Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series) (13 page)

Because he’s like a mountain to us. Strong, sturdy, unbendable—unbreakable.

When she pulled into the clinic, she saw the normally vacant parking lot crammed with vehicles, most of them haphazardly parked, as if they had been abandoned by drivers in tremendous hurries. Elliott didn’t even wait for her to cut off the engine; when she dropped the car in park, he unsnapped his seat belt with one hand and threw the door wide with the other. By the time Naima and Kate had stepped out of the car, he was barreling up the front steps two at a time, racing for the front entrance.

“He just…he loves Michel so much,” Kate said softly, her voice cracking with tears. “He’s like a hero to Elliott…”

Or a mountain,
Naima thought again.
He’s our mountain. This family would fall apart without Michel.

A large patio deck wrapped around the front exterior of the clinic, and as Naima climbed the stairs, she saw familiar faces everywhere, family members—many of whom she hadn’t seen in decades—clustered together. Past the glass doors and inside the clinic foyer, she could see more of the same—kith and kin pressed shoulder to shoulder, many of them embracing one another, clinging together, like shipwreck survivors on the morning after their offending tragedy.

It’s not possible,
she told herself, even as she waded through this heavy throng, all-too aware of just how
silent
everything was, and how heavy and suffocating that silence felt.
It’s not possible. Not Michel.

And then she saw Augustus near the nurse’s station. He was on his knees, cradling his face in his hands. Eleanor had knelt beside him, her arms wrapped around him. When Naima approached, they both looked up at him. Gone was the superior smugness she thought she had seen in his face as they’d stood together along the shores of Emerald Bay. She’d hated him in those moments—and for many long years before that. But when Augustus looked up at her, his eyes filled with a desperate sort of anguish that told her more than any words ever could, she found she no longer could.

And she understood that Michel, her grandfather—her mountain—was gone.

With a strangled cry, Naima
rushed away. She heard Eleanor call out after her, but she ignored her friend’s pleas, her proffered comfort. She saw where many of the men in the clan had gathered together, near the door to one of the patient rooms, and she knew Michel would be there.

“Get out of my way,” she snarled, and she used her arms and hands, along with her telekinesis to shove a path through them. “I said get out of my way!”

“Naima…” She felt someone catch her by the arm—Rene. Like everyone else, he looked stunned, his eyes glassy and shadow-rimmed, his face pale and haggard. “Hold on,
chère.
You don’t want to go in there.”

“Yes, I do,” she snapped, wrenching herself free.

His brows lifted, pleading. “Listen to me,” he said. “Naima, please. You don’t want to remember him like this.”

He reached for her again, and she uttered another furious cry, blasting out with her telekinesis and knocking Rene—and everyone else in her immediate vicinity—out of her path.
She was so close to losing it, she literally felt herself teetering, as if on the physical brink of a fugue. Her head was spinning, her breath hitching, nearly hyperventilating. Fists balled, brows furrowed, heart jackhammering beneath her breasts, she stormed through the doorway and into the small room beyond.

It had been set up for postoperative care
with a bevy of IV machines like inept sentries around the bed. The overhead lights were on, flooding the room with stark, pale light; against this backdrop, the blood on the white linens and tile floor stood out in gruesome contrast.

Someone had covered his face, but blood had soaked through the sheet in a grisly swath. By the time she reached the bedside, Naima was shaking uncontrollably, like she had a live electrical current running through her. She could hear voices behind her, telling her to stop as she reached out, fingers trembling, and pulled aside the sheet.

Breathe for me,
she remembered Michel saying, and he’d drawn in a long breath in tandem with hers. She remembered the warmth of his hands, the gentle heaviness of them pressed against her shoulders, and the brush of his breath as he’d exhaled near her ear.

Just breathe,
she told herself.

Michel’s eyes were closed. It occurred to her that he’d never open them again, and for a ridiculous moment, she couldn’t recall what color they were.
Just breathe,
she thought again—as much a plea to her grandfather as herself, because his skin was the greyish color of putty, his cheeks and eye sockets sunken and hollow. Beneath the shelf of his chin, past where a thick plastic tube ran from his mouth and down his throat to a nearby ventilator, she could see the wound, deep, pale-rimmed and terrible, with bright red meat visible between the deeply sliced margins.

Breathe for me, Michel,
she thought, and the tears that had been burning her eyes ever since she’d seen Augustus suddenly spilled, cascading down her cheeks in a hot, stinging flood.
Breathe for me, goddamn it, because you can’t be gone…you can’t be…!

She felt someone grab her roughly from behind, dragging her backwards, but she found she had no further fight left to offer in resistance. To her surprise, it was Rene who defended her, Rene who shoved
aside whichever brother, cousin, nephew or son had tried to remove her.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” she heard him shout as he enfolded her in his arms. He was warm, the palm of his hand strong and kind against the back of her head as he pulled her against his shoulder, and she could hear his heart beating through the thin fabric of his shirt. “Leave her alone, for fuck’s sake, you
salaud!”

He tucked his face down, his nose brushing her cheek and when she looked up, she saw his eyes were green. Just like Michel’s. “I’ve got you,” Rene murmured, leading her from the room. “I’ve got you,
chère.”

***

He brought her into an empty patient room and helped her sit in a chair. He knelt in front of her, holding her hands between his, rubbing them gently.

“Hey,” he said. “
Look at me. You alright,
chère?
You good?”

Rene knew better than anyone about her fugues. It had been during one recent episode that she’d telekinetically hurled him
into the hood of his car. But there wasn’t fear in his eyes as he asked her this. There was only heartfelt concern.

“Yes,” she whispered with a nod
, closing her eyes.

Rene cupped her face between his hands, making her look at him. “D
on’t you think of him like that. Don’t remember him that way,
chère.
You hear me? He wouldn’t want that, Naima—not for you. Not for anybody. He’d want you to remember all the good things that have happened, all the good times you’ve shared.”

He hugged her again. “
Don’t let the son of a bitch who did that take your memories away, too,” he whispered. “Don’t let that be the way you remember your granddaddy.”

She nodded again. An anguished little mewl escaped her lips, and she clapped her hand over her mouth, more tears spilling.

“Is she alright?” came a voice from the doorway.

Naima looked past Rene’s shoulder and was surprised to see a tall, thin man standing there. His long, thin, nearly prim features belied his Morin heritage; Michel had always remarked that his oldest son, Phillip, looked more like his mother than Michel’s side of the gene pool.

“She’s shook up, is all,” Rene said, wincing a little as he stood; she heard the soft, mechanical whine of hydraulic hinges in his prosthetic leg. “Can’t really blame her for that, though, no?”

“I…I didn’t know you were here, Phillip,” Naima said, clearing her throat and dragging the side of her hand across her cheeks to dry her tears. Why it would embarrass her to weep in front of
Phillip, but not Rene, she didn’t know. “Elliott said you weren’t coming.”

“
My father was shot.” Phillip looked mildly insulted. “And now he’s been murdered. I’m the oldest son. There’s no other place I
should
be but here.”

Nice sentiment, considering I haven’t seen you in at least seventy years,
Naima thought drily, but she bit back this comment aloud. Like everyone else, Phillip looked genuinely grief-stricken and stunned by Michel’s murder. Now would neither be the time nor the place for squabbling.

“Where’s Mason?” she asked.

“He’s locked himself in the office across the hall,” Phillip replied, the corners of his mouth turning down in a frown. “He’s probably passed out drunk by now.” Turning his attention to Rene, he said, “Will you be ready in about fifteen? We’ll be tracking through the woods again, teams of four this time.”

“Yeah.” Rene nodded. “I’m in.” With a glance down at Naima, he added, “How about it,
chère?
Up for a little hunting?”

“You don’t even know who you’re hunting for,” Naima said.

Because if it wasn’t Aaron, that
means someone else is out there—someone who killed my grandfather.

“We do now,” said Phillip grimly. He opened his mouth to say more, but then glanced over his shoulder and stepped aside as Augustus strode into the room. He’d apparently collected himself somewhat; his expression was no longer grief-stricken or pained, but rather stonily cold, like a piece of statuary carved out of granite.

“His name is Aaron Davenant,” Augustus said, locking gazes with Naima.

She struggled not to let her surprise—and dismay—outwardly show.
You’ve been talking to Eleanor
, she said, in her mind this time, her brows narrowing.

At
your
earlier suggestion, yes,,
he countered with a curt nod.
And with circumstances being as they currently are, she decided to tell me what she knew. I doubt Phillip and the rest of your family would be as understanding as I have been. Perhaps you should be grateful that I’m so…how did you put it? ‘Good at keeping secrets.’

Naima glared at him
.

Any other secrets I should know about, child?
he asked.
Such as Aaron Davenant’s current whereabouts? You wouldn’t be privy to that information, now would you?

Go fuck yourself, Augustus,
she told him hotly.

“I found
Aaron listed in the Morin clan Tome that my granddaughter discovered hidden in Louisiana,” Augustus continued aloud. “However, it was not a name with which I was readily familiar, as I can tell you from the best of my own recollection, it no longer appears in any other records I’ve seen. However, I remember Lamar having a son who died at a relatively young age. I called my brother Benoît and asked him to verify in the Noble Tome in Kentucky. It was indeed Aaron Davenant.”

This time, Naima couldn’t hide her surprise, and was glad both Rene and Phillip happened to be looking at Augustus, and not in her direction.

What?
she thought in stricken disbelief.
Lamar told them Aaron was dead?

“It’s no secret Lamar and Allistair Davenant orchestrated the fires that drove your clan from Kentucky in
1815,” Augustus said grimly. “After that, they always contended that Aaron was killed during the raids, that his horse was spooked by the smoke and reared, throwing him headlong into a stone retaining wall. They said he was killed instantly from the impact.”

That’s not true,
Naima thought.
That’s impossible—Aaron wasn’t with his father on the night of the fires. He was at the Davenant great house. He helped me escape!

“If he’s supposedly been dead for two hundred years, what makes you think he’s our guy?” Rene asked with a frown. “And
if he’s not dead, why would the Davenants hide that from the rest of the clans? That’s how you decide who’s King of the Mountain out there in Kentucky, isn’t it? The clan with the most sons wins? As big into dominance as you’ve always claimed the Davenants to be, I find it hard to believe they’d have kept him a secret for so long—not when it could’ve made the difference in them having control of the Brethren.”

“
I find it hard to believe, too,” Augustus conceded, and though she was loathe to admit it, so did Naima. “There must have been some advantage to them to do so…one Lamar considered even greater than dominance.”

In Naima’s mind, she heard him add coolly:
Perhaps you should ask him and find out.

CHAPTER TEN

After Naima left, Aaron found himself staring at the chrome showerhead above him.
All around him, the hillside chateau was silent. He’d heard muffled voices from outside as Naima had left with the hippie-guy and the human, the slamming of car doors and the fading whine of an engine as they drove away. Then silence, except for the slow, sporadic drip of water from the showerhead.

The first one had hit him squarely in the forehead, making him sputter in surprise. That was when he’d first looked up and noticed it. He’d shifted his position a couple of times since then to avoid the drip, and now it landed somewhere just behind his right shoulder, making a soft
plink
as it hit the porcelain tub.