Chimera

Chapter 14

The parking lot of the drugstore was nearly full, clogged with cars, and the store itself was full of people—good signs, both of them. It had taken a few exits to find just the place I had in mind. Shoving my gun into the back waistband of my pants, I got out of the car and made sure my shirt concealed the weapon. “Come on, kiddo. Be good and I might buy you some ice cream.”

He was torn between outrage and desperation for a sugar fix. Settling on mildly disgruntled, he trailed after me. After walking through the automated door he looked around curiously. It was one of the superdrugstores that carried enough merchandise to cure the diseases of a small Third World country, then throw a party to celebrate, complete with wine, balloons, and barbecued weenies. Colors and noise, it was a lot of stimulation for a kid who was shuttled to the mall once a year to “act normal.”

I nudged him as he stalled by the doors to stare at a woman pushing a stroller loaded with squalling twins. Accustomed to the sound, she absently reached down to smooth two nearly bald heads and kept moving. “Weird,” Michael murmured, more to himself than me. “Seeing where they come from.”

They, not we. Moving us both into an aisle, I lightly bumped his shoulder with mine. “I have pictures, tons of them. I’ll show you where you came from. It’s pretty much the same.”

With a defensive folding of his arms, he studied the shelves with a scrutiny more suited to emotionally moving art or really good porn than the feminine-hygiene products that were actually there. “What are we looking for anyway?” he asked with the avoidance of a pro.

We walked on, leaving the aisle of no-man’s-land until we reached hair care products. “Anything your tree-hating little heart desires.” I picked up two boxes at random and shook them in his direction. “And dye. Red or blond?”

He caught the implication instantly. “You must be joking.”

“Blond it is.” I put the red back with the rueful realization of why I’d picked the other color. It was more familiar to me than the brown Michael had now. Swiftly checking one way, then the other, I stuffed the small box into the wad of jacket I’d carried in over my arm for just that purpose. Belatedly, I glanced at the smaller figure beside me. “By the way, stealing is bad, okay? Don’t steal.” Considering, I added, “Or smoke. And don’t drink and drive.” Wait, he was seventeen. “Scratch that last one. Don’t drink at all.” It wasn’t the entire summary of knowledge required for teens, but it was the best I could do at the moment.

“You’re . . .” He shook his head. Apparently there were no words for what I was, and he let it go to pursue another subject. “Why are you stealing it? You have money.”

“If anyone trails us here, I don’t want them to know we’ve changed our looks.” How I was going to change my appearance was more problematic. I had thought of cutting my hair, but that would only make my scar more noticeable. In the cosmetic department I found the answer: makeup specially constructed to cover scars. That, combined with a haircut, should change me enough to escape anything but a good, hard stare.

“Snack cake aisle is just down there, Misha.” I pointed with one hand while tucking away the glass jar with the other. “That we’ll pay for. Short of pretending one of us is pregnant, there’s no way we can smuggle what you can eat out of here.”

He gave me a look, one far too haughty for a seventeen-year-old, but he went. He always had been smart as hell, far too much so to bite off his nose to spite his face. I watched as he loaded up with box after box of empty calories. “I’ve created a monster,” I groaned under my breath, deciding to pick up some vitamins before we hit the cash register. Kids took vitamins, didn’t they? I remembered our housekeeper’s buying them for Lukas and me after our mom died. I hadn’t taken them, but I vaguely remembered a bottle of colorful characters on the bathroom counter.

We waited in line for nearly ten minutes. Sandwiched between a harassed lady with three sociopathic children and a teenage couple working desperately on making one of their own, I noticed Michael moving his weight from foot to foot. It was a minute motion, barely detectable, but it allowed me to pick up his discomfort. In the past two days with me he’d been exposed to more of the outside world than in two years at the Institute. He and the other kids may have studied it until their eyes watered; it wasn’t the same. This was direct, unrelenting contact with a basically alien existence. It was enough to shake up even the coolest customer.

I dumped the items that I actually intended to pay for onto the counter. “Hang in there, perrito.” As I’d hoped, it distracted him and he instantly turned a pale pink. “Maybe someday we can grab breakfast there again,” I offered lightly. “The food was good and the company not so bad either.”

The pink deepened. “Maybe,” he replied, noncommittally.

I grinned at him, then transferred the flash of teeth at the cashier in the hopes of hurrying her along. She stopped tapping keys long enough to give me a smile back. It’d been a long time since I’d flirted, even superficially, with a woman. Long dark brown hair as straight as a fall of water, bittersweet chocolate eyes, and a tiny diamond piercing her nose, she was a good place to start, but she had to be eighteen at the most. She was too young, and this wasn’t exactly the best time. I slapped down hormones that had been in hibernation for what seemed like years and passed over the cash.

I’d always known that saving Lukas would be saving myself, but to feel the internal thaw . . . to feel ice cracking over black water to let in the first ray of light in ten years . . . It was unexpected in its ferocity. I hadn’t imagined it would be like this. I couldn’t have imagined.

In college my scar and questionable family background hadn’t held me back on the dating scene. At that time I’d used the occasional relationship and anything-but-occasional sex to forget my guilt over my brother’s disappearance. After college I had only one relationship, Natalie. And after she left, I gave up on relationships altogether. I wasn’t especially good at them, so who needed them? And sex was easy enough to find at Koschecka if I was in the mood.

I rarely was. When you’re filled with guilt and rage it doesn’t leave much room for the more healthy emotions . . . ones that were beginning to swell in me again. I gave the girl another smile, wistful and wicked, as she gave me my change and receipt, then prodded Michael into motion. “Let’s go, kiddo. We have more shopping to do.”

The shopping I had in mind took place in the parking lot. As with most places, the employees had a spot at the far end designated for their cars so the customers wouldn’t be crowded out. Chances were a car stolen here would go the longest before being missed. I’d already gathered everything out of our old car and given it a quick wipe down. Now I stood casually on the back curb of the lot and made my choice—an old gray Toyota; it didn’t get more nondescript than that, or easier to steal. I’d pulled a jimmy, a thin piece of flexible metal—an old tool for an old ride—out of my duffel bag as I automatically tested the door handle. It was unlocked, unbelievable as that was in this cynical day and age. Motioning Michael around to the passenger side, I started, “Remember what I said. Stealing—”

“Is wrong. Yes, I know.” He put the drugstore bag in the back and then climbed in. His language was always so precise. I didn’t expect it would last. He had picked up swearing from me; sloppy speech couldn’t be far behind.

Within seconds we were on the road with no sign anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The hours passed and I filled them telling stories of our younger days. Mostly Michael ignored them, staring out the window or leaning his head back and pretending to nap. But there were a few times I caught the gleam of interest sparking from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to believe because he was afraid to believe. I understood that implicitly. I’d become afraid to believe too in the past years. I refused to give up. Hell, I was incapable of giving up. Doing that would mean I’d as good as killed Lukas when I’d led him to the beach. I couldn’t give up, no, but neither had I believed . . . not really. Not with any true faith.

Yet, here he was.

I looked over at him to see pale brown lashes resting on his cheeks, but there was an alert air to him that indicated he was still awake. I felt a rush of warmth that damn near embarrassed me. Excepting Natalie and maybe Saul, I couldn’t remember the last time I gave a damn about anyone—and to this extent, never. This was my brother. This was family, true family; it wasn’t that crap people like Konstantin tried to pass off. As for Anatoly . . .

“You talk about your mother all the time.” With unfortunate timing considering my thoughts, his voice broke in quietly to be barely heard over the radio. “What about your father?”

Once again with the training . . . I could all but feel the seat beneath me turn into a psychiatrist’s couch as the kid spoke. I tried to ignore his still saying “my mother” as opposed to “our.” Small steps; it was all about small steps. Instead I concentrated on another discomfort. Good old Dad. What in God’s name could I say about him? I’d always known that the old Lukas, softhearted and innocent, would have been devastated when he eventually found out the truth. This Lukas wouldn’t be. This Lukas very probably wouldn’t give a shit. And he was far from innocent. None of that changed my reluctance to tell him the truth.

Finally, I settled on something that, while true, had nothing to do with Anatoly’s career of choice. “He loved you. Called you his little Cossack. If he had a favorite, it was you.” That had been the case with nearly everyone. Lukas had a quality then that I couldn’t explain. It was like an inner light, the kind you see in people who devote their lives to something beyond them, those who have a calling. He would’ve been someone amazing, my brother, if he hadn’t been stolen away. Now? Fuck amazing. That he was alive was more than good enough for me.

“He loved your brother more than you?” I don’t think he could help the barb he inserted in the question. He was indoctrinated to home in on weakness and vulnerabilities. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I didn’t say that, Freud,” I said patiently. “You were special to him, but that doesn’t mean he loved me any less.” The fact that I had the love of a man who ordered men killed without a glimmer of remorse was something I’d never truly gotten a handle on. How do you feel about something like that? “You’ll see that yourself when you meet him.” And how exactly that would go I couldn’t begin to guess. As certain as Anatoly was that Lukas was dead, he was bound to demand proof, DNA most likely.

“He’s still alive?”

I wasn’t surprised Michael had gotten the impression that he wasn’t. The stories I told were about him and me, about our mom and grandmother. Our father hadn’t entered into too many of them. That was for two reasons. First, he hadn’t entered our lives any more than he had the stories. He was a busy businessman; he simply wasn’t around often. Second, I wasn’t ready to spill the whole ugly bag of secrets just yet.

“Yeah, he’s alive; just a busy man, that’s all,” I answered evasively. “Hard to reach.”

“Is that who you were talking to last night?” The homey rustle of a Twinkie wrapper didn’t take the bite out of the question.

“You heard?” I made a conscious effort to lighten my suddenly adrenaline-heavy foot on the gas pedal. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I’ve gotten rather good at faking that over the years.” Impassively, he took a bite.

“No, that wasn’t Anatoly on the phone. I haven’t been able to track him down yet.” I tried to mentally reconstruct my half of the conversation with Dmitri last night and came up with some disturbing recollections. I’d mentioned loyalty, I’d mentioned Anatoly, and I’d said the word “dead.” Talk about your triple threats. If Michael had caught any of that, overcoming his suspicion had just become a helluva lot more difficult. Unless . . . unless I came clean. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea. Which was worse? A deceitful stranger or an honest criminal? I was a bodyguard, not a leg-breaker, but that still didn’t make me as pure as the driven snow. There was no doubt about that, not in my mind.

And Michael wasn’t going to make the decision any easier for me. He didn’t ask any further questions to push me one way or the other. Finishing up his snack, he shifted his attention to the radio and surfed the stations without another word. Hours later, long and silent ones, I chose another hotel. We needed a bathroom, not only for Michael’s peace of mind but for our transformations. And it was mid-transformation when I told my brother the truth.

“Like a movie star,” I commented with a grin, cradling the empty dye box in my hand.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Michael scowled from beneath tufted hair covered in yellow goo. “I think I hate you.”

“Only think?” I snorted. “Hey, I can live with that.” I checked my watch. Per the directions on the box we had ten more minutes. It was enough. “Misha, I have some things to tell you.” Resting the box on the sink, I added dryly, “And as luck would have it, you seem to have some time on your hands.” What type of luck was something that only time would tell.

He caught a dribble of creeping yellow foam making its way down his forehead. “And I have you to thank.” Meticulously, he wiped his hand on some tissue before continuing in the same charm school elocution. “Asshole.” Catching my reaction before I could smother it, he sighed and reached for another tissue. “I’m not very good at that, am I? Cursing.”

I could’ve said practice makes perfect, but I wasn’t sure Michael would ever be able to pull it off. He wasn’t a normal teenager and despite the Institute’s effort to give him the façade of one, I wasn’t sure he ever would appear to be one. “I’m sure you’re loaded with other talents, kiddo,” I came back consolingly.

Something about that hit an obviously sensitive area and his eyes darkened. “You were going to tell me something?”

“Yeah, I was.” I boosted myself to a seat on the sink, scooting the dye box to one side. Taking a breath that somehow evaporated before it reached my lungs, I struggled for the right way to begin. “I told you how I’ve been looking for you all this time. How I hired people who’d made a career of searching for the missing . . . kids, things, info. Whatever. I guess what I didn’t mention is how I paid for it.” Leaning back, I rested my head against the cold glass of the bathroom mirror. I wanted to close my eyes, but that would’ve been the coward’s way out. “I’m in . . . I was in the mob. Anatoly, our father, was in the Mafiya back in Russia before he emigrated. He kept up the family business here.”

The eyes hadn’t left me and I felt an itch of discomfort at the base of my skull. I didn’t want to read disappointment in my brother’s face, and there was no anticipating if I would or not. He didn’t have a normal framework in which to slide this bit of information. Most things he would run into, no matter how mundane to the rest of the world, were going to be impossibly shaped puzzle pieces to him. It would be a while before things began to fit for him. Until then there wasn’t any way to guess how he might react . . . to anything.

“After college, that same business was waiting right there for me. I needed the money, more than I could get from any ordinary job.” I didn’t make any further excuses. It didn’t matter how it had happened or what had driven me; I’d made the choice. “And I stayed in as long as it took.” That had been two days ago. Glancing at my watch, I stood. “Time to wash your hair. Give me a shout if it starts falling out in clumps.” I went through the door and closed it behind me without a backward glance. I could wait on Michael’s reaction. I could wait a good long time.

There was a pause and then I heard the shower running. There was the sound of water for about ten minutes and then ten more minutes of silence. Finally, I knocked on the door. “You still alive in there? Do we need to change your name to Kojak?”

“Who is Kojak?”

The muffled question had me turning the knob and opening the door. “Just an obsession of mine—old cop show.”

A newly blond head turned in my direction. “You wanted to be a policeman?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s all very tragically poetic, I know.” The quip passed through lips suddenly numb. His hair was the color of a sun-bleached strip of sand, the white gold it had been the day he’d been kidnapped.

He turned back to look at himself in the mirror. “This doesn’t make me him, you know.” His eyes moved to mine in the glass. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t.”

He was right. The change in hair color didn’t make him Lukas. He was Lukas long before I’d picked up that box of dye. And I would keep telling him that as long as it took for him to realize it was the truth. But sometimes truth worked better in small doses, and tomorrow was soon enough. Sending him out to eat dinner, a few subs I’d picked up before checking in, I went to work on my own transformation.

Twenty minutes later my ponytail was gone. With the length gone, the short black hair had much more of a wave to it. With the curl and olive skin I looked more Greek or Italian than of Russian descent. I tried the scar cover-up. It would do. Unless someone was within six feet of me, I’d pass as smooth faced. Hell, girls would be mistaking me for a male model. I flashed my teeth at myself in the mirror. Yeah, they’d be falling all over themselves. The smile melting into a self-deprecating grimace, I decided there was little I could do about changing forbidding pale eyes. Vasily might have had puppy dog brown, but I had wolf amber; predatory through and through. Sunglasses would have to do the trick there.

In the room I discovered several discarded clear plastic wrappers and no sandwiches. Cocking an eyebrow at Michael, I said wryly, “Thanks for saving me one.” I patted what I liked to think was a lean stomach. “You trying to tell me something?”

Still speeding through the television channels with the remote, he looked up. “Oh. That was rude, wasn’t it?” He appeared disturbed, probably more from a failure in training than from the actual rudeness itself. Michael might not have excelled in his acting class, but I was confident he was an A student in all the rest. I had my doubts that Jericho and his school had much sympathy for poor performers. It made me cold, the thought, and it made me realize I still didn’t know the purpose of the Institute. If Michael didn’t learn to trust me soon, I was going to have to start pushing . . . a lot harder than I wanted to. But for now . . .

“I’ll survive.” Gathering up the refuse, I dumped it in the garbage can beside the bed. “But tomorrow you owe me one big order of cheese fries. Which reminds me.” I searched until I found the vitamins I’d purchased at the drugstore. Tossing him the sealed bottle, I ordered, “One a day. Hopefully that’ll keep alive the cells that don’t run purely on sugar.”

After the painkiller incident I thought he’d appreciate a tamperproof bottle. “What are these?” He didn’t wait for an answer, instead reading the label, then the ingredients. I was waiting for another Freud-channeled crack. I could all but see it hovering on his lips, but he resisted the urge. Maybe he thought of it as atonement for eating my dinner. Peeling open the plastic seal, he pulled out the cotton and chased down a pill with a swallow of soft drink. “You did a good job on your hair. You look completely different.”

“Yeah?” I ran a hand over the shortness of it, the feeling still peculiar. “Since I’m looking for a career change, I figure I’m pretty enough to be an actor now. Maybe a male model. What do you think?”

“I think . . .” He looked me up and down, then tossed me the vitamin bottle. “I think vitamin B is supposed to be excellent for the brain. It improves your thought processes. Helps you make clear decisions.”

“Biology, huh? Or the psychology of breaking it to me gently?” I caught the vitamins. “You combined two classes in one there. I couldn’t be more proud.” Reaching for the remote, I took it from his hand and switched off the TV. “Time to turn in. We’re up early.” He gave in with only a mildly petulant expression, a bare shadow of the one I would’ve flashed at his age. Nearly a half hour later I was on the edge of sliding into sleep when a quiet question ripped me back into stark awareness.

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

It wasn’t a question you expected to hear in the dark while cocooned in a nest of blankets with a soft pillow under your head. That was a question for the unblinking and unforgiving harsh light of day—or never. Never would be good too. Rolling over onto my back, I studied the pattern of moonlight on the ceiling. “No,” I replied simply.

I hoped it was true, but technically I couldn’t be sure. I may have killed someone at the compound during Michael’s rescue. I hadn’t exactly been stopping to check any pulses. Nor had I particularly cared whether they’d had one . . . not for my sake. None of those bastards deserved to live in my book. But for Michael’s sake, I hoped I hadn’t been the one to kick them over the river Styx. It was bad enough to have an ex-mobster for an older brother. I didn’t want to add the label of killer to that. I heard the rustle of sheets in the next bed as Michael processed my answer and then gave the response I wouldn’t have had a hope of anticipating.

“I have,” he said calmly.