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"What spell? Since when are you interested in magic? You are a physicist, Sef, not a sorcerer."
"You understand so little. Ever since we reached puberty, all you've cared about was chasing a bit of skirt." He stabs a finger into my chest. "Now at least you will serve a higher purpose."
Nothing he's told me makes any sense. He must be off his rocker.
"Let's go back inside," I say. "We can break out the Scotch and talk this through."
"There is nothing to 'talk through,' Dax. I have a plan that must be enacted tonight, under the full moon on the thirteenth day of the month."
"All right, Sef," I say slowly. "Time to go back inside and have that drink."
"Stop patronizing me," he hisses. "Allison will understand, but I knew you lacked the intelligence and sophistication to envision the true scope of my plan."
"Who is Allison? Have you met a girl, Sef? About bloody time."
"You will never meet her." He picks up a bag that had been lying on the ground, though I hadn't noticed it before. The twilight concealed it. "Allison Dahl is mine, and you won't get the chance to steal her away from me."
"I've never stolen a girl from you."
He stares down at the graves. "You will be the anchor, which means you'll remain in the Echo even after the beginning of the end arrives. But Allison… She is the catalyst, the reason for everything I do. She wants what I want, as fervently as I desire it."
"This girl of yours wants…what, exactly?" She must be as insane as he has become. The Echo? The catalyst? It's bollocks. "I'm confused, Sef. What are you trying to do?"
He pulls something out of his bag, though it's concealed by his thigh. My brother sidles up to me, his eyes wild and his voice a harsh whisper. "I'm going to create an apocalypse."
"I see. Well, good luck with that." I assume this is an elaborate practical joke, though I've never known my brother to do something like that. "I'll see you at dinner."
"You arrogant prat." Spittle flies from his lips with every word. "Of course you can't believe I could envision a plan as elegantly conceived as this. But in a matter of moments, you will believe."
I rub my eyes and sigh. "No, I won't. I'm done. You can stand out here howling at the moon, but I'm going back to bed. Claudia's waiting for me."
Though I start to turn away, Sefton seizes my wrist and clamps an object around it. Something cold and metallic. I freeze, glancing down at my hand, where a shiny metal bracelet encircles my wrist so snugly that it pinches my skin. My pulse speeds up as a strange sensation of electricity tingles through me. Unusual symbols engraved on the bracelet begin to flicker with a golden light.
I turn toward my brother, but I don't recognize him anymore. "What are you doing?"
He pulls out his mobile and turns the screen toward me. "Look at this woman. Allison Dahl is mine. You could never win her because you are a callous and selfish wanker. I will win not only her, but the entire world."
My gaze lands on the photograph his mobile displays. A beautiful girl with dark hair. Allison Dahl. In the image, she stands behind a waist-high counter while holding a stack of books. Head down, she seems unaware someone is taking her picture.
Sefton steps away from me and starts to chant in another language, maybe Latin, I don't know. He pulls more items out of his bag, laying them on the ground, though I can't see exactly what they are. Night has taken full control of the world, obscuring everything.
The bracelet vibrates, shooting spikes of pain up my arm and out into my entire body. I cry out as my knees buckle and I slump to the ground.
"Stop this," I shout to Sefton. "Please."
My bones begin to crack and shift, forcing me to collapse onto my side on the ground, directly over my parents' graves. My body convulses as an agony unlike anything I could have imagined shreds me from the inside out and the bracelet melts into my flesh, sinking under the skin to scorch through my veins.
And I scream.
Sefton bends over me, holding a knife. He slices a long cut down my inner arm, then carves out another on my cheek. "This is your just punishment. You were always the golden boy, the darling of Mum and Dad's eyes, the perfect son they loved more than me. Why should you inherit an earldom simply because you were born six minutes and fifteen seconds before me? The Echo will right the wrongs done to me, and I will rule the world with Allison at my side."
The cuts on my arm and face burn like acid. The tang of blood seeps into my mouth as the scorching agony becomes overpowering, and numbness rushes through me. Darkness consumes my vision. My brain stops processing sound and sight and sensation as I drift in an abyss, weightless and free of pain. But the blessed release lasts only for a moment.
Then I'm thrust out into hell.
~~~~~
I can't look at Allison once I've finished my story. I couldn't look at her while I related it either. Never did I wish to remember that night or all that came after it. But Allison deserves to know the truth at last, and so I've told her. My own brother did this to me while I lay atop the graves of our mother and father.
