Chapter 17

It was worse than before. The sickness, the feelings of desperation and despair. They grew every hour I was apart from him. It was like going through a drug withdrawal that got worse and worse instead of ever getting better.

At night I paced the floor, unable to sleep. Because every time I laid my head on the pillow, the dream was there, waiting to carry me away to misery and pain and bloodshed. The wolf’s howl was piteously mournful now and the boy looked at me with accusation written plainly in his pale green eyes. I was hurting him as much as I was hurting myself—that was clear to me, even in the dream. I was hurting both of us because of my refusal to break a taboo that really wasn’t even there.

I woke up with reasons on my lips—reasons I couldn’t see him, couldn’t give him what he asked. He was a murderer—a serial killer for God’s sake. How could I let myself even think of being with him after knowing that? ~I only kill evil people~. Richard’s voice echoed in my head on those occasions. Yes, but who was he to judge? It was true that Chulo Martinez was no great loss to society—he had been an abusive, foul-minded pimp and a button man for the mob. But he should have been sent to a court of law and given due process, not summarily slaughtered on a full moon night because Richard needed a sacrifice in order to regain his human form.

And what about Charles? We were still getting married—I had promised myself that. There was no way I was giving up the normal, sane life I’d worked so hard to build for myself. True, we weren’t talking much lately. Every time he called me, I put him off or promised to call back later—promises I always broke. But on the day of our wedding, I fully intended to be there, dressed in the billowing white dress I had picked for the occasion. If anything would carry me through this difficult time it was my stubborn refusal to let go of my ideals. And those ideals did ~not~ include leaving my normal if somewhat boorish fiancé to run away with a man who was a shape changing serial killer who had also been raised as my brother. Or so I told myself on a daily basis.

Of course the most pressing reason I knew I could never be with Richard was always with me. The fact that he was my brother—at least in my eyes. True, there were no blood ties but we’d been raised by the same parents, tucked in at night and taken to school each day by the same mother and father. He’d been my older sibling my entire life and it was hard, too hard, to think of him as anything else now. That was why I was certain that even if I had given in to my unnatural urges and let him make love to me, or breed me, as he called it, we could never have a lasting relationship. I might be able to put aside my feelings of breaking a taboo at night when we were naked together in bed and the lust for his body in mine overcame me, but by the light of day the shame of what I was doing and who I was doing it with would main and cripple me. I wouldn’t be able to stand myself—not in the long run.

But as the end of the first full week without Richard in my life, my reasons began to wear thin. My withdrawal symptoms weren’t getting any better—they were getting worse. I forced myself to get up and dragged myself to work every morning even though I felt like death warmed over and knew I looked even worse. I forgot what I was supposed to say in court and coworkers began looking at me out of the corners of their eyes and talking in hushed voices that stopped abruptly when I came too near. I knew they thought I was crazy or sick or both—or maybe just on drugs—but there was nothing I could do about it. It wasn’t until Friday of the second week, though, that things came to a head.

I was in court again, prosecuting a routine case that I knew I had prepared for. And yet, as I looked over my notes, it was as though I was looking at them for the first time. The words on the page made no sense to me—as though they were written in a foreign language. I stood up to cross-examine a witness and I could barely speak. My brain was fogged with pain and need and longing. The dream the night before had been particularly bad and it insisted on replaying itself behind my eyes as I tried to do my job.

As I stuttered and stumbled through my cross, I saw the eyes of the other attorneys in court looking at me with pity and contempt. Even the jurors seemed to know that something was wrong. And the judge, an older woman named Caroline DeBerg who had taken the bench back in the seventies, had one skinny eyebrow raised in an expression of severe displeasure. I was doing a horrible job and I knew it but I couldn’t seem to do any better.

“Mister…Mister Manzetti,” I said, talking to the witness, who was looking at me like I was crazy.

“Name’s ~Maniro~,” he interrupted me.

I nodded quickly, trying to cover my mistake. “Of course, Mister Maniro. Where were you on the night of October seventeenth?”

“At home in my living room with my wife.” He frowned at me. “But don’t you wanna ask me about October twenty-seventh? That’s when I saw O’Brian kill that guy.”

“Objection!” The attorney for the defense, a portly man with an unbearably smug attitude named Joseph Barnes, was on his feet, glaring at me. “Your honor, I don’t know what game Ms. Kemet is playing here, instructing her witness to make false statements to the jury, but--”

“Your honor, it was a simple slip of the tongue,” I interrupted him. “I haven’t instructed Mister Mandero to say anything of the kind.”

“Mister ~Maniro,~” the witness said again. “Get it right, lady.”

“Your honor, she can’t even remember the name of her own witness,” Joseph Barnes said, throwing me a contemptuous look.

“I resent that, your honor,” I said.

“What?” Barnes smirked. “You resent me pointing out the truth?”

“Enough!” Judge DeBerg pounded her gavel until both of us were silent. “Ms. Kemet,” she crooked a long, thin finger at me. “You may approach the bench.”

I walked slowly forward, with the feeling of being called to the principal’s office. Disapproval was written in every thin line and sharp angle of Judge DeBerg’s black clad form.

“Ms. Kemet,” she said in a voice that was low enough not to carry, but icy enough to cut me to the bone. “I have never seen such a display of incompetence in my court room. Truly, it is staggering.”

“Your Honor,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I have to apologize. I--”

“This isn’t like you,” she continued, cutting me off. “I’ve seen your work before, councilor and you’re usually as sharp as a tack. In fact, I remember thinking that you’d be sitting here on the bench yourself in another eight or ten years. What happened?”

“I…I…” I fumbled for an explanation.

“Are you sick?” she demanded. “Taking some kind of medication that alters your mental status?”

“Sick,” I said, grasping at the explanation she offered me. “I’m ill—have been for the last two weeks.” The minute I said the words, I knew they were true. My hands were trembling so badly I had to cross my arms and tuck them beneath my elbows and I felt nauseous and faint. Just how long I’d been feeling so bad I couldn’t say—it had been creeping up on me so gradually that the full impact didn’t hit me until Judge DeBerg put a name to what I was feeling.

“Well, if you’re so ill that you can’t do your job, you shouldn’t be here at all,” she said severely. “You’re doing both yourself and this court a disservice by showing up in this condition.”

“You’re absolutely right, your Honor,” I said. “And I’d like to apologize.”

Judge DeBerg lowered her eyebrows and stopped staring a hole through my forehead. Apparently she was mollified by my abject apology. “Were it any other attorney standing here before me, Ms. Kemet, I would demand that they excuse themselves from this case permanently. However, I know the damage such a request could do to a budding and, for the most part, promising legal career. As you have impressed me in the past, I’ll excuse you for now and we’ll recess. Court will reconvene this following Monday.”

I thought about telling her that another ADA would be taking my place anyway on Monday since I had my rehearsal dinner planned for that night and the wedding was Saturday at noon. By Monday I would, hopefully, be on my way to Paris and my honeymoon. But I knew if I said anything like that, she was liable to suspect me of having my mind on something else instead of my job. She would be right, of course, but what was occupying my mind wasn’t my upcoming nuptials—it was Richard and the dream.

“You’re dismissed, counselor.” Judge DeBerg’s crisp voice cut through the fog my mind had drifted into yet again. “And a word to the wise—don’t ever let me see you behaving this way in my courtroom again.”

“Yes, your Honor,” I said humbly. “Thank you.”

I turned and almost stumbled as I made my way back to the prosecutor’s table to collect my briefcase. Behind me I heard the gavel bang again and Judge DeBerg announcing that we were in recess until the following week.

I made my way out of the courtroom as best I could, wishing I had something to lean on. Just something to give me a little support. ~Oh, Richard,~ I found myself thinking. ~If only you were here. If only you’d come back.~ But though I had searched through all the hospitals and police records in the Tampa Bay area, he was nowhere to be found. It was as though he had disappeared off the face of the Earth and taken my heart with him.

~No,~ I scolded myself. ~Don’t think that way. You’re going to marry Charles tomorrow at noon. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner. ~We were scheduled to have the dinner at a small, intimate Italian restaurant called The Laughing Cat which made the best Portobello mushroom and asiago cheese ravioli in town—maybe the world, in my opinion. Yet now the idea of eating anything, even The Laughing Cat’s famous ravioli, left me feeling sick and unsteady. It was getting to where I could barely function.

~Stop thinking like that,~ I told myself. I made an effort to straighten my shoulders and left the courthouse, keeping my head high. Once outside in the warm Tampa sunshine I headed for the nearest bench, meaning to sit down just for a moment and regain my strength. All I needed was a little rest. Just a little shut eye before I had to face Charles and all his disapproving relations. Just a little nap to make things all better….

I closed my eyes and let my head drop back against the back of the bench, not caring that I probably looked like a woman in an alcoholic daze to anyone who happened to walk by. I was tired…just so damn tired. The dream…the dream of the boy and the wolf and the moon and the blood wouldn’t leave me alone. It seemed to grow stronger with every passing night as the moon grew fuller in the sky. But there was no moon here, only the sun shining down on me with a benevolent warmth that felt like a blessing against my tired eyelids. I let myself relax, just for a moment…

“~Please,” I heard the boy’s voice, the one with Richard’s eyes, pleading in my head. “Rachel, the moon is full tonight. Please, come to me.”~

~ In the dream, the boy was sick, his pale green eyes sunken into his thin, dark face. His mouth was a white line of pain. He was hurting as much as I was. But where was he? How could I find him? ~

~ Overhead I saw the moon, bloated and angry, red with blood and pregnant with an ominous warning. Somewhere a wolf howled—a desolate sound that pierced my soul. ~

~ “Please,” I told the boy, feeling his pain as though it was my own. “Where are you?”~

~ “Rachel,” the boy said, in Richard’s voice. “I’m dying.”~

“No!” I said. “No, please, if you’ll just tell me where you are…”

“Kemet? Hey, Kemet?” A hand shook me awake and I looked up, blinking in the blinding sunlight to see Detective Genevieve Marks looking down at me. She had a worried expression on her face and the sunlight caught her bushy hair and made a frizzy halo around her head.

“He’s dying,” I said, unable to stop myself, unable to shake the dream. “He’s dying, Genevieve, and I can’t find him.”

“Who’s dying?” She sat beside me on the bench, still looking concerned. “What are you talking about?”

“My brother—Richard,” I said. “Well, he’s not actually my brother. He was raised by my parents but we don’t really have any blood tie between us. I mean, we’re only related in name, not actually by genetics. It’s just that his eyes are like mine because we have the same ethnic background and…” I trailed off, realizing that I was babbling. Genevieve was staring at me, one bushy eyebrow raised high.

“Wait a minute, Kemet. Are you telling me that the guy you had staying with you, the one we arrested and you convinced me to let go, wasn’t really your brother at all?”

“He is and he isn’t,” I said miserably. “It’s all just a big mess.” I slumped further down on the bench, feeling its hard wooden slats dig into my back. “It doesn’t matter now because he’s gone. He’s gone and I can’t find him.”

“Maybe you’re better off without him.” Genevieve frowned at me. “I mean, what about Charlie-boy? Or did you two break it off?”

“No,” I said listlessly. “We’re still together. The rehearsal dinner is tonight and the wedding is tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock sharp at Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart.” I gestured briefly in the direction of the church where I was to be married. Charles’ mother had chosen it and it was only a few blocks from the courthouse but I had yet to step inside it. I just knew what time I was supposed to show up.

“Wow, don’t sound so enthusiastic. You’re practically jumping for joy,” Genevieve said dryly.

I sighed and made an effort to sit up straighter. “It’s just…I’d feel a lot better if I could find Richard. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth and I keep having this dream…I mean, I need to know he’s okay,” I finished lamely. “I just…I have this terrible feeling he’s hurt. And…and I miss him, Genevieve.” I looked at her, unable to stop myself from telling the truth. “I miss him a lot.”

“He’s more than just a brother to you, isn’t he?”

“Yes…no…I don’t know.” I shook my head.

She looked grim. “Well, I do. He’s important to you or you wouldn’t have bitten my damn head off when I tried to warn you off him.”

I twisted my hands in my lap. It seemed it was my day for apologies. “I know I was rude. That was wrong of me and I’m sorry.” I looked up at her. “It’s just that, well, my feelings for Richard are...undefined. He was raised with me as my brother. But now…now I don’t know.”

“I know,” she said, patting my shoulder awkwardly. “I could tell by the way you looked at him the very first time I saw you together. But it’s not easy for you. You’ve got Charlie-boy on the string and that rock on your finger. Then this guy that’s supposed to be your brother but isn’t waltzes back into your life and screws everything up.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And I’m just so…so confused. I haven’t been sleeping well since Richard left. And I feel like crap.”

“You ~look~ like crap,” she said frankly. “And I heard about what happened with Judge DeBerg. Pretty rough.”

I felt my cheeks heat with shame. No doubt everyone in the law enforcement and judicial community would know what a moron I had made of myself in court today by now. “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty rough is an understatement.”

Genevieve shifted on the bench, turning to face me. “So, why’d he leave?”

If my face had been hot before it was on fire now. “He…wanted more than I was willing to give,” I said at last, after trying and rejecting various lies in my head. No matter how rudely I had treated her in the past, Genevieve was my friend—she deserved as much of the truth as I could tell her.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded her bushy head thoughtfully and tactfully didn’t comment further on my weird pseudo-family relationship. “Sounds like a mess, all right. So if you miss him, why haven’t you filed a missing person’s report?”

I thought of Richard’s confession to me—his monthly killings. Friend or no friend, that certainly wasn’t something I could divulge to Genevieve. She was first and foremost a detective. “He’s…I thought it would be better not to involve the police,” I said at last. “I mean, considering what happened when he first came to town,” I ended lamely.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded again. “There’s something you’re not telling me about him, Kemet, but I’m not going to ask what it is. And if you ask my advice, I’d say you should let him stay lost. That guy is seven miles of bad road.”

“I know,” I said. “But I can’t help myself, Genevieve. I…I need him. Need to know he’s okay, I mean.” I put out a hand to her and she grabbed it in both of hers.

“Jesus, Kemet, you’re shaking like a leaf. What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sick. I need…I need to find Richard. I think I’d be well again if I knew he was all right.” I looked at her hopefully. “I’ve checked all the hospitals and as many PD records as I could get access to,” I said. “But you’d have access to things I don’t.”

“Crap.” She squeezed my hand, then dropped it. “I’m going to regret this. I know I am.” She ran a hand through her bushy hair, making it even messier. “I’ll try and help you, Kemet, even though I think it’s stupid and wrong. I don’t know that I’ll have much success but I’ll try.”

“Thank you.” I leaned over impulsively and gave her a hug.

“All right.” She patted my back awkwardly and drew away. “Like I said, I know I’m going to regret this.”