Blood Brothers: A Short Story Exclusive Read online

  “But only in blood.” Christian faced him, his eyes hard and cold. “Isn’t that right?”

  Before Arthur could answer, Christian threw him to the floor, riding his body down and straddling atop him. His brother’s white face hovered inches above his, those eyes reading his features like a book.

  Arthur tried to throw him off, but his brother was too strong.

  Christian leaned closer, as if to kiss him. Cold breath brushed against Arthur’s cheeks. His brother used a thumb to turn Arthur’s chin, to expose his neck.

  Arthur pictured the morgue photos of Christian’s victims, their throats ripped out.

  No . . .

  He struggled anew, bucking under Christian, but there was no escaping his brother. Impossibly sharp teeth tore into the soft skin of his throat.

  Blood drowned Arthur’s scream.

  He wrestled against his death, struggled, cried, but in a matter of moments, the fight bled out of him. He lay there now as waves of pain and impossible bliss throbbed through his wounded body, borne aloft by each fading heartbeat. His arms and legs grew heavy, and his eyes drifted closed. He was weakening, maybe dying, but he didn’t care.

  In this bloody moment, he discovered the connection people sought through love, drugs, religion. He had it now.

  With Christian . . .

  It was right.

  Suddenly, that moment was severed, coldly interrupted.

  Arthur opened his eyes to find Christian staring down at him, blood dripping from his brother’s chin.

  In Christian’s eyes, Arthur read horror—and sorrow—as if the blood had succeeded where Arthur’s words had failed. Christian put an ice-cold hand against the wound on Arthur’s throat, as if he could stop the warm blood flowing out of it.

  “Too late . . .” Arthur said hoarsely.

  Christian pressed harder, tears welling. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  His brother stared down, clearly struggling to hold in check the evil inside him, to hold on to himself. Arthur saw his nostrils flare, likely scenting the spilled blood. Christian moaned with the need of it, but Arthur heard an undertone of defiance.

  Arthur wished he could help, to take away that pain, that struggle.

  He let that desire show in his face, that love of brother for brother.

  A tear rolled down Christian’s cheek. “I can’t . . . not you . . .”

  With both arms, he picked up Arthur, crossed to a window, and threw his body out into the sunlight. As he flew amid a cascade of broken glass, he stared back, seeing Christian withdraw from the sun, back into shadows, forever lost.

  Then Arthur crashed to the street.

  Still, darkness found him in that sunlight, swallowing him away. But not before he saw an orchid land on the pavement near his head, floating in a pool of his blood. The sweet scent of it filled his nostrils. He knew it would be the last thing he ever smelled.

  His mother would have been happy about that.

  AN UNKNOWN NUMBER of days later, Arthur woke to pain. He lay in a bed—a hospital bed. It took him several breaths to work out that his legs were suspended in front of him, encased in plaster. Turning his head took all his effort. Through his window, he saw weak afternoon sunlight.

  “I see that you’re awake,” said a familiar voice.

  Officer Miller was seated on his other side. The police officer reached to a table, retrieved a water glass with a straw, and offered it. Arthur allowed the man to slip the straw between his lips. He drank the lukewarm water until it was all gone.

  Once done, Arthur leaned back. Even the short drink had left him exhausted. Still, he noted the purplish bruises ringing Miller’s eyes, courtesy of Arthur’s earlier sucker punch.

  Miller fingered the same. “Sorry we didn’t take you more seriously, Mr. Crane.”

  “Me, too,” he croaked out.

  “I have to ask . . . did you recognize the man who attacked you?”

  Arthur closed his eyes. In truth, he didn’t recognize the creature who had attacked him, but he did recognize the man who had flung him into the sunlight, away from the monster trying to claw back into control. In the end, Arthur knew Christian had saved his life. Could he condemn him now?

  “Mr. Crane?”

  Behind Arthur’s eyelids, he saw the face of Jackie Jake and the broken body of the man on the sidewalk. Even if he could forgive Christian’s attack on himself, he could not let that monster inside him continue to kill.

  Arthur opened his eyes and talked until he drifted off to sleep.

  When he awoke, it was night. He was terribly thirsty, and his legs still hung in front of him like a bizarre sculpture. A quiet murmuring off to the left must be the nurses’ station. He reached for the bell to summon—

  He was on the street, looking through eyes that were not his own. A brick tower loomed ahead of him. A church. In the middle of the tower was a door. A spill of light fell onto the dark front steps.

  Weeping, he ran toward the light, moving with a speed beyond imagining. Traffic droned next to him, and far away a siren sounded. None of that mattered. He had to reach that tower. He had to get through that door.

  But as he neared the church, a figure stepped into view, bathed in that warm glow from inside. It was a priest. Though the distance was great, whispered words reached his ear. “This is hallowed ground. Be warned, it is inimical to the curse within you. If you come, you will have but one choice. To join us or die.”

  The strange priest’s words proved true. With each step, the strength of his limbs faded. It was as if the ground itself drew energy away from him. Heat rose through his feet. For a second it was wonderful, because he was so cold. But then it burned him cruelly.

  Still, he did not stop. He lifted first one leaden leg and then another, fighting the heat and the weakness. He must reach that door, that priest. All depended on it.

  He was now close enough to note the gothic design, etched in verdigris, on the tall doors. He spotted the priest’s Roman collar, made of old linen, not modern plastic. He staggered now toward that man. Despite his weakness, he knew this one was like him, cursed but somehow enduring.

  How?

  The priest stepped back, beckoning him inside.

  He fell across the threshold and into a vast nave. Pillars and arches rose on either side of him, and far ahead candles burned on an altar.

  On his knees now, he burned within the holiness found here.

  Fire raged through his body.

  The priest spoke behind him. “Be welcome, Christian.”

  Arthur thrashed in his bed, still burning from his waking dream. A rope broke and dropped one of his legs. This new pain centered him, drawing him out of the flames.

  A nurse in a white cap rushed into the room. Seconds later, a needle pricked his arm, and everything blessedly went dark.

  Days later, he awoke again. His head was clear, but he felt terribly weak. The nurses tried to convince him that his vision of burning in the church was a side effect of the morphine or a fever dream secondary to shock. He believed neither explanation. Instead, he carried those last words inside him, knowing they’d be etched there forever.

  Be welcome, Christian.

  Arthur knew somehow he had been connected to his brother for that brief, agonizing moment, perhaps a gift born of the blood they shared. He also remembered Wayne’s description of the priest who had come looking for Christian. Was that the same priest, offering some form of salvation for Christian, a path he might yet follow?

  Or was it all a bad trip, to use the vernacular of the youth thronging into San Francisco?

  Either way, Arthur slowly healed. Bedridden for most of it, he used his downtime to dictate his new book to an assistant hired by the newspaper. Her name was Marnie, and he would marry her as soon as he could stand.

  Following Arthur’s a
ttack, the murders had suddenly stopped, but public interest had not waned. A year later, his book, The Orchid Killer, became an international bestseller. As far as the world was concerned, he had solved the case, even if the police had never apprehended Christian.

  His brother had simply vanished off the face of the earth. Most believed he was dead or had possibly even killed himself. But Arthur never forgot his dream of crawling on his knees into a church, burning in that holiness.

  He clung to his hopes that Christian yet lived.

  But if he was right, which one had survived that church?

  His brother or that monster?

  Summer, present day

  San Francisco, California

  AS THE SUN sank toward the horizon, Arthur brought the orchid to his face and breathed in its fragrance. The petals tickled his cheeks. He carried the blossom into his study. Books lined the walls, and papers covered his oak rolltop desk.

  In the years after Christian’s disappearance, Arthur had spent most of his life traveling, reporting, and chasing down leads about savage killings and mysterious priests, trying to find his brother, or at least to understand what had happened to him. It was a passion that he had shared with Marnie, until her death six months ago. Now he wanted only to finish the work and be done with it.

  With everything.

  At last, at the end of things, he was close.

  Several years ago, Arthur had uncovered rumors of a secret order buried deep within the Catholic Church, one that traced its roots to its most ancient days—a blood cult known as the Order of the Sanguines. He crossed to his desk and picked up a leaf from an old notebook, the edges ripped and curling. A photo had been taped to it. Someone had sent the picture anonymously to Arthur two years ago, with a short note hinting at its importance. It showed Rembrandt’s The Raising of Lazarus, portraying Christ’s resurrection of a dead man. Arthur had marked it up, annotating his many questions about this dark order, of the rumors he had heard.

  He let the sheet slip from his fingers, remembering the dream of a burning church.

  Had his brother joined this order in the past?

  He glanced at the orchid.

  If so, why come for me now, Christian?

  Arthur suspected the reason. It was stacked on his desk in a neat pile. Over the past decades, Arthur had gathered further evidence, enough to be believed, about this Sanguines cult within the Church. Tonight, his source—a representative of a group called the Belial—was scheduled to come and deliver the final piece of proof, something so explosive that the truth could not be denied.

  Arthur picked at one of the soft petals of the orchid.

  He recognized it as a threat, a warning, an attempt to silence him.

  Arthur would not be intimidated. As the day wore on, he tried repeatedly to reach his Belial source—a man named Simeon—to move up their evening meeting, but he could never reach the man. By that afternoon, Arthur considered simply fleeing, but he realized that there was no point in trying to hide. He was already in too deep. Besides, a recklessness had settled over him since Marnie’s death—he just didn’t care anymore.

  So he waited for the night, enjoying his favorite meal from an Italian restaurant down the street, complementing it with a bottle of his finest pinot noir. He saw no reason to skimp. If this was to be his last meal, he might as well enjoy it. He ate it in his kitchen while watching the sky turn orange behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Finally, a knock sounded at his apartment door.

  Arthur crossed from his study and peeked through the peephole. A man dressed in a navy blue suit stood out in the hall. His face and shorn black hair were familiar from a grainy photograph passed to Arthur at a bar in Berlin. It was Simeon.

  Arthur opened the door.

  “Mr. Crane?” The man’s voice was low and hoarse, with a Slavic accent that Arthur couldn’t quite place. Maybe Czech.

  “Yes,” Arthur said, stepping aside. “You should come inside, quickly now. It might not be safe.”

  This earned a soft smile from the man, possibly amused by Arthur’s caution. But the man did not know about Christian or the orchid.

  As his guest entered, Arthur checked the hall outside and the stairs leading down to the old Victorian’s stoop. All clear.

  Still, a chill ran up Arthur’s back, a prickling of the fine hairs on the nape of his neck, a sense of immediate danger. He quickly followed Simeon inside and closed the door behind him, locking the dead bolt.

  Simeon waited in the foyer.

  “Let’s go to my study.” Arthur led the way.

  Simeon followed him and stepped to Arthur’s desk, staring around the room. His gaze settled upon the marked-up page showing The Raising of Lazarus. He motioned to that sheet.

  “So I see you already know of the bloody origins of the Sanguinists,” Simeon said. “That Lazarus was the first of them.”

  “I’ve heard fantastical rumors,” Arthur said. “Dark stories of monsters and creatures of the night. None of it to be believed, of course. I suspect the stories are there to scare people away from the truth.”

  Arthur stared expectantly at Simeon, hoping to hear that truth.

  Instead, Simeon touched Christ’s face on the page with one curiously long fingernail. “There is much about the Sanguinists that defies belief.”

  Arthur did not know what to say to that, so he kept quiet.

  Simeon scratched his nail down the notebook page. “Show me what you already know.”

  Arthur handed him a folder of the manuscript he was working on, with notes scribbled to indicate where documents and pictures should be inserted.

  The man riffled through the pages swiftly, too fast to truly read it. “You have passed this along to no one?”

  “Not yet.”

  Simeon met his eyes for the first time. His eyes were brown and fringed by thick lashes, handsome eyes, but what struck Arthur most about them was that they did not blink. The hair rose on his arms, and he took a step backward from the man, suddenly realizing the prickling danger he had sensed earlier had come from this man, not from some hidden threat beyond his apartment.

  “You are close to the truth,” Simeon said, no longer hiding the menace in his presence, looming taller. “Closer than you know. Too close for our comfort.”

  Arthur took another step back. “The Belial . . .”

  “The Sanguinists defy us at every step, but that war must be kept secret.” Simeon stepped after him. “Our darkness cannot thrive in the light.”

  The buzz of a motorcycle on the street distracted Arthur. He glanced toward the sound—and Simeon was upon him.

  Arthur crashed painfully to the floor. Simeon pinned him there. Arthur struggled against him, but Simeon had an implacable strength that Arthur had only experienced once in his life—on the day Christian nearly killed him.

  “You want the truth,” Simeon said. “Here it is.”

  The man’s lips split to reveal sharpened teeth, impossibly long.

  He flashed to that moment with Christian, suddenly remembering what he blanked out, what his mind would not allow him to fully see.

  Until now.

  There were monsters in the world.

  Arthur redoubled his struggles, but he knew he was at his end.

  Then a crash of shattered wood and glass rose from his bedroom. He pictured his window exploding. But he was on the third story.

  Simeon turned as a dark shadow flew into the room, tackling the monster off Arthur. Gasping, Arthur crabbed on his hands and feet away from the fighting, backing into his study’s cold hearth.

  The war raged across the tight room, too fast to follow, a blur of shadows, accompanied by flashes of silver, like lightning in a thundercloud. The battle smashed across his desk and crashed into his bookshelf, scattering volumes across the floor.

  Then a feral s
cream, full of blood and fury.

  A moment later, a head bounced across his wooden floor, spilling black blood.

  Simeon.

  From beyond Arthur’s desk, a shadow rose and shed its darkness. The figure wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, open, revealing the Roman collar of the priesthood. He stepped around the desk, his pale face scratched, bleeding. He carried two short swords in his hands, shining like liquid silver, marred with the same black blood as seeped across the golden hardwood floor.

  Impossibly, the figure grinned at him, showing a familiar glint of rakish amusement in his green eyes as he sheathed the swords.

  “Christian . . . ?”

  Beyond fear now, Arthur gaped at his brother. Despite the passing of forty years, Christian was virtually unchanged, no more than a boy in appearance compared to Arthur’s lined and aged face.

  “How?” Arthur asked the mystery standing before him.

  But Christian only smiled more broadly, crossed over, and offered Arthur his hand.

  He took it, gripping his brother’s pale fingers, finding them cold and hard, like sculpted marble. As Arthur was pulled to his feet, he saw the old scar on his brother’s wrist, a match to his own. Despite the impossible, it was indeed Christian.

  “Are you hurt?” his brother asked him.

  How did one answer that when one’s life was unhinged in a single moment?

  Still, he managed to shake his head.

  Christian led him back to the kitchen, to the table where the remains of his last meal still sat. He settled Arthur to a seat, then picked up the empty bottle of pinot noir.

  “Nice vintage,” he said, taking a sniff at the bottle. “Good oak and tobacco notes.”

  Arthur found his voice again. “Wh . . . what are you?”

  Christian cocked an amused eyebrow—a look that ached with the memory of their shared past, as perfectly preserved as the rest of his features. “You know that already, Arthur. You just must let yourself accept it.”

  Christian reached to his leg and unhooked a leather flask. Branded into its surface were the crossed keys and crown of the papal seal. Christian took Arthur’s empty goblet, filled it from the flask, and pushed it back toward him.