LITMIR.BIZ

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      He hoped whoever the demon expert Trevor had mentioned knew what she was doing… but he doubted it.

      The memory of the demon was what had led him to babysit Michael… that and it would keep him from stalking Tabatha now that she was back in town. It was taking a huge amount of willpower not to do so. Just being in the same room with her had been physical pain… pain he knew he couldn’t have held in for much longer had they stayed. His eyes strayed back to his friend and he leaned heavier against the cross.

      He had to admit if you wanted to be alone and still be surrounded by humans, then the roof of the biggest church in the city was an intriguing place from which to do it.

      Oddly enough, he knew Michael didn’t come here for serenity and peace. This was where the vampire came to worry and brood. It didn’t matter that they were out in the open because Kane had a feeling that if Misery wanted to find them, then four walls wouldn’t save them. He had never hidden from an enemy before and he wasn’t going to start now. Obviously, Michael felt the same way.

      He smirked as an odd thought crossed his mind. As soon as he ran across Dean again, he was going to ask the fallen a favor. He wanted a handful of those feathers with whatever spell Dean had used on the feather in the catacombs. The bitch hadn’t liked that much. He placed his palm on his shoulder remembering all the missing flesh that had somehow reappeared while he was out of it. Michael had told him that Dean had healed him.

      Kane couldn’t remember much from those moments after the cave in. He recalled hearing Michael’s voice calling to him from the darkness but not much else. The next thing he remembered was waking up to a church full of people and Michael hovering over him like a mother hen.

      Tabatha’s face flashed through his mind's eye. He’d spent the last couple of hours desperately trying not to think about her, but most of that couple of hours he hadn’t been listening to himself.

      Michael could feel Kane’s presence somewhere behind him but instead of getting annoyed at the unwanted distraction, he felt soothed by his friend’s watchful eye. At least if Kane was worried about him, then he was getting some time off from his own paranoia. Besides, he loved Kane like a brother… the word brother echoed within his mind as his thoughts darkened and turned toward Damon. How could true brothers ever be so wrong about each other?

      Trying to empty his mind of the disturbing memories, Michael laid back and let exhaustion claim him. He knew it was safe to sleep… Kane was watching over him.

      Kane wondered at Michael’s whispered thought. He hadn’t known Michael was having trouble sleeping. What had his friend feeling so threatened the he was afraid to close his eyes? He knew lack of sleep would slowly drive you crazy… then yet, he’d also found out the hard way that too much sleep was even more damaging.

      He looked across the road at Michael's building nestled between other city buildings. From the look of the circular room on top, it was a Victorian design. He had agreed to move in with Michael but it looked like now he would have to talk Michael into moving in with himself instead of sleeping on the roof across the street.

      He raised an eyebrow at his odd friend. The house had every modern comfort someone as old as them could think of, including wards to keep demons out, so why the sudden need for fresh air that smelt like rain?

      He knew Michael still felt guilty for not being around when he’d went and gotten himself buried. Although Kane had tried to stay out of his head, he still hadn’t told Michael that if he tried, he could read his mind. It was just something a friend didn’t really want to know… besides, he had a feeling he was the only one with that power.

      Abandoning him wasn’t all Michael was thinking about tonight… it was the reason he’d left the country in the first place that drew his attention… Damon, Michael’s brother. Kane hadn’t seen Damon since coming back to his senses… what was left of them, but the memories he did have were mostly good. Damon had a wild streak a mile wide and they both had given Michael one hell of a headache trying to keep up.

      Kane glanced down and noticed Michael playing with the ring on his finger as he thought about Damon. It wasn’t long before sleep overtook Michael and the vivid dreams started. The longer the dreams lasted, the more Kane learned what Michael had been hiding. He closed his eyes, blocking out the city and really concentrating for the first time on someone else’s pain.

      He was startled to find himself not only listening to the dreams, but also catching visual flashbacks from forty years ago. He saw it all unfold from an outsider’s prospective as it played out like a tragic movie.

      Michael had felt the urge to go see Damon for the first time in over a century. When he found his brother, all seemed well. Damon had been living it up in the social limelight of London and Michael had joined him for a while. They’d had a blast until they met a girl… Katie.

      The most eligible bachelors had all been invited to her eighteenth birthday party including the brothers. She was truly the belle of the ball. What had started out as simple brotherly competition turned into a dangerous game of jealousy. Everything with them seemed to turn into a competition. They’d spent weeks waging silent war against one another to win her affection.

      Damon had told him to leave… to go back across the ocean but Michael couldn’t do it. He wouldn't let Damon win by running him off. As the sibling rivalry escalated, they were at each other’s throats over the same girl. It wasn’t that she was their soul mate or anything though they both had become enthralled with her. It seemed fated that Katie had the same problem… she’d fallen for both of them and wouldn’t choose.

      What was even more twisted about the love-triangle was that Katie thought the brothers were human… they’d never given her a reason to think otherwise.

      They had taken Katie out dancing for the evening but that had been a deadly mistake. The tension between the men was too high. After only an hour of slowly dying inside while the other danced with her, the brothers had finally come to blows. They hadn’t realized how much control they’d lost until their eyes changed color as they wrapped their hands around each other’s throats and their feet left the ground.

      They hadn’t even seen her run. Michael and Damon had snapped out of their rage when they’d heard the squeal of tires and the crunch of metal outside the dance hall. By the time they reached her… she’d been killed.

      When Damon raced toward her with every intention of trying to revive her with his vampire blood, Michael had stopped him because a crowd had already gathered. Damon had turned on him for real then, blaming Michael for not leaving when he’d told him to.

      They had fought after that for months … calling truce for moments at a time for words with feeling but it always led to another fight. Michael knew Damon was getting darker and darker and that Damon wanted to kill him. If he did try, then Michael would defend himself and one of them would die.

      It was then that Michael did something he swore he wouldn’t do… he went to see Syn. Syn was the first vampire. He’d gone to sleep and not woken for centuries but Syn wasn’t dead for he couldn’t die… at least not that anyone knew of. They weren’t sure why he’d chosen to sleep the last couple of centuries away, but it had seemed like Syn was waiting for something that hadn’t happened yet.

      Michael walked around the statue that marked Syn’s resting place within the mausoleum. He knew Syn was deep below him. He talked to the empty tomb, hearing his words echo around him… sometimes in whispers and sometimes in deafening screams.

      Fighting with Damon was driving him mad, he hadn’t meant for it to ever go this far. He wasn’t even sure either of them had truly loved the girl. He felt his heart spilling out because of the pain he had caused his brother… and Katie. He didn’t know if Syn was listening, but it was enough to at least tell someone else the truth.

      The

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