Page 47 of Cursed Lifeline (Eternal Love)
Forty Six
Viktor
song: start a war | Klergy & Valerie Broussard
Shaking out of my suit jacket, I place it over the back of my chair and take a seat behind my desk.
My brother’s eyes roam around my office, taking in a space that oddly almost mirrors his across town. Leaning back in my seat, a smug smile pulls at my lips as he realizes, we’re not as different as he thinks. What’s more, with Evangeline’s help in the caves of her ancestors, I was able to start to pull myself out of a hell that’s kept me paralyzed from moving forward and obtaining the life I’ve always wanted.
When I found out our travels would bring us to Sin City, I made arrangements to open my own club on the strip. After all, I wasn’t going to arrive begging for a place to sleep on anyone’s couch, especially not my brothers.
As he steps further into the room, Felix eyes the rich wood floors, marble countertops, custom furniture and dramatic lighting like he’s just been given a challenge to level up his game. His questioning stare falls on me a moment later as he continues to walk about the space and he wonders how I was able to secure such an elaborate establishment. I won’t lie and say I didn’t call in a few favors to some immortals who helped secure and furnish the club. After all, they owed me big time for helping them out of some troubles of their own before my blood oath was ever sworn to Ember. With their help, I also got in contact with a few distant members of the coven who started conducting business in some illegal ventures before I got here that have paid off plentifully. I’d say I feel remorse for what kind of business I run, but let's be honest, what club on the strip doesn’t capitalize off some sort of underground, criminal act - including my brothers.
The difference between mine and theirs is, I quite literally take my business underground.
“Nice digs,” my brother finally says, as his gaze meets mine and he sits in a chair in front of my desk. Picking up my business card from an organizer on the edge, he turns it over in his hands and says, “Bloody Brawls, unleash the beast within.”
I smile wickedly.
Flipping it atop my desk, he leans back in his seat, shakes his head, and says, “Clever.”
“I thought so.”
A silent, tense moment passes between us as we weigh each other's intentions and try to decide if we’re indeed going to trust one another after all the years we’ve spent hating each other.
Finally, my brother says, “Is this your intelligent plan to break the curse?”
“Got a better one?”
Felix stays quiet, and eyes me with malice. After another strained moment when he still hasn’t answered, I say, “My club is not like the MMA, boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, or other fighting clubs tourists and locals encounter on the strip. Not only that, but in the short amount of time I have been in Vegas, I have secured some intel underground that could prove beneficial in flushing Ember out of wherever she is hiding.”
“Underground?” Felix asks.
I nod.
“What makes your underground connections different from other links to Ember I can seek out through the money laundering, crime, prostitution, drugs and violence that regularly floods this city?”
“Well for starters, I quite literally take business below.”
I point to the floor, and Felix’s eyes follow the action. His brow furrows. He shakes his head. After a few seconds, his confused eyes lift and find mine.
“To the tunnels,” I elaborate. He still doesn’t say a word. So I continue, “To over 600 miles of an underground world right below the street where the locals, tourists, and police walk overhead daily.”
“I’ve heard of the tunnels,” Felix sighs. “There isn’t a local who doesn’t spill their story to any gossip hungry tourist, or officer who doesn’t try to enforce ordinances to keep the homeless who inhabit them from getting out of hand, but dabbling in that kind of hell is sure to get you infected with a sickness we’ve both never come across in our immortal existence. If anything involving the tunnels is part of your genius master plan, I think I’ll pass.”
Felix rises from his seat and starts to walk to the door.
“It’s not the inhabitants of the unseen side of Las Vegas that I’m counting on to help break the curse, it’s the spirits that haunt the tunnels that’ll hopefully aid our mission.”
My brother pauses, but doesn’t turn around.
“Most all who live underground sleep during the day and go out at night,” I say, “except for the spirits of the undead who come out to play in their former stomping ground.”
“And you think one of them can connect us with Ember?” Felix asks over his shoulder.
If I know Ember like I believe I do, the witch will be prepared for anything we might plan in the land of the living. The only way to beat her this time might very well be to meet her where the living meet the dead.
“From the Rio to the Linq, there is a section of tunnels that meet in a six-way,” I advise. “Opening up into a large underground room, it serves as the perfect spot to…”
“Have a bloody brawl?” my brother scoffs, finally turning around and meeting my stare. When I don’t answer, he says, “What makes you think your spirits will cooperate and arrange for Ember to meet us there?”
I open my mouth to speak when Felix starts to laugh and cuts me off. “You know what, no. This is crazy. An underground fight club in Las Vegas tunnels? Spirits that connect you with witches that should’ve been burned at the stake centuries ago? Do you hear how insane you sound, Viktor? What you're suggesting is more asinine than Ember’s suggestion on how to break the curse.”
“Is it really though?” I counter quickly.
I expect my brother to turn and walk out the door. But instead, he ponders what I’ve said as I rise from my seat and walk towards him.
“I’ll repeat myself, even though I hate fucking doing it,” I hiss. “Do. You. have a better plan?”
His jaw sets in anger.
“Esme isn’t ready for something like that,” he finally says.
“So make her ready.”
“It’s not that easy. With Alfred hurt and out of the picture…”
“Alfred hasn’t been much use in over two hundred years. Though I know he loves his sister, he’s not the man who should be training her.”
“I’ve tried to train her in the past and failed,” my brother sighs. “I promised myself in her next life…”
“You promised yourself exactly every fucking thing you’ve promised her before.” Felix’s stare grows lethal. “Stay away. Keep her close. Stay away. It’s the same damn thing over and over again.”
Walking toward the door, I grab the handle and open it for the coward I call kin. If he’s intent not to listen, he can walk right back out the way he came. It’s like they say, you can lead a vampire to blood, but you can’t make him drink.
Turning his way, I scoff, “Do you know the definition of insanity, brother?” His fists ball furiously at his side. Bitterness fills his eyes. Rage paints a deathly shadow across his face. “It’s doing the same fucking thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You want to fucking win? Have the courage to finally change the fucking game, Felix”
Shaking his head, he looks down at his feet. I know he’s about to say something stupid, like the curse won’t let him. Mother and father are to blame. But mother and father aren’t here, and the truth is the curse is just a crutch he’s carried around far too long. It’s a hindrance that’s only served to delay the outcome he and Esme desperately want.
I too had a crutch once.
A hindrance.
A hang up that stopped me from living the life I wanted.
Now that we’re so close to breaking his curse and my oath, I won’t have my brother make the same mistakes I did once.
“ How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge ,” Felix finally whispers after some time has passed. Glancing up in my direction, tears fill his eyes as he says, “I’m scared. So fucking scared. How pathetic is that? I never had anything to lose before I met Esme. Now, after losing her twice, I can’t get through my next breath without worrying about hers.”
I know how he feels. Though I may never tell him, I understand what he’s going through because I once loved and lost a mortal, too.
Releasing my hold on the door, I walk toward my brother and offer him the only guidance I can. Advice I wish I would've taken myself hundreds of years ago.
“You want to win? You want to stop your fear? You go to Esme, and you love her like your next breath is your last.”