by Sunny
"Yes, I know. Even more reason," I said, remembering the thick woods behind Thaddeus's house.
A young nurse entered the room. "Did you need anything?" she inquired.
"Yes," I replied, taking charge. "I'm Thaddeus's sister. I'd like to sign him out of the hospital and take him home now."
"Oh. I didn't know he had a sister." Her forehead furrowed together in a frown. "I'll have to call Dr. Smith and let him know."
After her departure, I told Thaddeus, "I'll be right back. I need to call the others."
"No need," Thaddeus said. Reaching over into his bedside drawer, he handed me a cell phone.
He had to show me how to use it. I'd never had one. Why should I? There'd been no one for me to call before.
Aquila answered on the second ring and I explained the situation to him. "Pack up everything and check out of the hotel. We'll be staying with my brother." I gave him Thaddeus's address and telephone number, and after a brief aside to Thaddeus, his cell phone number as well.
"How old are the others?" Thaddeus asked curiously after I handed the cell phone back to him.
"Aquila and Tomas are much older than you and I. But Jamie is nineteen and his sister, Tersa, is twenty-four. They're Mixed Bloods like us, but more like humans. We're three-quarters Monère, only a quarter human. You'll meet them and their mother, Rosemary, later. "
A gray-haired doctor entered the room, brusque and abrupt. "I've got to get back to an admission in the ER," he said to me. "What's this about you claiming to be my patient's sister? He told me quite plainly this morning that he had no other family."
The doctor eyed Gryphon and Chami with frank suspicion and didn't look too kindly upon me, either, despite my most winsome smile.
"I'm his half sister. We share the same father. Different mothers. That's why he didn't think to call me until later," I told him, concentrating fiercely on appearing trustworthy to the bristling doctor.
"So he hardly knows you," Dr. Smith said, shaking his head.
"Sorry. I'm not going to let a near-stranger waltz out with my patient even if you are who you claim you are. You can deal with the social worker tomorrow."
I was in front of him before he could turn to go, capturing him with my eyes. "You see no reason why Thaddeus cannot leave under my care," I murmured as my power strummed the air.
"I see no reason why Thaddeus cannot leave under your care," Dr. Smith repeated obediently.
"I am an experienced nurse and can monitor him just as well at home." I said.
The doctor parroted, "You're an experienced nurse and can monitor him just as well at home."
My voice was a low, hypnotic whisper. "You feel happy and reassured that your young patient has family who will take care of him, and will go sign the orders immediately for his discharge." I released him.
Dr. Smith blinked and smiled at us. "I'll go and take care of the orders right now. The nurse will give you the rest of the instructions and sign you out. Make sure you follow up in one week with an orthopedist to ensure that the arm is healing well. Good luck, young man." He strode from the room.
I couldn't look at Thaddeus. Could do nothing but let the silence thicken in that sterile room.
"Wow," Thaddeus said. "Will I be able to do that someday?"
I looked up into his excited eyes. There was no fear, no horror. My smile of relief was dazzling. "Maybe."
Twenty minutes later the five of us piled into the limo, Thaddeus sitting in the front passenger seat so his cast-encased arm wouldn't be jostled, Chami and Amber in the second row, and Gryphon and I taking the back seats.
"Cool ride," Thaddeus said.
"We're borrowing it for the moment," I said.
"You grow stronger," Gryphon murmured in an undertone too low for Thaddeus to hear.
"What do you mean?" I breathed back.
"You are not fatigued."
And I realized with sudden shock that he was right. There was none of that drained feeling, none of the tired shakiness that usually plagued me afterward. The expenditure of energy had cost me nothing. And I wondered just what that meant. I was growing stronger. But why? What had caused it. For that matter, I wasn't sure exactly if I liked it. Some people might crave power, but I'd never been one of them.
That dark force inside me stirred and stretched and blinked at me with bright gleaming eyes. Soon, it promised before it went back to its patient slumber.
No, I thought with a dry mouth. I didn't crave power. I feared it.
Thaddeus returned to morose somberness when we entered the house he had grown up in. It was even more beautiful inside than out, with large windows, raised ceilings, and thin oriental rugs thrown over a parquet floor. The burnished mahogany wood of the staircase was echoed by matching mahogany molding trimming the upper walls. There was a cozy lived-in clutter to the house—a bowl of change by the side table alongside unopened mail, a blue quilted jacket hanging over the end of the banister.
"I thought I'd feel better at home," Thaddeus said. "But home is people, not just a place. Christ, I can't believe they're gone." He surreptitiously wiped his face with his fingers.
"Come on," Thaddeus said, his voice rough as he climbed the stairs. "I'll show you the guest rooms."
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway drew us back downstairs.
"Go ahead and help carry our luggage in," I said to Amber and Gryphon, shooing them out the door.
"Aren't you scared of him?" Thaddeus asked me quietly, once we were alone. I knew to whom he referred. Upon first meeting the towering Amber, Thaddeus had flickered briefly with power. He had quickly doused it but the taste of it had been enough to widen Amber's eyes with surprise.
Amber?" I replied. 'He's a gentle teddy bear."
A dark brow arched up in a gesture so like mine that it stole my breath.
"With you, maybe," Thaddeus said dryly. "Not with others, I bet."
Jamie, Tersa, and Rosemary trudged in loaded down with bags, Tomas and Aquila entered behind them, carrying trunks of luggage followed by Amber and Gryphon who hauled in even more stuff so that it filled the entry hall.
I made the introductions and watched Thaddeus juggle the sleeping arrangements around in his head before suggesting, "Tersa and Rosemary can sleep with me in the guest room. The other men can bed down in the library, if that's okay with you, Thaddeus." The library called up images of nineteenth-century elegance, with large, commodious wing chairs and dark-toned wood paneling. Chairs and side tables invited one to linger and read. But more importantly, the library had a closing door and thick curtains. Left unspoken was the tacit agreement to leave his parents' bedroom untouched.
Thaddeus nodded jerkily in assent and moved to help the others settle in.
Stopping me with a light touch, Tomas said in his soft drawl, "Milady, I thought I should tell you, I felt another Monère's presence for a brief moment when we left the hotel. I kept my senses open coming here but didn't feel it again."
A cold prickle of unease raised the tiny hairs of my forearm. I glanced at Gryphon and Aquila and saw that they had heard. They drew near.
"Could it have been one of Mona Sera's men?" I asked Gryphon.
"Perhaps," Gryphon said slowly. "We are in her territory."
I looked at Aquila. "Could it be Sandoor?"
Aquila stroked his neat Van Dyke beard thoughtfully. "He has never moved far from the Minnesota forests of Koochiching territory. But he's never had reason to before."
"It's a long way from Minnesota to New York," I observed.
"True," Aquila said. "But it is an easy enough matter to take money from humans and acquire a car. We took his Queen from him. So now he must find another, preferably a young Queen more easily controlled. You are not only the youngest but also the newest Queen."
"But not so easily controlled," I said darkly. "Would he be foolish enough to try for me?"
"He is desperate," Aquila replied. "But as you say, New York is a far distance from Minnesota. He may have cho
sen to go north into Canada and Tomas may indeed have just sensed one of Mona Sera's men. Still, I would suggest that everyone, you especially, milady, take adequate precautions and be on close guard."
I nodded in agreement and smiled wryly at Amber and Gryphon's carefully blank looks. "Warn the others. We'll follow whatever security measures you, Lord Amber, and Lord Gryphon deem necessary," I told Aquila. "It would be foolish of me to be careless when I have only just found my brother."
"Thank the dear Mother for that," Amber muttered.
I pretended to not to hear that and left the men to their planning.
Catching a familiar delicious aroma, I let my nose lead the way to the bright kitchen. It was decorated in the casual ambience of country, with pale frame-and-panel cabinetry, wainscoting, and plank flooring. Thaddeus and Jamie were just biting into gooey slices of pizza. I snagged a plate, slipped a hot slice onto it, and took a bite.
"Umm. It's good," I mumbled.
"Not bad for something organic and frozen. Mom made me eat this stuff instead or the fresh kind," Thaddeus said quietly.
"She loved you very much," I said.
"Yeah."
We chewed in quiet reflection for a bit.
"I'm going to have to make arrangements for them tomorrow," Thaddeus said. "The funeral and burial."
"I'll help you," I offered.
His lips spasmed. "Thank you," he said roughly.
Thaddeus turned to Jamie. "Have you lived among the Monère all your life?" He listened with interest as Jamie detailed his life-growing up at High Court.
"You never went to school?" Thaddeus asked with disbelief.
The information shocked me as well.
"No. Tersa and I were tutored by a Learned One in the basics until we were sixteen. Reading, writing, math," Jamie said. "The rest I gleamed from books and television. We were the only ones who had one. A television, that is. Had to get a satellite dish installed to get any reception up there."
"So you've never been to a city before?" I said.
"Never been anywhere," Jamie said with a grimace. "Manhattan was amazing. Those huge buildings that scraped the sky. And all those people, everywhere you turned. I never really knew how many of them there were," he exclaimed with bug-eyed amazement, making Thaddeus and I smile.
"Would you like to go to school, Jamie," I asked.
"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "Tersa would, I know. But I'm not sure about myself."
"I'll talk to her about it then. What grade are you in, Thaddeus?"
"I'll graduate from high school this year," my brother answered.
"Skipped a couple of grades, did you?" I said, lifting a brow.
Thaddeus's lips twisted sardonically. It cast his features into sharp prominence, giving me a brief glimpse of the handsome man he would become. "My body developed slowly. Not my mind."
"So you'll be starting college soon. Any idea which one you wish to attend?" I asked.
"I've been accepted into both Harvard and Yale," he said quietly. "Mom and Dad were so proud."
"That's an amazing opportunity," I forced myself to say. "If you wish to go, I'll pay for your tuition. You could come to New Orleans on vacations and during the summer."
"That's generous of you, but Mom and Dad already put enough away in my education fund to cover everything. I haven't decided yet where I'll go. We'll see."
That night, if some of us heard a few sniffs, a few half-muffled sobs, we didn't comment on it.
Thaddeus was up at noon the next day, his quiet movements downstairs drawing me from my own bed. I silently dressed in the jeans and T-shirt I had reverted back to, and slipped out the room, leaving Tersa and Rosemary still fast asleep.
Thaddeus's eyes were grim and reddened and the skin around them puffy, but his voice was steady as he called and made arrangements to have his parents' bodies transported to a local funeral home. He arranged to meet with the funeral director in an hour to discuss funeral and burial arrangements, contacted the family attorney and scheduled an appointment with him several hours later. There were numerous other details to take care of and he handled them all with a confidence and maturity far beyond his years. He gathered information on how to obtain copies of the death certificate that he would need from the hospital, typed up a moving account of his parents' lives and accomplishments, and faxed it to the funeral director who in turn would pass it to the local newspaper to use in the obituary notice.
Remembering my promise, I awoke Amber and Gryphon and let them know Thaddeus and I were going out. Amber accompanied us while Gryphon remained behind with the others.
We swung by the medical center to pick up the copies of the death certificates first, then went on to the funeral home. Thaddeus chose the most expensive coffins and plots, and decided upon a closed-coffin arrangement. I he memorial service and burial were to be held the day after tomorrow. When the solemn-faced funeral director discreetly inquired about payment, Thaddeus pulled out a credit card and paid for everything in full.
"You didn't really need me," I murmured back in the car.
"It helped having you there, as well as the big guy. One look at him and nobody's going to try and take advantage of me just because I'm a kid."
Amber stoically ignored Thaddeus's comment.
The visit to the lawyer's office was just as efficiently handled. Mr. Compton, an attorney who specialized in estate planning, was a short, portly older gentleman, his lined, wise face one you instantly trusted. He had a copy of the Schiffer's will. To no one's surprise, it left everything to Thaddeus.
Thaddeus read and signed the various papers the lawyer put before him.
"A wise man, your father," Mr. Compton said, his fingers laced precisely on top of the will he had just read. "He had his affairs nicely in order. The house and car are paid off and your parents both had current life insurance policies and healthy retirement portfolios, all of which name you sole beneficiary. I'll just need ten copies of the death certificate before I can get started on the paperwork allowing you access to these funds and submit the claims to the life and car insurance companies."
Mr. Compton expressed no surprise when Thaddeus quietly handed him the copies of his parents death certificates.
"Efficient like your father," the lawyer said gruffly. "The government will take a sizable chunk out of your inheritance with the death tax, but not nearly the amount it would have taken, which would have been half, had your father not had the foresight to plan things. He came to me, you know, when he first adopted you. You made him—both of them—very happy."
Tears welled up in Thaddeus's eyes and only by sheer dint of will did not overflow. "Thank you, sir."
"You have access to a joint checking account in you and your father's name, do you not?" Mr. Crompton asked.
"Yes."
"Let me know if you need more," Mr. Crompton said. "It'll take several months for probate to clear."
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Crompton, but I have more than enough to meet my needs for now."
"Thaddeus."
"Yes, sir?"
"Your father was a friend as well as a client," the lawyer said with kind sincerity. "If you need anything, call me."
The moon was round and full, hanging like a pale globe in the sky as the ebbing day flowed like silver to the west. The others were already up and about when we returned, the men dressed and fully armed.
"Holy Christ!" Thaddeus exclaimed as Amber returned from the library with his own very long sword dangling at his side. "Is that a sword?"
"It's a Great Sword."
I wasn't sure if Thaddeus was more surprised by the weapon or by the fact that Amber had finally spoken to him.
"Can I get one of those?" Thaddeus asked.
Amber grunted noncommittally, heading for the kitchen.
"Was that a yes?" Thaddeus asked me.
"I think it was a maybe," I said, hiding my grin.
Aquila and Amber slipped quietly outside the back door.
&n
bsp; "They're going to patrol the neighborhood and secure a good area for Basking tonight," Gryphon said, answering my silent query.
"Will you and Amber Bask, now that you no longer need to?" I asked.
"We no longer need to, but we would like do," Gryphon replied softly. "It is a joyous feeling when the light enters you, is it not?"
"Yes," I answered. But inwardly, frustration and worry seethed within me at the importune timing. It was as if even the very elements were conspiring to show Thaddeus how different we were, how foreign, how other. Even the moon.
How would Thaddeus react to the Basking? With wonder or fear? Would he feel left out? For that matter, how did Tersa and Jamie feel watching others experience what they would never know? Thaddeus might, one day, if his power grew, if he no longer suppressed it.
There was so much I hadn't told my brother. Our mother, for one thing. Wisely, he hadn't asked, perhaps sensing that if there had been anything good to tell, I would have told him already. I also hadn't mentioned the demon dead to him. There were enough frightening wonders Thaddeus had already witnessed in this short period of time.
"Can we? Can we, Mona Lisa?" Jamie asked, pulling me from my reverie. Thaddeus and Tersa were beside him, their eager, young faces all turned to me.
"What? I wasn't paying attention," I said.
"Chami agreed to instruct Thaddeus and the rest of us in the proper handling of a dagger if we had your consent," Tersa informed me. She spoke so rarely, much less asked anything, that I hated to deny her.
I looked to Thaddeus. "I'd hate to scar up the floor or damage anything in the house."
Thaddeus waved the objection away. "We'll practice in the living room. It's carpeted. And we'll be careful."
He looked so eager. "Very well…"
They whooped.
"… if you all promise to be very careful."
"Don't worry, little mother," Chami said, leaning like a slender shadow against the doorframe. "I'll take good care of them."
"I'll watch to ensure you do," I replied.
"Good. Maybe you'll learn something as well," Chami tossed cheekily over his shoulder.
I snarled and trailed after the excited kids.
