by Jill Nolan
“Not everyone,” Cody amends.
“Just because I didn’t see his death doesn’t mean he didn’t die. It’s been hundreds of years.”
“But he wasn’t human. And how did you say he was able to turn one warrior against another?”
Mason doesn’t respond, already lost in thought. I have no idea who they're talking about. I'm in no state of mind to try to puzzle it together either.
“He wouldn’t do this to me. He has no motive,” Mason says. “And he never reeked of death.”
“A lot can change in three hundred years. It has to be him; there’s no one else.”
“Who are you talking about?” I finally ask, annoyed that someone hasn’t explained.
“My brother,” Mason says distantly, his eyes still a million miles away. He’s clearly working something out, so I don’t say anything more and neither does Cody.
After a few minutes, Cody speaks up. “You haven’t told her the full story about him, have you?”
Mason shakes his head, still dazed-looking.
“You can think through this shit later. Tell her what happened.”
He nods, slowly coming back to the real world. “I told you my brother also made a deal to save our people. When we were attacked by our enemy the following day, he turned into this creature, humanoid but taller with claws and fangs.” His gaze still appears distant, as if he’s reliving the story as he tells it.
“We watched as he cut through their warriors, moving at great speed and striking with inhuman strength. Those he didn’t land a killing blow on began to turn on each other. We had no idea why at the time, but they fought against their own. He told me later that there was some kind of venom that was secreted on his claws, and when he scratched someone, he could essentially write over a recent memory with whatever he could come up with in his head. He’d always been a creative storyteller, and he used that when giving the enemy warriors false memories. After we had won the battle that day, I found him hidden behind a tree with two bodies he had dragged there, eating their hearts.
“He had saved us, though, and our people were grateful. I was proud to call him brother. Then people started to go missing. I never suspected my brother, though many others did, until I caught him one night. He told me that he had to consume hearts to survive, the price for his power. I didn't tell anyone what I saw, wanting to protect him like he'd always protected me, but it didn't matter. Enough people believed he was the cause and spoke out against him, calling for his banishment or death, their gratitude having run out. A council was called to discuss the matter, to give everyone a chance to say their piece. I argued that he should be allowed to stay, but my mother spoke out against him.
"In the end, the chief decided that he would be banished. I’ll never forget what the chief told him: ‘While we are grateful for your sacrifice, we are in a time of peace; you are a creature of war.' My brother left in shame, and we never saw him again."
“Is it possible your brother is still alive?” Cody says. “Why else target Keegan, except to get to you?”
Is it really possible that those memories were false? Placed in my head so I wouldn’t know the truth of what happened? And if so, what actually happened?
I look at Mason, trying to gauge whether he did all those horrible things I saw him do. He’s always seemed so sincere, brutally honest no matter what. He hasn’t exactly hidden his violent nature. His face now looks serious and contemplative, his eyebrows pulled in, his head down. I picture all the sweet, thoughtful things he’s done and said over the past few weeks. That version of him doesn’t line up to the one I saw last night, but the Mason I saw last night lost control. And I know him well enough to know it’s possible that he’d lose control like that. The only question is, would he then deliberately decide to kill everyone else? I would have thought the answer no before.
How could those memories not be real? They’re not dreamlike, and it’s not like I’m missing time. Maybe Mason is just making this up, to be able to blame this on something else.
"Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that this could be your brother,” Cody says. “Is there a reason he’d want to hurt you?"
"No. We were close, I looked up to him, and he took care of me.”
“That was hundreds of years ago. If he is alive, he may not be the same person you remember.”
“It’s not him. He can't still be alive, and he wouldn’t have done this anyway.”
“Then who would? I told you the scent I detected was someone closely related to you. The only family member who you haven’t seen die is your brother, who also happens to have claws and fangs, and eat peoples' hearts and is able to re-write memories to his will.”
“My father could have had another kid.”
“Who also eats people?”
“My brother could have had a kid.”
“Who also eats people?”
“If it was genetic…”
“No, you’re just refusing to believe that the brother you admired could have done this. There is no other logical explanation.”
Mason puts his head in his hands, then abruptly gets up. "I need to think about this."
Cody and I sit on the couch quietly while Mason paces around, deep in thought.
Headlights shine through the window. Someone’s here.
Chapter 38
“Did someone follow you here?” Mason asks Cody.
“I don’t know.”
Clearly, they weren't expecting anyone. Who would have come here? Whether they’re here to help or not, the thought of someone else getting involved in this mess makes me nervous in more ways than one.
We all just stand in front of the window, watching as a man gets out of a pickup truck. The guy is tall and lanky, slightly hunched at the shoulders with the slight sway of a drunk or a lunatic. It’s dark, but with the outside lights, I can just barely recognize him: Sam. What the hell is he doing here? Could he be here to save me? Or is this some kind of crazy attempt to get revenge on Mason for the bar fight?
Anxiety rackets through my body. Mason is going to tear him to pieces.
“Mason, don’t,” I say, trying to stop him, but it’s too late, he’s already out the door, walking towards Sam with a murderous swagger.
I run outside, not really sure what to do. “Mason…” I warn.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing here? I thought you were a joke at the bar, but this is fucking pathetic.”
He’s closing the distance, and I can tell he’s going to hit him. I move to step forward, to try to prevent this, but Cody grabs hold of my arm and pulls me back.
I watch helplessly as Mason punches Sam, his head snapping hard to the side. Sam shakes his jaw out like it wasn’t a big deal.
“You’re stronger than I remember,” Sam says, no longer resembling the feeble guy at the bar. What is he doing? Why is he egging him on?
Mason throws another punch, but this time Sam moves with unexpected agility to avoid the blow.
“Mason, it’s him,” Cody says.
Mason ignores Cody and swings again and again, each blow just missing Sam's face, until Mason stops and lets his arms drop down in amazement.
“Mason,” Cody says, “it’s him.”
“Who are you?” Mason asks Sam.
“Have I changed that much in your eyes, Asiniiwin?”
How did he know Mason's original name? Is this Mason’s brother?
“Miigaazo?” Mason searches the face of his supposed long-lost brother in disbelief. A million thoughts and questions appear to race through his head. He opens and closes his mouth several times, as if he wants to say so many things at once that the words get all jumbled up, preventing him from getting any of them out. He shakes his head slowly, then more violently. “How…?”
“How am I alive?" Sam plasters a big smile on his face. "I could ask you the same question. I heard you slept through the last three centuries. Is that true?”
Mason just nods.
Sam
laughs. “Holy shit. That had to have thrown you through a loop when you woke up in the fucking future. You missed quite a lot, brother.”
Mason looks at him warily. I’m wondering why he thinks what Mason went through is funny.
“What happened to you?” Mason asks.
“What? This?” he asks, looking down at himself. “I started aging. I should have asked for more than three hundred years. Seemed like a good, long life at the time. That is, until ten years ago when my time ran out, and my bad habits caught up with me. Never even knew they were bad habits until I lost my indestructible eighteen-year-old body.”
“You asked for three hundred years? You never told me that.”
“Three hundred years of youth, power, and invincibility. I was going to tell you when you got older. I had hoped you would make a similar deal, and we could live like gods amongst vermin. I warned you to mind your words if you ever made a deal with that spirit. What the hell did you ask for that he put you to sleep for three centuries?”
“I asked for the power to avenge our family.”
Sam starts laughing for some reason that escapes us all. “You—” He cuts himself off with more laughter. We all just stare at him. What the hell is wrong with him?
“I’m not seeing the humor in the murder of our family,” Mason says.
“Your loss,” he says, before cracking up again, presumably at the horrible joke he just made. When he looks back up at Mason, Sam abruptly stops laughing, looking mostly serious. “Sorry, brother. I forgot that their deaths are still fresh in your mind after your long nap.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re laughing. Did you avenge them?”
“No.”
“No? Why not?” Mason demands.
“Why would I? They disowned me, turned against me like everyone else. You were the only one who didn't betray me."
This clearly disturbs Mason. “They still loved you. How could you let their murders go unanswered?”
“Because they were no longer my family. After all I did, after the sacrifice I made, the people who were supposed to love me the most cast me out.”
“Sacrifice? It sounds to me like you got everything you ever wanted. Except more time.”
“What does it matter if I asked for a little extra? I did what I had to do to keep our people safe, to keep you safe,” Sam says furiously. “We were about to be slaughtered, and I took initiative, I took the risk, and I,” he pounds his chest with his fist, “saved our people.”
“Yeah, you saved our people, and then you started killing them.”
“Only the weak,” he scoffs. “I had to eat. I’m sure you understand that now.”
“There is still a choice. You didn’t have to go after our own.”
Now it’s my turn to scoff. It’s ironic hearing Mason talk about choices.
“What can I say?” Sam looks somber now. “I was young, I didn't know how to deal with what I was, and I made some mistakes."
Mason visibly softens at this, looking guilty, but before he can say anything, Sam continues, "You were the only one who stayed on my side. It almost destroyed me when you forced me to leave alone, but you were so young. I understood that you'd need time. I figured you would change your mind soon enough. But a year passed, and you were even more resolute in your decision. You had already moved on, the loss of your brother so easily replaced by your friends.”
"I'm sorry I couldn’t go with you. I will never be more sorry for anything in my life. I missed you constantly, but you had changed. I ignored it for a long time before your banishment. And then later, when you came back, it was even worse. You became someone else entirely. All my life, I trusted you implicitly. You always protected me. But after you made that deal, I felt fear around you."
"Because I became a monster? Because I needed to eat a steady diet of hearts to live? I didn't know that was the price I'd have to pay. 'A man's power doesn't come from his body but his heart. Thus, you will make their power your own.' That's what he told me. I had no idea the spirit meant it literally."
"No, it was because you let the monster take over, and by the looks of it, you let it consume you."
"Time is consuming me," Sam yells.
"Time consumes all of us. That's life."
"So it does. I am not here to argue with you. I came back for you, just like I did all those years ago. I came back for you so we could be a family as we once were."
"If that's what you want, why would you kill my friends and then frame me for it?"
"Oh, come on. You can't tell me you cared for those pathetic bags of flesh? I would have thought this power would have put everything in perspective for you. We don't need them; we are above them. They can offer us nothing more than sustenance and passing pleasure."
"They were friends," Mason says simply but firmly. His statement makes me feel a flare of anger. He didn't consider any of them friends. The only one he really liked was Allison. Maybe that's why her death was swift and bloodless.
"I'm sorry," Sam says flippantly, throwing his hands up. "I had no idea they would have meant anything to you. I mean…they're food." He sounds as if he truly cannot comprehend why Mason would care.
"This isn't a fucking joke. Those were people's lives you ended, and my life you're fucking with. Why did you really set me up?"
He doesn't even care about their lives; he only cares how this affected him. But did his brother really set him up? Or is this how he gets me to believe that what I saw didn’t happen?
"I wanted you to know how it feels to have the one you love turn on you, call you monster," Sam says passionately. "For three hundred years, I've been drifting from people to people, from tribes to settlements to towns to wars to cities, never really belonging anywhere. And then here you are, thrust three hundred years into the future, and you immediately find yourself a new family, a new brother. You even got yourself a little girlfriend. You should be thanking me for giving you a chance to be her hero, to save her from her kidnappers.”
"You had her kidnapped? Why?"
"I was trying to find you. I heard rumors of an Indian vampire born three centuries ago living in Wisconsin, and I thought, who the hell else could that be? It took me a while to find you, though. Then I heard a story about a girl who cried monster. We both know you should have killed her as soon as she saw you, but you didn't. I figured, either you wanted her dead, and I could offer her up to you on a silver platter, or, you wanted to fuck her, in which case, I could offer her up to you on a silver platter. I knew I'd find you through her. Win-win really."
I can't help but wonder if he means what he's saying. If this really was all him or if this is some insane, elaborate plan to make Mason look innocent.
"Why make her think I killed her friends?" Mason asks.
"I thought they were your friends?" Sam laughs maniacally. "She's weak, Mason. She'll only hold you back. I've been watching you since I found you here. She's already changing you. You don't need her. I was just trying to make you see that."
"No, I don’t need you. My brother has been dead to me for ten years, but I think the real him died when he made that deal. You’re not him, not anymore.”
"I can't believe you're going to make me do this again," Sam says, almost unhappily. "I don't understand. I don't understand how you always choose others over me!" Sam roars the last words. "They shouldn't mean anything to you. Soon, they won’t mean anything to you."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"All those years ago, you picked our family and friends over me. I thought, if you no longer had them, if they were taken from you, you’d come back to me and the two of us could be a family again. I knew you so well; I knew you’d seek out the spirit and make a deal." He shakes his head. "It should have worked... I couldn't have known you would sleep for centuries."
"What are you saying? Did you kill our people?"
"Well, they mostly killed each other – you know, it's surprisingly easy to get someone to kill their own friends and f
amily. Men are only a hardship or two away from regressing to the base monsters inside themselves. Every man that I’ve cut, I didn’t force him to kill his brother or his friend, I just gave him reason to."
"You killed our mother?!" Mason demands, half distraught and half furious.
"Oh, come on. I didn't kill our mother. I think I had your best friend do it for me. Who can remember after this long?"
Mason screams, a wretched sound full of pain. He puts his head in his hands, like he doesn't know what to think or do or how to process any of this. Despite my best intentions to feel nothing for him, my heart breaks at the sight of him in pain. His own brother killed his family? His friends?
When he looks back up, his face is set harshly. Mason roars as his eyes darken into the black voids I have become familiar with, and the ridge of his brow raises and hardens. While his skin takes on the ashy gray color, his shirt expands and splits under the pressure of the huge wings sprouting from his back.
There he is, the creature in all of his wonder. The monster I first feared, then cared for, now hate. I am still somehow in awe of him, as he stands in front of me changing and shifting into that dark being.
Sam goes through his own transformation almost instantly. He seems to have grown an extra foot and is now a tall, gangly mess of limbs. His arms seem to elongate and his fingers shift into long, sharp, slightly curled claws.
He is grotesque, with flesh that is not fully covering his body and bone showing in places. When the smell of death and decay assaults me, I understand that it is coming from this rotting, sickly creature.
With a cry, Mason propels himself in the air. With only a few pumps of his wings, he’s already more than thirty feet high. He rotates his body and dives toward the creature. Sam moves quickly moves out of the way with deceptive agility for such a strange body. They both move with inhuman speed and the fight becomes dizzying to keep track of. Sam’s claws slash and dance around Mason who weaves in and out of the blows like the skilled fighter he is. He swings his fists at Sam, landing a powerful blow on his jaw. Sam stumbles backwards, surprised by the power of the punch.
