Twilight Fall

"Jaus is a strong man."



"That's the other problem," she pointed out. "That damned Austrian pride of his. What if these little peace talks you've set up end in another duel? You guys love duels. I've never seen more duel-happy idiots. And I won't be there to sew the body parts back on this time."



"Sacher said Jaus would be returning to Chicago tonight to meet us, so there will be no time for duels, reconciliation, or anything else." He gave her a mildly exasperated look. "I know that Valentin cared for Jema, but I think you are exaggerating the situation. She was only a human female."



"Only a human female?" Alex echoed. "Like how I was only a human female when you kidnapped me, forced me to operate on you, and then infected me with a pathogen that turned me into a blood-dependent mutant who can't help reading the minds of killers?"



Michael winced. "Point taken."



"Val had Jema watched around the clock. He also had pictures taken of her every day for years. He covered an entire wall in his bedroom with them. I saw it when I went to talk to him. And I'm sure you remember the five guys he pounded into the ground when we found out the human female wasn't being treated for juvenile diabetes. We even stood there and watched him do it." She smiled at him. "Baby, if that's not obsessive love, it's a damn good imitation."



His eyes took on an amber gleam. "Why did you go to talk to Jaus in his bedchamber that night?"



"He needed a friend." She saw his reaction and laughed. "Not that kind of friend. Just someone to talk to. Why are you jealous? Despite all the shit you've done to me, I love you. Val is your strongest supporter. You were there. You know nothing happened between us."



His mouth tightened. "I don't care to know that you deliberately went to be alone with him in his bedchamber."



She poked his chest with her finger. "Then you have a pretty good idea how Val feels every time he sees Jema with Thierry. And he knows a lot more than talking happens in their bedchamber."



Michael sighed. "Will we ever have a disagreement where you are wrong and I am right'?"



"No, because I'm always right." Her gaze shifted to John, who had fallen asleep. She lowered her voice. "Before we try to do this thing with Hightower, I need to check my brother over. He's exhausted, he has no appetite, and he's lost way too much weight."



Valentin Jaus was not waiting to meet them at Derabend Hall, however, when they arrived at the lakeshore mansion. A young, dark-haired man came to the car to greet them formally.



"Welcome to Chicago, seigneur. I am Sacher." He clicked his heels together and bowed smartly, first to Michael, then to Alex and John. "My lady. Sir." He turned to Michael again. "Seigneur, we have a situation—"



"Willie, why did you not tell me they had arrived?" a gravelly voice called out from the front of the mansion, interrupting the young man.



Wilhelm grimaced. "My grandfather has not yet stepped down, seigneur. He is very proud, and my master loves him as much as I. With your permission…"



"I understand, Wil." Michael smiled as Jaus's elderly tresora shuffled out to the car. "Gregor, it is good to see you. I trust you have things well in hand here."



"Seigneur, thank God you are here." The elder Sacher bowed stiffly. "There has been a terrible incident involving my master, and we are desperately in need of your guidance and assistance. Please come inside."



Sacher and his grandson led them to a reception room that had been transformed into a command center. Several humans and Kyn were poring over maps, while others were on phones and computer terminals. The atmosphere was tense, even when all the Kyn stood and bowed to Cyprien.



Alex listened as the old man related the murder of Jaus's pilot, and the phone calls from the plane. The thought of Val alone at the controls trying to land by himself made her sick.



"The pilot who spoke to Valentin, where is he?" Michael asked.



"Here." A small, wiry-looking man in a flight jacket came around the table and sketched a bow before offering his hand. "Jonas Frank, Seigneur. I reviewed the landing procedures with Suzerain Jaus."



As Michael talked with the pilot, Alex noticed John slipping out of the conference room. She followed him outside, where she stopped him.



"Hey." She stepped in front of him. "Where do you think you're going?"



His dark eyes shifted toward the mansion. "Your friends have problems, and I don't want to get in the way. I'll have the driver take me to a hotel in town."



She glowered. "You're not leaving."



"Jaus is the only one who can force the truth about the Brethren breeding centers out of Hightower," he said. "Without him, there's no point in trying."



"It's time we talked about exactly what happened to us when we were kids. And don't give me any more of your bullshit." When he turned away, she grabbed his arm. "I saved your ass from that psychotic bitch in Ireland, remember? Even if you don't care about me as your sister anymore, you owe me."



"Alex." His expression changed from frustration to sorrow. "I never stopped caring. I've tried. God knows."



"Come on." She looped her arm through his. "Val has a great view down by the lake. Let's take a walk."



Her brother came along reluctantly, and once they reached the retaining wall he unwrapped her hand from his arm and stepped away, sitting down to look out at the lights glittering on the lake.



He was steeling himself, Alex knew, to tell her what he knew. Or shifting into priest mode while he searched for the right words to sugarcoat things. He had always wanted her to exist in some sort of Barbie-doll world where everything was pink and perfect and happy.



She might as well kick things off by cutting to the chase. "That place in Monterey didn't upset you just because it looked as if they kept children there. It reminded you of something. Something that happened to you and me when we were kids."



He looked down at his linked hands. "There are things that I don't remember, Alexandra. Holidays, birthdays, that kind of thing. I can't remember one Christmas, and you always remember those when you're a kid. There are other gaps, like where we lived before we came to Chicago, or how we ended up on the streets."



"I know I don't remember because I was just a baby." She sat down beside him. "Didn't our parents abandon us? You would have been old enough to remember."



"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't even know how we got on the streets, only that I had to protect you, and I was terrified of being found." He dragged a hand through his hair. "Before that, someone kept us locked in a room with bars on the window. I was seven, and you were two. I don't remember much about that place, just a very vague memory of you in a crib, and me sleeping in a bed like the ones in the dormitories at the mission."



Alex concentrated, but her memories of life before their adoption were nebulous at best. "How did we get out of there?"



"I jammed a bread crust into the bolt plate on the door frame." He kicked over a stone with the toe of his shoe. "I waited until lights-out, took you from your crib, and sneaked out of the room. You weren't heavy, but I was weak, sick. I had to stop and rest a few times. I got into the back of a van and hid between some boxes. Someone got in and drove for a long time. Then we were in the city. I jumped out of the back with you and ran."



Alex thought over what he had told her. "What if the place you remember was some sort of hospital or orphanage? Maybe they locked us in to keep us from running away."



"I think they sent someone after us," he told her. "A man. He found us one night in an alley."



As John told her about the man who had tried to pull him out of the crate, and whom he had beaten away with a pipe, Alex watched his eyes. He sounded feverish, almost to the point of raving. Whatever had happened to John and her before they were adopted, it had scarred him deeply. Perhaps all the facility in Monterey had done was reawaken those half-remembered terrors from childhood, many of which may or may not have actually happened.



"The day after that man attacked us, a Child Services caseworker found us and took us to the Catholic orphanage downtown," John said. "Do you remember that? They kept us there before the Kellers adopted us."



She shook her head.



"Neither do I," he said. "All I recall is the alley, and then meeting the Kellers when they came to pick us up."



"You were a severely traumatized kid, John, shoved into a strange place run by people you didn't know," she pointed out. "It's natural for a kid's mind to erase things like that."



He took her hands in his. "Alex, we were at that orphanage for six months. I don't remember a single day of it. Do you?"



"No." She frowned. "It wasn't six months. It couldn't be that long."



"It was," he insisted. "I compared the dates on the paperwork in Audra's files. The investigator's report stated that he found us in August. Audra adopted us on Valentine's Day."



She shook her head. "The dates have got to be mixed up or something."



"What I do remember is how different we were when we moved in with the Kellers." He turned her hands over and held them, palm-up. "You always wanted to play jacks like the big girls we saw on the stoops. When we were living on the street, I stole a bag of them from a toy store for you. You tried so hard to pick up a jack and then catch the ball." He smiled down at her hands. "You never could get the hang of it."



"Okay, so I was lousy at jacks."



"Mom gave you a new set when we moved in with her."



John said. "The first day you played with them, I watched you. I watched you pick up all the jacks and catch the ball before it started coming down from the toss."



She drew her hands back. "So I must have practiced in the orphanage."