The Broken Lamb; Blood Stains and Whiskey

Chapter 2: A House of Mystery

The sun had finally set, though it was still light enough to see the dragonflies and bats flying about. I had never been much of a Halloween go’er, neither was Keen. So, to avoid the rest of the hectic night we found ourselves sitting in the park across the street of the large mansion - which sat in the out skirts of the town.  

It was pretty good to be prepared, I thought.  The car normally had a few emergency things in the trunk, a small battery lantern being one of them. The lantern had proven to be very useful as both of us had brought a little something to work on.  He was working on writing some sheet music to add to his portfolio. This particular piece was for the violin. And myself, I was drawing the rather mysterious woman standing in a window of the mansion.

Just as I was about to start adding shading to the drawing, I looked up once more only to see the woman was no longer there. I sighed, maybe even huffed, mostly out of selfishness of course. Yes I know it was quite a bit of something to ask an unknowing model to remain still if she did not know she was a model.

“What’s wrong?”

“My model took off” I explained to him looking down at my uncompleted drawing a little sad.

He laughed at me. “Well Its getting pretty late, anyway. And tomorrow is chore day, we should probably head home.”

“I’ve got an idea. Lets NOT go home and let him clean up his own mess for a change.” When I spoke to him there was a hint of an attitude In my voice, though it was not directed at my brother. At this point in our life, I don’t believe we’d ever even had a small argument before.

“Honna-“

“Don’t Keen. He still slaps you around for not getting him a new beer every ten minutes on Game nights… “

“He’s getting better Honna. Over the past year, his temper has relaxed a bit. Besides, my little Doe, there’s no point in making life miserable. If it takes us cleaning up his mess every Sunday, and me getting him his beers to eliminate the misery for the rest of senior year then why not just make it easier?”

Keen kissed my forehead and I smiled He was right, in a small way. But in all honesty he didn’t really know. He didn’t know what misery he was being shielded from. It was his happiness that kept my mouth shut about the truth of our mother’s death, and the unwanted relationship between our step-Father and I. “Your right.” I simply said, closing my sketch pad. “No sense in making things worse. But let’s go. It’s starting to get cold.

We came up to the road and began to walk down it a bit, Keen’s arm was around my shoulders in attempt to keep me warm. With my eyes closed and head on his shoulder-ish, (Keen might have been my twin but he was at least a half foot taller than me, standing at about Five foot Six inches.) It confused me a bit to feel the jerk of trying to take a step, while he stopped sharp.  I was confused looking up to see what was wrong. It was clear that he was even more confused then I.

“What is it?”

“Where’s Bob?” Yes I named my little purple, rusted Reliant K, Bob. And yes, my car is a ‘he’.

But his question made me state the obvious. “Bob… Is… not here….” I turned around, and again looking up and down the road quite a few times. Finally throwing my finger up and pointing. “Didn’t I park right… Where’s my Bob?”

We stood there in for a while, both of us trying to figure out what to do. Until Keen came up with the idea to try the mansion, Maybe ask for a phone to call someone for a ride. I had to object the idea, the building looked creepy, and like it had been abandoned for a hundred years.  Well besides for the strangely well kept maintained garden in the front yard.

 Even though neither of us now liked this idea, both Keen and I walked up to the property and looked up at the large black Iron gates I could feel the goose bumps forming on his arm as my hands clung tightly to his hand and wrist.  “I don’t like this Keen, Let’s just walk.”  I objected still.

“It will take over an hour to walk home. Not to mention we’d have to ‘walk’ though Boka  town.” At that I shivered. Boka town, a three street range of clubs taverns and pizza shops, A place that a teenager would probably not benefit, especially on the night of Halloween. “Don’t worry. It will be quick. We’ll just ask to use their phone, and call for Marcus to come and get us. Then we’ll wait back at the gate. ”

Coming up to the doors, they were large and even more intimidating then the gate.  The dark colors and gothic architecture of the outside of the building surely didn’t help to put me at ease. With each foot that came down on the front steps the tighter my teeth came down on my bottom lip… “Keeeen….” I pleaded with him to turn around.  But his hand, the one that didn’t have me attached to, lifted, reaching to take hold of the brass knocker.

Before Keen got a chance to place his fingers on the loose ring held in the mouth of a horned demon, the door swung open!

*             *             *

Back at the gate a young man wandered up looking for something to call his pray, or so it would seem. The Garb he wore was a uniform of sorts, Navy in color, and it looked almost like a modern day musketeer outfit. Without the feather on the hat at least, it was adorned with a buckle though. Upon his right shoulder a half style cape draped over his armored arm. Within that armored arm his hand held with a tight grip the constructs of a cross bow; a weapon that was designed to shoot in this case wooden bolts.

This was the young man’s first night back in the hunt though he had very low expectations things would turn out any different than last time.  In which case, he had to be either really brave or extraordinarily stupid to being himself this close to the edge of town, especially with no one there to have his back.  Though it could have in fact been his position within his family; the young man was the son of the head of the Korvan House. Being the predecessor as you could imagine, put a lot of pressure on him to be great. Or at the very least he could always die trying.