Get Well Soon, Saint!
I actually liked this chapter.
“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”
~Alex Haley, 1921-1992
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part Seventeen
Rating: PG-13, this sequence may contain violence and swearing, yay!
Word count: 2164
Total word count so far: 43342
Author's notes that most likely no one will ever read: "Antianara" references the Amazonian queen who succeeded Penthesilea, after Penthesilea was killed in Troy. Rumor has it that she had all the male slaves crippled, as "the lame make better lovers." (That particular quote is actually attributed to her. I'm not kidding.)
Derek was tied to a chair. He looked like he might have been pissed about that at some point, though at the moment he just looked like he’d had the crap beaten out of him. Whoever had done it had known what they were doing, too. The bruises on the ninja that Greg could see were deep and colorful, designed for the maximum amount of hurt with minimal effort. He was also bleeding just about everywhere.
Holy fucking hell, he thought. Derek hadn’t just been cut and bruised. That would have been preferable to this, because the blond ninja was also bleeding from his ears and nose and fingertips.
Someone had tried to break his mind - and Derek had resisted.
“You bitch,” he hissed at the woman standing three feet away from the bound ninja. He couldn’t see her face, but there was something all too familiar about her presence, the sultry ‘everyone wants me’ way she carried herself. She held herself with the kind of poise that only black widows in gorgeous women’s bodies seemed to have, and he knew she’d be beautiful even before she shook her head and the veil of long black hair fell away to reveal who she was.
He knew her. He knew that exquisite face, knew the smirk that tilted full lips, and the dangerous narrowing of eyes as eerie and liquid-gold as his own. It had been years since he’d seen her last, but Greg figured that you never forgot - couldn’t forget - the woman who’d been responsible for ruining your life.
"Hello, Eve,” he said.
Eve chuckled. The sound was throaty and promising, more suited to an expensive hotel suite than a beat-up ninja’s thoroughly trashed kitchen. “Hello, Grigori.”
Greg advanced on the pair, freezing when Eve closed the distance between herself and Derek, resting an iron-clawed hand on the ninja’s shoulder.
He knew those too. He knew how sharp they were, how much they could hurt, and the exact way they could catch on your skin if she angled her hand just right, hurting that much more when she ripped them out and away. He knew that the steel never seemed cold, because they were warm from her body heat, like living things. And he knew that the steel-bright color never seemed to dim no matter what she put them through, even as she covered them in his brother’s blood.
“Good boy,” she said, just like she had when he was eight and too stupid not to feel pleased by her praise.
He knew better now. “You don’t really want him,” Greg said firmly.
“Oh?” Eve trailed one steel-clad finger up the side of Derek’s neck, careful to use the smooth steel underside of the claw that covered the top joint of her finger rather than the claw itself. The ninja trembled - from helpless rage, Greg realized. Not fear. “He’d make a good toy, don’t you think? After I broke him in, of course. The lame make better lovers.”
“Antianara, you are not,” Derek ground out harshly. He gave a short bark of laughter when Eve realized he’d caught the reference, turning to him in honest surprise.
“Hmph,” the Nephilim-born woman said, and back-handed him. The chains holding the claws to the bracelet on her wrist left gouges in her captive’s cheeks.
Greg winced inwardly in sympathy. That would scar. “You couldn’t break him,” he said, with a calm he didn’t feel. “He’s stronger than Adam was. He’ll die before he serves you.”
Eve’s eyes hardened to yellow stones. In four bird-flight quick steps she closed the distance between them and backhanded Greg, momentarily abandoning Derek. Greg rocked back, absorbing the blow and catching Eve’s wrists when she would have done it again.
“You little bastard,” she hissed, kicking him in the stomach.
“My parents,” Greg wheezed, “were married.” It took an act of will not to go for his gun. He wanted Eve dead, but he wanted answers more.
“Mine weren’t,” Derek hissed, suddenly there. He moved faster than Eve, a hand around her throat, the force of his momentum slamming her head back into a kitchen cabinet. “Bitch. What do you want with Greg?”
Greg tightened his grip on Eve’s wrists when she would have lashed out again. She seemed to be ignoring Derek completely, which was stupid, because Derek had to be holding onto her throat hard enough to make it difficult to breathe. He knew first hand that Derek’s grip left bruises when he forgot his strength.
Somehow, he didn’t think Derek was forgetting himself now.
Eve focused on him. “You dare mention him to me.”
“He was my brother!” Greg shouted. “You were just fucking him. I should think that I’ve got the right to say his name.”
She hissed at him, straining against Derek’s hold in rage and hate just as old and unanswered as his. “So mature!” she spat. “You’re such a pathetic little boy, Grigori, clinging to a gun and a bodyguard like it gives you any kind of leverage against me. I could crush you, break your mind and leave you gibbering and drooling on the floor and you couldn’t stop me. It won’t do any good. You’re a child, compared to me. You will always be a child, because you never learned what you were supposed to.”
“What, how to hurt people?” Greg shot back. “Forgive me for failing those lessons.”
“I just wanted you to know how to protect yourself, you ass! He didn’t have the balls for it, but you were young, and you were ours. I thought you’d be able to adjust!” Her eyes raked him up and down, filled with old contempt. “I thought there was enough of your mother in you for that, but you’re your damn father’s son. Cowards, through and through, you Antrobus men. I can see that hasn’t changed.”
Greg spread his arms out. “Try it, Eve. Just try it.”
He felt her slam against the shield on his mind that Van had helped him refine. She bounced back with a shrill cry of hate, and tried again.
Greg gritted his teeth. He could hold the shield for as long as she could try to break it, but it would give him a God-awful headache before long. “It won’t work,” he told her. “I’m not who you knew … And I am not my brother, either.”
Eve slumped in Derek’s grasp. “Bastard.” Her eyes were cold. “I never expected to see you again.”
“I never wanted to see you again,” he replied, meeting her eyes and knowing his were just as cold.
Her lips curled back in a sneer. “Think you’re Natsar now, do you?”
“Hardly.” Greg held up his left hand, displaying the Binding Ring. “I am what I’ve always been, and the world knows it.”
Eve laughed. “You fool.” She looked coldly at Derek. “Release me, boy. I’m not going to fight any more. I just want to talk.”
“You just spent the better part of an hour beating the crap out of me and cutting pretty designs into my skin,” Derek said tersely. “So you’ll forgive me if I’m less than inclined to acquiesce with your demands.”
“So polite,” she mocked. “Have it your way, boyo. We can carry out this happy fucking family reunion with you as the audience.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away and let Derek finish you,” Greg snapped.
Eve smiled silkily. “Because if you try, my partner’s going to kill the little Natsar you told to run.”
Greg’s eyes widened. *Sophia!*
The door to Derek’s apartment opened again, and another Nephilim-born stepped through. He had Sophia slung over his shoulder, out cold.
“You fucking bastard, what did you do to her?” Greg hissed, torn between the desire to gut Eve and shoot her partner.
“She’s just unconscious,” the man said, nonplussed. “Let Eve go, please.”
Eve sighed. “You’re too damn polite, Seth.”
Her partner shrugged and dumped Sophia on the ground. “I’m not going to ask again,” he said mildly.
Greg saw Sophia’s eyelids flicker. She wasn’t as unconscious as Seth thought. She’d be fine. Pissed off, probably, but fine.
That was all he needed. He exploded into motion, kicking Seth in the throat and knocking the larger man back. Greg flicked the SOG knife open and slashed across Seth’s chest when the man stumbled, kicking the man’s knee when he flailed. The cartilage made a wonderfully sickening crunching sound beneath his foot and Seth screamed as he went down. He screamed again when Greg drove the knife through his shoulder and left it there. “Nobody touches Sophia, you hear me?” he hissed. “She’s mine and you can’t hurt her.” He divested Seth of his weapons and looked up at Eve coldly. “Give me one good reason not to slit his fucking throat.”
Eve kicked Derek aside, not bothering to use her claws now that she was only facing one opponent. She kicked him in the stomach first, doubling him over, then hit him over the head, putting him down for the count with as much effort as she might have used tending a hangnail. This was the woman he’d had nightmares about, the vengeful fury his brother had never been able to tame. She was cool and composed, utterly untouched by the violence; it was like her earlier emotional outburst had never happened. Her sudden mood shifts had frightened him when he was a child, and they were no less terrifying now. “Might be kinder to kill him, with all the damage you’ve done,” she said, her tone uncaring. “I thought you said you were Nephilim-born.”
Greg held his hands out. She knew the scars, had similar ones on her feet, though hers weren’t as bad. “I am what I have always been.”
Eve tossed her head back and laughed. Her hair rippled down her back like dark waves as it did so, and he shivered at the reminder of the almost primal evil to her. “Dear boy, you most certainly are not.” There was something almost like pride in her eyes now, and it made him sick to see, because once upon a time it would have meant just about everything to him. “We never taught you to be Terryal. I seem to recall Adam telling you to stay as far away from the crazy sons of bitches as possible.”
Greg straightened and smirked. “No,” he said coolly. “My brother taught me that.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Your brother,” she repeated.
“Yes,” Greg said softly. “Mine.”
“Traitor,” she hissed, advancing on him. “You betray your blood.”
“What blood?” he hissed back. He knew that he should have stayed out of range, that the tips of the claws on her left hand were poisoned where the ones on her right weren’t, and that this was Eve, so she wouldn’t hesitate to use either. But this couldn’t be said from a distance. It needed to be said up close, where he could watch his barbs sink in and make her bleed. “You killed what blood was left to me.”
“I don’t count?” Eve asked.
“You never counted,” he said, deliberately cruel. “The Nephilim-born aren’t really big on families, you know.”
“That’s just what you think,” she said bitterly. “Do you think that your new family will make you happy? That you can be a well-treated Terryal slave and that it’s all going to be okay? Outlive your master and the Synod will kill you. That’s what they do with our kind, Grigori, and you’re a fool for thinking otherwise.”
“Anything that kills him is going to have to take me out first,” Greg said, and it was a promise. “I’m not going to outlive another brother, Eve. It hurts too much.”
“Keep pursuing the Forbidden Fruit and you just might get to keep that promise.” Eve yanked the SOG knife out of her partner’s shoulder and hoisted the man to his feet, heedless of his moans. “Tell your fellows to stop poking around, and don’t send spies like him either. You haven’t the training for this sort of thing. You’re better off leaving it to us.”
Greg’s eyes widened. “Eve-”
She smirked. “Oh, now you want to talk?” Her mind slammed into his viciously, going straight through his shield with the force of a sledgehammer and making his head ring. Greg stumbled back and fell flat on his ass. “Tch. You’ve still got a long way to go before you can try anything with impunity, Grigori.”
“Eve, wait-” he said, or thought he said. She hit him again and he saw darkness and pinpricks of light that might have been stars. Reconstructing the shield on his mind was useless. He had to get to his feet, had to see what she knew and -
He didn’t even feel the third blow. There was no warning, just like after the fire, the first time he’d laid eyes on Van, and then …
Nothing.
“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”
~Alex Haley, 1921-1992
Title: Brother's Keeper, Part Seventeen
Rating: PG-13, this sequence may contain violence and swearing, yay!
Word count: 2164
Total word count so far: 43342
Author's notes that most likely no one will ever read: "Antianara" references the Amazonian queen who succeeded Penthesilea, after Penthesilea was killed in Troy. Rumor has it that she had all the male slaves crippled, as "the lame make better lovers." (That particular quote is actually attributed to her. I'm not kidding.)
Derek was tied to a chair. He looked like he might have been pissed about that at some point, though at the moment he just looked like he’d had the crap beaten out of him. Whoever had done it had known what they were doing, too. The bruises on the ninja that Greg could see were deep and colorful, designed for the maximum amount of hurt with minimal effort. He was also bleeding just about everywhere.
Holy fucking hell, he thought. Derek hadn’t just been cut and bruised. That would have been preferable to this, because the blond ninja was also bleeding from his ears and nose and fingertips.
Someone had tried to break his mind - and Derek had resisted.
“You bitch,” he hissed at the woman standing three feet away from the bound ninja. He couldn’t see her face, but there was something all too familiar about her presence, the sultry ‘everyone wants me’ way she carried herself. She held herself with the kind of poise that only black widows in gorgeous women’s bodies seemed to have, and he knew she’d be beautiful even before she shook her head and the veil of long black hair fell away to reveal who she was.
He knew her. He knew that exquisite face, knew the smirk that tilted full lips, and the dangerous narrowing of eyes as eerie and liquid-gold as his own. It had been years since he’d seen her last, but Greg figured that you never forgot - couldn’t forget - the woman who’d been responsible for ruining your life.
"Hello, Eve,” he said.
Eve chuckled. The sound was throaty and promising, more suited to an expensive hotel suite than a beat-up ninja’s thoroughly trashed kitchen. “Hello, Grigori.”
Greg advanced on the pair, freezing when Eve closed the distance between herself and Derek, resting an iron-clawed hand on the ninja’s shoulder.
He knew those too. He knew how sharp they were, how much they could hurt, and the exact way they could catch on your skin if she angled her hand just right, hurting that much more when she ripped them out and away. He knew that the steel never seemed cold, because they were warm from her body heat, like living things. And he knew that the steel-bright color never seemed to dim no matter what she put them through, even as she covered them in his brother’s blood.
“Good boy,” she said, just like she had when he was eight and too stupid not to feel pleased by her praise.
He knew better now. “You don’t really want him,” Greg said firmly.
“Oh?” Eve trailed one steel-clad finger up the side of Derek’s neck, careful to use the smooth steel underside of the claw that covered the top joint of her finger rather than the claw itself. The ninja trembled - from helpless rage, Greg realized. Not fear. “He’d make a good toy, don’t you think? After I broke him in, of course. The lame make better lovers.”
“Antianara, you are not,” Derek ground out harshly. He gave a short bark of laughter when Eve realized he’d caught the reference, turning to him in honest surprise.
“Hmph,” the Nephilim-born woman said, and back-handed him. The chains holding the claws to the bracelet on her wrist left gouges in her captive’s cheeks.
Greg winced inwardly in sympathy. That would scar. “You couldn’t break him,” he said, with a calm he didn’t feel. “He’s stronger than Adam was. He’ll die before he serves you.”
Eve’s eyes hardened to yellow stones. In four bird-flight quick steps she closed the distance between them and backhanded Greg, momentarily abandoning Derek. Greg rocked back, absorbing the blow and catching Eve’s wrists when she would have done it again.
“You little bastard,” she hissed, kicking him in the stomach.
“My parents,” Greg wheezed, “were married.” It took an act of will not to go for his gun. He wanted Eve dead, but he wanted answers more.
“Mine weren’t,” Derek hissed, suddenly there. He moved faster than Eve, a hand around her throat, the force of his momentum slamming her head back into a kitchen cabinet. “Bitch. What do you want with Greg?”
Greg tightened his grip on Eve’s wrists when she would have lashed out again. She seemed to be ignoring Derek completely, which was stupid, because Derek had to be holding onto her throat hard enough to make it difficult to breathe. He knew first hand that Derek’s grip left bruises when he forgot his strength.
Somehow, he didn’t think Derek was forgetting himself now.
Eve focused on him. “You dare mention him to me.”
“He was my brother!” Greg shouted. “You were just fucking him. I should think that I’ve got the right to say his name.”
She hissed at him, straining against Derek’s hold in rage and hate just as old and unanswered as his. “So mature!” she spat. “You’re such a pathetic little boy, Grigori, clinging to a gun and a bodyguard like it gives you any kind of leverage against me. I could crush you, break your mind and leave you gibbering and drooling on the floor and you couldn’t stop me. It won’t do any good. You’re a child, compared to me. You will always be a child, because you never learned what you were supposed to.”
“What, how to hurt people?” Greg shot back. “Forgive me for failing those lessons.”
“I just wanted you to know how to protect yourself, you ass! He didn’t have the balls for it, but you were young, and you were ours. I thought you’d be able to adjust!” Her eyes raked him up and down, filled with old contempt. “I thought there was enough of your mother in you for that, but you’re your damn father’s son. Cowards, through and through, you Antrobus men. I can see that hasn’t changed.”
Greg spread his arms out. “Try it, Eve. Just try it.”
He felt her slam against the shield on his mind that Van had helped him refine. She bounced back with a shrill cry of hate, and tried again.
Greg gritted his teeth. He could hold the shield for as long as she could try to break it, but it would give him a God-awful headache before long. “It won’t work,” he told her. “I’m not who you knew … And I am not my brother, either.”
Eve slumped in Derek’s grasp. “Bastard.” Her eyes were cold. “I never expected to see you again.”
“I never wanted to see you again,” he replied, meeting her eyes and knowing his were just as cold.
Her lips curled back in a sneer. “Think you’re Natsar now, do you?”
“Hardly.” Greg held up his left hand, displaying the Binding Ring. “I am what I’ve always been, and the world knows it.”
Eve laughed. “You fool.” She looked coldly at Derek. “Release me, boy. I’m not going to fight any more. I just want to talk.”
“You just spent the better part of an hour beating the crap out of me and cutting pretty designs into my skin,” Derek said tersely. “So you’ll forgive me if I’m less than inclined to acquiesce with your demands.”
“So polite,” she mocked. “Have it your way, boyo. We can carry out this happy fucking family reunion with you as the audience.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away and let Derek finish you,” Greg snapped.
Eve smiled silkily. “Because if you try, my partner’s going to kill the little Natsar you told to run.”
Greg’s eyes widened. *Sophia!*
The door to Derek’s apartment opened again, and another Nephilim-born stepped through. He had Sophia slung over his shoulder, out cold.
“You fucking bastard, what did you do to her?” Greg hissed, torn between the desire to gut Eve and shoot her partner.
“She’s just unconscious,” the man said, nonplussed. “Let Eve go, please.”
Eve sighed. “You’re too damn polite, Seth.”
Her partner shrugged and dumped Sophia on the ground. “I’m not going to ask again,” he said mildly.
Greg saw Sophia’s eyelids flicker. She wasn’t as unconscious as Seth thought. She’d be fine. Pissed off, probably, but fine.
That was all he needed. He exploded into motion, kicking Seth in the throat and knocking the larger man back. Greg flicked the SOG knife open and slashed across Seth’s chest when the man stumbled, kicking the man’s knee when he flailed. The cartilage made a wonderfully sickening crunching sound beneath his foot and Seth screamed as he went down. He screamed again when Greg drove the knife through his shoulder and left it there. “Nobody touches Sophia, you hear me?” he hissed. “She’s mine and you can’t hurt her.” He divested Seth of his weapons and looked up at Eve coldly. “Give me one good reason not to slit his fucking throat.”
Eve kicked Derek aside, not bothering to use her claws now that she was only facing one opponent. She kicked him in the stomach first, doubling him over, then hit him over the head, putting him down for the count with as much effort as she might have used tending a hangnail. This was the woman he’d had nightmares about, the vengeful fury his brother had never been able to tame. She was cool and composed, utterly untouched by the violence; it was like her earlier emotional outburst had never happened. Her sudden mood shifts had frightened him when he was a child, and they were no less terrifying now. “Might be kinder to kill him, with all the damage you’ve done,” she said, her tone uncaring. “I thought you said you were Nephilim-born.”
Greg held his hands out. She knew the scars, had similar ones on her feet, though hers weren’t as bad. “I am what I have always been.”
Eve tossed her head back and laughed. Her hair rippled down her back like dark waves as it did so, and he shivered at the reminder of the almost primal evil to her. “Dear boy, you most certainly are not.” There was something almost like pride in her eyes now, and it made him sick to see, because once upon a time it would have meant just about everything to him. “We never taught you to be Terryal. I seem to recall Adam telling you to stay as far away from the crazy sons of bitches as possible.”
Greg straightened and smirked. “No,” he said coolly. “My brother taught me that.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Your brother,” she repeated.
“Yes,” Greg said softly. “Mine.”
“Traitor,” she hissed, advancing on him. “You betray your blood.”
“What blood?” he hissed back. He knew that he should have stayed out of range, that the tips of the claws on her left hand were poisoned where the ones on her right weren’t, and that this was Eve, so she wouldn’t hesitate to use either. But this couldn’t be said from a distance. It needed to be said up close, where he could watch his barbs sink in and make her bleed. “You killed what blood was left to me.”
“I don’t count?” Eve asked.
“You never counted,” he said, deliberately cruel. “The Nephilim-born aren’t really big on families, you know.”
“That’s just what you think,” she said bitterly. “Do you think that your new family will make you happy? That you can be a well-treated Terryal slave and that it’s all going to be okay? Outlive your master and the Synod will kill you. That’s what they do with our kind, Grigori, and you’re a fool for thinking otherwise.”
“Anything that kills him is going to have to take me out first,” Greg said, and it was a promise. “I’m not going to outlive another brother, Eve. It hurts too much.”
“Keep pursuing the Forbidden Fruit and you just might get to keep that promise.” Eve yanked the SOG knife out of her partner’s shoulder and hoisted the man to his feet, heedless of his moans. “Tell your fellows to stop poking around, and don’t send spies like him either. You haven’t the training for this sort of thing. You’re better off leaving it to us.”
Greg’s eyes widened. “Eve-”
She smirked. “Oh, now you want to talk?” Her mind slammed into his viciously, going straight through his shield with the force of a sledgehammer and making his head ring. Greg stumbled back and fell flat on his ass. “Tch. You’ve still got a long way to go before you can try anything with impunity, Grigori.”
“Eve, wait-” he said, or thought he said. She hit him again and he saw darkness and pinpricks of light that might have been stars. Reconstructing the shield on his mind was useless. He had to get to his feet, had to see what she knew and -
He didn’t even feel the third blow. There was no warning, just like after the fire, the first time he’d laid eyes on Van, and then …
Nothing.