Two Brothers

Chapter 25

Edited by Higashi 

WHAT HAD BEEN INTENDED TO be a two-week stay became a month, then two months, and then the brothers lost track of time, content to be in each other’s company.

Julián loved her niece too much to go away, and the IKEA sofa wasn't as bad as he had thought. Carlos, on the other hand, was glad to have someone to look after Esperanza. He didn't trust the day care centre, and his little brother didn't look anymore like a manga ghoul or whatever he had been called at the time.

On the third month, Julián began to teach English at home, and Carlos let go of the day care centre and let the uncle look after his daughter when he was busy working. High season was back and young tourists had a penchant for attacking bulbs and sockets, driving Carlos up the wall at the many repairs that awaited him every morning.

Despite the increased stress of their new life together, the brothers didn’t fight. Of course, they would quarrel over the food or about who should pay the electricity bill, but it was nothing like before. In fact, they had started to like each other.

Nevertheless, Carlos thought that something did not fit into the equation. In theory, Julián was Koiranos' boyfriend, with all the privileges that entailed (like the money he didn't touch or the lawyers that would address him with the utmost respect), but the elder ‘lovebird’ himself never phoned or came visit, and his brother didn't seem to be worried about it.

‘Bizarre’ was the perfect word to describe his brother's love life.



“Do you think she's old enough to travel?” Carlos asked Julián one night just before Christmas.

“Who?”

“Esperanza,” the older brother huffed. “She's nearly one year old, now. I guess mum should see her for the holidays.”

“Do you want to go back to Madrid?” Julián frowned for a second, but his face immediately changed as he addressed the baby sitting in front of him in her high chair. “Come on, eat some more,” he pleaded as he played with the spoon full of a dark green purée.

“She hates it. Period. Don't waste your time with that shit,” Carlos commented nonchalantly as his daughter efficiently dodged the spoon moving towards her mouth.

“The doctor said spinach is good for her,” Julián replied firmly and took advantage that the baby was distracted looking at her elders to stuff a spoonful of purée inside her open mouth. “See?” he asked triumphantly.

“Only twenty more left, genius,” Carlos retorted. “Give her some real food, like a piece of bread.”

“No!” Julián said firmly. “Too many preservatives. She's doing fine with the greens and the meat.”

“One day she'll snatch a cookie from another guy at the park, and you'll see where your fancy bio-diet will end,” Carlos petted her daughter and resumed his dinner. “Anyway, this is better than what mum used to cook.”

“Thanks.”

Julián was able to put another spoon in.

“I want that she sees Esperanza. She would also like see you,” Carlos said.

“No way! I don't want to see her.”

“Can't you relax just a bit? She did her best for you.”

“She signed me off for a house. Not even two hours were needed to convince her.”

“If you're sour with your boyfriend, go and see him. Fix it, or get rid of him. It's not as if you need him.”

But I love him, and I don't want to be kicked out.

“Carlos, mind your own businesses.”

“Of course. How about next week? I'm free. You could come—you haven't got any students right now.”

“I don't want to go to Madrid. It's noisy and polluted.”

Carlos snorted noisily. “Says the one who worked in a disco? Come on, we'll see mum, maybe meet some friends, and then return.”

“No.”



At least the hotel room is good,' thought Julián with melancholy. He had preferred to stay behind and avoid the ordeal of a visit to his mother's new house in the city outskirts. The adoption process was still an open wound for him, and he didn't want to see her.

So Carlos had taken his daughter to meet her grandmother in the small town some thirty kilometres away from Madrid where Alicia now lived.

Julián was content to stay in the modernly decorated hotel room and perhaps—if he felt in a great mood—watch the gigantic Magi Parade along the Paseo de la Castellana avenue. He had not seen it since he was a child. He had loved to catch the candies that the Magi’s pages threw from the big floats.

From his fourth-floor window, the streets below looked to be full of people and Christmas lights. Unable to cope with the overwhelming sense of longing and sorrow that gripped his heart, Julián turned the TV on. He didn't want to remember the past, and he didn't want to think on all the things that would be lost in the future.

The first images of the parade were on TV, and Julián cracked a weak smile when he saw them. Everything was as he remembered. Children yelling in the night while their mothers did their best to keep them away from the large floats’ wheels. Innocent voices clamouring for their favourite character, anxiously waiting for them to show up. Tons of candy flying through the air and children wrestling to catch at least one.

It was too much for him.

The sight of children always made him nervous as they made him think of Esperanza. Would she become sick or could she be cured? Orion had once hinted at the possibility of a remedy.

He switched channels. The news were a safe comfort; all the destruction men could bring upon themselves was nothing compared to what he had been seeing in his nightmares. He had begun to perceive patterns in the conflicts; men's actions were like pieces of a big, logical jigsaw, waiting for the time to fall into place somehow turning the chaos into something understandable.

His eyelids felt heavy, and he slept for a while, only to be woken up by the blaring music of the prime time news programme. Through the mental haze, Julián groggily heard the host speak about the crisis in the Middle East and China's slowed-down economy.

Julián yawned and quickly lost interest on what was being said. He didn’t feel like staying in bed. He supposed he could go out for a walk and get dinner. Morosely, he rose from the bed and washed his face in the bathroom’s sink.

Lazily, he sat back on the crumpled bed and began to tie his shoelaces.

“Five new confirmed cases of a new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease were reported this morning in Iowa. Doctors and researchers are concerned by the rapid progression of the symptoms that, in over 50% of the cases, may lead to the patient's death in less than a month. The CDC in Atlanta affirms that the cause has been identified and the outbreak contained,” the news host read from the teleprompter with a plastic smile.

Julián watched in shock how a medical expert talked about the mad cow disease back in the nineteen-nineties and explained at length the characteristics of prions. He went on to comment that probably all cattle in the affected area would be stamped out. Luckily, the cases had only been confined to a small area near Keokuk, the man said. The expert concluded recommending people to stick to vegetables and follow a well-balanced diet.

It had started.

“It's your fucking bread what's killing us!” shouted Julián to the TV.

An unsettling chilling sensation ran through his body. He didn't know where to run.

He turned the TV off. Carlos and his friends were already lost. His niece was all he cared about now.

He needed to return to Orion; he would know what to do. The man couldn't refuse him that, no matter how strained their relationship was at the moment.

Julián couldn't stand being in that tiny hotel room another minute. Fresh air would do him good.

Putting on his coat, he took the elevator down and bumped into Carlos, who was standing by the reception desk trying to catch the attention of the good-looking, night-shift receptionist.

Lost battle.

Julián approached him and briefly touched his brother's arm distracting him from his Don Juan antics.

“Hey, wanna grab something? Baby is in bed, waiting for the Magi. I left her with the hotel's baby sitter,” his brother said as he pretended to check something in his mobile phone to hide his embarrassment that at having been caught flirting with so sorry results.

“Why not? I remember there was a place where to eat decent squid rings near my old working place. It's not far from here,” Julián replied, thinking that a good dinner was all he needed to convince Carlos to follow him to join Orion.

Julián didn't believe anymore in his own vision of a peaceful end of the world. People's rage would explode and men would kill each other much faster than any prion could. He needed to get Esperanza away from the big cities. If you were two days away from death, looting seemed to be the most reasonable (and tragically optimistic) thing to do. He would have done it.

Having a witch for a lover wasn't such a bad idea at this point, especially one who could summon storms and control the elements. Perhaps Orion was now with his ‘brothers’, hidden somewhere away from humans.

Maybe Orion didn't care about him any longer, but he doubted it very much. Lýkos had been clear: Árgynnos had been a toothache since day one and Orion had followed him like a love-sick puppy for over two thousand years. The man still regretted how things had turned out between them.

Time didn't mean the same for him than for the rest of mankind. Maybe a year of not talking to Julián was Orion's idea of giving the cold shoulder to someone.

Yes, that had to be it, and Sartanos would probably know where Orion could be or how to contact him.

“Squid rings in a sandwich?” Carlos interrupted his musings as the chilly air hit their faces. The street was empty of cars but there were some people walking up and down the street.

“Or cone. Let's walk. It's useless to take the subway tonight. Children are still around. None of them will sleep before two in the morning.”

“I'm glad I left the princess under professional care.”

“Be glad she's only fifteen months old. Next year, you'll see.”

“That's why God invented single uncles,” Carlos chuckled amused.

“I'll have to check my agenda, asshole.”

“Can you even keep one? Dickhead.”

The streets were so familiar to Julián; the disco-bar-lounge where he used to work at was very near, and the young man felt a pang of melancholy when he thought about it. What had become of all the people he knew? How could everything change so much and so little at the same time? He glanced at his brother, looking bored as usual, and shuddered.

“My job was two blocks from here,” Julián gulped.

“Don't want to die of food-poisoning.”

“The place I mentioned is nearby,” Julián stood dead on his tracks. “Let's go somewhere else,” he blurted out.

“Is there something else open at this hour? Tonight?”

“None that I know of. But we could try at McDonald's, KFC or Burger King. They're always open.”

“I want a clean death, Julián.” Carlos resumed his walking at a brisk pace. It was getting colder and colder, and he only wanted something hot to eat.

Julián followed him meekly for a few metres and then took the lead again only to come to a halt and gasp at the sight of his old club.

“What the hell happened here?” Julián said.

There was nothing left of the elegant place he had known. Of course, the local had been a bit sleazy sometimes, but it was now a strip club-cum-nude girls joint.

“Maybe the owner sold it,” Julián mumbled as he blinked disturbed at the flickering neon lights.

“Guess you really lost your job now,” chuckled Carlos when he realised that the building with the walls painted in black and red had been Julián's ‘private club’. “You're minus two big reasons to get a job there now,” he chuckled.

“Shut up!” Julián pushed his brother, and Carlos chuckled again like a child, happy to taunt his brother.

A man passed next to them, hurrying across the street and entering the place as fast as he could.

“Well, that's one way to end the Christmas season,” Carlos commented, disgusted at the thought that his little brother had spent so much time there, surrounded by perverts and whores.

“It used to be a better class dump,” Julián defended himself, and Carlos snorted noisily. “For real. Diplomats were coming here,” he protested remembering Oliver's words.

“No wonder Europe is such a dumpster,” mumbled Carlos. “Let's get the fuck away from here.”

Casting one last glance at the place, Julián sighed. Wasn't that bad, and we didn't need the “GIRLS” sign before.

“Squidward lives down the street,” he said miserably.

“Befitting,” snorted Carlos. “Octopuses here and there. You know what? You're like Spongebob.”

“Fuck you! Your jokes used to be better,” Julián crossed the street and began to walk on the side of the club.

“My brain needs fuel. Mum's cooking is still lousy,” Carlos ran to catch up with his brother and Julián slowed down his pace.

They had not walked more than a hundred metres when they heard some faint cries at their backs, but the noises were quickly dismissed as some teenagers celebrating the coming of the Magi.

“YOU!” the voice screamed again.

Julián turned around to look who had howled in such a way, and his blood froze when he came face to face with Ahmed, dressed in a dark suit—typical uniform for club bouncers—and looking much thinner than before.

“Why’re you here! Go away, demon!” The man looked transfixed as he watched Julián, standing right there.

“Look, Ahmed, I—I didn't mean what I said,” Julián spoke nervously.

“Go away. Fast!” Ahmed took Julián by the arm and shook him as a rag doll. “You witch! You demon! Get out before you ruin me more!”

“I'd do anything to take back what I said, but I can't. Really, I can't,” Julián winced at the pressure exerted on his biceps and struggled to release himself.

“You and the Nazi!”

“Who are you calling Nazi? You filthy Muzzie!” Carlos yanked Julián back by his free arm and placed himself between the former lovers.

For Carlos, it was payback time. “Not strong enough to carry the antler on your forehead? How are your kids? Oh, sorry. Wifey doesn't know who's the father,” he smirked, and Ahmed violently shoved him on the chest, making him stumble a little.

“Stop it, Carlos!” Julián pulled from his brother's overcoat, trying to keep both men away from each other. Carlos and Ahmed were looking at each other ferociously, gauging their adversary's timing before launching their attack.

“This time I'll send you to the hospital!” Ahmed yelled, and pushed Julián aside, all his attention focused on Carlos. Julián was nothing more than an obstacle standing between him and the object of his fury.

“You? You and how many camel-shaggers more?” Carlos spit to the side, dangerously near Ahmed's shoes.

“Carlos, enough! We're going,” Julián interfered, placing his body between both men again, but it was his brother who pushed him away this time.

“You're a demon from hell!” Ahmed addressed Julián. “You cursed me and ruined my life! Because of you, I have nothing!”

“I can't take it back!” Julián shouted and raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I'm truly sorry for what I did. I didn't know what I was doing. We're going now. I do wish that everything turns out well for you, Ahmed.”

“No! He should be going away!” Carlos yelled completely out of himself. “This trash comes here and thinks it can lord over us?”

Julián turned around to face his brother and convince him to leave before they got into trouble. His lips began to move, but a popping metallic sound made him jump and look behind.

Julián found himself facing a pocket knife dangling in front of his eyes. He swallowed and said slowly: “Put it down, Ahmed.”

“We're going now,” Julián repeated and gulped when the knife came too close to his throat.

“You're a devil,” Ahmed growled, and the words he once had cursed Ahmed with came back to Julián’s mind.

“Put that thing down. It's gonna be your blood,” Julián said softly. “Not mine.”

The boy could hear Carlos ragged breathing and it concerned him that his brother would attack Ahmed no matter the consequences. He shouldn't be the hand that carries out the curse.

“Jinni,” Ahmed spat and wielded the knife very close to Julián's chest.

The boy easily jumped backwards, knowing that the man only wanted to put as much distance as possible between them.

Julián knew somehow that Ahmed felt threatened and was terrified of him on a subconscious level, but at the same time he wanted revenge on Carlos. It was all a matter of folding back and leaving the ground to Ahmed.

But Carlos charged like a raging bull, with his head bent down to use as a ram. His head connected heavily with Ahmed's midsection and knocked him down, Carlos landing on top of him.

With two brutal knocks, Carlos broke Ahmed's nose, and blinded by the pain, the man blandished the knife in front of Carlos' face in a useless attempt to scare him away.

Instead, Carlos saw red and launched his body against Ahmed, and both men rolled on the pavement in a tangle of arms and legs. Carlos had learned from his prison days to go for the knife no matter what. He gripped Ahmed's right wrist and began to pound the other man’s hand against the floor to force it to open and drop the weapon.

Julián rushed to separate the fighters, but he was too late. Ahmed had finally lost the knife, but in an attempt to get it back, he had knocked the air out of Carlos and used his adversary’s momentary weakness to dash for the knife and grab it.

Seeing his prey escaping, Carlos jumped on top Ahmed's back with so much misfortune that the recovered knife buried itself to the hilt in the man's upper left side.

Gasping, Carlos jumped away from the bleeding body, watching transfixed how Ahmed's life escaped him in two or three convulsive moves.

Julián saw the small flow of dark liquid coming from under Ahmed’s body and covered his face with both hands, biting into them to suffocate his cries.

“Shit,” Carlos said softly as he stood up. “He's dead.”

“Call 112!” shouted Julián.

“And then? He fell on his own knife!”

“You crushed him!”

“So what? Do you want to go to prison? Let's get the hell out of here!”

Julián got his mobile phone out and began to dial the emergency number but Carlos violently snatched it from his hand.

“No! Go back to the hotel and ask something to the tart in the reception! She has to remember you were there with her.”

“I won't go away. It was an accident!”

“The police won't believe you! Do you know how it is to be inside? If you go down, who's going to look after my baby? Mum? Go back to the hotel now and pay the baby sitter. Say you have a headache and decided to return early.”

For once in his life, Carlos was right. Julián was well acquainted with Child Protective Services and to be in their clutches was the last thing he wanted for Esperanza.

“Carlos…” he protested softly.

“You did nothing. This had been coming all along. Since the fucker sent me to prison.” Carlos viciously kicked the body lying in a pool of blood on the floor, and then he spat on it.

“Run away you too! Nobody saw us! You don't even have blood on your hands,” Julián pleaded.

“And then? No. I did it, and I'll take full responsibility for it. Get the fuck out now,” he shook Julián several times, and his brother returned him a numb stare.

“Not now, Julián! Snap out of it!” Carlos hissed and shook his brother by the shoulders stronger than before. “Take another way back!”



Julián was mad with concern as he watched the baby sleeping in her portable cot in his brother's hotel room. He kept expecting for the police to drop by at any minute and arrest him, but nobody was coming.

Finally, the first lights of the morning broke the darkest night of his life. Nothing had happened. No police, no Carlos, no detectives, no anything. Only looking after a deeply asleep baby.

He left his brother's still made bed and began to pace around the room, waiting for his phone to ring, but it remained silent.

The body should have been discovered by now. It wasn't something that could be hidden for too long.

Julián thought about calling his brother, but that would look suspicious. Nobody went looking for someone at five in the morning. The story was that he had returned early, the receptionist had given him some aspirins from her own stash and he had gone to bed after generously tipping the young baby sitter for her trouble. Officially, he could only be worried after ten or eleven in the morning, when Carlos didn't show up for breakfast.

Maybe his mother knew something, but he doubted it. Carlos would never go to her.

Maybe he needed a good lawyer, but you didn't go from one police station to the other pretending to be searching for your missing big brother with one tagging along.

The baby softly cooed from her cot, and Julián was happy to have something to occupy his mind. He took Esperanza in his arms and began to babble about the toys she would get that morning as he boiled some water to prepare her bottle.

He sat on the floor watching the baby crawl around the bed and he smiled nervously. He thought about dressing her but gave up on the idea. What if someone saw her already dressed so early in the morning? That was suspicious enough.

Julián played with her for a bit longer before she began to doze off. Silently, he put her back in her cot and covered her well.

Ten o'clock and still no news about Carlos or the police. He switched on the TV but there were no talk-shows or news as it was Epiphany Day.

He woke Esperanza up, dressed her and went downstairs to have breakfast. The maids, as usual, melted when they saw the vivacious baby and hurriedly began to serve him coffee as they made faces at her.

The coffee tasted sour and Julián grimaced. He emptied two more sugar packets into the hot liquid, but the foul taste still lingered in his mouth.

He phoned Carlos, but the phone was disconnected or out of range. Probably the police had taken it away. He dialled his mother's number and asked her if she knew something about him, telling her that they had split at about dinner time. His mother was not worried.

He phoned again his brother, just to give the impression that he was looking for him.

Maybe Carlos had escaped. Knowing him, that was the most logical thing to do—take a train or a plane and go away.

The best he could do was to look normal.

Julián went to the reception desk to ask if he could extend his reservation some days more and spoke with the girl about where he could shop for nice clothes for his niece, doing his best to be remembered by the morning-shift girl.

He then took Esperanza for a walk as there was nothing else he could do.

In the afternoon, Julián went to the police station after thinking hard on the best course of action. He told the very kind policewoman that both brothers had left the hotel to have dinner but a headache had forced him to return early. Since yesterday at ten o'clock, he had no idea of his brother's whereabouts. Julián was mad with concern as his brother had done nothing like this before. He had a house, a good job, a baby, no drinking or drugs problems—your regular Joe. The policewoman promised him that they would notify the judge and start investigating in a few days. He shouldn't be too worried; maybe his brother had met some friends and gone for a drink. He would be back when the hangover was over.

Defeated, Julián returned to the hotel and fed the baby. This time, the local news spoke about a body being found very near their hotel, telling it was probably the result of a Latino gangster fight as the club where the victim had worked ‘allegedly’ belonged to a Salvadorian businessman with some murky connections.

The international news section focused on the rare new disease that had spread to Washington State with five new cases. Researchers' new lines of investigation included following the trail of the food people had ingested and a thorough search for pathogens inside the patients' houses.

Last night’s fear gripped his heart stronger than before. Scared masses didn't distinguish between babies or men; they only looked for a way out of their predicament.

He needed to get his niece out of the danger.

Police officers couldn't be so stupid as to overlook the fact that his missing brother had gone to prison because of the man whose body they had now sitting in the morgue. Even they could put two and two together.

Julián needed to get away as soon as possible. He would wait a few days more for his brother and then…

And then?

He was clueless. The logical solution was to look for Orion and Lýkos, but only god—the Moon God or whatever deity there was out there—knew where they were.

Sartanos would know. The Warrior was always bragging about his knowledge and superior intellect. He could at least give him some advice if he was clueless about Orion's whereabouts.

He searched for the number written on a piece of card and well-hidden inside his wallet, and dialled it. It took a very long time for the phone to start ringing on the other side of the line. Julián held his breath.

“Your sense of time and opportunity is lousy to say the less,” the voice sounded very far away, and the crackling noise of static hurt Julián's ears. “Any idea of the roaming costs for this?”

He drives a Tesla but can't spare a dime. Typical.

“Could you please tell—” Julián bit his tongue before saying “Orion”. Both men had always referred to themselves by their last names, and perhaps those were not even considered as such. “—tell Koiranos that I'm looking for him? Please?”

“Do I look like a go-between?” Sartanos huffed.

“No, of course not. You're Sartanos, a Warrior.” Lord, why are they always so touchy?

“Trouble with the Seer? Why don't you call him yourself?”

“He dislikes mobile phones,” Julián went for the lame excuse.

“So what makes you think that, if I give him one, he will be happier?” Sartanos smirk could even be ‘seen’ across the line.

“Just tell him I need to talk to him.” The following noise, as if the phone had been thrown over a desk, nearly deafened Julián.

After a moment, he heard the breathing he knew so well on the other side of the line, but no voice was heard.

“I want to go back to you,” Julián gulped nervously. “Please, Orion. I can't be alone anymore. I want to be with you and Lýkos. I won't be able to go through this all by myself.”

Time ceased to be as Orion meditated his answer.

“Go where everything began, Julián. Stay there. I will look for you when the time comes.”

The line went dead, but Julián knew what he had to do now.