or something.’ So the next trip, I get this text from him that says, ‘All going well here. I met some assholes.’”

  Mel burst out laughing. “That’s adorable.”

  Zan couldn’t help but laugh, too. “Yeah, I guess it is. My adorable, smoking-hot weirdo.” She sat down and shook her head. Time to think about work, not Rainer. “Hey, Mel. Nguyen wants to talk to me today. Think it’s about the daggers?”

  “I’d lay odds.”

  Deep in the bowels of the federal building, Zan made her way down the dark halls back from the shipping room. She’d just prepared a dagger to send off to France, leaving her more excited than any agent had ever been to be somewhere so dank. Mel had called it. Nguyen could not abide leaving dangerous criminals out in the world. He’d given her permission to pursue the lead. One of the blades was now packaged and processed and would be on its way that afternoon.

  Nguyen had also helped her with the paperwork to clear communication with Martin Grenat, the FBI’s legal attaché in Paris. Grenat agreed to inquire about the dagger with the auction houses identified by Charlotte Emory, but that didn’t mean he was pleased about the task. He was all about terrorism, so Zan could tell she had a lot of frustrating telephone calls in her future, trying to get this man to attend to the lowest of low priorities.

  Still, it was promising. She couldn’t wait to tell Rainer that his assistance paid off. Ever since his fight with Pellus, she sensed pain in him. And fear, but she wondered if it was her own insecurity. Sometimes it broke her heart to look at him, and she couldn't understand why.

  I guess that’s love.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE MORNING WORE into a soupy haze. Pellus hated such days in Philadelphia. They smelled foul. As he approached Barakiel’s place he wondered if the warrior would even talk to him. They needed to discuss the horrid task that lay before them, but when they’d returned from the Covalent Realm after his last battle, Barakiel barely talked and did not look at Pellus.

  He is determined to make me feel as low as possible.

  Pellus found the warrior sitting at his kitchen table.

  “We need to plan our actions in the Camargue,” he said.

  “My plan is to kill the false monks.”

  “What about the servants? Innocent as they may be, we cannot let them walk away after they have witnessed the slaughter.”

  Barakiel winced.

  “Well, answer me! What shall we do about the servants?”

  “I will not kill the servants.”

  “But they will say what they have seen. They will notify the police.”

  “The servants will not go to the police. They could be held responsible for the false monks’ crimes.”

  “We cannot rely on that.”

  “I will remain concealed.”

  “You will not be able to conceal yourself during that level of activity. You are not a traveler. I can conceal the whole event, but you will be inside the concealed area with the false monks and the servants. I cannot shroud you in diverted light within an area that is already shrouded itself. I am not saying this is impossible, but it would take some work, and time we do not have.”

  Silence.

  Is there any Covalent more stubborn?

  “We cannot let the servants see you,” Pellus said, pacing.

  “Then we must kill the false monks inside the ranch house. You can conceal me only, and not the whole area.”

  “What if one of them should happen to run outside? What if all of them are never together in one room or even one building?”

  “That section of the Camargue is hardly a busy downtown thoroughfare. At any rate, no one will escape. You will see them. I will find them and kill them in the time it takes a human to exhale. Now be quiet. You are annoying me.”

  The Camargue

  Once again, the Covalent stood in the dusty yard of the false monks’ ranch. They observed the men moving from building to building or working in the gardens and sheds until the setting sun turned the ponds dotting the marshland into jewels of flashing orange.

  When a servant in an apron appeared on the porch to call everyone inside, Barakiel suspected they would gather for the evening meal in the dining room of the main house. Almost all of them went inside. Pellus noticed several more who did not look likely to join their brethren, absorbed as they were in some task or another.

  In twenty minutes, the fiendish monks were seated at the large table in the dining room. Barakiel entered, concealed by Pellus, as the monks passed bowls and spooned food onto their plates. Such mundane actions made Barakiel feel keenly that he did not want to murder twenty men as they ate dinner. But he reminded himself of the mutilated corpse he had found in Philadelphia. He reminded himself of the mural depicting Lucifer, the basin that caught the blood of sacrifice, and the images of women—bound and tortured, violated and murdered—to be found elsewhere in that very house.

  Like his father, these men took pleasure in the suffering of females. If he could not avenge his mother, he could at least avenge these women.

  These false monks need to die.

  First, the servants. Barakiel delivered a series of quick blows and they fell unconscious before they had time to gasp. Barakiel left no time for the others to react. With grim precision, he applied his sword to the necks of the monks in a continuous line. One by one, their heads rolled forward onto the table a
s their arteries spewed blood into the air, at first high, then low, creating a dancing fountain of red. The headless bodies twitched, grew still, and then slumped forward in their chairs.

  By the time it was done, Pellus had returned with the collection of engraved plates. He said seven other false monks were located elsewhere in the compound. One by one, Barakiel killed them. He slowed with each death.

  As Pellus had warned, two false monks ran into the yard. Barakiel stumbled after them. He snapped their necks, vomited, then fell onto the packed earth. He lay there, staring at the dying sun.

  The light flees. It accuses me.

  Pellus pulled on his arm. “The bodies have been desiccated. They are dust. We must go. We must go immediately.”

  Barakiel struggled to his feet. With his arm over Pellus’ shoulders, they staggered off toward the rift, both concealed, the curtain of light rippling as they moved. As Pellus labored to help him, Barakiel’s consciousness receded.

  Will I wake? Zan.

  Philadelphia

  Dreams beset him. He walked in the Void. It was his home.

  I will never leave here. I belong here. My violence blasts everything away until there is nothing. Nothing but the Void. My father knows, has always known. I am a paragon of Destruction. It streams from my sword with no more effort than it takes for me to breathe. The smell of death stirs my heart. All that is left for me. I can hear him laughing. Why did I think I could enter that vibrant life?

  Please, do not take her from me. Please, no.

  He woke to someone shaking him. He was in his bed.

  “Wake up, Barakiel, please. You are in distress.” It took a few moments for Barakiel to understand who Pellus was, or what he’d said.

  “You slept through the night and half the day. Or something resembling sleep, but you began to wail. You are out of Balance.”