In the Heart of Darkness

by Reinke, Sara

  In response, Julien rushed him headlong, howling in feral, mindless fury. Mason pushed the trigger on the remote control, and Julien collapsed in midstride, crashing to the mat and convulsing. Spittle flew from his lips, his voice shrill and choked, and when Mason released the button, for a long moment, he simply lay there, shuddering and groaning.

  “Stay down!” Mason screamed at him. “If you’re in there, if you can hear me, Julien—for God’s sake, please! Stay down! I don’t want to hurt you!”

  Julien growled, hooking his fingers into claws as he shoved his head up from the ground. He drew his knees beneath him and began to crawl toward Mason.

  “Fight it, goddamn it!” Mason cried at him. “If you lose yourself to this, then Nikolić wins. He wins, Julien, and so does your father. So does Jean Luc and Victor and all of your brothers—anyone who ever said you were weak!”

  Julien only snarled in reply, bloody froth clinging to his lips as he crept closer to Mason, dragging himself along, his urge to feed—to kill—so overwhelming even exhaustion and pain couldn’t stop him.

  “You’re the strongest person I know—the strongest person I’ve ever known,” Mason shouted. “You’ve never backed down from a fight, not in your whole goddamn life—not from your brothers, or your father…not even from me. Don’t stop now—don’t you dare stop fighting now, goddammit!”

  With a shrug of his shoulder, he turned loose of the shield, letting it clatter to the mat. This left nothing but open air between him and Julien—and little more than five feet at that. His heart hammered in bright, panic-stricken fear, but he forced himself to be still as Julien crawled closer to him, growling and sniffing.

  “All your life, you’ve been fighting,” he said as Julien drew within arm’s reach, those black eyes round and glittering, his mouth hanging open, fangs glinting wickedly. “And never once for you. That’s what you meant earlier, wasn’t it—when you said you knew the drill, that you’ve lived it your whole life?”

  Fingers trembling, he dropped the remote. Julien glanced down at it, then drew back with a hiss as Mason reached for him. When Mason touched his cheek, he flinched; when Mason slipped his fingers through Julien’s tangled hair to cup the back of his head, he felt him shudder.

  “All of those things you told me you’ve done…you did them for your father, didn’t you?” Mason whispered. “Just like with Nikolić, he said he’d hurt me…kill me…something. So you did those things. You did them to protect me.”

  Julien stared at him, and even though his pupils remained fully distended, he didn’t attack, his body rigid as if straining against an unimaginable pull. Mason closed his eyes and leaned toward him.

  “I trust you, Julien,” he said—and God, in that moment, he placed more faith in him, in Julien’s love for him, than he ever had in anything in his entire life. “I believe in you. You can fight this—beat it. I know you can.”

  As his lips settled against Julien’s, he heard the younger man utter a startled gasp. He could feel Julien’s fangs, the hard curves, the sharp tips with his tongue. Those fangs could rend his flesh apart, tear through muscle, sinew, and even bone with nothing less than ease, but Mason leaned closer to him, deepening the kiss, because he refused to give in to his fear any longer.

  I won’t be afraid of you, Julien.

  After a long moment, he felt Julien relax against him. As he drew back, again, he felt the flutter of Julien’s ragged breath against his lips.

  “Oh, God,” Julien whispered. “What…what happened?”

  He was back. However fleeting it may prove to be, for that moment at least, he was back in control, and Mason grabbed him, jerking him near in a fierce embrace. “It’s alright,” he whispered. “It’s alright now.”

  Julien drew back, the blue in his eyes visible again as he stared, stricken, at the blood on Mason’s face and on his own hands. “What…what have I done? Oh, God, I hurt you…!”

  “It wasn’t you,” Mason said. “Listen to me, Julien—it wasn’t you. It was Nikolić. He’s done something to you, given you Phillip’s serum, the same shit he gave to Piotr back at the brothel.”

  Julien’s eyes widened all the more and then he winced, doubling over and clutching at his midriff. “I…I can feel it inside of me…” he groaned. “Oh, God, it hurts!”

  “It’s alright,” Mason whispered, even though he knew it wasn’t.

  “I can feel it,” Julien moaned. “It…God, it’s eating me alive…!” He grabbed Mason by the hands. “Help me, Mason. God, please, make it stop!”

  “I don’t know how.” Mason shook his head helplessly. “I…I don’t know what to do, Julien. I don’t…”

  “Kill me.” Julien looked up at him, his eyes round and pleading.

  “What?” Stricken, stunned, Mason jerked his hands back. “No. No, no, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “I just want it to stop,” Julien pleaded. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold it back, and I…I can’t hurt you again. Please, Mason. Anything but that. Anyone but you!”

  He clasped Mason’s face between his hands and kissed him fiercely, tangling his fingers in Mason’s hair and pulling him near. When he drew back, Mason felt something dig sharply into the back of his neck—the plastic edge of his collar—and then Julien uttered a soft grunt as he gave a quick jerk, breaking the thick strap and ripping the collar free from around Mason’s throat.

  “No—!” he gasped, his eyes flown wide. He heard the ominous beep as the explosive fail-safe kicked in. Ten seconds, he thought in sudden, bright alarm. Holy God, ten seconds before it blows!

  Julien shoved him away, knocking him onto his ass on the ground. Clutching the collar in one fist, he took off running for the far side of the ring.

  “Julien, no!” Mason cried, because without the collar to impede them, his powers had been released. He could read Julien’s mind now, see his thoughts clearly and knew what he meant to do.

  He’s going to kill himself to stop the darkness—and he’s going to take Nikolić with him!

  “What are you doing?” Nikolić snapped over the microphone. His voice sounded shrill now with growing alarm, and Anna had scrambled to her feet beside him, hedging back from the edge of the railing. Nikolić grabbed for his holster just as Julien leapt at the chain link fencing beneath his booth, clambering up as quickly and nimbly as a monkey.

  Snapping something in frantic, furious Russian, Nikolić dropped the microphone and leaned over the railing, a pistol clasped between his hands. His first shot missed, ricocheting off the support beam for the ring with a melodic clang and a burst of sparks. His second shot hit within millimeters of Julien’s hand, and he lost his grasp. As he slipped, he dangled wildly for a moment, his feet swinging in the open air, but he shoved the strap of the collar between his teeth and reclaimed his grip and footing.

  When Nikolić leveled the gun again, Mason thrust his hand out. He grabbed the pistol telekinetically and yanked it out of Nikolić’s grasp. The big man yelped, snatching after it as it whipped out of his grasp. He damn near lost his balance and went crashing down to the mat, but righted himself at the last second, scrambling back from the edge.

  Julien looked back at Mason. They were running out of time; there were only seconds left, and they both knew it. Mason could sense his fear, his alarm; his mind was wide open.

  Let go, Mason told him telepathically. Let go of the cage—and the collar.

  No. Julien’s brows furrowed. There’s no time. Let me do this, goddamn it! I’m trying to save you!

  I’m sorry, Julien, Mason thought. But it’s my turn to save you.

  Mason grabbed him using only his mind, wrapping Julien in a cocoon of telekinetic energy and pulling him off the cage fence. The collar, however, he jerked loose of Julien’s hand, flinging it into the booth with Nikolić and Anna—and dropping it onto the floor directly in front of them.

  Edith—get down! he shouted out in warning, just as the C4 detonated with a thunderous boom and a sudden,
dazzling burst of fire. Debris went flying—burning bits of wood, carpeting, upholstery, and metal, along with wet, spattered chunks of what smelled like scorched human flesh to Mason. A thick cloud of black, acrid smoke swelled out, billowing in all directions, swallowing the booth from view and hanging in the air like a dense, dark fog.

  In the aftermath, as it began to dissipate, Mason made out the smoldering ruins of Nikolić’s box seats. The draperies and chairs were on fire, and there was no sign of life, no movement or sound.

  “Edith!” he shouted hoarsely, running toward the cage wall, cursing himself for not trying to telekinetically protect her as well. Nikolić had warned them the collars had a blast radius of no more than five feet, but in reality, it looked like it had been at least twice that, if not more. He opened his mind, straining to sense her. “Edith!”

  “I…I’m here.” He heard her soft croak from above him at almost the same time he sensed the warm, familiar presence of her in his mind. Her handcuffs rattled against the brass railing overhead as she stumbled to her feet. She looked shell-shocked and disheveled, but otherwise unharmed. Blinking at him owlishly, she swayed on her feet. “I’m okay…I think.” With a glance toward where Nikolić and Anna had been standing, she managed a grimace. “Which is more than I can say for some.”

  “Hang on,” Mason called to her. “I’ll be right there. Let me check on Julien first.”

  “I’m alright. You stupid son of a bitch.” Julien limped to his feet, stumbling clumsily. Catching sight of Nikolić’s fallen pistol, he bent down and picked it up. When Mason stepped toward him, he shook his head, lifting the gun and pointing it at him. “Don’t.”

  “Give me the gun, Julien,” Mason said. “I mean it.”

  “I mean it, too. Don’t come any closer. That shit…it’s still in me. I don’t know if I can keep it in check.” Julien tucked the barrel of the gun beneath his chin and thumbed off the safety, his index finger settling against the trigger. His blue eyes were round and anguished. “I’ll shoot myself before I let it take me again. I don’t want to hurt you, Mason.”

  “You won’t,” Mason told him gently. “God Above, Julien, you’ve never let anything hurt me.”

  He’d seen that in Julien’s mind, all of the years Julien had looked out for him. Lamar had insured that Mason had lived under constant threat, and he’d never realized it, never known his own peril—and only because Julien had kept him from it. For two hundred years, he’d watched over Mason…loved him from a distance, protected him with unwavering vigilance.

  He held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

  Julien shook his head. “I can’t. I…I don’t trust myself anymore.”

  “But I do,” Mason said.

  Julien blinked at him, stricken and hesitant. Mason could feel wave after powerful, poignant wave of raw emotion rolling from his mind—terror, uncertainty, anxiety, shame. Without his own telepathy to guard his memories, his mind was an open book to Mason—two hundred years of sorrow and suffering, so much violence, so many sacrifices, it nearly stripped the breath from him to sense them. Beneath all of these, he could feel the hunger that Julien was fighting; like the bloodlust only a thousand times stronger and more insidious, spreading through his mind, an insatiable urge, a maddening need.

  Then, with a soft click, Julien re-engaged the pistol’s safety, and his finger relaxed behind the trigger guard. He shifted his grip, flipping the gun stock-over-barrel against his palm, and offered it butt-first to Mason. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.

  “I do,” Mason began. His voice cut short in surprise as Julien swung his arm up, spinning the gun over in his hand again and curling his fingers, split-second, back around the stock. From behind Mason, Edith screamed and he whirled in time to see Nikolić leaping over the railing, diving at them. His hair had been burned completely away from his scalp, his face, neck, and torso seared and scorched beyond recognition. His eyes blazed brightly from their blackened sockets as he plunged down through the veil of thinning smoke with his arm outstretched, a gleaming, chrome-plated pistol in his hand.

  Before he could even get off a round, Julien flexed his finger against the trigger, the muscles in his arm taut as he braced against the shockwave of recoil. He hit Nikolić in the eye and it burst into meaty pulp, his brain splattering out the back of his skull in a sudden, grisly spray. The big man’s legs tangled in the razor wire lining the top of the ring, and he dragged it down with him as he crashed, head-first, to the mat. He dangled, half-suspended by the wire, in a broadening pool of his own blood, his remaining eye fixed and unblinking, glistening in the stage lights from overhead.

  Mason stumbled back in shock, then sat down hard. He looked up at Julien, shaken and stunned.

  “Oh, my God!” Edith screamed, leaning over the railing to look down at them. “Are you alright? He just leaped up…” When she caught sight of Nikolić caught in the razor wire, she screamed again, high-pitched and hysterical. “Oh, my God!”

  Three of Nikolić remaining guards rushed toward the arena gate, their boots stomping noisily against the floor. But when they, too, saw their boss hanging upside down, his legs wrapped in the glinting wires, they faltered in mid-stride. They exchanged uncertain looks, first with each other, then at Julien and Mason in the ring and without a word—without as much as unslinging their rifles—turned and fled back into the shadows, abandoning Nikolić to his fate.

  “Well, shit,” Julien remarked. “There goes our ride home.” Extending his gun arm again, he took aim at the padlock on the gate. With a single shot and a resounding metallic clatter, he shattered it and the gate swung open. Turning to Mason, he dropped a wink and a fleeting smile. “Why don’t you go grab the missus? I’ll see if I can catch up to them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “…and city fire officials are investigating the cause of a multiple-alarm blaze overnight that broke out in a warehouse complex downtown. Fire department spokespeople said the building has been vacant for several years. As you can see from this footage from SkyCam 11, fire can be seen shooting from the roof of the structure, and units are still on the scene attempting to control the blaze…”

  The phone at Mason’s bedside began to ring, loud and shrill enough so that he reached for it without first muting the early morning news broadcast. He had to reach over Julien’s shoulder for the nightstand in order to grab it, but even still, Julien didn’t as much as grumble or stir in his sleep.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” Edith said from the other end of the line, and he smiled.

  “Hey, Edi. I’m good. Really. Just lying here watching the news. I can’t sleep.”

  “Yeah. Me, either.”

  They hadn’t found the bodies yet—Nikolić, Anna, or the guard Julien had killed in blood-crazed attack. The C4 explosion had ignited the curtains and drapery partitions in Nikolić’s arena booth, and from there, the blaze had quickly spread. The seating tiers had been cheaply constructed and caught fire easily, while the old warehouse itself had been little more than a tinderbox just waiting for a wayward spark. That it hadn’t burned down long before that night now seemed somewhat astonishing to Mason.

  “And in other breaking news,” the pretty blonde anchorwoman on TV said. “After receiving an anonymous tip, city police discovered what they are now describing as the hub of an interstate human trafficking and prostitution ring operating out of this multi-story home on the south side. Thirteen young women, many of whom are minors, were removed from the scene by investigators who say they may have been brought illegally to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and forced to work in the sex industry.”

  Another image flashed on screen, this one of Nikolić’s brownstone brothel. Mason could see several of Nikolić’s guards being led down the front stairs by police officers wearing riot gear, as well as several young women with blankets around their shoulders sitting in nearby ambulances or squad cars. Sofiya was unmistakable among them as she spoke with a police officer, nodding her hea
d. In addition to the police, Mason had already made other phone calls on her behalf, both to his attorneys and to some of his father’s more established connections in the government, calling upon old favors to make sure Sofiya and the rest of the poor girls from the brownstone would be taken care of.

  “How’s Julien doing?” Edith asked quietly.

  Mason had propped himself on his elbow to talk to her, the phone tucked between his shoulder and ear. He lay stretched out behind Julien, and ran his hand gently down the length of the younger man’s form, outlined beneath the drape of crisp white sheets.

  “He’s asleep. Finally.”

  It had been more than three hours since they’d checked in to the hotel and stumbled, exhausting, aching, shell-shocked, and disheveled, into their respective rooms. Julien had been asleep nearly from the moment his head had hit the pillow, but at first, his dreams had been distressing; he’d moaned without rousing, tossing and turning restlessly beneath the tangled blankets. With Nikolić’s collar gone, his telepathy no longer blocked, he was able to keep his mind closed, and Mason didn’t know what images his mind conjured to torment him so…although he had a pretty good idea.

  He wanted me to kill you. Before drifting off at last, Julien had laid awake in Mason’s embrace, his body rigid, his muscles tense, his mind restless and distracted. “Nikolić, I mean,” he’d said softly, running his thumb back and forth along Mason’s knuckles. “He wanted to break me…that’s what he kept saying. I think in the end, he understood…he knew nothing would ever do it, not completely…nothing except for that.”

  Lamar had always used threats against Mason to keep Julien in line; he’d long ago realized Mason was the only person in the world who had mattered more to Julien than Aaron, and the only person who could ever make him turn against his beloved younger brother. In Julien’s heart, the emotional tug-of-war that had held him hostage, kept him enslaved, for so many years had been of his own making—standing in Lamar’s stead to brutalize Aaron in order to prevent him from doing the same to Mason. Although his intentions had started out similarly, in the end, Nikolić had taken this cruel manipulation one step even farther.