A Spirit's Kindred Page 10

  “That is pretty funny,” Sarah agreed. She turned to the reporter. “He won’t talk to you.” Nicole turned to look at Mr. Young, taking in his black slacks and tidy, pearl grey oxford shirt. He honestly looked like any older businessman having a casual day off but unable to remove himself entirely from office wear.

  “Doesn’t he speak English?” she asked. Her confusion was clear, and a language barrier was obviously the only reason she could come up with.

  “He doesn’t speak at all. To anyone. Ever.” Sarah grinned, enjoying the moment.

  Mr. Young himself tipped his head slightly to one side, gazing at Nicole for a moment before nodding. Then he turned to look Sarah in the eye, patted her on the shoulder, and walked away. Kai didn’t miss the slight blush that warmed Sarah’s face. He wondered what Mr. Young had communicated to her. The old spirit had taken an almost parental liking to her after her adventures last month, and it was definitely reciprocated. Just as Kai had often known Mr. Young to sneak candy to the kids of the Village, he’d caught Sarah sneaking comic books to the old man, and once what looked like a very expensive bottle of scotch. Fine drinks are a pretty classic offering to a powerful spirit no matter where they’re from, but the comic books cracked him up when he saw it.

  “What’s wrong with him? Why doesn’t he talk? Does he even understand English?” Nicole shook herself out of her daze and turned back to Kai. “Is he ill? Does he need some kind of treatment? Where’s his family?”

  “You sure ask a lot of questions, lady,” Eric said stepping forward to face her down. “Why don’t you go pester someone who wants to be pestered.”

  “I’m a reporter. Asking questions is my job. And I’m not pestering anyone, I’m trying to get an interview,” she said.

  “You’re not going to get one here,” Kai said.

  “What do you have to hide?” she shot back. Kai scowled.

  “This is not a public place, you have no right to be here harassing the residents. I am asking you politely one last time to leave. My next step will be to call the police,” Kai said.

  “The public has the right to know what’s going on, if these monster attacks are related to your apartment somehow—” Nicole shoved her way past Eric and held her digital recorder in Kai’s face. That was all it took. The ache from his injury, the vandalism and the danger of the glass shards deliberately thrown into the pool, the attack on Cassie, the threat from the warlock, and now this reporter creeping around and prying into the lives of the Villagers getting far too close to revealing them to the world… Suddenly the all the responsibility, all the stress from the past week felt like a physical presence. It was a creature that had it’s hands wrapped around his throat and it’s claws were dug deep into his flesh. For a moment Kai wondered that nobody could see the monstrous thing pressing him down so heavily he nearly staggered.

  “The public has no right to my people’s lives,” Kai snarled, grabbing her recorder out of her hand and shoving his face inches from hers. He knew that some of his magic was leaking past his control, he could hear his words start to ring slightly with it. He saw Nicole and Eric both flinch slightly, their human natures reacting to forces beyond their understanding, and Sebastian and Sarah snapped their attention to him.

  “Kai…” Sebastian stepped forward, his hand landing in a gentle restraint on Kai’s shoulder. Kai shook his brother off with a rough shrug. He didn’t care anymore.

  “You’re not after the truth. You’re not trying to protect the public good, or expose some criminal. You’re after some wild, sensational story about monsters living in Los Gatos and attacking people. You’re looking for a horror story to sell your newspapers and promote yourself into more money and fame. You’re willing to ruin the lives of my people and destroy the Village just to feed your own ego and your bank account.”

  Kai felt his power surging and part of him wanted to simply let it free. She wanted a monster, well he was more than able to give her one. Still, part of him in the back of his mind was still hanging on to the wisdom of staying hidden. The whole reason he was angry was that this reporter was threatening to expose their secrets. It would be the height of stupidity to do her job for her. Kai made a nearly physical effort to stuff his magic back down into himself, and rein in his impulse to use it to scare this woman into compliance.

  “Well you can take your ridiculous bullshit and spread it somewhere else. If I hear that you’ve been anywhere even near another resident, anywhere in this city, I will sue you and your paper for harassment. I will nail you to the wall for trespassing and invasion of privacy. I will then make damn sure you’re fired from your job and can’t even get a new one scrubbing toilets at a gas station anywhere in this state. I will find some way to ruin you completely, and believe me, I am fully capable of it. You have one minute to vanish from our lives and never be heard from again, and don’t think I won’t be tracking you. If I even hear a whisper of an insinuation in your paper about my property, my friends, my neighbors, or myself, I will destroy you.” With that he grabbed her arm and half dragged her to the nearest gate out to the street. He flung the recorder away from him, vaguely aware of the sound it made skittering across the driveway pavement and reached for the latch.

  “Now you stay away from the Village. And I will be paying a great deal of attention to the local reporting from here on, so you keep your bullshit stories to yourself, and keep us the fuck out of it.” Kai shoved her through the gate and pulled it closed. “No. Trespassing.” He snarled through the steel lattice, before spinning on his heel and stalking off back towards the main building and his own apartment. He needed to calm down and he knew it. Right now the reporter wasn’t the only danger to the Village. He shivered again when his mind flashed on Nicole’s eyes, wide and terrified when he slammed the gate closed behind her. He had no doubt that she had stood her ground against angry interviewees before, but he would be very surprised if she had never before been face to face with a furious demigod.

  18

  What the hell was that?” Sebastian slammed the door behind him and crashed across the room. Kai didn’t even look up at his brother from where he slumped on the sofa. He was shivering, almost shaking outright if he was going to be honest. The adrenaline of his anger was draining off and leaving him feeling hollow and cold. The magic that had been settling down a bit in the cool silence of his own living room was kicked back into swirling motion around him in reaction to Sebastian’s wild energy.

  “That was me getting rid of Nicole Jones from the Mercury News,” Kai gritted the words out, unwilling to snap at his own brother. “It was a problem. A threat to the Village, and I dealt with it. That’s my job.”

  “What you did was assault a damn reporter. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sue! I called Jennifer to warn her about it and see what she has to say, and Sarah called Doc. They went after the woman to try to do some damage control,” Sebastian said. He was pacing in front of Kai, scrubbing his hand through his sandy blonde hair and looking so much like his father had when they were kids and getting chewed out that Kai wasn’t sure whether to feel amused or ashamed of himself. He couldn’t fight the smile that was creeping across his face though.

  “So, am I grounded now, Dad?” he asked. Sebastian stopped and stared at him. Kai could see the shock in his eyes and tried to understand what was going through Seb’s mind.

  “Kai, this isn’t a joke,” Sebastian said. “What you did could have repercussions. Serious ones! You might have just convinced that woman that you are the Los Gatos Werewolf. She definitely thinks you’re at least covering up for the guy. She’s just going to keep coming back now, and we’re going to have to do something.”

  Just like it had outside, the weight of his responsibility crushed his humor and his rationality. The place where he had felt hollow now filled with anger and frustration and the feeling of being entirely unappreciated. He worked his ass off keeping everyone safe and comfortable just so that they could just turn around and blame him for everything
?

  Kai was suddenly livid. This was Sebastian. Of all the people on the Earth, Sebastian should understand. They had been working together to protect the Village since they were children. First with Obaachan, and then when she died, they had leaned on each other. Sebastian was his right hand, practically. They never fought. Not really. As a result, his lack of support now felt like the worst of betrayals.

  “Well what do you suggest I do differently then?” Kai snarled. He stood now himself, unable to stay still with the magic and emotion stirring even the air in the room. “Maybe I should invite her back for tea and a show? We could go door to door in a reverse Halloween and show the reporter where all the monsters live! It’ll be fun! We can print up flyers so that every hunter on Earth can find us more easily. That’ll fix things!”

  “Don’t be an ass, Kai.” Sebastian said. Kai scowled, unable to hear Sebastian’s words over the blood rushing through his ears. Sebastian was only one quarter spirit, and even though they were equal partners here, Kai had always felt like he carried the heavier part of the burden of protecting the Village. His father had passed a huge reserve of power to him and even though Kai rarely touched it, both brothers knew he could. Everyone in the Village knew, but so what? Everyone treated Mr. Young with respect, bowing to him and making excuses for his odd habits because he was so powerful, but all they did for Kai was complain about their problems and tell him everything he did wrong, that he wasn’t doing a good enough job.

  It suddenly seemed entirely unreasonable to Kai that he should have to face these dangers alone, without even a word of thanks from his own family. Why should he be the sole defender of the place? Why was it always up to him to make decisions about everything from design approval for the stupid clubhouse to literally keeping everyone’s secrets safe with no help whatsoever? And instead of gratitude for all his work, he was getting a god damned lecture like he’d gotten into trouble in school? He stopped Sebastian— whatever it was he was still saying— with a wave of his hand that sent a shockwave of wild magic through the room. Sebastian’s face went white, Kai saw, but he was too deep in his anger now to stop himself.

  “What do you want from me?” Kai snarled, his face up close to Sebastian’s. A small voice in his mind was shouting that he was being unreasonable, overreacting badly and that Sebastian was right about a lot of what he’d said, but Kai could barely hear it. “I have done everything I can to keep this place safe. I make sacrifice after sacrifice to protect you and the rest of the people here, and I barely even sleep trying to keep everyone happy and comfortable. I stay awake for days on end patrolling just to make sure that we don’t have any more trouble like we did last month. I repair all the damage to the damned buildings and smooth over the roughed-up feelings between Villagers. I solve all the problems the residents come up with from stubbed toes to violent attacks. I bleed for this place, all to keep you safe and happy, and everyone just keeps coming to me to do things for them and complaining when I do it! And now you— you Sebastian, who ought to at least understand what I’m doing here— you come strolling in and try to tell me I’m out of line? For doing my job?”

  Kai snarled again and knew that his control was slipping.

  “Kai, what is going on with you? You’re never like this.” Sebastian was staring at him, pale and shocked.

  “Maybe I should be,” Kai snapped. “I’m working my ass off and carrying this whole damn place on my shoulders while you get to go off and play house with Sarah, and everyone else gets to fuck around doing whatever they want, and then when I do one thing that you don’t think was perfect, I get raked over the coals for it? To hell with that. You don’t like how I run things? You fucking deal with it.” Kai grabbed a coat off the rack as he stormed past it and slammed the door so hard it cracked when he left, trailing ragged flickers of darkness and magic in his wake.

  “Woah, bro. What bit you?” Eric’s voice broke through Kai’s angry muttering. He shook his head, trying to clear it enough not to snarl at his fully human brother. A few deep breaths as Eric fell into step beside him, and he could answer finally without lacing power into every word.

  “Sebastian,” he said.

  “Man. You guys never fight. Was this about the reporter?” Eric asked. He was jogging slightly to keep up as they slipped out the pedestrian gate. Kai wasn’t sure where he was heading, just away from the damned apartments.

  “Yes,” Kai said. He wasn’t sure he should say more, but this was Eric. Their brother. They’d known each other since they were children. Kai took a deep breath.

  “He sounds just like Dad when he starts lecturing. I can’t let reporters wander around the Village, but instead of thanking me for doing my damned job, our job, he came in and started to lay into me about it. I mean sure, I could have kept hold of my temper a bit better, but god! I am more than a little stressed out afar the past couple of months and I think I deserve a little support and, I don’t know, appreciation for everything I do around here. Is that asking too much?”

  “No way,” Eric shook his head. “I mean I can’t even imagine what you have to do to keep that place going. All the regular stuff for an apartment, then all the special needs’ stuff?” Eric actually made finger quotes for Kai’s benefit. “It’s only reasonable to expect some help. Your grandmother left that place to both of you, after all. It’s only fair to expect him to shoulder his part of the load. Not helping you out is just bullshit. I’m surprised he’s slacking off, but then I guess he’s got a girlfriend now…” Eric trailed off with a thoughtful tone to his voice. “Seems kinda like he’s taking advantage of you to hang out with her.”

  He was right, though. Seb should take care of his part of the work. It shouldn’t be only up to Kai to keep everyone safe. But then, Kai was the more powerful of them, by a lot. It was pretty reasonable for him to take on the bulk of the burden, simply because he could carry more.

  God, it was so damned confusing, and he was still so angry.

  “Listen, Eric. I’m not good company right now. I think I need to go for a run or something, I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” he said.

  “Sure thing, bro. I’ll go try to talk some sense into Sebastian. I’m sure he can schedule fewer dates. You are actual family, after all, and she’s not. He has responsibilities to you.” Eric peeled off and headed back the way they’d come. Kai glanced around and realized that he was blocks from the apartments now. With a sigh, he just started walking again, no particular place in mind to go. When had his life gone to badly wrong?

  19

  Kai had been randomly wandering around for hours now. He still felt anger sizzle through his body, but it was not his primary emotion anymore. Not even close. Now, mostly he felt shame and confusion. Sebastian was right, his reaction had been seriously over the top. He’d just blown up at the poor woman who really was just trying to do her job, then he’d gone off at Sebastian for calling him on his bullshit.

  He really ought to go apologize.

  Kai stopped and looked around, scrubbing his hand over his head as he tried to figure out where he actually was. It was just after lunchtime now, and he realized that he’d actually managed to walk all the way into Campbell— almost all the way to San Jose, actually.

  “Damn,” he said, blinking at the growing dusk. He took a careful look around and found a landmark and headed off to a nearby bar. He wasn’t angry anymore. He was embarrassed now. The guilt of having snapped at the reporter sat sour in his stomach. Sebastian was right, he had overreacted. The poor woman really was just doing her job, after all. It wasn’t her fault that he felt helpless against the threats to his people from the warlock and the wolf man thug and the vandal. It was his own fault that he’d lost his temper when the possibility of exposure had snapped the last thread holding all his fears at bay. He should send an apology to that poor reporter.

  Well, assuming it was legally wise. He’d have to risk one of Jennifer’s lectures to ask her. She always started out as a lawyer during those conversations
and ended up as a mother. She sometimes joked that since Kai’s own mother was in New York, she had to take up the slack between visits. Usually Kai didn’t mind, he enjoyed that she felt close enough to take up that responsibility, but right now he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t break him and he had to stay strong.

  And then Sebastian. How could he apologize to his brother? The look of shock and— Kai had to admit it, even though it made him sick— fear on Seb’s face when his magic had swirled through the room… Kai would never be able to forgive himself. That image would haunt him to his grave.

  Kai snorted at the beer in front of him now. He might end up in a grave sooner than anyone expected, but sadly it wouldn’t bring him relief from the guilt and pain. Kai was beginning to suspect that wights never stopped reliving the worst moments they’d endured as living creatures. Terrifying his brother would likely be a frequently recurring torture for his own personal hell.

  Kai took a steadying breath. Then another. He had to stay strong. Had to fight the darkness trying to consume him. He’d been doing so well, leaning on his friends and family to keep the light shining in his heart. He had to watch for the good things in the world, and focus on them, so he could stay strong enough to protect the Village, even from himself. He suspected that Doc guessed what he was doing and approved in a manner of speaking. She kept encouraging him to do things that would bring a smile to his face, or to others, so she must have some notion that would help. Kai was afraid that he was past saving, though. He was feeling the chill almost all the time now. Doc would probably be angry that he’d kept that from her. Knowing that he was disappointing her just made it worse.

  But he had to keep people safe, and that meant keeping them in the dark about how close he really was to failing them completely. It wasn’t just a matter of following him as their leader, but their confidence actually gave him strength. He was better able to fight for them because they believed he could. As soon as that confidence wavered, he would be vulnerable— well, more vulnerable— and that put the whole Village in danger.