Blood Brothers

“All right. Yes, all right.” With a bracing breath, Layla opened the door, and with Qui

“Culture shock for the New Yorker.”

“I grew up in Altoona, Pe

“No kidding. Philadelphia. We’re practically neighbors.” Qui

She was halfway across the living room when he hurried in. “Qui

“Who’s here?” Qui

“Fox. What’s going on?”

“The bonus-round question.” She sniffed. “Do I smell fried chicken? Is there food? Layla-this is Layla Darnell; Layla, Cal Hawkins-Layla and I haven’t had di

She moved right by him, and walked toward the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, I think, to bust in on you,” Layla began. It passed through her mind that he didn’t look like a serial killer. But then again, how would she know? “I don’t know what’s happening, or why I’m here. I’ve had a confusing few days.”

“Okay. Well, come on back.”

Qui

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Is it decent? If you run to jug or twist caps, I’ll stick with beer.”

“I’ve got some damn decent wine.” He yanked a plate out, pushed it at her. “Use a plate.”

“He’s completely Sally about things like that,” Fox told her. He’d risen, and pulled out a chair. “You look a little shaken up-Layla, right? Why don’t you sit down?”

She just couldn’t believe psycho killers sat around a pretty kitchen eating bucket chicken and debating wine over beer. “Why don’t I? I’m probably not really here.” She sat, dropped her head in her hands. “I’m probably in some padded room imagining all this.”

“Imagining all what?” Fox asked.

“Why don’t I take it?” Qui

“Fine. That’s fine.”

“Layla checked into the hotel this morning. She’s from New York. Just a bit ago, I was in the hotel dining room, considering ordering the green salad and the haddock, along with a nice glass of white. Layla was just coming in, I assume, to have her own di

“Oh. Ah, that’s nice.”

“Before I could issue the invite, what I’d describe as a sluglike creature thicker than my aunt Christine’s thigh and about four feet in length oozed its way across the dining room, up over the table where a couple happily continued their dining foreplay, then oozed down again, leaving a revolting smear of God-knows-what behind it. She saw it.”

“It looked at me. It looked right at me,” Layla whispered.

“Don’t be stingy with the wine, Cal.” Qui

“You’re awfully…blithe. Thanks.” Layla accepted the wineglass Cal offered, then drank half the contents at one go.

“Not really. Defense mechanism. So here we are, and I want to know if either of you have ever seen anything like I just described.”

There was a moment of silence, then Cal picked up his beer, drank. “We’ve seen a lot of things. The bigger question for me is, why are you seeing them, and part two, why are you seeing them now?”

“Got a theory.”

Cal turned to Fox. “Such as?”

“Co

“Dreams.” Layla’s head came up. “You’ve had dreams?”

“And so, apparently, have you,” Fox continued. “So we’ll co

“That’s not bad,” Cal replied.

“I’d say it’s damn good.” Qui

“What in God’s name are you people talking about?” Layla demanded.

“We’ll get to that, I promise.” Qui

“I think it’s going to be a while before food holds any appeal for me.”

“Mr. Slug slimed right over the bread bowl,” Qui

“Maybe it can’t pull out yet, or it’s hanging back.”

“Or the two of you co

Qui

“Good point,” Cal conceded.

“I want some answers.”

Qui

“I want some serious, sensible answers.”

“Thumbnail: The town includes an area in the woods known as the Pagan Stone. Bad stuff happened there. Gods, demons, blood, death, fire. I’m going to lend you a couple of books on the subject. Centuries pass, then something opened it up again. Since nineteen eighty-seven, for seven nights in July, every seventh year, it comes out to play. It’s mean, it’s ugly, and it’s powerful. We’re getting a preview.”

Gratefully, Layla held out her glass for more wine as she studied Qui

“There have been some books, some articles, some reports-but most of them hit somewhere between alien abductions and sightings of Bigfoot,” Qui

“All right. Say I believe all this, and I’m not sure I’m not just having the mother of all hallucinations, why you, and you?” she said to Fox and Cal. “Where do you come in?”

“Because we’re the ones who opened it,” Fox told her. “Cal, me, and a friend who’s currently absent. Twenty-one years ago this July.”

“But you’d have been kids. You’d have had to have been-”

“Ten,” Cal confirmed. “We share a birthday. It was our tenth birthday. Now, we showed some of ours. How about seeing some of yours. Why did you come here?”

“Fair enough.” Layla took another slow sip of her wine. Whether it was that or the brightly lit kitchen with a dog snoring under the table or just having a group of strangers who were likely to believe what she was about to tell them, her nerves were steadier.

“I’ve been having dreams for the last several nights. Nightmares or night terrors. Sometimes I’d wake up in my bed, sometimes I’d wake up trying to get out the door of my apartment. You said blood and fire. There was both in the dreams, and a kind of altar in a clearing in the woods. I think it was stone. And there was water, too. Black water. I was drowning in it. I was captain of the swim team in high school, and I was drowning.”