Chimera

Chapter 23

When you’re a kid, there are miraculous things in the world. Even a tiny bit of ice fluff can seem more like magic than a part of nature. Growing up mostly in southern Florida, I hadn’t seen a lot of snow, but there had been the occasional vacation to Colorado or New York. The memory of the first flake cradled in my hand was as distinct as the edges of the ice crystal had been soft. You knew then that every snowflake was different, every one a uniquely carved diamond.

You forget that. I’m not sure when, but somewhere, sometime the knowledge fades away. It’s bad enough losing sight of the singular nature of snow, but that’s not the worst of it. You even forget the myriad lacy patterns exist. You forget that anything lies in the white drifting from the sky. It was only crumbs from God’s table; misshapen wet pearls before an invisible swine; just snow. And because you’ve forgotten, you never look anymore.

Michael still looked.

South Carolina had been hit with an unlikely snowstorm. It seemed to be happening more frequently these days. Excessively bad winters, global warming messing with weather patterns; who knew? It didn’t matter. The result was a seventeen-year-old’s nose pressed nearly to the palm of his hand as he studied a melting snowflake.

“They really are all different.”

I leaned over his shoulder and took a look for myself. It was nearly gone, a victim of body heat. Only the barest tracings remained, a transparent filigree that disappeared as I watched. “So they are.” I hefted the snowball I held behind my back and then dumped it down the back of his shirt. “Here’s some more to study.”

By the time we were done, the empty lot behind the motel was witness to an epic battle, a hundred flying snowballs, and one lopsided snowman. It was fairly juvenile play for an ex-mobster and a kid who ate books on genetics as if they were Pop-Tarts, but it was one of the best hours I’d spent in years. Michael caught on quicker than I would’ve thought to the idea of rough-and-tumble. There were a few hesitations on his part, but those ended with one spectacular tackle that had me face flat. My brother’s weight on my back kept me sputtering in five inches of snow until my nose was in danger of frostbite.

The heat in the room took care of that quickly enough. As with all cheap motel rooms you could either freeze or swelter. Our thermostat was stuck firmly on swelter. I dumped my snow-covered jacket on the carpet and ran a hand over my wet hair. “Okay, track is out, but I’m thinking there’s a football scholarship in your future.”

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” In contrast to my sloth, Michael had carefully placed his jacket on the one rusty hanger in the shallow depression in the wall that passed for a closet. “Your side?”

He’d done a little forgetting himself. The fact I was in the state of delicate health shared by the rest of humanity had escaped him for a little while. “I’m okay, Misha.” I slapped my stomach lightly. “Healing up just fine.” It was true. The bullet wound had scabbed over and rarely ached.

He accepted the statement with only mild skepticism and went for the phone book. “Supreme or double pepperoni?”

“Whichever is cheaper.” We had about seventy dollars left after paying for the room. It was money I’d previously given Michael. If something happened to me, he would have enough to keep him safe and holed up until Saul could reach him. We were lucky Bonnie and Clyde hadn’t thrown him down and strip-searched him; if they had, up shit creek would’ve been more than a quaint little saying. It would’ve been our life. As it was, the money would barely be enough for gas and food to get us to our first destination. We were now facing not one but two detours on our way to North Carolina.

The first was necessary, but the second I had my qualms about. It was Michael’s idea and it was a good one, but I didn’t know whether we had the time. I had the instinct to go to ground, dig a hole, and pull it in behind us. And it was getting stronger all the time. The sooner we arrived at the house in North Carolina, the happier I would be. But Michael was right, as much as my gut hated to admit it. The more information we had about Jericho, the better. To that end, we were going to visit a Dr. Bellucci.

My brother had started to tell me about Marcos Bellucci seconds before we’d spotted our pregnant downfall at the side of the road. The man had been mentioned in several of the books we’d purchased. He had worked along the same lines as Jericho had, before Jericho’s theories had split away from the mainstream. He’d even coauthored a few papers with our favorite monster. But as their scientific outlook began to diverge, so had their professional relationship. Dr. Bellucci had spent a considerable amount of time refuting Jericho’s work after that. He kept it up for quite a while, even after his newly ordained rival dropped out of sight. Michael thought if anyone knew something that might help us, it would be Bellucci.

Like I said, he was a smart kid.

The scientist lived in St. Louis, about twenty hours from our first stop, which was Boston. As I had called number after number looking for Anatoly, I’d given serious thought about calling his allies in the business. Uncle Lev, Uncle Maksim, and others had popped in and out of my childhood for birthdays and special occasions. They weren’t related by blood, not my parent’s blood at any rate. Associates of my father, these uncles came and went like the tide. With vagaries of the business and shifts in loyalty, the faces changed, but the birthday presents showed up all the same. It wouldn’t do to show disrespect to Anatoly Korsak.

Calling the uncles about my father wasn’t too risky—not really. Anatoly might be on the run, but he still had a power with the older crew. It was fading the longer he was gone, but it still existed. They would be willing to give me any help they could in finding Anatoly. Unfortunately, the simple fact was they probably had no help to give. If Anatoly hadn’t given me concrete information on his location, he certainly hadn’t given it to them. But while they couldn’t point me in Anatoly’s direction, they could give me another kind of aid.

Money. They could give me money.

Uncle Lev was my father’s oldest friend, one of the few uncles who’d remained steadfastly present and mostly unshot throughout my childhood. He was also the only “uncle” who had felt like genuine family. If I could depend on anyone, it would be him. I didn’t bother to call ahead. His phones had been tapped since before I was born. It wasn’t as if I needed directions anyway. I’d been to his house once or twice for his daughter’s graduation and wedding. Point the car to the richest part of town and you were there. Easy. But deciding what I would tell him about Michael wasn’t so easy. Lev had been at Lukas’s first birthday and every one following until the kidnapping on the beach. He was godfather to both of us, and I knew he’d welcome my brother back with open arms. It might be good for Michael, seeing firsthand that someone besides me accepted him as family. Then again, it would raise a thousand questions, the majority of which I couldn’t answer, not even to Uncle Lev.

I was distracted from my thoughts by the sensation of a cold and wet nose against the skin of my ankle. Looking down, I saw a sinuous body beside my foot. The head was invisible, hidden under the bottom of my jeans. “Michael,” I growled, “your damn rat’s two seconds away from being flatter than that pizza you’re ordering.”

Hanging up the phone, he moved over to scoop up Godzilla. “He isn’t a rodent,” he said with imperious indignation. “Ferrets are actually members of the—”

“Satan’s inner circle would be my guess. Too bad he wasn’t ripped off along with all of our money,” I said, cutting in before he went any farther. I was learning that to let Michael start lecturing on a topic was to lose massive chunks of time. It had been not even a week since I’d pulled him from that place, but the change in him in those short days was nothing short of astounding. He had gone from withdrawn and indifferent to insatiably curious and not a little mouthy.

I loved every minute of it.

But there were limits to human patience, as well as human ears. And I wasn’t precisely in the mood for a biology lesson about my least favorite animal. Living with it was enough benevolence on my part. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I toed off soaking wet socks and wriggled bone-chilled toes. My sneakers weren’t made for this type for weather. “We should be in Boston by late tomorrow night. You stocked up on rat food?”

Deciding my thirst for ferret knowledge was nonexistent, he labeled me as unteachable and gave up on the subject. “And this uncle Lev who’s not really an uncle will be glad to see you?” came his doubtful question.

“Yeah, he will be. He’s a . . .” I stopped, unsure of exactly how to finish that sentence. I’d wanted to say that he was a good guy, but it was hard to say that about a man who made a living off the blood and thievery of others. “He’s loyal to Anatoly. He’s like family. Sort of.” The curve of my lips was apologetic. “Sorry it’s not more of a normal family for you, Misha.”

“Not your fault.” His eyes focused on me long enough for me to catch the flash of automatic rejection before they dropped to the remote he picked up from the table. “And not my family.”

That merry-go-round again—it still showed no signs of stopping, but I hadn’t given up the hope it might at least one day slow down. “You’re a stubborn little bastard.” I sighed as I twisted and flopped back onto the pillows. “Just like me, believe it or not. If that’s not a family trait, then what the hell is it?”

“Annoying?”

I laughed. It was something else how in the middle of this huge mess the kid could make me laugh—really something else. Rubbing the back of my hand across a five o’clock bristle that just wouldn’t quit, I admitted fondly, “You’ve got me there.”

Considering the loss of our money and the tripling of our travel time, I should’ve been in the worst of humors. But I wasn’t. I might be on the run and broke as hell, but I was still ahead of the game. I was still worlds away from the nightmare the last ten years of my life had been. Then I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I could.

It was enough.

The light chose that moment, not surprising, to wipe the complacent smile off my face with a few seemingly innocent words. “Stefan, I was wondering.” He paused casually. “Have you ever had sex?”

Okay, perhaps his words were not so innocent, depending on how rigid your upbringing or how high your monthly porno budget. Covering my eyes with my hand, I gave a groan straight from the grave. “That’s a big subject change from Uncle Lev,” I pointed out hoarsely. “What brought this on?”

“This and that,” he answered with irritating cheer. “There’s my natural curiosity of course. We talked about that a few days ago.”

Yes, we had. And I’d given him the remote to the TV; free educational rein as it were. You would think that would satisfy him, but no.

“And then Fisher . . . that girl, whatever her name was, was . . . you know. Her eyes . . . her mouth. At me.”

I didn’t have to uncover my eyes. I could feel the heat of the blush fill the room. “Flirting,” I filled in hastily before he stumbled on.

Recovering smoothly, he said, “Flirting. She was flirting with me. That sort of thing isn’t done at the Institute. Flirting. Intercourse. It isn’t allowed.”

Intercourse. Jesus. No, I couldn’t imagine that it was. No horny teenagers were going to splash around in Jericho’s carefully crafted gene pool. Although it wouldn’t have been too long before he arranged something himself, a breeding. . . simply to see what it might produce.

“I know the mechanics of course.” He was relentless, horrifyingly relentless. “That was in the biology books. But I was curious about the specifics. So, if you have had sex . . .”

“Yes,” I spit out somewhat defensively before rolling over and covering my head with the pillow. My voice muffled, I went on. “I’ve had girlfriends, and I’ve had sex.” And please God, I begged internally, conveniently forgetting my semiagnostic ways, let that be the end of it. Naturally, it wasn’t.

“Really?”

At the fascinated tone in his voice, I flinched. Then with resignation I lifted the pillow just enough to gaze at him with one reluctant eye. “Yeah. When I was twenty-one, just like the law says.”

Confused, he tilted his head to one side. “Law?”

“It’s like drinking,” I lied without the slightest compunction. “You can’t drink or have sex until you’re twenty-one. We’ll buy you a book before then. A really explicit book with all the gory details. I promise. The Kama Sutra two point oh.”

“Oh. I see.” Settling onto his own bed, he leaned back against the headboard and gave me a look of overt sympathy. “If you’re a virgin, Stefan, you don’t have to be embarrassed or make up stories. Maybe we could both buy a book—or a movie. There seem to be lots and lots of movies. If we watch enough, we’re bound to learn something.”

I had been neatly wedged into a corner by a psychologically adept, offensively trained brat-on-wheels. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want him to know the big picture beyond simple anatomy. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been involved in my share of locker room exchanges with my high school buddies. Hell, one of my bases of operation for the past three years had been a strip club. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since Natalie, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get laid now and again. The thing was . . . I was Michael’s brother, not his father, and I didn’t want to get this wrong. It was important.

But if he didn’t have me to ask, then who did he have? Retreating completely under the pillow, I surrendered. “Jesus. All right. Ask away.”

“Great.” The thin layers of cotton and foam insulating my ears did nothing to hide the triumph. “Let me get a pen and some paper. I want to take notes.”

Notes—he was going to take notes. This was shaping up to be a long night.

A long, long night.