Chapter 33

It took three days for anyone to brave the fortress as Melisa jokingly called it whenever she dropped off food for me. I was surprised it was Janet who braved the walls first. She sat to my right and stared at me.

"How long are you going to stay out here?" she asked seriously.

I shrugged.

"You're too good for them to find you," she said confidently.

I turned to look at her.

"Okay!" she said looking away. "Next Sibling to bat."

She stood up and patted my hand.

"You know where I live when you decide that they're not coming for you. Okay, babez?" she said leaning down to kiss my temple.

Doris Alex must have been elected as the next one to try to breach my defenses.

"I see why you like Rachel," she said which was a major non sequitur considering what I was waiting for.

"She's a passionate lover; once you get past the entitled attitude," she continued.

I nodded.

"You're not even going to ask what we were doing on your bed," she said with a smile.

"I thought it was fairly obvious what you spent most of the night doing on my bed," I replied.

"Okay; but you're not going to ask why were doing it?" she asked.

"You want Melisa," I said. "Rachel wants things to stay the same... always. Melisa wants everything."

She studied me for a minute and looked away grumbling.

"I hate when you do that," she said annoyed.

"Do what?"

"Take the fun out of you being male," she said with a smirk. "Women are not supposed to be that easy to read."

"You're not just a woman," I pointed out.

"Huh?"

"You're a Sibling; I'm a Brother," I said by way of explanation. "You wouldn't be a Sibling if it were any other way."

"Yeah, but it's still disconcerting to hear a Brother blurt out what I want; most are a little more discreet," she said.

"I'm not in the mood for discretion right now," I told her.

She looked around the backyard and then at the box under my hand.

"Janet's right, you know. You're too good for them to have anything," she said.

"We'll see," I said simply.

She nodded and let the subject drop. I turned my head as I heard the cars pull into the driveway. Car doors slammed shut and I watched their approach. Roderigo led the pack as if this was the moment of his ascension. Anna with Leonard pushing her wheelchair, Robert and two male Siblings followed Roderigo to my table.

Roderigo had the innate politeness to wait for everyone to settle down; although, it might have been that Anna did not take kindly to impoliteness. Robert sighed after he took his seat and waved the two male Siblings aside. They stood post a few feet from the table: one behind Robert and the other behind Roderigo.

"You should go inside, dear," Anna told Leonard. "This is going to get fairly ugly, and I don't like bruises on your pretty body."

Leonard raised an eyebrow. It was obvious he wanted to stay to see what Anna would consider ugly; he obeyed her nonetheless. Doris Alex stood up to follow him inside.

"Sit down, dear," Anna ordered.

Doris Alex automatically did as the Brother commanded.

"If you must do this, Roderigo," Robert said with a lazy gesture. "Now is probably the best time."

Roderigo was almost vibrating with a desire to come at me. I was about to discover that for a Brother, Roderigo was something of a hothead.

"How dare you endanger us with this!!!" he said angrily to me.

"So kill me or try," I replied.

It halted his charge.

"It's what the Brotherhood does to a Brother who endanger the rest of us, isn't it?" I asked. "So obviously, it's not the murders that you have a problem with."

"You told no one what you were going to do," he said between gritted teeth.

"I told them," I said nodding to Anna and Robert. "Samantha and Jeremy also knew."

I could hear his teeth grinding together.

"You didn't tell anyone that you planned to do it out in the open," he stated. "You could have at least done it Samantha's way."

"Samantha's way unnecessarily risked not getting both of them," I said with a shrug.

"Anybody could have walked out of the bar right after you killed these two animals," he said.

"They would have died."

"The cops could have gotten lucky with an eyewitness and found you in the funeral home," he insisted.

"They wouldn't have called it lucky at the memorial service for their fallen brethren."

"Is that your answer for everything?" he asked in annoyance. "Kill. Kill. Kill."

"I don't consider that word an answer," I said. "On the other hand, it is a conclusive solution."

"There is no talking to you is there, David?" he asked sitting back as if he had made a decision.

I waited.

"You are not to do this again," he ordered.

I smiled and broke out laughing.

"This is not funny, David," he insisted.

"Am I not to do this again, or am I not to do this again... until you tell me to?" I asked in Jason's voice.

Anna backed her wheelchair up.

"The Brotherhood tells you what to do," he pronounced.

Robert sucked in a harsh breath.

"You don't tell me anything," I said and that time Jason was speaking through me.

"I didn't say I was telling you not to do this again, the Brotherhood is telling," he said to clarify.

"I don't remember being told that you speak for the Brotherhood," I said. "I think that you are trying to put me under your thumb."

"You serve the Brotherhood."

"No, I do not."

"You serve the Council."

"No, I do not."

"Brothers do not do as they please!"

"You're right, they don't," I said looking at him.

"What I am doing is different," he said in a hard voice after a few seconds.

I laughed again.

"Why are you laughing?"

"This is the closest you've ever been to death, isn't it?" I asked him.

"What do you mean?" he asked warily.

"I'm not going to do what you want, Roderigo," I said. "Not now, not ever. It was a good try but you don't walk out of here without understanding that your thumb isn't big enough."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Are you telling me what I can and can't do?" I asked.

Roderigo had no love for a stalemate, which is where we ended up after my question. He was a hothead but one with a greater degree of control than most. Roderigo studied me and decided that the beginning was the best place to try again.

"You endangered the Brotherhood with this foolishness," he said.

"Are you going to tell me, in front of a Sibling, that those two assholes did not deserve to die?" I asked him seriously.

He looked at Doris Alex and hesitated.

"You didn't do it for the Sibling," he said with a snort.

"No, Roderigo. I didn't but do you think any of them will care why I did it?" I asked him.

He was quiet for thirty seconds. He took a deep breath and tried again.

"David, Brothers do not willfully risk exposing the Brotherhood in the way that you did."

Roderigo was also a tad bullheaded. I turned my head to the street as I heard the police sirens. They came closer and closer but at my corner turned left instead of right. My hand had opened the box and my fingertips touched the forty-fives. Anna sighed as the sirens faded away.

"Damn!" she said disappointingly.

I watched her put a pair of small pistols away. She shrugged delicately when I raised an eyebrow at her.

"The Brotherhood should never have let you in," Roderigo stated.

"I'm glad it wasn't your decision," I told him.

"Any mistake can be corrected," he said threateningly.

Anna hissed out a breath but bit her tongue.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" I asked Roderigo.

"No, David," he said shaking his head. "You're a throwback; we no longer needs Brothers like you."

"In that case," I said. "Let's end this farce my way."

I yanked one of the grenades that I had taped to the bottom of the table free. I pulled the pin and dropped it on the table. I set the grenade down in the middle of the table. The two Siblings stepped forward pulling automatics from inside their jackets. Robert stepped away from the table and looked at the Sibling who had stood behind him a second ago. The Siblings pointed their guns at my head; the forty-fives were waiting for them. We stared at each other across the barrels of four guns; two pointed at me, and the two I aimed at their heads.

"That's impossible!" Doris Alex declared in a sick voice.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Roderigo yelled at the same time looking at the Sibling who had bumped him out of the way to get to me.

Lucky for us, Anna had calmly stretched out and re-pinned the grenade. The Siblings stared at me with rabid hatred in their eyes. Jason and I smiled at them. Robert and Roderigo reached into their jackets and pulled out revolvers. I smiled wider; everyone brought a dance partner. The Brothers placed the barrels of their guns against the Siblings' temples.

"Put the gun down, Sibling," Robert ordered.

The Siblings hesitated.

"That's impossible!" Doris Alex whispered.

Both Brothers pressed their gun against the Siblings' heads even harder.

"I've never hurt a Sibling in my life," Roderigo said in a deadly voice. "But I will not allow any of you to stand between Brothers."

The Siblings un-cocked their weapons and set them on the table slowly. They took a step back from the table. Both refused to look at any Brother. Roderigo turned towards me.

"You're brave with grenades and guns," he said challengingly.

I had to give Roderigo credit; the grandson of a bitch did not let shit go for any reason. I smiled and put the forty-fives away. I gestured to the open area to the left of the table. He put his revolver on the table. He took off his jacket and did a little stretching before walking to where I had pointed.

"You might as well join him," I told the two Siblings.

They smiled menacingly as they turned to stand behind Roderigo.

"That's impossible," Doris Alex whispered again.

They seemed to be the only words left in her vocabulary.

I stepped around the table at walked towards the three waiting men. Roderigo charged as soon as was I was in the clear. It was as effective as an SUV ramming a tank when both were raced towards each other. I turned my head in a snapping motion to blunt his punch. It was not necessary but it helped deflect his attention from the counterblow, a short right hook to his jaw. I did not have the blinding speed of Jason, but the punch was crisp. Roderigo never saw it. I stepped over his body moving towards the Sibling to my left.

The Siblings were mentally built to give a Brother the lead. It was a mistake in this case because Roderigo was the best fighter among the three of them. The Siblings should have attacked first creating a hole for Roderigo to strike through.

The Sibling set and threw a punch that I ducked. I grabbed his wrist as he pulled it back. I extended his arm to slam my shoulder into his armpit. I felt the pop as his shoulder dislocated. I stepped under his arm and dragged him into the legs of the other Sibling. As that Sibling tripped over his compatriot, my knee struck the side of his head knocking him out. I waited for the still conscious Sibling to drag himself from under the pile before I kick him unconscious too. I walked to the table and sat back down.

"That's impossible. That's impossible," Doris Alex said raising her voice until she was yelling. "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Go get me a couple pitchers of water, dear," Anna told her.

Doris Alex stomped inside the house. We sat quietly enjoying the fresh air until she returned. She slammed the tray of pitchers and glasses on the table. The way she powered her ass into the chair made me wince. Doris Alex was a very unhappy Sibling for some reason.

Anna wheeled over to Roderigo with one of the pitchers in her lap. She dumped the contents of the pitcher on his face. He sat up slowly after regaining consciousness. His eyes focused on her after shaking his head a couple of times. They whispered to each other for a minute. Roderigo used her chair to get up unsteadily. He waited for his legs to solidify underneath him before he walked into the house. Anna returned to us with a wicked little smile on her face.

"You're such a fine boy," she said proudly while patting my hand. "The grenade thing surprised me though. Lucky for all of you, I still have a strong ticker."

Robert seemed to find that extremely amusing. Roderigo came out of the house a few minutes later. He had dried himself off. His hand tested his jaw tentatively as he looked at the fallen Siblings. He turned towards me and we stared at each other after he sat down.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" he exclaimed finally. "How the fuck did you get so strong?"

Anna snickered.

"Don't shit me, Anna, I'm good," he told her. "Maybe not as good as any of the Enforcers, but at least as good as one of the Foot. I hit him with everything I had and he walked through it like it was nothing. I've NEVER been hit the hard; it felt like I got punched by a fucking semi."

"He's got very clean technique; incredibly precise aim," Anna said critically looking at me. "He's probably stronger than anyone you'll ever meet that isn't a power-lifter, but unlike most of those he can apply his strength which makes him far more dangerous. I don't doubt he could have taken your punch full-bore either, but that's irrelevant since you pulled it."

"What?" Roderigo asked amazed.

"You heard me," Anna chided.

"No, I did not," he said looking at me.

I nodded in response.

"Shit!" he said angrily.

"You're a dojo fighter," Anna explained. "You spar lower belts too often; you need to control yourself too much with them. Most people at your level are not your equal either so you intimidate them into passivity. You're good, Roderigo, but you've never faced someone whose life depended on their skills."

"Hmmm," Roderigo said thoughtfully. "How do I avoid the sparring problem in the future in the future?"

He was not humbled; he saw a problem and it was his nature to fix.

"I can arrange for you to practice with the Foot," Anna told him. "Also except for the Foot's exercises, Leon will be in isolation for the next two years. I'm much too old to keep his edge sharp, but you'll do nicely."

Roderigo nodded firmly. He grabbed his jaw to check it one last time and sat back to stare at me.

"Not pulling your punch wouldn't have made a difference," I told him. "Even Jason would never go toe to toe with me. If you wanted to trade, it was the most efficient way to put you down."

He nodded again and sighed.

"I've read the fucking file but I still don't understand," he said. "There's people who are naturally strong but not THAT much stronger."

"The Bloodlines were not bred, Roderigo," Anna said looking at me. "But every scion of the First Ten Siblings that swore oath to the Brotherhood have been presented with the best possible mates to choose from."

Roderigo looked at me, at Doris Alex, at Anna, then at Robert. Robert nodded to affirm whatever was going through Roderigo's head.

"That's im..." he started but stopped to look at Doris Alex again.

She was still staring at the unconscious Siblings with a confused expression.

"I have made a personal study of the First Ten and their Bloodlines," Roderigo said after taking a deep breath and sitting back. "Only five Bloodlines survived even our best efforts to preserve all we have of the First Ten. None of those Five have any cadet branches, we've been too careful."

"The Ekaterina was never a robust Bloodline," Anna said not really answering Roderigo's statement of challenge. "None of its cadet branches ever lasted long. If it had not been for our care that line would have died long ago."

Roderigo's face looked as stunned as Doris Alex's had when the Siblings pulled their guns on me. He turned to stare at me. His eyes were almost vulnerable in amazement at whatever I represented to him.

"There's only been two Bloodline Brothers," he whispered.

"David makes three," Robert whispered back.

He shook his head suddenly and gave Anna a calculating look.

"The Ekaterina line died in the Nazi death camps," he said regaining enough solid ground to question her.

"We were wrong," Robert stated.

"How can we be sure of something like this?" Roderigo asked but in a voice that wanted to be convinced.

"We lost some Brothers and a greater number of Siblings to the insanity of that war," Robert said sadly.

"I always thought a Brother would have taken the hard way out. I wouldn't have gone to the camps," Roderigo said thoughtfully.

"It's been a mystery why they went to the camps quietly," Anna said. "But what would you do, Roderigo, if the continuation of a Bloodline was at stake."

"Anything!" Roderigo said with an almost religious fervor.

"You've read David's file, Roderigo," Robert said. "The difference between you and I is that I never disbelieved any of the eyewitness accounts of his military missions. You took it to be exaggeration or combat making more of a normal man than he could be anywhere else."

"Jesus," Roderigo exclaimed leaning his head back.

"Can you doubt it now?" Robert asked. "Three trained fighters cut down like wheat; even given the vast difference in life and death experience, you should have presented more of a challenge."

"David is as physically capable as Doris Alexander is brilliant, probably more so," Anna said with her eyes blazing.

"Mierda!" Roderigo said sitting up. "You should have told me, Robert. I'm not stupid enough to face that many generations of careful breeding."

"Except for the last few generations," Robert corrected. "I really wish we knew who David's father was. The Ekaterina was always the weakest of the surviving Bloodlines. Nothing like David should have been possible."

"We don't breed the Bloodlines," Anna said with a wave of her hand.

"Call it what you want Anna," Roderigo said seriously. "But this certainly explains why I lost Doris Alex to David."

"It's not all biology, Roderigo," Anna chided.

Roderigo snorted a laugh. He looked at me, and suddenly his eyes widened.

"That means his..." he said but was interrupted by Robert's hand slamming into the table.

"Enough, Roderigo," Robert said. "You are absolutely correct about what this means, but it is not time for that yet. We have something much more important to deal with."

The three Brothers turned on Doris Alex like sight hounds picking up movement in the bushes.

"Brother," Doris Alex said desperately to Robert. "What I just saw, it's impossible. Indoctrination does not allow it."

"Two Siblings stood between Brothers. Two Siblings disobeyed Brothers. Two Siblings threatened a Brother," Robert said pronouncing judgment.

"It's not possible," Doris Alex insisted. "The indoctrination is complete. Even a crested Sibling won't stand between their crested and another Brother. We obey. First comes the protection of the Brothers and the Society!"

"The council has suspected a gap in the indoctrination for a while," Robert told her.

"The Enforcers kill Brothers," Anna said. "When necessary, they kill Siblings also. They are our executioners."

"Enforcers are a danger to every Brother," Roderigo told Doris Alex. "Look at David, he is different from the rest of us. Too different in my opinion."

"A danger to every Brother when Siblings are indoctrinated to protect the Brotherhood, combined with a Brother unlike the rest of us," Robert said. "It is not a large gap, but one big enough to break a Sibling free of indoctrination."

"No!" Doris Alex yelled.

She was barely holding on to her mental control. Robert pushed his revolver to her.

"Pick it up, Sibling," he ordered.

Doris Alex did so automatically.

"Point it at Roderigo," Robert said.

Her hand shook but she managed it.

"Pull the trigger," Robert continued.

Her hand trembled so much that I was surprised she held on to the gun.

"Point it at David now," Robert commanded.

"Relax, David," Anna said. "It is necessary to make her understand how bad this really is."

The first noticeable sign was that her hand did not shake as much when she pointed the gun at me.

"Pull the trigger," Robert said.

Tears formed in Doris Alex's eyes. She looked at her hand like she wanted to cut it off. I took the gun out of her hand when her finger tightened on the trigger.

"No... no... no," she whispered.

She turned to Robert for comfort; the suffering of her soul ravaged her face.

"David's predecessor died with a knife through his heart," Robert said coldly. "There was no one in his house but Siblings. David has more potential than any Enforcer that the Brotherhood has recruited since Anna."

"He is born of the Sibling Bloodlines," Anna said. "This is only the third time that has ever happened. His potential is greater than mine."

"Regardless of that, no Enforcer or even a member of the Foot could be killed in his own house the way that Renard was," Roderigo pronounced.

"You told us the Foot executed him," Doris Alex said standing up and tipping over her chair.

"Renard was murdered by a Sibling," Robert told her.

Doris Alex's tears burned a path down her face. She shook her head madly until it seemed like she made herself from it. She collapsed to her knees and vomited through her sobs. Roderigo stood up to help her but was stopped by Anna's hand.

"Get Leonard," she said softly.

He looked at Doris Alex and back to Anna. He walked around the table to head into the house. Minutes later, Leonard came out carrying another tray of pitchers and a towel. Roderigo sat down as the Sibling knelt by Doris Alex. He helped her clean up and whispered comfortingly into her ear. She knelt there for fifteen minutes not paying attention to his ministrations. She rocked back and forth slowly as she fought for her sanity. She stood up finally and righted the chair. Leonard walked back into the house after Anna nodded towards it. Sitting down heavily, Doris Alex looked at all of us individually.

"Melisa?" she asked.

"You didn't really believe that the Brotherhood would allow sentimentality threaten our security?" I asked her.

"You told Melisa she was not indoctrinated because it made being inside different for you than being out there," she accused.

"It's true," I told her, "but if I were making the decision that would never be enough. There had to be some other reason that the Brotherhood would risk an un-indoctrinated Sibling. Sentimentality cannot become weakness, Doris Alex."

"The first person Melisa would tell if a Brother tried to turn her against David is David," Anna told Doris Alex. "Indoctrination is Sibling business; most Brothers would just assume Melisa has been through it."

"You'll have to tell her the real reason," Doris Alex insisted.

"I told her the real reason," I said.

"You lied to her!"

"Melisa conceives of the world in terms of the two of us, and that's it. Nothing else matters to her," I explained. "I've been through that before, what I told Melisa is her version of the truth."

"But she has to know," Doris Alex insisted. "She can't protect you if she doesn't know that all Siblings are a danger to you."

"Don't let the china doll looks fool you; that little bitch will cut your heart out over David any hour of any day," Anna told her. "If you tell her that every Sibling is a danger to David, no Sibling will be safe from her desire to protect him. Melisa does not bear the Sibling indoctrination but her dad did something more subtle at my guidance."

"What?" Doris Alex exclaimed.

"Melisa has been pointed at David since she was ten years old," Anna said. "Sibling indoctrination is about finding the need or maybe the weakness that a Brother fills in a person and using it to tie that Sibling to us. Melisa's dad built on her strength; the love she feels for him. He built it up and up, then handed her to David."

"You knew all of this," Doris Alex said to me.

"It's not that hard to figure out, Doris Alex," I said patiently. "Like I said the reasons for keeping Melisa un-indoctrinated are good but not enough to endanger two thousand lives. Her dad's manipulation was too obvious when seen from the outside."

"It took hundreds of years for Siblings to develop indoctrination," Anna defended to me. "We only had a few years and one girl to work with."

"You're all monsters," Doris Alex declared.

"Yes," I admitted. "We are."

"How could you do this to Melisa?" Doris Alex asked me.

"I did nothing to her," I said calmly. "It was all done before I ever met her."

"But," Doris Alex said still trying to get through to me.

"What was done to Melisa is nothing compared to indoctrination," Anna said harshly. "The Brotherhood risks her choosing to leave here everyday."

"That's impossible and you know it, Brother," Doris Alex said angrily.

"I also know those two Siblings shouldn't be lying unconscious because they assaulted a Brother. They meant to hurt David," Anna said. "Do you deny their intentions?"

Doris Alex gritted her teeth and looked at the two Siblings at the doorstep of fury.

"It's worse than you think, Doris Alex," I said with a sigh.

"How can it be worse?" she said.

"This Enforcer you're talking about," I said. "Their identity is a secret, isn't it?"

Robert nodded.

"Only the small branches have an Enforcer?" I asked.

"Yes," Anna said.

"It means no Brother in a small branch is safe from a Sibling," I concluded.

"No!" Doris Alex shouted standing up.

"Yes, Doris Alex," I said. "A Sibling can kill an Enforcer, but most Siblings and Brothers don't know who the Enforcer is. The only thing they know is that each small branch has one. If you can convince a Sibling that a small branch Brother is the Enforcer, you can walk them through the gap in the indoctrination. After that, you have a dead Brother if that's your goal."

Doris Alex collapsed into the chair and put her hands on her face.

"The Foot is also in the gap," Anna said.

Doris Alex barely had the strength to shake her head.

"I'm sorry, Doris," Anna said. "I sacrificed a member of the Foot to prove it. His own crested Sibling killed him."

Doris Alex showed her strength by not puking again. She took deep breath after deep breath to keep some modicum of control.

"The Foot do not kill Brothers or Siblings," she said defensively trying to hold on to something.

"The Foot are a single cell of Brothers who assist an Enforcer in their work," Anna said patiently knowing they had won. "They are his soldiers. I've trained this branch's Foot for the last thirty years. They are an extension of the Enforcer's purpose. It's not the hard to put them in the gap."

Doris Alex put her head on the table and cried brokenheartedly. The Brothers let her for five minutes.

"That's enough, Doris Alexander," Robert commanded.

Doris Alex raised her head proudly.

"The Bloodlines have served the Brotherhood since the First Ten swore oath," he said in a ritualistic tone. "The Siblings brought indoctrination to us in an effort to gain our trust. It is a trust we gave you, and it has been betrayed by the incompleteness of your efforts."

I thought that was a bit strong but I could almost hear Doris Alex's spine cracking as her back straightened at his words.

"We had high hopes for you, Doris Alexander," Robert said. "You could have changed the world with your intelligence but our Brotherhood is selfish. The failure of indoctrination has left us with two choices. The first is to disassociate the small branches from Siblings."

Doris Alex shook her head frantically.

"Eventually we will do the same with the larger branches and there will be no more Siblings in the Brotherhood," he said.

"Or?" she asked.

"Or you can fix the indoctrination," he said.

"It can't be done," Doris Alex cried. "It took centuries to develop it; building knowledge upon knowledge, experiment upon experiment, failure upon failure. Money in quantities people can't imagine was spent to fund the research outside the Society to perfect it."

"It is not perfect," Anna corrected.

"Brother," Doris Alex pleaded with Robert. "I can't do it in my lifetime."

"We do not expect you to," Robert told her. "But you can find the right path for those who come after you."

"It's a waste you know," Roderigo said looking at Doris Alex. "You could give everyone out there so much more."

"You sound like want me to choose disassociation," Doris Alex accused angrily.

"You will serve us or you will serve them," Roderigo said. "It makes no difference, Sibling. As much as we treasure the First Ten and their Bloodlines, the Siblings were never..."