The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

He drummed his fingers on his desk. His mother and brothers crowded his office, stinking of sulphur and expensive perfume. “We should move now, Mother,” Cain said. “Everything is in place. Waiting any longer is risky.”

“It’s too soon,” his mother said. “Be patient.”

He yearned for Fynn to the point that he didn’t sleep anymore. He lay in bed in a hot sweat, her gorgeous face all he could see. He could almost feel the satin of her skin under his hands but when he reached for her in the dark he was, as always, alone.

“You must all learn to wait,” Mother said, her teeth bared. “We could lose everything.”

“I don’t know how you can fear that,” Cain said, choosing his words like footsteps over a minefield.

Mother grabbed the back of Cain’s neck and started massaging. He controlled the urge to run from her touch. He concentrated on his breathing. His heart rate must remain absolutely regular or she would detect it. Nothing fed her cruelty more than fear.

“Your brothers are idiots,” she said. “Don’t make the same mistake.” The points of her fingernails punctured his skin. She dug into the nerves running down his arms and along the sides of his body. He cried out because he could not help it. She clutched harder until blue spots danced in front of his eyes. He slid off the chair to his knees.

When she released him, blood ran down his neck and wetted the starched collar of his dress shirt. He would have to change after she left before any employees saw the blood. Residual pain zinged down the pathways of his nerve endings. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the worst of it to pass. It always passed. He could count at least on that.

His brothers laughed at his weakness. They would have been able to fight back if she tried the same thing on them. They had spent an unbelievable amount of time in Hell. He couldn’t imagine three minutes, let alone the three years his brothers spent conscious only of a place too awful to be imagined. His mother’s magic brought them back to life, but they weren’t human anymore. They came back crazy as shit cans and stronger than their mother.

Any questions they had about the limits of the Witch Mother’s power over her newly minted demon sons were answered. They disobeyed her. They went after Fynn when she said to hold back and wait. She had forbid them to attack any member of the Triple Goddess until she’d said the word. But they did as they pleased. Cain didn’t know whether to be amused or terrified.

“I could kill you,” Cate said, patting Cain on the head. “No one would miss you. Certainly not
Fynn.
”

Eligos yawned. “Mother, Cain is no use to us dead.”

Cain’s flesh crawled. He would never get used to insect voices of his brothers since their return. Eligos’ lumpy and swollen face opened into a mouth full of serrated teeth.

Mother stood a bit straighter and her smile grew even colder if that was possible. “He is of little use to us alive,” she said. “Eligos, collect yourself before someone sees you.”

Eligos stood up straight, suddenly again a man. They were just as strong in their human form as in the shapes they took as demons. They took pleasure in the shape shifting only because they knew how grotesque they were and they liked it. Cain wished he had thought to lock the door before his family came to visit. Not that a lock would have kept them out.

Each time his mother got pregnant, she gave birth with the help of Keep midwives. She disguised herself as a bohemian free spirit. He had memories of her hair long, her sweet public smile. Alone with her children, she showed no trace of love. She birthed them with the sole purpose of defeating the Triple Goddess. She explained it to Cain when they took over the company and renamed it Cain Pharmaceuticals.

People who returned from Hell were never able to enter the place where they were born. If the Mayhem brothers tried to enter the Keep walls, they would explode into flames. Even if they didn’t succeed in killing the goddesses, at least they would drive them to seek safety within the Keep walls. “Let the rats die in their hole,” Cain’s mother had said. “We’ll do what we please in the rest of the world.”

Cain glanced up and caught Eligos staring at him. Cain lowered into his swivel chair and pretended to do work at the computer. His youngest brother freaked him out even before he was a demon. He was the best looking, with his movie star face and corn silk hair. Eligos’ father was of pure human blood, unlike the rest of them sired by different demon tinged fathers. Cate liked crazy men. Yet it was Eligos’ purity that made him the most dangerous of the three after returning. The corrupted pure human was much more vicious than the offspring of a witch and a demon.

Even as a little boy, Eligos had an insane penchant for kindness. Nothing their mother did could make him hate her. In the Keep he would bring her bouquets of those stupid purple daisies, and weep as she crushed them in her fist. Since his Return, his hatred for everything living emanated from him like poison. Being in a room with Eligos was like being in the company of a live atomic warhead.

Eligos stretched across one of the couches and rested his muddy shoes on the cushions. He had returned to his human form, an ugly process to watch. The return to human looked like an old balloon deflating then shrinkwrapping itself against a human skull. Amon was not so human-looking anymore even in his restored form. He sulked in the corner, clutching his arm where Fynn had burned him. Now one brother was gone, killed by nothing more than an embrace to hear Eligos tell it. Amon lost a hand and was even stranger than before. Because of the attack in the woods, the goddesses would know the kind of monsters they had to fight. The old Story Keeper would have them pegged for Mayhem demons by now. The remaining brothers no longer had the cover of surprise.

“Because you disobeyed me, we lost the strength of the three brothers,” Mother said.

“You and your numbers,” Eligos said. “The number doesn’t matter.” His human voice was young and pleasant, his jaw as loose as the surfers he hung out with before he underwent the change.

“The numbers
do
matter. You must control yourselves and wait until I tell you to act,” the Witch Mother said. “Your reward will come, I promise you.”

Cain envied his brothers. It was their strength that he coveted. They had more strength than any human being could ever imagine possessing. Enough to make their mother cower. Cain would have loved to know what that felt like, to not live in fear of the witch.

“You will get your chance with the Triple Goddess soon,” she said. “You can start with the youngest and work your way up.”

Cain clenched his teeth. Not the youngest. She’d promised the youngest to
him.
He had to remember that everything his mother said to his brothers was a lie. Her promise to let him have Fynn was a secret. His mother said that his brothers wouldn’t understand and he knew she was right about that. Yet the fact that they had gone after her alone made Cain know that he needed to move fast.

“Soon she will be weak and unable to do to you what she did to Amon and Sam,” Mother said. “Then you’ll kill her.”

Eligos rolled his eyes. “She’d be dead now if I wanted her dead,” he said. He drew a long knife from the inside pocket of his jacket. The rusty blade was beveled with three ridges and came down do a point that at one time many centuries ago maybe was sharp.

“Daemonium, yes. But she’s more powerful than you think,” she said.

“And I’m more powerful than
you
think,” Eligos said. He grabbed her hand. Amon moaned from the corner. Eligos pinned her arm behind her back and held the daemonium point to her neck.

Mother smiled. Eligos wrenched her arm further and the pain seemed to make her even happier. He pushed her away, spitting at her feet.

“All in due time,” Mother said, rubbing her arm. She was in lighter spirits now. “You’ll have your fun Eligos, you’ll see. Trust me, my son. I know what you are. Give me a little more time and I’ll serve her to you on a silver platter.”

“No more time,” Eligos said. He slammed the door when he and Amon left. Their footsteps were heavy as drumbeats down the hall.

“As soon as they serve their purpose, they’re gone,” Mother said. Cain dabbed under his collar with a handkerchief. Half-moons of flesh hung off his neck like tiny flags.

Cain nodded. Despite her punishments, he was the one in Mother’s favor. He was always the favorite one, the one chosen to run the empire after the collapse. Ever since he was a boy, she wove stories in his ear, a spider mother with sticky webs. She painted pictures in his mind of him at the head of an enormous company and this had already happened. Soon after they unleashed the Hydravirus, he would be president of the most powerful country in the world and he would rule it like a king. He would stand on the burning corpses of his brothers and he would have anything he wanted in the world.

“You promised them Fynn,” Cain said.

“I promise a lot of things,” she said. “Do as I say. You’ll be rewarded, too.”

Cain looked down at his fingers, the nails bitten to the quick. She had promised him these things if only she did what he said. In reward for his obedience he would get the life of a sultan’s dreams. He would get anything he wanted.

All he wanted was Fynn.

The computer went dark. She came up behind him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had a forked tongue. “Soon they’ll bow before you,” she said. “They’ll call your name. You will be able to have whatever or whomever you want. Even Fynn Kildare, if that earth pig is your desire.”

The thought comforted him. He knew about waiting. He knew more than his mother could ever imagine. The sooner they could get the apocalypse on the road, the happier he would be. The sooner he would get to start living a real life, instead of as an evil parasite living off of humankind’s doomed future. It was only a matter of waiting.

She moved to the window overlooking the factory. The assembly line churned pills nonstop, getting ready for the moment when they unleashed Hydravirus and the world’s wealthiest people would give up anything for the cure. She watched the manufacturing with a hungry smile.

He yearned for her to leave his office. She would eventually. He only had to wait.

A cool winter moon rose over a stadium in the middle of America where Komo’s fans swarmed to their seats, or searched in vain for scalpers in the parking lots. Anyone who had a ticket wanted in to the show. A scalped ticket would go for ten times the regular price. Still the unlucky ones lingered on the streets, hoping to catch a snippet of Komo playing live over the walls.

Fynn loved the hours before Komo went onstage because it was the space of time when she had to share him the least. Komo liked to keep her right beside him so that he could rest his head in her lap while he talked to Cate about the business side of things. He liked to hold her hand and play out chords on the inside of her arm.

A crowd crushed into the tiny dressing room, every hanger-on feeling entitled to be there, no one conceding. World famous journalist Mary Daniels had asked to interview him, and Komo indulged that. The woman bustled through with her cameraman, her crew and their microphones and lights. The celebrity ordered languid groupies to move off the counters of the dressing tables so she could have the space to set up the interview as if Komo were the one who should be honored by Mary Daniels’ attention to
him
.

Cate caught Fynn’s eye and they shared a smirk. Komo lifted thousands of people to ecstasy every night. He transformed their lives with his music. Mary Daniels was the same as every other groupie, a mere fart on the human timeline while Komo was descended from a god.

Komo reclined shirtless on velvet pillows and ate from bunches of grapes as the woman chattered. She smelled like powder and hair dye and her smile was a mask. She had so many questions. Were the reports true that someone had auctioned their tickets online to the sold out concert at The Vine for a million dollars? What did he think about such excess in these hard economic times?

The record company had just announced Komo’s appearance at a grand re-opening of the old-school rock and roll venue the Vine Theater in San Francisco. They would be there in two weeks to conjure the spirit of Dionysus and the other rock gods that came before young Komo. He shrugged his massive shoulders so that his muscles rippled under his bare skin. Of course he ripped his shirt off right before the cameras started rolling. Komo could never resist a bit of theater.

“Even poor people need music and art,” Komo said. “Are you saying we should forget how to be human just because times are hard?”

Fynn’s head buzzed. The Nine tablet she had taken that morning was wearing off. If only Mary Daniels could see how stupid she looked. If only she could see how stupid her entire life was. Fynn felt cruel. She stretched out on a cushioned lounge Komo kept for her. No one else held permission to sit on it but Fynn because she was his queen. She thought about pinching the Daniels woman’s head off. She put two fingers together and peered at her through them with one eye. Pinch. That’s all it would take.

The journalist patted the back of her neck. A thin veil of perspiration beaded on her forehead. Komo permeated her defenses in the warm room and they were melting away like everyone’s always did. Even Mary Daniels, the
world famous journalist
known for her hard driving questions to the most famous of celebrities and heads of state was not immune to Komo.

The air conditioning seemed to stop working. Incense spiced the air. Fresh fruit filled platters on the craft tables and the party girls poured red wine into glasses and plied them to the men in the crew.

“I don’t care about the money,” Komo said, his voice on the dangerous edge of boredom. Only Fynn recognized the flash of hunger in his eyes. The truth was a fan
had
paid 1.6 million dollars for the pair of tickets for his one-night appearance. The Vine only seated one thousand. Getting to see Komo in such an intimate venue would be worth that price and more for a lot of people.

Fynn stretched to try to relieve an impending backache. Someone in the room had to have some Nine. She needed it if she was going to have to listen to any more of Komo’s media bullshit. She hated that he had to make himself seem humble. Ms. Daniels and the rest of the world would be very interested in finding out that Komo did in fact care about the money. He loved the money and so what? He deserved it for how he made people feel. More than that he loved knowing that he had fans who adored him so much they would pay over a million dollars just to be close to him for a few short hours.