Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (87 page)

The backhand to the gut was expected and I
laughed through it. “I’m sorry,” I pleaded, “but the whole idea of
you as a househusband is just ludicrous. You’d go crazy. A husband,
I understand. Someone to share your life with, I totally get that.
But who in their right mind thought you could be happy by just
waving a pretty bauble or a silk shirt at you? He couldn’t have
known you very well at all and certainly he couldn’t see all of
you.” That was more to tell Peter I understood that we were going
into a totally mundane, normal, non-magical situation than anything
else. It didn’t hurt that it stroked his ego at the same time.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, turning slightly to
face me in his seat. “But it took me a little time to recognize
that. Dillon can be quite… magnetic when he wants to be. And you
are just supposed to be you and nothing more. I told him I was here
with my friend and business partner and that all of my partners
were straight. He chooses to disbelieve me.”

“Anything I should know about, then? ‘Don’t
go through the green door’ or anything like that?” I asked still
full of humor at this whole situation.

“Nah, just don’t be shocked by anything you
see. Dillon’s place can get a bit racy,” Peter said, relaxing back
into the seat now that I hadn’t freaked out about going into a gay
bar. He went on to talk about the place in more detail, enough that
I was thoroughly confused with just the terminology of the
subculture. We finally pulled up in front of the bar in just under
forty-five minutes, making me wonder when Danny started out.

There was a long line of people trying to get
into the bar when we left the car and Danny pulled away. We were
greeted with boos and catcalls when the bouncers at the door let us
in with a cheerful smile and a nod. Peter ignored the queue while I
shrunk in behind him nervously. The front doors opened up into a
darkened hallway designed to look like a mineshaft. The lighting
was peculiar in blue and purple, highlighting the railroad ties
used for crossbeams. The smell of old tobacco, sweat, testosterone,
alcohol, and a number of other chemical substances hung heavily in
the air. The beat of the music could be heard from the front door,
heavy and thumping. Further in, the beat was even heavier and
melodies could be heard.

For me the most interesting part was the men.
Mama woulda skint me ‘live if I eh-ver went in public looking like
ninety percent of the men I saw. In general, I couldn’t quite
decipher what they were advertising, but since I wasn’t in the
target audience, I decided not to pass judgment on the goods or the
packaging. I admit it made more sense when the hall opened up to
the main room. This was a bacchanalia. Now, the guys in the hall
made more sense.

We entered into a fray of pulsing music,
glittering lights, and writhing bodies. To be fair, the writhing
bodies were about five feet lower on the dance floor, the lights
were fifteen feet up in the ceiling, and there was a railing before
the steps down. And there were reflective surfaces everywhere. The
floor itself flashed with the pulse and tone of the music. It
verged on hypnotic. Toss in the alcohol and the half a dozen other
chemical stimulants and hallucinogens and bacchanalia is pretty
much the only word that made sense here.

The hallway opened up onto a railing that
overlooked the dance floor. To the right, tall tables lined the
side and ran for several rows then gave way to a few rows of pool
tables. Every bit of it was packed with men. Men of various ages,
sizes, physical conditions. Much more varied in states of dress
than the hallway, too. Thankfully. There apparently was a limit to
what my modesty could take.

Peter dragged me off to the left, past a
massive U-shaped bar with three bartenders and two helpers. None of
the five stopped for a second, constantly moving across their side
of the bar, almost throwing drinks and beers and taking cash. I
wanted to sit at the bar and watch for a while, but Peter kept
dragging me through a set of double swinging doors just past the
bar. We turned right immediately in the darkened hallway, barely
avoiding one of the helpers coming in behind us with a full
trashcan on wheels. He pushed it down a short hall straight back
and grabbed an empty one from the left, disappearing out into the
bar again.

I had to take a few quick steps to catch up
to Peter and wondered how long the bar personnel kept the pace they
did. The job’s life expectancy couldn’t have been that long. We
rounded the corner to an open elevator, which had only one
direction to go: up. Peter faced the back so I did too. The music
from the bar still permeated the metal can we rode in, but was
stifled considerably, more so as we rose what couldn’t have been
more than three flights. The rear of the elevator opened to the
brighter but still subdued lighting of what several interior design
shows called a power office. For the most part, it flowed like the
attorneys’ offices in New York did, big picture window overlooking
the domain, a couple of grouping places in the room but always a
place of power, a “throne.” It was comfortable in a completely
sterile way. The view of the parking garage a block away and the
warehouses lining the rest of the vista lent a decidedly urban feel
to the room.

Peter moved to a phone that sat on a table
nearby, punched a few buttons, then called, “Dillon, I’m here.” A
moment later a singsong voice replied, “Be right in, Petey
darling.” Peter looked at me and rolled his eyes, as if I couldn’t
see the frustration and amusement in his aura already.

“So, how’d’ya like your first look at a
high-energy dance bar?” Peter asked plopping down on a couch near
the picture window.

“Well, the entrance confused me but the
clothing made sense once I saw the dance floor and bar and all,” I
answered, leaning over the back of the same couch. “You walked in
like you owned the place. You and Dillon were an item for how long,
then? More than friends?”

“We tried to be, for about a year, I guess,”
he said, with a touch of sorrow in his voice. “Or rather I tried to
be. Maybe he did, too, in his own way, but that’s water under the
bridge.”

“Will we met your friends here or out in the
bar?”

“Out there,” he said, brightening up at the
prospect. “They don’t know I’m even here, but Dillon will narc on
me if I don’t at least make an appearance.”

“Besides, you want to dance, don’t you?” I
asked, smirking down at him as I leaned over the back of the couch.
I’d seen the longing look he’d given the dance floor as we passed
through.

He threw his head back and laughed, looking
up at me.

“He does like to shake his ass,” a new voice
offered from behind us. I turned for my first sight of Dillon. His
voice was a light baritone and seemed to match his looks. He had
dirty blonde hair, cropped short on the sides with razor precision
and it fell across his forehead at a sharp angle, giving his round
face less of a pudgy appearance and highlighted his penetrating
blue eyes. At an inch or two under six feet tall, he wasn’t an
imposing man but his arms showed the benefits of gym membership.
The short-sleeved shirt he wore gripped his biceps effectively and
the light tan slacks showed off his muscled thighs equally well.
There was a faint resemblance to Ethan.

“Hello, Dillon,” said Peter standing up from
the couch and moving around to my side. “How’s tricks?” There was
acid dripping off those last words, but it didn’t look like he
meant it as badly as it sounded to me.

“Now Peter, let’s play nice,” Dillon
admonished, arching his left eyebrow high. “We agreed.” He set his
eyes on me and started across the room, smiling. “Aren’t you going
to introduce us?”

“Sure,” Peter answered chuckling, letting go
of the coldness he was showing. It wasn’t real anyway. He’d gotten
over Dillon months ago. “Seth, Dillon Monroe, owner of this
establishment and connected to several members of the more unseemly
side of the world. You know, racketeering, illegal drugs,
prostitution, smuggling, and all around disreputable
character.”

“Oh, come now,” objected Dillon as he held
out his hand to me.

“Dillon, this is Seth McClure,” Peter
continued, ignoring him. “He is my friend and business
partner.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Monroe,” I
said, cutting my eyes back at Peter quickly and shaking his
hand.

“Dillon, please, and the pleasure is mine,”
he said smoothly, holding the handshake a bit too long and
squeezing in such a way that I actually felt mildly molested
without knowing exactly why. “Hmm, bit young for you, Petey, or
have you decided you like breaking them in now?”

I think that comment deserved the small
electrical jolt I gave him as I pulled my hand back. Just fifteen
or twenty volts, nothing major. It gave off a nice little glow as
it arced off of me and he jerked his hand back quickly, shaking his
fingers.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Must be a static
discharge,” I mumbled politely, still smiling.

“Yes, well,” he said, rubbing his molesting
hand gently. He recovered quickly. “And while you’re casting
dispersions on my character, why exactly are you coming to me for
information on gunrunners? Certainly not your normal lines of
interest from what I recall.”

“I didn’t come to you, Dillon,” Peter said
coolly. “You came to one of my sources and demanded to speak with
me. Her cut, by the way, is still coming out of your side.”

“I only demanded it because you won’t take my
calls,” Dillon said defensively. “It’s been over a year and
nobody’s heard anything from you. It’s like you disappeared from
the face of the earth.”

Peter laughed at him. “Stop with the lost
love routine, Dillon. I won’t buy it and if Seth decided to look
into it, he could find out far more than you’d want him to know
without any input from me. He’s very good that way.”

“I bet he is,” Dillon said, switching his
attention back to me. His attitude was coy as he went fishing for
information. “The opposite is not true, apparently.” He turned to
move back down the hall the way he came, motioning for us to
follow. The hallway was short with floor to ceiling panels of glass
down the length on both sides. On the right side was his office
with a large glass-topped desk with sleek chromed chairs. Sixteen
monitors lined one wall, flipping scenes constantly between
different positions in the bar below us. Most of them we hadn’t
seen yet—some of them I didn’t want to see since I couldn’t figure
out what exactly was going on in the murkiness. Dillon sat behind
the desk and tapped on a clear inset keyboard, barely visible while
standing on this side.

I looked over my shoulder to see Peter throw
out a sharp spike of electromagnetic energy in a broad band through
the very large screen television monitor on the wall in the other
room. Whatever it was had irritated him immensely, because the
duration of the projection should have penetrated just about
everything on the other side of the wall. I doubted any circuitry
remained intact. Peter had murdered some machinery back there.
Dillon regained my attention as Peter turned to us with angelic
grace.

“I was able to find precious little about
young Mr. McClure in the short time I had since finding out about
your new association and even less about your other associates,
Ehran and Ethan McClure. I assume they are your brothers,
Seth?”

“Yes,” I answered. I didn’t bother to correct
him on Ethan’s name, though, or elaborate on those
relationships.

“I was able to find out more about your
parents than any of their offspring,” he said. “Why might that
be?”

“We are a private family,” I said simply.
“Why would we broadcast our lives to the world? Why would anyone
for that matter?”

“Yet your parents were involved with a number
of large charitable organizations; were on the boards, both
separately and together, of small and medium-sized corporations;
and still there is little biographical information available for
either of them. Plenty on her father, though, and not so good,
there.” As he talked and typed, a large monitor eased silently out
from a cabinet opposite the television monitors and mirrored the
information on Dillon’s monitor at the desk. I scanned through the
information but I wasn’t planning to elucidate further on or
correct anything I saw. I just didn’t think it was any of his
business. Well, except for one small tidbit.

“You don’t have my grandfather’s death noted
there. He passed away, what, eleven days ago, Peter?” I asked.

“Sounds about right,” he answered, sitting
down on the edge of the desk. “All those days seemed to run
together with me almost dying in that fight. Dillon, kill the
monitors into the back rooms. We don’t want to see the porn
channels.”

Dillon’s head snapped up at Peter, shocked.
“What do you mean you almost died in that fight? What fight?” He
leaned back in his chair, calming himself. He still cared for Peter
at some level and that bothered him. I couldn’t tell why that was
true but it was. “Who am I kidding. You wouldn’t be in a fight. You
love everybody.”

“The porn channels, Dillon. Do something
about them or I will,” Peter said dryly.

He reached up and tapped a few keys and a
third of the monitors went black. “Satisfied?” he said with a
smirk. Peter nodded without looking. Dillon asked me, “So how did
Uriah St. Croix supposedly die?”

“I pierced his heart,” I said without
emotion, “with a very sharp sword.”

Dillon just stared at me for a moment. Then
he started to laugh, deeply and heartily. I went back to reading
the information on my parents while he enjoyed himself. There were
a few mistakes up there and I was actually curious to know if they
were intentionally inserted by my parents or just mistakes. I’d
have to research that question at some point.