Bane's Shadow

by KJ Dahlen

  “You intrigued me, little Cricket,” Bane admitted. “You looked a lot like your mother but there was enough Jessin in you too. You taught me several important lessons over the years. Then you told me honor was the one thing I couldn’t take away from you. It was all you had left.” Shaking his head, he told her, “It wasn’t all you had left, but you showed me it was the one thing you had in spades. Honor is something that I know well. It can make or break a man but you either have it or you don’t. You did your family proud in that department, girl.” He looked up at the house behind them. “This house belonged to my grandfather. I grew up here, he taught both me and your dad everything we needed to know here. We were so different, Orrin and I, but this house meant something to both of us. I thought you were all I had left, as Orrin and Grace were long dead. Cordelia and Michael were gone as well. I knew about the boy by then and I know you had your reasons for keeping his existence a secret. I could even respect that. I could see that you loved him and in the event that I didn’t come back from that mission, I wanted you to have something of me. Both you and Dusty.”

  “Then you got a second chance didn’t you?” Cricket asked. “And you took it.”

  Bane nodded. “Yeah, I certainly did. A chance to start over. I was finally able to ask Grace and Orrin to forgive me for years of hating them both when all I ever wanted from your mother was the chance to love her. Since then, I’ve realized I never did love her at all. Oh, I had some kind of feeling for her and maybe I did love her in my own way, the only way I knew how to back then.” He turned to Sarah and reached out for her hand. “But I soon found in this life I could find love, real love.”

  Cricket smiled and turned to Sarah, “Then I’m happy for you uncle. But why did you come back here now?”

  “After I took care of the threat to Dusty’s life, Leon asked me to visit him. When I showed up, he gave me a file. My old life wouldn’t let me break away from it and now it seems to be calling me back once again.” He looked over at Deke and shook his head. “When he was alive, my grandfather kept a wooden box. We were never allowed to know what was inside. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid but recently, I found something out that made me think about secrets and such.” He stood there and exhaled. “I’m hoping I can remember where the old man kept it and I’m hoping that what’s inside that box will be able to tell me if I have another brother or not.”

  “Another brother?” Cricket asked as she frowned.

  “A twin brother,” Bane clarified. “Leon showed me a birth certificate that said I was the first born of twins. I need to know if that is true. And maybe find out why my parents allowed my grandfather to raise me and later Orrin, when they should have been the ones to raise us both.”

  Deke dug a set of keys out of his pocket and held them out. “Then let’s go find that damn box.”

  Bane smiled slightly then held up his own keys. “I have one thanks anyway.”

  Bane grabbed Sarah’s hand and walked to the front door. Inserting his key in the lock, he opened the door. He stepped inside the house that was once his home.

  Chapter Five

  The house was mostly intact, though there were additions that must be for the children they housed here. It felt odd to see this. Especially in a place that had only housed two boys in its early days. It was newly painted and had touches of colors throughout. More appropriate than the grays and blacks of his lifestyle. The windows that had once been shuttered now allowed the sun to flood in. It was transformed from a place of darkness to one of light.

  Sarah tugged on his hand.

  He paused to look down at her. “No, my dear. It wasn’t this bright and cheerful.”

  Sarah nodded then kept looking around.

  He moved through the rooms on his quest to find the box his grandfather had.

  Everyone followed him and after a bit, he paused at a door. If they had left it alone, it would still be locked. He reached out and turned the knob.

  Deke finally spoke up, “They left it locked. There are so many rooms here that they didn’t need it yet.”

  Bane took a key from the ring he carried and opened the lock. He now entered his grandfather’s old bedroom. After the old man died, he took it over and slept here for many years. It was in this room he brought Grace into the fold and it was in this room that Grace and Orrin broke her vows.

  But after Grace and Orrin ran off, he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in here again, so he took another room over and this room had stayed the way it was that day when he returned early.

  His maid had kept this room dusted and fresh but it had been two years since he or anyone had last been here, so there was a layer of dust on everything. He went over to the window and threw the heavy curtains back causing a cloud of dust to fly.

  He barley held back a cough as the dust settled on top of the layer that was already there. Bane ignored it and walked over to the fireplace. The stones were blackened by the many fires that once heated the room but that wasn’t what he was after this time. He began feeling around the stones looking for a trigger that would open up a secret compartment his grandfather had put in.

  His fingers found the switch and he pressed it. The wall moved into the pocket door that was there.

  From behind him, Cricket and Sarah gasped.

  At the sound, Bane’s lips curled up slightly.

  “Good thing, they never used the room,” Sam commented. “Are there dead bodies in there?”

  Bane shook his head and answered honestly, “I never took my work home with me, Mr. Tory.” He stepped into the small room behind the stone wall. He looked over the shelves that were against the back wall and found the box that belonged to his grandfather once upon a time.

  He lifted it. However, it surprised him by being heavier than he would have thought. Carrying it out into the bedroom, he set it down on the table between the overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace. He looked over at the two women in his family. “You can see this as well,” he told Cricket and Sarah. “This is your history too.”

  Cricket shook her head. “It’s really not though, is it?”

  “Oh baby girl, it so is. If I have a brother, you still have another uncle no matter how much you want to deny our family, we all share the same blood,” Bane told her ruthlessly. He held out his hand and demanded her presence.

  Cricket stepped forward slowly.

  Bane opened the box and took out a note that rested on top of the contents. He raised it up and read it aloud,

  Bane, I know you will be the one to find this box when the time is right. Our family has always had its secrets, but you’ve known that for some time already. In that respect, you and I are a lot alike. Most people would say we lack a soul but that isn’t right either. Everyone has a soul, ours is just different than what they think it should be. I knew from the day you were born that you would be the next generation to carry on our family tradition.

  I noticed immediately that you were more like me than your father ever was. He was my son and I cared about him but he was too much like his mother to know me all that well. I assume you came looking for this box because you found your real birth certificate and you want answers. Well, I will try to give them to you.

  When my son, Frank was 22, he met your mother. Mary Elizabeth was a good enough girl I suppose, although I never really got to know her all that well. She was afraid of me and wouldn’t come around much. The first year they were married, they had you and your brother, twins. You were the bigger of the two of you and I could see right away you had what Mary Elizabeth called the curse of the Jessin family.

  They named you Bane and your brother Cane. As you began to grow, I noticed something. Your parents favored your brother over you. I suppose that was because he was more like them and you weren’t but it still bothered me that you were mostly ignored.

  Then there came a time when you were about two and half and your father, my Frank brought you to me late one night. Just you. He said you had done something to Cane a
nd your mother didn’t want the two of you together any longer.

  She said it wasn’t safe for Cane. I agreed to keep you, what else could I do? But I had rules if they were going to leave you with me, one of those rules was they had to stay away from you. They couldn’t come around and tell me how to parent a child that wasn’t mine. Your mother had no problem with that as I think she was afraid of us both. Your father was at least a little more reluctant but in the end, he agreed as well.

  You were a little younger than I would have liked but soon after you got here, I began your training, and you took to it like a duck to water. You watched, you listened, you learned. I had already made enough money to retire and work with you full time, so that’s what I did.

  I taught you everything I knew and then some. I tutored you in the art of self defense as well as in the type of schooling you would need to know. By the time you were eight, you were outstanding.

  The next time I saw your father, he brought me your brother Orrin. He finally told me what was really going on. Mary Elizabeth had left him and taken Cane with her. She found a little place down in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She had kicked both him and you out a few years before and that’s when he brought you to me as that was the only way she would accept him back into her life. Then they had Orrin as well. When Orrin was four, she decided he was more like you than she was comfortable with, so she told your dad to bring him to me as well.

  He told me he didn’t want to but he did to keep the peace in his dysfunctional family. However, on the way back to Hanover, he got into the car crash that left him severely injured. I told you and Orrin that they were both killed in the accident but that wasn’t true. It was however part of the deal we made.

  At the time, your mother was already dead to me. Your mother tried but to my mind, she didn’t try hard enough. Life can get to you when it doesn’t turn out the way you think it should go. You sometimes have to start all over when things happen but your mother never learned to do that. She liked to socialize with other people and it was hard to do that with your father being in a wheel chair. He went home finally, but he was never the same after that. After a few months, she walked out on both her husband and her last remaining son.

  Your dad struggled to be a father to Cane, but he couldn’t do that and keep up with his injuries, so the state stepped in and took Cane into foster care. Eventually, he was adopted into the Sayler family and as far as I know, he still lives in Hanover.

  I know I won’t live forever but I also know you will respect my wishes that no one finds the content of this box. This is between you and me. Orrin has a little more soul than you and I do and I don’t know where life will take either of you boys, but I tried to be fair and give you both enough of myself to get by in life.

  You both have a good education and knowledge that you can earn a good living and I hope you do. Frank and I, we never heard from your mother again and I have no idea where she might have ended up. To me, she was dead the moment she walked away from her husband and sons. She never once tried to see you and Orrin after your father brought you here. She never even tried to divorce Frank either. She didn’t want him but she didn’t want him to find another woman to replace her. I often feel that she was the one who had no feelings, as her actions proved this in the end.

  I’m sorry you had to find out about Cane through the words of a dead man but that’s how life goes sometimes. They say men born without a soul can’t love, but that’s not true at all. We can it is just a different kind of love we feel, as I’m sure you’ve come to understand. Orrin had just a little bit of the Jessin line in him but he had more of his mother in him too.

  You two boys made this old man proud. Raising you has been a privilege not many would ever get but I did.

  Grandpa

  The room remained silent.

  Bane didn’t say a word to anyone but he did pass the letter over to Bastian.

  Bastian nodded knowing what Bane wanted done and he passed the letter to James.

  Chapter Six

  Bane reached into the box and lifted out the first of many packets of papers. He opened it and saw it was his original birth certificate. The next page was his brother Cane’s birth certificate and finally the third page was Orrin’s. These were papers he’d never seen before. They didn’t look like the certificate he used to marry Grace with, or the one he used to get his passport with.

  He was almost fifty years old and just found out he’d been living a lie. Why had his grandfather lied to him? Didn’t he deserve to know the truth?

  He thought back to that time in his life. His grandfather had lived until Bane had gotten started in his chosen career. Even though he was older, his grandfather was still taking the odd job here and there. He still had his keen insight. Then at the age of 64, he was betrayed but it was too late to save him by the time Bane had found him. The old man died in his arms but he recognized the fact that Bane had come for him.

  After they buried him, Bane had torn through his paperwork but hadn’t found any names he could use to start the search for his grandfather’s killer. He couldn’t believe his grandfather hadn’t written down anything about his last job. He had always been methodical about keeping track of his jobs before. He even taught Bane his own method of bookkeeping and Bane had used that method all his working life. No one else would know what was written there but Bane knew.

  He hadn’t stopped looking for the man that had murdered his grandfather either. Even after twenty years. He sat down at the table and began looking through the packets of information in the box.

  When he pulled out a file he frowned as he looked down at the name on the file. Dexter Evans. He paused at the name. He knew that name. He looked up at James and handed him the file. “Can you run down this name as well? The bastard should still be in prison but I need to know for sure.”

  James looked at Bane silently for a moment then nodded.

  “How do you know he should be in prison?” Bastian asked.

  Deke and Sam looked interested in his answer as well.

  Bane sat back and the corner of his mouth tilted up. “Because I put the bastard away for fifty years, well 35-50 years, but there’s no way he should be out yet. It’s only been about fifteen years.”

  “What do you mean you put him in prison?” Sam asked. “I thought people like you always hid the bodies?”

  Bane turned to glare at the other man. “Normally, I did just that, but Dexter was just plain stupid. Not only that but he pissed me off by ordering me to do his ridiculous bidding and not paying me my fee. He thought I wouldn’t have a recourse against him when his check bounced. He gave me the 75 percent upfront but he told me the check wouldn’t go through until after the man he wanted dead was no longer breathing. I told him that wasn’t how things worked and he just shrugged, daring me to call the cops.”

  Sam let out a low whistle. “Didn’t he know that he was contracting a killer?”

  Bane just stared at them. “He was an idiot, like I said. As I never accepted a job I didn’t get paid for, he thought he didn’t have to pay me until the job was done. He knew my requirements up front, all my clients did. He just didn’t think my rules applied to him. I walked away but before I left town, I broke my own rules and warned his victim. His victim informed the police and because he pissed me off, the cops somehow got a hold of part of the file I had worked up about my clients. Granted, it was only part of the file but there was enough information to connect him to several crimes they were looking into at the time. They used what I found against him and he was sent to prison for a very long time.”

  “You made files of your clients?” Deke frowned. “Why?”

  Bane turned and looked at him. “A man I knew once told me to keep records of everything I did. He also told me to know who I was working with. To research the men who came to me before I agreed to work for them. The type of men I did jobs for are not good men, as good men don’t usually require my services. This way, I protected both of us. I never
used what I had against the men I took jobs for and they never had the chance to cheat me.”

  “But this man Dexter tried to?” Cricket asked softly.

  Bane shrugged. There was so much more he knew about Dexter Evans but he wasn’t telling anyone. “He tried and failed,” he finally answered her question. “And got slapped hard for his efforts.”

  Sam snorted. “Yeah, 35-50 years is a hard slap alright.”

  Bane shrugged. “He had it coming. Dexter Evans is not a good man. But then neither am I.”

  With that said, the room went quiet.

  “Is there anything else you want to take from the house?” Deke finally asked.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay here tonight and tomorrow, I’ll go down to Hanover and try to find my brother,” Bane told them.

  Bastian nodded. “We’ll stay and travel down to Hanover with him.”

  Deke nodded. “Well, if you need us, just call.”

  Bane looked over at Cricket and found she was looking back at him.

  “Do you want me to stay, uncle?” she asked softly.