2,341

October 7, 2003

His last punch landed with a satisfying crunch, and Liam’s opponent, having taken a few too many blows to the head, toppled to the kitchen floor with a motion not unlike that of a casually discarded shirt. Liam stepped away from the body and the growing puddle of blood around it. Shaking out his fist, and ignoring the pain of his rapidly forming bruises he looked around to see if the twins had made it through the fight still standing.

He saw that his brother was dispatching the last of the invaders, and that his sister was wiping her knife off on the back of an unconscious man. He couldn’t see his parents anywhere, and he remembered his oldest brother getting hit quite early on in the fight. Their absence was not a good sign. Vaguely remembering Teigan being hit almost immediately once the house had been broken into Liam turned to his other brother.

"Where’s Mum and Dad?" His voice was surprisingly clear considering that some bruiser had slammed him in the jaw earlier.

Alex just grunted and began dragging the bodies out of the kitchen and out onto the front lawn. Andrea though, after putting her knife back in its sheath, answered. "When Teigan got hit they rushed him over to Nan’s. They think he may have had an artery sliced this time."

Liam tried to scrounge up some sympathy for his eldest brother’s pain, but couldn’t. He had a feeling that the jerk was the one who had provoked the illegal attack. Besides Nan was the best healer in the city, she could fix him easily. He nodded at her and prodded a senseless body with his big toe. It groaned but didn’t move so he picked up an arm and dragged the body outside, laying it carefully next to the three that Alex had already brought out.

His brother was crouching next to one of them, searching the pockets of the jacket she was wearing. After a moment he pulled out a wallet and then proceeded to flip through it.

"Are they freelance or Family?" Liam cringed at the sound of his voice. It had hoarsened to a rough croak.

"Family. They’re Ohm’s flunkies." Alex stood and went back inside. Liam suppressed a sigh; it didn’t matter who they were officially, every attack on his Family was orchestrated by Ohm, the fact that the flunkies where part of a Family meant only that formal challenges were not far off.

Andrea leant out the kitchen window. "Come back in, there’s clean-up to be done." Liam noticed that her pale hair was matted and that she had a long cut across one cheek. It looked as though her opponent has been wielding a knife as well.

He went back in, and knelt to hook his arms around the last unconscious man on the floor.

"You know better then to get hit like you did." The soft chastisement was not directed at Liam, but at Alex who sat on the counter getting his rips wrapped by Andrea whose pretty face was marred by a frown. Their younger brother couldn’t disagree with that statement. At with the amount of experience Alex had at twenty, to get himself injured in a brief skirmish was unfavourable.

Not that Liam had much of an excuse himself for the multitude of bruises all over his body, but that didn’t mean he was going to stand up for Alex. Dropping the body next to the others, Liam ran a quick check to make sure that they were all still breathing. After confirming their living status he ran a blunt fingered hand through his short grey hair, and looked out at the sun disappearing behind the city’s profile.

He didn’t think he had been outside long but Andrea called him in to ‘tidy up’ the wreaked kitchen. Muttering under his breath, Liam went back inside to find his sister scrubbing the bloodstains off the floor and Alex on the phone with their parents. He swept up the smashed crockery and moved the broken furniture to the pile of wood next to the fireplace.

On the phone, Alex made a few short queries and listened for a long while before hanging up with a deep frown on his face. Leaning against the wall with a thump gained his siblings’ attention with little effort. Liam frowned when his brother didn’t speak right away, but took the chance to stop moving. It was at times like these, the moments of silence that he was struck with how similar the three of them looked. They all had their father’s large bones and rangy frames as well as well as his soft brown eyes which stayed innocent no matter what one was feeling. From their mother they had inherited prematurely grey hair and a tendency to act first, ask questions later. Teigan was the black sheep of the family, in more ways then one.

"Were to go to Ohm’s to leave a message." Liam looked up surprised to see his brother looking pointedly at him. Alex usually took more experienced members of the Family with him when heading into potentially dangerous situations. He shrugged in compliance; he wasn’t going to argue, because this wasn’t an opportunity to miss.

"Whatever, just let me get changed." He turned to go to his room only to be blocked by a glowering Andrea.

"Wait a minute Alex." She didn’t seem to be mad at him, which was good, but – he shot a quick look over his shoulder at his brother – she could convince Alex to leave him at home if she got worked up enough. "Liam has homework to be done, and someone is going to come around for those bodies sooner or later, are you sure taking him is a good idea?" A hand snaked past Liam’s body to touch her cheek.

"Nan was barely able to stop the bleeding. They still don’t know if he’ll make it." Alex stumbled over the words like he didn’t know how to say them, and Liam squeezed his eyes shut, because even if he didn’t like Teig, he was still kin. Opening his eyes brought the image of Andrea leaning against the kitchen doorway, tears running unchecked down her face. He brushed by her and took the few short steps down the hall that separated his room from the rest of the house. As soon as he was safely inside he slammed the door shut and hit it a few times, breaking open the cuts on his abraded knuckles.

His big brother might die. Which had obvious emotional repercussions as well as political ones. The grudge between their family and Ohm’s would become a blood feud, and the entire area would turn into a battlefield. Liam changed out of his ripped and bloody clothes into a black shirt and pants in quick angry movements. This stirred up his fish causing it to batter itself against the side of the tank. He frowned and went to the bathroom to wash off what mess he could. Using cold water only he attempted to shock the anger out of his system. He couldn’t afford to be emotional at this point. If he let his emotions rule he would end up getting himself killed.

Liam didn’t want that. He was a member of a Family, a part of one of the ruling forces in his society, and someday, barring accidents and stupidity, he would be a valued Protector, like Alex. He heard someone moving talking in the kitchen and turned off the taps. He went back into the kitchen where Andrea and Alex awaited.

His sister had cleaned herself up a bit, wiping away tears and treating the cut on her cheek, and now was sitting on the last unbroken chair holding his amulet.

"Come her Liam, I’ll put it on for you." He walked over and knelt at her feet, managing a smile for the first time that night. He had only received it a year ago and every time he was allowed to wear it he felt like an adult. Andrea slipped the necklace over his head and Liam revelled in the cool touch of iron links and the heavy feeling of the garnet stone that rested over his heart.

"There." She patted the stone and smiled. "Make me proud." He smiled back and stood, the words lending him some much needed confidence. Standing up, he turned to Alex who gave him a small nod of approval and led him out of the house. Liam followed slowly, a feeling of dread entering him at the sight of his brother’s pickup. The ride would be very painful, due to the vehicle’s lack of shocks and Alex’s tendency to drive creatively.

As they passed the bodies on the lawn, one of them managed to move enough to pull out a cell phone and dial. Liam resisted the urge to kick it out of the guy’s hands; Andrea would want them gone as soon as possible.

The drive to Ohm’s home was nearly silent, the only noise being Liam’s fidgeting every time the truck hit a bump. When they pulled up to the overly ornate mansion, with its thick fences and guards at the gates, Alex sighed and shifted into park.

"Keep quiet. Hopefully I won’t need you, but if I do it will not be because of something you said."

Liam cringed and opened his mouth to protest that it had only been once, but the deep scar underneath his amulet twinged and the moment passed. Alex took the silence for assent and turned to get at something behind the seats. After a moment several heavy objects were dropped in Liam’s lap. He ran a hand over the weapons mentally cataloguing them as he did so. Two sheathed daggers, a handgun and it’s holster, and an extra clip of bullets. He put on the holster, checked to see that the gun was loaded and put the clip into its pocket before sliding out of the pickup, the rest of the weapons in hand.

Alex was at the gate waiting for him, scowling at the guards blocking the gate. Liam grinned at them in a disarming manner and held out his hands, the gun in his left and the knives in his right. One of the guards nodded and muttered into her headset as he slip the gun into the holster and strapped the daggers on either side of his waist. The gates opened as he was finished up, and the guards waved them through, Liam tried to look as though he did this on a regular basis.

The path up to the mansion was longer then it should have been, Liam carefully took in the forest on one side of the mansion and the thick gardens on the other. He tried not to contemplate a hasty escape over the bare grass that lay in the centre of trees, garden, mansion and fence, the visions of chaos were unwelcome this close to real danger. He noticed Alex checking out the large windows that faced the lawn; all appeared empty, for now.

The ornate doors were opened by yet another guard. Liam scorned the idea of giving Family members such meaningless jobs; he couldn’t understand the need to lower kin to a station so far below that of the patriarch. Mentally comparing his own comfortable house, and those of the rest of his Family to Ohm’s showing monstrosity didn’t help, but maybe everyone lived here. The guard exchanged words with his brother before leading them across marble flooring to a set of doors carved in intimate detail.

"Ohm will see you." The flunky made no move to enter the room beyond the closed doors which meant that Ohm already had someone else in there already. Alex pushed opened the doors and strode into the room exposing it’s occupants to Liam’s eyes.

He hadn’t met Ohm before, and had assumed that the patriarch would be a craggy old man. The woman seated on a chair more beautiful then anything he had seen in the mansion so far, was anything but what he had expected. She was around thirty with dark exotic features and a feral smile. And somehow she managed to scare him more then any old man with generations of experience ever could. The young man that stood behind her mirroring the position that Liam held behind his brother was almost as scary, the markings on his face and arms a visual clue as to how dangerous he was.

Alex bowed slightly and Liam followed quickly. She didn’t move; they were on her turf, and would follow her rules.

"Welcome gentlemen. The Family of Ohm greets you. What message do you bring for me?" Her voice was rich and deep; Liam fought an urge to shiver.

Alex was braver and responded. "This night a number of your-" the ringing of the cell phone hanging at his waist cut off the ritual words. Liam’s eyes widened; who could be calling at this time? The room stilled as his brother answered.

"What?" There was a short pause and Alex’s neutral expression fell into despair and he put the phone away with hands that shook noticeably. "My Lady due to the unprovoked murder of Teigan Garou," Liam couldn’t suppress a gasp of pain. "heir to the Garou Family, I speak as the voice of my Family and do here formally declare a debt of blood on the Ohm family." Alex fell silent and Liam blinked tears aside to see Ohm’s predatory grin widen.

"As Matriarch of the Ohm Family I express grief at the death of your heir and accept the debt." Her dark eyes sparkled. "Now get out of my home before I add you to it."

Even as the two brothers quickly left the mansion Liam reflected that the single moment of his brother’s death was much like that of a solid punch. It was quick, devastating, and the effects could last a lifetime.