The Lost Brother
Marc had never forgotten a single person he’d killed. But he didn’t remember killing anyone in this room.
The bodies lay around him, the version of him in the memory breathing hard, covered in blood. They were in a warehouse – some old, decrepit thing, barely standing upright in the bitter cold. Khonshu appeared suddenly, nodding towards memory-Marc. You have done well.
“How many more?” Memory-Marc panted, but his eyes practically glowed. His words rolled off his tongue like heat off a crackling fire. “These bastardos keep popping up like gophers.”
Spanish. It had been his mother’s first language, and both Marc and his brother had grown up learning it in the same capacity that they’d learned English. Randall had had a knack for it – picking up both languages in the palm of his young hands, twirling them around his conversations like ribbons. He’d loved books, and art, and telling stories – Randall had been creative in a way that Marc had neither been able to achieve nor since attempted to approach after the loss of his brother. So bright, so bold. So young. It pained Marc to think of what his hermanito could’ve become.
Harrow’s influence has spread much further than we previously thought, Khonshu stated, and Marc stiffened. It will take some time, and a great deal of digging to uproot them all.
“Then let’s dig.” The memory-version of him who he was now certain definitely wasn’t him grinned, a flash of white. “I don’t want them to be bothered by these pendejos anymore.”
Them? Marc repeated in his head, which still felt strangely empty without Steven to bounce off of. Who the hell was them? The thought of Steven pushed back into his mind, sending a slice of pain through his chest. He was going to find out everything. He’d gone into the very chain of memories that Marc had spent his entire life making sure he never discovered, so that Steven would never, ever have to feel the leaden weight of that grief – only for years of concealment and avoidance to come undone in one swift motion. Steven would hate him for it, Marc knew, for never telling him the truth – and why shouldn’t he? Steven was always going to find out what he really was, Marc realised, a bitter taste forming in his mouth. It had been inevitable, now that their lives were intertwined like threads of a cloth. It was impossible to keep the truth from someone who saw the accumulation of knowledge as an art form.
And now, Steven would know everything there was to know about Marc’s failures. Everything, about how he’d led their brother to his death.
You are doing the world a great service, Jake Lockley. Khonshu nodded approvingly, inclining his head at the man.
His alter – Jake, apparently – merely snickered. “To hell with the world.”
Khonshu seemed taken aback. To hell with it? You swore an oath to protect the travellers of the night.
“Doesn’t mean I have to care about them.” Jake squinted at the god, his hands in his pockets. “Not part of the deal.”
The deal is as I want it to be, Khonshu boomed, but Jake didn’t flinch. Keep up this defiance, and I will have Marc do the dirty work once again.
The two of them stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, locked in stalemate. The silence stretched on between them, an elastic band pulled to the brink, aching to snap. Jake was watching the god coolly, but Marc saw the muscle in his jaw flicking over, the tension lining his shoulders, the adrenaline of conflict.
Jake watched him for a moment longer, before slowly removing his hand from his pocket, popping a piece of gum in his mouth. His knuckles were covered in blood. “You don’t want someone who aches over the pain of others, Khonshu. It’s inefficient,” he winked at the god. “Trust me.”
Khonshu stepped forward so that he towered over Jake, the memory slowly beginning to fade out.
Do not test me, Jake Lockley. The god’s voice reverberated through the room, and Marc saw Jake stiffen slightly. Khonshu merely let out a chuckle. After all…there are more where you came from.
* * *
Steven generally wouldn’t have considered himself a socially adept person. But now, he was starting to think he was actually the most well-adjusted of the lot.
Jake Lockley was watching him from across the room, the sarcophagus lying open next to him. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even blink – and Steven got the distinct impression he was being sized up, like a meal. Suddenly Jake’s face cracked, splitting itself wide with a grin. “You could at least thank me for getting your job back.”
Steven was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” Jake reasoned. He stretched his arms over his head, cat-like, sparing a withering glance at the sarcophagus. “And as for this…pedazo di mierda – ”
Steven frowned. “Wait, what are you – ”
Suddenly Jake kicked the sarcophagus with such force that it shifted, the coffin scraping across the tiles. Jake swore in Spanish, flexing his foot. “Los hijo de puta – ”
“It’s made of stone, you moron,” Steven chastised him, shaking his head in disbelief. “Was pretty common, back in the day. You can’t kick through it.”
Jake turned back to him, amused. “Maybe not without the suit.”
“So you are working with him, then?” Steven interrogated, mustering up the courage to walk closer. “Khonshu?”
Jake merely watched him for a moment, unblinking, the corner of his lip curling upward. “You’re very curious, hermanito.”
“Well you would be, too, if you got shut out of everything your whole bloody life,” Steven bit back, surprising even himself at the resentment swelling in his chest. Not even just for Marc – for both of them, for their mother who hurt them, for their father, who stood by and watched it all pan out like a tragic play. “Unlike the two of you, I didn’t just get to watch everything. I was conked out.”
Jake was silent for a long time, and Steven fought the urge to squirm under his cool gaze. “I don’t see everything, hermanito. Just the interesting stuff.”
Steven huffed a derisive laugh. “That’s a funny way of saying you spied on us.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Jake queried, stepping forward, and Steven instinctively took a step back. “If you were locked away by another in your own body, kept a secret for most of the time? Wouldn’t you get bored, too, hermanito?”
Steven opened his mouth to reply, but came up empty.
The worst thing was, he had a point. Both he and Jake were missing chunks of their lives, their memories – the only difference was that Jake had figured out how to be aware of it long before he had. Steven released a breath. “Why do you call me that?”
Jake was silent, and Steven squinted at him expectantly. The man across from him studied him, cocking his head. “You don’t know what it means.”
It wasn’t a question. Jake wasn’t testing him, but Steven suddenly got the distinct feeling that the answer should’ve been obvious to him. Once again his memory failed him in finding the missing piece of the puzzle, leaving him staring at the empty space behind it. Steven swallowed, hard. “Why do you call me that?”
Jake was staring at the sarcophagus again, like he wanted to kick a hole straight through the side. “He really didn’t tell you anything, did he?”
Steven stepped back, shaking his head. He’d hoped to get answers out of Jake, but no – no, of course it couldn’t be that easy. Neither Jake nor Marc could ever just make things easy. Steven wracked his brain for where he’d heard the word before, or something similar. Marc’s conversation with Zara at the safehouse echoed through his mind and he rifled through it, desperately reaching for the word he should’ve known.
Finally Jake clucked his tongue, giving a small shake of his head. “He won’t tell you this, but he thinks of you that way. As his – ”
“Brother.” Steven’s gaze suddenly snapped up, the pieces falling into place in his mind. His stomach lurched in an unfamiliar way, a pang of melancholy for a boy he’d never actually known, but knew he loved. “His little brother.”
Jake went quiet again for a moment, his expression entirely unreadable. “The one he could protect.”
He may as well have just punched Steven directly in the gut. It would’ve hurt less.
Once again, Steven found himself reeling in the notion that this man – who had lived in his head for years completely unnoticed, who he didn’t truly know and possibly would never get a good handle on – was completely right. All those arguments, all those times when Marc would make up his mind and just would not budge – they all came together to form one giant tapestry, one obvious reason that Steven figured he should’ve seen earlier, but truthfully would’ve had no way of knowing. How can you look at the final puzzle when you’re missing half of the pieces?
His reverie was shattered by Jake striding forward, moving so suddenly that Steven practically jumped back. Jake glanced back at him, the corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement. “You good, hermanito?”
Steven released a breath. “What are you doing?”
Jake shrugged. “I’m bored.”
He swung the door wide, and Steven practically balked. “Where the bloody hell are you going?”
“Don’t take it personally, hermanito. You’re great company,” Jake smirked at him, his eyes flicking back out into the hallway. “But I’m heading out.”
Without another word he strode out into the corridor, Steven bolting through after him, scrambling to catch up. “We need to find Marc.”
Jake laughed, but it was devoid of warmth. “I don’t think he’ll be happy to see me.”
Steven frowned. He had practically had to jog to keep up with Jake, whose strides were ridiculously (and, he thought, unnecessarily) fast. “We both came in here for the same reason, you know. We were looking for you.”
“And why would you do that?” Jake queried, slowing his pace. He squinted, peering through the glass pane of a door, and Steven could only stare at him.
“Because…we want to help you?”
Jake glanced back at him then, cocking his head. “What makes you think I need help?”
The memory played out behind him through the glass, the carnage of their fight with Arthur Harrow and his disciples raging on behind the door. Jake’s gaze fixed on Harrow, the memory of the man with the crocodile cane moving oblivious under his withering glare.
“You killed him,” Steven muttered, and Jake went unnervingly still. “Why did you kill him?”
He didn’t even flinch. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Then he shoved the door open, striding headlong into the memory, once again leaving Steven to scramble after him. The battle of the gods raged around them, but Jake’s attention was elsewhere – watching Zara and Marc fight Harrow on the dais, his eyes lighting up like twin flares. His gaze fixed on Zara for a moment, a devilish grin tracing his face. “You and Marc have good taste, I’ll give you that.”
The memory rolled on, Anubis rising from the ashes, the gods arguing amongst themselves. Jake didn’t seem to care, somehow – sauntering up to where the memory version of Marc and Zara stood, peering at Marc as though he were an exhibit in a museum. He didn’t so much as spare a glance at Steven, his attention fixed solely on Marc.
But Steven wasn’t backing down. “You killed Harrow because of Khonshu, right? He told you to do it, and you did.”
Jake didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Steven saw the muscle in his jaw jump and he stepped closer, insistent. “You don’t have to do what he tells you, you know.”
Jake chuckled derisively. “I wanted to.”
It shouldn’t have shocked him. Steven had been the one who’d come to after Jake had tried to kill Yelena, and he remembered the violence of that transition, that revelation. The blood covering his hands, splattered on his clothes, his hands weighed down with the ache of fighting that Steven himself didn’t know well, but his body remembered. The prospect of Jake Lockley enjoying the violence of working for Khonshu shouldn’t have shocked him at all. But Steven had only really just come to terms with Marc’s body count – all of which he only extinguished because there had been no other option. Marc carried the weight of his sins with him – seeing him outside Steven’s body had shown him that. There was a heaviness to Marc, a burden that dragged down his shoulders and weighed down his steps, even though he tried to keep them from doing so. But Jake – Jake moved with a lightness, an air of indifference that made him practically glide across the surface of the world. Marc had grown up weighed down by his perceived mistakes, only to be further crushed in adulthood by his real ones.
Jake did not seem to have any such qualms about the taking of life.
He was still watching them, Jake’s eyes following Marc and Zara like those of a hawk as they argued with the god of the moon. Steven stepped closer, ignoring every instinct telling him to leave. “Why?”
Jake didn’t turn. Memory-Marc’s eyes shifted and he turned away, and when he came back, it was no longer him. Steven could see it now – the switch between Marc and Jake was a subtle one, much subtler than his, but he could see it clear as day. Memory-Jake’s eyes widened with intensity, his lip curling as he looked back at Zara. Then he strode up to the dais, snatching a gun off the ground, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot rang through the chamber, ricocheting off the walls, and Steven saw Zara’s face drop with shock. He approached her, though she couldn’t see him – she was watching Memory-Jake with a mix of disbelief and confusion.
Steven whirled back on the real Jake, his resolve turning to stone. “Answer me.”
Jake still didn’t look at him, watching himself on the dais. His voice was flat. “You’ll have to be a little more specific, hermanito.”
Something flared inside Steven, a flickering of fire that he wasn’t used to, but welcomed. “Why do you like killing people?”
Jake was completely still. “They deserve it.”
“Who are you to judge that?” Steven interrogated, jabbing a finger at him. “How do you know you’re any better than Harrow was? Khonshu could be getting you to kill innocents, for all you know!”
Jake huffed a mirthless laugh. “No one I kill is innocent.”
“So, what? It’s a hero thing?” Steven furrowed his brows. “You don’t seem like the type, somehow.”
Jake looked at him now, unblinking. “That so?”
“Yeah. It is.” Steven felt thrown off balance by the way Jake was watching him, but he wouldn’t back down. He wouldn’t. “But that’s it, isn’t it? Khonshu’s making you think you’re a hero. Like an Avenger, or something.”
Jake barked a laugh, short and sharp. “I think you have me confused with Marc, hermanito.”
“What do you think you’re going to get out of this?” Steven walked towards him now, his newfound courage propelling him forward. “What, are you trying to replace Marc, or something?”
Jake’s head snapped towards him then, his gaze fixing on Steven – and Steven suddenly had an appreciation for where the phrase glaring daggers came from. “Like it or not, hermanito, this needs to be done.” He cocked his head. “Would you prefer Khonshu force Marc back into this line of work, then, eh?”
The chamber of the Ennead stretched out around them, and Steven’s eyes flicked to Zara. Her dark hair fell loose around her face as she gaped at the wall, the portal disappearing into thin air.
A thought occurred to him, and Steven furrowed his brows. “Wait, why can we still see her? You’d already taken off with Khonshu by this point.”
Zara’s hazel eyes fixed then on the bodies on the floor, to Yatzil and Nagisa, sprawled lifelessly on the cold stone and she approached them, dropping to her knees. Steven could not tear his eyes away as a sob escaped her throat, her hands gently reaching for their faces, closing their eyes. She was whispering something to them in a language he didn’t recognise, each tear staining her cheeks a twisted blade lodged in his heart. Breathlessly he turned back to Jake, surprised to find him watching her intently. “You didn’t leave.”
Jake was silent for a long time, his eyes never leaving Zara as she knelt next to the avatars, her hands clasped to her chest as though trying to reach her own heart. His voice was quiet. “Not straight away.”
Suddenly the door behind them opened, and the two of them instantly turned. Marc had materialised in the doorway, his eyes flicking between them, casting a pained gaze to the memory of Zara on the floor of the Great Pyramid. Marc and Jake both froze then, watching each other, as if waiting for the other to make a move. Steven groaned. Were these two ever not going to be dramatic?
He put himself between them, gesturing to each man in turn. “Jake, this is Marc. Marc Spector – ” Marc’s eyes fixed on him then, wide with anticipation.
“Meet Jake Lockley.”