Seventy-Six

“Welcome to my home, brother. I hope you feel comfortable here.”
Standing in the middle of the room, holding a box, was Radu. His face in a scowl, and his eyes scintillated hatred towards me. After all this time, I was face to face with my flesh and blood. Maybe time had softened me, or I learnt my lesson. I didn’t know, but my heart squeezed in my chest. I’d never imagine, not even in a million years, I’d have a brother looking at me after six hundred years.
“Why all this show, brother?” With very slow movements, I planted my feet apart, preparing myself for an attack. With a quick side look to Anton, he did the same. I didn’t know what to expect from him. “You always had to have some friends with you, as you never had the courage to face me by yourself.” I was taunting him, but it was what brothers did best, right?
“Go!” He waved his hand, dismissing the men. “No, don’t worry about their weapons. They will not be stupid enough to use them against me, or someone would get hurt,” he said, when they moved to take our swords from us. He was talking about Liz. I wasn’t stupid. I hoped he knew he was pushing his luck. He walked to us and stopped in front of me, opening the box in my face and inside a beautiful long and thin chain rested, made of white gold, etched with the same symbols as Anton’s blade. What the hell?
“Were you behind this crap all this time? What kind of sick bastard are you, Radu?” My voice dripped with sorrow as I growled at him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “What did I do to you? Why do you hate me so much?”
“You dared to breathe, brother. Your doormat always by your side,” he mocked, dangling the chain and sparing Anton a disgusted look.
Vlad, I don’t know where he got that. He will tie us with it. It will take away your powers for some time. Just go with the flow. Mine won’t get affected that much, but we’ll lose communication. Just let him think he has the upper hand here.
“Don’t even think to attack me, Alizandra is on that side of the wall.” Once he took the chain in his hands, I noticed the thick gloves he wore and the minute he tied my wrists, my demon whimpered in pain, curling himself in a corner inside me as well. I didn’t need my powers to feel all the hate and hurt coming from him.
“Brother, I can feel your pain…” but he cut me off.
“I grew up in your shadow, and when I needed you most, you were not there for me. You didn’t protect me from them!” He spat, finishing up to tie us both as the loose ends melded together. Maybe I had hearing problems, because I wasn’t sure of his words. “You don’t know half the shit they did to me in that place, everything I had to endure.”
“Are you kidding me? All this time, you blamed me for your weakness? What did you want me to do? I was only one, and they were many, just another boy in their hands.” I hissed in disbelief.
“But they never touched you!” he screamed at me at full lungs, trying to find his breathing.
“Because I rebelled against them, or don’t you remember all the beating I took, leaving me battered and raw for days. How many times I told you to be brave and stand up for yourself, but you didn’t! Now it’s my fault?” I stared at him, aghast. His accusations were ludicrous.
“You knew I wasn’t like you. I didn’t have the same strength.”
“I’m sorry, brother. Sorry, if you thought I let you down. Believe, it killed me every time they took you away, and you came back with that glassy, distant gaze in your eyes.” Just to think about it, even today made me angry, I felt so helpless. “I loved you and I tried to protect you. Some of my punishments were because I went against them defending you, and that’s how you repay me? You were my brother, the only one I had left, but I was only a boy also trying to fight against them and survive. But in no circumstances I will bear the blame for your cowardice!” My stony gaze fell on him and my voice was devoid of emotion when I spoke again. “A few years later, when we got rid of them as they freed us, you chose them over me, you puny prick. I owe you nothing!”
“I wanted to be like you! You left and started all the crusades against them. It was something I wanted to do, but I’d never had the chance. Then you found her, and you were so happy, so in love. Why did you get everything and I was the weak one?”
“I’ve never had everything, Radu! Only God knows the cost to my soul for all the crap I had to do to survive, to strive and have her by my side.” I couldn’t believe my own ears. He was a sick, twisted person. So easy to put the blame for our wrongdoings or weaknesses on someone else's shoulders.
“You had to see the look on your face when my arrows pierced her back, amusing.” He whispered in my ear, and I lost it.
“You put me through hell, you son of a bitch!” I yelled at him and head-butted his face, making him stagger a few steps back, laughing.
“Not more than my hell.”
“Do a goddamn job this time, brother, or you’re leaving this place with father’s blade up your ass.” The murderous gaze he shot me while cleaning up his bloody nose promised retaliation, but I didn’t care.
“You were the dark energy I always felt. You were the one messing with our businesses, with our associates, and Liz reincarnations, everything throughout the centuries.” Anton’s face was deadly serious. He was about to snap and rip his head off. “Vlad, remember Baxley’s words. Afterwards, they were found dead.”
“He had problems following orders…” I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face.
“You killed Liz past selves and tormented me all these centuries just to get back at me?”
“Of course not, don’t be so full of yourself. Alessia and Alya were a mistake. Later on, I figured my curse didn’t allow me to get near them. When I tried, they died.” He scoffed at me.
I didn’t know how to put into words what I was feeling at that moment, but I wanted to kill him, put him up on a spike. I should have done that the day I found him slithering outside my home. My entire life turned into a nightmare because my brother was a treacherous, cowardly bastard who always envied me. It made me weep inside.
We had a fun childhood together. He was a bright, happy boy to be with, but once they took us from father, little by little the light of his eyes shimmered. I knew what happened every time they came for him, and I tried to shield him in the beginning, showing him how to fight and rebel against them. But yes, he was weaker than me in character, and it came at a time when I had my hands tied, like now, just not literally. But a thought came unbidden.
“How could you let someone go through the same horrors you did and just watch it? Liz didn’t deserve it. Her only mistake was to fall in love with a sinner like me. Are you really that pitiful?” Maybe I was delusional, but I had the impression a stitch of remorse glinted in those dead eyes. I couldn’t care less now. He was a living, breathing corpse. He just didn’t know yet.
“You know, the last time Alizandra died, you were so distraught, brother, that when you put yourself once more into slumber, I made sure you wouldn’t rise soon enough. I was one of the patrons in the university where her father had his research office.”
He paused and looked somewhere in the room. “Doc showed up there with a beautiful toddler by the hand, the violet shining in her eyes, and energy pouring from her little body, but she vibrated differently this time. I followed and watched them playing together, doing his experiments, and I figured, she was brilliant, she had a talent, maybe serving my purposes. I reinforced the dark energy around you, thus nothing would disturb your resting place until I carried on with my plans.”
“But you didn’t count on me waking up and messing up your plans, right?”
“I was furious when Ioan cursed me, but later on, I realised, for the first time, I could have something for myself. All the power I wanted, everything. I discovered his hiding place and stole these chains from him. He’s a different being, not like us. I was okay with my new life, until years later I came across my beloved brother and his doormat,” he screamed. “When I thought I was free from you, and I could have the world for me only, you were there. Again!”
“Alizandra?” he shouted, turning and staring somewhere. “Do you see the chain around their wrists? Soon it will turn into a bracelet, and it’s meant to chaste whatever powers they have. I’m the only one who can take it off. They are as vulnerable as lambs. Let me give you a proof of it.”
The slight movement of his head, a sharp sound, and a stingy pain on my left thigh. Next minute I was on the floor, blood sipping from the wound and I knew as long as I had my hands tied, it wouldn’t close. The son of a bitch shot me. Although my powers were off for the moment, I heard Liz’s strangled screams in my head. I gazed at Anton, who warned me with a subtle shake of his head to keep playing cool.
“Radu, you want your revenge? Fight like a man, me and you, one on one, sword by sword, puny coward!” I screamed at him, the pain and anger taking over.