“But I just…you just...how…?”
“I left out the back.” Gabriel hoped this was explanation enough and that there was, indeed, a “back” to whatever this place was.
The doorman shrugged. “Alright. Best of luck tonight. I always put my money on you.”
Gabriel nodded again as the doorman let him into a bright room filled with people, bookies, the smell of sweat, and the sound of breaking bones.
Well, damn.
Walking along the outskirts of the crowd and keeping in the shadows as much as possible, Gabriel moved toward the spectacle in the center of the room.
A shirtless Tristan, blood running down his face and body, had his bare-knuckled fists raised before a much larger man who was throwing punches in his direction. The larger man was far more beat up than Tristan and he was stumbling with injury and disorientation. Tristan blocked every blow the man served and, after a few minutes of watching the large man stomp unevenly from side to side, Tristan clocked him in the face.
The man fell to the blood-splattered floor and the crowd cheered. Somewhere a bell chimed and Gabriel finally understood what he was watching. He didn’t believe it, but he understood it.
He waited four more matches until the crowd thinned and people began to disperse, then he stood outside the stairwell, hidden in shadows, until a bloody Tristan emerged.
Grabbing him by the nape, Gabriel threw his brother against the wall of the building. “Prizefighting? Are you crazy?”
Caught off guard, Tristan swung at Gabriel’s face, pausing just before making contact as recognition set in.
God, he was a mess. Blood everywhere. A swollen eye. Sweat matting his hair and chest.
“Hello, Gabe.” Tristan smacked Gabriel’s hand off him and spit on the ground. “What brings you back to your old stomping grounds? I thought you were a changed man.”
Gabriel ignored the comment, though it was true. Since Scarlet’s death, he had no desire to be the slobbering, self-hating, drunken gambler he’d been before. She had loved him. He now had something to live for.
“I’ll ask again,” Gabriel said. “Are you insane?”
“No. I’m well.” He smiled. Like a crazy person, he smiled. “I’m excellent, in fact. I’ve not lost a fight in many weeks.”
“You are immortal. These are not fair fights, not real victories.”
Tristan examined his knuckles, torn flesh slowly mending itself, then looked back up. “Now, don’t go spewing morality at me brother. You have a reputation to uphold. Whatever would the townspeople do if you were to become the ‘good’ brother? I’m sure chaos would ensue. You must hurry and find yourself some brandy and a painted woman and fix this morality nonsense so the world may be right again.”
“I’m serious, Tristan. Prizefighting is illegal.” Gabriel suddenly felt like the grown-up between them and was not comfortable with his new role.
“I know.” Tristan’s crazy smile was back.
Who was this person?
Tristan spit again. “Since when do you care about the law?”
Since my brother went rogue, apparently.
Gabriel shook his head. “It’s wrong to fight when you have an obvious advantage over your opponents—
“My advantage is not all that great. Did you know,” Tristan looked at Gabriel with something akin to glee in his eyes, “that the more wounded immortals are, the slower they heal? All I have to do is break a few bones or cut myself up before a fight and I am almost as mortal as any opponent. I learned that from one of Nathaniel’s books. Helpful information in those wizarding bibles.”
Gabriel blinked. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
Gabriel rubbed his face, completely dumbfounded. “Explain this to me. Why are you participating in these fights?”
“Because it feels good to hit something. It feels good to be hit.”
Ah.
This was punishment for Tristan. This was a way to hurt, and be hurt, in between Scarlet’s lives.
“Don’t worry, Gabe,” Tristan spit again. “The fights are more equally matched than you think. I‘m not cheating. I feel the same pressure, the same pain, the same—“
“Guilt?” he challenged. “Sadness?”
Tristan’s cocky face sobered.
Gabriel shook his head. “This doesn’t bring her back any faster. Or change what will happen when she returns.”
Dangerous anger filled Tristan’s eyes as he lowered his voice. “Do not speak to me about Scarlet.”
And then he was gone. Disappearing into the night with blood on his skin.
CHAPTER 21
Boston 1891
Nathaniel clapped his hands together, the sound popping into the large townhouse he owned. “I call this meeting to session.”
“There are only three of us, Nathaniel.” Gabriel sighed as he leaned back on the couch. “This is a discussion. Not a ‘meeting’.”
After a century without luck in the South, they had decided to move to Boston, where Nathaniel could pursue a different cure. A medical cure.
Tristan hated the crowds and noise, but he tolerated it, Gabriel assumed, because there were big fights in the city. Underground gambling ran rampant after dark and Tristan was always at the center of the mess. He was known to his audiences as Archer. He was known to Gabriel as dumbass.
“Well, based on our last three-person discussion—the one where you two punched each other, broke my coffee table, and managed to put a hole in my wall,” Nathaniel pointed to the gaping hole in the drywall of his otherwise flawless room, “I’d say our ‘discussions’ need some order. So I’m calling it a meeting and this time we will all take turns speaking. Understand?”
Their last discussion had been about how to take care of Scarlet when she came back to life, but had ended up being a throw down between Gabriel and Tristan because Tristan, bloody hell, Tristan was going off the deep end.
He was prizefighting. Fine.
He was collecting weapons like they were stamps. Also fine.
But it was who Tristan had become on the inside that Gabriel couldn’t stand. Tristan was just plain surly; a dark man without a pinch of light inside him.
Gabriel had let him stew and wallow and slowly spiral downward for a hundred years, and now it was time for Tristan to get it together and start helping.
Tristan had announced he no longer believed the fountain existed, which was understandable based on their lack of locating the thing for hundreds of years, but to give up on saving Scarlet altogether? That was ludicrous.
“So,” Nathaniel began. “When Scarlet comes back to life, we need to handle it differently. I don’t think it’s healthy for Tristan to remain far away from her for extended periods of time.”