Deep Fire Rising

NEW YORK CITY

The SoHo loft was on an upper story that allowed golden light to stream through the tall, arched, cast iron framed windows. The bright rays made the wooden floor look aflame. The walls were exposed brick and the furniture was kept to a minimum — a futon couch, a low table, several large pillows strewn haphazardly about. The loft was one large room. The bathroom, with its stand-up shower, was screened by swatches of fabric hanging from the high ceiling. The kitchen was little more than a nook smaller than the galley on a modest sailboat.

The figure posing in the middle of the room was covered in sweat. The thermostat was at maximum. She stood on a thin mat, her back arched until her fingertips brushed the floor behind her. She was completely nude, and her small breasts shifted as she stretched. She bent farther and could press her knuckles to the mat. She flexed the supple muscles in one leg and slowly raised it, shifting her weight to her hands. She balanced on her fingers, her body completely still, not a tremor or any other outward sign of exertion. After holding there for several seconds, she continued to slowly ease her leg around until it slid between her arms and she settled on the mat in a gymnast’s split. She bent forward, resting her head on her slick thigh.

Her next move was to scissor her legs together, arch herself once again and slowly somersault back to her feet, her cheek pressed to her knees. She’d been practicing for an hour, yet her sweat smelled clean and sweet.

She dropped back to a split, rotated her leg around so both were in front of her, then lifted her backside from the floor with her knuckles. When she had enough clearance, she tucked her legs against her chest and used the flat muscles of her stomach to rotate around her arms and press herself into another handstand. And then she scissored her legs in a violent maneuver at the same time she allowed her pose to collapse. She landed flat on the floor, both heels touching the back of her head, her body as taut as a finely drawn bow.

“I would almost think you were doing this for my benefit, Tisa.”

She dropped with a start and quickly reached for the silk robe thrown over the futon. She hadn’t heard him enter the apartment. She recognized the voice immediately, the softly affectionate tone. Her cheeks burned with shame. She stood facing away from him and pulled the robe tighter around her body She slipped her glasses from the pocket before turning to him. The man at the door was three years older than she but looked like her twin. Yet where her mouth was sensual, his looked petulant. Her wide eyes were inviting; on him they held an insolent cast. Where she was demure, he looked emboldened and arrogant. She would have preferred being spied on by a stranger rather than her half brother, Luc.

“I remember watching you practice when you were a child. The things you could make your little body do.”

The way he spoke made Tisa’s flesh crawl. His voice lacked the fraternal pride of an older brother. Instead it was tainted with the wistful lament of a former lover. In his eyes she saw he wasn’t remembering her hours of yoga and contortion practice. Another memory lurked there, one that he brought up with disturbing frequency. Despite herself, her glance drifted down. His black slacks were made of thin material and did nothing to hide his arousal. He must have been watching her for some time.

When her eyes returned to his face, his smile was lupine. He took a cautious step toward her. “You think about it too, don’t you?”

Tisa shuddered with disgust but refused to step back. “We were children, Luc.”

“I knew what I was doing,” he said tenderly. “I was fifteen. I compare every woman I’ve been with since to you. Just that one time together has spoiled them all for me.”

They were living in Paris with her mother when it happened. Tisa’s father hadn’t protested the end of his second marriage or that she was taking their daughter and his teenage son. He had become obsessed with his work and wouldn’t see his family for months at a time, even though they lived in the same isolated village in the Himalayas. Tisa’s mother had come to the village of Rinpoche-La, Jewel Pass, from France, where she’d been recruited into the Order as a young woman. Though ostracized in Tibet for abandoning her husband, whom many saw as divine, she had enough family and friends in Paris to help support her return. They had settled in an airy apartment above a yoga studio on the Left Bank. The owner knew of Tisa and Luc’s father and refused to accept payment for the apartment.

Tisa had always known of her father’s importance in their village and in the ancient monastery that dominated the head of the isolated valley, but the landlord’s donation had been the first time she knew of his influence so far from home. And it was her first taste of the scope of the organization she had been born to.

Looking back, Tisa realized her older brother had had a better understanding of the Order. He had quickly adjusted to their life in France, enjoying the entree his father’s name gave within certain circles. In just a year he’d learned colloquial French, and begun to avail himself to some of the younger female disciples who’d taken to using the yoga studio as a meeting place. Although Luc had yet to be schooled in the full scope and intent of the Order, he knew enough to impress the naïve.

Tisa had been home alone one afternoon following school. Her mother was working as a translator at the time. Her children had inherited their ear for language from her. Tisa spoke three languages by then, Luc five and their mother seven. She’d been in her bedroom. It was summer and there was no breeze. In the sweltering heat, she wore panties and an overly large T-shirt emblazoned with the image of the latest teen pop sensation.

Luc came into the room and silently draped a damp towel across the back of Tisa’s legs as she lay on the bed doing her homework. Startled at first, she allowed him to remain, grateful for the towel’s cooling effect. This had been a week of record heat in the city, the highest temperatures either had ever experienced. His hand rested on her hip.

At first they talked about nothing in particular, but soon they returned to the topic that had fascinated them since her mother had taken them away: their father. They had spent hours speculating about the real nature of his work. They suspected he was some kind of freedom fighter who had come from Vietnam to Tibet to liberate the people from the Chinese. To spice their hypothesis were rumors about mystical powers he controlled. Neither knew where the tales had come from, but there had always been whispers about the things he could do.

So on that boiling afternoon, they talked again, embellishing stories they’d told each other a hundred times before, both secretly thrilled to be part of the legend they’d built around their father. After all, they were part of whatever destiny awaited him. Luc spoke about how they were different from the fringe members of the Order who gathered at the studio, and how everyone could sense it. People who visited often talked about how special they were. He asked if Tisa could sense it too. Ever since arriving in France she had felt people treated her with deference and respect she hadn’t earned but had rather been born to. She and Luc were set apart from the rest, placed higher in a hierarchy no one really understood. His hand moved farther up her hip, almost to her buttocks.

They’d shared so much together, he’d said, recalling the one night they’d sneaked into the huge monastery rising from the cliffs above the ancient Tibetan town. There they’d seen the vault of old books with their embossed wax seals and overheard two monks talking about something they called the Navel of the World. He talked about how they’d swum as kids in the hot springs below the village, enveloped in fragrant steam with snowcapped mountains looming over them like gods. He reminded her how they’d named the mountains for animals. And he reminded her about the time she had come into his bed one night when a freak storm had settled in their secluded valley and thunder echoed so loudly she was sure the mountains were going to explode. He’d held her for hours, he said, drying her tears with the hem of his nightshirt.

He said he’d always been there for her, no matter what. Hadn’t he made their move to France so much easier? His fingers were kneading her flesh by now. Tisa had remained still during the entire talk, aware of his hand, but so lonely for their village that his touch was a reminder of home. He seemed to know what she was thinking. He bent close. “I miss it too,” he whispered in her ear, and allowed his mouth to linger near her neck.

The rest of the memory had been expunged from Tisa’s mind. It had taken years, but she truly didn’t remember how far they had gone that sultry afternoon. That deep and dangerous form of denial was the only way she saw she could get around the shame without telling anyone. And that was something she wouldn’t, couldn’t, do.

“What are you doing here, Luc?” Tisa stepped away from him.

His smile faded. “I should ask you the same question.”

“I’ve got every right to use this apartment. It belongs to the Order.”

“I’m not talking about the apartment. I’m talking about why you’re even in the United States. I thought you were home.”

“I haven’t been there in months.” Tisa moved behind the bathroom screen to slide into a pair of baggy sweatpants. She left the robe around her torso because the only top she had handy was a sports bra.

“In New York the whole time?” Luc asked. It sounded like he’d moved into the kitchen.

“I came through Los Angeles. I met with some of our people there to talk about the San Bernardino earthquake.”

“That quake was months ago. What more could you possibly have to talk about?”

Tisa stepped out of the bathroom. Her body felt sticky with sweat and her muscles protested because she hadn’t had a proper cooldown. “I wanted the revised fault slippage numbers. Our estimates were off by almost a meter, and if you paid attention to our real mission you’d know that the oracle’s time retrogression has grown another eleven minutes across all of North America.”

Luc acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “And you came straight here? Didn’t stop along the way?” He was roaming around the apartment like a caged animal, a sleek predatory cat. He moved lightly, possessing the effortlessness of a dancer.

Tisa tugged at her robe. He knew. “No, I came right here. I’m going to Greece in a couple of days and wanted to wait in New York rather than L.A.”

“Because I was in Las Vegas with some of our people and someone swears they saw you at the wheel of a BMW with Philip Mercer.”

“How could I do that?” she protested too quickly. “I’ve never even met him.”

Luc laughed, all pretense of civility gone. “I think you have met him. I think you followed me to Las Vegas and helped him escape. I think if I could prove it, I’d have you killed for interference.”

“Interference?” Tisa shot back, ignoring his empty threat. “Interference with what? You weren’t authorized to go to Las Vegas in the first place.”

“I don’t need authorization.”

“When you wear the Lama’s blue robe, you can make decisions, Luc. Until then you are under his authority.”

He threw himself onto the futon. “Screw the Lama. I don’t need him anymore. None of us do. Watchers stuck on the sidelines. That’s all he wants us to be. We should help shape the world. That is our true destiny.”

“We are watchers. That is what we’ve been for a hundred and fifty years. Even you must see the consequences if we change our role.”

“And you didn’t try to change your passive role when you contacted Mercer in Las Vegas?”

“What were you doing there?” Tisa dodged.

“Investigating a seismic disturbance,” he said smugly. “Same as you do all the time.”

To confront her brother further, Tisa would be forced to admit her efforts at the Luxor Hotel. “You weren’t supposed to be there,” she said lamely. “We have chroniclers in California that could have gone to the epicenter.”

“The epicenter was in the middle of a secure government facility, dear girl. They wouldn’t have gotten close. This is one I had to do.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. And I’m not your ‘dear girl.’ ”

“You were once.”

“Stop it,” she spat. Her hair was plastered to her head and her temperature was rising. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She wiped moisture from her glasses. “Tell me why you’re here.”

He stood, his tone turning sharp, his volatile temper showing through. “To give you a warning. You just reminded me about noninterference. I think you’d better take your own advice. I know it was you at the hotel. You had better not try to warn Mercer about what is going to happen. Not that there is anything he can do to stop it, but we’ve survived for a century and a half by not telling the world what we know. You don’t have the right to do it now.”

“And you have a right to try to kill him?” she shot back. Then softly, trying to calm him, she said, “That’s not in our power.” Her words only enraged him further.

“It will be!” He was screaming now, almost out of control. “That’s what you and the rest never understood. We’ve watched the planet tear itself apart when we could have stepped in and prevented it. We have the power of life and death over billions of people, only we’ve been too timid to use it. No more. Very soon the world will know what we know, and they will give us whatever we want to protect them. Millions are going to die, but afterward we will reveal the truth and how the survivors can be saved. Don’t you understand? We will be the prophets of a new religion. We will be worshipped.”

“Then we should tell them now,” Tisa pleaded. “You want to be worshipped? Help me tell the world what’s coming. We can prove it to them before so many die needlessly. You will be given all the power you want.”

Luc dropped his head, his body rigid. Tisa could sense his indecision. He wasn’t an evil person. He was simply torn between what they’d been taught and what they knew was right. He didn’t want those people to die, but he needed a grand gesture so those left behind would believe him. He was acting out of fear that if there wasn’t a significant demonstration he’d be ridiculed. It was the same reason she wanted Mercer with her on Santorini — so he could witness what she’d known for years.

“We can do it,” she cajoled. “There are other ways, other scientists we can approach. We can show them our evidence, the chronicles. We can save millions of innocent people.” She swallowed her revulsion. “You and I together, Luc, just like you’ve always wanted.”

He looked up. She’d gone too far. She was trying to use his unnatural attraction to seduce his emotions and it had backfired.

His eyes burned. “Bitch.”

“No, Luc, just your little sister.”

This time he turned away. “It should have been, Tisa, but it’s too late. I came to tell you to drop it. Don’t contact Mercer again. I’m letting you live because I love you. I mean I really love you.”

“If you loved me, you’d stop this.”

“I can’t. This is my destiny. I know that now. I alone understand the necessity of sacrifice. It’s been my entire life.”

“It’s been our life. Don’t you see that? We are in this together. We always have been.” She was desperate, willing to try any lie to get her brother to stop.

He moved to the door. “I gave you a chance to be together. You rejected it. Now I give you a warning. Don’t ignore it. I will crush you and anyone you ask for help.” He paused. “When it is over, I will try to find you.”

She held his gaze so he’d know she wasn’t bluffing. “If it really does happen, Luc, I’ll make sure I don’t survive. There’s no place for me in the world you want to create.”

“That’s what it is, isn’t it? Creation.”

He closed the door. Tisa collapsed onto her yoga mat. Creation, he called it. The single greatest calamity in human history and he saw it as an act of birth. She’d known for years her brother was unstable, but now she saw he was dangerously psychotic. She thought he wasn’t evil, but she was wrong. He was and she could only pray she could stop him in time.

She slumped, burying her face in her hands.

Outside the apartment building, Donny Randall stood like a rock in the river of people negotiating the narrow sidewalk. With his thick arms crossed over his chest, he forced pedestrians to either skirt next to the building or step into the street, where traffic crawled bumper to bumper. He seemed to be enjoying the glares he received, but was disappointed no one tried to confront him. Luc walked past him without acknowledging the giant. Donny fell in step.

“What happened?” Randall asked after half a block.

“It was her, all right. I was upstairs when that car rescued Mercer at the Luxor. I never saw the driver, but Pran was certain it was her. I’m sure now too.”

“Then we should go back and take care of her. Uh, unless you already did?”

“Shut up, you moron,” Luc snapped. “She’s not to be touched.”

Donny bristled. Luc Nguyen was paying him more than he’d ever made working as a miner, but he didn’t like the little half-breed and wasn’t going to take his crap. “Watch who you’re calling a moron. One phone call and I can blow your entire operation.”

Luc didn’t change his gait, didn’t seem to do anything other than walk, but suddenly Donny was sprawled on the sidewalk, the impact with the cement absorbed by a suitcase set on legs where a grifter sold counterfeit Rolexes. The watches flew in one direction while the young Ethiopian immigrant went in the other.

Luc paused to help the big man regain his feet. “Sorry about that, Don. That was uncalled for on my part. I wasn’t thinking.”

Donny massaged the spot where his hip had hit the sidewalk, impressed rather than angry. “How did you…? Never mind. Some of that kung fu stuff, huh?”

“Something like that, though it predates most martial arts by centuries. My father taught it to me when I was a boy.”

They began to walk again. “Ah, listen,” Donny said, now trying to impress his new employer with his towering intellect. “You know your sister can still be a problem. We don’t have to kill her or nothing, but maybe we should be careful about her.”

“Don’t worry. I know where she’s going. And I think I know who she’s meeting.” He liked the symmetry of being able to kill Mercer at the same time he took Tisa home to wait out the coming chaos.

What would come afterward sent a shiver through his body. In the world that followed, Tisa would soon recognize the need for the sacrifice about to occur and why he’d let it happen. She would then see his greatness as he worked to save the rest of humanity from the very planet they called home. She would slowly come to worship him. And then they would be together in the way he’d wanted since childhood.