Dangerous Things

Tabatha’s face flashed through his mind's eye. He’d spent the last couple of hours desperately trying not to think about her, but most of that couple of hours he hadn’t been listening to himself.

Michael could feel Kane’s presence somewhere behind him but instead of getting annoyed at the unwanted distraction, he felt soothed by his friend’s watchful eye. At least if Kane was worried about him, then he was getting some time off from his own paranoia. Besides, he loved Kane like a brother… the word brother echoed within his mind as his thoughts darkened and turned toward Damon. How could true brothers ever be so wrong about each other?

Trying to empty his mind of the disturbing memories, Michael laid back and let exhaustion claim him. He knew it was safe to sleep… Kane was watching over him.

Kane wondered at Michael’s whispered thought. He hadn’t known Michael was having trouble sleeping. What had his friend feeling so threatened the he was afraid to close his eyes? He knew lack of sleep would slowly drive you crazy… then yet, he’d also found out the hard way that too much sleep was even more damaging.

He looked across the road at Michael's building nestled between other city buildings. From the look of the circular room on top, it was a Victorian design. He had agreed to move in with Michael but it looked like now he would have to talk Michael into moving in with himself instead of sleeping on the roof across the street.

He raised an eyebrow at his odd friend. The house had every modern comfort someone as old as them could think of, including wards to keep demons out, so why the sudden need for fresh air that smelt like rain?

He knew Michael still felt guilty for not being around when he’d went and gotten himself buried. Although Kane had tried to stay out of his head, he still hadn’t told Michael that if he tried, he could read his mind. It was just something a friend didn’t really want to know… besides, he had a feeling he was the only one with that power.

Abandoning him wasn’t all Michael was thinking about tonight… it was the reason he’d left the country in the first place that drew his attention… Damon, Michael’s brother. Kane hadn’t seen Damon since coming back to his senses… what was left of them, but the memories he did have were mostly good. Damon had a wild streak a mile wide and they both had given Michael one hell of a headache trying to keep up.

Kane glanced down and noticed Michael playing with the ring on his finger as he thought about Damon. It wasn’t long before sleep overtook Michael and the vivid dreams started. The longer the dreams lasted, the more Kane learned what Michael had been hiding. He closed his eyes, blocking out the city and really concentrating for the first time on someone else’s pain.

He was startled to find himself not only listening to the dreams, but also catching visual flashbacks from forty years ago. He saw it all unfold from an outsider’s prospective as it played out like a tragic movie.

Michael had felt the urge to go see Damon for the first time in over a century. When he found his brother, all seemed well. Damon had been living it up in the social limelight of London and Michael had joined him for a while. They’d had a blast until they met a girl… Katie.

The most eligible bachelors had all been invited to her eighteenth birthday party including the brothers. She was truly the belle of the ball. What had started out as simple brotherly competition turned into a dangerous game of jealousy. Everything with them seemed to turn into a competition. They’d spent weeks waging silent war against one another to win her affection.

Damon had told him to leave… to go back across the ocean but Michael couldn’t do it. He wouldn't let Damon win by running him off. As the sibling rivalry escalated, they were at each other’s throats over the same girl. It wasn’t that she was their soul mate or anything though they both had become enthralled with her. It seemed fated that Katie had the same problem… she’d fallen for both of them and wouldn’t choose.

What was even more twisted about the love-triangle was that Katie thought the brothers were human… they’d never given her a reason to think otherwise.

They had taken Katie out dancing for the evening but that had been a deadly mistake. The tension between the men was too high. After only an hour of slowly dying inside while the other danced with her, the brothers had finally come to blows. They hadn’t realized how much control they’d lost until their eyes changed color as they wrapped their hands around each other’s throats and their feet left the ground.

They hadn’t even seen her run. Michael and Damon had snapped out of their rage when they’d heard the squeal of tires and the crunch of metal outside the dance hall. By the time they reached her… she’d been killed.

When Damon raced toward her with every intention of trying to revive her with his vampire blood, Michael had stopped him because a crowd had already gathered. Damon had turned on him for real then, blaming Michael for not leaving when he’d told him to.

They had fought after that for months … calling truce for moments at a time for words with feeling but it always led to another fight. Michael knew Damon was getting darker and darker and that Damon wanted to kill him. If he did try, then Michael would defend himself and one of them would die.

It was then that Michael did something he swore he wouldn’t do… he went to see Syn. Syn was the first vampire. He’d gone to sleep and not woken for centuries but Syn wasn’t dead for he couldn’t die… at least not that anyone knew of. They weren’t sure why he’d chosen to sleep the last couple of centuries away, but it had seemed like Syn was waiting for something that hadn’t happened yet.

Michael walked around the statue that marked Syn’s resting place within the mausoleum. He knew Syn was deep below him. He talked to the empty tomb, hearing his words echo around him… sometimes in whispers and sometimes in deafening screams.

Fighting with Damon was driving him mad, he hadn’t meant for it to ever go this far. He wasn’t even sure either of them had truly loved the girl. He felt his heart spilling out because of the pain he had caused his brother… and Katie. He didn’t know if Syn was listening, but it was enough to at least tell someone else the truth.

The statue’s eyes moved watching him. It was the likeness of Syn but without coloring. The candles that were lit around him shimmered and dimmed then flamed high as the statue moved. Whispered words drifted up from the ground in a language long forgotten.

The silence that followed was like soothing thunder and Michael knew Syn had forgiven him even if Damon had not. He rubbed his palms over his arms trying to chase the chills away. Syn was a man of magic and Michael wondered what spell had crawled deep inside him.

He picked himself up and made his way out of the catacombs and into the mausoleum only to find Damon was standing there waiting on him. Again, soft words conveying emotion were exchanged but it wasn’t long before they became heated. Michael just wanted it all to end… wanted to embrace his brother and start over.

Damon had taken the first part of his statement literally and, before Michael could stop him, pulled a wooden spear from inside his jacket. Michael felt the timber penetrate his heart and he dropped to his knees. Looking up at Damon, he opened his mouth to say something but all that he could get out was a gurgle.

Michael fell on his side, feeling the blood pause in his veins and turn to ash as his vision slowly faded to black.

With tears in his eyes, Damon stumbled away knowing he was now damned. Syn’s voice started echoing within his mind making him scream. He grabbed his head and doubled over trying to silence the voice but you couldn’t silence Syn.

At that moment everything within Michael roared back to life with a vengeance. Feeling the excruciating pain of the stake in his chest still killing him, he reached for it and pulled the wood from his heart. It hurt just as bad coming out as it had going in.

“Damon!” Michael screamed as he struggled to stand and went in search of his brother. It was worth every ounce of pain to see the look on Damon’s face when he realized Michael was alive.

Michael let the bloody stick slide from his sleeve and in an instant, he stabbed Damon. “Feel this brother!” he screamed as he returned the favor. It killed a part of him to do it but this had to stop somehow.

When Damon was resurrected, Michael had sat down on the ground to try to catch his breath. Michael understood what Syn had done… what the words in the air of the catacombs had been. It was a spell that only Syn could do and it would make it impossible for Michael and Damon to kill each other… maybe make it impossible to die at all. Oh, they could kill each other… but it would only hurt.

They had died several times after that night, always at each other’s hands. Michael had finally given up and come home, leaving his brother halfway around the world. He knew it was useless to reach his brother and though his heart screamed at him that all was not lost, Michael was still unsure.

Kane wisely kept his mouth shut as Michael jerked from his remembered nightmare. He blinked wondering if going so deep into Michael's mind had caused him to relive the memory so clearly. If so… then he was instantly sorry when he smelt salt in the air. He vanished before Michael turned to look at the cross just as the sun started to rise.

*****

Alicia applied more lipstick trying to get rid of the innocent face that stared back at her in the mirror. She was mad, not at Kane for taking the spell book from her… after all, it was Kane’s book. But she was mad at everyone else because they were treating her like a baby. She lived at a night club for crying out loud.

She may have been away at boarding school but it hadn’t been a nursery. She was a cougar after all and could very well take care of herself. Because of the strict rules and watchful eyes of the teachers, Alicia had mastered the art of sneaking around to gain her freedom. Her animal side had never liked being in a cage.

Now that she was home and her family needed protecting, it wasn’t fair that everyone was teaming up and leaving her out of it. If Micah had been here, he would have understood her needs and as protective as he was, he’d never have tried to take away her freedom. That was definitely something she appreciated about Kane… he’d taken up for her today as if he understood what she was going through.

Therein lay the bigger problem. Micah was missing and she was damn well going to find him if she had to take on every paranormal being in the city to do it… starting with the vampires and werewolves.

She frowned at herself in the mirror knowing she’d screwed everything up trying to use a spell at the graveyard. Up until that point, she hadn’t realized there were two completely different types of vampires.

During her short visits home she’d never met Michael, or any other vampire for that matter, and the only one who had come to visit her at school on a regular basis had been Micah. He used to come to the school and sign her out for the weekend and holidays. That’s when they would head into the forest where he taught her to fight with and without weapons.

When they weren’t training, they would shift and run, enjoying the freedom. Because of Micah, she was smarter, faster, and tougher then most female shifters. Micah had always been her hero and he was the only one in the family who didn’t think being a girl was a handicap.

She still remembered the first time Micah had taken her out of school for the weekend. They’d gone up into the forests and set up camp before Micah told her they were going for a run. Alicia had never had such an opportunity before and she was so excited that when she shifted, she took off running at top speed and made three complete running circuits around the camp.

When she stopped, she looked over at Micah who was holding his sides and laughing. At first she thought he was laughing at her but it turns out he was laughing at how stupid the rest of their family was. None of them had taken the time to teach her about her cougar heritage, nor did they allow her to run very much. Just watching her display of freedom gave him the impression of a kitten going outside for the first time.

She’d grown up thinking all vampires were monsters because that had been what Nathaniel had taught his children. Nathaniel had been wrong. If Kane hadn’t been freed from the grave her father had damned him into, then she would have surely been killed at the graveyard the other night.

She was thankful Kane had been there to save her but she wasn’t about to stop looking for her beloved brother. She would be more careful this time. She could thank Kane for one more thing to… because of him Michael had kissed her. She wondered if Michael only saw a child when he looked at her. Somehow she doubted it. She smiled at herself in the mirror. It had been one hell of a kiss.

She turned around in front of the mirror making sure she didn’t look like the child they were all treating her like. The black leather skirt had a zipper going from the hem at mid thigh all the way up and she purposely left it unzipped halfway up. The black shirt was made of mostly sheer lightweight material with a very small silk belly shirt built in underneath.

She tucked a couple of stray blonde strands of hair up in under the Cleopatra wig she’d found in a trunk of Halloween costumes stored in the attic. Even she had to admit the slinky outfit made her look sexy as hell.

She’d bet money that if Quinn or anyone she knew saw her now, they wouldn’t have a clue it was even her. Quinn was so busy chasing Kat and trying to act like he wasn’t that he hadn’t been paying Alicia any attention anyway. Now that he and Kat were together… he had turned all of his attention to his mate. The most he’d done was set two shifter guards on Alicia and ordered her to stay out of sight until they decided it was safe enough for her to come out and play.

Her bodyguards were dumb as rocks, all muscle and no brains. It wouldn’t take much to outwit them and escape her little prison. She was going to hunt for Micah tonight with or without their approval.

Quinn told her Micah had left them on his own two legs and knew the way back if he wanted to come home, but she knew for a fact Micah wouldn’t leave… at least not without taking her with him. Micah was in trouble… she could feel it. Alicia squared her shoulders and tilted her chin up in defiance.

With all the exposed skin, hopefully she would look like a prostitute for the kidnapping werewolves or dinner to some unsuspecting vampire. She was sure if she could fight either one on one, then she could get it to talk before she killed it.

She’d done enough spying to figure out what was really going on and she didn’t blame Kane at all. As long as the vampire wasn’t Michael or Kane, then it was killable. As for werewolves… if they were into slave trade or had Micah then they were no better than the soulless vampires.

She slid the small heart-shaped crystal around her neck. It was more than a simple trinket. She’d been studying magic as long as she could remember and this crystal would make it impossible to put her under the thrall of vampire this time… even a powerful vampire like Kane or Michael. And she’d also remembered some of the simple spells from the book Kane had taken from her.

Tonight she was going to find out what it was like to really be a part of this family… she was going to fight in this war whether her brothers and the jaguars liked it or not.

*****

Damon leaned back in the over-stuffed chair and stared into the fireplace watching the flames mate with the shadows it cast within its brick enclosure. Picking up the glass of red wine, he watched it swirl and felt his complete calm slide away from him. He could hear Syn whispering to him again.

As the glass shattered against the brick he pressed his fingers against his left temple knowing he’d just woken up his midnight snack.

The luscious brunette sat up in the bed to his left and pouted seeing she was alone on the sheets. Climbing out of the covers, she made a show of sensually crawling toward him across the mattress but he didn’t give her time to think it was going to work. Faster than the human eye could detect, Damon was beside the bed with his fingers wrapped firmly around her throat.

It wasn’t meant to mar her beauty or hurt her, only to keep her still as his pupils expanded and he placed her completely under his thrall. Up until this point, he’d had no need to do so. She’d been a most willing partner but it was now time to end their lovely friendship. Slowly opening his mouth he revealed the sharp fangs. He didn’t know why he did it, girls always reacted the same.

Her eyes widened in horror and he quickly choked off the scream that was making its way through her dimmed mind. Mortal girls were useless… just like Katie had been. He could still hear the crunch of metal and it darkened his mood.

“I’m going to do you a favor little girl.” One corner of his lip lifted in the hint of a sarcastic smile, “You came to LA to be a model, but this city is full of other little girls wanting the same thing so this is what you are going to do. Trust me… it’s for the best.”

He pulled her closer and gazed deeper into her eyes. “You hate it here. You hate LA and want to go back to whatever small town you crawled out of. If you stay here, the monsters will use you up just like I did. Go home and find the boy whose heart you broke when you split town and beg his forgiveness because no one will ever want you here.”

He let go of her neck watching her blink back tears as she hit the mattress. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to her cry. “You need to leave… now.” He turned his back to her and strode across the room to glare out the window. As far as he was concerned he’d just done his good deed for the day. This city was a mess anyway.

Out of the corner of his vision he saw a few young vampires flit around the corner of a building and into an alley. He wondered where all the soulless creatures had come from since LA seemed to be overrun with them.

He’d forgotten all about the girl on his bed until he heard the door to the penthouse slam… yeah, he’d done her a favor. She was lucky he’d found her instead of the monsters that were crawling the streets of LA right now… and he wasn’t just talking about the paranormal. He opened the balcony doors and stepped out into the night air inhaling deeply.

He’d left the rolling hills of the quiet city the moment he’d felt Syn start to stir within his grave. Being so close to the vampire, he’d actually felt Syn’s awakening coming on for months and he hadn’t wanted to stick around for the reunion. Syn had little tolerance for the soulless and right now Damon was well aware that his soul was weak. He had a flashback of what Kane’s soul had looked like at the church and wondered if his own soul was in that bad of shape.

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