33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  He was a thirty-third degree member when he was just twenty-nine years old. The youngest of any Grail member to achieve it, so, of course, I was pushed to do the same.” He swallowed and looked at Ian, pleading, “I never wanted this for you, like he did for me, Ian. I didn’t want to name you Ian, but he insisted. When he passed away, when you were only four, I was so relieved. I promise you, son, I thought I could end it right then.”

  “Go on, Father.”

  “Right. Anyway, I knew from a young age I was gay.” He looked to see if that had shocked his son, but Pat saw that Ian simply nodded for him to continue. “I was told, like I told you, that I’d be married, have a family, and my wife would be the daughter of another member, so that she would understand my secrets and my thriving for money and power.

  “When I was inducted, that was the first time I met James. Oh, he was a gangly thing, all thumbs and clumsy. He was scared to death of the Grails. I saw in him a kinship, someone, like myself, who didn’t want it, but it was thrust upon him. I didn’t know he was gay for years, but we were matched, as a team, and we became friends long before we confessed our dreaded secret and realized that we’d been in love the entire time.”

  Pat thought on how difficult that had to be on him. Years of living under the eye and the thumb of his father, never allowed to express his desires or passions. Suddenly, he felt badly for Ian Andrews Junior, and that feeling was strange for him, after weeks of despising the man.

  “I went along with things. I had to. I bribed and threatened men and women to give up their power to me, allowing them to keep the spotlight but listen to me behind the scenes. I never felt good about it. I had those who were loyal to me do things…I still can’t bring myself to speak on them.”

  “I bet,” Javi sneered. Pat understood his derision, so he said nothing.

  “I…James and I, we’d kept our love secret. We’d meet, here at times, other places. We couldn’t see one another a lot, but we would make the best of the times we did. It was a love that was true and wonderful, in the middle of horror.

  “Our sons were born so close, and they both resembled us. It frightened James for some reason, as if the whole thing would repeat. I guess I didn’t worry as much, not thinking that both could be gay. It turned out, you were. Then…then I felt what James felt. So, we kept Cameron and Ian apart. It was silly worry, I know. Cameron and Ian were very different boys, but the worry was there, nonetheless.

  “The problem, however, wasn’t that they’d fall in love with each other, as it happens, but that they were gay at all. This is a different time, and there was little we as fathers could do to hide their sexuality. It’s not completely forbidden, you see, but the boys would have to marry women and have families. That was strict in the laws. We knew that would be a blow to them as it was to us. Living lies, pretending, being with women we didn’t love and who, for the most part, didn’t care for us either.”

  “My mother still has yet to realize I’m not my father,” Cameron commented, sardonically.

  “She doesn’t know?” Ian seemed incensed at that, but Pat had to remind him of his own parents.

  “Baby, your own mother and father barely speak. They see each other at dinner, but when do you see them interact otherwise?”

  “Not at all,” his father answered for him. “We don’t sleep together. She has her lover, I had mine.”

  Javi was losing his patience. “How the fuck did you fake this death? I saw the footage!”

  Ian Junior looked tired, like a man on the verge of collapse, but he went on with the story. “When Ian and Cameron were getting to the time of their induction, the Grail members knew that they were gay. It wasn’t a problem in years past, but they knew these two wouldn’t marry women and falsify their lives like others had. So, James and I spoke on it, and we knew it would be one of them that would be the sacrifice. It wasn’t hard to figure out which it would be, being that I was as high as it could go, and knew the secret, that it was never random. The higher degrees wanted families gone, and they chose those that they could eliminate. James, he was never ambitious in the Grail, he didn’t strive for success as most did, and he had a gay son. It was obvious the choice, so we planned.

  “We went to a makeup artist, who make Cameron prosthetics for his face, showed him tricks to age himself. With contacts to change his eyes from brown to green, he was ready in no time. We knew they’d be watching, and I would be privy to knowing where the suicide would be.”

  “Hold up,” Pat had to finally say. “This was a man you were in love with. Why didn’t you try to save them both?”

  “How could I? The Grail is older than this country! The laws are strict and set, and if someone is slated to die, there is no pleading, no bargaining. I had nothing to offer, because we are all wealthy, we are all powerful. The Grail offers us all the same rewards, so what could I bargain with? My own life? Believe me, I would have fallen on that blade myself. James wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Cameron stuck up for him. “My father…he loved Mr. Andrews all his life, well, his adult life. Him and my sister and me, we were my father’s world. He wanted to make the sacrifice, and it’s nearly killed Mr. Andrews also.”

  Pat couldn’t imagine letting his Ian make that sacrifice for him. He’d die before that happened, but then…that was what James had done. “It’s…it’s a terrible story, Mr. Andrews, surely, but what now? Cameron can’t go on pretending to be James. Someone will see through the makeup, and the lies.”

  “We’re going to destroy the Grail,” Ian Junior said, his voice fierce with venom. “They’ve taken my life from me and my James. Cameron, he can’t let his boyfriend know he’s alive, for fear of someone finding out about it. All the lives the Grail has destroyed, and now they want the culling. They want to kill millions of people, possibly billions, and for what? For more power and more wealth! They want the world back to the place where only two kinds of people live, those that count, and those that die in service to them.”

  Ian was nearly crushing his hand with his grip. “Father, how? How are they planning to do it?”

  “A virus. Our laboratories in Switzerland have been combining pathogens and bacteria, biological weapons for year, perfecting it. Perfecting the vaccine as well.”

  “A vaccine. That’s why we’re supposed to choose who lives! Jesus, Father, this is horrible! We need to tell someone!”

  “Who? We have people in every agency in America, in the world. World leaders are either under our control, or will be the targets, and we’ll get to them. Those closest to them will be given the virus. There is no one to tell, Ian, without revealing ourselves, getting killed and then the culling goes on as planned anyway.”

  “It’s not just that,” Cameron said. “They are planning a war, too. They are going to rile up races, religions, making tensions high, and then, when the biological weapon is released, it can be blamed on others. One side with blame the other side and so on, and while everyone is looking for who to blame, those we’ve saved will be taken one by one into safety and given the choice. Live, or die.”

  Pat was sick to his stomach, and he saw much the same on Javi’s face. Ian’s jaw was popping with his anger and Cameron was openly crying. “We have to stop it. My father died to stop it.”

  “Father…” Ian was looking at his father as if he’d never seen him. “I thought…I thought so many terrible things.”

  “All of them true. I was complicit with the Grail. I did what I was told and when I didn’t, I was silent. I did nothing to help until it affected me.”

  Pat moved from Ian and went to his father, standing in front of him until he looked him in the eye. It was like seeing Ian as an older man, which almost took his determination, but he did know that they were two very different people. “Silence is probably worse. You knew what they were planning, probably long ago, and you’d have let it happen, knowing your own son would be safe.”

  “Pat! He’s trying to make up for this!”

  Ian’s f
ather held up his hand to his son and said, “Ian, let him speak. I deserve every word and worse, believe me.”

  “What about other people’s sons, and daughters, and wives and mothers, fathers and brothers? They don’t matter, because they don’t have billions in the bank and the ability to buy people’s loyalty. If you’re serious about wanting to make up for your sins, your fucking crimes, then you tell us everything. I mean everything and you do whatever you can to help us stop them.”

  Those eyes seemed to grow older in the seconds it took for him to respond. The world in them, weighing him as he felt each one of his misdeeds crowding. “I swear to you, and my son, I will do everything in my power to stop them.”

  Pat saw in those aging eyes the exhausted man was telling the truth. He held his hand out and Ian’s father shook it.

  Ian came to them both, after giving them a moment, and asked, “How?”

  “It’s, uh, not going to be easy, son. They have their own fucking army. There are three thousand men who are loyal to the Grail members, who feed their families with the money they are paid by the Grail.”

  “I have twenty-seven million dollars in one of my bank accounts alone. I’m sure you have much more than that. Can we buy their loyalty?”

  Javi started his irritating chuckling and said, “This shit…”

  Ian’s father laughed a little too and asked, “Can’t hurt to try, can it?”

  Pat predicted it, and sure enough, Javi had to have his say. “These guys are mercenaries? Yeah?”

  Ian’s father shrugged a shoulder, but answered as truthfully as he could, “Somewhat. They are recruited from the military, or…or other rather shadier groups, like militias. The Grail convinces them they are fighting for freedom, that only the Grail can give. When, in all actuality, we only want freedom for us, not the rest of the world.”

  “Then tell them that. I get it, a lot of us want the cash. We are disillusioned over the fight for that freedom once we see that we are fighting for the wrong people. So, we take the cash, because, well, that seems to be the only thing in the world worth fighting for anymore. The thing is, what brought us into the military, or to militias or whatever, it’s still there. We want to do good, fight for something real. I’m not saying stash the cash but make your fucking point too. Tell them what’s going on, for real.”

  Ian’s father nodded along, but countered, “They’d need proof. Which…which I may be able to get. The books, the books the original Grail members wrote, the laws of the order, the purposes, all of it, if we could get them, we’d have an army. There are so few families compared to those who work for us.”

  “Then get them. And…and I have a few friends that may be able to help. Get your plans made. I’ve had my team on standby for weeks, and it’s time we start to act.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Back at the house, after making plans most of the night, the sun was cut off from the room while Pat drew the shades. “You know I have to go down to my room before the house wakes up.”

  “Please,” Ian pled, “don’t leave yet. I don’t care what the damn house thinks.”

  Pat understood the sentiment. The struggle to be together wasn’t something he was used to. He stopped hiding himself when he was very young. He took Ian into his arms, where Ian belonged, and kissed his hair. “Baby, oh, my baby. I could stand on top of the world and scream about how much I love you, and how fucking lucky I am to have found the guy I want to spend my whole life with. Right now, though, we need to be even more careful.”

  “I know that, rationally, but I don’t want to be rational right now. I want to cry and scream and have one of those temper tantrums that little kids have.”

  “Me too,” he said, and meant it. As much as he sympathized with Ian’s father, he had had the distinct urge to strangle the mother fucker for getting his Ian into all that Grail shit. “I do love you, baby. I love you whether I’m in here with you, or in the servant’s quarters, or anywhere in the world. We’ll beat them. I promise you that.”

  “I know that. I have no doubt about that because you’re fighting with me. You could do just about anything.”

  Pat’s head could swell with the love his boy gave him. “You flatter me, but that doesn’t get you off the hook.”

  Ian’s face turned up to his, his brows so close they were one. “What?”

  “You were heading off to something possibly dangerous without me. You know what we talked about, Ian. I don’t expect you to obey me like a fucking Master to slave, but our dynamic at least gives me the right to hear what you’re doing and put in my two cents.”

  “There wasn’t time!”

  “There’s always time. You knew where he was going just by the direction he was taking.”

  He slid his hand under Ian’s lounge pants and into his underwear again, giving his balls a nasty squeeze, taking great joy in the tears that immediately came to Ian’s eyes. “Pppplease!”

  “Please? Please what? Please stop squeezing your balls? Stop delivering pain? This is nothing to what those mother fuckers are going to do to you if they know you’re so much as contemplating crossing them, Ian.”

  He let go and Ian sucked in great gulps of air. “I…I get it! I get it!”

  Grabbing his hair and wrenching his head back, Pat made it plain what he expected. “I love you. Only you, and my responsibility as not only your Dom but your partner is to make sure you are happy and safe. Take that from me, and I’m absolutely nothing.”

  Ian’s face was priceless, but the tears filling his eyes cut Pat to the quick and he kissed him gently before he let Ian speak. “I’d never do anything to make you feel like nothing. You’re everything, Pat. Before you, I felt so alone in the world. Even with Denny, who you know I love so much. I mean, I knew someday he and Cara would probably get married and he’d have this whole other life that I’d visit but would never be part of. I didn’t think I’d ever have that. Not until you came along.”

  Pat wasn’t prone to tears, not usually, but he felt his eyes welling up before his vision blurred, and like the coward he could be, he hurried to turn away from Ian. “I, uh, should go. You get some rest.”

  He heard a little giggle as he was leaving the room that told him he hadn’t played that off as well in reality as he had thought he did in his head.

  After catching an hour’s nap in the room he’d been given, he showered, dressed and hurried to the kitchen to see what he could grab to eat before he had to meet with Javi. The cook, Fiona was whistling as she was cutting a pile of vegetables.

  He went to the side of her, sneaking a red pepper before she saw him and laughed. “One of those, are you? Well, grab a stool and keep me company if you’re going to thieve my hard work, at least.”

  He did just that, taking once of the oak stools from the island and bringing it closer to her. “Sorry, but those are my favorite. I’m an Italian boy from New York. Sausage and peppers are pretty much my favorite food on the planet.”

  “I’ll have to remember that when I want to get on your good side. I’m a French girl from Vermont, so give me maple syrup on a crepe and I’ll be your best friend for life.”

  Pat had a good laugh at that. “Food, it truly is comfort.”

  Side-eyeing him, she asked, “So what are you really here for, besides stealing food?”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “I don’t usually get security men hanging around me unless they think they can get in my pants, and you’re gay, so…”

  He sat up straight and stared, demanding, “Who told you that?”

  “Settle down, it’s pretty obvious from the way Ian looks at you. Introducing you as his bodyguard, I could tell he wanted to vomit.”

  “Oh. Shit, I was hoping we could be a little more stealth than that.”

  “Oh, mostly the idiots around here, bosses and help, wouldn’t notice. They only care about the dumb stuff. Her majesty is only concerned with how things look, including herself, so she barely notices feelings or emotions.
The staff, well, they’re good for gossip once in a while, but with the NDAs the Andrews family makes us sign, they’re scared to death they’ll be sued for gossiping amongst themselves even. It’s pretty weird around here.”

  “But you know more than you hear with gossip.”

  She had a great smile, big, bright, and she flashed it at him while fluttering her lashes innocently. “Why, sir, whatever do you mean?”

  “You’re a yank, not a southern belle. That kind of thing doesn’t work with yankie girls. Spill.”

  After she moved to check behind all three sets of doors, she pulled him into one of the pantries, this one filled with dried pastas, jars of caviar, oysters, and all the delicacies one would expect from a rich household.

  “The pantries don’t have cameras. Anyway, the Mrs., she’s been acting weirder than normal. She’s taking off at strange hours, early morning, and she’d never come out of her room before noon for years. Whatever is going on in this house with Mr., well, Mrs. is feeling it.”

  Knowing that Ian’s mother had familial connections to the Grail, that worried him. “Is there anything you can tell me about where she’s going?”

  “I have no idea. Her driver is loyal as hell to her and doesn’t say one word to any of the staff unless he needs to send along an order from her. He’s her bodyguard as well as her driver, and well…I’m not certain, as these people are the damn model of discrete, but I think he’s her bodyguard like you’re Ian’s bodyguard.”

  Pat didn’t want his mouth hanging open like an idiot, but the surprises and weirdness from the family wouldn’t stop. “And these trips, I’m taking it those wouldn’t be trysts, being her lover is, well, live-in.”

  “Yeah. I’m guessing.”

  “Listen, thank you, Fiona. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me.”

  “I have? With?”

  Pat hated to do to her what others did, but there was no use in placing her in danger too. “If I swear to tell you everything once I know for sure and have it worked out as to what to do about it, can we bench this conversation for now?”