“If it suited you just fine, you would not be here in my laboratory. On a Friday night. Concerned with training.” Dr. Godfrey stalks about him in a circle, an elder lion waiting for his fledgling prey to crack.
Johnny ignores him, his punches becoming more fierce as if he can beat away the truth.
“You know why you cannot bust that concrete…right through its core?” Dr. Godfrey presses on. “It’s because you are not one of them. If they developed their powers…were even aware of their powers…it is unfathomable what they could do.
They
could bust concrete, and then some.” He continues to traipse in a circle around Johnny, intending to aggravate.
“Can’t you just…give me…more of their blood?” Johnny growls out between punches, reasoning that if given enough of their DNA, he, too, could wield the same power.
“We can’t use any more of their blood. The supply is too low,” Dr. Godfrey reasons, his trusty lunch cooler near empty. “Besides, it’s not their DNA, my boy. It’s their Rh-negative blood factor coupled with the contact of that otherworldly skull, which I presume had the same rare blood factor. That’s our only link to the ancient astronauts…Rh-negative blood,” he repeats, getting sidetracked momentarily, the promise of scientific theory outweighing his agenda to solidify Johnny’s cooperation.
“By astronauts…you mean aliens…
ancient aliens?”
Johnny gouges sarcastically. “You’re certifiable…you know that…right?” He snickers bitterly.
The antagonist becoming the antagonized, Dr. Godfrey counters, getting back on track. “It did something to them. Something so preternatural, we may never crack the mystery. Unless,” he pauses, his index finger and thumb wrapping around his chin thoughtfully, “we could get our hands on one of them.” His shifty eyes settle suspiciously on Johnny, nearly convinced that is what has brought him to the lab on this very night. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” He goes for the jugular.
Johnny stops striking the machine, standing in front of it, his bare, muscled chest rises and falls ardently. He says nothing, simply letting his chin fall to his chest, at odds with himself for his purpose in coming to the lab on the eve Brianna shared with him that she was expecting.
Did he want Dr. Godfrey to find out? Has he grown so consumed with all of this blood business, craving more omnipotence, that he would sacrifice the innocence of a child?
His silence, all the answer Dr. Godfrey needs, the Machiavellian hematologist massages Johnny’s conscience. “Don’t answer that, my boy. You leave the rest to me.” He clutches his pen tighter, his shaky, adrenaline-ridden hand attempting to steady itself over a sheet of paper residing on his clipboard.
P A T S Y
—the red ink from his pen digs into the paper, sketching out his plan. “Those men…the two you and Ginger put away a few years back…the ones with ties to the Gambini mob. They’re still in the penitentiary, correct?”
Johnny, having returned to his very human self, darts his non-glowing and deeply disapproving eyes in Dr. Godfrey’s direction, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“We have to have a fall guy, Daredevil. There’s no way around it. Two fall guys with motive…even better,” the hematologist’s cogwheels work quickly in concocting a plan.
Tears sting at the backs of Johnny’s eyes as he puts two and two together—Dr. Godfrey plans on using the men (Manny Briggs and Angelo Tulane) Brianna put away for rape in his scheme to get his hands on her unborn child. This cannot end well and it’s all Johnny’s fault for coming to the lab, a subconscious reaction to secretly wanting Dr. Godfrey to find out about Brianna’s pregnancy.
“Argh!” Johnny releases a tormenting wail.
Transforming back to his superhuman self in an instant, his eyes blaze, his body grows amped and able. He smashes his fist through the punching machine, causing the electronic processor to power down and die. Continuing in his self-condemnation, he strikes out at anything and everything in the training room until it lies in shambles and he is covered in blood from his knuckles to his elbows.
Unfortunately, he knows the pain to his body is temporary. He will heal in a flash with Lon and Brianna’s enduring blood surging through his veins. But the pain in his heart with the betrayal to his friends (one of whom saved him from his father and inadvertently from himself, the other took him in—showed him a life outside the abuse of his adolescence) will plague him the rest of his days.
Dr. Godfrey watches his student, a part of him sympathetic. The other part winning out, he can’t help but continue to pry, “What are their names? The men?”
Johnny leaps at his round-faced adviser with his callous questioning. Grabbing him up by the collar of his white lab coat, he slams his back up against an adjacent wall. The lenses to his bifocals pop and plummet to the concrete floor below with the intensity of his aggressor’s pale blue gleam.
Dr. Godfrey contemplates unleashing his extraordinary powers as he, too, partook of a dose of Lon and Brianna’s united blood. Instead, he restrains, knowing he would be far outmaneuvered and overpowered by his younger, stronger understudy.
Countering with his wit (always his most impressive defense), he unleashes, “You did this, Daredevil. Not I. You came here…specifically on this night…because you
wanted
me to know she is pregnant.” Dr. Godfrey’s words grow strained as Johnny tightens his grip around his collar, choking the oxygen from his windpipe, “You knew how I would react. You
wanted
this to happen.”
Johnny slams him up against the wall one more time, the force knocking the wind from his body, before letting go and letting the mastermind hematologist slide down the wall until his bottom rests on the cool concrete floor.
“Fuck your reverse psychology bullshit. And fuck you. I’m done,” Johnny’s sentiments release saliva-tinged as he forces them through clenched teeth before exiting the laboratory.
“You’ll be back,” Dr. Godfrey calls after him, panting to catch his breath. “You can’t help yourself, Johnny, my boy.” He smiles with the truth of his prediction, slowly picking himself up off the floor.
Multitasking, he dials up an old comrade while digging through his filing cabinet in search of newspaper clippings. “You won’t tell me their names, Daredevil. I’ll find them myself,” he mutters aloud. Having maintained a low-profile eye on her, his shaky hands sort through catalogs of Brianna’s work as a prosecutor as documented by the local press.
“Dr. Patricia Ryan,” he happily greets the voice over the phone, a former classmate of his at West Point with deep pockets and connections to all the right people, who now serves as Doctor of Psychology for Vanguard Police Department. “The time has come, my friend. I’m onto something big.” He smiles, remembering a time long ago when she was one of the few who truly believed in his genius. “All I lack are the resources.”
“What do you need? And how soon do you need it?” The calm yet get-down-to-business tone releases on the other end of the line.
He snatches up a hodgepodge of successive articles, surveying the headlines—
New Orleans District Attorney’s Office Cracks Down On Sex Crimes, Prosecutor Brianna Castille Petitions For Maximum Sentencing, Briggs and Tulane Guilty.
“Briggs and Tulane. Briggs and Tulane,” he repeats their names, his finger scanning the body of the story until he finds their full titles in the print, “Manuel ‘Manny’ Briggs and Angelo ‘G-Lo’ Tulane.”
“Pardon me?” Dr. Ryan questions his unfamiliar rambling, awaiting his
urgent
request.
“Ah, yes, yes,” he juggles the incoming information, “tonight. This needs to happen tonight. At the latest, in the wee hours of the morning. Yeah, that may be better.” His mind races with the element of surprise the hours just before dawn would provide to a sleeping household.
“Well, spit it out, Godfrey. What is it exactly you need? Tonight?” His former classmate stays true to form after all of these years with her cut to the chase approach—overbearing to some, most appealing to the in-need hematologist.
Dr. Godfrey sucks in a deep breath, contemplating the consequences for what he is about to ask, the severity of which escapes him as the end product (a truly prodigious child) emerges, much too enticing to let ethics stand in his way.
*A version of this chapter appeared in
Vigilare
, book #1 of
The Vigilare Series,
as Chapter 9. It serves as a segue for the prequel to the trilogy.
The large, French Colonial style home awaits Brianna as she pulls into the long, elegant drive. A feeling of safety and security flashes over her, far removed from the city and its iniquitous underworld, fully content in her surroundings after a taxing day’s work.
Turning the air off in her Mercedes Coupe, she relieves the engine, grabbing her briefcase from the passenger seat. As soon as her lungs are exposed to the evening air, she is reminded of the suffocating heat a Louisiana summer delivers, even after the sun begins to set.
“Mama!” A gorgeous six-year-old Braydon calls to her, running in her direction from the veranda.
A smile graces Brianna’s lips. “Hey, baby,” she greets, catching him in her embrace, planting a kiss on his cheek.
He giggles, wiping at his cheek. “Did you leave that smoochy stuff on there? That stuff you always leave on Daddy’s cheek when you kiss him goodbye in the morning.”
“No, baby. That loses its shade throughout the day. You know how you bite your lip when you’re concentrating?” Braydon nods his head, cupping her face in his hands. “Mama does that too.”
“You eat your smoochy stuff? Eww!”
“Eww,” she mocks, gently rubbing noses with him, an Eskimo kiss.
He returns the gesture, smiling. “I’m so glad you’re home. Daddy and I waited for you all day. Daddy said it’s prelobsterous they make you work so many hours.”
Brianna carries him in her arms as she makes her way up the steps to the elaborate French doors, giggling at his pronunciation of ‘preposterous.’ “Yes, it is
prelobsterous,”
she concurs, nuzzling his neck, causing him to laugh.
“We made you dinner,” Braydon says proudly, pushing her hair back off her shoulders with his hands, as he has watched Lon do often.
“You did!” her expression overjoyed for his effort. “You’re such a good boy. What’d you make?”
“Lobster.”
She tips her head back, chuckling. “I should’ve known.”
“Hey, sugar.” A darkly handsome Lon greets her, his thick Southern accent causing the pet name to sound as sweet as its description. He leans into her for a kiss, a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder, elbow deep in lobster meat and butter sauce.
The
tap tap tap
of little paws resonate off the vintage hardwood floors. “Bou Bou!” short for Boudreaux, Braydon calls to the dog, scuttling down from Brianna’s arms. He scuffs his hands against the long fur of the black and white border collie, whose tail is without containment, winging from one side to the other.
“Ah, that smells incredible, baby.” Brianna takes in the succulent looking fare with all her senses, laying her briefcase down on the counter. “What can I do to help?”
Lon smiles at her. “You can shuffle off to the bathroom where a warm bubble bath and chilled watermelon wine need some company.”
She moves to him, running her hands through his hair and down around his neck, softly taking his lips in her own. Braydon giggles at his parents’ customary affection, hiding his face in Bou Bou’s fur. “And later, you can shuffle off to the bedroom where a warm-blooded woman will most definitely need some company,” she whispers in Lon’s ear before heading off to the bathroom.
He snaps the dishtowel against the counter with a smile of victory and begins to sing, “‘I see trees of green…red roses too…I see ’em bloom…for me and you…and I think to myself…what a wonderful world.’”
“Not that song again,” Braydon jeers.
Lon hoists him up in his arms, dancing him around the kitchen, encouraging him to join in on the singing. “‘I see skies of blue…clouds of white,’” they continue with their best Louis Armstrong impersonations.
Bou Bou performs his own dance moves, jumping up around them, and chiming in on the singing with a howl here and a bark there.
Brianna is within earshot on her way to the bathroom. Pulling a silver crucifix from under her shirt collar (the same one Lon’s mother gave him for protection—he had it melted down and formed into a more feminine model that he surprised Brianna with this past Christmas) and planting on it one solitary kiss, a grateful gesture. Her hand then trailing to her lower abdomen, she pats the yet to be discernible bump.
“We’ll tell them tomorrow,” she talks to her unborn as if it knows tomorrow is Saturday, a day for celebration.
Six pounds of lobster, one family-friendly movie, one hot bath, and one hotter session between the sheets later, the roomy house hums quietly as its inhabitants rest in the dark, peaceful night.
“Mama?” Braydon calls from the door of her bedroom in his Superman Underoos.
Brianna sits up in bed immediately with the sound of his voice. Lon groans, reacting to the absence of her body next to his. “What is it, baby?” she prompts.
“Bou Bou can’t sleep. He keeps pacing in front of my bedroom window.”
“Come here, love.” She pulls the sheet back from her side of the bed.
Lon rolls up on his side, pulling her back against his chest as Braydon climbs in, nuzzling his back against her chest. “That’s what I’m talking about,” Lon whispers contentedly, his family one cohesive unit.
Braydon giggles, pulling Brianna’s arm snugly around the front of his body, holding onto her hand. “Now you’re the cheese, Mama,” he refers to their bodies making a sandwich, in which he is usually ‘the cheese.’
She chuckles sleepily, kissing him on top of his head. The moon, large and full, shines in through the bedroom window. The clouds accenting its eerie pattern, a perfect werewolf moon.
“Goodnight moon,” Braydon says, closing his eyes.