Cade was at his desk when his brother suddenly burst into the huge office.
"Tyran!" He exclaimed, swiping a certain item off the top of his desk and shoving it into his breast pocket as Tyran stalked forward. "You're back!" He surreptitiously rubbed some powdery substance off his nose.
"You son of a bitch!" Tyran roared, grabbing Cade by the front of his shirt and shoving him up on his feet.
"What's wrong, Tyran? Didn't you find the slaves?" Cade asked in alarm. He was just as tall and large as his brother, though Tyran was definitely broader in shoulder, and tough as a street fighter. Cade never really liked crossing him. So what was this about?
"Oh, I found them alright," Tyran said through furiously clenched teeth. "I found a barely-legal trio of runaways, innocent victims and not the escaped hoodlums you had me believe I was after!"
Cade's hands went over Tyran's choking fists. He looked genuinely confused. "What do you mean? Linfold was the one who gave me the info, that three dangerous slaves had escaped. They'd even killed the guard who tried to stop them..."
"Linfold is a lying piece of dung," Tyran spat, his face so close to Cade's the tips of their noses were almost touching. "Just how do you figure in all this, Cade? Trading in kids, turning them into whores and slaves? Is that your thing now?"
Cade's eyes widened in disbelief, and he shook his head firmly. "I swear to you, Ty, that I have nothing to do with any of that. It's true that I hold some business interests with Linfold, but I'd never deal in innocent kids. I have my eternal soul to worry about, you know."
"Oh, sure," Tyran sneered, letting his brother in go abruptly. He noticed something fell from Cade's pocket to the floor, and saw Cade reach quickly for it - but Tyran was quicker.
He snatched the tiny nylon sac from the floor, opening his fist to see the small wrapped bag of reddish powder.
Tyran looked up into Cade's guilty expression, saw the tell-tale spaced-out pupils he'd never seemed to notice before. And suddenly, realisation dawned.
"Drugs, Cade?" He asked softly, subdued fury in every syllable. "That's why you need the money you get from your slaving "business" with Linfold, huh? You're a fucking addict!"
He threw the bag at his brother in disgust, and it thudded against Cade's chest and fell to the floor.
"I can explain, Tyran ..."
"Oh sure, sure," Tyran muttered, turning away because he couldn't bear to look at Cade, so furious he couldn't be responsible for his actions. The anger he'd carried all the way from that scene in the motel room had intensified to dangerous porportions...
"I understand perfectly, Cade. You can't help being the spoiled selfish son of Gelder the Apex, can you? I mean, with you being a vampire by birth; next in the bloodline to head the Brookside clan.... Yeah, I can see how much you've suffered all your life - "
"Not everyone can be like you, Tyran!" Cade cut through, coming forward to grip his brother's coated arm, his own tone angry now. "And I never was as strong..not in willpower, at least. Unlike you, I have my weaknesses just as everyone else."
"You really believe that?" Tyran growled, resisting the urge to throw off Cade's hand. "You really think I don't have my own inner battles?"
"If you do, you never get to show them," Cade replied, somewhat bitterly. "You, who've kept yourself clean all these years...you don't let the redlust get to you. Sometimes I wonder how much of you really turned - if you truly have the vampire curse - "
Tyran laughed harshly, without humour, as he finally turned away from Cade, going to stare out the window at the spread of the city below. Daytime, the sun out but harmless in the temperate region they'd taken root in.
"You know better than that, Cade," was all Tyran said, shoving his hands into his coat.
Cade stared at his brother's implacable back. "I do know that in your heart you believe you're better than us. That you're...above it all: the Drinking, the Eternity. It means nothing to you."
"And it means everything," Tyran snarled, swirling to face Cade once more. "I suffer far more than you, brother, trust me. I feel the thirst like a black poison in my veins. Some days I can barely see straight for hunger... And sometimes, just being yards away from humans makes me fit to go insane with the desire to tear into their flesh and drink straight from their open veins... I've barely made it, Cade, living on wild blood as I have all these years. It's a thin survival, but I survive nonetheless."
"Well, this helps me survive too, Tyran," Cade said simply, crouching to pick up the fallen pouch. "Keeps me from remembering or even thinking, sometimes. Helps me...forget."
He saw Tyran's quizzical frown, and smiled hollowly. "You always wondered, didn't you, what happened two years ago? The reason why I could never again face a cross the way you still can?"
Despite himself, Tyran perked with interest as he looked Cade's way. It was true; Tyran had always been curious about that. When they'd been much younger, they'd sworn to eachother that they would be clean vampires, would stick only to wildblood, not human's. And then something had gone wrong two years ago. Cade had come home one night, soaked in fresh human blood, and wild-eyed. It had taken days for him to return to normal, but he'd never confided in Tyran about how he had finally given in.
"It was just that once...," Cade began, his voice studiously neutral, devoid of emotion.
"He was so beautiful, Tyran. And so innocent. Golden hazel eyes and dark, glowing skin. I loved him so much...and yet I killed him."
Tyran frowned. "Who, Cade? Who was it?"
Cade shook his head, waving his hand in the air. "It..doesn't matter. I met him one night, at a club on Vyse strip. He was with some girl, and I also had a date along. But by the end of the night we'd ditched both our chicks and left the club together.
"I took him back to a hotel. I don't think I've ever wanted someone as badly or as deeply as I wanted him..wanted him completely. And he trusted me so much. He knew what I was, but he wasn't scared. He was so sure I would never hurt him. And I swear, Tyran, it was never what I intended. But somehow...I snapped."
Cade sighed raggedly, shoving shaky fingers through his hair. "He gave himself totally to me..time and time again. And it was the most perfect thing, Tyran. For the first time in my life, I felt I could love someone as much as myself. When I was one with him, it felt so natural, like we'd been matched since the time of Eden."
His eyes were faraway now, unfocused. Tyran listened, not interruting as Cade went on,
"It was close to midnight...and once again, I had reached for him. As ever, he was willing, open to my every passionate demand. The pleasure was indescribable. And then...things started to go horribly wrong."
Cade grimaced, as if it actual physical pain. "Till today, I can't explain what made things take a turn. Maybe..maybe I wasn't ready; too young to understand and control the intensity of the many different emotions I was going through all at once. For a moment, his throat was bared innocently to me - so I bit him. It was meant to be just a pinch. I told myself I simply wanted to "mark" him as mine. But then...I couldn't stop. That first taste...gosh."
He put his hand over his face for a moment. Tyran knew exactly what he meant, but continued to listen silently, not contributing to Cade's tortured narrative.
"I drank, and I drank... And you know, Tyran, he never struggled. Maybe if he had, I'd have been able to help myself. If he had fought or even protested... But he didn't. Perhaps his trust, his love was so complete in believing I would withdraw at the point of danger. Needless to say, I didn't."
His hand fell from his face as he sought out Tyran's gaze. "I must have blacked out at some point, because I woke up to find him dead beside me. Torn to pieces by my own hands, which were covered in his blood. My whole body was covered in it! I felt almost dizzy with the intoxication that still roiled within me from all that blood. And yet, I was sick to my stomach. How could I have done it? Killed the one thing in the world I'd ever cherished?"
He sighed raggedly. "I didn't know what to do. Then I remembered who owned the hotel - Linfold, one of our biggest Top Brass. I called him, and it was he who saw to it that everything was cleaned up. I managed to get back here without doing something to stupid to myself - though I wished I had. And for days all I could see was him,could still taste his fresh hot blood deep in my throat everytime I swallowed or even breathed...I went half-crazy with the nightmares, seeing him ripped apart by my own teeth and claws.
"And then, I realized that now I had crossed over, I had a choice. I could be the vampire I was meant to be; kill and drink of humans as I willed. Or, I could hold on to the last shred of my sanity, and win back my soul from hell.
"But I couldn't do it alone," he added with a helpless shrug. "I mean I tried, but it was no use. So I started to use a little...something. It was always only meant to get me through the day, and then keep me asleep at night so I wasn't even awake when the hunger struck. But in time even those pills didn't work. So then I sought other ways...till Linfold started to get me the new drug..."
"The Mimick," Tyran put in, his lips slightly curled in distaste. He knew all about the narcotic, a drug developed by human scientists in their own little attempt at self-preservation, and the conservation of their kind. It was the vampire cocaine, so to speak. Only, it gave the same kind of sensation as feeding on human blood; it "mimicked" the taste and helped sate the hunger by replacing it with a heart-pumping high. Tyran had never felt the urge to mess with it. He distrusted anything that didn't let him have full control at all times. A narcotic was a narcotic, whether it was for a good cause or not.
"You can stop turning your nose up at me," Cade said bitterly, choosing his own interpretation of Tyran's expression. He held the little envelope up. "This thing has virtually kept me alive, Tyran; kept me sane. And I can kick the habit when I want to. That's the best part."
Tyran huffed, disbelief written all over his face. Cade scowled, smarting. "I don't need to explain myself to you, anyway. I'm going to be the next in line, not you. So your opinion doesn't really count."
Tyran smiled a little twisted, humorless smile. "Yeah, I figured out that bit at the part where you chose to go to Linfold instead of coming to me for help. But I'm to blame for that too, I guess, like I am for everything else. I'm the bad guy."
"Tyran, hey..."
"Forget it," Tyran snapped, recoiling from Cade's remorseful tone. Tyran was out the door moments later.
He couldn't believe how angry he was, how almost powerless it felt. He walked quickly and almost blindly through the city streets, covering miles of road before he realised how far he strayed.
He paused in front of a coffee shop. It was the up-scale kind, with trendy decor and classy facilities. He hesitated for a moment, then walked in. He loved the smell of coffee; it soothed him, though he couldn't taste it. He'd just nurse a cup for a half hour, he decided, while he tried to figure out his next plan of action. He knew that soon, the time would come to take some sort of stand.
