“Some power-mad psycho summoned a dragon to fight his battles for him.” Marlow folds his arms, leaning back against the headboard. “Two people were killed. The bastard responsible made things complicated for everyone. The new chief of police Rowan used the incident and the fear it caused to get himself elected and cracked down on powers and supernatural people who didn’t meet his approval.”
“Yeah.” Here goes nothing. “The thing is that the necromancer who started everything... He’s my brother.”
Marlow’s jaw drops for a second and it’s a good thing the bed is there to hold him up. “Holy shit. Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Um, I haven’t seen Jonathan in so long,” I say quietly. “We were super close until he left without a word. I was so angry at him for abandoning me. But it turned out that my aunt kicked him out. She thought I’d be safer without him around. She believed he was cursed because of the bizarre things that happened around him.”
“He was a necromancer too,” Marlow realizes.
“Yep.” A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “I found out when my abilities manifested and she kicked me out too. My powers manifested later than his abilities, but I had the same ‘curse.’ Over the years, I kept an eye out for him, tried to figure out where he went but never had much luck. I’d been looking in the wrong places.”
“He figured out what his curse was sooner than you? That he had powers.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He’d been in supernatural circles the whole time, not human ones. I’d just started learning about my abilities when I got a lead pointing me to Brighton. I dropped everything and came running.” And discovered I was too late and that he’d been accused of terrible things.
Marlow tilts his head back, knocking it against the headboard as he considers all this. “Shit. Does Harper know?”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “No. I told him I ended up there by mistake.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” Surprisingly, I admit, “I’d like to. The thing is… I think there’s more to the story. My brother wasn’t cruel or power hungry. I don’t think he’d hurt or kill anyone. I found some people who knew him and his powers weren’t even centered around summoning monsters like mine. He communicated with ghosts and spirits and used death energy in more traditional necromancer ways.”
I try to make it sound logical but there’s more than that driving me. Call it a gut feeling.
“We hadn’t seen each other in a while,” I continue. “I know that. But I was so confused and hurt when he left. I blamed him even though it wasn’t his fault. I’m not doing that again. I need to figure out what really happened.”
Marlow thinks it over. “You’re afraid to tell Harper that?”
“What if he doesn’t believe me?” I wonder quietly. He’s a seasoned detective. It isn’t the best case, believing a relative I haven’t seen in years isn’t capable of such crimes. Sounds like I’m deluding myself.
“What if he does?” Marlow counters.
The idea is tempting, and that makes it all the more dangerous. “It doesn’t matter,” I decide with a huff.
Marlow snorts. “Yeah, no one is buying that.”
“Right now, it doesn’t matter. He’s going to meet Rowan alone and if things go wrong, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Huh.” He pushes off the headboard, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Guess we kinda ended up talking about feelings after all.”
“Guess so.” It wasn’t quite as painful as I imagined, though it wasn’t painless either.
Marlow nudges me. “What you decide to tell Detective Wolfboy is up to you. But I do have a solution for your other problem. If you’re worried about Harper meeting Rowan by himself, then it’s simple. We make sure he’s not alone.”
“How do we do that?”
He grins. “We go to the meeting too.”
~
Dodger
I stare at Marlow, open-mouthed. “Are you insane?”
He shrugs. “Never been tested but I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you should get tested just to be safe.”
