by Elana Brooks
“No. He can’t. We can’t. Whatever price we have to pay.” Steve took a deep breath and turned to meet Rosalia’s gaze. His eyes bored into hers. “That’s why I need your help.”
Rosalia gulped and shrank back. “I don’t understand.”
“The soul bonds between Solomon and Keiko and between Beverly and Adrian are what tipped the battle in our favor. They used the way pain creates a feedback loop to protect each other from Sarthex’s torture. And they used their amplified strength to overpower him. The Seraphim have nothing like it.”
Steve reached for Rosalia’s hands. She knew with terrible certainty what he was going to ask, but she was frozen, unable to resist as he gently wrapped her fingers in his. “Solomon is convinced we’ll only be strong enough to defeat the Seraphim if each member of the Eight soul bonds. He ordered us to either find someone we could bond with, or step down in favor of someone who would.”
Trying desperately to lighten the fierce intensity in Steve’s eyes and voice, Rosalia lifted her chin. “That’s ridiculous. The Covenant’s not a dictatorship. He can’t force you.”
“No. But I think he’s right. Remember the third Memory. Soul bonds allowed Noh and his family to win that battle, too.”
She’d relived the eight-thousand-year-old fight during her initiation into the Covenant. “Yes, but…”
“I know. It’s a terrible thing for him to ask. How much do you know about soul bonds?”
“Only what’s in the Memories,” she admitted.
“Then you know they’re only possible between people who love each other deeply. Or at least, have the potential to. Over the millennia, the Covenant has seen what happens when people without that love, or that potential, try to form a bond. It’s not pretty. If abandoned soon enough, the attempt only causes pain. If it’s pushed beyond the point where it becomes obvious it’s not going to work—”
“What?” she whispered, when his silence stretched long.
He shrugged. “The energy recoils explosively, and they both die. And once a bond is formed, if it’s ever betrayed, it breaks with the same explosive force, and they both die.”
His voice rose. “If one of them cheats on the other, they both die. If one of them gets tired or bored or falls out of love and leaves, they both die. If they get angry and shout and scream and drive each other away, they both die. If either of them ever makes one little mistake, for the rest of their lives, they both die!”
Rosalia stared at him. He stared back, breathing hard.
Eventually she recovered her voice. “So why would anyone ever choose to form one?”
“Hell if I know.” Steve rubbed his forehead. “Except I’m considering making one of the damn things, so there must be some reason.”
Rosalia’s heart raced. “You are?”
“I have to. This is a war. You put your life on the line in war, if that’s what you have to do to win. If my strength can be increased the way Adrian’s was after he bonded with Beverly, even if it’s just for a little while before everything goes to hell, I have to do it. I swore to keep Earth safe from those bastards, even if it kills me.” He spread his hands flat. “I’m cool with that, actually. I figure it will be worth dying if I can give Sarthex a good punch in that pointy snout first. But I can’t do it alone. I have to ask someone else to help me. And it has to be someone I love. Or think I could love.”
Rosalia’s pulse thundered in her ears. “Me.”
His eyes were miserable. “I know I have no right to ask this of you. I know if you’re smart you’ll slap my face and run screaming the other way. But there’s something between us. You know there is. When Solomon said we’d all have to soul bond, I thought immediately of you. There’s no one else I can even imagine trying with. But with you—I think it could work.”
Rosalia stood up. “You’re asking me to—to marry you, essentially. More than marry you. Bond myself to you permanently without any chance of escape. Because you want to use me to make you stronger, so you can kill Seraphim more effectively.”
He rose to face her. “It would make you stronger, as well. You swore the Covenant oath the same as I did.”
“Because you asked me to!” Memories swirled in Rosalia’s head. After everything he’d put her through, everything she’d done for him, he dared ask her this? She’d always known he was arrogant, but this far surpassed even the worst of what he’d done before. How stupid was he, to think she might accept his proposal?
And how stupid was she to consider it?
Because, God help her, she was. She imagined gazing into his golden-brown eyes until she saw his soul deep within and recklessly rushing to meet it until they consumed each other in a blaze of passion and destruction.
Steve’s shoulders sagged. “I did. It’s my fault you’re tangled up in this mess. Look, forget it. I should never have asked. This isn’t your fight.”
“Of course it’s my fight!” Anger blazed high and hot. “What, am I not a human being? Is Earth not my home, too? Do you think I don’t care if half the world is flooded and civilization crashes and burns? If billions of people die? Even if I weren’t a member of the Covenant, it would still be my fight.”
Painful hope kindled in his eyes. “So you will?”
“I don’t know!” Rosalia pressed her hands to her face. “This is the rest of my life we’re talking about. It’s not something I can decide over my lunch break. I have to think about it.”
“Of course.” Steve stepped back. “I wish I could say take as much time as you need, but I can’t. The colony ship will reach Earth in less than a month. The decision has to be made by then.”
Rosalia swallowed hard. “Give me a week.”
A week to think about every interaction she’d ever had with Steve Miller.
Not to decide if she could love him. That would be easy. She’d been trying not to fall in love with Steve since the day they’d met.
To decide if she could trust him. With her heart, and her life. Because she was terribly afraid she couldn’t.
And she was terribly afraid he couldn’t trust her, either.
“A week.” He nodded. “Should I stay away?”
“No. Come back. Every free moment you’ve got. Or I’ll come to New York. Or we can meet in between. Whatever. We have to talk. We have to see if we can be together without things going sour.” She grinned ruefully. “You have to admit, our track record isn’t great.”
He raised one shoulder and dropped it. “I won’t argue that point.”
“If we’re going to do this thing, we’ve got to try to do it right. Because if we expect to fail, if we expect to sacrifice our lives for the sake of defeating the Seraphim, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m not bonding with you unless I think there’s a chance we can make it work for real. Not a guarantee—I know that’s not possible. I am willing to die to win this war, if I have to. But I’d rather not. So there’s got to be a chance.”
He took a deep breath. “I agree.”
Against all reason, exhilaration soared in Rosalia’s heart. She’d long ago given up hope of ever having Steve for her own. Now, suddenly and without warning, the opportunity had landed back in her lap. She could have him if she wanted him. All she had to do was give the word.
She moved close to him, then closer, crossing an invisible barrier into his personal space, though not quite—quite!—touching. They might be in their astral forms, not their physical bodies, but his nearness felt physical. It beat warm against her skin and pulsed in her throat and breasts and belly. Her voice came thick and breathy, choked with the desire that had never lacked between them. “And we’re going to have to go here. Again.”
He came to her like a magnet to its opposite, snapping against the full length of her body. “The easiest part, and the hardest.”
She could weep for the pleasure of the touch she’d thought she’d never feel again. Instead she threw her arms around his neck and dragged his mouth to hers. He met her kiss tentatively at first, but a
s the fire ignited inside her, he abandoned all caution and crushed her against him, opening mouth and heart, feeding the flames that burned high and bright.
And brief. Always before their passion had been like a grass fire, blazing intensely and quickly burning out. That sort of love couldn’t sustain a soul bond. If they wanted to survive, they’d have to learn to build a deep bed of embers that would hold a steady and enduring heat.
He pulled away. “I don’t want to make you late for your next session. I can’t come again today—we’re going to be setting things up all afternoon and evening to break the news to the world first thing in the morning. And we’ll probably be dealing with the fallout all day tomorrow. But I promise, I’ll meet you during your supper break tomorrow, even if I have to walk out on the president himself.”
She laughed shakily. “I have a feeling my sessions are going to get a lot more popular once people see that psychic powers are real.”
“We’ve got a structure in place to deal with that. I just hope it holds up.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll go with you back to the convention center.” He reached for her hand.
She took it, and they soared from the tower together. He tugged her to circle a familiar building. “Remember?”
“How could I forget?” She shuddered. “I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”
A grin played around his lips, only partially apologetic. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
“I know. That’s the only reason I can forgive you. If I thought you’d done it intentionally, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
His expression became a little more sheepish. “I’m sorry.”
“Good.” She made him wait until they were halfway back to the convention center before she relented. “I’d have humiliated you just as badly if I’d been able to.”
“It would have been good for me. If you’d been strong enough to break through my blocking, I’d have realized the truth a lot sooner.”
She sighed for lost opportunities. “Then maybe that first time would have lasted.”
His melancholy matched hers. “If we’d been together all these years, this would be an easy choice.”
She turned away, remembering exactly why they hadn’t. “But we weren’t. And so it’s not.”
Chapter 3
Ten years ago
Rosalia spotted a stack of envelopes piled on the counter of her grandmother’s tienda. She scooped them up and shuffled through them. “Abuela, how long has it been since you went through these? There are bills in here postmarked almost a month ago.” She set several of the envelopes aside for further examination.
Blanca waved vaguely. “I’ll get to them. Miguel used to take care of that sort of thing. I haven’t gotten into the habit since he left.”
Rosalia scowled and rolled her eyes. Six months ago her uncle had finally tired of running his mother’s store and moved to San Diego to take a position at a high-tech start up. Rosalia approved of his decision, but it left Abuela in a difficult position. She had plenty of income from her regular clients, and her reputation as Los Angeles’s most gifted psiquica assured that any vacant slots in her weekly schedule were rapidly filled. But she had no head for business. She could keep her books competently enough when she bothered, but far too often she neglected them, caught up in the work she loved.
Blanca devoted endless hours to counseling the troubled men and women who consulted her, and even more in meditation and prayer seeking the visions that would guide them. The future she saw always came to pass, although sometimes the symbolic nature of the imagery that flashed into her mind made it difficult to know exactly what she’d predicted until it happened.
Most of Rosalia’s siblings and cousins assumed their grandmother fabricated her vague prophecies, and that her skill lay in shrewdly perceiving what her clients wanted to be told. Rosalia wished she could share their skepticism. She surely would have, except the same sort of confusingly encrypted visions of the future appeared in her own mind with disturbing frequency. And even more disturbing accuracy.
She dropped a few pieces of junk mail into the overflowing trash can, remembering the first time she’d realized her daydreams were more than they seemed. She’d been five years old. Back then Abuela’s shop had been her favorite place in the world. She’d been sorting the fragrant votive candles when a vivid and terrifying image of the store’s cat danced before her eyes. She’d run into the back room, interrupting one of her grandmother’s sessions with a client. “Abuela, Abuela, Maria’s going to be eaten by a giant bug! I saw it!”
Blanca had frozen for a moment, then murmured an apology to her client. She’d taken Rosalia into the crowded main room of the shop and pointed out Maria crouched in her usual place on a high shelf. “Maria is fine. What exactly did you see?”
Rosalia could still picture the scene she’d described. “Maria was standing in the street in front of the store. A huge shiny blue insect ran by. It grabbed Maria and chewed her up until she was all broken and bloody. Then it spat her out and ran away. Please, Abuela, you have to stop it!” She’d been crying.
Blanca had wiped her tears away. “Do you know when it’s going to happen?”
“Soon. Tomorrow, I think.” There was always a sharp sense of time accompanying a vision. Generally the sooner it would occur, the more intense the sensation.
Blanca took Rosalia by both shoulders and crouched to look her in the eyes. “What you see is true, mija. You have the same gift I do. But we have the power to change what we see. I’ll lock Maria in her carrier tomorrow so she’ll be safe.”
The fear that gripped Rosalia had immediately eased. “Gracias, Abuela.”
Maria had been furious at being confined in the little carrier. Rosalia had watched her all day to make sure she didn’t escape. Midway through the afternoon, tires had squealed and a blue Volkswagen Beetle had peeled around the corner and sped down the street in front of the shop. Pedestrians scattered, cursing the driver, who ignored them.
Blanca had watched the car race away, then gone to release Maria. That evening, when Mama had come to pick Rosalia up, she’d said, “I’ve enjoyed having Rosalia stay with me this week. There’s no need to look for a new day care. I’ll keep her the rest of the summer, and after school as well, come fall.”
Rosalia’s mother had been delighted to take advantage of free care for one of her large brood. Blanca had encouraged Rosalia to welcome her visions. She’d listened patiently to many long and confusing descriptions and suggested possible explanations. Over and over Rosalia had watched what she’d foreseen take place or be narrowly averted. She’d learned to interpret the symbols that obscured a vision’s true meaning. Over the years she’d come to rely on her visions for guidance. She’d seen a blue and yellow bear with her face, so she’d applied to UCLA and been unsurprised when she was accepted.
Abuela had taught her other things, as well. How to open her inner ears and hear what the people around her were feeling, or even thinking. How to speak with each other silently. How to reach out and move something without touching it. She’d sworn Rosalia to secrecy before introducing each new skill. People feared things they didn’t understand, she’d warned. More than one of Rosalia’s ancestors had been executed for witchcraft. Maybe that was no longer a danger, but Blanca had been investigated for fraud several times. One of Blanca’s cousins had been confined to a mental institution, and an uncle had been shot by the police under suspicious circumstances. Safer for everyone if their gifts remained a secret.
Rosalia shook away the memories and stared at the envelope in her hand. “Why do you have a letter from my university, Abuela?”
Blanca looked up from the bundles of dried herbs she was sorting. “I don’t know. Open it and see what it says.”
Rosalia tore open the official-looking envelope, frowning at the sticker printed with her grandmother’s name. Any correspondence from UCLA that didn’t come directly to Rosalia should go to her parents. She’d never gi
ven the office this address, but there it was in neat block letters.
She unfolded the sheet of paper inside. Dear Ms. Escamillo, she read. The psychology department of the University of California Los Angeles is conducting an investigation into paranormal phenomena. Your name has come to our attention as someone who claims to possess psychic abilities. We invite you, as well as anyone you may know who claims to have such abilities, to participate in this study.
Rosalia’s breath quickened. “They’re studying psychic powers. They want you to take part. And anyone else you know with the gift.”
Blanca snorted. “Throw it away. Nothing good ever comes of it when people start nosing into our business.”
“But Abuela, it says they’ll pay a hundred dollars to anyone who comes in and takes their tests.” Not a huge amount, but Rosalia’s bank account always ran low at the end of a semester. “I could really use the money. And just think. We could show them that psychic abilities are real. Whatever tests they’re doing ought to be easy for you and me. We could prove to the whole world that we aren’t crazy or evil or dangerous. And I bet there are other people out there like us. We could find them, talk to them, teach them what we know and learn from them things we don’t. Imagine what it would be like if the whole world knew about the things we can do. We wouldn’t have to hide anymore.” Longing welled up in her chest, nearly choking her.
Blanca put down her basket and came to put a hand on Rosalia’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard on you, mija. I wish there were others in your generation gifted with claridivencia so you wouldn’t be so lonely. But this is a trap. The bait looks tasty, but if you take it, the bar will snap down and break your neck.”
“You don’t know that.” Rosalia waved the letter. “What if they’re serious? What if they’ve already tested others who’ve shown them they’re on the right track? What if the people doing the experiment are gifted themselves? Why else would they do this kind of research, when almost everyone thinks it was proven a long time ago that psychic abilities don’t exist? Maybe they know better, and they’re trying to gather enough evidence to convince even the worst skeptics.”
