The Brethren - Dark Thirst Part 4

"What about the others?" Lina asked.

They had reached a large, fenced enclosure that housed a family of timber wolves. The exhibit had been landscaped with tall gra.s.s and dense underbrush to provide as natural a habitat as possible for the animals, and Brandon had to look carefully before finding any signs of them as they lay tucked and nestled in the shade beneath a thick growth of trees.

Wolves are highly social animals, the placard in front of the exhibit read. They spend their entire lives in organized packs of two to twelve individuals. The social structure within these close-knit communities is a strict hierarchy based on the dominance of the strongest, or "alpha," male. Younger members must constantly a.s.sert themselves in order to improve their status among the pack hierarchy.

Sounds like home, he thought.

"You said you had an older brother?" Lina asked.

Caine, he signed, but gave no corresponding pet sign to accompany the mention. He had nothing fond to offer his brother, by way of reference or otherwise. My brother's name is Caine. He was willing to let it lie from there, but he could feel her eyes on him, and knew she waited for something more.

Brandon couldn't remember a time when Caine had been anything but cruel or malicious toward him. Even in childhood, Caine had seemed to derive a s.a.d.i.s.tic sort of glee from tormenting his younger siblings, and Brandon in particular. "You'd better keep from trouble, or the Grandfather will toss you down into the Beneath," he'd say, with a wicked grin and a mean glint in his dark, narrow eyes. "The Abomination lives there and it will eat you, liver, lights, and all."

"He's lying," Tessa would tell Brandon, but despite her brave words, there had always been fear and uncertainty in her eyes.

"There's nothing down there but the wine cellar and lots of old, moldy boxes."

Caine had tried to frighten their youngest brother, Daniel, with those same stories years later, but Brandon had intervened.

Stop it, Caine, he'd written on a page from the notebook he wore around his neck.

Caine hadn't even looked at this angry note as Brandon had shoved it toward him. He'd locked gazes with Brandon, his coal- black eyes glittering, and had deliberately crumpled it in his fist, unread.

"They say the Abomination is ancient," he said, cutting a glance toward Daniel. "The first one of us, born at the dawn of all things, and having roamed the earth for all of the millennia since."

Shut up, Caine, Brandon wrote, ripping the paper loose and thrusting it at his brother. He put his arm around Daniel's small shoulders and turned him about, ushering him away, but Caine followed, stepping deliberately into their path to block their way, and again, crushing Brandon's note in his hand, tossing it to the floor.

"It's long-since gone mad down there in the Beneath," he told Daniel, who shied behind Brandon's hips, his . eyes round and frightened. "It creeps around in the darkness, scrabbling and scratching at the dirt, living off the blood of rats. It-"

Brandon seized Caine by the throat, shoving him backward, smashing him against the wall. He held him pinned there, gazes locked, but Caine had simply found his effort amusing. "Will I one day tell stories about you creeping about in the Beneath, little brother?" he asked, the corner of his broad, thin mouth hooking wryly. "That's where the Grandfather thinks you belong. Will it be your turn soon to drain the life from vermin to sustain yourself, your mind broken, the rest of eternity spent in darkness and madness?"

Brandon had shoved his hand directly in front of Caine's face, his middle finger upthrust. It was a gesture even Caine, ignorant of sign language, could understand. f.u.c.k you, Caine.

Caine had only laughed at him. Daniel had begun to cry when Caine walked away, and Brandon knelt before his youngest brother, cupping Daniel's face between his hands.

"I don't want the Grandfather to put you in the Beneath, Brandon!" Daniel had cried, his face flushed, his voice hiccupping with tears.

Brandon had stroked Daniel's dark hair back from his face and smiled at him. He won't Daniel, he'd thought to his brother, because Daniel's mind was always opened to him. I promise.

Daniel had thrown his arms around Brandon's neck, and Brandon had lifted him against him as he stood, easily bearing the little boy's slight and insignificant weight as he wrapped his legs around Brandon's waist. Brandon couldn't hear him, but could tell he was still crying by the gasping breaths he took against Brandon's neck and the way he trembled against him. Brandon had turned and realized to his start that Tessa stood in the parlor doorway behind them. She'd heard every word Caine had uttered, but still she had said nothing. Brandon locked gazes with her, his brows furrowed. f.u.c.k you, too, Tessa, he'd thought, and he'd walked away.

Caine and I are not particularly close, he signed to Lina as they stood together in front of the wolf pen at the zoo.

"I gathered that, yes," she said with a nod. "Any particular reason?"

He shook his head. How could he tell her? Caine hates me because I'm not like him, he thought. I'm weaker than he is, different somehow. I'm not like any of the others, none of the Brethren and they hate me for it. I constantly remind them that none of them are nearly as perfect as they like to think they are, that we have vulnerabilities, too, just like humans-and that scares the h.e.l.l out of them.

He moved his hands, palms up, fingers spread, sweeping them first upward and then down toward the ground. I don't want to talk about it.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, effectively ending his side of the conversation, and turned, walking away from the wolves.

They spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo, and then strolled together through the neighboring Water Tower Park. This expanse of rolling hillocks, shaded tree groves, and winding footpaths surrounded an enormous water tower with a white limestone facade fashioned to resemble Greco-Roman architecture. The top of the tower was crowned with statuary-nine women looking out across the city, the Muses from Greek mythology, Lina explained.

"My mom used to bring me and Jackie here every summer for day camp," she said, smiling somewhat wistfully as they walked along. "She couldn't ever afford to send us to a real camp, the sleep-away kind, but I never minded. I loved it here. I learned to play basketball at those courts right over there..." She pointed. "That's where I got one of my nicknames, Hoops." Hoops, he finger-spelled, wanting to be sure he hadn't misunderstood her.

She laughed, looking embarra.s.sed. "Yeah," she said. "I can't remember who started that. I think it was Dewaine Cosier. He had the biggest thing for me. And I was always whipping his a.s.s at H-O-R-S-E."

Can't imagine that, he signed, and she laughed. "The river is over that way..." she pointed. "And my mom used to work right over there." She pointed again, this time to an enormous building in the distance, across the street from the park. It was just barely visible over the tops of the trees. "Memorial General Hospital. She'd drop us off every morning on her way to work, and pick us up again in the afternoon coming home. She worked there her entire career, can you believe it? The whole time she was a nurse, until she retired. You can still go in that building and find people who know Latisha Jones. Everybody loved her."

Her smile faltered, and in his mind, Brandon could sense a sort of melancholy shadow fall upon her. He touched her arm to draw her gaze, and signed, They told me at St. Bartholomew's that she's sick. That's why Jackson went to Florida.

Lina nodded. "Breast cancer," she said. "She had surgery to remove it, and I got to be there for that. She starts her chemotherapy this week. I... I'm glad Jackie can be with her."

I should be, too, she thought, and Brandon heard this in his mind. He sensed Una's thought distinctly-and all of the sorrow, shame, and remorse that came with it. It was the first time in his life that he had ever unintentionally overheard someone else's thoughts. It was a telepathic ability he hadn't realized he possessed, something so unexpected and seemingly impossible, he wondered if it had really happened at all.

She looked at him and feigned a smile he knew she didn't feel because, to his amazement, he could sense this, too, as plainly as he had her thoughts. "But Mom will be alright. She keeps telling me that. And I keep trying to believe her."

He didn't miss that her eyes had glossed suddenly with tears or that she blinked furiously down at her feet, still forcing a smile as she tried to hide them. Her sorrow punched straight through any incredulity he felt at that momentary awareness of her thoughts, and he felt immediately ashamed of himself for his own selfish wonder.

The Brethren were unaffected by cancer. Their metabolisms and healing capacities were so far accelerated beyond those of humans that nothing short of immediate, cataclysmic trauma-like a bullet to the head, or the stereotypical stake through the heart-could kill them. Any other ailments were dispatched of by their heightened immune systems before any ill effects could be had.

I wish I could share that with her, Brandon thought, likely the only time he'd ever wished the curse of being one of the Brethren upon anyone else. If I could give that to your mother, Lina, I would.

Come on, she signed, beckoning with her hand so that she didn't have to look up at him. Let's get out of here. I'm starved.

She promised him pizza for supper, because apparently, the city had a signature style that was known and renowned and was by no means the variety to which he was accustomed. "Oh, my G.o.d!" she'd exclaimed, when he'd told her, sure, he'd had pizza before. He might not have realized a person paid daily not weekly for parking in the city, but he'd grown up on a farm, not the moon. Papa John's will deliver anywhere if you pay them enough, he'd signed.

"That's not pizza," Lina had said, and then she'd promptly hailed a cab. "That's it. We're going to Danny O's." He'd finger-spelled the name back to her, and she'd nodded. "You'll need a knife and a fork and a pitcher of beer for this, at least," she'd offered with a conspiratorial wink. "And probably two of each."

Along the way, she'd leaned forward, tapping on the plexigla.s.s separating the driver and the backseat of the cab. He watched her mouth move in profile, unable to decipher what she was saying. He glanced down at her a.s.s, admiring the way the wasteband of her sweatpants fell even lower when she was sitting, and how he had a fairly nice glimpse of the top of her tan- colored nylon panties. Obviously, Lina liked thongs, a realization that left him fidgeting in his seat, and sudden, dim warmth stirring in both his groin and mouth.Oh, s.h.i.t. He glanced at his watch. He was due to take his Wellbutrin again. He'd brought it with him this time, not wanting to risk another incident like the kiss earlier. He shifted his weight, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small packet of foil. He'd hoped he could take the pills without Lina's notice, but she turned at the sound as he ripped back the foil, and watched him dry- pop the tablets.

"What's that?" she asked.

Oh, s.h.i.t.

It's... medicine, he said, taking the middle finger of his right hand and rubbing it in small circles against his left palm, a sign reminiscent of an old-fashioned medicinal mortar and pestle. For my hands. They still hurt me sometimes.

Her brow rose. "Still? What happened?"

Nothing, he signed, cupping both hands into O-shapes and then pushing them lightly outward, opening his fingers. He noticed the cab driver watching him curiously through the rearview mirror. He'd been doing that all along, ever since they'd climbed into the cab and Brandon had started signing. Brandon shook his head at Lina, uncomfortable with the audience and wanting to abandon the entire topic. It's nothing.

They made a stop along the way to the pizzeria. Brandon felt a peculiar shiver stir the hairs along the nape of his neck as the cab pulled to a halt in front of a large building. He peered through the window, up at the building's looming, stern, black-stone facade and the feeling only mounted, a strange and not entirely unfamiliar sensation, as if someone whispered lightly inside his mind. It was faint, indistinct, but unmistakable still the same.

Someone is here, he thought, his eyes widening, his throat suddenly constricting. Oh, Jesus. One of the Brethren is nearby- close enough for me to sense them.

He turned to Lina in alarm, and gasped sharply as she got out of the car. What is she doing? he thought, his heart suddenly hammering. Lina, come back! We have to go! Jesus Christ-they're here!

He tried to open the door, hooking his hand desperately against the release and shoving his shoulder against the window. He blinked in bewildered fright as nothing happened, and looked frantically toward the driver.

"Forget it, kid," the driver told him, his lips flapping in the rearview mirror. "I'm not letting both of you out so you can stiff me on a fare."

But you don't understand! Brandon wanted to cry to him. He whirled again, pressing his hands against the gla.s.s. Lina! Lina, please, you don't understand! They followed me here! They found me-we have to go!

He watched in mute, helpless horror as she thumbed the panel of an exterior intercom box, trying to reach someone inside the building. Apparently, she wasn't having much luck, because she turned after a moment and walked back to the car.

"Oh, well," she said, sitting down and closing the door. "He's not home. My partner. Well, he's my former partner, anyway, but he..." Her bright smile faltered, her brows lifting in concern. "What is it?" she asked, noticing his ashen pallor, his distressed expression. "Brandon, what's wrong?"

The cab was moving again, pulling away from the black building. As it did, the sensation within Brandon's mind, faint to begin with, began to dwindle all the more. He pressed the heel of his hand against his brow and frowned, turning to look behind him toward the building. I... I must have been imagining things, he thought. That has to be it. I'm jumping at shadows. If it had been the Brethren, they would have sensed me, too. They would have come for me, taken me.

"Brandon?" Lina said, touching his hand, making him jump, wide eyed and startled. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Brandon glanced toward the rearview mirror, and found the cab driver watching him again, his thick eyebrows drawn, his eyes narrowed. G.o.dd.a.m.n freaky kid. Brandon heard his thoughts plainly. If he hadn't been so unnerved by what had just happened, the peculiar sensations that were now fading in his mind, Brandon might have been more astounded by this. Probably strung out on drugs, the man thought. Hyped up on meth or some s.h.i.t.

If only you knew half of it, mister, Brandon thought and then he signed to Lina, touching his thumb to his chest and wiggling his fingers quickly, briefly. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.

Chapter Six.

Danny O's was a small, smoke-filled pizzeria and pub, close enough to Metropolitan University to be packed to overflowing capacity that night with students eager to party. Lina held Brandon's hand as they ducked together through the throng.

The main bar area was absolutely crammed. She could hear the m.u.f.fled refrains of live music coming from the far end of the room. She shouldered and jostled her way toward the adjacent room, where she hoped they might find a free table or booth from which to order pizza. In nothing short of blind good fortune, they stumbled past a booth just as a group of four guys, all already drunk and stumbling, abandoned it.

"Hey, girl," one of them said as he eased past her, eyeing her up and down, brushing entirely too closely for her liking. His hand slipped against her, sliding along her arm, reaching nonchalantly for her breast. Just as she moved to jerk back to swat his hand away, she caught a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye, and then the young man cried out sharply, dropping to his knees.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" he gasped, his voice shrill and breathless as Brandon held him pinned in a wrist hold.

I didn't even see him coming, she thought in amazement. How in the h.e.l.l did he move so fast?

"Hey, get your f.u.c.king hand off him, a.s.shole," one of the other guys said, stepping toward Brandon, his fists bared. These were big, strapping guys, the kind who looked like they spent more time at the gym than attending cla.s.ses, and Lina was immediately alarmed.

Oh, we do not need this. We do not need a G.o.dd.a.m.n bar brawl...!

"What are you, deaf?" the guy said, reaching out and slapping one large, heavy hand against Brandon's shoulder. "I said get your f.u.c.king-"

Brandon's free hand shot out, clamping against the man's broad throat, crushing hard enough to snuff the words from his mouth.

The guy's eyes bulged from their sockets and he uttered a breathless squawk as his face grew abruptly, alarmingly flushed.

"Brandon," Lina said, reaching for him. Jesus Christ, these guys outweigh him by a good thirty pounds each! How is he doing this? "Brandon, let them go."

None of the other young men came to their friends' aid. They drew back, their eyes suddenly wide and hesitant. Lina touched Brandon's shoulder, and he whipped his head around to look at her. The severity in his gaze, the frightening, hardened look startled her, and she drew back uncertainly. G.o.d, what's wrong with his eyes? It looked as though his irises had grown, expanded somehow, nearly drowning his eyes completely in darkness. Brandon, she signed, her hands trembling. Please let them go.

He blinked at her, and his expression softened. All at once, his eyes looked normal again, and he glanced toward the two young men, opening his hands, releasing them. He stepped back, eyeing them warily, folding his hands into light, ready fists.

"Jesus, man, what's your problem?" the guy with the injured wrist whined as his friends helped him stagger to his feet. "You're f.u.c.king nuts, you know that?"

The other couldn't speak yet; he clutched at his throat and uttered hoa.r.s.e, gagging sounds as he struggled to reclaim his breath.

Both of them leaned heavily against their companions as they shoved a path through the crowd toward the exit.

Lina and Brandon stood beside the empty booth. The momentary commotion had attracted a small circ.u.mference of nearby curious onlookers, but now that the tension had dissolved, so too had their audience. What the h.e.l.l was that? she signed. She kept looking at his eyes. I must have been imagining things, she thought. The way his irises had seemed to grow.

He shrugged somewhat sheepishly, and forked his fingers through his hair. Aikido, he finger-spelled, and Lina frowned.

Bulls.h.i.t, she thought. Brandon might have used aikido maneuvers, at least in the wrist lock, but that didn't explain what had just happened. It doesn't even begin to, she thought.

He was trying to feel you up, Brandon signed pointedly, and her frown deepened.

I can take care of myself, she signed back, her movements sharp and stern. Don't do that again, do you understand? You can't just walk around wrist locking people. This is the city, Brandon, not the Bluegra.s.s backwaters. You're going to get yourself in some serious s.h.i.t.

He blinked at her, abashed. I'm sorry, he signed.

Two hours and twice that many beers apiece later, the incident with the college guys was pretty much forgotten. A large pizza with all the works-fondly dubbed an "Around the World" special at Danny O's-sat virtually untouched between them.

"When I was growing up, I didn't feel a part of anything really," Lina told Brandon. They were leaning in toward each other, each with one hand draped against the table, their knuckles nearly brushing. She was pleased to see that the alcohol had helped Brandon loosen up a bit, his restrained, reserved facade softening. His smiles came more readily and less guarded, his posture relaxed. Every once in a while, he would take the tip of his fore-finger and run it lightly, almost shyly against the back of her hand, making her smile.

Why? he asked, touching his fingertips to his forehead and then drawing them down, forming the sign-alphabet letter Y in inquiry.

"My mom was h.e.l.l bent that Jackie and I weren't going to grow up g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers in a ghetto somewhere," Lina said. "She busted her a.s.s pulling double shifts at the hospital, then working holidays and weekends at a clinic over in Smoketown. All so we could live in the suburbs. And it worked. Neither one of us wound up in gangs or doing drugs. Everyone thought we were too white."

She laughed, because sometimes even hurtful things could be amusing in retrospect. "The only problem was, the white kids didn't want much to do with us either. Even though we went to their schools and lived in their neighborhood, we were still black. We were still different."

She had uncurled her fingers and watched as he did the same. Their fingertips brushed lightly together before hooking briefly, gently.

"My mom's uncle had red hair and blue eyes," she said, and when he blinked in surprise, she nodded. "He wasn't white. It was just something latent in the genes, Mom said. I remember her telling me when she was a little girl, people would come to the house and want to know who the white man was in their living room. And when the circus would come through town, Mom said she couldn't go, because blacks weren't allowed-but her uncle would take my mom's two older cousins with him and go, because they all looked white. n.o.body could tell the difference, at least, not in the dark under a circus tent." She smiled sadly.

"Sometimes when I was a little girl, I wished I could pa.s.s for white, too. Then at least, I'd feel like I belong somewhere."

He slipped his hand away from hers to sign. How about now?"Now I don't give a s.h.i.t," she said, laughing, taking a sip of beer. "Now I don't think of myself as black or white. I'm blue. You know, the police uniform."

He smiled and she laughed again. So how'd that happen? he asked.

She shrugged. "How'd I wind up a cop? It was that or be a nurse, like my mom. And since I couldn't pa.s.s chemistry, which I would have needed for nursing school, I majored in law enforcement." She drained the last of her mug dry and glanced about for the waitress, signaling for another. "Plus my grandpa was a cop. He retired after thirty-some-odd years on the force. My mom's the youngest of five kids, all of them girls but one, and my uncle, Francis, was killed in Vietnam. So because there were no sons to carry on the family tradition, and Jackie couldn't do it because of his ears, it kind of fell to me." She smiled. "I don't mind. It's a good job. I like what I do. I'm good at it."

Have you ever killed anyone? he asked, and her smile faltered, her mind cutting back to that terrible night on the fire escape, to Rene's face twisted with pain, and the buck of the pistol against her palm as she opened fire.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I did. Once."

I couldn't do that, Brandon said. I couldn't kill someone.

"Sure you could," she said, her eyes distant, Rene's anguished cries still echoing in her head. "Sometimes people have it coming."