Thicker Than Water (Blood Brothers)

by Greg Sisco

Loki took a long drag off his cigar.

  “So if I said I didn’t believe a word of it and I thought prostituting our culture would turn us into kings, you would disagree with me?”

  Tyr sighed. It was nice to know Loki wasn’t going to kill him, but it would have been too much to expect him not to be Loki.

  “Take it easy, Tyr. You’re such a pussy,” said Thor.

  “No,” said Loki, “I actually happen to agree with most of what you just said. I don’t know about an Ofeigr, but The Chosen… I think they’re out there.”

  “You do?” asked Thor.

  Tyr breathed a sigh of relief. There was still some level of fear left in Loki’s mind. Loki without fear to restrain him was a scary thought.

  “Are you trying to draw them out of the dark? Is that it? Because I honestly believe whether they’re out there or not, that’s the worst thing you could possibly do.”

  “No. I didn’t even give a shit about them until last night, but we’ll get to that. Tyr, your girlfriend tells me you’re trying to open a bar. You should let me set you up with some journalists.”

  Tyr gave an agitated smile. “I read that article. I think it’s a really stupid idea.”

  “I’m just broadening my horizons. I haven’t gotten to run a business in a long time. It’ll be fun. And as long as we don’t dip into the patrons from our own club very often, who’s gonna pay attention?”

  “The Chupacabra?” said Tyr, with a ‘what are you, fucking stupid?’ vibe to his voice.

  Loki laughed, “That’s just a little inside thing for my sake. I want to laugh every time I come in to work.”

  Loki and Thor giggled. Tyr turned to the edge of the rooftop and looked at the city of Las Vegas, smoking his cigarette in silence.

  “The Chosen are talking about me,” Loki said suddenly. “Maybe not me, maybe us, I don’t know. But they like the idea of my club. I guess they have something they want to use it for. God told me to build an ark, Tyr. I’m gonna build a goddamn ark.”

  Tyr shook his head.

  “Tell me you’re not that stupid, Loki. If you actually believe what you’re saying, if you actually heard this from someone, then that person is trying to get you killed. When have you ever let somebody bluff you? Don’t start now.”

  Loki laughed, projecting short bursts of cigar smoke from his mouth. “Come on, Tyr. In this day and age I could suck a news anchor’s blood during a live broadcast and the people would call it a marketing ploy. And even that’s not what I’m doing. I’m building a club. If The Chosen have a problem with it, do you really think they’re just going to kill us all on general principle? It will be a slap on the wrist, and then I’ll burn down the club and buy you a Coke, but for now I’m giving it a shot.”

  Loki had a point. Tyr didn’t like to admit it, but the way Loki talked about this didn’t make it sound half as dangerous as he had chalked it up to be. How could The Chosen murder a vampire a thousand years old over something as minuscule as a legitimate business? As long as he didn’t parade himself as a vampire in front of the humans it seemed unlikely real trouble would arise. The Chosen had to be beings with a bit of compassion and understanding for their own species, didn’t they? He just hoped, for Loki’s sake, that The Chosen were real, and that they’d bite back gently when he inevitably crossed a line.

  Tyr was slouched, resting his elbows on the railing and looking at the lights of Las Vegas. He took another drag off his cigarette and sighed. Loki went to him and put his arm around his shoulder. Thor stepped up to the edge of the roof on Loki’s other side. Loki placed his hand in front of them and pointed to the city. He waved his hand back and forth, wiping it across the landscape.

  “All this will be ours,” Loki said. “In time, we’re going to stand at the head of all tables and all of this is going to exist under us. All the kingdoms we’ve watched, rising and falling, eventually our kingdom will rise. We’re above all this, Tyr. And eventually, at some point, the day is going to come where everyone can see us for the gods we are. But I don’t want to rule my kingdom alone. The Blood Brothers starts with us. I need my Brother by my side.”

  Tyr turned his head to meet Loki’s. This couldn’t be real. After all that had happened between them thirteen years ago, he couldn’t believe Loki would let it all be water under the bridge. And Loki wasn’t just inviting him back, he wasn’t just forgetting the past, he was letting Tyr have his girl and admitting—even if it wasn’t done explicitly—that he had been wrong to make such a big deal out of Tyr sparing a mortal. Was their brotherhood really this strong?

  “What do you say, Tyr? Blood Brothers forever?”

  Loki put out his hand for Tyr to shake. Tyr just stared at it for a while. This wasn’t what he had wanted. He had wanted Thor to come with him and get away from Loki. He had wanted to live without fear of The Chosen coming for him every night. He hadn’t wanted to go back to Loki’s side and wonder if he was running blindly in the direction of his own demise.

  Was this really a hand worth shaking?

  For a thousand years he and Loki had wreaked havoc on the Earth, screwed women, killed the innocent, burned buildings, stolen property, and committed every other indecent act one could commit. Really, what were a few mentions in the tabloids? What was the ownership of a club? These were small things. Loki was right. It was a slap on the wrist at worst and being Chosen at best.

  Tyr’s instinct took over and he surprised himself when he reached out to take Loki’s hand and said, “Blood Brothers forever.”

  “Are you really going to kill her?” asked Thor later, after Loki had gone back to his hotel room.

  They were sitting in the back of a limousine outside Tyr’s house. It was five o’clock in the morning and the sun would be up in an hour or two.

  “I don’t know,” said Tyr. “I was going to. I was counting on doing it tonight and then I was going to try to talk you into skipping town with me, but now… Now I’m not sure what my plan is for the moment.”

  “You really should drain her,” said Thor. “I know I’m not in much of a place to talk, but that’s my opinion.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Do you really get anything out of being with her? I mean, anything you wouldn’t get out of a few hours with a different chick every night?”

  Tyr had to think about this. He didn’t know how to answer. He hadn’t learned anything from her, and the amount of time he had been with her was beyond short when he took into account the length of his life, but he enjoyed her company. She made him feel things he hadn’t felt before.

  He supposed the answer was yes, but he didn’t say it. Instead he bid farewell to Thor and got out of the car.

  “If you really want to feel like the three of us are a gang of ramblers again, you should go in there and kill her right now,” Thor said to him before he left. “If it were me, that’s what I would do. But it’s not me.”

  Tyr shut the door and walked back to the house. It was true. To sever all ties to this uncomfortable way of living and go back to the Blood Brothers, all he had to do was go inside and kill her. Thor was young, but maybe Tyr had something to learn from him.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Home was a bunker under an abandoned jailhouse on the outskirts of Tombstone. Tyr and Loki had boarded up any windows or holes light could pass through. As the day progressed, they regaled Thor with tales of this life that made him anxious to test his powers; anxious to watch humans without being seen, to master reading people the way Tyr and Loki spoke of it; anxious to feel the love a woman with his new senses.

  “We will get to all that in due time,” Tyr told him. “And I warn you, when we speak of love with a woman we speak of it only in the most physical of senses. You may have lovers but encounters must be brief and unrepeated. There can be no emotional connection to bar you to her, and what you take from her you must take only once and she must be neutralized.”

  “Neutralized?”

  “Drained. There is a vampire counse
l who keeps watch of such things, and if a lover of yours is fecundated, you will be held accountable and slain.”

  “Fecundated?”

  “Goddamnit Tyr, why ya tryin’ to confuse him?” Loki cut in, “Made pregnant, Thor. If ya get her pregnant, The Chosen will cut yer fuckin’ head off. And before you even ask, The Chosen are just that. Our king, Ofeigr, the oldest vampire, hand picks ‘em and they do whatever He tells ‘em to do. Good?”

  Thor took this in. He turned to Tyr, “You don’t talk like anyone I’ve heard talk before. How old are you?”

  Loki slipped on a British accent and answered before Tyr could.

  “Our speech is a vital attribute. Centuries will pass and kingdoms will rise in our lifetime and as the world blossoms we must tailor ourselves to blossom in all ways with it. Tyr and I may vocalize any era, articulate any thought and gossip on any subject as our judgment has always told us we should educate ourselves to do this. Our days of yore are not a topic for tonight, but you will learn to do as we do if you ever wish to flourish.”

  Thor couldn’t help but laugh, though he understood the importance of what had just been just been said. He wondered what age these creatures were, but he would not ask again. He knew in time, all would be learned.

  And later in the day as Loki bathed himself with water he drew from a still-working pump, Thor caught sight of the tattoo on his chest of the black rose.

  “Does it mean something?” he asked.

  Loki hesitated, “I told you it’s a story for another day. We’ll get you your rose soon enough.”

  Though Cherrywood had been burned to the ground, Tyr still believed they would have been taking an unnecessary risk to remain in the city. He thought it best they leave at least for a year or so. The train robbery was scrapped, much to Thor’s disappointment, but Loki assured him there would be more train robberies to come. There would be only one.

  They spent the early hours after dusk loading gold and weapons into the back of the stagecoach, as these were the only belongings the Brothers possessed along with a few bottles of booze. Within an hour they were packed and the road awaited, but Loki had insisted on finding one more drain simply because he loved the women of this city.

  While Loki was off no doubt laying some housewife or whore, Tyr and Thor took a stroll down Main Street, keeping to the shadows and talking of immortality. And though he passed Al’s without the slightest recognition, he stopped where he was standing when he caught a glimpse of Christina, dressed for bed and standing by the window of her room above the tailor’s shop.

  “What is it?” Tyr asked him, but before Thor could answer he found himself climbing to the balcony of the house next hers from which he could watch her more clearly.

  “Old friend?” asked Tyr.

  “I’m not sure,” Thor told him. “I recognize her for sure. I think we have a past.”

  “You had a past, Thor. But you were someone else. She has a past with a dead man and you must never try to continue the dead man’s life.”

  “Another rule of The Augury?”

  “Always another rule of The Augury. In short, we must live in our world and humans must live in theirs.”

  “I think I want her,” Thor said.

  “Do as you will with her and I won’t stop you,” Tyr told him. “But I caution you if there is a past between you, she is damned the moment she lays eyes on you again. You must drain her, and if you don’t, I will.”

  Thor sighed and turned his gaze away from Christina to look downward to Main Street. The door behind them opened and Loki stepped out, biting into an apple and milking his entrance for everything he could.

  “I say you do it,” he told Thor. “You want to know what it means to be a vampire? It means you die as a human. What better way to let go of a life that’s gone than to force it away from you with teeth? What better way to understand existence without emotional connection to mortals?”

  Thor smiled and looked up at Loki. He was a philosopher, and while Tyr had his moments as well, Loki had a way of manipulating the emotions of others so they loved or hated him if it was his wish. His side of a debate was always the right one simply because of the confidence in his meticulously chosen words. While Tyr’s words were just as potent if not much more so, his enunciation often lacked the astuteness always present in Loki’s voice. Loki had a way of always winning with others.

  Seconds later, Thor was climbing the side of Christina’s house and sliding open her window, slipping silently into the room to surprise her.

  Christina faced her mirror and let her hair down as the reflection of a figure appeared behind her. She gasped and whirled around to spot Thor, dressed in a black duster given to him by Tyr.

  “I’ve missed you,” Thor said. It was the first thing that came to mind. He didn’t even know who she was.

  “Michael!” she shouted after a brief and fearful hesitation.

  Michael? Who the hell was Michael? Was that Thor?

  She ran to him and hugged him, being overly cautious as though she might harm him. She looked up at him uneasily.

  “They said you got shot,” she whispered.

  Thor hadn’t realized he’d been shot, though the shock wore off momentarily when he remembered he was dead one way or the other.

  “They were wrong. The bullet missed me,” he told her. And then he searched for something romantic, “and even if it had hit me I’d still come back for you.”

  She hugged him again and put her face on his shoulder. There were tears of relief in her eyes as he held her there. He rocked her side to side and realized he was feeling her heartbeat, pulsing hard against his body. He wanted her. He was getting hard and he was sure she could feel it but she made no effort to push him away.

  He racked his brain for more charming words. “Christina, I uh… I think about you, uh…. Aw, fuck it.”

  He tilted her head back and kissed her hard, slipping his tongue into her mouth and holding her against in him in a way Michael never had. After a moment to adjust to the sudden change of pace, Christina was kissing back, her hands rubbing his chest.

  “I’ve been wantin’ to do this since I met you, I think,” Thor said. He hadn’t meant to say ‘I think’ out loud, but she didn’t seem to take note of it and they were back to kissing right away.

  His hand slipped under the back of her nightgown and he planted it here, holding tightly and feeling the warmth of her blood under her skin. Before he knew it her hand was in his pants and instinct was taking over again.

  He pressed her up against a wall and unfastened his pants, but she pushed hard at his neck to get his attention and shouted in a whisper, “Michael! My parents are on the other side of the wall.”

  Thor moved her across the room, sitting her on the windowsill and continuing to follow his instincts.

  Unbeknownst to either of them, the parents in the next room were not a concern. Tyr had thought of this possibility already and taken it upon himself to slip in through their window and drain the two of them.

  On the windowsill, Thor hiked up Christina’s nightgown and pulled off her undergarments. She begged for an answer as to whether anyone could see them from the street and Thor pretended to look before he told her no.

  In fact, though no one was on the street, Loki was watching from the balcony next door, and when the two made eye contact, Loki took a moment to offer Thor a thumbs-up and a big, cheesy grin behind a cheap cigar.

  Thor’s hands were all over Christina’s body and everywhere there was blood surging just beneath the surface. She was moaning in an ecstasy that made the wait for the kill all the more unbearable. Clawing at his back and biting the base of his neck, she was having the time of her life. Again, Thor tilted her head back with one of his hands and kissed her lips for a long time before he worked his mouth down her face and to her throat.

  Gently he touched his lips to the vein so he could almost taste the blood through the skin. She panted and moaned in his ear and he ran his tongue along her n
eck over and over. The blood was taunting him. He could focus on nothing else. Did he want the sex or did he want the blood? Instincts paving the way as always, it became perfectly clear what it was he needed.

  He opened his mouth and buried his fangs. Her screams became louder, but not enough to draw attention. He gripped her neck with his right hand and held her there against his lips, blood spilling in around the fresh wound and flowing softly down his throat. Euphoria overtook him as he drank, life spilling into him and becoming part of the dead thing he was. It was a steady flow of concentrated perfection, filling him and taking shape in his body, giving purpose to what he was.

  He took a moment to pull away, swinging his head back and inhaling deeply from the night air before he swung his head back down with full force and opened two more holes, bleeding her faster this time and emptying all that was left inside her into his throat. He discarded the container that was her body, leaning it against the window frame and taking a seat on her bed for a moment to regain himself.

  Tyr stepped into the room.

  “How was it?”

  Thor looked up in awe, shaking his head.

  “I don’t have words. You have words, I don’t.” His mouth was hanging open and he was swinging his head side to side.

  Loki entered the room unnoticed, joining his brethren in the celebration.

  “Her parents are dead,” said Tyr. “It was a massacre. Somebody came in and killed the whole family while they were sleeping. Stole some jewelry and some money.”

  He held up a jewelry box and a wad of paper money presumably taken from Christina’s father’s wallet.

  Thor and Loki smiled. Loki said, “No sense in staying here any longer. We’re on the road to somewhere else. Leaving Tombstone tonight and we’re in God knows where tomorrow.”

  They all made their exit toward her bedroom door.

  “Wait,” Thor told them. He went to Christina and picked up her body, taking a moment to look into her eyes. Tyr and Loki watched him for a moment, suddenly worried for his health. Thor stared deeply into her eyes for a long while, then he gently kissed her lips before pushing the body away and letting it topple from the window onto the boardwalk outside the house.