Brandywine Investigations

by Angel Martinez

  With a soft laugh, Leander picked up the tablet and lifted his arm so Dio could snuggle close as he scrolled to where he recalled stopping previously. It made no logical sense, to love a wild god who in some things had the reactions of a child, whose mind would never operate in neat, straight lines. But logic be damned. The heart wanted what it wanted.

  As Leander began to read, a sense of enveloping warmth and security stole over him. For the first time in over three thousand years, he felt completely safe, and though he had lived in the same place for centuries, for the first time, he felt as if he were home.

  Epilogue

  Did everyone get to finish?" Charon asked as he poured himself more tea and topped off Leander's cup as well. "We don't want to have any spoilers."

  Six human voices confirmed they had finished the current book—old voices, young. Humans ranged over Dio's leather furniture and on the floor near the coffee table in order to be closer to the cookies Anthony had brought.

  "Leander, was this one better for you?" Gina, one of Dio's Maenads, asked.

  He cleared his throat, still not entirely comfortable speaking up at these meetings. "Yes… yes, much better."

  Two months earlier, Charon had invited Leander to join Meghan's book club. They had discussed the future of the club, and most of them were determined to continue to honor Meghan's memory. With Dio's enthusiastic encouragement, Leander had agreed, though he felt rather awkward that the venue had to be changed to accommodate his difficulties with traveling.

  Dio had offered his condo, since he had a library door now, and Leander did spend several nights a month there. It had been the perfect solution, since most of the book club members already knew where Dio lived. Their current run of books had been more problematic for Leander since they were reading through Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan stories. Quite exciting, a far cry from his normal reading, but the violent scenes made him queasy and gave him nightmares. Some of the character deaths brought him to tears. He had learned the fine art of skimming.

  Their current novel was more comfortable territory, and all the members were familiar faces now, so when Dio announced he had a concert, Leander wasn't as anxious about his absence as he would have been several weeks earlier. Several of the members were Maenads, so the meeting time had been moved back so they could attend the Orphic Egg concert first, then come to book club when the inevitable dance party began.

  "It's more like a comedy of thingies, right?" Rusty waved a hand in an agitated gesture and ended it by snatching a chocolate-iced cookie from the tray.

  Leander nodded. "Yes, I think it can safely be called a comedy of manners, an obvious tribute to earlier nineteenth-century works."

  "You can say Jane Austen," the group's other librarian, Mrs. Reed, said. "Most of us have read her, dear."

  While he blushed, Leander did manage a smile as he searched on his tablet for a specific reference. Before he found it, Elizabeth suddenly hopped onto the arm of his chair, twittering.

  "No, Elizabeth. Cookies are not for pandas."

  She sat up and made a mournful sound, paws spread wide, her meaning so obvious everyone in the room laughed.

  "They'll make you sick. Dio has fruit set out for you in the kitchen."

  Elizabeth galloped off, and moments later, the troop of pandas stampeded out of the guest bedroom, skidding and bumping each other in their wild dash for the kitchen. Jane trotted out last at a more dignified pace, stopping to twitter greetings to the book group.

  "No need to apologize, Jane," Charon said over the rim of his dainty teacup, incongruous in his clawed hand. "No one expects hungry young pandas to be polite."

  She sniffed in disagreement and trotted away to the kitchen, where happy twitters had begun over the selection of fruit. The book group turned back to A Civil Campaign, and Leander became so engrossed in the discussion he was shocked to see two hours had flown by when he checked the clock. Dio might be home anytime, which wasn't really an issue, depending on the state in which he returned.

  About to mention the late hour, Leander hesitated when keys rattled in the front door. The door swung open to reveal Jack, red-faced and panting, with someone draped over his shoulder. Leander knew those silver-buckled boots well, the ones bumping against Jack's leg.

  "Oh, hey. Didn't think you'd still be book clubbing. Um." Jack's gaze locked directly on Leander. "You want him in the bedroom, Mr. Asterion?"

  "Yes, please, Jack. There's a sheet laid out for him." Leander rose, wringing his hands. How did he ask people to leave? Should he? What was the polite thing to do?

  Charon saved him, rising slowly from his place on the sofa next to Mrs. Reed. "I think I've reached the end of my energy tonight, Leander."

  "Oh, yeah." Gina scrambled up from her place on the floor. "Definitely running on low battery."

  The other Maenads followed, while Anthony offered to drive Mrs. Reed home. Chattering and offering thank-yous and good-nights, the book club made their slow way out of the condo. Leander closed the door behind them and turned to Jack.

  "How is he?"

  "Not so bad this time." Jack rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "He had a couple bottles, but it wasn't the cheap stuff, so he shouldn't be hurting tomorrow. His T-shirt's a loss again, the usual scratching and bruising, but nothing really bad."

  "Well done. Thank you, Jack." Leander was about to open the door when he stopped himself. "Did you… would you like to rest a moment? Have some tea and cookies?"

  Jack managed a tired grin. "No thanks, Mr. A. I'm kinda beat. And Heather's waiting in the car. It's hard being spotter, having to fight against his pull and make sure everyone's okay. Rain check on the cookies?"

  "You're welcome any time, Jack. I hope you know that."

  "I do." Jack rubbed a hand over his blue-and-green hair, stealing a sideways glance at Leander. "Look, um, thanks. For taking care of him. For making him happy."

  Leander smiled as he opened the door. "He makes me happy too. Good night, Jack."

  With the condo empty of visitors, Leander made his way to the bedroom, where Dio sprawled senseless on the sheet. His wild, tangled hair hid much of his face, one knee of his jeans had been ripped, and his torso, naked under his jacket, sported long gashes from sharp nails and the marks of at least one set of teeth.

  It had been worse—not that Dio did this every night, or even more than twice a month. Some concert venues weren't conducive to trance orgies. Some concerts were longer, and Dio was too exhausted to seek out an after party. But there had been enough of these nights that Leander had developed a routine for his homecomings—sheet on the floor, strip Dio out of the remainder of his clothes, and carry him to the shower. Leander had hoped the first time that the shower would wake him, but even water splashing directly on his face had no effect. Time and length of ecstasy trance determined waking, he had discovered, rather than any outward stimuli.

  There was something soothing about getting into the shower with Dio and washing off the blood and bodily fluids, as if Leander were washing away those hands and other body parts that had tried to lay claim to his beautiful god, reclaiming his Dio in the gentlest possible way. Had he been larger, the process would have been a terrible struggle, but his compact size made it easy for Leander to lift, shift, and carry his unresisting body.

  Toweled dry, hair given a cursory brushing so it wouldn't be quite such a horror to unsnarl in the morning, Leander laid him in bed with a careful kiss to his forehead. Claws clicked in the hallway, and Jane stuck her head into the bedroom, twittering softly that she was taking the panda troop back to the library.

  "Thank you," Leander whispered. "I'll close the door behind you. See you in the morning."

  Library door shut, locks on the condo's front door checked and double-checked, all windows closed, Leander returned to the bedroom, undressed, and slid into bed to take Dio in his arms.

  Now Dio stirred, nuzzling at his shoulder. "Leander?"

  "It's me. I have you. Go to sleep, lo
ve."

  But unlike most of his muzzy early awakenings, Dio seemed determined to drag himself to consciousness. He wrapped an arm over Leander's chest, his voice small and plaintive as he said, "Don't die. I love you so damn much. Don't ever die."

  The statement startled Leander, but Dio walked headfirst into memories at the oddest times. "I'll do my best."

  "Promise."

  "I can't promise that. Something might happen. Or I might finally come to the end of a long life that wasn't meant to be forever. But I'll stay with you as long as possible. I hope for many years still."

  Dio yawned and snuggled closer. "'Kay. Guess that's fair. Maybe even festival. Or convention. But definitely fair. I'll have to think about it."

  "Good. I love you too. Go to sleep."

  With a happy hum, Dio subsided, his breathing soon evening out, slowing as he drifted off again. Leander held him close, unwilling to relinquish his hold yet, perhaps not until morning. Strange, how one could be held so tightly and still feel so free. Freed from his stepfather's machinations for over three thousand years, still Leander had languished as a prisoner and never realized. It had taken a wild, concentration-challenged god to unlock his heart's prison.

  Forever was a relative term, but whatever the length of their forever, Leander was determined to stay by Dio's side at least that long. He pulled the covers over them both, safe, secure, finally free.

  Epigraph Two

  All sounds are sharper in winter; the air transmits better. – John Burroughs

  Midwinter Dancing

  Brandywine Investigations 4.5

  By Angel Martinez

  Interlude

  Sleigh Ride" drifted in a cheery, off-key whistle from the kitchen. Oversized felt stockings hung near the fireplace. Not in front of it, since a fire complete with the traditional yule log snapped and sang its muted roar. The little kids had been shanghaied into stringing popcorn-and-cranberry garlands. Grumbling about it was traditional too, but the rug rats soon figured out the popcorn came in different flavors, and the reward for stringing was that they got to eat half of it. It was all so damn corny Ing wondered why the official color of Christmas wasn't yellow.

  Everyone over ten who wasn't involved in cooking had been herded mercilessly to the far corner of the cabin's main room to set up the tree. Grandma's damn artificial one that she dragged down from the attic every year because she was adamant about not killing perfectly good trees as temporary decoration. Except this year, Gran couldn't manage hauling the tree out of its hibernation so Ing did it, manhandling the pieces over steamer trunks and boxes, trying not to die falling down the stairs while she told herself Gran was just tired from getting over the flu. Though she'd just turned ninety, her iron grandmother sure as hell wasn't getting old. Would never happen.

  "Look at you go, Ing! You're a beast!" Aunt Erin cheered from her spot on the couch, eggnog in hand, as Ing wrestled the damn thing into the main room. She didn't get up to help. Probably not a bad thing, since she'd probably lost track of how many eggnogs she'd had.

  "She's not a beast. She's a freak of nature," cousin Mark snickered.

  Ing ignored him. No one was coming to her defense to tell him he was an asshole or to make him apologize, but shit like that had stopped making Ing cry years before. Besides, she could take Mark down easy. He'd only accepted her invitation to come play rugby once, though he would've said it was because football is the real man's game.

  Keep telling yourself that, kid.

  Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Bill hovered, giving helpful bits of advice like, "You gotta turn it more" and "Still needs the top part" while Ing set the tree in its stand and put the pieces together. Dad, bless him, ran interference and got them working on untangling lights while Ing finished straightening the branches and wished she could think of an escape plan. It wasn't that her dad's side of the family was huge, but two brothers, one sister, all with their spouses and progeny? Twenty people in a cabin was still too much.

  "Why can't we have a star or an angel like normal people?" Justin grumbled as he sorted through a box and hauled out the light-up gold-wire-and-glass sun Gran used as a tree topper.

  "It's Sunreturn," Gran said as she clomped in with a tray of pre-dinner snacks. No house dresses and aprons for Gran—she was more of a jeans and flannel shirts person—but she insisted on wearing those damn house clogs that Ing swore were made of felt and industrial-grade steel for how loud they were. "We don't push Yule aside just because it's Christmas."

  From the other side of the tree, Aunt Marissa whispered to Uncle Jimmy, something short and sharp that ended in, "Can't believe you let your mother fill the kids' heads with that pagan crap. It's a Christmas tree."

  Poor Marissa. Uncle Jimmy's third wife hadn't been with the family long enough. Outsiders always assumed Gran's hearing was shot since she was as old as dirt.

  Gran turned to her, the smile she offered probably the same one the wolf was wearing before he ate Little Red. "Sure. Because there were fir trees and snow in Bethlehem. And mistletoe hanging over the manger. And nobody used holly trees in festivals before that."

  "Well, I know that." Give Marissa credit. She wasn't backing down, so she was either brave or stupid. "But the true meaning of the season—"

  "Was trampled on a long time ago by certain people's churches." Gran wasn't smiling anymore. "You want to give me grief about my beliefs and my gods in my house?"

  "Those old gods are just stories," Marissa persisted. Okay, Ing was definitely leaning on the side of her being stupid. "I guess I can see them as nature symbols, but you can't really believe in them."

  "The gods are real. They live here with us." Gran set the tray down so the ankle biters could attack the cheese puffs and sausage bites. "I just saw Cernunnos at a climate change conference last summer."

  Several sets of eyes rolled but not where Gran could see them. Ing had never bought into any of that stuff no matter what label someone slapped on it. Better to live here and now, try to be nice to people, and if something happened after, Ing figured she'd find out what it was when she died. All of the deity-and-sin crap—she didn't see much difference between one religion and another. Magic and miracles were both fairy tales, and belief was just an excuse to tell someone else they were wrong.

  Gran stood glaring at the fire, hands on her hips, before she whirled on all of the hapless grown and half-grown people. "Who emptied the wood box and didn't go out for more wood?"

  Anyone with sense stood motionless and silent, trying not to draw the attention of the apex predator in the room. But Randy, Uncle Bill's oldest, had no sense. He piped up, "It was me, Gran. I went out to get more, but the woodpile's all iced over."

  "Well, go get a hatchet, boy, and break the ice off!" Gran made a dismissive gesture in his direction before she stalked back to the kitchen. "Can't let the fire go out tonight!"

  "But it's freezing out," Randy whined sotto voce to his dad.

  "Guess that's why there's ice," Ing said, shaking her head. "I'll do it, squirt. Cold never bothered me."

  Damn it. Shouldn't have said that. Right on cue, the rug rats around the coffee table broke out in a full-on assault of "Let It Go" in several keys. Ing made her escape before they got to the first chorus. The ice on the woodpile was just a thin layer, easy to knock off with the handle of the axe that sat nearby. But some knucklehead hadn't put the tarp back over the wood before the last big rain. Most of the wood was soaked.

  Ing put the little bit that was wasn't too wet inside the door, piled some more up on the porch next to the house so it could start to dry, and stuck her head back in to tell Gran she was going into the woods for some deadfall. Anything that fell recently would be drier than the poor soaked stuff mashed together in the woodpile. Couldn't have wished for a better excuse to get out of the cabin during the snark-and-complaint fest that would go along with decorating the tree. It wasn't all Aunt Marissa's fault. They were a real mutt family when it came to religion, and every new person who married into it h
ad to learn to deal. Sometimes they got lucky, like with Aunt Dawn, Uncle Bill's wife. Her full name was Dawn Starlight, lovely hippie-dippie that she was, and she didn't have a problem with anyone being unbaptized heathens or Ing being a big ole lezzie. Sometimes the family got not so lucky, but the new person just had to figure it out, especially at Gran's house, or they ended up leaving the family like, Uncle Jimmy's very evangelical wife, Doreen, or the one before that. Don't recall her name.

  Ing wanted to feel bad for Uncle Jimmy and the marriage-go-round. But really? His own damn fault for insisting on bringing home spouses that he knew his mom would hate.

  The woods were blessedly quiet, the light snowfall muffling sound and keeping most of the critters holed up in warm dens and nests. It was just Ing and her hiking boots crunching through the hibernating undergrowth, tarp for wood gathering slung over her shoulder, with the wind teasing at the last rattling leaves and her own breath making dragon-steam curls in the air. The moon was full, reflecting off the snow to make it plenty bright for Ing to make her way without a flashlight. Perfect. If Gran wasn't expecting her back for dinner, she'd have been tempted to build a fire out here and stay in the quiet of the woods. The quiet was better for Ing, better than people. Mom kept bugging her about bringing a girlfriend home, but just because Ing was the family's bull dyke didn't mean she wanted to go out and have relationships.

  No denying Ing found women beautiful. They got her going. One on one? They kinda scared her. She'd tried the dating thing back in college, but the couple of girls she did go out with wanted to go to bars and parties, have friends over, and be sociable. she couldn't deal with all the nonstop noise and navigating social waters. There are sharks big and little out there, and they all have teeth.

  Ing was breaking up a big branch to fit the pieces in her tarp sling, whistling "Let It Snow" through her front teeth, when the first hint of music drifted to her. She figured it was her imagination at first, but she held still and stopped breathing, trying to pinpoint the sounds. Nope. Not her hearing things. Isolated notes made it through the trees, maybe a flute and guitar or something. Curious, Ing walked in that direction, wondering who in their right minds besides her would be out in the woods at night in the snow.