Christopher: Blood Brotherhood – Erotic Paranormal Dark Fantasy Romance (6 page)

Ruben came up to his father then and hugged him tightly. The next few minutes were him showing his son things that he’d gotten for him from the other realm. When Ruben walked away, Hector looked like he might have aged several years in the short time he’d been gone.

“The realm is all but dead, Remy, and the little that is still living won’t last long, not with him still there. Most has been destroyed beyond whatever wars that we had prior to this. I don’t think...there is nothing left.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hector nodded at him and looked away. There were memories there for the man that he’d never be able to get back. And his wife was buried there as well, Remy only just remembered. Remy asked him what other things he had with him when it looked as if Hector had control of his emotions again.

“Books that I thought we could use here. I managed to get some seeds as well in the store. A few boxes of drugs that I found in the lab before I left. Plants that I could save. Some things for my son, things I could not take when I left before. Snapshots of his mother and things that...that I thought he’d like.” He looked back at Remy again, tears in his eyes. “My world is no more. Whatever am I going to do now?”

“Live your life here, with us. Keep your memories alive for your son, the good ones. Try and be brave for him and go on putting your feet forward.” Remy nodded at Chris when he spoke up. “Raise your son in a way that your wife would have been proud of. He’s a good boy, Ruben, and I think he will give you more than you think you deserve over the next few hundred years. Be happy too. I think that’s the most important thing.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much, Chris. I can try, but it’s so much to bear alone now.” Remy told him it would get easier, but not any less painful. “Yes, I can see that now. And I have to admit to you that I now know your pain when I came upon you on that field all those centuries ago. The reason that you wished to die. Of late, it is on my mind a great deal…the disservice that I did to you when all you wished to do was end your life. I am truly sorry for that.”

“You have given me more in return, Hector. You must know that. I have friends aplenty. I have a mate that is my equal in all things. I feel...I must admit to you that I feel good about my life now. I miss my wife, yes, and my children, but this life, it has been worth what you did to me.” Hector nodded and Remy pulled him into his arms for a great hug. When he returned it, sobbing slightly at his shoulder, Remy held him. He knew the man’s pain more than most would have. “You are a good man, Hector. It’s a pleasure to call you friend.”

They made their way to the boxes and bags of stuff after a few minutes more, and Remy felt like he’d been given a great gift in Hector. Hector said that when he’d made his way to the portal, he’d only had a few things, two boxes and a bag. But he knew that he’d never return, at least he didn’t think so, and had gone back for more things. More plants, the pictures, and a few things that he thought that he’d like to see again. When it was all said and done, there were nine large boxes, a crate, and several books, as well as more plants and seedlings that Remy wondered how he’d gotten here.

Hector flushed when he told them how he’d had to send some of the stuff through the portal without him before he’d been able to leave himself. Then he told them what he’d found when he’d entered the lab.

“There are three men there; well, there were three when they came into the lab. I’d been there but only a few minutes when they startled me. I had found it in such a state that for a moment, I forgot to keep aware. Benton killed two of them before I was gone.” Remy asked him if he’d been seen by Benton. “Oh no. I was well hidden from them. The men, they had seen me when I was in the area, but they knew not where I was.”

Remy took the vial when it was handed to him. He’d seen such things in his lifetime. Mostly in hospitals and such. Lately more in the hands of those that would abuse them, such as drug users and the like. The tip was bent and would more than likely spill its contents out rather than in the intended place. Remy handed it over to Weston when he asked to see it.

“That man, Buddy, he worked in the labs before, so he might be able to figure out how this was made. I’ve no idea what it might be other than Benton said he needed it as his medication. But if Buddy is going to be reproducing this, whatever it is, for Benton, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Weston asked him if he knew if it might have been something that Randall had taken to make him stronger. “No…I’m sorry, I don’t. I’m not even sure it’s of this world or what is left of mine. If I need to go back and get some of the ingredients I shall, but my thought was that we could make it here, swapping out one of the drugs for something that might kill Benton, and then perhaps have him die there.”

Weston said that he’d give it his best shot, and put it in a small container before looking over the other things that were brought to them. Most of the plants were healthy and in very good shape, but they were a little concerned as to what effect they would have on the plant life in their realm. It was decided that they’d plant them in a controlled area to make sure they didn’t sprout wings and come after them. Remy didn’t think that was funny, but apparently it had been a joke.

When everything was cataloged and put into other containers, Remy went to find Skylar. Things were too quiet for him. There had not been a call out all day, and as much as he was enjoying the rest, he did not want to get too comfortable with it. So when he found her in the yard with one of the little dogs, he stood watching her while she and the little mutt played. Something that they had not had in some time was fun. When she saw him, he went to her and was handed the little fat fur ball.

“Did you ever have a dog?”

Remy told her that when his children were small, they’d begged for one. He smiled at the memory, glad that it wasn’t as painful to remember any longer.

“There was this bitch who had whelped a litter down the road from us. I think his name was Welsh…the man, not the dog. He was glad to get rid of the lot of them before he had to...well, he was glad to get rid of them. Food then was hard to come by, and having a drain, even dogs, wasn’t something that he could afford. I took me three of them. My mistress, she fussed at me something powerful, but in the end was glad that I’d done it.” Skylar touched the small animal, who was soft as down behind the ears, as he continued. “The children, they were abed when I came home with them, but shot out of their beds like rockets when they heard the pups yipping and going on. No matter what I’d do, they were bound to be found by my children that night, I think. Happy they were to have them.”

He realized that his speech was like it had been all that time ago, and watched Skylar as she leaned on his shoulder. His own wife would have smacked him gently on the shoulder should he have told her what he’d traded for the pups. An entire bushel of corn for them had been a great deal back then. But Welsh was a proud man and one that was down on his luck. He could have taken the pups for free, he knew that, but that would not have helped the man and his family. So with little sacrifice to his family, Remy told him that he needed to make a fair trade or his own lady wife would have had his head for him.

“We had them for a year or so. Grand memories of them and the children as the pups grew bigger seemingly by the day. That winter, they tied them to the sled and had them pull them around the yard. The pups—I forget their names—they did it willingly, knowing that my children would love them all the more for it.” He didn’t tell her that they too had been burned alive by the monsters…not like the ones they fought now, but to his way of thinking worse. He wanted this memory, like so many, not to be tainted by that time. “A robber could have come in and had we had any, the pups would have led them to the best china we had. But the children, they loved them. And it was worth the little that it cost us to have them.”

“Remy, when this is done—and I have to believe that it will be someday—would you have children with me?” He looked over at Skylar as she petted the sleeping pup, not looking at him so that he could see if she jested with him or not. “I don’t care what we have, boys or girls, but I’d very much like to have your child.”

He felt his heart twist up. Not from the pain of trying to replace those that he’d lost so long ago, but with love, his love for Skylar and her wanting to have his child. As he held the puppy gently in his arms, he thought of her fat with his child, her breasts swollen with milk to nurse them, and he knew that he’d like that more than he had anything in a long while.

“I’d like to have many, if you’ve a mind to. Sons and daughters, as many as you want.” She looked at him and he could see her fear there. “You worry too much, my love. We will win this war. I know it. Why, just today we found out that Dolin and Ward are both dead. That will be good for us, I think.”

“Every day I see what things have gone on. The amount of people that have been murdered and changed into things that they would never have been.” He nodded and pulled her close to him as she cried. “I’m not tender hearted, but so much has been lost that we’ll never get back, Remy. What if we can’t make this work, even after the malefactors are all gone?”

“When you came into my life that day, I no more wanted you there than I did the responsibility of helping people that no more cared that I was fighting this war than the change they had in their pockets. A war that I thought could not be won. But I saw you fight them that day as if you knew that had you not, then all would have been lost. You tore into them as if you knew you were going to win. And every day I see that same fight in you, and know that we will win.” He hugged her tightly to him. “You are the reason that I can do this. The reason that I believe that we will not just be victorious, but that we will bring this world back. And our children will thank us for it.”

When the puppy had had enough, he was let go. Skylar moved to sit across his lap and he pulled her close to him. He loved having her there with him, and told her what he’d learned from Hector.

“So they’re both dead. I’m glad. One less thing we have to worry about. I talked to Jake a little while ago, and he said that there are only about a quarter of the malefactors that there were last week. He said that he thought that they were no longer being made.” She moved her mouth down his neck to his pulse there, and he felt it pick up speed. “He said that he had a thought as to why they had been here and not all over the world.”

“Me.” He was having a hard time listening to her when she started to unbutton his shirt. “You keep that up and you’re going to be flat on your back in no time.”

“Yes, you.” He had to think what she was saying and nodded when he got it. “But also the proximity to the mountains. He thinks that there was a higher concentration of the agates that they wanted when they came here. It was a double bonus for them. Remy, you have too many clothes on.”

He was naked before she bit down on his neck. Then he made sure that she was just as undressed in the next second and rolled her to her back, him between her pretty thighs. When she giggled, he paused in his pursuit of her nipple and looked up at her.

“We’re out in the open. Anyone coming by can see us.” He willed them to their room and to the bed. It was much softer than the ground anyway. “Oh Remy, whatever did I do to deserve you?”

“You let a man grab your arm and come to me.” He kissed her nipple as he made his way down her body. “Now hush, woman, I need to feast upon your body. And then when I am done, I will make sure that I did not miss anything whilst I was at it.”

He ate her like a man possessed. Her breasts, her pussy. Remy even tasted her knees and ankles. Her elbows tasted of cranberries, the lotion he knew that she put on nightly. Her ears the same, with a little hint of sexual appeal. Her nipples, hard and a dusky rose, perked up for him, tightened as he nibbled in them none too gently. Every time she came so nicely for him, he gave her just a little more of himself. Remy was on a mission…a mission to show his lady wife just how much he loved her. And he didn’t want her to think him remiss in giving her as much pleasure as he could.

When she came again, this time screaming loud enough to make him laugh, he moved up her body until his cock was at her entrance. She was wet, her body ready for his, but he paused. The look in her eyes at that moment said to him more than mere words could ever tell him. Skylar loved him.

“I do too.”

He moved into her gently, filling her rather than just fucking her. When she wrapped her legs around him, pulling his body tighter to her own, Remy felt each ripple of her sheath, every nuance of her as he made love to her properly. And when he bit her, taking another part of her into him, she sank her own teeth into him and he released as he felt a man should when he had the love of his life.

Chapter 6

Buddy read the notes again. He was sure that these were the wrong doses, but with Benton standing over him, smelling like rotted flesh, he wasn’t sure what he was doing. Buddy stretched his neck again, feeling the tension lighten just a little in the sound of a pop.

“You have it?” He didn’t and told Benton that. He’d also taken it upon himself to tell Benton that he needed him to back off and stop scaring the shit out of him all the time. The monster had been threatening him almost every ten minutes since yesterday morning. “What is it you need from me? I am running low on supplies.”

“I don’t know what I need. I’m just trying to find what works for you.” He looked at the thing in front of him. “I’m working on notes of things that have failed. Not things that worked. I have to start fresh every time one fails. And when it does, you make me...you have to stop treating me like someone who is trying to cheat you. I have to see what he failed at so that I do not fail too. And you standing there, asking me every time I pick up something if I have it, is fucking not helping.”

Benton’s temper flared, and Buddy hoped that the conversation he’d had with him just yesterday had helped with that as well. There was no one here to help him. If he killed Buddy, he was never going to get what he wanted. And at this point, Buddy would almost welcome death over this. This constant bombardment of demands. The threat of being killed almost every minute. He was too nervous to fail, yet did at every turn because he was so terrified.

“What shall I do for you then?” Buddy wanted to tell him to leave him alone and let him go back into hiding, but that wasn’t going to work. He was stuck here, at least until he was no longer useful to Benton. And even then Buddy wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to leave. Not on his own, at any rate. “You say you need space. I have nothing to do to keep me from badgering you. What do you need for me to do?”

“Clean this place up. The bodies have to go. I can’t...and take a bath, please.” He wanted to laugh it off, but Benton really did smell. “I need to work in an environment that isn’t making me sick to my stomach.” Benton looked like he was going to lash out at him again, and Buddy backed away. The last time he’d lost his temper, Buddy had had to put ten stitches in his arm. He was really afraid of the creature and his temper.

“I do not do manual labor. I am Master. And as such, I will not stoop to picking up the dead and disposing of them for you.” Buddy bent his head over the table that he was working on and tried to ignore him. “But I do have an idea how to help you. I do not smell well, and this room is filled with things that are unhealthy to me. It is my opinion that I need to clean this area up, then bathe. A nice soak in a tub will do me a world of good, I think.”

Whatever worked for him. Buddy had noticed that it had to be Benton’s idea when it came to things. Not just the work area, like now, but with everything. When Buddy had suggested that power be turned back on to the labs, Benton had told him no. Then ten minutes later, the power came on and Benton—or Master, as Buddy was told to call him—had said that he’d realized that power would make things better. That he could not see with the lights off. Then he’d scolded Buddy like one would a small child for not telling him sooner that he needed lights to work. He also said that Ward and Dolin had thought it was a good idea as well.

That was something else that had creeped him out a little…the way that Master had continued to talk to the two dead men. And Buddy was sure that both of them were dead. Their bodies, or at least parts of them, had turned up when he’d been trying to clear a space to work in. But almost every conversation that he had with Master had been talked over with either of the two dead men. And then there was Mary.

Buddy remembered Mary. Everyone had thought her to be so saintly and kind hearted, but he knew her to be a conniving and mean spirited woman. When she didn’t get her way, she would pout for days on end. And if things did not turn out the way she wanted, she would lash out at the person she thought she could hurt. Mary played the two men, Ward and Dolin, every time she spoke to the other. She would manipulate them into doing things that neither man, Buddy thought, would have ever thought of on their own. But now, she, too, was here in the room with him. Ordering him about as if she were still alive and he was beneath her.

He looked at Master when he said his name. “You will have me something in the morning. I don’t care should it not work right away, but I am running low on my medicine. And anything that you make will have to be ready to help me. Do you understand me?”

“I do, but you have to know that I’m doing my best with what I have to work with. There are no test subjects here, so I have to wait to see if anything works the way you want it to when you come back. And you being here all the time doesn’t work either.” He’d hoped the man would let him go and find him someone he could use the drugs on, and Buddy would simply not return. “I can go and get someone. I know where a few of the others are hiding out.”

The low growl was all the warning he got before Buddy had to leap back out of the way of the claws that seemed to come out of nowhere. His body slammed against the wall and he saw stars, but didn’t move to get up. The monster was back, it seemed, and Buddy hoped again that he was going to kill him.

“I need the medicine now. No more making demands of me. I am Master.” The thing grew and grew, knocking over the tables that had only just been set up again. Buddy’s notes, too, were scattered all over the room, and he knew this was going to be the end. And in a sad way, he was hoping that it was. Working like this was going to kill him anyway. He turned his head away from Master and waited for the final blow.

The silence kept him there. Master was waiting, Buddy knew, for him to turn and then would kill him. It was perhaps five minutes before he’d finally had enough and turned with one eye open, trying to see without alerting Master. He was alone in the room.

Standing up quietly, hoping not to be lured into some sort of trap this way, Buddy looked around the room again. Yes, he was alone. For now anyway. And as suddenly as he realized that, he knew what was wrong with the formula he’d been working on. Going back to where he’d been working, his head buzzing with the way it had to work, he cleaned up the mess left behind by Master’s temper and set to work. Finding the chemicals needed to work with proved to be much harder than he’d hoped, but soon he had them all and started measuring them out.

Buddy had no idea what time it might have been when Master returned. It was late, he knew that, and he was hungry. But excited too. He’d made a large batch of what he knew was going to work, hoping that once Master saw how busy he’d been, he’d have to let him go. It was a long shot, but Buddy felt too good about things right now to worry too much. He turned to the man, excited, and took a step back. Master had someone with him.

“I found you a test subject. I thought that perhaps you could use one to try out the drugs you make on him before I take them.” Buddy nodded, never taking his eyes from the man that was held in his claws. He’d been beaten up…his lip was swollen, as was his eye. There was blood on his chest as well, deep red, so Buddy knew that it was fresh. Even Master looked as if he’d had a time of it with the man. His body looked a little worse for wear, too. “You will test the drugs on him when you make them. If it will enhance him, then I shall take it. I think that is the best way, do you not agree?”

“What if it kills him?” Master growled and tossed the big man at him. Picking him up again, Master shoved him into the cage that had until recently held the body of two dead, decomposing men. Buddy said nothing as the man lay there, not even fighting for his freedom. He must have been hurt badly was all he could think about.

Buddy wanted to tell him that he had it, that there was no need for him to have the man here. But he was also afraid that Master would kill him, the stranger, and for some reason, Buddy knew that to do that would bring a world of hurt down on him that he’d never survive. He picked up the filled needle and made his way to the man.

“Your name?” The man only stared at him. Buddy was afraid that if he gave this powerful man this drug that he might escape and kill him for it. Better to cover his own butt than to end up stacked in the corner with the rest of the dead. “I’m Buddy. Your name? I can maybe help you if you let me.”

“And how would you do that? Let me go? Change me back to what I was before all this shit happened?” The laughter was bitter and harsh. “Yeah, I’m so trusting of that too. But know this…if you give me that shit and it works, you’re going to be the first thing I kill when I get out of here. And hear me when I tell you, I will fucking get out of here.”

Master roared out and the man in the cage only stood there. Buddy was cowering back, not wanting to be anywhere near Master or the man when things got worse than they were. And he had no doubt that they would. But when he was ordered to inject the drug into the tatted man, Buddy told him he was sorry.

No one moved but Buddy. And he only moved back as far from the cage as he could go. The man, whoever he was, just stood there, his body hard against the bars of the cage. But when the drug started to work, Buddy wasn’t sure if he wanted to jump for joy or run and hide. It did just what they had hoped it would be.

He grew. Not just his muscles, as Master had told him he wanted, but his height and girth as well. The cage, big enough for several men his size, was suddenly too small for him, his body no longer pressing against the bars but making the metal bulge and the hinges weaken. Buddy backed up more. He knew that when the doors came free, the man was going to come for him. And Buddy wanted nothing to do with it. Master turned to him before the transformation of the tatted man was complete.

“You will make more.” Buddy nodded, not taking his eyes off the cage. It was close now; soon it would be like the rest of the rubble in the room. “Give me the rest. And you’ll make more. Now.”

Buddy pointed to the table where the large container was that he’d made up. He’d meant to tell him to take it in small doses, that he’d made the strength stronger than Master had asked him for. But it was too late. For a lot of things, Buddy thought. Master picked it up and drank it down. Buddy knew a new kind of fear then. Master was changing, and not for the good.

~~~

“I’ve not seen him for hours, and I’ve asked around…no one else has either. Not that anyone sees him all that much anyway, but he’s not on the compound.” Davis tried not to worry. It really wasn’t his job to keep track of a full grown man that didn’t want to be a part of anything, but there had been sightings of Benton, and he worried that Nate would go to him just to spite them all. “You checked his room?” he asked Vicki again.

“Yes, I’ve checked his room.” He could tell that Vicki was getting worried too. Her tone told him that, or else she was mad at him. He wanted to believe it was Nate. “Did you ask Skylar to help? Or Kate? She has some pretty freaky abilities.”

So did Vicki, but he didn’t point that out. They had called to the earth and there had been no help there either. Nate was simply gone. Not just not on the compound where they could find him, but he didn’t seem to be touching the earth anywhere.

Davis put a call out to Remy and Skylar when the two of them had looked everywhere they could think of for Nate. They were both on a call, something about a warehouse that they owned that was being invaded, and while he’d heard it wasn’t that bad, they still had left. He thought they were glad to get away…it was simply too quiet here for his tastes as well. Davis had always been the type that knew that the other shoe was going to drop. And when it did, there was going to be hell to pay.

You sure that he was there earlier
? Davis told Skylar that he was, that he’d been his usual friendly self at breakfast.
He’s going to have to either get his shit together or get out. I’ve had enough of this crap. And if he’s packed his bags and left, I swear to you I’m going to cut his balls off and serve them up to him.

Most of the others were sick of him as well. Nate never helped them. They weren’t even sure that he was eating well. Just the other morning he’d been in the dining hall when Davis and Vicki had entered, and he had gotten up and left the cup of tea on the table cold. Things were out of control with him, that was for sure.

Benton has been around too. One of the others saw him a few hours ago near the cave up on the west side of the compound. And that building downtown, no matter what we do to keep people out, they seem to be drawn to it. You think that it has some magical draw that is pulling people to it?
Skylar said she had no idea, but that they’d done enough now that it was time to destroy the stupid thing. Remy said he was going to do it tonight.
Thank goodness.

I’ve a mind to go through it, just to see what’s on the other side.

Davis thought of something while Remy talked about what he had in mind if it was some sort of portal to the other side.
Nate said that. I don’t...we were in the family room and Chris mentioned the building. Just offhandedly, Nate said something about testing the boundaries of it. Do you suppose he’s gone there?
Christ, Davis hoped not. There wasn’t any way for them to help him should he have gone there.
Has anyone checked the footage that we have on the place?

Davis was on his way to the command center as he spoke. Whatever happened there, they had recordings of it. It looped around every six days, so he knew that if Nate had gone there, they’d know it. He asked Jake to pull it up while Davis continued to speak to Remy and Skylar.