Unsung Requiem by C.L. Stone

Conjunct

(An adjective applied to a melodic line that moves by step.)

Victor

On their way in, Victor took a moment outside of the Taylor compound to finally answer the text he’d gotten. With everything expected of him today, there was no way he’d escape to the office, to the dragon desk, and be able to join in.

DEPTHAFFECTION: I’m offline today. Trace?

DEPTHCRAWLER: Tagged. Don’t know how long it’ll last.

Victor gritted his teeth. It was important, although they’d found dozens of them before.

Volto wasn’t dumb enough to utilize normal means of purchase for the supplies he used. How he managed to invade their phone lines, trace where they were, that took some special purchases. And it was more likely Volto took the time to source and order via virtual currency… on the dark web.

And Victor had to enlist a little help in navigating to figure out the likely locations he might be purchasing, figure out a way to negotiate a trade for information. The trick with the dark web was it was designed to be untraceable. So they had to list likely items Volto used… but without an exact item to know what he purchased, they were shooting blanks and taking the long road. So every source that provided items Volto likely used, they had to follow up.

And not every source was willing to talk to them.

He dropped his phone back into his pocket, going inside the dilapidated Victorian house. He didn’t want to inform the others. It was one of those instances where if he was ever caught, he was the only one associated.

Inside the old house, the lower level held a collection of ladders, wood, hammers, and who knew what else, whatever they used to update. It was one of those areas Victor sometimes wished he’d spent more time in, but the group didn’t need another carpenter or plumber.

On the second level, he’d found the others. Victor stopped just outside an upstairs bathroom, looking in.

At the sink, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, was North. Black T-shirt, black jeans, hands and arms were dirty. He’d not shaved in a couple of days, the hair making shadows across his cheeks as if he’d a full beard already.

Something Victor had tried to do once and failed at. He was a tad jealous over the beards the others could grow.

North glared down at his brother, who was leaning over the toilet bowl after having heaved… again.

“Serves you right,” North said.

“Got it the first time you said it,” Luke’s voice echoed into the bowl. He spit and picked his head up. “Good while it lasted.” His longer blond hair was pulled back haphazardly into a hairclip. No shirt. No shoes. Just a pair of boxer shorts, and when Victor had come in, he hadn’t had anything on. It was only at North’s insistence he’d put them on.

“I can’t believe you’d eat all that candy,” Victor said. Victor’s stomach rumbled uncomfortably after witnessing Luke’s body heaving. He swallowed thickly. “You don’t normally get this sick after a binge.”

“I hadn’t eaten anything,” Luke said. “I always forget.”

“Every season,” North said in a grumblier-than-usual tone. “Every fucking candy season. Halloween. Christmas. Now Valentine’s Day is coming…”

“I can’t help it,” Luke whined. “They put the new candy out. I didn’t know what kind Sang would like, and I didn’t want to give her stuff that wasn’t good.”

“So you had to eat it all?” North asked.

Luke coughed and convulsed as if he’d retch again but didn’t. “At first, no. I was just really hungry, but once I started…”

Victor shook his head, crossing his arms like North. “You have a couple weeks to go. Even if you wanted to taste them all… it’s not like they run out.”

Luke made a sobbing noise. “I was hungry…”

At that point, North jolted a bit, reached into his back pocket, answered his phone. “Yeah, baby?”

“Don’t tell her!” Luke hoarsely whispered from the toilet. “Just say I’m sick. Say it’s that thing going around.”

North grunted. “Luke is a little sick. I was just making sure—” Pause. “Nope, it absolutely isn’t that he ate himself sick from buying and eating twelve pounds of Valentine’s Day candy and now can’t move away from the toilet bowl.” He breathed in, held it, and then blew out a breath while saying the next part. “It’s the… flu. Of some sort.”

Luke lifted a hand in a thumbs up toward North. “You’re a good brother, North. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Victor shook his head, muttering loud enough for them to hear but hoping Sang couldn’t. “You know, if she thinks you have the flu, she’s not going to come around for a good long while.”

Luke’s already paled face seemed to turn sheet white. “North! Fix it! Tell her it was the candy!”

“It’s the pandemic going around,” North said. “Yeah, really contagious. Can’t see him for a month…”

“Noooooo!” Luke whined and coughed, aiming his mouth toward the bowl, waiting for a heaving that didn’t seem to come.

“Later, baby,” North hung up.

“I hate everyone,” Luke mumbled. “Especially brothers. Brothers are stupid.”

“Next time, don’t eat twelve pounds of candy,” North said.

“But the chocolate…” Luke said. He hiccupped and swallowed. “Don’t say that. The C-word. It’s a bad word.”

Victor pressed a palm against his own forehead. “I suppose we’ll have to leave him here for the day?”

“Probably for the best,” North said. “Luckily, Sang says they’ve got a solution to the car problem. Luke will have to stay behind.”

“I’ll come for your birthday,” Luke said, pointing a wavering finger in Victor’s vicinity without actually looking up. “Just give me a few hours.”

“Drink some water,” North said. “And for God’s sakes, don’t eat any more sugar. There’s celery and carrots in the fridge.”

“Ugh,” Luke said. “I hate carrots.”

“If you eat any more sugar, I’ll know. And I’ll feed you nothing but carrots for a week.” North urged Victor out and shut the bathroom door on Luke.

The hallway in the upstairs of the house was dim along the corridor. The electrical work was sticking out of the light fixtures above, unusable at the moment. “One disaster after another today,” Victor said. “Good birthday to me.”

“It’s not that bad,” North said. “Remember my last birthday?”

Victor grimaced. “Yeah… that wasn’t good. It’s still not great today either. Everything’s going absolutely wrong.” He turned away, intending to find his way to some stairs.

North dropped an arm, blocking him. Surprisingly, North leaned in, a little too close, looking Victor dead in the eye. “What are you saying?”

Victor rolled his eyes, lips twitching. “My parents throwing this stupid birthday bash for not me, trying to gift me a new car that I’ll never be able to drive in this town, Sang’s new manager… I don’t know how much more I can take today.” He grumbled. “Plus the more I complain, the more I sound like the royal brat that everyone expects me to be.”

North stilled, those eyes focused so hard on Victor that he could almost feel the weight of them.

Slowly, North lifted his hand, and in the same way he did to Sang every once in a while, caught Victor’s chin and held it to make him focus. The only difference being he didn’t lean in nearly as far as he did with Sang.

“A brat complains and does nothing to help himself,” he said. “So if you don’t want to feel like a brat, do something useful.”

Victor wasn’t sure if it was the way North had held his face still or his words, but every bone in his body felt tense in that moment. Absolutely right. Maybe he was being a brat to just spit out complaints. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re not going to figure it out if you’re too focused on blaming other people or finding things wrong.” North let his chin go. “Let’s go figure out your damn car. We’ll deal with the rest later.”

North went to the top of the stairs. Victor followed, holding his chin and rubbing the skin where North had touched him.

He was right. It was time to stop standing by, watching everything happening.

He wanted to do something today. Today. Of all days. Something.

But what?