The Passion

by L. J. Smith

  Frost's transformation was even more amazing. Her normal attire was a style Kait had privately dubbed "slunge"-a cross between sleaze and grunge. But in a double-breasted brown wool suit, she looked like another librarian-from the neck down.

  "When we get home, you'll lose the lipstick-all of it-and half the mascara," Joyce told her. "And you'll put that rat's nest into a French twist. Also lose the gum."

  The boys were equally transmogrified by three-piece Mani suits and leather shoes. Joyce paid for everything and hustled them out of the store.

  "When do you tell us what we're doing?" Gabriel asked in the car.

  "You'll hear the details at home. But basically it's a burglary." Kaitlyn's stomach knotted again.

  "So what now?" Anna asked. They were sitting in a Taco Bell in Daly City. Tony had promised to find them a place to stay with one of his friends-an apartment in San Francisco. But he hadn't found the place yet, and Rob was worried about staying any longer at Tony's house. So they spent as much time as possible outdoors, where they might be hard to find.

  For the first time since Kaitlyn had disappeared Rob had an appetite.

  But he would never in a hundred years have imagined he'd have left her at the Institute. The little witch-he still wasn't quite sure how she'd persuaded him. Of course, she was capable, but even a capable person could easily get killed there.

  She'd asked him to trust her, that was it. All right, then, by God, he'd trust her. It was hard to let her go-he didn't think anyone realized how hard. He would very much have preferred to go himself. But...

  I believe in you, Kaitlyn Fairchild, he thought. Just please God keep yourself safe.

  He was so deep in his own thoughts that Anna had to poke him and ask silently, I said, what now, Rob?

  "Huh? Oh, sorry." He stopped sucking on his Coke, considered. "Well, we've been too busy watching Kait to take care of Marisol. I guess we'd better do that now. Tony said his parents wouldn't be at the hospital till tonight, so it's a good time."

  "Should we get Tony to go with us?" Lewis asked.

  Rob thought. "No, I guess not. If it doesn't work, it'll be pretty hard on him to watch. We'll find some way to make them let us in." Tony had warned them that Marisol wasn't allowed visitors, except family.

  They drove to St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, and Rob took the crystal shard out of the glove compartment. It was a crazy place to keep it, but they had to take it with them wherever they went. He slipped it into the sleeve of his sweater-it was just about as long as his forearm-and they strolled into the hospital.

  On the third floor Rob beckoned a nurse- "Ma'am? Could I ask you a question?"-and sweet-talked her while Lewis and Anna snuck in Marisol's room. Then when all the nurse's phones began to ring at once, he snuck in himself. The ringing was provided by Lewis's PK, a neat trick, in Rob's opinion.

  Inside the room, he felt Anna's shock. She was trying bravely to conceal it, but it showed through. He squeezed her shoulder and she smiled at him gratefully, then she stopped smiling and moved away so abruptly that he was startled.

  Upset, probably. Marisol looked bad. Rob remembered her as a vivid, handsome girl, all tumbled red-brown hair and full pouting lips. But now . . .

  She was painfully thin. There were all sorts of tubes and wires and monitors attached to her. Her right arm was on top of the blanket, with the wrist cocked at an impossible angle, turned in against the forearm. And she moved-her head twisted constantly, writhing on her neck, her brown eyes partway open but unseeing. Her breathing was frightening to hear: She seemed to be sucking air in through clenched teeth as she grimaced.

  I thought people in comas were quiet, Lewis thought shakily.

  Rob knew better. He'd been in a coma himself, after meeting a mountain at fifty miles an hour. He'd been hang gliding at Raven's Roost off the Blue Ridge Parkway, and he'd hit wind shear and stalled out. He'd broken both arms, both legs, his jaw, enough ribs to puncture a lung. . . and his neck. A hangman's fracture-so called because it's the same place your neck breaks when they hang you. Nobody expected him to live, but a long while later he'd woken to find himself in a Stryker frame and his granddaddy crying.

  He'd spent months in bed and during those months he'd discovered his powers. Maybe they'd been there all along, and he'd just never sat still long enough to notice them, or maybe they were a gift because God was sorry about smashing a li'l ol' farm boy into that mountain. Either way, it had changed his life, made him see what a dumb sucker he'd always been, how selfish and shortsighted. Before, he'd aspired to being a guard for the Blue Devils at Duke. After, he aspired to help some.

  Now, he felt shame flood up to drown him. How could he have left Marisol like this a day longer than she needed to be? He shouldn't have waited, not even to watch out for Kait. There was no excuse for it-he was still a dumb sucker and a selfish jerk. Fat lot of help he'd given Marisol.

  This time Anna squeezed his shoulder. None of us realized, she said. And we don't even know if we can help her, now. But let's try.

  He nodded, strengthened by her gentle practicality. Then, with one glance up at a picture of the Madonna and Child above the bed, he pulled the crystal out of his sleeve. It was cold and heavy in his hand. He wasn't sure where to apply it-LeShan hadn't said anything about that. After some thought he gently touched it to her forehead, the site of the third eye. A powerful energy center.

  And nothing happened.

  Rob waited, and waited some more. The tip of the shard rested between lank strands of red-brown hair. Marisol's head kept twisting. There was no change in her energy level.

  "It's not working," Lewis whispered.

  Fear pricked at Rob like tiny hornet stings. Was it his fault? Had he left it too long?

  Then he thought, maybe the crystal needs a little help.

  He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and concentrated.

  He never could explain exactly how he did his healing-how he knew what to do. But somehow he could feel what was wrong with a person. He could see different kinds of energy running through them like bright-colored rivers-and sometimes not flowing, but dark and stagnant, stuck. Marisol was almost all stuck. There was some sort of blockage between brain and body, and nothing was flowing either way.

  How to fix that? Well, maybe start with the third eye, send energy through the crystal until it pushed hard enough against the plugs to blow them free.

  Gold energy, flooding down the crystal. The crystal swirled it in a spiral and amplified it, heightening it with every turn. So that was how this thing worked!

  More energy. More. Keep it flowing. He could see it flowing into Marisol, now, or at least trying to. Her third eye was stopped up as if somebody had wedged a cork in there. The energy built up behind it, roiling and gold and getting hotter by the minute. Rob felt sweat break out on his forehead. It dripped into his eyes and burned.

  Ignore it. Send more energy. More, more.

  Rob was breathing hard, a little frightened by what was happening. The energy was a crackling, spinning mass now, so hot and dense that he could barely hold onto the crystal. It was like trying to control a high-pressure fire hose. And trying to send more energy in was like trying to pump air into a critically overinflated bicycle tire. Something had to give.

  Something did. Like a cork blowing out of a bottle, the blockage flew out of Marisol's third eye. The force of the energy behind it chased it down her body and out the soles of her feet almost faster than Rob's eye could follow.

  Gold everywhere. Marisol's entire body was encased in gold as the energy raced around, rushing through veins and capillaries, circulating at a wildly accelerated speed. An internal whirlpool bath. God, it was going to kill the girl. Nobody was meant to have that much energy.

  Rob jerked the crystal away from her forehead.

  Marisol's body had been straining, her back arching as the energy shot through her. Now she fell back and lay completely still for the first time since they'd walked in. Her eyes were shut. Rob reali
zed suddenly that one of her monitors was blaring like an alarm going off.

  Then, as he watched, her right hand began to move. The fingers unclenched, the wrist relaxed. It looked like a normal hand again.

  "Oh, God," Lewis whispered. "Oh, look at that."

  Rob couldn't speak. The alarm went on blaring. And Marisol's eyes opened.

  Not halfway. All the way. Rob could see the intelligence in them. He reached out to touch her cheek, and she blinked and looked scared.

  "It's okay," he told her, loud over the alarm. "You're going to be all right, you understand?"

  She nodded uncertainly.

  Running footsteps sounded outside the door. A sturdy nurse burst in, got almost to the bed before she skidded and saw Rob.

  "What do you think you're doing in here? Did you touch anything?" she demanded, hands on hips-and then she took a good look at Marisol.

  "Ma'am, I think she's feeling a little better," Rob said, and smiled because he couldn't help it.

  The nurse was looking from Marisol to the monitors. She broke into a huge grin, switched the monitor off, and took Marisol's pulse.

  "How're you feeling, darlin'?" she asked with tears shining in her eyes. "You just hang on one minute so I can get Doctor Hirata. Your mama's going to be so happy." Then she rushed out of the room without yelling at Rob.

  "I think we'd better go before Doctor Hirata gets here," Lewis whispered. "He might ask some awkward questions."

  "You're right." Rob grinned at Marisol, touched her cheek again. "I'll tell your brother you're awake, okay? And he'll be over here as fast as he can drive. And your parents, too . . ."

  "Rob," Lewis whispered urgently.

  They made it to the back stairs without being caught. On the second landing they stopped and whacked each other in glee.

  "We did it!" Rob whispered, his voice echoing in the empty stairwell. "We did it!"

  "You did it," Anna said. Her dark eyes were glowing and wise. It wasn't true, it had been the crystal, but her praise made Rob feel warm to the tips of his fingers.

  He hugged Lewis and felt happy. Then he hugged Anna and felt a surge of something different from what he felt for Lewis. Stronger . . . warmer.

  It confused him. He'd only felt something like it once before-when he'd found Kaitlyn alive down in Mr. Z's basement. It was almost like pain in its intensity, but it wasn't pain.

  Then he pulled back, shocked and mortified. How could he let himself feel like that about anyone but Kaitlyn? How could he let himself feel even a little like that?

  And he knew Anna could tell, and that she was upset, because she wouldn't meet his eyes and she was holding herself shielded. She was disgusted with him, and no wonder.

  Well, one thing was for certain. It would never happen again, never.

  They walked down the rest of the stairs with only Lewis talking.

  "All right, this is the place," Gabriel said. It was an imposing stone building on a one-way street in the financial district of San Francisco. Through the metal-framed glass doors Kait could see a guard at a little booth.

  "Joyce said the guard won't give us any trouble. We sign in with the names she told us. The law firm is Digby, Hamilton, and Miles, the floor is sixteen."

  He didn't look at Kaitlyn as he spoke and he didn't glance at her as they went inside. She didn't seem to exist for him anymore. But Joyce had told them to go in pairs, and Kait was supposed to walk by Gabriel.

  She tried to do it without showing any more expression than he did.

  The guard was wearing a red coat and talking on a cellular phone. He barely looked at them as Gabriel flipped through papers on a clipboard. Gabriel signed, and then it was Kait's turn. She wrote Eileen Cullen, Digby, Hamilton, and Miles, 16, and 11:17, on the appropriate lines. The 11:17 was the "Time In."

  Frost and Renny signed in and they crossed the tile mosaic floor to a bank of brass elevators. A man in jeans was polishing the brass, and Kaitlyn stared at her neat brown Amalfi shoes while they waited-it. seemed a long time-for the elevator.

  Once inside, Gabriel pushed a large black button for floor sixteen. The button stuck. The elevator started, slowly, and with a wheeze.

  Renny was snickering and Frost let out a torrent of gasping giggles.

  "Do you know what I signed for my name?" Renny asked, banging the elevator door. "I signed Jimi Hendrix. And I put for the company, Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe. Get it? Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe for a law firm!"

  "And I put Ima Pseudonym," Frost said, tittering.

  Kaitlyn's heart gave a violent thud and began racing. She stared at them, appalled. They looked normal now: Frost's hair was pulled back elegantly and she was wearing only one earring in each ear and Renny could have been a junior accountant. But underneath they were still the same raving loonies.

  "Are you guys nuts?" she hissed. "If that guard takes a look at that sheet-oh, God, or if the next person who signs in just glances up-we are dead. Dead. How could you do such a thing?"

  Renny just waved a hand at her, weak with laughter. Frost sneered.

  Kait turned to Gabriel to share her horror. It was a reflex-she should have known better. However horrified he might have been a minute ago, he now shrugged and flashed a quick, mocking smile.

  "Good one," he said to Renny.

  "I knew you had a sense of humor," Frost purred, running a silvery fingernail up Gabriel's gray wool sleeve. She ran it all the way to his crisp white collar, then toyed with the dark hair behind his ear.

  Kaitlyn gave her a blistering glare through narrowed eyes. Then she stared at the elevator buttons, fuming silently. She didn't like this job. She still hadn't been told what they were doing-what can you burglarize in a law firm? She didn't even know what psychic powers Frost and Renny had. And now she had to worry about what other insane things they might decide to do.

  The elevator doors opened.

  "What a dump," Renny said, and snickered. Gabriel cast an appreciative look around. The walls were paneled in some beautiful reddish gold wood and the floor was dark green marble. Through glass doors Kait could see what looked like a conference room.

  Gabriel glanced at the map Joyce had given him. "Now we go right."

  They passed rest room doors-even those looked opulent-and entered a hallway with dark green carpeting. They stopped when they came to a set of doors blocking their way. The doors were very big and heavy; they looked like metal, but when Kaitlyn touched one it was wood. And locked.

  "This is it," Gabriel said. "Okay, Renny."

  But Renny was gone. Frost, standing a little way Dack, said, "He had to go to the little boys' room." She was struggling to keep a straight face.

  Kaitlyn clenched her fists. She'd seen the graffiti at the Institute; she could just bet what he was doing in there. "Now what?" she snarled at Gabriel. "Look, are you going in there to get him, or am I?"

  Gabriel ignored her, but she could see the tightness of his jaw. He started toward the bathroom, but at that moment Renny came out, his face the picture of innocence.

  "I would have thought," Gabriel said without looking at Kait, "that you'd be happy if we screwed this up. After all, you're not really one of us ... are you?"

  Kaitlyn felt chilled. "I am, even if you don't believe it," she said, working to put sincerity in her voice. "And maybe I don't like stealing things, but I don't want to get caught and sent to jail, either." As Renny approached, walking cockily, she added in an undertone, "I don't even know why we brought him."

  "Then watch and see," Gabriel said tersely. "Renny, this is it. From here on you need a security pass."

  The device on the wall looked vaguely familiar. It was like the machines at the gas station that you slide a credit card through to charge gas automatically.

  "Yeah, magnetic," Renny muttered. He pushed his glasses back with an index finger on the nosepiece and ran a hand over the security pass reader. "Anybody looking?" he said.

  "No, but do it fast," Gabriel replied.

  Renny strok
ed the device again and again. His face was wrinkled up, monkeylike. Kaitlyn chewed her lip and watched the central area from which they'd just come. Anybody stepping out of an elevator would see them.

  "There you are, baby," Renny whispered suddenly. And the right hand door swung open.

  So now Kaitlyn knew. Renny had PK, psychokinesis; he could move objects by power of mind alone. Including the little mechanisms inside security pass readers, apparently.

  Just like Lewis, Kaitlyn thought. I wonder if there's something about short guys.

  The door closed behind them when they went through.

  Gabriel led them quickly down the hallway. On the left other hallways branched away; on the right were secretaries' carrels with computers on the desks. Behind the carrels were office doors, with names on brass nameplates beside them. Kaitlyn saw one nameplate that said WAR ROOM.

  Maybe law is more exciting than I thought.

  They came to another set of the big doors and Renny dealt with them in the same way. They walked down another hallway.

  The farther they got into private territory, the more frightened Kait was. If anyone caught them here, they would have some explaining to do. Joyce hadn't given them any advice about that-Kaitlyn had the sick feeling that Gabriel might be expected to use his power.

  "What are we looking for, anyway?" Kait whispered to Gabriel between her teeth. "I mean, have they got the Mona Lisa here or something?"

  "Keep your stupid mouth shut. Anyone walking up one of those hallways could hear us."

  Kaitlyn was stunned into silence. Gabriel had never spoken to her like that before. And he hadn't said a word about Renny and Frost doing really dangerous things.

  She blinked and set her teeth, determined not to speak again, no matter what.

  "This is it," Gabriel said at last. The nameplate on the door said E. Marshall Winston. "Locked," Gabriel said. "Renny, open it. Everybody else keep your eyes out. If anybody sees us here, we've had it."

  Kaitlyn stared down the hall until she saw red afterimages. She was sweating onto her white silk blouse. Then she heard a snap and the door opened.