Rooks and Romanticide

by J. I. Radke

  These tentative attempts at peaceful correspondence were unbeknownst to the public, but a sensation of numb despair still seemed to fall and blanket the rest of New London. There was sudden stillness. Not peace, but gloom, soured the air, turning it fickle with tension. It was a quiet anguish, as some citizens mourned and others couldn’t shake the feeling that it was not the right time to hate.

  A fortnight passed with no real trouble, no real fray between the families and their supporters, and it was a record in the last few years. It was an eerie state.

  Cain didn’t have an appetite. Emily was gone. He drifted around the house as walls and floors and furniture were mended, new frames and china ordered. He did not report the men on the list of names connected to St. Mikael’s. He did not report BLACK. The authorities couldn’t accomplish a single thing that would satisfy his thirst for revenge.

  He wanted to take care of things himself, in due time.

  He kept the list of names close on his person and refused to speak about the secret connection to BLACK that had brought their attack upon the house. His uncle grew darkly frustrated with him, but could do nothing about it. Cain was the earl, after all, and without Aunt Ophelia, it was harder to break through to him.

  Cain ignored his office during the day, wandering around lost in a state of melancholy. He didn’t talk. He was silent and solemn. Nothing angered him and nothing pleased him. He paused by windows and stared outside into the sun, into the night, into the drizzling sky, into the white afternoon. He took a bath and stayed in the water until all the steam had faded from the mirrors and glass. He walked around in his nightclothes, trailing his fingers on the embossed walls, feeling the posh carpet beneath his toes.

  He couldn’t sleep. He went into his old nursery and touched the globe and books and old figurines; he stopped at his office and gawked at the broad doors, hands clasped behind his back. He sat cross-legged at the window in the lady’s boudoir, which had once been his mother’s. He smoked with the Persians and welcomed the younger, prettier one into his own room, letting him shower him with kisses and affection that really meant nothing at all to Cain, detached and dissociated as he was, and well practiced with it. He was a man; he had needs. Or at least he went through the motions of having needs as if seeking to convince himself he was still himself somehow.

  Except that he wasn’t.

  He went into Emily’s old room and touched her porcelain clock, her footstool, her vanity table, running his fingers down the mirror and thinking about how pretty she was. He hedged every day, but finally went into Aunt Ophelia’s room and laid down on her bed and smelled her pillows, went through her clothes and jewelry and every little trunk of her things. He sat in the silence and wondered if, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, her ghost was around, and if it could hear his wordless plea for forgiveness.

  By that time, Cain had reached a cold and emotionless place like apathy.

  Love was meaningless in the barren wasteland of logic and fact, where all feelings and thoughts were mechanical and uncomplicated.

  Cain went into his own room and curled up in his bed. He closed his eyes and wished he wasn’t alone, that he could feel the warmth of the old German hound at his toes, the swell of his furry chest as he breathed, or that he could run down the hall and into his parents’ room and bury into their comforter while his father was a wall of protection that smelled like spicy cologne and looked like omniscient smiles, and his mother ran her fingers through his hair and warmed him with her angelic touch.

  But that was not so.

  Not now, and not ever again.

  SCENE SIX

  HE SMELLED the zest of smoldering tobacco, brought up on the breeze and into his room where the balcony doors were cracked to allow some fresh air.

  Somebody smoked below his balcony.

  Cain didn’t acknowledge it. The butler was still there, gathering the day’s dirty clothes, respectfully turning his eyes away as Cain dressed for bed, toes curling in the white fur of the rug. He stood in front of the long mirror, staring at his reflection. The skin below his eyes was rather dark, now wasn’t it?

  The butler left. Cain drifted around the room to peek out between the curtains, wondering if he could see the trespasser beneath his balcony. He’d returned security to its previous lenience, and the invitation had quite clearly been accepted.

  Cain slipped out barefoot onto his balcony, the stone slimy with snow and slush. In an instant his feet were numb with cold. His fingers brushed the head of the little stone gargoyle, and Cain stretched over the side of the balcony and met Levi’s stare where he stood, looking up, a distant, poignant look on his face as if he’d never expected Cain to come out.

  It meant something, didn’t it? There Levi was, back again. Was he a masochist or just stupid?

  Cain motioned with his free hand, white fingers dancing in the moonlight. “Come up here,” he called down, and the biting wind drove his hair in and out of his face.

  Without waiting for Levi’s reply, he turned and walked back into his room, drying his feet on the fur rug. There was silence as Levi killed the last of his cigarette and climbed the icy stone.

  Cain waited on his bed. Surrounded by goose-down pillows, amid bedding of smooth cotton and comforters embroidered with blue and silver, he sat with all the languid, elegant apathy and complacent finesse he’d had when he worked for Father Kelvin and was simply waiting for the next client.

  Levi closed the balcony doors when he entered, but there was still a chill in the room. His very presence filled Cain with a sense of desperation as if he’d summoned a demon against all warnings. Ah, God, was Levi splendid. But Cain’s resolve was stony. He was a Dietrich, after all. He was quite possibly the only Dietrich that mattered anymore in lieu of recent events.

  “Hello, Levi,” he murmured.

  The fire in the hearth popped.

  “Cain,” Levi returned, nodding his head as his form of obeisance.

  Cain didn’t resent him for informalities. His militia jacket hung open, and Cain just wanted to wrap his arms around that narrow waist, alluring as it was. Sophistication and sin, standing there in front of his balcony doors. Sophistication, sin, betrayal, and love.

  “Sit by me,” Cain insisted. “I want to talk.”

  Levi moved with the precision of one accustomed to caution, and his eyes were hard and critical, silently scrutinizing to try and piece together a possible outcome to the situation. The surroundings, Cain’s mannerisms, his bizarre calm. Cain smirked as Levi sat down, loving the way the mattress shifted with his weight. His toes curled in the sheets as his nerves began to tingle. He reached beneath his pillow.

  “I don’t want you to explain yourself,” he whispered, and Levi held his stare. Cain pulled his revolver from beneath his pillow, took Levi’s hand, and opened his uncooperative palm himself. He lifted his gun from his lap and placed it in Levi’s fingers.

  “Kill me,” he said, meeting Levi’s eyes again. “Kill me, if it’s what you intended to do all along. Like my parents. To kill me would be to kill off the last direct heir of the Dietrichs, and then your family would win. You’d be a hero among your followers. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get close to me and then bring my family down. So I’m letting you. Kill me.”

  There was a moment where the coldness in Levi’s eyes left and he looked absolutely stunned as if Cain’s nonchalant dare had really thrown him off. And that made Cain falter, made him wonder about everything again. Was Levi really the villain here or not? Levi’s fingers curled on the revolver—but he just set it down at the foot of the bed, grabbed Cain by the wrist, and pulled him forward. There was a strange composure about his face, replacing the bitter scrutiny.

  “You love me,” Levi guessed, barely audible below his breath. “You do. You just admitted it. If you didn’t love me, Cain, you certainly would never have offered your life. You’d have killed me even before your aunt was stiff and underground.”

  Cain’s resolve wavered at Levi’s
touch, his stare, his voice. He tried to protest, but the words all died at the back of his throat, coming out in choppy little grunts. Levi’s words struck notes of alarm in his heart. So Cain batted at him, like a spoiled child, unable to get the words out and using his fists instead. Levi rocked with the motion. Cain’s brows knotted above harsh, narrowed eyes. Levi wasn’t fazed at all.

  “There were never intentions to follow in the shadow of the old BLACK,” Levi edged out, rushed but collected. “Never. If anything, it was a childish game of tag, of hide-and-seek. And I didn’t entirely grasp the… gravity of what we were doing either. I’m sorry for that.”

  Cain hit him again, gritting his teeth. Levi’s head wagged with the blow. He kept Cain’s gaze, mouth drawn in a terse line. His cheek was bright red from Cain’s smacks.

  “Bastard!” Cain hissed. This wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. Never mind that he wanted to hear it, it wasn’t how it was supposed to go! Things never worked out in the end. “Liar! Kill me. Just spare me these dumb, romantic tales and kill me!”

  “It’s not what you think.” Levi’s hand tightened on Cain’s wrist, jerking him closer. “I made mistakes. I gave my fellow members too much freedom, too much influence over me, when I should have been the one directing them. It was my fault, Cain.”

  Cain kicked this time, ruining the blankets. “Don’t call me by my name, damn it!”

  Levi craned in, searching for eye contact again. Cain gnashed his teeth, his breath quickening with the pace of his heart. He hated Levi. He hated Levi for confusing him when he’d finally accepted the way things had to be. And his words—they seemed to reach right into him and pluck the truth out, no matter how well Cain hid it. God, he wanted him! He needed him! It made no sense to deny himself. He just couldn’t stop, and how could it be that he, the passionate and driven Earl, was cursed with a love damned by the very stars that had bestowed it upon him?

  “I never wanted this to happen,” Levi whispered. His breath shivered on Cain’s skin.

  Cain smelled it. He could summon its taste from memory.

  Suddenly Levi pushed away, swung off the bed and stood, pacing to and fro. He was stricken with urgency now, it seemed. He scowled, pressured.

  “I swore, over and over,” he reminded. “You trusted me even when you knew my wretched name. Why can’t you just believe me now? You’re so stubborn! Our contract to end the feud, you agreed to it. It can still happen, it can still work. It will be worth even more now. Certainly they’ll see that you and I have been peaceful together for the past few months and that it is possible for our families to live together in harmony. Or, at least, a cousin of harmony. Tonight, Cain, let’s draw up an agreement and present it tomorrow.”

  Cain clambered to stand on the bed, glowering down at Levi. He scrambled for Levi’s hands, pressing them to his throat. “I did trust you!” he blurted, voice jagged. “I did—but now I would rather be dead than be betrayed again, to be abandoned by those I trusted and consigned to love.” His throat was tightening. He was too worked up. He’d had such a perfect plan too, and Levi just had to come in and tip it upside down on him! And did that mean something ineffable, that Levi could just work his black magic on him so effortlessly?

  There was a slight scuffle then, Levi wrenching his hands from Cain’s throat and casting a frustrated hiss in his direction. Cain almost lost his balance and struck out at Levi again because he couldn’t find the words. There was a wrestle on the edge of the bed, tangled arms and trembling fists, like two children in their first fight in the schoolyard. Bitten voices, struggling limbs, fingernails catching in the fabric of clothing. Finally Levi sent Cain tumbling back to the blankets and followed to pin him down. Ah, Levi’s favorite move, apparently.

  Cain recaptured his bearings and flung his arms about Levi’s shoulders—and then he felt the cold metal of his own revolver pressed up to his skin.

  His eyes widened. His mouth fell open, and his heart raced as his chest rolled with frantic breaths. Levi peered down at him. It was obvious he read all of Cain’s shock as just what it was: disbelief, alarm, the first real panic, because he’d never expected to somehow end up pinned to his bed with Levi holding a gun to his temple. So maybe he’d never expected Levi to really accept the offer. Maybe it had all been manipulative.

  Cain’s fingertips twitched at Levi’s shoulders. He couldn’t talk for a moment—could hardly breathe. Levi regarded him coolly, a handsome gangster who meant business and business alone, mouth in a thin line.

  “Is this really what you want?” Levi asked, and his voice was silky and smooth. “To die? I can deliver as much right now. I suppose it is very much like you to want death by the hands of your only real friend.”

  “You are my friend,” Cain confirmed, breathless. He swallowed, mouth dry. He couldn’t help but shake like a leaf with the gun pointed to his head, because he’d never been on this end of such a situation before and he didn’t like it. He rolled his eyes up, meeting Levi’s. He tried to compose himself. He licked his lips. Levi stared down at him, waiting, as if for something in particular. Cain didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew what he was going to give him.

  He let one hand sag down, off Levi’s shoulder, and touched it to his face. Levi softened with the brush of skin. Cain smiled thinly. Levi was so pretty, clean-shaven in the morning and still soft by evening. Cain’s smile faded.

  “There will be no peace,” Cain whispered, and it hurt his heart to say it because he didn’t want to see the disappointment in Levi’s eyes when he shattered his beautiful vision of justice and ceasefire. The Rapier-A227 was cold on his skin. “Even if we draw up a contract, there will be no peace. Ever. It will be fake, a pretense, a shroud of play-pretend. Gangs will rip it apart again. We’ll have no control. The people will forever want more. There will always be hatred—like with God and the Devil, people are always searching for somewhere to place the blame. And better yet, there will be no peace inside us because nobody will ever understand what we want.”

  “You have got to be the most cynical man….” Levi’s face darkened. “Listen, I want to teach you a lesson here. I may not have the right name, but I have twice the guts.”

  Cain scowled in turn. “Don’t you understand, Levi? Morally, you and I are ruined! We’re sinful. We’re going to burn in hell for so many transgressions! And we’re noble. We’re forever in the public eye and forever will be, and they don’t care if we want to be left alone to each other. The only way we can be together is if our families stay divided in hatred.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Levi hissed. “We’ll find chances to be together whether they are or not. Whether people judge us or not. Why does it matter to you? Is reputation that important?”

  “Christ, Levi, we’re the faces of our families! We have responsibilities.”

  “I don’t understand how responsibilities could stand in the way—”

  “Why give up what we want for the good of the people? They never do anything for us, anyway. Why just give up and say, ‘All right, it’s a truce?’ I, for one, will never have peace, Levi. The betrayed blood of my family will never allow me to have peace so long as it flows through my veins. And maybe, if there is peace one day, and you and I do get what we want, maybe I won’t have peace even then, because every time I look at you, I’ll grow to hate you for your family’s past wrongdoings. Or what if I avenge my family’s pain, and every time I look at you, I grow to hate myself in guilt? What if the treaty we draw up works, and the feud ends, and we can be together freely, what then do I do about Emily? What do I say to those around me? She’ll be devastated to know I can’t love her that way, and neither of us will be happy in a forced marriage. There is no way, Levi! There is no peace. It does not exist. It will never exist—”

  Cain cut off, choking on his breath, eyes widening again as Levi’s hand moved. But the sounds of the gun he heard were not of the hammer cocking or the trigger moving. It was just the click of metal as Levi lifted it, unlocked and swung
out the cylinder, and dumped the bullets and the empty revolver on the bed. Cain stiffened as one rolled down and touched his knuckle—cold, smooth metal. Like the tooth of a monster.

  Levi thumbed hair out of Cain’s face and pressed a kiss to his forehead, just above his gray eyes. Cain flinched back from it, squeezing his eyes shut instinctively. Levi’s lips dusted his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, his chin.

  Levi hovered over him, the seriousness on his face no longer cruel and hostile, but heated, desperate. Human, and only human. Cain tried to fight the emotion swelling in his chest, thickening in his throat, but he locked his arms around Levi’s shoulders and pulled him down closer, giving in to everything. There was just no fighting it.

  His heart jumped. A shiver rattled through him.

  They made love.

  ROBBING THE cradle. That was what Levi was doing, wasn’t it? Cain was five years his junior, all angles and raw craving. But he was hardly innocent. So, then, it wasn’t really robbing the cradle, so much as it was robbing a bed of red sheets and experience.

  Bullets rolled in the bedding. Below him, aching and alluring, Cain looked vulnerable and yet somehow in control, hard and hungry, like all of this was happening just because he allowed it.

  Guilt and injured pride coalesced with rampant desire, and the kisses started out biting. Maybe, at some point, Levi would be able to tell Cain that he knew where he’d been those long months, held captive under St. Mikael’s, and that he’d seen him in Lovers’ Lane, and that he knew who had been the mastermind of the plan in the first place. That he knew what kinds of sins had lionized his everlasting soul. But there was a smarter part of Levi, the part of his mind unaffected by things like emotion and impulse, and it reminded him that Cain had a pride he would carry to the grave. If he was aware Levi knew those things….

  Cain didn’t seem affected by anything of the sort, though, freed for the moment from the greedy clutch of the grudge that haunted him.