Bloodline (32 page)

Jeremy's brain blazed as he spun the Miata's tires on the way out of the Creighton front gate and headed back to the city. He checked his rearview mirror to see if anyone pulled into the lane behind him, and scanned the road ahead for cars parked on the shoulders.

Someone had been following him around, picking up little souvenirs here and there and using them to test his DNA.

Shit!

Worst part was he hadn't had a clue.

He checked around again. He had the road to himself. But what did that mean? This Robertson guy could be waiting down near the Thruway, knowing he'd have to come that way to get back to Queens. The guy could pull in a few cars behind him as he got on and Jeremy would never know.

That hunted feeling…

Reminded him of his last free days in Atlanta. He'd thought he was in the clear, thought he'd covered his tracks. Everyone was looking for a religious nut, a wild-eyed right-to-lifer, and Jeremy was anything but. But…

Yeah. Always the
but
.

But someone had seen someone near the second shooting and gave a description that shared certain features with someone else seen in a photo taken on the street shortly before the first shooting, and a sketch was circulated in a door-to-door canvas and finally a newsstand guy thought it looked like someone who came by regularly to buy cigarettes.

Like a jerk, he'd held on to the gun. Yeah, it was stupid, but with the feds all over the place he'd have no way to get his hands on another piece on the outside chance Moonglow decided to try yet another abortionist. One thing led to another and, when he felt the circle tightening, he decided he had to get rid of it. He was nabbed before he could.

And now someone else was trying to tighten a noose around him.

Maybe he shouldn't go back to Queens—at least not yet. He needed to talk to fuckhead Hank about this gene-testing shit, and the sooner the better. Why not head for the city?

He pulled onto the shoulder and grabbed the map from the glove compartment. He'd learned his way around the Forest Hills area, but up here was still pretty much a mystery. He located Rathburg and noticed that if he headed east from here he could get on the Saw Mill Parkway. Going south on that would take him to 9A which led right down the west side of Manhattan.

Perfect.

He got rolling again and pulled out his cell phone. Time to call big brother. He'd try to find some excuse not to meet, but he wasn't weaseling out today. This was too important.

Aaron pulled into the lot of the Argonaut, found a space, and parked. Instead of heading inside he sat with the motor idling. To tempt himself out of the car and into the diner, he conjured images of Belgian waffles dripping with syrup and topped with powdered sugar and strawberries and maybe even some whipped cream, but he felt too queasy to eat. So he sat and wrestled with the question that had been plaguing him all through the hours since the meeting in Julia's office.

Should he tell Jack that Julia had given that pervert Bolton his description?

On one hand, he felt he owed it to him; after all, they'd been working together on putting Bolton back behind bars, but beyond that, he liked the man. He seemed a decent sort, as well as clever and resourceful.

On the other hand, they weren't getting anywhere against Bolton. If Bolton pegged Jack as the detective who'd been causing him so much trouble, he might try to do him serious harm. Enough harm to get himself locked up, thereby aborting this whole outpatient fiasco.

Might
try
to do Jack harm… that was where the struggle came: the
try
. Bolton had a couple of inches and maybe twenty pounds on Jack, but Aaron had a feeling the man could take care of himself.

For all he knew, Jack might put Bolton in a hospital. Might pound the living shit out of that deviant, amoral bastard. God, wouldn't that be wonderful? For not only would Bolton be suffering some well-deserved pain, but physical incapacitation might also prove enough to end the outpatient trial.

On the other hand, if Aaron warned Jack, he might back off on his surveillance, reducing or perhaps even eliminating the chance of a confrontation. Aaron dearly wanted to see Bolton hurt.

He jumped and squealed like a girl at the sound of a rap on the passenger window. He shrank against his door as he looked.

jack.

Relief Hooded him. 11 it had been Bolton, God knew what he would have done.

He hit the unlock switch and Jack slid into the passenger seat.

"Jumpy?"

Aaron nodded. "You could say that."

"Thought I'd find you inside. Actually it's better here. I don't feel like eating."

"Neither do I. Especially after seeing the DNA comparison between Dawn and Bolton."

"You mean the father-daughter thing."

Aaron gasped and stared at him. He'd said it so matter-of-factly.

"You know?"

A nod. "Since last night."

"But how could you? And how can this be? How does something like this happen? How could her mother not know?"

He realized he was babbling, but the questions had been pounding against the inside of his skull since he'd seen the printout.

Ninety-nine point nine nine percent probability of paternity.

Aaron listened in horrified fascination as Jack told about how Moonglow Garber had been abducted and repeatedly raped for weeks until she was pregnant, then released. And then he saw it all.

"The abortionist assassinations! They finally make sense!"

Jack nodded. "Finally."

"But that doesn't explain how you know Bolton is Dawn's father. Hank Thompson could have been the rapist."

"That's what I thought. Then I sketched out a timeline last night and realized that Hank was locked up in Creighton during the weeks Moonglow was missing."

Aaron leaned back. "Dear God."

He thought of Moonglow. That poor girl. Kidnapped, raped daily, probably in terror for her life. And then Bolton, father of her child… he thought of his own daughter and wanted to be sick. This only confirmed what he'd known all along: Bolton was a monster.

Jack's fingers were knotted into fists. "The sick, sick, subhuman son of a bitch. How does anyone
do
that?"

For no good reason, Aaron said, "Do you have a daughter?"

Jack looked up at him and Aaron recoiled at what he saw in his eyes. He didn't know what it was—pain, certainly, but nestled in a terrible seething darkness that urged him to flee and never look back.

"I almost did," he said in a low, barely audible tone. "I sort of do." He closed those terrifying eyes, took a breath, then opened them again. The darkness was gone. "You have a printout of the comparison with you?"

The abrupt change caught Aaron off guard. "Uh, um, yes. Why?"

"I want to see it."

He pulled it out of his pocket and watched as Jack unfolded it, studied it. then looked up.

"Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent probability. Not much wiggle room there."

Aaron shook his head. "Not a bit. But I don't get it. If Moonglow's child was to be later impregnated by one of her uncles, why not have Thompson do it? With a half uncle as the father, the chance of autosomal recessive traits coming to the fore are increased, but nowhere near what could happen to a baby whose father is not only its grandfather, but an uncle as well. It's not only sick, it's… counterproductive."

"Refresh me on 'autosomal recessive traits.'"

"An autosomal recessive gene is a genetic defect you inherit from one of your parents. For want of a better term, it's half of a genetically mediated disease. Let's say for example that you inherited a cystic fibrosis mutation from your mother. You don't show signs of cystic fibrosis because your mutation is paired with a normal gene from your father that overrules the mutation. This makes you a
carrier
. Should you impregnate a woman without a similar mutation, there's a fifty-fifty chance of the child being a carrier too, but
zero
chance it will wind up with cystic fibrosis. You following?"

Jack nodded. "Because there's no chance of my mutation getting paired with another like it."

"Correct. But should you impregnate a woman
with
a similar mutation, there's still a fifty-fifty chance of producing a carrier, but also a one-in-four chance of producing a child with cystic fibrosis. This is why first-degree relatives—parents, children, siblings—shouldn't mate."

"More chance of sharing recessives."

"Right. Hemophilia is a recessive that ran rampant through the royal families of Europe due to intermarriage."

They sat in silence for the moment, then he noticed Jack refolding the printout and slipping it into a pocket.

"Hey, you can't have that."

"I'll need it to show Christy. She'll never believe me without it."

Aaron felt a stab of panic. It had "Creighton" printed in large, boldface type across the top of the sheet.

"No! If she shows it to Bolton he'll know it was me!"

"Relax. I'll show her a Xerox with the logo folded out of sight. You'll have no connection."

Not good enough.

"But it won't help you! It has no names!"

"I've got to show her
something
, doc, and this is better than nothing. Be cool. I don't want to see you hurt. You're my man on the inside. I'll keep Creighton out of it. Trust me."

Trust him? He didn't know if he could trust anyone at this point. Except maybe this man.

Not that he had a choice. He couldn't very well take it from him.

More silence as Aaron wondered what Jack was thinking. Then he realized he hadn't got an answer to his previous question.

"Why
didn't
Thompson impregnate Dawn? Did Bolton
want
to bed his own daughter?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe he's sterile. Maybe they don't know about recessive traits. But then again…" His voice trailed off.

Watching him, Aaron saw a look of growing wonder on Jack's face.

"What? What is it?"

"Maybe they want to match up certain recessive genes. Maybe that's been the whole purpose of this scheme all along." And then he shrugged. "And maybe not." He smiled. "Too bad I can't simply ask Bolton next time I run into him."

Aaron opened his mouth, then closed it again. Here was the perfect time to say something to Jack about Julia giving Bolton his description. He should say something. Really he should…

But he wanted that showdown, wanted Bolton hurt.

Of course it might be Jack who wound up getting hurt, maybe even killed.

Bolton could walk up behind him and gun him down just like he did the abortionists.

But he held his tongue. He'd have to trust that Jack had more street smarts than Bolton. A good bet, since Bolton had been off the streets for the last eighteen years.

Still… all the street smarts in the world wouldn't stop a bullet in the back.

Sometimes Aaron hated himself.

Jeremy watched Hank as he stood at a window and peeked through the blinds.

"You
sure
you weren't followed?"

"Absolutely."

No way was Jeremy absolutely sure, but he was reasonably sure. He wasn't exactly an expert at this sort of thing. But he'd made a lot of turns coming down here to this Lower East Side Kicker crib, and he'd watched carefully the whole way. He hadn't seen anyone following him.

Hank let the blind slat drop and turned to him.

"All right, what's so important that we couldn't discuss this over the phone?"

"Like I told you, someone's been testing my DNA and knows I'm related to Moonglow."

"So she knows—?"

"Yeah, she knows. Question is, how long before he tests my DNA against the girl's?"

Hank pressed his palms against the sides of his head and began to walk in a circle about the room.

"Oh hell! Oh damn! Oh shit! Who is this guy? We've got to get to him, make him stop!"

"Vecca and Levy already tried that. Paid him off but he still keeps snooping. Almost like he's got some sort of hard-on for me. I mean, like it's personal."

Even though Jerry Bethlehem hadn't been around long enough for anyone to have something personal against him, the thought didn't sit well.

"Yeah. Funny, I've run into someone like that too."

Here we go. Can't let this get too far from rich, famous, too-important-to-get-my-hands-dirty Hank. His attitude sucked. Jeremy resisted the urge to pop him one.

"Well, unless he's threatening to take a shit in the Bloodline, like my guy, maybe we should forget about him for the moment."

"Okay, okay. What do we do?"

"Well, since I've never seen him, we'll have to try to beat him at his own game. That's where you come in."

Hank's tone turned cautious. "Yeah?"

"Well, he's been following me. So what we do is have you follow me too, only you'll know where I'm going so you can hang back and watch for anyone on my tail."

Hank was nodding. "Sounds like a plan." Then he frowned. "But what do we do when we find him?"

"Then
we
follow
him
. And we convince him that he doesn't want to stick his nose in my life anymore."

"And if he doesn't listen?"

Jeremy shrugged. "Then he disappears."

Hank was shaking his head. "Oh, no. Not while I'm within a hundred miles. Include me out."

Jeremy felt his temper heating.

"You gonna let me down
again
, bro? You gonna let
Daddy
down again too?"

He remembered his talks with his daddy whenever he'd come to visit. A scary man, Daddy, what with that patch over his bad eye and the way he'd fix him with the bright blue of his good one. But once he got talking, his smooth voice would wrap around Jeremy and caress him like a warm breeze, making the scaredness go away. Jeremy knew he'd inherited some of Daddy's gift for persuasion, but only some.

Daddy knew things no one else knew, saw things with his dead eye that no one else saw. He'd talk of gods—not the gods that everyone had heard of. Those were just stories, he'd said. He spoke of other gods, the Others, locked out from the world, waiting for ages to return.

He told of the special blood that ran through his veins, and ran through his children's. They all were part of a special Bloodline that made them shine in the eyes of the Others, but their Bloodline had been diluted and polluted over the ages. It had to be concentrated and purified.

Daddy would tell him over and over about his Plan to do just that, and about the parts Jeremy and his half brother Hank were to play, and how together with a girl named Moonglow they would create the Key, a pure-blooded child who would unlock the gates that prevented the Others from returning to the Earth and reclaiming it.

And when they did return they would reward those of the Bloodline who had made it possible. Daddy would ascend to the throne of Earth and Jeremy and Hank would be his princes.

Daddy's soothing voice had stayed with Jeremy, repeating the story and the things they must do to bring the Plan to fruition, and left him with never a moment's doubt of its truth. But then Daddy stopped coming around. He'd warned that there might come a day when that happened, and he'd made Jeremy swear by the blood of the prince within him that he'd see the Plan through to its finish.

Jeremy had sworn. So had Hank. But obviously Hank's promises didn't mean much.

"We're not going to get into this again, are we?" Hank said. "I told you—"

"You told me you had your own thing going and that Daddy could shove his Bloodline up his ass!"

"I never said anything of the sort. What I'm doing is just as necessary to the Plan as what you're doing."

"Bullshit! The Plan was this: I knocked up Moonglow, so you were supposed to knock up her kid."

Hank rolled his eyes. "I know, but I'm identified with the Kicker movement—right now the movement is
me
—and I can't risk getting involved with knocking up an eighteen-year-old."

"So I'm left with the job of fucking my own kid."

Hank smiled. "And doing a damn fine job of it too."

Jeremy felt heat rush into his face as his hands curled into fists. "You son of a—"

"Easy now. You got the job done, didn't you? And as for boffing your own kid—first off, if she's eighteen she's not a kid; and second, it's not like you raised her or anything, or saw her even once when she was growing up. She was a complete stranger when you met her."

Jeremy felt himself relax a little. Hank had a point. Dawn could just as easily have been someone else's kid.

"That may be, but it didn't stop me from feeling weird and maybe even a little perverted the first few times."

"That's because in the everyday world it's a big taboo, and everyone's all uptight about it because if you do that sort of thing too much you can wind up with a bunch of FLKs."

"Eff-ell—?"

"Funny-looking kids. But because you two share the Bloodline, that changes all the rules. That means it's not only okay, it's
necessary
for you two to get together and have a kid."

"It also means that I had to do everything myself. I had to kidnap her, I had to get her pregnant, I had to keep her from getting an abortion, and I wound up getting sent up for life for it!"

Realizing he was shouting, he clammed up.

He remembered his confusion at the time. Hell, he was only nineteen when he'd tracked Moonglow to Atlanta. He tried to get in touch with Hank to tell him the good news, but Hank was nowhere to be found. They'd been meeting maybe every six months, talking about how to carry through Daddy's Plan, and now he seemed to have vanished—just like Daddy had.

But somehow he'd known Hank was still alive, somehow he'd sensed him out there.

Hank said, "I would have helped you if I could have, bro. You know that."

"But I didn't know it then. I knew you wasn't dead, so I thought you'd run out on me."

He later found out that Hank was in jail, but he'd been pretty shaken at the time.

Hank shook his head. "Never. But isn't it strange, this connection we have? I know you're around, and you know I'm around. Weird, huh?"

"Yeah. Weird. But that made it all the worse when I had to do everything myself."

"I wish I could've been there with you, bro. Things would have been different then, and they'd be different now."

Damn right, they'd be.

The Plan had been for Hank to charm his way into Moonglow's pants and get her pregnant. They'd marry and have the baby. If it wasn't a girl, they'd try again. When they finally had one and she grew old enough to have a baby of her own, Jeremy would move in. One way or another—by charm or by force—Hank's daughter would have Jeremy's child.

And that child would change the world.

But Jeremy had panicked when he couldn't find Hank. He had no confidence in his ability with girls. That was Hank's strong suit, not his. Or so he'd thought at the time. He now knew that he could turn on the charm just as well as his older brother.

Not knowing what else to do, afraid that Moonglow might get knocked up by some other guy, he'd chosen the only route he could think of—the most direct. And when she'd started looking for an abortionist, he'd done the same.

He'd never believed he'd get caught. When he did he'd thought the Others had deserted him.

But then, last year had come word of a special therapy that the high-ups at Creighton wanted to test. And the testing would require that Jeremy be freed into the world.

He'd known then that the Others hadn't deserted him. They'd only been waiting for the proper moment. They'd arranged for him to be released in time to help Hank do the final purification of the Bloodline by fathering the miracle child.

But Hank had balked. His Kickers were more important.

"I still can't believe how when it came to choosing between the Bloodline and these losers, you chose them."

"What I'm doing, I'm doing for the Bloodline. In my dream—"

"I don't want to hear about any stupid dreams."

"You keep saying that, but it's time you listened. I keep having this dream about a baby. It's in danger. It's screaming in fright. And then along comes the Kicker Man, and he takes it in his arms, and it stops crying. How do you interpret that, Jer?"

Jeremy felt a chill as he pictured the powerful image. If it really was a dream, he could see only one way to interpret it, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.

"I interpret that as your way of easing a guilty conscience, or, better yet, making excuses for yourself."

Hank took a step closer. "The dream is real, Jer. It's been coming to me off and on for the past year, and every night for the past two weeks.
Every night
."

"So?"

"So, how long has Dawn been pregnant?"

Jeremy got another chill, stronger this time, as he remembered the instructions on the testing kit's box saying it took a minimum of two weeks after the start of pregnancy to turn positive.

He hated giving him the answer. "Two weeks or so, I'd guess."

Hank grinned. "Doesn't that tell you something?"

"It tells me you're kidding yourself."

"It's a message from the Others and you know it. I couldn't be sure before, but it's clear as day now: They sent me the sign of the Kicker Man and inspired me to write my book, and now they're telling me why: Because the Kickers are going to pave the way for the return of the Others. But they have an even more important mission than that: They're gonna protect that baby from the enemies of the Bloodline."

Could Hank be right? Was all this Kicker shit part of the Plan to bring back the Others? Were they some sort of palace guards, or maybe the shock troops of the Others?

Was that Hank's job—captain of the guard? Then who was he—father of the Key?

Yeah.
Father of the Key
. That sounded pretty good. Maybe all this was going to work out right after all.

As long as no one got in their way.

"You think there really are Enemies out there like Daddy told us about?"

Hank's expression was grim. "I've given this a lot of thought. Daddy told us plenty of stuff that would sound crazy to other people, stuff that other people would laugh at. But we believe it. Why?"

"Because Daddy told us, and because it's the truth."

"Yeah, we believe it's the truth, but why do we believe these things that no one else believes? That no one else has even heard of?"

Jeremy was losing patience. "I'm sure you're gonna tell me."

"It's because the Bloodline is so strong in us. We heard these things and we believe them because our blood
knows
they're true. That's why, even though I've never seen an Enemy, I
know
they're out there. And so do you."

Jeremy found himself nodding. Yes, he did know. Daddy had talked about Enemies of the Others who had almost killed off the Bloodline in the past and would try again.

"You think that's what happened to Daddy? You think it wasn't an accident—that the Enemies got to him?"

"I don't know what else to think."

He'd known Hank was still alive when he couldn't find him back in Atlanta. He just didn't know where. He remembered having a feeling as a little kid that Daddy wouldn't be coming back because he wasn't…
there
anymore.

Hank said, "Those bastards have probably been looking for us ever since."

And then Jeremy had an unsettling thought. "This guy that's been dogging my trail, testing my DNA… do you think he could be one of the Enemies?"