by Jade Kerrion
Jason flexed his arm, testing its strength.
“No sudden moves,” Zara warned. “The next time I strike, the dagger will land in your heart, and not even Danyael will be able to save you then. Now move,” she ordered with a jerk of her head toward the living room.
Jason pushed to his feet and walked slowly toward the living room. Sitting down on the couch, he stared at Galahad. Madness gleamed in his dark eyes until Zara moved to block his view. She stood between him and Galahad; her action was both a warning and a threat.
Miriya followed Jason into the living room and curled up comfortably in a large chair, pulling up her feet and folding them beneath her. Danyael, however, remained by the doorway that separated the living room from the study. Moving demanded too much energy. Pale and exhausted, he slid slowly down the length of the wall to sit on the hardwood floors. He rested his head against the wall. The movement bared his throat, but at that moment, he was too tired to care about how vulnerable he must seem.
I know you’re tired, but don’t fall asleep on me. Miriya said. The situation’s volatile enough that I won’t be able to stop a fight short of knocking everyone out. You’re the only one who can defuse the emotions in the room long enough to get some honest answers out of Jason.
I know.
But damn if it wasn’t one of the most difficult things he had ever done.
Emotions surged across the room. Danyael flinched from the impact when Jason’s anger and resentment toward Galahad flared. The hatred that Jason had spent decades nursing lashed out, indifferently including him in the line of fire. He swallowed hard, painfully, his breathing jagged and unsteady as he tried to work through the damage he had absorbed.
Lucien took the seat directly across from Jason. “Look at me, Jason, and leave Danyael alone. He’s not the one you’re mad at. Start talking.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. My father, together with Michael Cochran, created it, a base pair at a time, just like they said.”
“Then why do Galahad and Danyael look alike?”
“They used templates. They tried to do it without templates, but those experiments didn’t work, so they switched to templates instead.”
“Exactly what do you mean by templates?”
“Exactly what it looks like,” Jason waved a hand at Danyael. “They took various people, selected them for their looks or their intelligence or personality, and then used the exact same genetic sequence that coded for what they were trying to copy.”
“Why Danyael?”
“I have no clue why Danyael. I don’t know how my father chose his templates.” Jason ground his teeth. “You think he talks to me? Even when he does, the only thing he talks about is that damn thing.”
“What about to your mother? He must have said something to her.”
“She died when I was seven. He wasn’t around before she died; he sure as hell wasn’t around after that. In fact, he spent even more time at the lab. Less than a year later, it was born.”
Danyael shuddered as Jason’s emotions buffeted him like chill winter winds. They matched the words he spit out, sin black and bitter. They were so intense and overpowering that he almost missed the subtle change in Galahad’s emotions as they overlaid with open curiosity.
“You said you lost your mother about a year before I was born. How did she die?” Galahad asked.
When it was clear that Jason was not going to deign Galahad with a response, Lucien ordered, “Answer the question.”
Jason glared, first at Galahad, and then at Lucien. He chose to keep looking at Lucien. “In a car accident.”
“When and where did it happen?”
“At night, near the border of West Virginia. No one knows why she was out there. She’d taken my brother, gone out for a drive, and she never came back.”
The emotions swirling through the room like wind sprites suddenly coalesced into a frozen lump in the middle of his throat. Danyael’s eyes flashed open. No!
“Brother?” Zara tensed. Her gaze flickered across the hall and held Danyael’s gaze for a split second before returning to Jason. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He was never relevant. He’s long gone.”
Danyael pushed slowly to his feet. The floor seemed to tilt beneath him and he had to lean against the wall for support.
Miriya bit down on her lower lip; she stood and walked over to Danyael. She slipped an arm around his waist and slid her hand into his. I’ve got you. Work with me here. The facts are what they are…what they’ve always been. Any knowledge, any revelation, won’t change the facts. They won’t change who you are.
Danyael looked at Miriya. Her green eyes were wary, preternaturally alert for the first hints that his psychic shields might not hold. He drew in a jagged breath of air past the heavy pressure against his chest. The unchanging center of calm within him trembled but held. I’ll be all right.
Hold on to it. Believe it.
“What do you mean ‘gone?’ Did he die in the accident?” Galahad asked Jason in the same quiet tone.
“Probably,” Jason said. “The car went over an embankment and the gas tank exploded. The rescue workers found my mother’s body, but not his. They think he died too.”
“How old was he then?”
Jason frowned, trying to remember. “Two years old. Almost three.”
Danyael inhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the subtle pressure of Miriya’s shields locking around his mind, reinforcing his barriers, but otherwise, he could not think, could not feel, over the vast roaring in his mind. An old emotional wound tore open, searing pain through him. His center cracked.
Danyael—
He kept his eyes closed, embraced the darkness, and clung to the lifeline that was Miriya’s hand in his. I just need time. I’ll be all right. I buried it deep down. I never thought…it would still matter this much to me.
“Do you have him covered?” Lucien asked tersely. Miriya nodded. Only then did Lucien reach for his phone. “Xin, I need you to run a genetic analysis. Danyael and Jason Rakehell.”
“You’re not serious!” Xin’s stunned response mirrored what all of them felt.
“I know you have Danyael’s genetic records from the Mutant Affairs Council. Do you think you can find Jason’s somewhere?”
“That’s easier done than said. I know Zara took a cellular sample from him when they were engaged. His genetic record is stored at the Three Fates genetic registry.”
“How long is the analysis going to take?”
“Just a few minutes. Stay on the line,” she instructed.
Jason looked around. “What the hell is going on?”
Lucien held up a hand, indicating that he needed to wait. The room was silent for several minutes, punctuated only by the sound of Danyael’s harsh breathing. Lucien cast Miriya a look of concern. She nodded, assuring him. “Danyael’s shields are holding.”
Xin’s voice finally came back over the line. “Lucien, there’s a seventy-two percent probability that Danyael and Jason are siblings. You’ll never get better odds than that without the concurrent genetic analysis of at least one parent. It’s effectively a match. Please tell Danyael I’m sorry.”
“I will. Thanks, Xin.” Lucien hung up the phone, pushed to his feet, and walked over to Danyael. “Danyael? Do you want me to ask Jason for a picture of her to confirm the results of the analysis?”
Danyael opened his eyes, the motion slow, pained. His eyes were—through sheer force of will—dry. The tears were locked away, but they choked him, made it nearly impossible to breathe, to speak. He shook his head as he glanced over at Jason Rakehell. His brother. Danyael whispered, his voice heavy with irony, “Welcome home.”
10
Jason Rakehell lunged out of his chair and threw himself at Danyael, slamming him back against the wall. “No way!” He roared into Danyael’s face. “What is this? Some kind of sick cosmic joke?”
Lucien yanked him away from Danyael. “You
touch him again, and I’ll let Zara kill you,” he promised.
Jason twisted out of Lucien’s grip, grabbed Danyael’s chin in his hand, and turned it so that he could see the right side of Danyael’s face—the thin white scar, almost invisible with age, starting from the top of Danyael’s cheekbone, cutting across his cheek to end at the chin.
Danyael shook his head slightly, stopping Lucien before he pulled Jason back again. From across the room, Zara and Galahad watched the reunion in silence; Galahad’s dark eyes reflecting curiosity, Zara’s violet eyes impassive but for a flicker of something deep within that almost seemed like empathy.
Jason’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with recognition. “No, it can’t be. It’s not possible.”
Danyael did not resist when Jason grabbed his left hand, the bones subtly misshapen from an unremembered injury that had not healed correctly. He could not read his brother’s thoughts, but he could sense Jason’s emotions as disbelief gave way to towering anger and hatred. At this point, I think it’s a toss-up as to whether he hates me or Galahad more.
Miriya smiled thinly, not amused. This isn’t funny, Danyael.
It’s laugh or cry, Miriya. What does he remember?
He remembers when your mother struck you, and her ring tore the gash in your cheek. He remembers when your mother used a pestle to smash your hand after you’d reached for one of his toys. She obviously failed parenting class. I wouldn’t have trusted her with a goldfish, let alone a child.
“You’re a mutant, you monster!” The rage that swelled up and burst out of Jason stunned Danyael with its intensity, as powerful, as real to him as a physical blow. “You drove her mad. You killed her!”
Lucien intercepted the blow that Jason hurled at Danyael and dragged him back. With Galahad’s help, Lucien wrestled Jason down into the couch. “Zara,” Lucien ordered.
She leaned forward to caress the edge of her dagger against Jason’s jugular.
The touch of cold steel against Jason’s throat forced him to keep still, but he glared at Danyael, ancient rivers of anger and hatred undammed by the revelation that his brother was alive.
Lucien glanced at the telepath. “Miriya, any chance you can translate his thoughts into a language the rest of us would understand, preferably without the curse words?”
She nodded, summarizing all that she had gleaned from Jason’s memories and thoughts, and then piecing those scattered memories together with what she knew of Danyael’s past. “Their mother suffered from post-natal depression after Danyael’s birth. Danyael’s empathic powers didn’t help the situation at all. Over time, she became increasingly obsessed with trying to hurt Danyael, to the point where she began neglecting Jason. The rest we know and can easily fill in the blanks. She finally snapped, took Danyael with her, and tossed him over a bridge. On the way back home, she was killed in a car accident.” Miriya paused to suck in a deep breath of air. “Jason believes that Danyael took his mother from him, and Galahad his father.”
With the two of them sharing just one face, Jason would never be able to see them as separate individuals, not that it particularly mattered, since he hated both of them for similar reasons.
Danyael pulled away his hand away from Miriya’s. His thoughts churned, mixing guilt with the virulent hatred that Jason unleashed, creating a cacophony that made it nearly impossible to think clearly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You’re sorry?” Jason snarled. He lunged at Danyael again, but Lucien and Galahad pulled him down before he reached Danyael. He slumped on the couch, blood pouring from shallow wound Zara’s dagger had sliced in his throat in his maddened attack. “You drive my mother mad, you take her from me…you kill her, and all you can say is you’re sorry?”
“There is nothing else I can say.” Danyael closed the distance to his brother, his dark eyes glistening. Jason’s emotional trauma screamed at him, an open wound that spewed anger and hatred over the quiet cry of a motherless boy. He stared into his brother’s face. No wonder he hates me. I killed my mother. I tore my own family apart.
Miriya frowned. Danyael—
His shoulders sagged on a silent sigh. I can’t focus on my own loss, my own pain, or I’ll drown in it. I have to get my mind off myself, even if it’s to focus on what my brother’s feeling.
The Rakehells—both Roland and Jason—are certifiably loony. With all due respect, your psychopathic brother is not an unbiased source of information or a balanced source of emotions.
No, but he’s my brother. I owe him something, even if it’s just another chance.
Danyael closed his eyes as he placed his hand over Jason’s bleeding neck and drove his healing powers in the face of the brutal emotional hurricane that battered at him. When the wound was repaired, he withdrew his hand and stepped back.
“This changes nothing!” Jason’s dark eyes flashed with fury.
“I’m not expecting it to,” Danyael said quietly.
“This explains a great deal, doesn’t it?” Miriya shot Jason a narrow-eyed glare. “You’re an empath too. You’re charismatic and powerfully persuasive when you choose. You can turn crowds into mobs with a single impassioned speech.”
“I’m not a mutant.”
“Of course you’re not, but you should know that being classified as a mutant isn’t a binary sort of thing. There’s a lot of gray here, especially for empaths. All of us are empaths—our emotions affect others both positively and negatively—and we all fall along a scale. I think someone arbitrarily draws a vertical line across the bell curve and decides that anything on the other side is outside the bounds of normal.” Her smile had a bitter twist. “Based on my observations, the precise location of the line is usually decided by the most prejudiced people, and it can vary, depending on how much influence the ‘mutant’ possesses. There are some extremely ‘capable’ people out there who aren’t classified as mutants, because they’re too rich and powerful, and have the ability to crush anyone who would even dare suggest that they’re a mutant.”
“You can’t deny that he’s a mutant! He killed my mother!”
Miriya shrugged. “Of course Danyael is a mutant. There are few alpha empaths who can match what he does with such flawless ease, and combined with his secondary healing capabilities, he is too powerful to fly under the radar. But before you hold him entirely and solely responsible, consider for a moment the possibility that your minor empathic abilities might also have contributed to your mother’s depression and her eventual insanity.” Her smile was cool, almost chilling, as she patted Jason’s cheek gently.
Danyael spoke directly to Miriya’s mind. You know that’s not true.
And you don’t know that it’s not. Empathy stacks. I don’t doubt that you were the primary factor, but Jason’s not entirely blameless.
And that’s supposed to make me feel less responsible for the fact that I killed my mother?
I can’t change what you feel, Danyael. I’m just a telepath, remember? I’m pointing out the facts. Whether or not you accept them is up to you.
Lucien’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID before accepting the call. “Xin, what is it?”
“You’ll need to hire more security personnel,” Xin said over the speakerphone. Her voice was edged with tension. “And there’s a good chance the McLean PD will need a new marketing campaign for its next recruitment drive.”
“Purest Humanity?” Lucien asked.
“They’ve broken through the security cordon and are combing through the house now. I’ve backed up your computer files remotely and purged the drives.”
“Get out of the house, Xin.”
“I don’t think there’s enough time for that. The good news is that they’re not burning as they go, but for a group of people supposedly driven by the noblest intentions of protecting the inherent sanctity of humanity, they’re giving in a great deal to their base instincts to loot and steal.”
“It’s all insured,” Lucien said. “Get out.”
> “Give me the phone, Lucien.” Miriya reached for it. “Xin? It’s Miriya. Drop your shields. I’m going to link to you, and I’ll be able to trace you anywhere.” She closed her eyes for a brief moment. “All set,” she said. “Now, stay out of trouble until we can get to you.”
“I’ll try. I don’t have Zara’s compulsion to make trouble, so I should be fine. I’ll try not to piss anyone off. I guess that means I probably shouldn’t shoot any of them.” With a click, Xin disconnected the call.
Lucien turned on Jason. “Call off your mob, Jason.”
“He can’t do that,” Miriya said. “Mobs like Purest Humanity can’t be controlled. Jason turned them loose, and now they’ll have to run their course. Let’s just get back to Xin as quickly as we can.”
“What should we do with him?” Zara asked, her hand tightening on the blade. “Kill him?”
“No.” The quiet, firm answer was Danyael’s.
Lucien glanced at Danyael. “I know that as a doctor and healer, you tend not to approve of casual violence, but if you were ever going to make an exception, I would have thought that it would be for Jason Rakehell.”
Danyael dropped his gaze. “He’s my brother,” he said simply, his voice once again steady.
“We can’t take him with us,” Zara pointed out with an irritated glare at Danyael.
“She’s right, and Danyael’s right too,” Miriya interjected. She glanced at Jason. Her mutant powers surged, and he keeled over sideways on the couch, his eyes rolling upwards in his head. “That will hold him for awhile. Load him up. Let’s go.”
Miriya glanced over her shoulder. Danyael sat in the backseat of the SUV, staring out the window at the passing scenery. She doubted he saw anything. His expression was calm, but his eyes were in turmoil. Surely expressive eyes had to be occupational hazard for an alpha empath.
Beside her, Lucien kept his foot rammed on the accelerator, pushing the SUV well beyond the speed limit on the empty highways. I should never have let Xin stay behind.
