Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series)

CHAPTER SIX



It wasn’t as if Aaron spent the majority of his days obsessing over losing the memories of his early life. He had decades more—centuries, in fact—that had passed since then, with experiences, encounters and escapades that he could clearly recall. If the truth be told, he seldom thought of his limited amnesia at all. Until recently, that is.

Until the package.

It had been an otherwise ordinary, if not somewhat boring, Sunday in late March of that year. He’d just returned from a nearly month-long trip to southern France. He’d been there at Lamar’s behest, and had killed a businessman at Lamar’s specific order. Aaron hadn’t known why Lamar wanted the man dead; Lamar hadn’t confided this, and Aaron hadn’t asked. It wasn’t his job to question his father’s edicts. He was simply supposed to obey.

He hadn’t been back to the States long, no more than a couple of days, when he heard his doorbell ring one morning as he was stepping out of the shower. With a frown, he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom, following a narrow corridor toward the entrance to his apartment. He paused long enough to grab his pistol from his bedroom bureau; as he walked along, leaving a trail of spattered water droplets on the hardwood floor in his wake, he checked the clip, making sure it was full, before clapping it home once again.

He made a point of being anonymous. He’d never met any of his neighbors; he took the stairs, even though he lived on the fifteenth floor because he didn’t like elevators, and he also didn’t want the people with whom he shared the apartment building to become familiar or accustomed to his face. He didn’t keep a mailbox at the building, so there was no public listing of his name, even though he went by an alias, Aaron Broughman. He also never gave out the apartment address, which meant he never received certified letters, packages, parcels or other deliveries. He paid his lease promptly, upfront, in cash and in full, and his landlord never had reason to bother him.

Thus the ringing doorbell alarmed him more than piqued his curiosity.

Thumbing off the safety on the .45, he cut a glance through the peephole and surveyed the hallway beyond his front door.

He saw nothing.

With a frown, he opened the door. A manila envelope, the kind lined with bubble wrap to protect delicate contents, had apparently been propped against the outside, and fell obligingly in now, slapping lightly against his feet.

His frown deepened. He didn’t avert his gaze, or the barrel of his pistol, from the corridor as he leaned down, hooking the envelope with his free hand. Stepping cautiously past his threshold, he looked left, then right. Still, he saw no one.

He glanced down at the envelope. No clues there. Nothing had been written on it, not his name—or any other—or an apartment number, a return address. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

What the f*ck? he thought. Moving swiftly but quietly, the envelope tucked beneath his arm, he followed the hall down toward the elevator bank. No one was there. He opened the nearby stairwell door and paused for a long moment, listening. No footsteps, not even distant ones.

Still frowning, now definitely on edge as well as on guard, Aaron returned to his apartment. Sitting on a black leather sofa in his living room, he tore open the envelope and upended it over his coffee table. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to be inside; it had been lightweight, and although he’d heard something rustling softly inside when he’d given the packet an experimental shake, he hadn’t been able to make out much by way of an outline of the item just by pressing on the outside of the envelope.

To his surprise, a necklace fell out.

He first checked the envelope to make sure that was all, then lifted the necklace in hand and examined it. A silver pendant, no bigger than a nickel, dangled from a slim chain. Circular in shape, it bore the likeness of a man leaning on a walking stick, carrying a little boy on his shoulders. Behold St. Christopher and Go Your Way in Safety had been engraved in a semi-circle above them.

The moment he saw the inscription, his eyes flew wide; his breath tangled in his throat. In that moment, he knew all of the color must have drained from his face; he felt as cold and leaden as a block of ice. He stared, stricken, bewildered, at the necklace.

And remembered.

***

Lamar had seven sons. Victor and Vidal had been the oldest, born little more than a year after one another. Next had come Allistair, then Julien, Jean-Luc, Jerard and Aaron. For some reason, Lamar had always insisted on naming his sons based on the first letter of their mother’s given name. Probably so he can keep straight who is who, and which one of us came from where, Julien had often remarked drily. His, Jerard’s and Jean-Luc’s mother’s name, for example, was Jeanne; Aaron and Allistair’s mother was named Annette, while Victor and Vidal’s mother, Veronique, had been Lamar’s first—and favorite—wife. He’d had daughters, as well—Larissa, Lisette, Lenore, and Lorelle—all given L-names in honor of Lamar.

He remembered a party, some sort of celebratory affair. It had been from his youth; based on the clothing styles, maybe no later than the early 1800s. He remembered standing in a crowded ballroom, watching people hopping back and forth, then twirling around, parading in parallel lines on a closely knit dance floor. Someone somewhere was playing a fiddle, and someone else a fife, while others danced. Voices overlapped, laughter and singing.

He remembered despite the obvious gaiety of the circumstances that he’d been anxious, though about what, he could not recall. Something had been troubling him, enough so that he stood tensely by himself, cutting his gaze this way and that, as if he had been searching desperately for something or someone.

“Oh, Aaron,” he heard his mother exclaim, then Annette waded through the crowd into view. She sounded breathless from dancing, and in her cheeks, he saw a high, glossy glow, one born of too much brandy and merriment. “Here’s one of you at least! Your father and brothers have all seemed to vanish into the woodwork! I know he hates parties, but really, it’s my birthday!”

She pressed something into his hands, and he looked down to find a silver necklace there—the same Saint Christopher’s medal and chain that had been mysteriously delivered to his apartment.

“My necklace is broken,” his mother lamented. “The clasp won’t work, and I’m afraid to lose it. It was my mother’s, you know—your grandmother, bless her. Be a dear and put it in your fob, won’t you?”

“Of course, Mother,” he said, slipping the necklace into a small pocket on the front hip of his breeches.

She smiled brightly, cradling his face between her hands. “You’re a darling love!” she declared, planting a kiss squarely on his lips that tasted stoutly of liquor. She looked nearly tearful as she regarded him a long, almost wistful moment. “What a handsome man you are becoming, Aaron,” she remarked. Shifting her grasp from his cheeks to his hands, she tugged at him. “Dance with your mum. Come on now. It’s been far too long.”

***

He woke with a start, expecting to find himself back in his flat in New York, sitting on his sofa, staring at that enigmatic but hauntingly familiar necklace. There was more to it than the simple memory of his mother asking him to hold it; he knew that. Even while groggy, he could sense this—could feel more memories associated with it tickling at his mind, submerged just beyond his grasp of recall within the murky depths of his past.

However, he did not find himself at home. His surprise and disorientation were short-lived and fleeting, though, as the events since that day came rushing back to him with conscious awareness.

His mission.

Make him answer for it. Tear open his throat, leave the mark of our vengeance in blood on the floor around him. Take your blade and carve out his heart—I want to hold it in my hand, crush it with whatever strength I have yet to call my own.

In that instant, Aaron went from sleepily dazed to bright, alert and alarmed. His entire body tensed, and his brows narrowed, his eyes sweeping the unfamiliar bedroom in which he found himself. Open and spacious, with skylights and windows to allow in a spill of muted sunlight, it was sparsely decorated with prairie-style furnishings and simple black-and-white photographs framed on the walls. The bed was large but otherwise empty save for him, draped in white bedding with black trim. The entire room lay heavily with the fragrance of woman—and not just any woman.

Naima.

From somewhere below him, through the floorboards, he heard her voice. Because he heard no one answering, and she seemed to pause intermittently between muffled phrases he couldn’t quite discern, he gathered she was on the telephone. Pushing aside the heavy down-filled comforter that had covered him, he swung his legs around, letting his feet settle silently against the cool, smooth wooden floor.

As Aaron stood, he crutched his side with the palm of his hand, feeling a spasm of pain.

Feels like a few broken ribs in there, he thought , and he closed his eyes, swaying unsteadily on his feet, waiting for the sudden swell of molten agony to subside. Maybe more than a few.

She’d taken his gun; he had no weapon now, but it didn’t matter. His psionic strength had returned; not much, but enough so that he could summon at least one of his telepathic blades and at least get her out of his way, if not outright kill her.

Although he wasn’t so sure he wanted to kill her.

Padding softly, he limped toward the top of a staircase, a spiral set of metal steps leading down from what he realized was a loft-styled bedroom. As he approached, he could see the walls here were only waist-high, awarding a broad view of the main floor below. The house was A-framed, the far wall comprised of towering windows, with interior walls and exposed ceiling timbers of rustic, fragrant cedar. A broad creek-stone chimney graced the far left wall, and he could smell wood smoke, could hear the soft crackle of flames.

“I know.”

He heard Naima’s voice from immediately beneath him, as if she stood at the foot of the stairs. There was something so familiar in the sound, something that caused such a confusing and uncontrollable swell of emotion inside of him, he couldn’t move.

“I know,” she said again, and her voice had moved. If Aaron cocked his head and ducked a bit, he could see her through the spaces between the metal risers as she walked past the stairs and into the living room. She was no longer wearing the sheer gold dress she’d had on earlier, having changed into a pair of black leggings and a grey T-shirt. Sure enough, she cradled a cell phone against her ear. In her free hand, she carried a coffee mug; he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, discerning a hint of fragrance: chamomile tea.

This is her home, he realized. I must have blacked out in the woods and she brought me here. Bewildered and suspicious, he frowned. Why in the hell would she do that?

“I’ll see,” Naima murmured, and he raised his head, looking over the half-wall, watching as she crossed the living room. Balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear, she pulled a sliding door open and stepped out onto an exterior deck. Through the glass, he watched her stand with her back to him, leaning over the railing, crossing her legs at the ankles in a comfortable posture as her breath plumed in a light haze from her mouth.

Seizing his chance, Aaron started down the stairs, his feet falling lightly, rapidly on the risers. Once he reached the bottom, he again cut his gaze in a wide circumference, trying to get his bearings. To his right, the open living room. To his left, a small kitchen separated only by a breakfast bar, and a door left enough ajar to reveal a bathroom beyond. Straight ahead was another door—this one leading outside.

With a wary glance to make sure Naima remained on the deck, her back in his direction, Aaron slipped into the kitchen. A butcher block rested on the counter beside the sink; from this, he drew a slim, six-inch boning knife. It didn’t have much by way of heft to it, he considered as he curled his fingers around the hilt, but it was better than nothing.

With the knife in hand, he turned, creeping back to the front door. Just as he reached for the knob, however, Naima’s voice drew him short.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He spun, reflexively shifting his grip on the knife so that he held it in a fight-ready position. Abruptly, it whipped out of his grasp, snatched by Naima’s telekinesis and sent sailing across the room, clattering as it hit the stone hearth.

“I wouldn’t do that, either,” she told him from the doorway to her deck.

Aaron’s brows narrowed as he locked eyes with her. That was the key to honing his telepathic blade—focusing on his target—but she must have figured this out, realized what he was doing, because she added loudly, “Or that, either. You scramble my head, you knock out my telepathy. And right now that’s the only thing protecting you.”

“I don’t need your protection,” he assured her drily.

“You don’t think so?” With a smirk and a nod toward the nearest window, she added, “The woods are crawling with Morins. We’ve rallied the troops—cousins, brothers, nieces, nephews—all combing the forest as we speak. The only reason they can’t sense you is me. I’m shielding you from their telepathy.”

He didn’t avert his gaze. “You’re bluffing.”

At that moment, as if on cue, a loud knock fell against the front door. Aaron whirled, eyes wide, and nearly fell onto his ass as he stumbled back. There was a window in the door, covered by a light canvas shade through which he could clearly make out a silhouetted outline—someone standing outside on Naima’s stoop.





“Naima?” a man called, his voice muffled through the door. “It’s Elliott. You in there?”

Aaron glanced at Naima in wide-eyed alarm, and she folded her arms across her chest, her brow arched. “Bluffing, huh?” she said with a smirk. “Go ahead, then. Open the door. Introduce yourself.”

Another knock, louder, sharper and more insistent this time, and Naima said loudly, “Hang on a minute.” Then, to Aaron, “You might want to duck back upstairs.”

He glared at her but in the end, didn’t argue. Splinting his aching ribs with his hand again, he limped toward the stairs. At the top, back in the bedroom loft once more, he dropped to his knees, struggling to catch his breath. Going up had been harder on him than going down, and he realized—to his rue—that if Naima did intend to hand him off to her visitors, he’d have precious little, if any, by means of strength or stamina to prevent her. Between getting hit by Michel’s truck, and then having Mason beat him, Aaron realized it could take weeks to heal, and probably more—and a day or two at least before he’d be anywhere near well enough to do much more than limp around for short distances.

And I don’t have time for that.

He heard Naima unlatch the door from the main floor, and a sudden flurry of overlapping voices as her guests entered. Pressing himself to the floor, he craned his head, trying to see through the slats of the risers. When he caught sight of two men and a woman—the former pair Brethren, the latter a human, judging by both the scents and sensations of them—in the living room below, all carrying rifles, his breath came to an alarmed standstill. He could feel his heart racing in sudden, mounting anxiety, and he hooked his fingers into the glossy polished grain of the floor board beneath him.

He didn’t have a gun. He no longer had a knife. And despite his earlier confidence, he realized now that his telepathy still wouldn’t be worth a shit in a fight—not against one Brethren alone, never mind Naima and the trio downstairs.

Which meant he had no choice but to trust Naima.

And that was the last f*cking thing he wanted to do.

***

“Elliott,” Naima exclaimed with a smile that she hoped would allay any suspicions her delay had roused. “Hey, you!”

“Hey, yourself,” Elliott Morin replied, spreading his arms wide as she stepped forward to embrace him. He was dressed in a heavy down-filled parka, with a wool sock cap pulled low over his brow. A few straggling curls, dark auburn like Michel’s, had worked their way loose from beneath the hat at his brow line and above his ears. “It’s good to see you!”

“You, too,” she said, breathless as he gave her a tight, fervent embrace. The youngest son of Michel’s youngest brother Emile, Elliott had been one of Naima’s favorite playmates in childhood. With a headful of red hair and bright blue eyes that had always seemed to glint with an impish delight, he’d been a charismatic orchestrator of all manner of mischievous adventures on the Morin family farm. When she’d been reunited with her kin, the playful boy had grown, as had she, morphing into the tall, strong-jawed man who stood, virtually unchanged, on her doorstep now.

Over his shoulder, just past the stoop, she saw a human woman approaching the house with a young man in his late teens bringing up the rear. “Hi, Kate,” Naima said to the woman. “It’s been too long. Who’s this with you?”

“You remember our grandson, Ethan?” Kate asked, stepping past Elliott for her turn at a hug.

“Ethan? Wow!” Naima said. The boy trailed behind his mother, looking sheepish and somewhat shy. “You’ve grown since the last time I saw you! How old are you now?”

“Fifteen,” Ethan said, speaking apparently to the toes of his hiking boots.

“He’s a sophomore in high school,” Kate said proudly. “And already taller than Elliott.”

Kate was sixty-three years old. She’d met and married Elliott when she’d been in her twenties. They had four children together, now all grown, as well as nine grandchildren including Ethan. She was the third human wife Naima had known Elliott to take in his lifetime and, she suspected, Kate would be the third he would one day, and to his heartache, bury.

“He’s too damn tall,” Elliott said, with feigned grouchiness. “I don’t know what the hell they’re feeding those kids out there in Illinois.”

“Iowa, Grandpa,” Ethan corrected, as this was apparently where he was from.

“Wherever.” Elliott hooked an arm around his neck, playfully tousling his hair, and visibly embarrassing the boy. Then, with a glance at Naima, he said, “So what’s a guy have to do to get invited in out of the cold around here?”

“Oh,” Naima said, managing a clumsy laugh as she stepped out of the doorway. “Of course. Come on in.”

Although Elliott remained one of her favorite kin, and she’d indeed missed his company, she didn’t really want them tromping around inside her house. All three were armed, each wearing high-powered hunting rifles slung across their backs. Aaron was freaked out enough as it was, and she didn’t know what, if anything, he’d do if he felt threatened. But it would be rude for her not to invite them inside—and worse, it would make them suspicious.

Just stay upstairs, she thought, keeping her mind shut tight lest Elliott or Ethan telepathically overhear any messages she’d intended for Aaron. God, just sit tight and keep quiet.

“Let me take your coats,” she offered as they walked ahead of her into the living room.

She nearly breathed an audible sigh of relief when Elliott said, “Thanks, but no. We’re out helping search the woods. Saw smoke coming from your chimney and wanted to make sure everything’s copasetic.”

“I thought you’d be out in the woods, too?” Kate remarked with a puzzled smile.

“Yeah—of all people,” Elliott agreed.

Naima went into the kitchen and pulled some mugs down from a cabinet by her sink. “I was out there most of the night,” she said, her voice steady and unflappable. As she filled each of the cups with steaming portions of tea, she added, “I’m exhausted. Thought I’d get in a couple of hours of sleep. Any word on how Michel’s doing?”

“Mason said he’s stable,” Elliott replied, looking grim and murmuring thanks as she offered him a mug. “The bullet missed his heart, but hit his lung, collapsed it. Mason got the slug out, but he said it will take some time before he’s out of the woods. They’ve got him on chest drains right now, and he’s intubated. He hasn’t come to since the surgery. I think they’re keeping him sedated.”

Kate draped her hand lightly against his sleeve. “He’s going to be okay,” she said, but she cut Naima a worried sort of glance that indicated she didn’t share this optimism necessarily in her heart.

“Of course he is,” Elliott said. As a boy, he’d always harbored a sort of hero-worship adulation toward Michel. It was a fondness and admiration that had lasted into adulthood, even to that day. Naima had always supposed that if you’d asked Elliott, he’d have told you Michel could move mountains were he to take the notion.

Elliott took a sip of tea, scalded his lip and winced. As he set the mug down, he said, “They found the son of a bitch’s car—did you know?”

“No. Really? Where?” Naima asked, feigning surprise.

“Just outside the compound, hidden off the main road,” Kate said.

“Which means he’s still out there somewhere,” Elliott cut in. “He can’t have made it far, not on foot, not beat to shit like Mason said he was.”

“How many are out there searching?” Naima asked.

“Let’s see…” Elliott rubbed at his beard with his gloved fingertips, looking thoughtful. “Maybe forty now? I know all of my boys are here, right, Ethan?” He glanced at his grandson, who nodded. Then, with a slight frown, he added, “And all of Michel’s sons—except Phillip, of course. I guess he couldn’t be bothered.”

Centuries earlier, before the fires had driven the Morins into exile, Phillip Morin had been betrothed to Tristan’s mother, Lisette. However, Phillip was not Tristan’s biological father; his now-deceased brother, Arnaud, had been, with Tristan resulting from an ill-advised tryst between Arnaud and Lisette. Even though Lisette had suffered from debilitating illness in the years since Tristan’s birth and had recently died, Phillip had remained pretty much denounced, and then remained incommunicado with, his entire family.

“Arrogant douchebag,” Elliott muttered, trying once again, and with more success this time, to sip his tea.

“The man who did this,” Kate said. “They found a wallet in his car and a driver’s license. It says his name is Brighton, I think.”

“Broughman,” Elliott corrected. “And I don’t care what it says. He’s a Davenant, that’s for damn sure. The stink of his clan’s all over our woods.” With an exaggerated sniff, he added, “You can even smell it in here.”

Naima stiffened, glancing anxiously over her shoulder toward the loft.“Are you staying long?” she asked, hoping both to change the subject, and that the note of polite cheer in her voice didn’t sound as forced to them as it did to her. “Until the bastard’s caught,” Elliott replied, his mouth turned down in a frown. “Speaking of which...thanks for the tea, Naima, but we’d better head back out.”

“So soon?” Naima followed as they shouldered their rifles and headed for the doors.

“Lock up behind us,” Elliott warned. “This guy is dangerous.”

“I can handle myself,” Naima assured with a smile, returning her embrace.

“Save some for the rest of us if you find him first, then,” Elliott said, managing a laugh as he hooked an arm around her neck and hugged her again. “I’ll show you how we clean a buck in the backcountry.”

“You got it,” Naima said, watching as they tromped down from the front stoop and headed back toward the trees. Elliott unslung his rifle and carried it between his hands while Kate draped her hand affectionately against Ethan’s shoulder, walking alongside the boy.

Naima closed the door, then turned the deadbolt home. For a long moment, she stood motionless, feeling a chilly draft creeping through the seams surrounding the door. When she peeked past the shade, her cousin and his wife had vanished from view, disappearing once more into the forest.

“What do you want from me?”

She hadn’t heard Aaron come down the stairs, even though they normally creaked and groaned at even the lightest footsteps. Damn, he’s quiet, she thought, turning to find him standing behind her, leaning heavily against the bannister. Even beat to hell—he’s so damn quiet!

“You…could have turned me over to them,” he said, and his brows narrowed. Not with anger, she realized, but confusion. “You could have let them take me. Why didn’t you?”

At the genuine bewilderment in his face, Naima felt some of her cool façade crumble. “You don’t remember,” she said at length. “Not about me, or the necklace. Not about anything.”

And I don’t understand how that’s possible, she thought in dismay. No matter how much time’s passed, or what your father has done—I can’t believe you’d forget me, Aaron. I could never forget you.

“No,” he said simply, softly. He met her gaze, his blue eyes round and intensely fierce, and she wished she could peer beyond the veil of his telepathic shields to sense what was going on inside his mind, what he was thinking. “But you do, don’t you? You remember it all.”