Page 45 of Blood Gift

15

Gentry

It was cold,crisp and clear. The moon was a crescent, standing out perfectly against the cloudless sky. The perfect late-October night.

And I was standing in a graveyard.

At my feet was the stone sarcophagus which marked the family plot. The word DUNCAN had long since been carved out of the marble coffin over which a weeping marble angel had stood watch for six decades.

Why an angel would ever weep over my father’s death was well beyond me, but Mother had insisted. I could remember imagining the angel weeping tears of joy at the knowledge he was no longer walking the planet. A theory I had never shared with the rest of my family.

Mother was there, too, having been placed alongside her husband earlier in the day. The dirt was still mounded over the new grave. I dropped a handful of flowers and hoped she wouldn’t be able to see what I was about to do, wherever she was.

I had never quite decided if I believed in an afterlife. I hoped for my sake there wasn’t one, or I was in for an eternity of anguish. I would deserve every moment of it.

The pack was bulky, but my jacket zipped neatly over it.

I hoped my brother’s eyes would be too full of lying, murdering tears to notice the difference.

“Do you think he’ll come?” Vanessa had asked before I left the penthouse.

She had clutched my jacket, fingers curling into desperate claws.

I did think so at the moment, and I still did as I stood there waiting for him.

He would come. Nothing could keep him away.

A figure approached in the darkness, joining me on the hill which overlooked the rest of the cemetery.

“She would like being up here,” Dominic murmured, looking out over the other graves and mausoleums, then at the city in the distance. “She can look down on everyone else.”

“Yes. It suits her. I think that was part of the reason she chose this plot.” I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye.

Dressed to kill, as always. I would’ve been disappointed otherwise. His long, black coat fluttered in the breeze which ruffled his hair as he turned to look at me.

“I suppose you’ve come for a reason other than paying your respects,” he observed.

“Isn’t that reason enough? I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to her before you ended her life.”

He didn’t bother denying it. “She was suffering. You saw for yourself.”

“You’re so damned predictable.” I faced him, hands on my hips. “Why don’t you try being a little less predictable for once? That is exactly what I thought you’d argue.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s a convenient truth you tell yourself to soothe your guilt. Yes, she was suffering, but that wasn’t why you did it. Try being honest for the first time, while you still can.”

His shoulders fell when the truth of my words sank in. For a moment, he was my brother. Not the twisted, sick, corrupted sorcerer. Not the vicious, hateful monster. My twin. My first friend and first enemy.

“I didn’t want her to know.”

Finally, the truth.

“I understand that.” It didn’t make me feel better, but I did understand. “And I think she would’ve understood it, too. Just like she would understand what I have to do now.”

“What do you have to do?”

I unzipped my jacket and held it open so he could see the C4 strapped to my waist.

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