Phoenix Rising

by Theo Fenraven

  “So that you will live….”

  “Yes.” Talis’s rhythm quickened, and Trey fell in with it, groaning.

  “I will be with you forever? Promise me!”

  “Forever.” Talis thrust his tongue into Trey’s mouth. “My beautiful lover….”

  “Take it!” Trey cried, arching his back. “Take me!”

  Throwing his head back, Talis went as deeply into Trey as he could. Trey came hard, without a hand on him, jetting strings of semen as high as his chin. Shuddering, Talis, cock buried in Trey’s ass, jerked against the young man, once, twice, breath held, and then, gasping, fell against Trey, embracing him. Trey’s legs fell to the bed.

  The passionate tableau triggered Artemis’s orgasm, and he sank into the ecstasy of it, searing warmth pouring through him in successive waves, but at no time did he close his eyes. He had to see.

  As Talis lay atop Trey, holding him, light seemed to pour off him, red and gold, spreading outward until it engulfed Trey, who was emitting light of his own, silver and white. There was one short cry from Trey. Artemis sat up, one hand still on his dick.

  Talis was transforming.

  In the space of one long breath, taken in and let out, Talis became the phoenix. The giant bird stretched, his clawed legs moving, scratching Trey’s motionless legs, and he straightened until he was upright, wings pummeling the air. The sound that came out of his beak caused Artemis to clap his hands over his ears and huddle in the bed, legs drawn up in a fetal position.

  It was the sound of triumph.

  Chapter Ten Talis

  We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone—but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

  Walter Anderson PHOENIXaccepted Trey’s soul and felt, for several minutes, larger than himself and in touch with the universe, as elemental as stars and moon and earththe very stuff the pharaohs had used to make him. Energy flashed through him, lighting him up inside. Standing over Trey’s beautiful, lifeless body, he exulted in life.

  Transforming back into Talis, he straightened Trey’s limbs, brushed his hair back, and touched his lips to Trey’s. The young man had made the ultimate sacrifice. Though he had done this many times, he never took it for granted. Each time was singular and the gift precious.

  “Thank you,” he whispered sincerely. “I will not forget.” Drawing in a deep breath, he turned to Artemis, curled up on his side. Crawling onto the bed beside him, he touched the detective’s shoulder. “I’m here, my love.” Gathering Artemis into his arms, he kissed his cold forehead, cool cheeks, and icy lips. Artemis’s pants were open, his penis still out and come spattered across his shirt.

  Talis cleaned him up, tucked him away, straightened his clothes, and then held him close. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.” Tears filled his eyes but did not fall. “It was necessary, so you would know.”

  After a moment, the color washed back into Artemis’s face,and his eyes opened. They slowly focused. “He’s dead, then.”

  “Yes.” He touched his thumb to the man’s bottom lip, loving its fullness. “I’m going to take you home now. Can you walk?”

  “Of course I can walk,” he said, a hint of strength behind the words. “Shit, I expected it, but the reality…. Hell, Talis.”

  Talis stroked Artemis’s dark hair, loving the silky texture of it. “Necessary, so I can be with you. I will never do it again.”

  Thecop straightened, fixing Talis with hard eyes. “Do you mean that?”

  “I mean it.” Talis sank his head onto Artemis’s shoulder. “Never again will I be responsible for a death. Every time it happens… I am diminished.”

  “Didn’t look like that to me,” Artemis said dryly, hooking an arm around Talis’s neck. “Get me out of here.”

  THEY were in bed, arms around one another, legs entwined. They’d showered and now smelled of lavender soap. A ceiling fan turned overhead, sending gentle air across their nude bodies. Through the windows, they could hear waves washing up on the beach.

  “They’ll find him,” Artemis said, voice low. “They will. And now that I’m in your databases, they’ll know it was me.”

  Artemis moved closer, lacing his fingers through Talis’s. “I was there. I can tell them what happened.”

  He turned to place a kiss on the top of Artemis’s head. “Then you no longer think of me as a murderer?”

  “You are not a murderer,” Artemis said slowly. “You offered him a choice, and he accepted.”

  “Is that what you’ll tell the authorities?”

  “That is what I’ll tell them.”

  Talis moved back enough to look into Artemis’s eyes. “Are you satisfied, my love? Truly? Or does some question remain?”

  Artemis did not avoid his eyes. “I suspect… the phoenix’s naturally soothing emanations might have had something to do with ‘the choice’, but I won’t quibble.”

  “The phoenix wasn’t there. Talis was.”

  “He sawyou. You said it yourself.”

  “We were close, connected.” Talis ran his hand over the muscles in Artemis’s abdomen, making them flutter. “You love me. We don’t need to wait any longer. Give yourself to me.”

  “Not yet. I think… I have to get away for a while, put some distance between us, before I truly know how I feel about you.” Artemis gave Talis a look. “Do you understand?”

  The answer was a long time in coming and his words carefully measured when he finally uttered them. “I understand.” Something in his heart twisted and broke.

  Artemis tweaked one of Talis’s nipples, making it hard. “Then you’ll let me go home?”

  Talis heaved a sigh. “You can get on a plane tomorrow and return to New York City.”

  “I have to tell them… and I have to see how I feel when I’m away from you.” His voice reverberated with sadness. “I need… perspective. I don’t have that here.”

  Talis’s voice was thick with emotion. “I know. Go… and come back to me if you can.” He would not cry, he would not, though tears burned behind his eyes.

  It was time to let him go, let him return to what he knew and the people who loved him. And if it was meant to be, if Artemis truly loved him at last, as he’d felt in that hotel room, then he’d be back and they would be together.

  Either way… he would accept his fate.

  Part Three New York City and Belize

  Chapter One Artemis

  We create our fate every day we live. Henry Miller HIS mother couldn’t stop touching him. She took every opportunity to lay hands on him: an arm, a wrist, his cheek, even his hair. “I was so worried about you, Artie. No one knew where you were, and then Rachel said you were in Nepal. Nepal! A place I’ve only heard about on television.” She stroked his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay? No one hurt you?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Artemis had said this maybe ten times already, and expected to say it ten more before she was sufficiently convinced he had survived his “ordeal.” He’d given her a whitewashed account of what had happened to him, and even as her eyes revealed doubt, she’d nodded and not questioned him more deeply. Her son was a cop. She knew he never told her everything.

  She put a grilled cheese sandwich in front of him and filled a bowl with tomato soup. “Eat. You look thin.”

  If anything, he’d gained a couple of pounds while away, but he obediently spooned soup into his mouth. “What would you think if I stopped being a detective?”

  She made a sound that indicated disbelief. “You? Stop being a policeman? Never.” She slid a cup of tea across the table toward him. “It’s in your blood.”

  He bit into the sandwich, chewed and swallowed, and then blew on the tea to cool it. “I’m considering it.”

  She realized instantly that he was serious. Sitting across from him, she folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me.”

  “I… met someone. If I decide to be with him, it would mean resigning from the force.”

  “This someone… was he w
ith you in Nepal?”

  Nodding, he stuffed half the sandwich in his mouth. He’d been back just a couple of hours. The first person he’d contacted had been his mom, heading straight to her house from the airport. On the way into the city in a cab, he’d called Rachel and told her he was back. She’d screamed so loud, it hurt his ear. She would tell Numbnuts he was back and meet him later.

  “Who is he, this man?”

  Artemis smiled, thinking about that. “Unlike anyone I’ve met before.” He finished and put down his spoon. What could he tell her about Talis that made any sense at all? “Special.”

  She smiled. “Those we love are always special. More soup?”

  “I’ve had enough, thanks.” Nervously, he picked up the spoon and tapped it on the table. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “You mean like tricks? With cards and stuff?”

  Artemis felt like an idiot. “Real magic, no tricks.”

  She searched his face. “Artie… are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  Hysterical laughter tickled the back of his throat, but he bit it down, turning it into a cough. “I’ve had an interesting few weeks. I see things differently, so no, I’m not quite myself,and I think… I like it.”

  She rested a hand on his, stopping his movement with the spoon. “What are you trying to say?”

  The sun was pouring through the starched kitchen curtains, but he felt little heat. Fall was in New York and winter coming soon, but in Belize, it was warm and the water was a chorus of blues. “I love him.” He laughed, surprised at how easily the words came out. “Talis.” The sound of that name was sweet on his tongue.

  “The man who took you away?” She frowned. “Maybe it’s that, you know, Stockholm syndrome, where the captive falls in love with the captor.”

  Shaking his head, he shoved the bowl away. “It wasn’t like that.” He started playing with the spoon again, caught himself, and tossed it in the bowl, where it clattered too loudly. “It was, at first. I mean, he did kidnap me, but he had a reason for doing it, and then, when I could have come back, I stayed.” I could have gone home. He wouldn’t have stopped me. His vague threat that first day in Nepal hadn’t meant a thing. He’d been bluffing. How the hell hadn’t I known that?

  “You’d give up everything for him?” Her tone was disapproving, but he’d expected that.

  “He travels a lot. If I didn’t go with him, I’d never see him.” He wanted to tell her all of it, but prudence stopped him. Artemis still remembered Phoenix clearly. He hadn’t forgotten anything. He could even recall the particular pattern of feathers around Phoenix’s amethyst eyes. The thought of forgetting the details saddened him, and soon, according to Ammon, he would forget.

  “I’ve made a point not to interfere in your life,” she said, touching his forearm, “but if you do this, I think you’ll regret it. You’re a good policeman. You help people. What will you do with him?”

  She had a point. What would he do? Follow Talis from country to country as he healed those who came to him while Artemis stood in the background, watching? How soon would he get bored out of his mind? How long would his love for Talis last if Artemis had no purpose beyond making Talis happy?

  Suddenly sobered, and unhappy about it, he stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair. “I have to meet Rachel.”

  She jumped up. “I’m sorry I upset you. I do want you to be happy, Artie, but please think this through before making a decision.” She followed him to the back door; no one visiting her ever used the front door. “I know it’s been hard since Richard left, but don’t let loneliness push you into something you’ll regret.”

  Zing! And she scores again. Heaving a sigh, Artemis kissed her on the cheek and slipped away, wondering how much truth was in the last thing she’d said to him.

  SITTING in the back of a cab, he texted Rachel: On my way to Bruno’s.

  Meet you there, she sent back.

  Bruno’s was their precinct’s favorite watering hole and, at this time of day, sparsely populated. A couple of diehardsnot copssat at the bar with beers, lazily chewing on stale pretzels. The music was off, for which Artemis was thankful.

  It felt odd, being back in the city after his weeks with Talis. It was almost claustrophobic, the way the buildings towered over him. He threw a twenty to the driver and got out. It was early afternoon, but down here in the stone canyons, shadows darkened everything to shades of blue and made it seem closer to evening.

  Rachel was waiting for him in a corner booth. He slid into the seat opposite, giving her a smile. “Long time, no see.”

  She made a face. “Jesus, you have a tan. How the hell did you get a tan?” Without further ado, she half rose and reached over the table to hug him. He tilted his head back to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Missed me, huh?”

  After regaining her seat, she said, “Tell me everything, and don’t leave out any of the tawdry details.”

  So he did, and while he talked, they ordered drinks and lunch for Rachel, and when it came, she ate and Artemis kept talking. When he got to the part where he watched Talis fuck Trey, he blithely skipped over his own orgasm, concentrating on what he’d seen happen between the two men.

  “There was an exchange of energy, a swirl of color from them both that comingled, combined, and then flowed into Talis’s body. It was the single most gorgeous, awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen… except afterward, Trey was dead.”

  Rachel licked her lips, eyes wide. “But he didn’t kill him. He asked and then received. Do I have that right?”

  Artemis popped one of her fries into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Yeah. That’s essentially it.” It all seemed like a dream now, some parts vivid and drenched in color while other parts slipped through his mental processes like water through a sieve.

  “You realize this sounds like complete bullshit.” She ate the last bite of her burger and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I realize. Think I’ll have trouble convincing the task force to back off Talis?”

  “I think when you try to explain he’s an actual phoenix, and the only one in existence, they’re going to have you committed.”

  “I figured as much.” Huffing out a sigh, he slouched, elbow on the table, and rested his head on the heel of his hand. “I feel… protective of him. How’s that for insane?”

  Squinting at him, she leaned closer, searching his eyes. “Holy shit, you’re in love.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  Swinging sideways, she slid back against the wall and stretched one long leg across the seat. “If he’s as powerful as you’ve led me to believe, he can take care of himself.”

  “He can, but it’d be easier to do his job if Interpol wasn’t trying to chase him down.”

  Rachel raised her hand to the bartender, who nodded and sent her over a second beer. “This job is turning me into an alcoholic, ya know that?”

  Artemis ignored that; Rachel hardly drank at all, which was rare for a cop. The fact that she was doing it now, while on duty, indicated how troubled she was over what had happened to him. “When I was with Talis, I felt… influenced.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

  “The phoenix puts out this scent that sort of clouds the mind, makes you happy, like there’s nothing but good in the world. Talis emits something altogether different. Remember when you interviewed him at the Waldorf?”

  “Distinctly. What I felt was more akin to lust than quiet joy.”

  “Thateffect is peculiar to Talis. The Phoenix, well, he’s much more ‘monastery gardens’, if you know what I mean. Between them both, I needed to get away in order to know what I really felt about everything. About him.” He drank his beer. “I’ve been back, what, three hours? Four? Shit, all I can think about is being with him again.”

  She smiled. “I’m happy for you, even though it means I’m losing a partner and gaining… Christ knowswhat I’ll be getting. Some green-behind-the-ears rookie who’l
l insist on drooling all over me, I suppose. Thanks a lot, Artemis.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he’ll be gay. Maybe it’ll be a woman. I have every confidence you will put whoever it is in their place in the first thirty seconds, and thereafter, they’ll forever be your slave.”

  “From your mouth to, well, you know. I think I’m starting to get a little looped. Shall I go for number three?”

  “Why not?” Artemis decided on a second beer and considered his options. “I think… a little show and tell might be in order. Is Blackstone still around?”

  “She went back to England the day you vanished. Why?

  “Set up a task force meeting while I make a call, and let’s see if we can get Liz on speakerphone.”

  AT THE precinct, Rachel continued to Numbnuts’s office while Artemis went straight to Sherlock Jones’s lab, where the tech was sitting on his usual stool, one eye locked to the microscope. He wore his usual skinny jeans and striped shirt under the ubiquitous white lab coat.

  “Sherlock, I need the feather from Donny Carlson’s crime scene.”

  Jones sat up and gave him a look as he put on his black-rimmed glasses. “Aren’t you being held hostage somewhere?”

  “Does it looklike I’m being held hostage?” He glanced around the cluttered lab. “Feather?”

  Sherlock went to his files, pawed around, and returned with a plastic bag. Handing it to Artemis, he said, “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Prove a point. Coming to the meeting?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  In the conference room, twenty people awaited him with varying degrees of impatience. Numbnuts scowled as Artemis walked past him to the whiteboard. Rachel, in the front row, grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. She looked only the slightest bit intoxicated. Doc Nolan sat calmly on the aisle, legs crossed, no doubt wondering why he’d been invited. Sherlock grabbed a seat next to Rachel. The others present were detectives and beat cops.

  Artemis smiled. “Nice to be back.” His eyes met Rachel’s. “Is Liz Blackstone present?”

  “Yes, via Skype.”