The Grave Shadows

31. Babies

At eleven, Everett and Luke entered the mansion, and the boisterous nuisance turned their heads to the south hallway. The light seared the entrance of the poolroom while vile barks fumed the air. Will and Simon caroused by the pool table, turning the sanctuary into a cheap bar. Everett and Luke flounced to their older brothers, their moods as inflammable. Glaring at the intoxicating Watts boys, Luke slapped a piece of paper on the burgundy Simonis cloth.

Scowls burned Will's and Simon's faces.

"She's not our cousin, jackasses!" Luke bolted. He didn't even need a DNA test to debunk Simon's stupid theory. The kid concluded that Cyan wasn't related to Mary by looking at her blood type in the medical form.

"What's wrong with him?" Will swayed to grab another bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. He picked the one that Everett would drink.

Simon glanced at the paper on the pool table. "What the hell is this?" He plunked the glass down and picked up the medical form. In this condition, Simon wouldn't be able to read even if all of it were his own name.

"Luke thinks he's serious about Cyan." Everett snatched the bottle from Will and kept it aside. He understood Bill Watts's embarrassment better now.

Will said, "He's nineteen."

"She's seventeen," Everett retorted. "Do I have to remind both of you how old you are?"

Will and Simon laughed, Simon crashing against the pool table and Will the bar stool, flaunting foul jokes, wrinkling in stupidity. Everett pursed his lips and veered at the door.

"Show him," Will said.

Simon flew at Everett with a tight hug, mostly to keep himself upright. "Come." He chuckled and locked Everett's arm.

Will and Simon fumbled up the stairs. Their recklessness forced Everett to follow. The older boys cackled and fell on their knees. Everett yanked them to their feet to prevent them from rolling to the grand foyer.

On the third floor, Simon and Will sandwiched Everett, unable to stand straight, giggling like crazy children. And hanging on the cables in seven training strips were rubber baby dolls—fifty of them, at least.

"Stupid." Everett exhaled. Perhaps seventeen was too mature for his brothers.

Playing Mummy and Daddy all day, Will and Simon had installed the creepy chandeliers in the training hall. The dolls, freakier than the cherubs, smiled at Everett as they swung in the loops around their necks.

Will shuffled to the wall display and grabbed a saber. He jumped off his feet and hurled the blade at one plastic baby. Simon burst out in joy, shuddering against the wall with his hands around his stomach.

"Shush!" Everett covered Simon's mouth as the swishing and skidding sneaked through the ajar steel partition.

On the floor was a strip of light flickering in the rhythm of the rapid footwork. From the sound of it, two men were shredding each other on the latest piste. The problem was, at this time of the night, there were only five people in this house. Three of them were playing with dolls, one got annoyed, and another should have been in bed.

The Rose Room was an arena within the fencing facility in the Watts Mansion. Bill Watts himself trained Everett in this vault, but other coaches taught the rest of the Watts boys on their respective strips outside. Hector said this portion of the third floor was a greenhouse, but Bill Watts turned it into a quiet fight club on the day Crowley died.

On the piste was a man in a solo choreography of strength, advancing, lunging, and thrusting simultaneously. His epee pierced forward, and the air screeched. His form was poised and precise but the aggression more savage than the one in a Saber bout. The fencer flew, and the blade impaled the invisible man's throat. The sword even flexed and jerked backward as if the opponent were real and unyielding, as if the air could fence, and as if Hector was that air. The fencer lifted off his mask, his gold hair drenched.