In the Heart of Darkness

by Reinke, Sara

  “You…son of a…bitch…!” Mason gasped, still twitching with residual spasms.

  “Nice,” Julien said from behind him. Even though his expression remained impassive, he had fixed his gaze on Mason. His hands had closed into fists, and the muscles in his arms, bridging his neck and shoulders stood out in taut, strained relief. His brows had furrowed deeply, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown, and there was a noticeable crimp in his jaw, as if he spoke through clenched teeth. “You really are a piece of work, you know that, Nikolić? And by work, I mean shit.”

  Nikolić bristled at this, and for a long moment, he and Julien stared each other down, the tension between them so taut, so strained, it was nearly palpable. Finally, Nikolić turned to Andrei. A muscle just below his left eye twitched slightly as he spoke, his voice low and clipped, as if he struggled to contain his fury. “Take the tube out, then get Sofiya in here to clean him up. I want that kuchkin sin—that son of a bitch—ready to go tonight.”

  With that, he turned and left the room, grabbing the door knob and slamming the door shut so loudly behind him that Andrei flinched. For a long moment, nobody moved. Then, with a glance at Mason, Andrei walked toward the bed anyway, pulling a small folding knife from his hip pocket and flipping back the blade so he could sever the stitches holding the chest tube in place.

  “N-no…!” Mason croaked, pushing himself up to a clumsy seated position. “We can’t take it out, not yet.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Morin, but I have my orders…” Andrei began. He didn’t want to do as he’d been told, that much was obvious; he recognized the risks as well as Mason had.

  “Orders? You’re not a soldier anymore. You don’t owe that son of a bitch anything,” Mason exclaimed. “Please—you’ve got to talk to Nikolić. He’ll listen to you. Just a few more hours. Just until we’re sure there’s no more blood. I’ll take it out then myself. I swear to God I will, Andrei. Please.”

  Andrei stood with his knife in his hand, his expression torn. Then, with a heavy sigh, he forked his fingers through his ragged crew cut. “I can talk to him,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean he’ll listen.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said, grimacing as he stumbled to his feet. His head swam momentarily, and he leaned against the nearest wall until the vertigo had passed. “Thank you, Andrei.”

  * * *

  Andrei left the room with the door partially ajar behind him. Even so, it was the closest Julien had come thus far to being alone with Mason.

  And he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

  Something had surged in him when he’d seen Nikolić use the electrical shock against Mason—murderous, fiery rage that he’d only just barely been able to hold in check. It had been all he could manage not to rip himself free from his chains by any means possible—even if it had meant rending his own hands from his wrists, his feet from his ankles, and going after Nikolić with nothing more than ragged, bloody stumps. He’d managed to contain that fury, just as he now managed to bite back the urge to speak, to ask Mason if he was okay.

  On his feet again, Mason limped toward the bed. Like Julien, he seemed to have realized they’d been inadvertently left alone, unguarded, and he kept shooting wary glances over his shoulder toward that slim opening at the threshold, and the narrow margin of corridor visible just beyond.

  “Julien,” he said softly, his large, dark eyes round with concern, his dark hair swept about his face in a disheveled mess that Julien longed to slip his fingers through, to smooth back from his brow.

  Still his face betrayed nothing, and he presented a flat affect, a mask of unbroken impassivity as Mason first stood above him at the bedside, then lowered himself to his knees. His eyes widened all the more, his brows lifting in aghast as he took in the sight of all of the blood.

  “Are you hurt?” he said, reaching for Julien. “That son of a bitch—did he hurt you?”

  Julien closed his eyes as Mason’s hand touched his face, his palm cradling Julien’s cheek, the curve of his thumb stroking lightly against his mouth. In that instant, a flood of memories rushed through him—Mason beckoning him from a light doze beside him on the springhouse floor with just such a tender caress; Mason using this same, light touch across the seam of his lips in prelude to a deep, lingering kiss; Mason drawing Julien’s troubled thoughts from Aaron, or Lisette, with this simple gesture—touching his mouth—and time and again, coaxing a smile from him. He’d always been helpless but to smile for Mason, but he didn’t now; he suppressed the urge, instinctive and reflexive though it somehow still remained.

  “I’m fine. It’s not my blood.” He turned his face away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Julien…” Mason’s voice took on a sudden, ragged quality. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You need to pick your friends a little better,” Julien said quietly, opening his eyes without looking at Mason, instead fixing his gaze across the room. “Maybe try one who doesn’t make you wear a shock collar.”

  “Nikolić’s not my friend,” Mason said. Then, softly, almost incredulously: “You think that’s why I’m here?”

  Julien turned to him. “He’s been wheeling and dealing with Pharmaceaux to screw my father out of soc distribution.”

  Mason shook his head. “Phillip was working with Nikolić, not Pharmaceaux. And not me. And it’s not about soc—that juice shit, whatever synthetic versions of Brethren enzymes you all have been cooking up. It’s something else—something bigger. But I don’t know what. Nikolić took me against my will, forced me to come here. He’s using me to make Edith continue whatever research project Phillip had going on for him.”

  What? Although Julien maintained his outwardly stoic expression, inside he was admittedly surprised by this revelation.

  I don’t need Draško, or his money, or his power, Nikolić had told him. Now I have my own. And all of that is only going to grow.

  He’d figured Nikolić meant he was out to get a jump on his uncle in the relatively new market for the juice. By making his own, and then controlling all of the distribution channels, he could pretty much single-handedly control the supply and demand for the up-and-coming drug.

  But if that’s not what he meant…if he and Phillip Morin were up to something else, something bigger, as Mason says, then what the hell is it?

  “I’d never be a part of anything like this,” Mason said, leaning over the bed, and this time when he reached down, Julien jumped because he’d been distracted by his thoughts, caught off-guard by the proffered touch. Looking shame-faced and abashed, Mason withdrew his hand. “Julien,” he said again, softly, nearly in a hush. “Please. I’m so sorry for what I said…what I did. I was such a fool…a goddamn fool. I’ve never forgiven myself.”

  Julien’s breath caught in his throat, and he struggled not to show anything, to keep his emotions buried deep. Pressing his lips together in a thin line, he closed his eyes, turning his face away again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But that was a lie. He knew exactly what Mason was talking about; the date was irrevocably seared into the blueprint of his mind: November nineteenth, 1818. So much had happened on that day—because of that day—and his life had been forever, irreversibly changed because of it.

  It would be a shame, would it not…? he remembered Lamar saying, his mouth twisted in a cruel, triumphant smile. To disrupt a life so perfect…so blissfully unaware?

  He’d never blamed Mason for what had happened; he’d only ever blamed himself. He’d deserved Mason’s anger, had earned every measure of his harsh words and harsher regard. For Julien, it had been like Mason had died all over again. He’d retreated to his room, retreated within himself, had let the slovenly son of a bitch customer who’d been waiting for him there do whatever he’d wanted to him, no matter how demeaning or debase. The shame and regret had damn near crippled him, the outrage and pain he’d seen in Mason’s face had shattered his heart, and he’d no one to thank or blame but himself.

  The n
ext day, he’d gone home, traveling by carriage back to Kentucky, where he’d tried to put on a brave front, to pretend that nothing about him or his life was different or amiss. Inside, he’d felt scraped raw and bloody, with nothing left of his heart but torn scraps of sinew and mangled meat. He’d thought to deliberately present himself for his father’s abuse in the hopes that Lamar would simply beat him to death and out of his misery, smash his skull in with the same cane he’d used to hurt Aaron.

  But then he’d walked into Lamar’s library and found Aaron strung up by the wrists, his eyes round and filled with terrified confusion. And oh, dear God, Julien had realized then that death would not be coming for him anytime soon, at least not by his father’s hands. Because that would have been too easy and kind.

  “Please don’t,” he had whispered, knowing all the while that it was futile to beg Lamar for anything, never mind for mercy. His other brother, Jean Luc, had been seated on a velvet sofa, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey all the while, and as Julien spoke, he’d snickered with unveiled, malicious glee. “Please, Father. Don’t hurt him. I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

  “I’m not going to hurt the boy,” Lamar had replied with a cold smile. “Not this time. Not anymore. You are.”

  He’d handed Julien a whip—one with a thick, braided lash and a heavy, leather-wrapped stock. At the distal end of the cord, a twisted metal barb had been intertwined. The better to cut through flesh. The better to cause pain.

  “Hit him,” Lamar had said with a nod at Aaron, helplessly bound with his hands above his head.

  “Wh-what?” Julien had blinked at him, then somehow had mustered in that moment what a lifetime of fear had too long repressed: anger. “No,” he whispered, balling his hands into fists. “I won’t.”

  Lamar looked at him, his brow arched, his expression somewhat incredulous. “You’re defying me, boy? Even now, with the evidence of your betrayal—your conniving, cowardly treachery staring you in the face—you dare to defy me?”

  “That’s right, you son of a bitch,” Julien said. “It’s my betrayal. This is all on me. Aaron isn’t to blame. Whatever you want, I’m right here. Do it to me instead.”

  Lamar had come at Julien like a hawk upon a mouse, seizing hold of him by the jaw and slamming him backwards into the nearest bookshelf. All of the wind had been plowed from Julien’s lungs at the brutal impact, and he’d cried out breathlessly, hoarsely as Lamar had raised him in the air, hoisting his feet aloft from the floor.

  Lamar pulled something from his jacket pocket and shoved it in Julien’s face—a letter written on parchment, sealed with wax. “I will give the count,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “And for every call, you will strike your brother with all of your might. If you refuse me or your arm wavers—if I even think for a moment you’ve pulled a blow or softened a strike—I will send this message to my man in Cambridge. In turn, he will deliver your sodomite lover, young Monsieur Morin to me by the morrow.”

  At this, Julien’s eyes had flown wide. He didn’t know what stunned him more—that Lamar knew about Mason, or that he’d somehow learned of the Morin clan’s survival. Lamar chuckled. “Oh, yes. Jean Luc has told me all about your buggery—and whom you’ve been letting plow your ass like a fallow field.”

  Julien rolled his eyes helplessly to the sofa and his brother, who still regarded him with a smug, amused crook to the corner of his mouth. He didn’t speak aloud, but mouthed a single, silent word: Molly.

  “It would be a shame, would it not…? To disrupt a life so perfect…so blissfully unaware?” Lamar sneered. “I’ll have Morin brought to me and then, while you watch, I will rape him with every manner of foreign instrument I can find—the handle of my cane, a silver candlestick, a broomstick, a butcher knife. I will keep him naked and chained like a dog in my cellar for the remainder of his days, and for every act of defiance you offer me, boy—every argument or contrary plea—I will violate him anew. I will delight in discovering new ways to make him suffer, and I will not stop, not until my last breath.” He tightened his grasp, throttling Julien as he leaned in more closely, nearly nose to nose with his son. “And believe me, boy, I have many, many more left to draw on this earth.”

  With a disgusted cry, he whirled and threw Julien across the room, sending him crashing into the far wall. Julien crumpled to his hands and knees, aching and stunned, and Jean Luc rose from the couch, strolling toward him. Clucking his tongue, as if scolding a naughty toddler, he dropped the whip onto the floor beside Julien.

  “Now get up,” Lamar ordered from across the room. “And do as you’ve been told.”

  He had called out fifty blows, and in the end, sobbing, Julien had meted them all out, beating Aaron bloody for the first of what would eventually become countless times. He did it because he knew Lamar’s threats against Mason had been anything but empty. And as much as he loved Aaron—as much as he’d tried to safeguard his brother from Lamar’s brutal wrath—there had always been one person he’d loved even more, had tried even more desperately to protect.

  Mason.

  He’d tried to explain to Aaron more times than he could count. He couldn’t admit the truth about Mason, but he’d tried nonetheless, until finally, Aaron had pressed his fingertips to Julien’s mouth, sparing him yet another stammering effort.

  “I know,” he’d said simply, and his blue eyes—so much like Lisette’s, so much like Julien’s own—had been filled with nothing but love. “Jesus Christ, Julien, don’t you think I’ve figured out by now that he’s got something on you? Something to make you do this? It’s alright. I promise.” And when Julien had closed his eyes, ashamed of his cowardice, tears rolling down his cheeks, Aaron had hugged him fiercely. “I promise, Julien.”

  Once more, the pad of Mason’s thumb drew lightly along Julien’s bottom lip, rescuing his mind from that dark place, those memories that served as the stuff from which countless nightmares had since been born.

  “I still love you, Julien,” Mason whispered.

  “It’s been two hundred years,” Julien said, and he didn’t need telepathy to sense how much his words hurt. “You don’t even know me. And I sure as hell don’t know you.”

  That was a lie. He’d shared in so many of Mason’s accomplishments and pleasures in life, if only from a distance, he felt like a portion of him had in fact remained with Mason all that while; that he had somehow still been a part of Mason’s life, that he still knew Mason at heart.

  But despite this, he turned his face away from Mason’s hand, even though it damn near physically pained him to do so. I’m sorry, Mason. But I can’t let you in. If I do, then Nikolić will see it, too. He’ll know, and then he’ll hurt you just to get to me, control me, break me—just like my father did. I can’t let that happen. Not this time. Never again.

  * * *

  Andrei returned after about ten minutes, his brows narrowed and a cigarette dangling, lit and smoldering, from his bottom lip. “Three o’clock,” he told Mason, lisping slightly around the Marlboro filter. “I got you until three o’clock. He wasn’t happy to give that much, and I’m sure as hell not asking for more.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said.

  “Yeah.” Andrei stepped aside from the doorway as Sofiya entered the room. She carried some old, worn towels slung over her shoulder and a large plastic bowl of soapy water between her hands. She glanced between Andrei and Mason timidly, then hurried over to the bed.

  “Come on.” Andrei flapped his hand in beckon to Mason, then plucked the cigarette from his mouth so he could flick a short column of ashes onto the floor. “Vladan says you can be either in your quarters or the common room unless he says otherwise.”

  That was to be Mason’s punishment, then, for his defiance; he was no longer a “guest,” free to come and go as he pleased within the brownstone, but a prisoner officially, one confined and held under close guard.

  Mason glanced at Julien and watched as from his bedside, Sofiya carefully wrung out a dingy washclot
h between her hands, then set about washing his torso, mopping at the blood that had dried against his skin. He didn’t want to leave, but Julien’s disdain—his dismissal—had cut him to the core.

  And I deserve it, every word. I betrayed his heart, his trust. Why the hell should he listen to me, believe a single word I say?

  “Nikolić said he wanted Julien ready to go tonight,” Mason remarked as he followed Andrei back into the hallway. “Go where?”

  Andrei shook his head, offering Mason a cigarette. “You don’t want to know.”

  “The hell I don’t.” Mason frowned, taking a Marlboro and shoving it between his lips. “I didn’t just lose a night’s sleep fighting to save his ass so that Nikolić could drag him out somewhere and put a bullet in his goddamn skull.”

  “That’s not what Vladan has in mind,” Andrei assured him solemnly, tossing Mason his Zippo. When Mason continued scowling at him, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “He’s taking Davenant to the Draka, that’s what I’ve been told. It’s from the old country. The different clans here—the Serbian and Russian mobs—they hold underground fight tournaments called the Draka. Vladan’s what is called a boyar. He is…” Andrei paused, searching for the most appropriate English phrase. “Like a manager or something.”

  “And Nikolić thinks…what? That Julien Davenant’s going to fight for him?”

  The idea was preposterous. Nikolić couldn’t be that fucking stupid, Mason thought. It had been obvious, at least to him, that Julien didn’t seem inclined to piss on Nikolić if he was on fire. And the sentiment had seemed more than mutual.

  “I told you. That one…” Andrei pointed with his cigarette over his shoulder, indicating Julien’s door behind them. “He belongs to Vladan now. There’s money to be had in the Draka for Vladan—from the admission fees to the wagering involved, the winner’s purse. A lot of money.”

  “But that’s crazy. Julien can’t fight—hell, he’s going to hardly be able to stand after we pull that chest tube.”