I heard whimpering and crying from a few other cells, no doubt the boys who had been infected. They would have to stay in isolation until we made certain that they weren’t contagious and that they were truly cured. Landry would have the biscuits analyzed, and of course, would have his own concoctions and baked goods to try on them. They weren’t my concern, not like Mal, not when they hadn’t been potential Butcher’s Boys anyway. Otherwise, they would have been out of Calder, making acquaintance with werewolves the proper way, with whips.
I opened the cell door and saw the room, large enough to move around in, but fairly austere, for those who were considered dangerous to others as well as themselves.
“Mal.”
He was lying on the bed, a spray of red hair on his pillow reminding me of old blood. “I betrayed you.” His voice was dead, empty above an ocean of pain and hurt he’d always carried.
I grabbed a chair and sat beside him, crossing my arms and my legs as I leaned back. “You didn’t intend any harm?”
“I don’t understand how it happened. I’ve been having dreams on and off ever since Lance died. I hear his voice, calling me, telling me to avenge his death, his sister, over and over and over again, and I can’t shut it out. The night before All Hallow’s Eve, I had a dream that seemed so real. Lance came to me, his body wrapped in shadows, but his hand, his eyes, it was Lance, and he told me that Tancetta was a renegade Butcher and that he was going to poison you. He told me everything I needed to do to prepare an antidote. The next morning I found everything exactly where he’d said it would be. I followed his instructions exactly, but those berries were poison. I know poisons, but I didn’t realize what I was doing, that I was making a poison instead of a cure.”
He turned his head and stared at me. I didn’t like that stare, the horror in his eyes, that he had done something against his own will. Vampires. Somehow a vampire had gotten into his head. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. Instead I reached out and took his hand.
“It sounds like you’ve been under a great deal of stress. You’ll have to stay in confinement for a few days, but I think that eventually you’ll enjoy a full recovery. I wish you’d mentioned something sooner. Being a Butcher is not without its risks.”
“You think I was under a glamour, a mind-washing? What kind of vampire could do that, could force me to act against my very nature, to destroy what I hold dear above all else? I have nothing in my life other than the Butchers. I give you my allegiance with all of my heart. How could I try to destroy the one thing I have?” His pale eyes glowed with unshed tears.
I gritted my teeth as I felt his agony, his despair. He was so alone, by nature and by circumstance. I wanted so much to pull away, to let him keep his unhappiness without partaking in it. I had my own deep well of abiding misery to dwell in. Instead, I gripped his hand harder. “I don’t know. I give you my word as your Butcher that I will get to the bottom of this, and we will find the monster who did this to you.”
He stared at me, slowly nodded and then closed his eyes, his features softening as he finally relaxed, let go of a little bit of the anger, despair, the fear.
I let his hand slide out of my grip and stood.
“You can’t trust me, Orion. You know that you can’t.” He sounded exhausted, his eyes closed, his body limp
I only shook my head. “You are one of my Butchers. I need you strong, I need you to keep fighting the shadows.”
His voice was only a whisper. “I will fight the shadows, Orion. I will always fight the shadows, even when it seems that they are inside of me.”
The next visit was not as pleasant as a depressed Mal. The C.M. waited in the headmaster’s office while the headmaster was notably absent. He glanced up at me from the desk where he sorted through stacks of papers, my papers that I felt irrationally possessive about.
“C.M. tell me what you know about the attack last night.”
I sat in the chair across from him, propping my feet up on the desk, hands behind my head. I was tired and could use some sleep, particularly if I were lying beside Violetta. Of course, I wouldn’t be interested in sleeping if I were close to her.
“Butcher, because you are clearly feeling the effects of such a difficult night, I will allow you to disrespect the Headmaster’s fine desk. Last night was unusual in many respects. It isn’t ordinary for a Butcher’s boy to poison his Butcher any more than it is that he is cured by a classman who is actually a young woman who cured a dozen infected boys while bringing you back to life. That poison was extremely well-prepared.”
“However well-prepared it was, my Baker is magic.” And I was clearly out of my mind with exhaustion if I said something like that to my father. I stared at him behind the desk where he sat in the spare black sweater, his shoulder length hair gathered into a neat ponytail while his eyes frowned at me from behind his glasses. He looked like a scholar, not an overseer of a secret society that hunted dark things.
“Your Baker? Has she agreed to this?”
I nodded while my throat tightened. He could make things very difficult for me, for her, for us. I should be respectful, show him that I was capable of controlling myself.
He cleared his throat. “I would like to meet her.”
“You can at the banquet ceremony where we’ll be presenting her an award for excellence and bravery.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Excellence and Bravery? Does baking require bravery?”
“She fought off a dozen werewolves with a rolling pin and biscuits while nearly paralyzed with the fear from the memory of her own parent’s slaughter. Yes, her baking required bravery.”
“So you would like to reveal the fact that a beautiful woman capable of Baking miracles is here at Calder? Are you certain that you can control the Butchers around such temptation? You can’t control yourself.”
I smiled at him sharply. “If I couldn’t control myself, I’d still be in my bed with her.”
His eyes widened and I saw real surprise in them for a moment before he covered it in studied indifference. “Be cautious, Orion. Landry likes the girl. I would be hard-pressed to find myself a new Baker.”
“Landry is her father, isn’t he?”
His eyes narrowed and even though I knew I’d gone too far, for some reason, he didn’t rebuke me. “I wouldn’t mention that unless Landry does. Joseph Tancetta was left unable to have children after a particularly vicious vampire attack that he barely survived. He married the Baker girl, and miraculously, they had twins eight and a half months later. Landry was miserable company around that time, but I had you and Armand, and your mother, not to mention an entire world of Butchers to manage. I didn’t investigate, and I didn’t probe. Landry is prickly, even for a Baker.”
“I didn’t notice Bakers being anything other than delicious.”
He gave me a flat stare. “That is because she hasn’t been pursued by other Butchers who force their energy on her. Bakers don’t have it easy, particularly females. Try not to break her heart.”
I thumped my feet to the ground, and leaned on my knees to stare at him. “That sounds suspiciously close to a blessing.”
He shrugged and gave me a half-smile. “Between you and Landry, I don’t have a chance. Landry feels so much towards this girl, guilt, anxiety, responsibility, I think he needs someone else to share the burden with.”
“Not you?”
He shook his head. “He’d rather I didn’t know how he feels.”
“So you pretend.”
He shrugged. “Connection isn’t always simple. Some, like Casper, say every thought that occurs to them. That’s a very good way to be universally hated.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “You aren’t forbidding me to see her.”
“Are you disappointed? Were you going to run away with her to live in a trailer park somewhere working at the local grocery store? No, Orion. We need you and we need her. Your connection is already enviable. Hopefully your situation is permanent by the time your mother visits.”
I rubbed my forehead. No, she would not be fond of the idea of me and a Baker…I opened my eyes wide to stare at my father. Permanent? He’d said that word, permanent, but what was permanent besides death? Marriage? Was he telling me that I should actually marry Violetta Tancetta? Oh, that would go over well. I could imagine her reaction. An intelligent, motivated, clearly independent woman like her would hardly agree to marry me before we’d had a single legitimate date. The danger, the reasons that he should protest and object to my stupid and reckless obsession with her, he couldn’t ignore that, could he? How could he ignore the fact that I was being irresponsible and letting personal desires get in the way of reason and duty?
I slammed my fists on the table, the sound reverberating through the room. “You are the C.M. You cannot allow a Butcher to endanger a Baker.”
He leaned forward, only slightly, but his eyes narrowed. “Then don’t. You know your limits. If you become a danger, stop.”
I growled at him. “If I’m a danger, I won’t be able to stop. I am a danger now. I would be a disaster. It’s irrational to allow a danger to grow into disaster without even trying to put some checks on it.”
He shrugged. “So, put some checks on it. You’re not stupid, Orion, and you aren’t merely some besotted Butcher who wants to have his cake and eat it too. By the way, that is a literal analogy in your case. Don’t eat the cake. She will bleed.”
I threw my hands in the air before I sat back across from him, studying him, analyzing his expression. He was doing the same to me. We were there, weighing each other like opponents who would either win or lose before the first piece was played. “Have you seen cases where a Butcher and a Baker lost control?”
He nodded, a deep furrow creasing his forehead between his eyebrows. “A few times. There was a female Butcher and a male Baker who ran away together and died shortly afterwards. They looked rather happy in their death pose, arms wrapped around each other, lifeless eyes gazing forever fixed on that other half.” He sighed. “If the decomposing bodies didn’t smell so bad, it would have been romantic. Do you know about Landry’s sister? That was…” He shook his head slightly and gave me an odd smile. “She fancied herself in love with a Butcher. When he did the honorable thing and refused to engage with her, she locked herself in her room, refused to take the energy of any other Baker until she was on the cusp of death. Then, she left her room, completely out of her mind, and very nearly sucked the life out of the first Butcher she came to. You know your cousin Farrow; only nine at the time. He remembers the occasion fondly, as I’m sure you understand. It would be a very pleasant death.”
I ran a hand over my face before I shook my head. “So your plan is to watch us carefully so that we aren’t left to our own devices, to indulge in instincts which would lead to…”
“Yes. Landry and I had a most spirited discussion about it. Landry wishes to give her whatever she wants, even if it requires your life and health.”
“And you?”
He shrugged, frowning down at the desk in front of him. “I want to continue the Daughtry line. The difficulties of conception between Butchers are not a secret. It’s so difficult to turn off the killer and become a lover. Without Landry’s efforts, neither you nor your brother would ever have been conceived much less been born. If you already feel soft towards her, it is doubtful that you would put much effort into forming an alliance with another female.”
There it was. I wished very much that I could overturn the desk and throw his words back at him, that I would never endanger Violetta that way, but he was right. I was neither stupid enough, nor intelligent enough to refuse her, and the price he asked was what I craved bone-deep. A life with Violetta by my side would be an actual life full of light and shadow instead of the dark harsh single-minded reality of my Butcher existence. I wanted that. I wanted her, and there were very few things I wouldn’t do for her, including smiling at my father before I inclined my head.
“Indeed. What are your plans for Mal?”
He smirked at my docile reaction while I breathed evenly. “Clearly he was under the influence of vampires.”
“Clearly.”
“He’s not infected. I think for his morale, it would be best if he joined you as soon as possible.”
I stood up and bowed at my C.M. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done so. “Tonight, then.”
He didn’t stop me, only nodded vaguely and handed me the stack of papers, giving me back my own.
I took them and closed the door, standing for a moment in the dark wood-paneled hallway breathing deeply the scent of age and duty. He should have stopped me, and yet, he’d taken the course of wisdom. It was very unlikely that my mother would do the same, and he was not her C.M.
Chapter 36
The Baker
I walked to my room, my brother’s room surrounded by black clothed men who moved like they were ready at any moment for a bomb to explode or a werewolf to attack. I started getting nervous just because they were so ready. Once I reached my room, I turned and smiled at them, hoping they would go, but they took positions around the door, apparently going to guard it until I came back out. Awesome.
I opened the door, stepped inside and then stopped as Sebastian sat up on the bed, his face rather haggard and his face unshaven. He was huge, even larger than he’d been when I’d last seen him, so tall and he’d filled out his frame. He looked larger than Orion or my dad.
“Bas.”
“Vie. How are things?”
I stared at him and felt this weird anger mixed with relief. I hadn’t seen him for so long, and he was okay, really all right after fighting werewolves in the street all night, but he hadn’t tried to get in contact with me, hadn’t called, hadn’t worried about me when he left me so miserable and pathetic, needing Orion so much that I couldn’t resist him and didn’t want to.
I shrugged. “Great. So, there’s a banquet?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You going?”
I shrugged again. “I guess. I don’t know where else I’d go.”
He scowled at me as he sat up, draping his arms over his knees. “I’m sorry that I lied to you.”
I shrugged and turned to rummage through a drawer. It was the wrong drawer and I couldn’t remember what I was looking for. “I was always too rational. I should have immediately guessed magic when I saw you grow like that.”
He half laughed, but it ended in a choked cough. “Orion took care of you, though, right?”
I nodded and slammed the drawer closed. “Sure.”
“I knew he would, I mean, I didn’t know that, but I didn’t really understand until I’d left how bad it would be for you. I had this Baker while we were squatting in this run down mansion, and he’d suck the life out of us and then bake this horrible stuff. I never realized how good you were, how nice I had it until I was on the streets. The exchange rate was horrible. With you, I always got fifty times more from you than I gave.”
I turned and glared at him, hands crossing over my chest instinctively. He saw my position and shifted uneasily.
“Really? Fifty to one is how it was? Do you think that I might have been able to use a little more energy for what I made for you? I had nothing when I went to Calder. Orion gave me a hug as soon as he saw me because he knew that I had nothing. You left me with nothing. Does Orion hug guys? No. He doesn’t leave people who need him, either. I know. I’ve gotten to know him, and every word you’ve ever said about him is a complete and utter lie. You were fighting him? I had no idea you could ever be so stupid! I mean, you’re my brother, surely somewhere inside of that brain is a nugget of not stupid.”
He took that moment to cut me off. “Vie, you know, mom always said that you got all the brains.”
“And you got all the senseless, stupid, idiotic, moronic, obtuse, senseless, careless, numbskull…”
He got up and crushed me against him, the kind of hug he never gave me. “Don’t forget cretin.” His voice was so low and grown up. I closed
my eyes and would have cried if I hadn’t already let it all out with Orion. Instead, I pushed him away so that I could look up at him, his eyes alight with energy and focus, his gaze steady and determined. He had changed, hopefully for the better.
“You’re dating Olivia?”
He blinked and glanced around, like somebody would hear. “Yeah, I guess. It’s kind of hard because we don’t really talk much.” He blinked like he realized how that sounded before he corrected himself. “I mean, we fight a lot, mostly that’s what we do, and then when there’s not fighting, there’s…”
“Tongue wars?”
He shot me a bright smile that kind of made my heart ache in my chest. Yeah. He was smitten with Olivia. He was so screwed.
“She tried to kiss me. It was awesome.”
He shook his head. “Why did you do it, Vie? I didn’t ask you to take my place at Calder. I never thought you would. Isn’t it dishonest, unethical and against everything you believe in?”
I shrugged. “I think I needed to go where I could suck the life out of some Butchers. This school is teeming with boys full of energy and nothing to do with it.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing.” He pulled out a long, sharp wicked knife, the movement well-practiced and smooth. “So, you and Orion, you’re being careful with him, right?”
“In what way? He knows that I’m not you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course he knows that you’re not me. We had a conversation about it weeks ago. He called me out for leaving you. Kind of made me feel guilty. He’s really good at making you feel guilty.”
“Only when you should feel guilty. Sebastian, what do you know about who killed our parents?”
He blinked at me and a mask came down, shuttering away his emotions and thoughts. “I was told that werewolves did it, but now I don’t know.”
Butcher, Baker, Vampire Slayer: A Retelling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Page 31
