Blood Brothers

pavement near his head, floating in a pool of his blood. The sweet scent of it filled his nostrils. He knew it would be the last thing he ever smelled.

His mother would have been happy about that.

* * *

An unknown number of days later, Arthur woke to pain. He lay in a bed — a hospital bed. It took him several breaths to work out that his legs were suspended in front of him, encased in plaster. Turning his head took all his effort. Through his window, he saw weak afternoon sunlight.

“I see that you’re awake,” said a familiar voice.

Officer Miller was seated on his other side. The police officer reached to a table, retrieved a water glass with a straw, and offered it. Arthur allowed the man to slip the straw between his lips. He drank the lukewarm water until it was all gone.

Once done, Arthur leaned back. Even the short drink had left him exhausted. Still, he noted the purplish bruises ringing Miller’s eyes, courtesy of Arthur’s earlier sucker punch.

Miller fingered the same. “Sorry we didn’t take you more seriously, Mr. Crane.”

“Me, too,” he croaked out.

“I have to ask… did you recognize the man who attacked you?”

Arthur closed his eyes. In truth, he didn’t recognize the creature who had attacked him, but he did recognize the man who had flung him into the sunlight, away from the monster trying to claw back into control. In the end, Arthur knew Christian had saved his life. Could he condemn him now?

“Mr. Crane?”

Behind Arthur’s eyelids, he saw the face of Jackie Jake and the broken body of the man on the sidewalk. Even if he could forgive Christian’s attack on himself, he could not let that monster inside him continue to kill.

Arthur opened his eyes and talked until he drifted off to sleep.

When he awoke, it was night. He was terribly thirsty, and his legs still hung in front of him like a bizarre sculpture. A quiet murmuring off to the left must be the nurses’ station. He reached for the bell to summon—

He was on the street, looking through eyes that were not his own. A brick tower loomed ahead of him. A church. In the middle of the tower was a door. A spill of light fell onto the dark front steps.

Weeping, he ran toward the light, moving with a speed beyond imagining. Traffic droned next to him, and far away a siren sounded. None of that mattered. He had to reach that tower. He had to get through that door.

But as he neared the church, a figure stepped into view, bathed in that warm glow from inside. It was a priest. Though the distance was great, whispered words reached his ear. “This is hallowed ground. Be warned, it is inimical to the curse within you. If you come, you will have but one choice. To join us or die.”

The strange priest’s words proved true. With each step, the strength of his limbs faded. It was as if the ground itself drew energy away from him. Heat rose through his feet. For a second it was wonderful, because he was so cold. But then it burned him cruelly.

Still, he did not stop. He lifted first one leaden leg and then another, fighting the heat and the weakness. He must reach that door, that priest. All depended on it.

He was now close enough to note the gothic design, etched in verdigris, on the tall doors. He spotted the priest’s Roman collar, made of old linen, not modern plastic. He staggered now toward that man. Despite his weakness, he knew this one was like him, cursed but somehow enduring.

How?

The priest stepped back, beckoning him inside.

He fell across the threshold and into a vast nave. Pillars and arches rose on either side of him, and far ahead candles burned on an altar.

On his knees now, he burned within the holiness found here.

Fire raged through his body.

The priest spoke behind him. “Be welcome, Christian.”

Arthur thrashed in his bed, still burning from his waking dream. A rope broke and dropped one of his legs. This new pain centered him, drawing him out of the flames.

A nurse in a white cap rushed into the room. Seconds later, a needle pricked his arm, and everything blessedly went dark.

Days later, he awoke again. His head was clear, but he felt terribly weak. The nurses tried to convince him that his vision of burning in the church was a side effect of the morphine or a fever dream secondary to shock. He believed neither explanation. Instead, he carried those last words inside him, knowing they’d be etched there forever.

Be welcome, Christian.

Arthur knew somehow he had been connected to his brother for that brief, agonizing moment, perhaps a gift born of the blood they shared. He also remembered Wayne’s description of the priest who had come looking for Christian. Was that the same priest, offering some form of salvation for Christian, a path he might yet follow?

Or was it all a bad trip, to use the vernacular of the youth thronging into San Francisco?

Either way, Arthur slowly healed. Bedridden for most of it, he used his downtime to dictate his new book to an assistant hired by the newspaper. Her name was Marnie, and he would marry her as soon as he could stand.

Following Arthur’s attack, the murders had suddenly stopped, but public interest had not waned. A year later, his book, The Orchid Killer, became an international bestseller. As far as the world was concerned, he had solved the case, even if the police had never apprehended Christian.

His brother had simply vanished off the face of the earth. Most believed he was dead or had possibly even killed himself. But Arthur never forgot his dream of crawling on his knees into a church, burning in that holiness.

He clung to his hopes that Christian yet lived.

But if he was right, which one had survived that church?

His brother or that monster?

Summer, present day

San Francisco, California

As the sun sank toward the horizon, Arthur brought the orchid to his face and breathed in its fragrance. The petals tickled his cheeks. He carried the blossom into his study. Books lined the walls, and papers covered his oak rolltop desk.

In the years after Christian’s disappearance, Arthur had spent most of his life traveling, reporting, and chasing down leads about savage killings and mysterious priests, trying to find his brother, or at least to understand what had happened to him. It was a passion that he had shared with Marnie, until her death six months ago. Now he wanted only to finish the work and be done with it.

With everything.

At last, at the end of things, he was close.

Several years ago, Arthur had uncovered rumors of a secret order buried deep within the Catholic Church, one that traced its roots to its most ancient days — a blood cult known as the Order of the Sanguines. He crossed to his desk and picked up a leaf from an old notebook, the edges ripped and curling. A photo had been taped to it. Someone had sent the picture anonymously to Arthur two years ago, with a short note hinting at its importance. It showed Rembrandt’s The Raising of Lazarus, portraying Christ’s resurrection of a dead man. Arthur had marked it up, annotating his many questions about this dark order, of the rumors he had heard.

He let the sheet slip from his fingers, remembering the dream of a burning church.

Had his brother joined this order in the past?

He glanced at the orchid.