2 Brooklyn James (21 page)

“Those sloughs...all the money and the resources in the world...and they still had to barter with the grating Dr. Ryan.” His voice full of contempt.

“Barter?”

“Me, and Braydon.” His hand trails a posterboard of newspaper clippings highlighting their deaths, the same clippings gracing the wall of Manny Briggs’ office. “We were the trade-off. Seems everybody wanted you, Brianna.”

She eyes him searching for the truth in his expression, now wondering if she knows the truth at all.

“She should’ve known better. You never make deals with a government agency. Deals are a diversion, facilitating a fake sense of trust, loyalty. They were never going to stop until they got what they wanted.” He looks at her, the golden egg.

“Were?” she questions. “Why do you continue to talk about them as if they are past tense?”

He grins. “Because they are.”

“You expect me to believe you’ve terminated the entire ETNA sector?”

“Believe what you’d like.” He shrugs his shoulders, drawing her attention to his neckline where her crucifix now lies. “They became too much of a liability for the government. Ask your congressman. He’ll gladly tell you ETNA division is dead. Its twenty-two members nonexistent.” He pauses calculating. “Well, twenty-one with the death of Dr. Bernard Shaw.” He looks at her shrewdly. “Wonder what happened to him? One day he’s harboring Vigilare blood, and the next he’s expired.”

“These people don’t have family, friends...no one who’s looking for them? No one to be suspicious about their immediate disappearance?” She walks to a thick, filmy glass encasement attempting to identify what may be on the other side.

“No different from the elite ranks of the CIA or the FBI. If they don’t technically exist, then even in death, they never were.” He walks to her. “You want to see what’s on the other side?”

“I don’t know.” She turns to him. “Do I?” she asks reprimanding, fearing another twisted surprise.

“Soldiers,” he says, his inflection scheming. “Hounds of Hell.”

“And you’re the gatekeeper?” she quips. “Guess that makes Manny Briggs your lapdog.” She eyes him disappointed.

“Takes a guy like Manny, ruthless and corrupt, to keep them contained,” he confirms.

She freezes, eyeing the camouflaging glass. “You’re serious?” she baffles. “You’re barricading the remaining members of ETNA? What do you plan to do with them?”

“The same thing they did to me. To you. To our son,” his voice seethes. He turns on a row of television monitors, showing her the inside of the glass encasement. Scientists, all garbed in white lab coats, lean productively over microscopes, centrifuges and other laboratory testing technology. Manny Briggs—Hell Hound—walks militantly up and down the aisles, yelling and sporadically displaying physical force to the frightened, manic worker bees, shooting off fireballs at his will, commanding fear and obedience from every soul in the room. “Ironic, isn’t it? They are now slaves to the beast they created.” His eyes twinge with a hint of shame, quickly diverting from Gina’s. “Some of the highest IQs in the world in that one room. Yet, all of them greedy enough to give up simple reasoning in exchange for an attempt at immortality, willing to believe they are the exception. Mary Shelley taught them nothing.” He pounds his hand against his chest. “I will teach them everything. Some manners, namely. Greedy, power-hungry souls need to know they cannot interfere with a man’s destiny and go unpunished.”

“What do they do? I mean, what are they doing...right now?” Gina eyes them madly at work.

“They made me. Braydon. Our Vigilare
pedigree,”
he uses her term. “They even made you. Where do you think the round-faced hematologist got his information...his blueprint? Certainly not of his own paranoid schizophrenic devices.” Lon clicks on the intercom linking to the interior of the glass encasement. He speaks sternly to Manny Briggs, “Number seven needs to be awakened.”

Gina watches as Manny searches out scientist number seven, charging the man who has woefully fallen asleep on the job, his chin resting in his palm leaned over the table. There is no sound from the monitor only a visual of Manny screaming in the man’s face startling him awake. As if that were not enough, Manny grabs the scientist by the collar of his white lab coat, morphing into Hell Hound, his eyes and skin glowing a demonic red. The man’s feet dangling beneath him his face nearly pressed against Manny’s, the forked-tongued one slithers his raw serpent-like smell detector from his mouth winding it around the nose piece of the petrified man’s glasses, pulling them from his face. He barks at the scientist’s neighbors who stare a little too long for his taste. Their heads whip back into position, busily occupying their stations. Hell Hound further reprimands scientist number seven, hoisted in his punishing grip until the front of the man’s trousers grow increasingly wet, running down the front of his leg. Gina looks away, having seen enough.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for them,” Lon snaps. “After what they did to us.”

“What
they
did to us!” Her shackles grow noisy as she attempts to talk with her hands. “What about him? Dirty, rotten, vile piece of human excrement,” she spews, looking at Manny Briggs through the monitor. “That bastard should be buried six feet under!” She kicks at the cloudy glass encasement, its thickness resistant. Her chest heaves up and down, her eyes beginning to water as she looks at Lon, a complete stranger. “Have you forgotten what he did to me? To you? Our son!”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” his voice distorting and thunderous, his eyes flashing a sequence of emerald green, steel blue and hungry red. He turns from her regaining his composure. “Do you not see the irony of Briggs’ position?
Hell Hound
will spend the rest of his life rotting in hell, Brianna, a slave to my cause. Do you think it’s a pleasant transformation? You see his skin when he morphs, equivalent to being burned alive...every time he changes.”

“Well, he sure does it enough,” she defends. “Doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“That’s the point.” Lon eyes him through the video monitor. “He has a choice. I do not require him to morph. He does it at will. A true show of his greed. It’s worth it to him to cause himself immeasurable pain in delivering to others not even a tenth of what he feels. A true glutton.”

She scans the hand-shaped scar on his neck. “That’s what happened. Briggs did that to you.” She shakes her head. “If he did that to you, what makes you think you can maintain control of him?”

He grins. “We had a test of wills. In the beginning.” He straightens his broad shoulders, puffing out his chest. “Briggs learned his lesson. Ask him to show you his scars.”

“Maybe you won that one, but it’s only a matter of time before he tries you again, Lon. You cannot control a demon like Manny Briggs.”

“Again, you give me too little credit.” He calls on his Vigilare powers, the room filling up with emerald green, steel blue and burning red luminous light.

Gina hides her eyes, the magnitude of the rays blinding.

“I am the alpha and the omega. He cannot breach me.” He zaps the reflections from the space allowing her to open her eyes. “Not even you as the bequeathed Vigilare could breach me.”

“Modest much,” she huffs.

“Modesty has nothing to do with it. It is by design. ETNA wanted the supreme Vigilare. To be responsible for creating a divine species,” he says with disgust. “Dr. Godfrey and Dr. Ryan.” He shrugs his shoulders. “They did the best they could. Child’s play compared to ETNA’s aspirations.”

“What exactly can you do, then? What separates you from the rest of us?” Her voice trails off with the recognition that she is no longer included in that category.

“You name it, I can do it. You see my eyes...the trifecta. You’ve seen Maxim’s capabilities. Experienced your own. Witnessed your friends,” he references Aubrey and Emily. “Even the great detective,” he snarls. “The three of them an extension of you. That snake…” He looks loathingly through the monitor at Manny Briggs. “What you see in him is only a minute portion of my fire capabilities.”

“So, you’re saying what all of us,” she stops herself, “all of
them
have together, you have in your one arsenal?”

He nods.

“No weaknesses?” she further questions.

“You.” He looks at her beguilingly. “You are my only weakness.” He pulls his attention from her, quickly rebounding. “But we took care of that, now didn’t we?” he references her Vigilare blood, its scent hypnotic to him.

She ignores his goading, staying on track. “And Braydon...Max. Where does he fit into this?”

“One day it will all be his. When he is ready.”

“And what if he doesn’t want it? Will you force him, too?” Gina scans the newspaper clippings, a youthful photo of her son under the obituaries section. Subconsciously she reaches to stroke the picture, her hands meeting the resistance of her shackles. “He’s good and kind...Max. Like our Braydon.” She appeals to him, his eyes devoid of emotion.

“Was I not good and kind?” His voice softens.

Gina steps closer toward him. “You still are,” she says knowingly, assuming resentment and anger have momentarily enslaved him.

He clears his throat taking a definitive step back from her. “Don’t kid yourself, Brianna. I am in no way the man you married.”

“Funny you should say that,” she divulges, a smile gracing her lips without her consent. “I was just thinking about our wedding the other day.” Her voice humming at a whisper, attempting to reach him. “‘Jolie Blonde, jolie fille, tu m’a quitté pour t’en aller.’” He watches her, modestly stepping into the easy waltz, her black leather boots shuffling across the concrete floor. Her attempt at a Cajun accent as unfluent and comical as ever, Lon’s lips begin to turn up at their corners. “‘Jolie Blonde, jolie fille, t’es partie, oui pour longtemps.’”

“Stop,” he demands. His heart engaging, the air heavy as he breathes it deep into his lungs. His hands rest at his sides itching to touch her. His body aching to feel hers against him.

“‘Jolie Blonde, jolie fille...’” she continues.

“Stop it!” his voice distorting. He lunges at her, pinning her against the wall, his frame aggressive and towering. Although startled and scared, she presses against him, her eyes bold and daring as she looks into his. He groans with her contact, his head falling between his shoulders, the side of his face resting upon hers. His inhalation and exhalation labored, keeping perfect rhythm with the rise and fall of her chest. “Brianna,” he whispers, his breath against her ear. “Don’t you see? This could all be ours. You and me. And Max. Against the world. We could have it all.”

The moisture from her lips tenderly caresses the side of his face causing his knees to buckle. “Not this way,” she laments.

He growls, pushing off the wall and returning to his table full of monitors. The intercom sounds. Manny Briggs’ voice beckons, “Still got that visitor, Boss.”

“Bring her to me,” Lon replies.

Gina maneuvers a steel metal chair to the wall nearest the door, taking a seat, securing her vantage point.

“Always thinking,” Lon comments on her refusal to box herself into the room, strategically placed nearest the exit.

“I knew this guy once,” she eyes him, longing to know that man again. “Handsome, strong and tall. Sweet and protective as they come. He was adamant I make myself aware of my surroundings at all times, taking note of any and all entrances, exits and passersby.”

“A smart man? Or a fool in love?” he comments with a huff and questioning raise of his brow.

Her ears hone in on the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, accompanied by those that are swift and light.

Knock! Knock! Knock!
goes the door.

“It’s open,” Lon calls.

Manny Briggs enters first pulling Emily Truly by the arm into the room, her hands cuffed at her waist much like Gina’s. Emily jerks away from him eyeing her fellow lair-mate, quickly diverting her glance. Gina continues to inspect her, not the least bit surprised with her presence.

“Release her,” Lon demands. Manny obliges, removing the shackles, pushing Emily further inside the room. She rubs her wrists with her hands, soothing her abraded skin, talking herself down from teaching the wretched Hell Hound some manners.

Manny then turns to Gina grabbing hold of her briskly, his intention to remove her from their company. Lon takes one large step in his direction blasting him across the face with the back of his hand. Manny’s body clears air, his back slamming up against the door. “Umph,” he expels.

“Don’t touch her!” Lon’s voice distorts, his hand further gripping Manny’s neck. His eyes ablaze, Manny attempts to return his stare. A tiny orb of fire forming, Manny cannot release it. Lon bares down, pulling the pitiful excuse of a fireball from Manny’s gaze. Opening his mouth, he swallows it. “Don’t touch her. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look at her. You got it?” Lon roughly pats the side of his face, releasing him.

Manny backs up into the hallway, running the back of his hand over his split lip, his face twitching angrily. “Yeah. I got it,
Boss.”
He turns, walking away.

“Pardon the interruption ladies,” Lon apologizes nonchalantly, his neck rolling from ear to ear giving into a subtle crack. He adjusts the cuffs of his blue pinstripe pearl-snap shirt, refolding them to his elbows, tucking the waist into his casual cargo pants. “Now, where were we?” Gina takes sharp note of his lean, athletic frame, not to mention his residual protective nature where she’s concerned. “Ms. Truly,” he addresses Emily, extending his hand.