Father (Blood Brotherhood 1)

I don’t blame her for wanting a divorce. It has been three weeks since we rescued her from the back room of the local supermarket, and she still wants to leave. t’s not that we don't love each other, it’s that she does not trust love. The feeling itself has become a tragic and painful emotion for her, one that drives her to madness. We have spent many miserable hours together in her bedchamber, trying to come to some resolution, but I think what Craig did was the final straw on an incredible mountain of straws. She is beyond her breaking point. She is broken, and it is my fault because I did not protect her. Not when her mother was pregnant with her, and not now.

“I cannot lose you, Nina.”

I am on my knees before her, her slim hands tucked into mine. She is sitting on the bed. Her eyes are gleaming with tears, as are mine.

“If you want to keep me, you have to let me go. Don’t you understand? The second we were married, I became even more of a target. Someone to use and to lose, someone to be hurt in the name of hurting you. I stopped existing as myself, Bryn. God only knows how bad it would be if we were ever to procreate. I cannot do it. I cannot bring life into this world where light is consumed relentlessly by insatiable forces of evil, and the good men, the very best men, must become evil themselves in order to combat it.”

She’s not wrong, and that is why arguing is so pointless. I want to tell her that I can protect her from all the evils of the world, but I have already failed in that regard more than once. I don’t believe myself when I say that. How can she believe me either?

“I need to know everything," she says. “No more secrets. No more oaths, pacts, lies. No more demons in the family. I have to know what is happening. Always.”

“I can do that.”

“Tell me what the Brotherhood is. What it really is.”

“It is ancient. At one time, there were many thousands of us. Now there are fewer than twenty, and the number dwindles all the time. Humanity has always needed protection from evil. And that is what we try to do. Though, admittedly, we’re low on resources, and these days we've limited our actions to protecting those like you. Those who have the blood of angels.”

“Why?”

“Because your blood, in the wrong hands, can be used to create all kinds of terrible, evil, vile weapons.”

"And in the right hands?”

Nina

“It’s just blood,” he shrugs. “That’s the problem with so many things in this life. They’re easier to put to evil use than good. It’s not about hoarding your power for our own. It’s about keeping it out of the hands of people who will do unspeakable things with it.”

“Craig took a lot of blood from me.”

“Yes. I’ve told the others. They’re still angry that I summoned Jonah, but their mission remains, no matter what their fury.”

“So Jonah helped me.”

“He did.”

“Do you think he… there’s some part of him that ever cared about me?”

“No. I think he knows, as a demon, that his act of kindness will make you think he cares, and he will one day use that hope against you. He cannot help being malevolent. It is his nature. It does not mean you are any less lovable.”

“And… Mrs Crocombe. Crichton. They’re demons.”

“They’re demons who want salvation. That’s different. And rare. And that is one other job we still do. We are at the border of good and evil here at Direview. That army you saw, the one Jonah brought forth. It is not the first, or the largest, it will not be the last. We are always under attack, whether we see it or not. Being here, being with me, being who you are, you can never truly escape it. I am sorry. I am sorry that this life has brought you so much suffering. I wish I could make it better. I wish I could tell you that you will never suffer again. But I can’t. Because evil does not rest. And nor can we.”

Bryn wraps his arms around me, holding me close as we both sob with tears of mutual regret. If only we were other people in other times made of other stuff. We might be able to find happiness…

Bryn

“OH GOD! Not the two of you cryin’ again,” Mrs Crocombe sighs as she throws open the door and barges in, vacuum cleaner blaring. She’s come in to do some domestic chores, which have become impossible as the room has been thoroughly dedicated to misery.

“If we could have some privacy, please,” I say, straining to remain polite.

She turns the vacuum cleaner off, but she doesn’t give us anything remotely resembling privacy.