Chapter Twenty-Three

Nyko let his gaze wanderaround the squalid living room, looking anywhere but directly at his brother. Not that there was anything much to see in here besides rat poop and mold. After a thick silence, he finally forced himself to meet his brother's eyes. "What are they doing to Dr. Preston?" he asked, avoiding the real questions. What the heck are you doing here, Shon? Why are you betraying your people?

Shon hitched a shoulder. "Don't know. I'm not that far into their inner circle, yet."

Yet. "Ah. So…" Nyko coughed. "So how long have you been hanging out with the Topside Om R?u?"

"A while," Shon answered vaguely.

"And, uh… Well, why are you with them, Shon?"

Shon scoffed. "I'd think that'd be obvious. The community banished me, so I headed where I was wanted."

Nyko's mouth fell open. Shon thought they'd abandoned him? "But… No, Shon. You were sent topside temporarily, to help you get better, to give you a break from the community for—"

"It was a punishment." Shon's words slammed into Nyko. "And if the community thinks it can keep my loyalty after a maneuver like that, then the whole damned town should be nuked for its idiocy."

"It was partly a punishment," Nyko admitted. "But it absolutely wasn't a rejection of you. You were supposed to come back. Jacken and I, the whole community, want you to—"

"I'm not going back." Shon sounded bored now. "And don't worry about my survival, either, when you stop sending my blood donor up. Videon keeps a stable of whores around. I'll feed off one of them until Videon kills her, then move on to the next."

Horror invaded Nyko's chest. His brother really hadn't just said that. "Don't do that," he pleaded. "You'll hate yourself if you do."

Dark, predatory emotions rolled off Shon. The bones in his jaw moved into a menacing position. "I already hate myself."

Nyko's ribs squeezed his heart, his own emotions a nearly overwhelming tide—worry, guilt, confusion, fear. "Why?"

"None of your fucking business."

Same as at Shon's trial. Nyko drew a breath with difficulty, the chains draping his body suddenly feeling like an impossible weight. "Tell me what's bothering you?"

"Bothering me?"

"Something torments you, Shon. I…I've known it for a long time." Nyko wet his dry lips. "You need to get it off your chest. Purge yourself of it. Then you can move on."

Shon laughed. The sound wasn't pleasant. "You really want to know?" He sprang off the radiator and stalked over. "Okay, big brother, let's have share time." Shon planted his hands on the armrests of the chair and shoved his face close to Nyko's. "It was because of you!" he yelled.

Nyko didn't know how he remained still, but he did.

Shon straightened, but didn't move back. "When was the last time you saw yourself in a mirror, Nyko? You're covered in tattoos from top to bottom, marred with more teeth than Jacken, way more than me. And why is that?" Shon's nostrils flared. "Because you took Lorke's torture for us, you fuck!"

Nyko blinked hard for a moment, an ache building behind his forehead as too many memories pushed around inside his skull. There was just so much awful stuff he didn't like to remember, and getting those tattoos was the biggest: the pain, the blood, the knowledge that his agony was being doled out by his own father. Then there was the daily question mark of whether or not he'd even live to see another day in O??rat, and the horrible realization that if he didn't, that actually wouldn't be such a bad thing. He'd survived to look out for his younger brothers. That was the only reason.

"You…" Nyko licked his lips again. "I'm sorry, but…" He grimaced. "You couldn't handle it, Shon."

Another ugly laugh cracked out of Shon. "You're right. I couldn't. Rambo Jacken could take it. Big Bad Nyko could. But not Baby Shon." A darkness as deep as death took over Shon's eyes. "Lorke knew you were taking all those tattoos for me, you ass, so he…" Shon broke off, his face losing some color.

A quake ran through Nyko's jaw. There was leftover blood in his mouth from Kevin's punch and it leaked past his lips.

Shon turned around and walked back to the radiator, staring down at it. His voice lowered. "Lorke had to make me into a man, didn't he?"

A rat scratched inside the walls.

Shon swung around, glaring. "Didn't he!?" he snapped.

"Yes," Nyko forced out.

"But you'd taken away the tattoo option with your heroics, so Lorke had to come up with another way." Shon's chin dipped down. "Do you know what he did?"

Nyko's throat knotted.

"I'm going to tell you. Not to purge myself, big brother, but because I want you out of my life forever and this will make sure you go." Shon slouched back on the radiator and ran his thumb along the side of his nose. "Do you remember the whipping boards set up over by that part of the cave we used to call Death Ridge?"

Nyko's throat closed down another notch. How could he not? He'd had his stint on the boards like everyone else, although by the time he was twelve years old, nobody'd been strong enough to strap him onto them, except for the two Pure-blooded demon leaders of O??rat, Lorke and Josnic. "Yes," he whispered.

"There was a table over there, too. We used to try and play a version of ping pong on it when the boards weren't in use."

A better memory. "Yes."

"That's where Lorke did it," Shon told him, his eyes like over-polished eight balls.

Nyko swallowed heavily.

"Lorke gathered a bunch of guys around the table and then had Bollven bring Deborah over. You remember Deborah?"

Nyko briefly closed his eyes. He didn't want to remember. Her loss had messed him up pretty badly. "Krolan's mother," he said.

"Fade and Havel's, too."

"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten them."

"Deborah killed herself," Shon said tonelessly. "Threw herself off Death Ridge. You remember that part?"

"I…" Deborah's face flashed through Nyko's memory, her gaze unseeing, her neck cranked at a wrong angle. He willed his thick tongue to form the words. "I remember."

"Do you know why she offed herself?"

For a moment, Nyko wanted to cry uncle: enough was enough already in the memory department. Deborah had been one of the better human women in O??rat. Many others had only been able to look out for their own survival in their violence-riddled world, maybe that of their children, and that was it. The rare few had managed to be motherly and protective toward all the little ones. Deborah had been in that second category, and life in O??rat had turned a lot crappier after her suicide. "I suppose I figured that life as one of Bollven's women became too much for her."

"Oh, it was so much more than that, Nyko." Bowing his head, Shon dragged his thumb and forefinger down both sides of his nose. "You see, Lorke laid Deborah out on that ping pong table and made that circle of guys start in on fucking her. There must've been ten of us, one guy thrusting into Deborah while the rest jacked on their cocks to get ready. The next guy would mount her and get going, and the next, and…and I'm standing there with my stomach in my knees as it gets closer to my turn, thinking, what the hell is Mom going to say if I screw Deborah?"

Nyko's stomach convulsed. That was…he couldn't imagine it.

"So I come up to bat all nervous-like, Lorke yelling at me to get my cock out of my pants and get on top of Deborah. I'm twelve fucking years old! But I…I yank on my dick like a maniac, right, screaming my lungs out because my loin blockage hurts so damned bad, but terrified of what Lorke will do if I stop."

Nyko sucked in an uneven breath through his mouth and nostrils. Nausea writhed through him as he pictured it.

"I didn't know that a Varcolac had to be blood-bonded before he could get a hard-on. None of us knew, except Mom, but she hadn't told us that." Shon dug his fingernails into the thighs of his pants. "The other men were laughing their heads off at me, of course. They could get boners. But not me, not impotent little Shon. Lorke didn't laugh, though. Ho, no. He was humiliated. He was humiliated. Isn't that rich?" Shon scraped his nails up and down his thighs. "So back I went to the ping pong table, again and again. Every day for four days in a row, and still no boner. Then on the fifth day Deborah offs herself because she's…well, I think the reason's obvious. She couldn't stand it anymore. The sixth time I'm brought to the Boards, Lorke says to me, ‘You little pussy, if you're gonna act like a woman, then I'll treat you like one'. So he…uh, he…"

Nyko tightened the muscles in his neck to keep himself from shaking his head at his brother. You don't have to tell me anymore, it's okay.

"He bent me over the ping pong table, bare-assed, and straps me down. I broke three ribs and my wrist fighting not to get tied down like that, but…it didn't work out, so… Lorke chose Bollven to do the honors, knowing that the bastard blamed me for Deborah's death and would make things extra rough for me." Shon's eyes blanked as he stared straight ahead. "Thousands of times I've relived the scene in my nightmares; Bollven moving up behind me, that big cock of his brushing my ass cheek, his fist gripping my hair, and the throaty sound of his breathing. I hate that the most, like he was actually into what he was about to do. I wake up gasping and sweating, tearing at the bedsheets in a panic. But I always wake up before it happens." Shon's gaze dropped back to Nyko's. "Because it never did. Mom showed up with her gloves and saved me."

The oxygen Nyko hadn't realized he was hoarding rushed out of him. It never happened. Mom had stood up to Lorke, the one man she always kowtowed to. She must've paid dearly for that.

"Later Mom got it out of me what happened, and then explained the whole bonding requirement for Varcolac being able to throw wood, but by then it was too late. I already felt like a total pansy." Shon noticed his nails scraping his pants and stopped, pressing his palms flat to his thighs. "What I did with Luvera in ??ran? a couple of months ago…that Blood Ride…" He shook his head.

Blood Rides were a new invention of their breed, thought up, not surprisingly, by the rebellious Stanga Town kids as a means to participate in some kind of sexual activity outside of a life-bond. It entailed consuming enough blood, usually by licking it off the skin, to temporarily unblock a Varcolac's sexual plumbing. According to the community's Non-Varcolac-Fraternization-Law, it was an illegal act, and both Shon and Luvera had landed in court, and then jail, because of experimenting with it.

"I just…" Shon faltered. "I wanted to see what it was like to be with a girl, to finally feel like man. I wanted my dick, Nyko." Shon dragged a hand through his hair. "I never meant to hurt Luvera. But…ingesting her blood during that Ride lit off my deepest bloodlust and made me go apeshit. I ended up trying to force her." Shon's head came up, his eyes churning with dark turmoil. "Do you understand what I said? I tried to force Luvera. I did exactly the same thing to her that was done to me, the thing that gives me nightmares. There's no coming back from that." He pushed off the radiator. "So I'm hanging with the Topside Om R?u now. It's where a guy like me belongs."

"No," Nyko croaked, desperation clearing out a hole in his chest. "Please, don't give up on yourself, Shon." He tried to scoot closer to his brother, but, dang it, that's right, the chair was bolted to the floor. "You're okay…I mean, you can be okay, if you just give yourself a chance and some time working with your therapist. This is my fault, not yours. You said so yourself, right? If I'd let Lorke tattoo you, then he never would've tried to turn you into a man by making you have sex with a woman. Okay? Please."

Heavy footsteps sounded in the outer hallway.

Nyko clung to Shon's gaze, his panic wound so tight, it hurt. Had he reached his brother, even the smallest bit? If he lost Shon, he didn't know what he'd do.

Shon's face lost all expression. "Glad you agree that it's your fault"—booted heels rang out hollowly just outside the door—"because you're about to receive your penance."

Videon strode back in, now wearing a knife on his belt.

He was followed by four of the ex-cons, one dusted with blood. The unfortunate Dr. Samuel Preston surely had a Celtic quaternary knot carved into his forehead now.

A vast coldness crept over Nyko while something inside him came apart. Dr. Preston was dead because of him; it was his fault that he and Thomal hadn't joined Dev and Gábor in time to save the man. On top of that, Thomal had been shot, Nyko had been shot, both of them by Shon, who'd joined the bad guys and was sinking deeper into a pit fast. Also all due to Nyko's failure. Nyko's jaw trembled again. His whole life he'd been everyone's hero, but now, as it turned out, his "heroics" had done more harm than good. To who else? For how long?

Videon dumped the gym bag at Nyko's feet again and checked his chains. The links were inch-thick, probably the type of chain used to moor large boats. Obviously these guys knew what it took to hold a Varcolac.

"Fancy that," Videon drawled. "The big'un's still secure in his swaddlin'." He glanced over his shoulder at Nyko's face-puncher. "Told ye, Kevin. I can always recognize a bloke who's as off his tree as the rest o' us."

"All right." Kevin nodded at Shon, apparently approving of him being "off his tree."

"Any road, back to business." Videon unzipped the gym bag and pulled out a pair of pliers. "I'll give ye one chance, half-R?u, to tell me where the secret entrances o' yer lair are. Fess up, and I'll leave ye be and get back to my evenin'. Keep yer gob shut, and"—he brandished the pliers at Nyko—"I'll have a go at yer happy sack."

Nyko gave the tool a dull look. The grade of the metal was cheap. He had much better tools at home.

"Naught? Brilliant. Get behind the tonk, Kevin," Videon ordered. "All o' ye are about to see what kind o' griff a bloke will spill when his ballocks are bein' torn from his body."

Kevin moved behind Nyko, two others planted themselves to either side of his chair, and the last of the four stayed by the door.

Shon lounged at his radiator, his expression conveying nothing of what he thought of his big brother about to be castrated.

Nyko met Videon's brutal black eyes with an empty gaze of his own. These next few minutes were going to go very poorly, and he was beyond caring.

Videon reached between the chains at Nyko's waist, fumbling for his belt.

Nyko hunched his shoulders and curled his hands into fists on the armrests of his chair. He was done with all of this. Done with threats of torture, done with pain, done with this night's confessions. Done with disillusionment. Done. A growl rolled like thunder out of his chest.

Shon came to attention off the radiator

Smiling sadistically, Videon snapped the pliers' jaws, tick, tick, as he yanked open Nyko's belt.

A red haze unfurled over Nyko's vision and through a crackling in his ears he heard his growl warp into a snarl, low and bestial, a sound borne from the depths of the earth.

Shon shouted. "You guys need …"—crackle—"… the fuck out. Now!"

Iron surged into Nyko's muscles, weighting them with power. Control slipped like smoke through his brain. Want. Fight. Hurt. He inflated his chest and the iron links exploded off his body, flinging in all directions.

A snaking coil of fast-moving chain headed for the ex-con on the right. The man ducked so low he fell down to one knee.

Nyko shot out of his chair, kicking out. His booted foot rammed Videon's stomach, propelling the half-R?u across the room. Videon's body slammed into the wall. A kerosene lamp rocked on its base.

Nyko spun left, grabbing that ex-con by the hair at his temples and yanking his head down to meet Nyko's upward pistoning knee. Ex-con's legs buckled. He sprawled on his back. Nose smashed. Out.

The ex-con at the door rushed him.

Nyko bunched his fist and felled the man with a single bone-breaking blow to the jaw. Feet went up as body thumped down. Teeth scattered onto floor.

Ex-con on the right pushed up from his kneel and charged.

Kick to the side of the knee went crunch. Lots of hollering. Screams faded as body tumbled through the charred hole.

Kevin attacked from behind, jumping on Nyko's back. Whirling, Nyko crashed back against the boarded window, broke through, and scraped body off. It fell to street below.

Videon roared off the wall, his gaze glinting R?u red.

Yes. More. Nyko's hand locked shut around the half-R?u's throat. He re-pinioned him to the wall, compressing windpipe.

Videon clamped his fingers around Nyko's wrist and pulled. Strong. Very, very strong.

Hissing through bared fangs, Nyko tugged the knife off Videon's belt and punched the blade into Videon's left eye. Eyeball popped like juicy grape. Knife punctured back of skull. White acid blood fountained, stinging Nyko's right cheek.

He stepped back, grunting and snorting, then glared around the room through the sweat in his reddened gaze. Three men visible. Videon sagged at the wall on his eye socket spike, two other bodies lay crumpled on the floor. Nobody else standing. Shon gone.

Nyko turned and leapt through the now-open window. Three stories down. Easy drop. He landed next to Kevin. The guy stirred, even though there was a large stain of blood beneath his head.

Nyko took off at a run.