Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God

by Scott Duff

  “Shrank!” I yelled, between laughs anyway. “Shrank! Settle down! You’re making us dizzy.”

  Shrank slowed his rapid circles around us for a slow circle around Ferrin, then turned back to me. “We’ve been so worried, Master Seth! Master Peter! When that thing attacked through Lucian, Ehran was livid in anger. Then Martin’s ward fired off and we knew you were caught in between somewhere, his anger turned to fear. I’ve never seen him scared before.”

  “I haven’t either, Shrank,” I said helping Peter up. Ferrin hadn’t relaxed any, still watching Shrank and ready to swat. “Where is Ehran?”

  “Still in the sick place with Lucian, trying to fix him,” Shrank said sadly. “The plan now is to get together for dinner in an hour downstairs. Lady Cahill said to make sure everyone knew that casual dress was expected and to expect a simple dinner since most of the staff was away for a time.”

  I pushed open the door to the room across the hall to mine. It was unoccupied at the moment but it looked available. “I guess we’ll put you and Ian in here,” I said. Ferrin followed me into the room as I lit the lamps. “You mind sleeping with him for the time being?”

  “Christ, no,” he muttered, eyeing the room from the doorway. “The bed alone is bigger than me flat in London.”

  “Let’s get you something to change into. Shrank?” I called, walking across the hall into my room. He flew into the room between Ferrin and me, making Ferrin flinch. “Would you help Michael find something to wear while I shower, please? At least two days worth. I think all of us are gonna need more clothes again, if we can find the time to go shopping. We have got to find some help.”

  I left Ferrin in Shrank’s care and disappeared into the bathroom. I wanted, no, needed a few minutes respite from the day and it wasn’t over yet. I could almost feel the sun setting over the mountain behind the castle and wanted nothing more than to run a few hundred yards out to just watch twilight fall. Knowing I couldn’t, I turned on the shower and starting disrobing.

  “It was him, watn’t it?” I heard Ferrin to Shrank.

  “Him, what?” asked Shrank, chipper as ever. “This should fit and would go well with your coloring. Pants may be a problem. We may have to raid Peter’s closet, too.”

  “That’s too expensive,” said Ferrin. “I don’t want to steal from the boy. He saved my arse today. The job interview that Ian and Martin set up; it was with him, wasn’t it?”

  “Peter and he were interviewing personal assistants today, yes,” squeaked Shrank. “How about this one?”

  “Still too expensive,” Ferrin said.

  “Would you quit worrying about that?” squealed Shrank. “Apparently you haven’t noticed that ‘the boy’ doesn’t care about money. He does what he believes is right. Frankly, if any of the man’s friends thought you might be stealing from him, you might live long enough to see your skin stripped away an inch at a time. He generally gives us good reason to feel that way.”

  I shoved the toothbrush in my mouth and jumped in the shower. It’s not like I was eavesdropping. They knew where I was. There wasn’t any sneaking going on. Still it felt kind of creepy to me. Luxuriating in the hot water while I scrubbed my mouth out, I relaxed into the heavy spray, letting go of hundreds of tiny tensions held tightly throughout the day. The big tensions wouldn’t go away through a little hot water. I started washing up, making my skin rosy pink in the offset lighting. Checking for damage, I noticed I’d toned up over the last few weeks. Gained a sharper six-pack, tighter thighs. Killing over thirty people is good aerobic exercise, I suppose.

  That sarcastic thought was the lead-in to my little breakdown. I don’t remember much about it, just flashes of gore and guts, then sitting in the bottom of the shower crying for a long time. Then Peter coming in and turning the shower off. Then holding me in a damp towel while I sobbed even more. Peter didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any empty platitudes or vapid clichés. He was just there.

  “God, I’m being such a tool,” I muttered, coming back to myself some. Getting up from the floor of the shower for a dry towel. Peter’s clothes were soaked. “Why’d you let me go on for so long?”

  “You needed it,” answered Peter. “Stop trying to be superhuman, Seth. This is what your friends are for. You’ve done more for me than you know without even trying and helping you still helps me. Besides there is absolutely nothing wrong with your reaction to what you saw today.”

  I slowed, pulling up my pants, thinking about what he just said. “Is that why translates to ‘Seth loves me for me’? I don’t really understand why.”

  “Yeah,” he answered. “I think so. It was a moment of clarity that allowed me to set my self-identity. If the perfect man could look at the whole of my life, twice, and still say he loved me, there had to be something worthwhile in there. And when you put everything back that I took out, you forced me to relive it all. And the bad wasn’t so bad and the good was as good. And the thought ‘He loves me for me’ was running through my mind when reality slammed back into place and stuck.”

  “The ‘perfect man’?” I asked, chuckling, pulling a shirt over my head. “Now who’s trying to make me superhuman.”

  “Well, that’s the image I’ve held of you for years. No help for a teenage crush. Why has it taken you so long to acknowledge this, anyway? Ethan’s been making off-color jokes for days.”

  “I thought the coming-out process was important to gay men,” I said, shrugging. “You’d talk to me about it when you thought it was important. Besides, you were lusting after Ethan, not me.”

  “Who looks an awful lot like you and don’t you dare tell him that!” Peter said, getting off the bed and peeling his damp shirt away from his chest.

  “How late are we, anyway?” I asked, combing my hair at the dresser. I gave up on the more unruly strands sticking out at odd angles. My face was puffy and red so I doubted straightening my hair would help me look better.

  “Just a few minutes,” Peter said, ducking into my closet. He came out with a shirt similar to the one he wore and quickly swapped them, laying the damp one on a chair in the corner to dry. “We can take more time if you want. Everyone will understand.”

  “No, I think I’m all cried out at the moment,” I said, meaning it. “It doesn’t get easier, does it? Killing people, I mean.”

  “God, I hope not,” said Peter. “You ready?”

  I slipped my shoes on and followed Peter out. By the time we were at the stairs, I found myself agreeing with Peter, hoping killing didn’t get any easier. The act itself was simple: insert blade and end life or squeeze trigger and end life or any of a hundred thousand different ways. If it were any easier, everyone would be doing it. It was the aftereffects that caused the problems. I was responsible for a lot of problems lately. A lot of problems.

  When Peter and I walked into the dining room, I had an epiphany, seeing everyone around the table, that assuaged my guilt some. The sense of family is a curious thing: you can find it in many places when you really aren’t looking for it and it can reach out well past the confines of tradition. And it can grow. I started a quest with Kieran, a man I didn’t know, to find my parents. I got a brother in the bargain, someone I could trust and depend on, not just a word. I got the same thing in Peter, more than a friend—he’d already called me his “little brother” several times now, and it was comfortable. I wasn’t exactly sure where Ethan fit in, being so tightly centered around me, brother and alien, but brother was closer.

  The Cahills started out helping me from a sense of obligation to my father and now I was obligated to them. They didn’t think so, but I did. From the doorway, I watched Ian and Martin talking excitedly about some innocuous topic. Enid was listening with rapt attention, just happy to still be hearing her son’s voice. Ferrin sat beside Ian, lightly rubbing his shoulders. For all his aches and pains, Ferrin was happy to be there with Ian and Martin, too, though he was not paying as close attention to their conversation as Enid. Kieran, Gordon, and Felix were clustere
d together a chair away talking quietly. I assumed to keep their conversation away from the boys, because Ferrin was paying attention to them.

  When I saw Ian look up at Ferrin and smile briefly, it hit me: this is why, this is what mattered, and this is what made those “problems” I created far less of a problem. Somebody was trying to kill my family, but I got to them first. It was self-defense, in defense of my family. That, I could live with.

  ~ ~ ~

  The hero of the Cahill castle attack turned out to be Shrank. Specifically, it was his odd dislike for Lucian that created the first suspicions that something was wrong. He told Kieran that Lucian smelled wrong, that there was something attached to him, that something wasn’t there that should be. The dislike was strong enough in the pixie that Kieran looked more deeply at Lucian and watched him carefully through the night and into the next morning. Kieran had seen something, too, but he thought it was the trauma and curse damage. He was wrong.

  At roughly the same time we noticed our followers on the road, several Loa emerged from their weird cross-dimensional space. The strongest of them merged immediately with Lucian and attempted to crash the wards on the castle and its surrounding properties. From there it would have been a quick takeover with the snake in Lucian facilitating the takeovers of humans by the other Loa.

  Then Kieran got in the way. The Loa got its first bite into Lucian and he was able to crash the wards, but only long enough for Kieran to lock another one into place that kept the Loa both out and in before Lucian brought them all back into place. From there, Kieran destroyed the entirety of the Loa clan, slicing them to shreds with the sword he kept tucked away. The sword I’d only seen twice before.

  The wards were down for less than a second—Felix barely felt the change. He did however feel the attempts to open portals and knew they were being attacked. He changed the castles defenses from ‘wary’ to ‘battle ready’ and ripped the portals open, literally sending whatever was trying to pass through into the veil between worlds and causing the energy to flow back out into the portals’ creator. It was very similar to what happened to the elf that tried to escape from the wards on the campus.

  “You wouldn’t believe this place under ‘battle ready’ conditions,” said Kieran, green eyes bright. “It looks like a castle instead of just a big house. The fortifications are immense. The wards in this place are awe-inspiring and they can be expanded to cover miles more.”

  The conventional attack on the castle fared no better, but was confusing because its intent was unclear. It, too, was similar to the school’s attack and seemed to ride on the coattails of the Loa attack, gaining entrance to the grounds by the breaking of the wards. Since the wards didn’t actually fall, Cahill was able to take all of them by himself, one man against sixty. It was no contest. He let them in far enough to be out of public view then trounced them hard, only sending in his men to collect them when the enemy was unconscious.

  The coup of the castle was basically bloodless with the only casualties being Lucian, the Loa, and whoever or whatever was in the portals. The attackers were being housed and questioned in dungeons of the castle now. Billy had taken our captain and colonel to add to that group earlier. Gordon did assure me, though, that while “dungeon” brought on many medieval connotations, they merely meant a series of secure rooms in the lower levels, similar to the practice rooms I found Peter and Ethan in.

  Between Martin, Gordon, and Ferrin, much of our side of the story had already been told, so thankfully there wasn’t much that Peter and I had to add. I would still make sure that Felix and Enid knew how proud they should be of their sons but later, when it wouldn’t turn into a “Who Did Best” contest.

  When Billy came into the room, Enid decided it was time for the boys to head for bed. It was too early and we all knew it, but we also knew that it would be much later before the battle ended to get them into bed and asleep. Ferrin walked with Ian to the stairs and spoke to him quietly for a few minutes before Ian followed the Cahills up the stairs. I marveled at the difference between the spiky-haired street punk from a month ago and the doting brother I saw now. It was amazing that they could coexist.

  “Marchand’s been calling,” said Billy once the boys and Enid had left. “Wants me to send someone out on the grounds to find you and have you call him, preferably come to him. He thinks you’re ducking his calls. He wants to know where Seth and Gordon and the rest got off to. Marshall’s gonna tell me about it as soon as he sees me.”

  Gordon laughed and Felix said, “You should see me in about an hour. Thanks, Billy.”

  “Thought I should make a point of it,” he said, sitting down next to Peter. “Bishop called, too. His message was a little more direct. He said and I quote: ‘What the hell did McClure do to these wards? I can feel a fly take a piss in here! Yet I didn’t feel him portal any one of them out! He shouldn’t have been able to do that. And Felix, there have been more terrorist attacks across the world so don’t take too much damn time!’ Again, his words, not mine.”

  “Huh,” muttered Ferrin, “Looks like you can forget about the universe centering ‘round you, McClure.” Now that was the sort of comment I expected out of him.

  “That’s not good news, Michael,” I said, glancing over at him. As I did, I caught a glimmer of orange around the bangles he wore on his wrist. It caught Peter’s attention as well.

  “Mike, what’s that?” Peter asked, pointing at his wrist. “The orange one?”

  “What? This one?” he said, sitting down at the table, pulling the band off his wrist and tossing it to Peter. “That was part of the purse from MacNamara’s. Bloody worthless thing. The elf called it a ‘Fairy’s Tear’ and said it would hold magic from Faery, as if that were stronger than the power here.”

  “I doubt it does anything,” said Peter, handing it to me. “It’s broken. Look familiar, Seth?”

  “It’s the same color as the stone you gave me,” said Gordon, digging into his pocket and pulling out the battery I gave him this morning. I just put one into my hand. The colors were similar, but not an exact match so I expected other differences.

  “Do not pull that in like your other stuff,” Shrank piped in warning from my shoulder, making me jump a little. I’d forgotten he was even in the room, he’d been so quiet.

  “Why?” I asked, because that was exactly what I was about to do. I wanted to see what shape it would take, since my batteries changed so dramatically.

  “It’s been tagged with Elf magic,” Shrank said, sniffing at it. “It’s faint but still there. You could mark yourself if you pull it in, maybe, I’m not sure, but why chance it?” I nodded in agreement.

  “Is that how they found me, then?” asked Ferrin, eyes narrowing in anger. “At the school? That would explain how that blasted captain caught me so easily.”

  “Could be,” said Shrank. “Unless your veil covered it specifically, it was probably visible to them.”

  “That rat bastard,” muttered Ferrin.

  “More than you know,” I muttered in answer, then louder, “This isn’t the same as mine. It lacks the dimensionality to properly contain energy for any length of time. It probably blew up in somebody’s face and that’s why they call it a ‘tear.’ Here, Ferrin, take this one. At least it’ll be useful.” I slid the battery across the table to him, keeping the orange chunk bracelet.

  “You saved my life today. I think you’re familiar enough to call me Mike,” he said, reaching for the stone. “And what is this, anyway?”

  “It’s a ley line in a rock,” said Gordon, grinning at him across the table. Felix’s confusion was evident so Gordon slipped his dad his battery to experiment with while Ferrin experimented with his. It was fun to watch their faces as they tugged and pushed the line energy from the stones, but there was a lot to do tonight. I brought out the Night long enough to send the Fairy’s Tear into oblivion along with its elven mark.

  “Where did you get these?” asked Cahill, astounded. “How are they powered?”


  “They’re just storing energy put into them,” I said. “And I make them.”

  “We haven’t figured out how he does it yet,” said Kieran. “There are… peculiarities in the way Seth works his magic that we do not yet understand.”

  “Mr. Cahill?” said one of the house staff from the door. I hadn’t seen this person before. “Mr. Bishop is on the phone and won’t take that you’re still out on the grounds for an answer.”

  “Thank you, Jenny, I’ll take care it,” Cahill said, standing from the table. “We may as well get comfortable, gentlemen. It’s likely to be a long night.”

  “We’ll be right in, Felix,” said Kieran smiling casually. “I’d just like a moment with Mr. Ferrin first.”

  Ferrin eased himself slowly back into his chair. He was expecting something like this, he just didn’t know what was going to happen, or even what he wanted to happen, I think. Kieran placed a sound barrier over the room without even a whisper of power use. I had to admire the ease with which he did it, too. Of course, when I do it, it’s with the Stone’s help and I’ve yet to see anybody come close to operating the same as the Stone.

  “Seth, what have you promised him?” Kieran asked me.

  “Only that I’d pay for whatever schooling that Ian needs,” I said. “With what he did for Martin and what he’s going through just to take care of Ian and himself, it seems a small price to pay.”

  “That’s it?” he asked. He seemed surprised. I nodded, glancing over at Ferrin. His aura spiked horribly low with disappointment, expecting Kieran to nix that out of hand. That would have caused a huge argument since it was my money and I could do what I wanted with it, but Kieran wouldn’t do that anyway.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Once we find out what’s going on elsewhere in the world tonight, we’ll be able to make more complete plans. In the meantime, get with either Gordon or Felix and get a reasonable cost estimate on that. Remember, though, that school is more than just tuition and lab fees and costs never go down. You’re looking at a minimum of probably a million and a half. Go ahead and call the New York lawyers and get the transfers started. We should have enough cash upstairs to open accounts in town. You’ll need those before you can make the transfers.