“Which is?”
Ginny leaned back and looked out the window. “A kid. Maybe just one, maybe more. I don’t know. I just think I’d be a really good Mother. I’ve loved kids my whole life. Used to babysit throughout my teens. Even then I’d dream about having little ones of my own.”
Brandon was quiet. Shit, that’s right, Ginny thought. He can’t have kids. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Way to go, dumbass. Open mouth, insert foot.
Finally Brandon just smiled. “I like kids too,” he said.
Ginny leaned forward once again, grinning mischievously. “Back to you. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“What’s your biggest secret?” she asked, with eyebrows raised.
Brandon fixed her with his bright, almost golden eyes. He seemed to be considering something particularly heavy. Finally, he said, “I’m a werewolf,” with a perfectly straight face.
A moment of silence stretched between them. Ginny threw up her arms. “Come on, I just poured my heart out!”
Brandon leaned forward, and if he was kidding, she certainly couldn’t tell. “I’m serious. I’m a werewolf.”
What a poker face.
“Right, okay,” she replied. “Well, I’m a fucking gremlin. It’s why I never eat after midnight.”
Brandon laughed, but then went on: “The pills I take keep me from turning. Celine was a werewolf too. She was out hunting when she was caught in the fire.”
Okay, enough. This had left the realm of amusing and had now headed into just plain weird.
“Maybe truth or dare was a stupid idea. I mean, a joke’s a joke, but involving your dead ex is just… disrespectful.”
Brandon opened his mouth to speak further but then closed it again. Neither of them said anything. Ginny leaned back and looked out the window once more. They passed the final moments of the trip in awkward silence.
***
What were you thinking?
Brandon’s thoughts just before answering Ginny’s “biggest secret” question were: Okay, hot shot. Here it is. Opportunity knocking on your door, right? He was convinced that this was the universe thrusting out its chin, saying, “Come on, let’s see what you got!”
It wasn’t something he’d said lightly. Guilt had been stifling him ever since Liarsville. Guilt about not sharing this innermost secret with her, and so when the situation presented itself, the words just came out, and now things were uncomfortable between them. Does it even matter? You’re leaving, remember? Just fuck her a few more times and—
Wait just a fucking minute. What was that? That wasn’t him. That was the other part of him talking, the foreign part: the animal whispering through the bars of the cage. As long as you recognize it, that’s the important thing; recognize it and tell it to shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, Brandon repeated over and over as the locomotive entered the station.
Following the train ride, they returned to the ship, went separately to their rooms to prepare for dinner, and then met with Sal and Vera. When Vera asked how their day was, both of them hesitated before Ginny finally answered, “Skagway was amazing.” She went on to describe the sights they had seen, the history they had learned, and she lit up when she spoke about the train ride. Brandon only half listened. He was being bombarded yet again by the conversations around him. There was a riot of noise assaulting him from every direction. The noise became overwhelming to the point that another headache, the most painful yet, bored its way through his skull.
What could he do to get the siege to stop? When they had last spoken, Ghost had said he would up the dosage, so why weren’t the pills doing what they were supposed to do? Brandon concentrated on drowning out the sounds, shutting his eyes tight. When he opened them, he noted that Ginny, Sal, and Vera were all staring his way.
What…?
Brandon looked down. He was holding a full cut of prime rib in his hand, and had ripped off a chunk with his teeth. He swallowed, set the prime rib down, and offered a weak smile. “Sorry, I got excited. I just really love prime rib.”
Sal waved it off. “Don’t bother us a bit. Have at it. You’re on vacation!”
The din of voices diminished somewhat, though Brandon’s head still pounded. He ordered a drink and happened to be glancing up to the second floor, where a man with short black hair and a dark complexion stood staring directly at him.
What the fuck are you looking at?
The man smiled, nodded his head slightly, turned, and walked away.
***
The room Alexander had rented in Skagway looked out upon a rather narrow alley with no foot traffic. Before meeting Marie, he had leaned out and noted a rubbish dumpster, on his side of the alley, several meters toward the street. It was a small matter to move the bin just under the window and flip open the rubber lids.
Once his session with Marie was complete (and what a session it was—he had reached in and grasped her heart as it pumped out its last, even as he pumped out every last drop of semen he could produce), he had deposited the remains into a sleeping bag which he had tossed out the window—though it pained his shoulder to no end—and into the bin. There was enough refuse to dampen the noise, and there had been no witnesses. He had proceeded downstairs, covered the bag with more rubbish, and shut the lids. By the time the body was discovered, Alexander would be long gone.
There had been very little blood in the tub, easily scrubbed and washed down the drain. He had netted out with nine pints once she was fully drained, easily enough to suit his purposes. Tucking the bags beneath his clothes he had smuggled the lot back on board and into his fridge.
Next, as if fate were truly smiling upon him, “Eric” and his hussy elected to have dinner. Alexander’s suspicions were growing more certain. The stare Eric had given him as he stood overlooking the lower dining level added another degree of assuredness. Now Eric, the girl, and the geriatrics sat imbibing at the piano bar. He had followed them, and was determined to lay any suspicions to rest once and for all.
It had been twenty minutes before Eric finally approached the bar alone to order more drinks.
“One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself,” Alexander offered.
Eric turned towards him, and Alexander noted the eyes: wide and bright, penetrating. Predatory. The man himself was formidable, muscular, yet graceful and direct in his manner. And, it appeared as if he hadn’t shaved in several days. “Excuse me?” the man said, and those eyes held him fast. There was certainly imminent threat there. But there was something else as well… a mild alarm?
Alexander offered a casual smile. “Skagway put me in the mind of quoting one of my favorite authors, Jack London. Quite a brilliant novelist, despite being an American.”
The eyes flashed at the insult; the jaw clenched. With visible difficulty the larger man regained some semblance of composure, though he stood very close, both hands curled into fists. Alexander remained relaxed. The man’s eyes never left his as he said, “I’ve always been more of a Robert E. Howard fan, myself.”
And there it was, then: the proof he had been waiting for. Alexander bared his perfect teeth in a wide grin. “REH. A rugged fellow. Weak heart, though. Couldn’t face up to his Mother’s death, came to a coward’s end.”
Now, those eyes actually brightened. For a brief instant, Alexander wondered if this Eric—or Brandon—would strike him, which could make matters infinitely more difficult. The man was close enough now that Alexander could smell the food and alcohol on his breath.
“London was an alcoholic and a drug addict and some people think he committed suicide too. Now is there something I can fucking help you with?”
Alexander laughed and clapped Eric on his brawny shoulder. “Not at all, my friend. Not at all. I have everything that I require.”
The bigger man was still standing there, fuming, when Alexander turned and walked away.
***
It
was all Brandon could do not to rip the man’s head off. What had he meant about “violating promptings of nature”? It sounded like something Celine would have said. What did this man know about him? What could he know? For him to say such a thing, to Brandon of all people… It was an impossible coincidence, wasn’t it? Was it? Brandon couldn’t keep his thoughts straight.
He paid for their drinks and took them back to the table where Sal, Vera, and Ginny sat. Ginny was eyeing him with concern. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Brandon shook his head. “Just some drunken idiot.”
You should have just gone back to your room. Brandon had thought about it when the headache had hit him, but he found himself overtaken by an undeniable desire to mend things with Ginny. She had begun warming back up to him, and he didn’t want to just leave things as they were at the end of the train ride. He wanted to get them back on solid ground, though it would have been easy to just turn his back. On her, on Vera and Sal, on all of it.
They sat for another half hour, with Sal and Vera doing the most talking. Brandon’s headache had returned with a passion, and the alcohol was barely putting a dent in it. Besides, he shouldn’t be drinking anyway, right? What if that was affecting the pills? It wasn’t long before Sal and Vera excused themselves. After saying goodnight to them, he and Ginny sat listening to the piano music for a while.
Just before 9 PM, Rocco, the cruise director, came onto the intercom and called for Marie Harris to report to the guest services desk. He called again five minutes later.
“You think someone got lost?” Ginny asked.
Brandon shrugged. “I hope not.”
Rocco called for Marie Harris every five minutes until 9:30, when Rocco announced that the ship was leaving Skagway, on its way to Juneau. He invited all guests to join the sail away party on decks nine and ten.
“I should call it a night,” Ginny said finally, though she didn’t sound as if she meant it entirely.
“I’ll walk you,” he said.
On the way back to Ginny’s room, Brandon once again took pains to calm himself. If that guy knows something about you, it’ll come out, one way or another. If he was a cop, he wouldn’t be hanging out on a cruise ship with you. Maybe he knew Celine, or maybe he knows Ghost. Either way, it’s not something to worry about right now. Right now you need to get back on track with Ginny, because it’s the right thing to do, not because you want to jump in the sack again. Get your head back on straight. You control the beast; it doesn’t control you.
They stopped in front of Ginny’s door. Brandon took her hand in his.
“Hey, I’m sorry. About earlier. Sometimes I say things without thinking them through. I didn’t mean to upset you, or to be disrespectful to Celine. Believe me, that wasn’t my intent.”
Ginny smiled and nodded. “I feel like an asshole for talking about kids after—after, you know, you told me that you can’t have kids. I’m sorry too. Let’s just… put all that shit behind us. After all, we don’t have much time left if you’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
He squeezed her hand tighter and nodded.
“You wanna come in?” she asked.
***
Sure, so maybe he was a little weird, but he was still amazing. He was still the coolest thing that had happened to her in a long time. Who was she kidding? She was nuts for this guy. He could have said he was a fucking Cylon and it wouldn’t matter. In fact, she would have liked him even more. And as for the disrespect to Celine, she knew from the way that he had spoken of her before how much he had loved her. Who knew? Maybe they had a different way of communicating. Maybe off-color comments like that were common between them.
She waited in the entry as Brandon turned and closed the door. When he turned back around, she was standing there, looking up at him, and before she knew it her hands were on his shirt, lifting it up over his head.
Jesus, has he gotten bigger? His muscles seemed larger, even more defined. Was there more hair? A fine layer over his shoulders. An instant later her own top was coming off. Brandon kicked off his boots and unbuttoned his fly.
Seconds later she was lying naked on her back. Her legs were spread and his face was buried between them. At first he was way too active down there, shoving his head in like a competitor at a pie eating contest. Actually, in a way it is a pie—okay, never mind.
She grasped his head, pushed him back, guided him, moaned when he was doing things with his tongue that she liked, and pulled away when he wasn’t. Soon he had eased into a technique that brought her to the verge of orgasm twice. When he finally raised his head and drew forward, his facial hair was glistening with her juices. He eased himself into her…
Condom. Tell him to stop and grab a condom.
He kissed her deeply and she had the bizarre yet somehow titillating sensation of tasting herself. His tempo was slow at first, then faster and then slow again. The anticipation and yearning built within her an aching for the moment of release.
Fuck the condom. I want this. Right now I want this more than anything.
The rhythmic shifts continued, with the slow changes becoming shorter in duration. Soon there was no more “slow.” He sped up until her skull was damn near slamming against the wall. She moaned more loudly, and though it was starting to hurt, the pleasure still outweighed the pain. Then without warning he pulled out, grabbed her roughly and flipped her over. She brought her legs up until she was on all fours, and he found his way deep inside her from behind. He reached up, grabbed a handful of hair and slammed himself into her hard enough to make her ass cheeks ripple. He was grunting, low and steady, and Ginny thought of how primal the act of sex was, as ancient as life itself, and she gave herself over to it fully, over to him fully, as she never had to anyone before, adding her own grunts and groans to his, baring her teeth, slamming her ass back against him.
He leaned down and she felt his teeth on her shoulder. He bit, hard enough to cause pain but not break skin, and she let out a long, slow wail. Her body shuddered and liquefied as his went rigid and still, until at last the two of them collapsed onto the bed.
Ten minutes later they had cleaned up and were lying on their sides, facing each other. She was lost in his gorgeous bright eyes. They had kissed and held each other in silence for a long stretch. Then, conversation began, covering many topics, turning light and finally moving into pop culture likes and dislikes.
“You seriously think Kirk was a better captain than Picard? What about Janeway?” she said.
“Kirk had more swagger than any of them. I only watched a few episodes of Voyager, though. I’m more of a fantasy guy than sci-fi.”
“I’m just impressed you know who Janeway is,” Ginny said. “So let’s see… you think Connery was the best Bond. I like Daniel Craig…”
“Not to discount Pierce Brosnan, but Connery’s a hard act to follow.”
“When it comes to art, you like Frazetta. I like Harrison Fisher…”
“Hey, I was impressed that you knew who Frazetta was,” Brandon responded. “We’ve got our differences, sure, but there’s a lot we have in common, too. Neither of us is into sports; neither of us gives a shit about religion or politics…”
“Yeah, but you couldn’t have known that when you first met me. So my question to you, mister gorgeous amazing man, is why me? Why’d you choose me?”
Brandon answered without hesitation: “You didn’t look away.”
“What?”
“It sounds strange, but… when I look at people, there are very few who can hold my gaze. Very few. But you… you didn’t look away. You have a courage inside of you, Ginny. A bravery that can’t be taught. I responded to that immediately.”
She laughed softly. “I am so the opposite of courageous. I can’t even walk into my boss’s office and tell him I want a raise because I’m afraid he’ll tell me to fuck off. My brother… he was always the brave one.”
Brandon reached out and placed the palm of his hand on her cheek. “You’re braver than you
know. You just haven’t been put in a situation where you needed to call on it yet. When that situation occurs—and who knows, maybe it never will, but if it does—you’ll see just how strong you are.”
“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am,” he said. She lay there staring at him, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips, and somewhere deep down inside, in a place she rarely visited, she knew it too.
Chapter Nine
Brandon was sitting in a gloomy, smoke-filled dive bar.
What is this? Where am I?
He looked around. It was one long, open space. A bar along one wall, with a single bathroom further down. One table with four chairs, a small pool table, a dart board, and an old record jukebox. There was a poker machine on the bar, and on the wall above the glasses and taps, there was a velvet painting of Willie Nelson wearing a crown of thorns.
I know where this is. This is the Last Resort, on Route 211 in Washington State. This is where I was when…
He looked over to a man slumped over a few stools down. He wore a Mac Tools ball cap over a pockmarked face. He was nursing a beer, but the liquid inside was red, not blonde or even brown. He polished off what was left and said to the bartender, “Get me another bottle of Divine Essence.” Johnny Cash began singing “Ring of Fire” from the jukebox.
You’re dreaming. About that night. He wasn’t drinking that, though. He was drinking Bass. And it wasn’t “Ring of Fire”; it was “I Walk the Line.”
The bartender was a woman who might have once been attractive. She had dyed hair and caked-on makeup, a shirt that exposed the top of her cleavage, and long, fake nails the color of blood. She popped the cap off a bottle of red liquid, placed it in front of the man and took the empty.
You had called Ghost two weeks before, telling him that you’d had symptoms. He told you not to worry, but you didn’t like the fact that you could pick up the scent of the people who had been in the bar that day and the day before. You didn’t like that you could smell the bartender’s body odor, or the marijuana stashed in the other man’s pocket. You didn’t like that you could hear the rats chewing through boxes in the supply room.
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