2 Brooklyn James (28 page)

The ambulance holding Aubrey pulls away. Tony grabs his cell phone.

“Marks,” the voice on the other end identifies himself.

“You need to get down to New Orleans General Hospital,” Tony prefaces. “It’s Aubrey.” The line goes dead as Marks has no words, no agenda other than getting to her. Tony hangs his head momentarily, gripping the bag Dr. Godfrey gave him. Kneeling on the concrete, he shuffles through the black leather case pulling from it two dart guns assembled with a plethora of sedative tipped darts. “That ought to even up the playing field,” he says with renewed spirit, jetting off in pursuit of the remaining white coats.

“How do you propose I come back to you when I can’t seem to find myself?” He turns from her, again pacing.

“It may take some time. Trust me, I understand pissed off...angry...hurt.” She wrenches her hand into a fist over her abdomen. “It can eat you up inside. You’re a good man, Lon.”

He looks at her, his expression agonized, unable to believe her declaration. His eyes well with tears at the memory of the man he used to be, desperately wishing he could give that to her now.

“I never stopped loving you, Lon,” she chokes up, seeing the shame in the windows to his soul. “I simply had to move past you. Past our lives together. That’s what you do when you think the one you love is gone.”

“Please,” he laments, moisture trickling down the sides of his face. “Let me give you back your pedigree, and you go. Leave! Before I change my mind.”

“I don’t want my pedigree. You did me a favor taking it away. I never wanted it, Lon. You think you’re the only one who’s done bad things?” she divulges, attempting to make him feel less alone. “As Vigilare, I took the lives of men.”

“Rapists and pedophiles,” he excuses.

“I wish people would quit saying that!” she yells, quieting herself. “It doesn’t matter what they were. Their lives were not mine to take.” She walks to him, her hands prepped in front of her, wanting to lay them on him. She drops them to her side for fear of being pushed away. “Forgive yourself, Lon. Please. Set yourself free.”

“Can
you
forgive me?” he asks, clenching his jaw willing his eyes dry.

“I have nothing to forgive,” she says. “All you’ve done is kept me safe. Kept our son safe. Lon, you are that sweet, loving man I married years ago.” She places her hand over his heart. “You may be a little lost right now. But the heart never tells a lie. You’re in there, I know it.”

He embraces her to his chest, holding on for dear life, swallowing the lump surfacing in the back of his throat. “I just don’t know where to start. How to undo it all. How do we go back to Brianna and Lon Castille...before the...” his voice trails off unable to utter the one-syllable word, rape. “What they did to you,” his anger resurfacing, he pulls away from her. “And I let them.” He pounds his chest. “I failed to protect you...my wife,” he sobs through gritted teeth, his emotions all over the map. “I wish they would’ve let me die,” he refers to Doctors Ryan and Godfrey. “What good is a man if he cannot keep his family safe? I deserved to die.” He backs away from Gina, his face distraught, his eyes beyond shame. “How can you even stand the sight of me?”

With renewed understanding of the origin of his loathing—not ETNA, nor Dr. Ryan, nor Dr. Godfrey, but himself—Gina moves with him to the wall behind them. His body near convulsions, his self-hatred so strong, he leans against the wall. Sliding down it, he mashes his head between his knees, intermittently striking the back of his neck with his fisted hand, his tears falling uninhibited as sobs of anger and despair wail from his lungs. Gina kneels in front of him, taking hold of his fist, urging it to his side. He looks up at her, his steel blue eyes swimming. “I am so sorry I failed you. I
hate
me,” he seethes, his jaw clenching vehemently.

“But I’m okay. See for yourself,” she cries. Taking his hand, she runs it over the side of her face and down her neck. “You tried to talk me out of that case. I knew I was putting myself on the line. As well as you and Braydon. Did that stop me?” She reverts to his level of self-blame, her tears now falling over a clenched, angry jaw. “I should’ve listened to you, Lon. You were right. If I could go back and change it, I swear to God I would.” She clutches his hand over her heart. “If you must blame anyone, blame me. I did this. And through it all you stood by me. You did what you could. What any man in your position would have done. Lon, please, don’t do this to yourself. It’s going to be okay. We can get through this.”

He looks at her defeated. “It will never be okay. As long as I live, no matter how many times I may save you, I will always remember the one time I didn’t. The one time I couldn’t. Don’t you get that!” his voice distorting. “Go. Leave! Go back to him. At least I’ll know you’re safe.”

She latches onto the crucifix hanging from her neck, its heat searing into her flesh. “Hell Hound,” she expels. “Lon, he’s coming.”

He looks at her, his eyes now ablaze, burning the trifecta. “Let him come. It’s time I do what I should’ve done a long time ago.” He stands, his body fully amped and morphing. Gina backs away from him, his skin burning crimson red, the heat from his flesh causing her entire body to bead with perspiration. With one breath, the pearl-snaps on his shirt pop open one by one, the sleeves tearing at his biceps. The veins in his arms visibly throbbing, the muscles in his neck flexing and hungry as he viciously consumes air.

Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sound of monstrous footsteps flood the hallway to the room. “Castille!” Hell Hound’s distorted, demonic voice rages. A fireball spirals down the corridor past the open door just before he makes his grand entrance. At first scent, Lon’s expression turns from commanding and competent to ominous.

“What? What is it!” Gina demands reading him.

“That’s right,
Pretty Boy,”
Manny Briggs taunts, the moniker he gave to Lon the night he and Angelo Tulane invaded their home, brutally raping Gina while making him watch. “Now who’s untouchable?” Manny seethes, his Hell Hound voice at full throttle. “I got
lawyer lady’s
blood running through my veins.” His violent red eyes flicker with hints of emerald green. “All I had to do was bide my time. With her around, I knew you’d get distracted. Bitches have a way of doing that to a man.” His raunchy laughter fills the room.

He lunges at Lon, striking and kicking at him. Lon deflects what he can, but is physically unable to strike back due to his psychological attachment to the scent of Gina’s blood. Even as the divine Vigilare—the omnipotent beast—his heart does not lie. He cannot harm the one he loves.

Gina wields a tall, steel candelabra across Manny’s back pulling his attention from Lon. Hell Hound spins around, his body seething and domineering. Gina meets him, the same way she practiced on Robo-Spartacus, planting an effective series of strikes and kicks to his frame knocking him back. Her hands and feet warm at each contact with his smoldering frame.

Lon lunges at him with full intent to take him down but his body is unwilling to commit, Gina’s scent shielding the slimy serpent. Lon growls in frustration releasing a fireball overhead. Gina watches triumphantly as it ricochets off the steel ceiling crashing down in direct line of Manny. Willing himself stoic, Lon’s urge to protect anything Gina kicks in. He dives on Hell Hound, shoving him out of the way, taking the fiery ball for himself. His body absorbs the flame unwounded. Manny stumbles in Gina’s direction. She meets him with another round of martial arts strikes, knocking him to his knees. He laughs standing upright, his eyes blazing in her direction, releasing the fire from within. Gina ducks, the ball splatting into the corner behind her.

“Pussy,” she accuses, her voice calm. “I wouldn’t expect you to fight me mano-a-mano.”

“I don’t fight fair,
lawyer lady.
I fight to win,” his distortion resurfacing as he turns on Lon. Grabbing him up, he wings him against the wall. As Lon’s body slides down the metal surface, he bolts upright landing on his feet untouched, his body uber-resilient. Hell Hound lets loose a frustrated yell at his inability to harm his master. Pelting Lon with a series of fireballs, each and every one is swallowed up by his body. Accepting the warmth, Lon smirks at Manny, his soft distorted laughter surfacing. Manny smirks back, his hard, blazing hand making contact with the side of Gina’s face. The brunt sends her sliding across the floor on her back. Lon puffs air through his flaring nostrils, pacing the floor around Gina. He cannot pick her up, not in his smoldering transformation, his heat too much for her mortal skin. “You wanna play with me!” Manny shouts at Lon. “Let’s play,
Pretty Boy.”

The scent of Hell Hound’s blood, Gina’s blood accentuated by the searing of the serpent’s skin, causes Lon to drop his offensive stance in front of Gina’s body, allowing Manny to crawl atop her. His forked tongue wagging in her direction, sniffing her from her toes to her nose. Gina lambastes him across his reddened, raw face, darting her fingers into his flaming, violent eyes. Quickly retreating upon contact with his heat, she scurries backward along the floor, reaching for something, anything, to ward him off.

Blinking his eyes in pain, Manny grabs her around the ankle forcefully pulling her underneath him yet again, securing her with his thighs. “I don’t think your little slut learned her lesson,” the hound’s hellish voice warns, fumbling with the zipper on his jeans. “I say we have a do-over. What do you say,
Pretty Boy?”
He clamps down on her neck, preparing to force himself on her again. Gina yells painfully with the searing grip, branding her flesh. Lon growls, stomping around them, tortured by his body’s refusal to obey his mind in tearing Hell Hound limb from limb.

“Go ahead,” Gina chokes out, remembering Tony’s transformation after their consummation, wishing for any Vigilare pedigree at this point, even that of the hound from hell.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The swift sound echoes down the corridor outside the room.

“Maxim,” Lon says, his defeated, distorted voice turning hopeful.

“No!” Gina laments, heaving for air, her neck now free from Hell Hound’s grip. He pushes off her and leaps to greet the young successor.

Manny emits a demonic laugh. “You’re gonna fry like your coon-ass grandfather,” he threatens, winging a series of fireballs in Max’s direction. The steel blue glare catching each one midair. Maxim thrusts the iced-over spheres back at Manny, pelting them against his chest, propelling him backward with each solid onslaught. Max leaps at Manny, their bodies taut and tangled with each execution.

“Ahhh!” Manny roars, enraged, as his fiery touch fails to breach Max’s icy skin, the sensation akin to that of a wet tongue on a freezing flag pole. With every contact and retreat of Max’s frosty palms and fists, Manny’s flesh tears from his body. As they grapple, Max’s body temperature begins to increase, heating at a consuming rate. His steel blue ray flickering now with streams of crimson red.

“That’s it, Maxim!” Lon cheers, on his hands and knees, agilely shifting back and forth with their wrestling frames. “Take his heat. Consume it,” Lon directs, seeing his divine pedigree in his son. Gina watches, helplessly fearful yet awestruck. “Get up, son. Now’s the time. Get up!” Lon’s yell excitedly distorted.

Max frees himself of Hell Hound, standing tall and domineering over the serpent. Manny laughs, prepping himself to release a hailstorm of fireballs on the young Maxim Kiesel.

Lon grins, the hound playing right into his hand. “Swallow them,” Lon directs. Max looks to his father, his eyes questioning. “Trust me, son. Swallow them all,” Lon coaches. As expected, Manny pummels fireball after fireball at Maxim, slithering away with each missile. Trusting his father, Max swallows each and every one, the orbs surely burning him from the inside out. He winces excruciatingly. Hell Hound tiring himself out, the barrage finally comes to a halt. “Exhale, Maxim. Now!” Lon shouts.

Max’s back arched, he exhales vehemently. The swallowed fireballs line up one by one, forming a ring of fire around Manny Briggs. The round-faced hematologist was right—the back burn from the fireballs deprive Hell Hound of his tinder, consuming his fuel. Manny looks around at the ring of fire, helplessly standing in its center. His body draining of its energy, he stumbles, falling to his knees. The red hue zapping from Hell Hound’s eyes, his skin returns to its ghastly complexion.

“Max!” Gina yells. “Stop!” Her eyes set on Lon, his body reacting, losing its fuel the same as Hell Hound’s.

“No,” Lon’s gentle voice rebukes waning from its distorted tone. He drops to his knees behind Maxim. Max turns in his father’s direction, the ring of fire dying down, allowing Manny Briggs to rebound to his feet. “Maintain, my son!” Lon orders, his distortion returning. Max whips his head back in Manny’s direction regaining control of the fiery ring, blazing once again forcing Manny to his knees.

“Lon,” Gina cries, joining him on the floor, attempting to hold his debilitated frame upright.

He smiles, weakly stroking his hand down her face. “It’s the only way.”

Gina looks up at the door hearing another set of footsteps, purposeful and light. With Emily’s presence, Maxim’s internal thermostat blazes causing the subtle ring of fire to engulf, wilting Hell Hound’s body to ash inside the smoldering circle.

“Dad!” he yells. “I can’t stop it.” Maxim’s body seemingly ready to burst into flames itself.

“Emily,” Lon whispers, his eyes flutter open, then close again, nearly gone from them. Gina picks up on his cue, looking to the dark-haired siren in the doorway.

“You have to stop him. Now!” Gina barks.

Emily bares down calling on her Vigilare pedigree, her body meditative and calm. She channels Max, her violet eyes now exuding a gentle emerald green cast with hints of confident steel blue. She controls the ray, willing the glow over and around Maxim rather than darting through him. Max’s body cools with her soft, controlled action, his skin morphing from violent red to porcelain. His heart and respiratory rate drop, registering calm within. The crimson red of his eyes return to steel blue, causing the flames of the fire to crystallize. As his eyelashes meet, the ice shatters into tiny shards.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
They fall about the floor. Max’s body exhausted, he turns to Lon and Gina, falling to his knees beside them. Emily joins, resting on her haunches across from Maxim.

“What do we do?” Max asks, his solemn eyes scanning his father’s lifeless form.