Chapter 12

After he slammed the door on the three charlatans, Drew watched the monitor to make sure they left the club. What they'd tried to sell him about the reality of magick was irritating, and yet, on some baser level it struck a chord. Then too there was his annoyance at himself for having lost control again and hurting the girl. He'd thought he had that part of himself under control.

"Magick tends to run in families," she'd said. Try as he might to guide it away from that place, Drew's thoughts refused to be deterred. Eventually he relented, giving up on diverting and following them down where they wanted to go.

Brandon had been a kid when their parents died, both of them had. Sure he'd fought with their parents like any normal teen. But there'd never been any threats made or acts of violence or anything. Brandon had never acted out or done anything hurtful like Drew had to cause their aunt's "seizure." No way Brandon was like Pritchard, or even Drew for that matter. All too readily Drew was willing to believe that if there was a weak link in the family it was him.

Rethinking his original impressions, Drew decided the older lady was a crackpot and that guy with them gave him the creeps. And yet deep down, lurking in a place he didn't want to acknowledge existed, a little voice had agreed with everything they'd said.

Then there was Cassie. He wasn't sure what to make of her. For one thing she didn't fall all over him. That was a first for him from a woman, or a man for that matter. Then when she'd come back looking so good and practically throwing herself at him, if he hadn't thought she'd been from Pritchard he might have taken her up on it and seen how far it would go. She'd nearly had him convinced she was there on her own until the man himself had shown up in the club. What had happened when he did?

Regardless of what he'd said to get them out of his office, Drew wasn't so sure it had been a trick. And yet, what else could it have been? He hadn't seen what Cassie had done after she'd stepped in front of him and started mumbling. That was when he got one of those headaches again before it disappeared. Just poof, like that, everything had gotten all warm and comfortable. Drew was able to see Pritchard looking like he was thinking really hard about something. That was when Cassie lost her balance and his headache had come screaming back. Eyes closed, he hadn't seen what happened but when he opened them again Pritchard was gone. It didn't make sense. If it was a stunt what was it supposed to prove? Was he supposed to feel some sort of gratitude toward Cassie for what, protecting him? From what? Magick?

He wondered what the hell Pritchard had dragged Brandon and now him into. His curiosity now driving him, the anger having dissipated within minutes of its initial fiery surge.

Drew dialed the bar, spinning his ring out of habit while he waited for her to pick up. "Jaime can I get a scotch in here?"

"Sure thing Boss."

Two minutes later Jaime knocked twice and entered. "Here you go Boss." She set it on the desk in front of where Drew leaned back in his brother's chair. Technically they shared the office even if everything was pretty much Brandon's.

Drew said he didn't need his own, his duties were on the floor. In truth, it had more to do with the end of the night wrap up meetings they had here. It had become a routine he looked forward to after a long night breaking up fights and playing to the female patrons who threw themselves figuratively and sometimes bodily at him.

The novelty of the barrage of ready flesh no longer had the effect it once did. This apparent Midas touch he had with women had grown tedious and he'd gone the complete opposite direction. Drew hadn't brought anyone to his bed for nearly a year.

"Is everything okay Drew?" Jaime rested a hip on the edge of the glass, a long tan leg dangling over its edge. She meant nothing by her familiar pose.

Jaime was entirely devoted to her academic career and Drew had made their professional relationship clear from the very beginning just to be sure. She was too good of an employee to lose over a fling.

"What was up with the tussle downstairs? Somebody said they saw Pritchard starting something with someone downstairs. Is that true, was he here?"

Like Drew, no one on staff really liked Pritchard and Brandon's continued acceptance of the man, investor or not, was a stain upon his character. Drew frequently had to enlist his charismatic charm to smooth over the irritation and downright disgust of employees after they saw Pritchard and his zombie like groupies in the club dancing and doing God knows what upstairs. Most of the time the other patrons cleared out, although on occasion they stayed and things really got out of control. Several times now they'd had to seal off the upstairs and tell people it was a private party. The old Brandon never would have let that kind of thing happen in the club no matter how much money this guy had dumped into the place.

Jaime's arrival broke up the gloom he'd been nursing. Drew gave her a quick flash of a smile. "They were just guests, that's all. Pritchard wanted to get into it and the girl happened to be there when he had a tantrum. You know Pritchard when someone tells him no."

That was true enough. Typical of any cult leader, the man was little more than a needy child taking rejection about as well. Several of the women on staff had given him reason to have a fit when he'd tried to indoctrinate them to his cause. In those cases, when it involved Pritchard, Brandon insisted that he, not Drew, act as soothsayer.

Brandon never let Drew spend more than a few seconds with Terry Pritchard if he could help it. Most of the time he sent Drew out to pick up some supply he needed right at that moment, purposefully keeping the two from being in the same room. Drew figured his brother was trying to avoid a fight between them knowing how Drew felt about him.

Even with his level temperment, Pritchard got under his skin.

"Oh. Well, I hope nobody got hurt." Jaime hid any personal feelings she might have had on the subject of Pritchard choosing to pursue something more interesting. "Speaking of which, what did you do with the girl who was in here earlier, the one with the sprained ankle?" Jaime fluttered her eyes. "I saw the way she was looking at you."

Drew frowned and spun his glass on the table, studying the pure amber liquid inside undiluted by ice or water and it occurred to him her eyes were the same warm caramel color when she wasn't glaring. He shook his head and laughed it off. "She was nobody. Just a dancer who got hurt and I was trying to help so she didn't sue us."

"A nobody who was sitting at your private table?" She gave him a knowing look. "I haven't seen that in a while."

He said nothing.

Jaime watched him swirl his glass and take a mouthful, holding it for a moment before swallowing. Whether he admitted it or not, something was eating at him and she wanted to help. That was hard to do if he didn't want to open up. Leaning forward, she eased herself off the desk and swatted his leg. "Suit yourself Silent Bob. You know where to find me if you need an ear."

He raised his glass in salute and she touched her fingers to her brow in return. Jaime closed the door behind her, leaving him to his thoughts.

Cassie Porter. That's who was in his thoughts. There was something about her that stuck with him. Maybe it had been the clumsy efforts to be something she wasn't. He was sure the only true thing she'd said to him had been that she was "trying to live a life she wasn't meant for." Oddly that struck a chord with him even if he couldn't be clear why, and that troubled him as well.

Irrationally, he been outraged when she effectively hid herself behind the distant cop façade she'd affected when they'd confronted him. Although why that mattered was a mystery. It had to have been because she had come to harm here in his club not once but twice. Drew could see the cut on her face in his mind's eye and felt a melancholy sort of guilt over it wondering how he'd managed to hit her face with the ring without seeing it. That was what he'd decided had to have happened and his attachment to her was a need to apologize for it.

Fleeting, the emotions tied up with his interest in her were already beginning to fade as well as the anger at the trio's attempted scam. What did remain was the fact that he wanted to talk to her again without those two around.

Taking another big swallow, Drew fished the woman's business card out of his pocket and stared at it. The scotch was beginning to take effect and he could feel the warm fuzziness enveloping his brain.

Julia Departes Veritas Client Relations

Downing the last of his drink he picked up the phone and dialed the number, sure at this hour he would reach her voicemail. He was just going to check on the girl, try to talk to her and find out if she was okay, he told himself. He could use the excuse he was following up after her fall at the club. He could offer to pay any medical expenses.

"Veritas, how may I help you?" A woman's voice answered after the second ring.

The front legs of the chair came down with a thud and he sat up straight, startled to have reached a live person. According to his watch it was nearly midnight here on the East coast. He'd assumed they were local. "Um, yes, I was trying to reach Julia Departes?" It came out as a question.

"This is her service. Is this an emergency?" "No, no it isn't."

The woman wasn't the least bit perturbed by his difficulty. "May I take a message?" She prompted.

"Yeah, please. Um, here's the thing... I'm actually trying to reach a coworker of hers, Cassie Porter. Could I leave the message for her?" He held his breath feeling like a teenager hoping to impress a girl's mother.

"Yes Sir, you can leave a message for Ms. Porter if you would prefer."

"Great, uh, could you tell her Drew Carter called? From the club tonight. I was calling to check back and see that she was okay." He left his number and hung up, feeling like a total ass. "Good thing that wasn't a machine." He reassured himself. At least Cassie wouldn't hear him stumbling like a buffoon. Nervously he fidgeted with his ring, welcoming the peace that little habit gave him.

He was just about to get up when a movement on the monitor fed by the camera at the rear entrance caught his eye. The lanky limbs and awkward gait gave him away before the widows peak came into sight. Pritchard was back, but why was he skulking around the back door? Welcome or not he'd always used the front door, why should now be any different? Unless he was trying to avoid the same three people who had been dominating Drew's thoughts for the last hour.

Another movement and Drew refocused. What was Brandon doing here? Wasn't he supposed to be gone until tomorrow at the earliest? Drew sat up and stared, curious to see what the two were going to do in a dark alley with little to no foot traffic except for the occasional club patron who might try using the space for a little privacy whether it was to go to the bathroom, have a quickie or buy party drugs. They'd certainly had enough trouble with the latter recently.

Brandon didn't look good. The black and white of the video accentuated the shadows under his eyes and hollows in his cheeks becoming steadily more prominent since last fall. He looked like an animated skeleton staggering around behind the building. Faced with such a stark picture, Drew couldn't believe how he was wasting away, mentally kicking himself for not having noticed it had gotten to this point. Tomorrow he was going to tell him he had to go to the doctor and get checked out. Hopefully he wasn't really sick or something that was too far advanced by now to be helped. He couldn't fathom what he would do if something happened to his brother.

Two more figures stepped into the alley making Drew sit up. They were obviously male given their height and the aggressive way they moved as they crossed into the halo of light cast by the halogen over the door. Brandon and Pritchard had their backs to the camera to face the strangers approaching. Drew had never seen either of them before but could guess by the hour and the lurking that this was an illegal operation. The main guy was watching them coolly, his second man was jumpy, twitching too much not to be on something and swiveled his head enough to make Drew dizzy watching him.

Pritchard's hands gestured broadly as he spoke. It looked like the leader from the opposing team didn't like Terry Pritchard any more than Drew did. Drew could assume whatever business they were conducting was not going well. He was considering heading down to try to keep the situation from getting out of hand when it became clear it was too late. Something in the way Pritchard's hands moved was eerily familiar.

Pritchard flung his hands up like a referee in the end zone at a football game and Brandon attempted to jump sideways. Pritchard was faster and caught his arm yanking him into his side. Captivated, he watched the drama spinning wildly out of control on the tiny screen.

The main guy stepped back and pointed, clearly pissed off while his second pulled a gun from his waistband and thankfully held it on Pritchard. He failed to see Brandon as a threat and rightly so. It looked like Brandon was near collapse, his limbs flopping about like a ragdoll as Pritchard tugged and held him in place. Drew wished he could see his face to see if he'd fainted. He sat, unable to move, riveted to the screen.

Something in Pritchard's posture changed when he touched Brandon, he stood taller and his hands ceased their commotion. The one not on Brandon reached out to the leader across from him. Brandon's shoulders at the bottom of the screen jerked upright and he suddenly threw his arms out wide, mirroring Pritchard's gesture only with both hands. The expressions of both men facing the camera changed from anger to terror and then agony in seconds.

The twitchy one dropped his gun and put his hands to his chest following his leader, already pressing at his shirtfront, to his knees. For what couldn't have been more than a few heartbeats, both men wavered, staring frozen in horror at whatever it was Pritchard and Brandon were doing. Drew could see no weapons but for the gun on the ground by twitchy. Pritchard's hands were still accounted for and appeared empty. Brandon's came up over his head slapping shut with his palms together.

It was at that point Drew remembered what was bothering him about Pritchard's hand. It was the same thing he'd seen him do inside the club when he'd had his "thing" with Cassie.

What did Brandon have to do with any of this stuff? Unable to move if he'd wanted to, Drew watched the figures, waiting to see what would happen next. Wondering if Pritchard would knock them back like Cassie'd done to him.

He didn't. What actually did happen was lost to the scope of the viewing device. All Drew saw was the two kneeling men go rigid and fall to their sides, still holding their chests.

Then the cameras all went to static.

"What the hell!" Trance broken, Drew jumped up and shouted at the monitor banging it with his hand. He'd forgotten the glass he held until it broke and dug into his palm in the same instant he heard the heavy base of the tumbler clatter on the desktop. "Damn." He spat a curse, jumped to his feet and rushed from the office.

The elevator would take too long. Drew streaked across the crowded dance floor, nearly knocking several dancers off their feet in the process and not bothering to offer apologies in his wake. Drew took the steps three at a time and hurdled the velvet rope, scaring the glitter right off the host as he grabbed the corner of the handrail and swung himself with the assistance of his own centrifugal force around to head out the back and through the kitchen. When he burst out the rear door, blinking in the sudden bright glow of the bare halogen bulb, Drew stood swaying and panting as his brain tried to make sense of what he was looking at.

Unsteady, he dragged his feet toward what had been the leader of the two men. The soles of his slick dress shoes slipped on the wet ground. Twisting his neck and forcing his eyes to look beyond the immediate area, Drew saw only dry pavement and felt no hint of rain on his upturned face. Nor was there a drainpipe or hose that would explain why the ground and walls were soaked and dark. He slipped again and went down to one knee. There was a wet slapping sound when he hit the ground with an open palm to catch himself.

The light from behind him cast his hand in shadow. Standing, he brought his hand up to the light and saw the dark red stain on it matched the lower leg of his pants. Three more staggering steps brought him to the fallen leader now lying in a twisted heap. Drew blinked a few more times before his brain caught up with his eyes and he felt his stomach heave. Stumbling and sliding, he made it back to dry ground and leaned against the side of the building. He barely felt the concrete that made up the less artistically constructed back wall as he puked his guts out.

"Hey Drew, everything okay out here." Tavaris' voice trailed off as the host who'd followed him out, wondering if they were being robbed, took in the carnage. "Oh my God, oh my God, I'll call the police."

Drew didn't object as he heard the metal door clang shut behind Tavaris' retreating figure. All he could think about was that he hoped Brandon was far away from here by now so that the police couldn't find him. That they wouldn't make the connection he had.

The image of this scene superimposed itself on the one in his memory. The one he'd seen in the police file he'd bullied out of an officer when he'd finally been able to confront his parents' deaths. The weakness in his legs was only partially due to the gore and death he found himself surrounded by at present.

"Run, Brandon," he gasped between retches. "Just run."