The Passion

by L. J. Smith

  Door shut tight, ceiling light off. Kaitlyn threw a T-shirt over the lamp on the nightstand to dim it Okay, that was the proper ambiance. Hair swathed in a towel, feet tucked under her, she put pastel to paper.

  She had never worked so hard at blanking her mind. She threw herself down the chute into the waiting darkness. The itch and cramp took over her fingers and she felt them moving, reaching out to snatch new pastel sticks, swirling colors across the page.

  A few minutes later she looked at what she'd done.

  I can't believe it. I can't believe it!

  It was another ship with a Christmas tree.

  This time in color. The ship's sails were dove white, the planks were tinted sienna brown, the pretty curl) waves were three shades of blue. And standing proudly on the deck was a celadon green Christmas tree with poppy red garland and a yellow ocher star.

  Kaitlyn wadded the paper up in a fury and threw it at the mirror.

  She wanted to break things. She wanted to throw something heavier-

  The door burst open.

  Instantly, Kaitlyn's fury disappeared and terror rushed in to fill the vacuum. Lydia had told them. They had all run up here to get her. She could hear thudding footsteps in the hall behind the figure in her doorway.

  "Hey, Kait, how come it's so dark in here?" Bri shouted. Without waiting for an answer, she added, "Come on! Get dressed!"

  For what, execution? Kait wondered. She heard her own voice saying almost quietly, "Why?"

  "Because we're celebrating! We're all going out to the club! Come on, get dressed, put your best duds on. Plenty of guys," Bri added slyly. "You got something to wear? I could lend you something."

  "Uh-that's okay, I've got something," Kaitlyn said hastily. She could just imagine what sort of "duds" Bri might have to lend. But Bri's urgency was contagious, and Kaitlyn felt herself being propelled toward the closet. "I've got a black dress-but why are we celebrating?"

  "We did a job this afternoon," Bri said, shaking her clasped hands over her head like a boxer. "An astral job, a real big job. We killed LeShan."

  "I met her on the stairs. She said she had to see you," Tony's friend said. Rob, Lewis, and Anna were sitting in the tiny one-room apartment. Rob peered behind Tony's friend at the person who had to see them.

  "I've been tracking you from house to house," the girl said. She had clusters of curly yellow hair and the profile of a Grecian maiden. Despite the yellow hair, her complexion was olive and her eyes almond-shaped like Lewis's. She was very pretty.

  And familiar. "I know you," Rob said. "You were- you were with the Fellowship."

  "Tamsin," Anna said, before the girl could.

  The girl-Tamsin-nodded at her. She looked as if she were trying to smile, but it didn't work. The smile turned into a trembling of her lips, then her head went down and she started to cry.

  From the doorway, Tony's friend said, "I'll catch you guys later," and left hurriedly.

  "What is it?" Rob was trying to lead the girl to a chair. His initial excitement at seeing her had deflated like a pricked balloon. He'd thought the Fellowship had sent someone to help.

  "I came to help," the girl choked out, as if she could hear his thought-and probably she could. The Fellowship were all psychics. "LeShan sent me."

  "Then what's the matter?" Anna asked quietly, putting a gentle hand on Tamsin's quivering shoulder.

  "Nothing was the matter-until a little while ago. Then I felt it. I felt him die. LeShan is dead."

  Rob's skin tingled with shock. He had to swallow hard. "Are you sure?"

  "I felt it. We thought we'd be safe from them on our new island. But they must have found him. I felt him die."

  She's really upset, Lewis said silently.

  She was, Rob thought. Not just upset but helpless- the way the people of the Fellowship tended to be when they didn't have a leader. He didn't send the thought to Lewis because he had the feeling Tamsin could hear.

  "And now I don't know what to do," Tamsin said, almost wailing it. "LeShan was going to tell me when I got here. I came all this way and I can't help you at all."

  Rob looked at Anna, as if he might find something comforting to say in her face. Anna was so wise. But Anna's gaze, dark and liquid with tears, held his only a moment, then quickly dropped.

  Angry with himself, Rob put an arm around Tamsin. He said, "Maybe Meren-"

  "Mereniang is dead, too," Tamsin whispered. "She died on the way to the island. There's no help anywhere, no hope!"

  Kaitlyn sat on Lydia's bed with the black dress on her lap. She had been reaching for it, glad that she'd brought it and that it had hung out with no wrinkles, when Bri had told her.

  Now she just sat. She didn't need to ask Bri any questions. She knew the whole truth.

  Queen Charlotte Islands. That3s what the map had said. In Canada. That must have been where the Fellowship had gone when they'd left Vancouver Island. Bri had dowsed for them with that map.

  And Jackal Mac had checked the furnace out. Some furnace where the Fellowship were living. Kaitlyn knew because she had a picture of it-a picture of a fireball, of a furnace exploding. And a man in the middle of it.

  All of them had gathered around the crystal this evening and sent out their astral forms. They'd left their bodies and gone to the Queen Charlotte Islands and then Renny had used his PK.

  The Passion

  Oh, LeShan. Kaitlyn twisted the chiffon of the black dress between brutal fingers. I liked you. I really liked you. You were arrogant and angry and impatient and I really, really liked you. You were alive.

  Caramel-colored skin. Slanting lynx eyes. Softly curling hair that seemed to have an inner luminescence, pale and shimmering brown. And a spirit that burned like midnight fire.

  Dead.

  And now Kaitlyn had to go and celebrate. No way to get out of it. They would know if she tried to make some excuse. If she was going to be one of them, she had to hate the Fellowship as they did.

  Feeling very brittle, very light, and unstable, Kait went over to the mirror. She pulled off the towel and her clothes and put on the black dress. She began to mechanically run her fingers through her wet hair, when she suddenly realized something.

  I look like a witch.

  In the dim light, with her long hair falling about her shoulders, drying just enough to be a halo of red, with the black dress and her bare feet and the pallor of her face . ..

  I do. I look extremely witchy. Like somebody who might go walking down the street like this, barefoot, hair wild in the breeze, singing strange songs, and all the people peeping out at me from behind their curtains.

  The fitted spandex bodice did make her look slim as a statue, and the sheer chiffon skirt swirled from hip to midcalf. But it wasn't vanity that held her there looking. It was a new sense of her own competence, of determination.

  Anybody who looks this witchy must be able to call down a curse. And that's what I'm going to do. Somehow, I'll make them all pay, LeShan. I'll avenge your death. I promise.

  I promise.

  People were calling outside. Lydia was opening the door apologetically.

  "I just heard," she said. She looked as hangdog and slinking as Kaitlyn had ever seen her, but also bitterly satisfied, as if she'd been proved right. "I told you my father would win. He always does. You were smart to come in on this side, Kait."

  "Could I borrow a pair of nylons?" Kaitlyn asked.

  Mr. Z was in the living room when they all came downstairs. Kaitlyn supposed he'd been in the hidden room with them, directing the work. He gave Kaitlyn a courtly nod as she walked toward him in a pair of shoes borrowed from Frost.

  He looked amiable, but Kaitlyn could feel his savage joy. He knew she was hurting and he liked that.

  "Have a good time, Kaitlyn," he said.

  Kaitlyn lifted her head, refusing to give him the satisfaction.

  Gabriel was there, too, handsome in dark clothes. Kaitlyn turned appraising eyes on him. He didn't look disturbed over LeShan's d
eath-but then he had no reason to like the Fellowship. Their philosophy said they couldn't open their doors to anyone who'd taken a human life ... no matter what the circumstances. Because Gabriel had killed by accident and in self-defense, they refused to let him in. So now Gabriel wasn't upset.

  Everyone else was delirious with happiness.

  Mr. Z saw them off, and they took two cars. Kait rode in Lydia's car with Bri and Renny. Joyce took

  Gabriel, Frost, and Jackal Mac. Kait spent the drive plotting how to make them all pay-Gabriel, too.

  The club was called Dark Carnival. Kaitlyn stopped musing on revenge to stare. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before.

  There was a line of people waiting to get in the door. People wearing everything. Unimaginable outfits. They looked bizarre and more than a little scary.

  Traffic stopped the car for a while near the door and Kaitlyn was able to watch what was going on. A doorkeeper with a lip-ring and a Liverpool accent was saying who could get in immediately, who should wait, and who should just go home. Those who got in: a guy with purple glittery lipstick and silver aluminum curlicues for hair. A girl in an evening gown of black spiderweb. A chic Italian-looking girl in a white unitard and black velvet shorts-very short.

  "He keeps out people who aren't cool enough," Bri said in Kaitlyn's ear, leaning heavily on her back. "You have to be either famous or completely beautiful or-"

  Or dressed like a cross between a Busby Berkeley show and something from a science fiction movie, Kaitlyn thought.

  "So how are we going to get in?" she asked quietly.

  She was watching the losers-the people who couldn't get in. The normal people who weren't exciting or weird enough, waiting outside behind cords, sometimes crying.

  "We've got invitations," Lydia said in a dead voice. "My father has connections."

  She was right. The doorkeeper let them right in.

  Inside there were strobe lights, super black lights, and colored lights, all flashing in an atmosphere so full of smoke Kaitlyn could hardly see anything but the flashing rainbow.

  The music was loud, a throbbing beat that people had to shout over. On the dance floor a girl with long shiny hair was kicking high over her head.

  "Isn't it great?" Bri yelled.

  Kaitlyn didn't know what it was. Loud. Weird. Exciting, if you were in the mood to celebrate, but surreal if you weren't.

  I'm going to avenge you, LeShan. I promise.

  She glimpsed Joyce walking toward the dance floor. Jackal Mac, the lights reflecting on his head, was giving an order to a scantily clad cocktail waitress.

  Where was Gabriel?

  Bri had disappeared. Kait was surrounded by people with wings, people dressed in cellophane, people with spikes for fingernails. Everywhere she looked were falls of Day-Glo hair. Enormous false eyelashes. Slanted eyebrows, silver-glittering eyebrows. No eyebrows. Pierced bodies.

  If she hadn't been so cold with anger over LeShan, Kaitlyn might have been scared. But just now nothing could touch her. A man in a leopard-skin unitard and a mask beckoned her to dance and she followed him to the floor. She didn't really know much about dancing, except what she'd done at home, watching the TV and dreaming.

  It was too loud to talk, and she didn't really care what the leopard-man thought of her-so it was the perfect opportunity to muse on revenge again.

  And that was how she solved the mystery of the combination lock.

  It wasn't like in books, where the faithful sidekick makes some offhand remark and then the famous detective sees all. There was no particular reason why it came to her. But every minute or so her mind would go back to her problem.

  I need to get to that crystal. Which means I need to get the combination.

  And once when her mind went back to it, she thought, "But maybe I already have the combination. One drawing was a real prophecy. What about the other?"

  And then the other thought was simply there, fullblown, a question asking itself in her mind: How can a Christmas tree and a ship be eight numbers?

  Well, Christmas had a number, of course. A date. December the twenty-fifth, 12/25. Or 25/12 if you were thinking the twenty-fifth of December.

  The dark room rocked under Kaitlyn's feet. The leopard-skin man was walking away, but she didn't care. She backed up to a railing, her eyes on the flashing lights.

  She was trembling with excitement, her mind racing to follow this new idea to the end, like a spark running down a line of powder.

  The ship. The ship is another number. And what number? It could be the number of masts or the number of crew or the number of voyages it made. Or a date, a date when the ship sailed-but what kind of ship is it?

  A window opened in her stomach and she felt hollow with dismay. She didn't know anything about ships. How long would it take to research, to speculate?

  No, stop. Don't panic. The picture was drawn by your unconscious, so it can't be much smarter than you are. It couldn't take a date and make it into a ship if you didn't know the date and ship already.

  But I'm so stupid, Kaitlyn argued back. Rotten in history. I only know the simplest dates-like "In fourteen hundred ninety-two ..."

  Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

  That sparkly, curly blue ocean. Three colors of blue. Drawn with an excess of care.

  She'd found the answer.

  Kaitlyn knew it, she felt certain. But a nagging murmur of dissent was starting in her brain. Mr. Z wouldn't make the combination that simple. He wouldn't begin it-or end it-with 1492. Anyone glancing at it would remember. Someone breaking in might try it at random.

  That was when Kaitlyn had her second brainstorm. Supposing the combination didn't begin or end with 1492-not all together. The Christmas tree had been in the middle of the ship, so supposing the combination was 14/12/25/92. Or 14/25/12/92.

  Good heavens, or even 1/12/25/492. Or ...

  Kaitlyn cut her busy brain off. I'll think of all the possibilities later. But I'll try the easy ones first. And I'll-

  A guy with a bald head was darting a black-stained tongue at her. Kaitlyn recoiled, then realized it was Jackal Mac.

  "What's the matter? Scared of me?"

  Kaitlyn stared into the jackal eyes. "No," she said flatly.

  "Then come dance."

  No, Kaitlyn thought. But she was a spy and her most important job was to not get caught until she got the shard to the crystal. Nothing else was important.

  "Okay," she said, and they danced.

  She didn't like the way he moved in on her. Not like slow dancing, he wasn't trying to hold her, but he kept moving toward her, forcing her to back up. Otherwise his swinging arms and gyrating hips would have made contact.

  She saw Frost and Gabriel together on the floor. Frost fit right in here; she was wearing a silver baby doll dress and silver ankle boots. She kept brushing against Gabriel's body as she danced.

  Well, at least she wasn't as exposed as that woman wearing a negligee. Or that man painted orange who seemed to be wearing almost nothing.

  "Hey, baby! Pay attention!"

  Jackal Mac was closing in again. Kaitlyn stepped back and collided with a woman in space-age neon sunglasses.

  "Sorry," she muttered, inaudibly over the music. She edged away, heading for a deserted space below the bandstand. "Look, Mac, I'm kind of tired-"

  "Sit down and rest."

  He was backing her farther into the space, below and slightly behind the stage. Kaitlyn tripped over a cord or cable. She couldn't keep walking backward like this.

  "I think I just want something to drink. Would you like something?"

  It was strange that her voice was so calm. Because suddenly she was very scared.

  They were in an isolated little nook here, where the music was loudest. No one from the dance floor could really see them. Certainly no one could hear them. It was smoky and dark and humid and it felt like a trap.

  "Yeah, I'm kinda thirsty," Jackal Mac said, but he was blocking the way out. His eyes gleamed in
the dimness. He had one hand up, resting on the stage, and suddenly Kaitlyn got a whiff of his sweat.

  Danger.

  It was like red warning lights flashing in her head, like the sound of sirens. She could feel his mind, cluttered and trashed and nasty as his bedroom. Nasty as the red-haired man had been.

  "I'm thirsty, you know, but not for a drink. Gabriel told me how you used to take care of him."

  Not like the red-haired man after all. Jackal Mac had a different aberration. He didn't want to hurt her body, he wanted to suck her brain out.

  You bastard, Kaitlyn thought with white-hot fury, but she didn't mean Jackal Mac. Her hatred was for Gabriel.

  He'd told this-animal-about what Kait had done for him. The most private moments she'd ever had with anyone. Kaitlyn felt as if she'd been violated already, ripped open for everyone to see.

  "What else did Gabriel tell you?" she said in a voice that was hard and distant and unafraid.

  Jackal Mac was surprised. His head bobbed, apelike, then his black-stained tongue came out to lick his lips.

  "He said you were always chasing him. I guess you like it, huh?" Sliding his arm down to shoulder level, he moved closer. "So you gonna make this easy, or what?"

  Kaitlyn held her ground. "You're not a telepath. I don't know what you think-"

  "Who says you need to be a telepath?" Mac laughed. "This is about energy, pretty girl. We all need energy. Everybody who's a friend of the crystal."

  The crystal. Of course. Mr. Z's way of keeping them all in line. It had made them all psychic vampires like Gabriel. And it satisfied them all, provided them with energy . . . unless you were like Jackal Mac and wanted something extra.

  He wants me to be afraid, Kait thought. He enjoys that, and he'll like draining my energy best if I'm fighting and screaming. That little extra kick.

  I hate you, Gabriel. I hate you.

  But it didn't prevent her from saying what needed to be said.

  "And you think Gabriel's going to like it if you mess around with me?" she asked. "He didn't like you messing with his room."

  Mac's eyes took on an almost injured expression.

  "I wouldn't touch Gabriel's woman," he said. "But that's Frost now. He was the one who said I should check you out."