At that moment, Lash looked up. He seemed as shocked as John was, but then he gradually smiled.
From out of the malestrom, the guy’s voice drifted up the stairs, seeming to come from a distance greater than the number of yards between them.
“Well, hello, John-boy.” The laugh was familiar and bizarre at the same time, echoing strangely.
John palmed his gun, steadying it with both hands as he trained it on whatever was down there.
“I’ll see you soon,” Lash said as he went two-dimensional, becoming an image of himself. “And I’ll give your regards to my father.”
His form blinked on and off and then disappeared, swallowed up by the warping rush.
John lowered his weapon, then holstered it. Which was what you did when there was nothing around to shoot.
“John?” The beat of Qhuinn’s boots came from behind him on the stairwell. “What the hell are you doing?”
I don’t know… I thought I saw…
“Who?”
Lash. I saw him right down there. I… well, I thought I saw him.
“Stay here.” Qhuinn took his gun out and hit the stairs, doing a sweep of the first floor.
John slowly went down to the foyer. He’d seen Lash. Hadn’t he?
Qhuinn came back. “Everything’s tight. Look, let’s go back home. You don’t seem right. Did you eat tonight? And while we’re at it, when was the last time you slept?”
I… I don’t know.
“Right. We’re leaving.”
I could have sworn…
“Now.”
As they dematerialized back to the mansion’s courtyard, John thought maybe his buddy was right. Maybe he should grab some food and-
They didn’t make it into the house. Just as they arrived, the Brotherhood filed out of the grand double doors one by one. Collectively, they were wearing enough weapons to qualify as a full-on militia.
Wrath pegged him and Qhuinn with a hard stare through his wraparounds. “You two. In the Escalade with Rhage and Blay. Unless you need more ammo?”
When they both shook their heads, the king dematerialized along with Vishous, Butch, and Zsadist.
When they got into the SUV, with Blay riding shotgun, John signed, What’s going on?
Rhage stomped on the gas. As the Escalade roared and they shot out of the courtyard, the Brother said dryly, “Visit from an old frenemy. The kind you wish you never saw again.”
Well, wasn’t that the theme for the evening.
Chapter Forty-eight
THE DREAM… hallucination… the whatever-it-was felt real. Totally and completely real.
Standing in the overgrown garden of his family’s house in the Old Country, beneath a brilliant full moon, Phury reached up to the face of the third-stage statue and pulled the ivy vines free of the eyes and nose and mouth of the male who so proudly bore his own young in his arms.
By now, Phury was an old pro at the cutting, and after he’d worked the shears’ magic, he tossed another green tangle to the tarp that lay on the ground at his feet.
“There he is,” he whispered. “There… he is…”
The statue had long hair just like him, and deep-set eyes just like him, but the radiant happiness on its face was not his. Nor was the young cradled in his arms. Still, there was liberation to be had as Phury continued to strip off the ivy’s messy layers of overgrowth.
When he was finished, the marble underneath was streaked with the green tears of the weeds’ demise, but the majesty of the form was undeniable.
A male in his prime with his young in his arms.
Phury looked over his shoulder. “What do you think?”
Cormia’s voice was all around him, in stereo, even though she stood right next to him. “I think he is beautiful.”
Phury smiled at her, seeing in her face all the love he had for her in his heart. “One more.”
She swept her hand around. “But look, the last one’s already done.”
And so the final statue was; its weeds gone, along with any stains of neglect. The male was old now, seated with a staff in his hands. His face was still handsome, though it was wisdom, not the bloom of youth, that made it so. Standing behind him, tall and strong, was the young he had once cradled in his arms.
The cycle was complete.
And the weeds were no more.
Phury glanced back at the third stage. It too was magically clean, and so were the youth and the infant statues as well.
In fact, the entire garden had been righted and now rested beneath the warm, dulcet night in full, healthy bloom. The fruit trees beside the statues were heavy with pears and apples, and the walkways were bordered with neat boxwood hedges. Inside the beds, the flowers thrived in graceful disorder, as all fine English gardens did.
He turned to the house. The shutters that had hung cockeyed from their hinges were righted, and the holes in the tile roof were no more. The stucco was smooth, its cracks having disappeared, and every glass pane was intact. The terrace was free of leaf debris, and the sinking spots that had gathered rain were level again. Potted arrangements of thriving geraniums and petunias sprinkled white and red among woven wicker chairs and tables.
Through the living room window, he saw something move-could it be? Yes, it was.
His mother. His father.
The pair came into view, and they were as the statues had become: resurrected. His mother with her yellow eyes and her blond hair and her perfect face… His father with his dark hair and his clear stare and his kind smile.
They were… impossibly beautiful to him, his holy grail.
“Go to them,” Cormia said.
Phury walked up onto the terrace, his white robing clean in spite of all the work he had done. He approached his parents slowly, afraid of displacing the vision.
“Mahmen?” he murmured.
His mother put her fingertips to her side of the glass.
Phury reached out and mirrored the exact position of her hand. As his palm hit the pane, he felt the warmth of her radiating through the window.
His father smiled and mouthed something.
“What?” Phury asked.
We are so proud of you… son.
Phury squeezed his eyes shut. It was the first time he’d ever been called that by either of them.
His father’s voice continued. You can go now. We’re fine here now. You’ve fixed… everything.
Phury looked at them. “Are you sure?”
Both of them nodded. And then his mother’s voice came through the clean glass.
Go and live now, son. Go… live your life, not ours. We are well here.
Phury stopped breathing and just stared at them both, drinking in what they looked like. Then he placed his hand over his heart and bent at the waist.
It was a farewell. Not a good-bye, but a fare… well. And he had the sense they would.
Phury’s eyes flipped open. Looming over him was a dense cloud cover… no, wait, that was a lofty ceiling made of white marble.
He turned his head. Cormia was seated beside him and holding his hand, her face as warm as the feeling in his chest.
“Would you like something to drink?” she said.
“Wh… at?”
She reached over and lifted a glass off the table. “Would you like a drink?”
“Yes, please.”
“Lift your head up for me.”
He took a test sip and found the water all but ephemeral. It tasted like nothing and was the exact temperature of his mouth, but swallowing it felt good, and before he knew it he’d polished off the glass.
“Would you like more?”
“Yes, please.” Evidently that was the extent of his vocabulary.
Cormia refilled the glass from a pitcher, and the chiming sound was nice, he thought.
“Here,” she murmured. This time she held his head up for him, and as he drank, he stared into her lovely green eyes.