"Husband?" My brain stuttered as I repeated Shawn's words. He had just said that Gregory loved me. But his expression seemed to ask if I was okay with his word. It was an answer I wasn't sure about, so I looked away and jammed my phone into my pocket for something to do. "Then?"
He seemed uncertain how to continue. "I am sorry. I assumed, since you were lovers, that such attachment would be obvious, and could lead to that marriage, some amount of feeling was indicated" I opened my mouth in an attempt to correct him and then decided to leave it alone. I wondered how Shawn got to know that I was about to get married to that guy, which was made a secret between the two families, and I wondered how he knew the whole thing.
With a final look of concern, Shawn continued. "Once Ethan knew you existed, he started using you to threaten Michael. Gregory didn't know that his brother had spoken of you, and believed your existence to be a secret from the Vampires.
That was Ethan's new weapon, his way to control Michael. I am sure you can imagine the consequences if Ethan could decide to hurt you and then tell Gregory that he got to know you through Michael's indiscretion". When I only blinked, he sighed and specified, "I am certain Gregory would have wanted blood, brother or not, and Michael knew it. Because of that, it worked for a while, but Michael finally told his brother about his mistakes and the threats their father had made against him. Gregory...," Shawn paused again. "Uhm- Gregory didn't take it well.
Together with Michael, they worked to steal something that Ethan had always wanted to have for his territory. Something he was ready to kill for. The two hoped to use it as a bargaining tool, but, as you know. It didn't work."
I wasn't sure what to feel. I tried to reason out the crazy story in my entire mind. If what Shawn said was true, then Gregory had been in love with me and had stolen something trying to protect me from Ethan?
I cast my thoughts backwards, looking for a hint of what sounded like insanity. I went as far back as the night I had met Gregory in the pub. I could see it clearly; his black leather pants looked uncomfortably hot in the humidity and his tank top barely covered him. He had been all blonde hair and smeared eyeliner, smelling of stale cigarettes and Vodka an easy smile on his lips and a twinkle in blue eyes that spoke of mischief. Then something strange happened-
The image was a punch in the stomach. I would spend my last few weeks trying not to think about him, not to picture him. Now, he was there before my eyes, laughing, trying to invite me for a drink, and promising not to take advantage of me.
Defeated, I dropped onto the stairs and let my elbows rest on my knees. "So I suppose Ethan killed his son over this unknown thing?"
Gregory seemed at my assumption. " Ethan? No, it was their other brother!"
"His other brother? Who then? Other than Michael?" Michael was gone, and had gone, or so... Gregory and the police said. He had left months ago and was never to come back. If Shawn's story was true, then that is probably when they had stolen the 'staff', and no doubt Michael had taken it somewhere and hidden it. But if he was surely guarding it, why would he come back?
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "Why would he do that?"
"Because Gregory wanted to give the "thing" to Ethan in a promise that you wouldn't be harmed, but Michael wanted to be released from Ethan's slavery. But it doesn't work that way, once you belong to Ethan's slavery, you belong to him forever. Gregory knew that; he knew there would be no deal unless they were willing to suffer for their misdeeds". Shawn sighed almost sadly. "And so- as has happened since the dawn of humanity- brother killed brother; Cain killed Abel once again".
I struggled for words. "He couldn't have-" I thought of Gregory's mangled body, lying pale and mutilated in a pool of sticky congealed blood, his spinal column showing through where his throat should have been. "How did he do it? I saw his body, his throat was ripped out! No human could have done that!"
"But it wasn't human"
A smile flickered at the edges of Shawn's mouth. "I didn't say his brother was a human, did I?"
"What?" As if there was something else to be! "If he wasn't human then what was he?" Once again, Shawn seemed to hesitate, and then a smile flickered at the edges of his mouth. "Would you like to see?"
I leapt to my feet and looked around widely. "Wait! What! Is he here? Or what do you mean?"
"Yes!" Shawn retrieved the candle. "I have him locked up right now. It is perfectly safe. Come and let me show you!" Though spoken softly, the last word held an essence of command.
Even though part of me struggled with the idea, I followed Shawn, almost against my will. Even as my feet moved, I didn't know why I wasn't running away. It was as if some outside force stopped my escape and propelled me forward through the darkness.
We crossed the room and stopped before a door set into the farthest wall. As Shawn carefully unlocked it with yet another key, I noticed other doors along the walls, leading to who knew how many secret passages and storerooms.
"Past here, " he ducked inside and followed into a narrow corridor. Dark damp walls seemed to close in around me. The spark of fear pushed away the last of the overwhelming desire to comply, and I stepped back towards the doorway, my hand snaked to my pocket and my phone; a lifeline to safety.
All I wanted to do was run out of the God forsaken house, climb into my car and drive back to a gas station where I would be surrounded by electricity lights and Twinkies and motor oil and all of the mundane things that proved the difference between reality and fantasy; between waking and nightmares. Either Shawn was insane and there was no one there or else he had Gregory's murderous brother held prisoner in a dark basement. Neither option was good, and I knew it was time to run.
"It is all right," Gregory assured. "He is restrained."
If he even exists, I thought. For all I knew, Shawn was high and hallucinating. High, just high! I imagined turning and running, tripping up the wooden stairs while a junkie, high on god-knew-what, chased me down. He looked strong, and fast. Could I really escape? So far, I had cooperated with him and hadn't tried to hurt me; I hadn't even touched me. If he planned to kill or rape me, he could have probably gotten it over with already. Maybe I just played along; I had to live to get through this.
I had hoped to sound brave and in control, but my stutter betrayed me already, All right!".
Shawn led me maybe twenty feet down the corridor, to another locked door. Something moved inside and a terror sliced through me. What if Shawn was only slightly delusional and Michael was really there? What if they knew each other? What if he was the one who killed Gregory and he was going to kill me as well? Visions of my own dismembered body wrapped in garbage bags flashed through my mind as Jorick unlocked the door and pushed it open.
"Get me out of this f*cking place!" A voice roared.