Amy Blankenship - Dangerous Things стр 11.

He looked across the road at Michael's building nestled between other city buildings. From the look of the circular room on top, it was a Victorian design. He had agreed to move in with Michael but it looked like now he would have to talk Michael into moving in with himself instead of sleeping on the roof across the street.

He raised an eyebrow at his odd friend. The house had every modern comfort someone as old as them could think of, including wards to keep demons out, so why the sudden need for fresh air that smelt like rain?

He knew Michael still felt guilty for not being around when he’d went and gotten himself buried. Although Kane had tried to stay out of his head, he still hadn’t told Michael that if he tried, he could read his mind. It was just something a friend didn’t really want to know… besides, he had a feeling he was the only one with that power.

Abandoning him wasn’t all Michael was thinking about tonight… it was the reason he’d left the country in the first place that drew his attention… Damon, Michael’s brother. Kane hadn’t seen Damon since coming back to his senses… what was left of them, but the memories he did have were mostly good. Damon had a wild streak a mile wide and they both had given Michael one hell of a headache trying to keep up.

Kane glanced down and noticed Michael playing with the ring on his finger as he thought about Damon. It wasn’t long before sleep overtook Michael and the vivid dreams started. The longer the dreams lasted, the more Kane learned what Michael had been hiding. He closed his eyes, blocking out the city and really concentrating for the first time on someone else’s pain.

He was startled to find himself not only listening to the dreams, but also catching visual flashbacks from forty years ago. He saw it all unfold from an outsider’s prospective as it played out like a tragic movie.

Michael had felt the urge to go see Damon for the first time in over a century. When he found his brother, all seemed well. Damon had been living it up in the social limelight of London and Michael had joined him for a while. They’d had a blast until they met a girl… Katie.

The most eligible bachelors had all been invited to her eighteenth birthday party including the brothers. She was truly the belle of the ball. What had started out as simple brotherly competition turned into a dangerous game of jealousy. Everything with them seemed to turn into a competition. They’d spent weeks waging silent war against one another to win her affection.

Damon had told him to leave… to go back across the ocean but Michael couldn’t do it. He wouldn't let Damon win by running him off. As the sibling rivalry escalated, they were at each other’s throats over the same girl. It wasn’t that she was their soul mate or anything though they both had become enthralled with her. It seemed fated that Katie had the same problem… she’d fallen for both of them and wouldn’t choose.

What was even more twisted about the love-triangle was that Katie thought the brothers were human… they’d never given her a reason to think otherwise.

They had taken Katie out dancing for the evening but that had been a deadly mistake. The tension between the men was too high. After only an hour of slowly dying inside while the other danced with her, the brothers had finally come to blows. They hadn’t realized how much control they’d lost until their eyes changed color as they wrapped their hands around each other’s throats and their feet left the ground.

They hadn’t even seen her run. Michael and Damon had snapped out of their rage when they’d heard the squeal of tires and the crunch of metal outside the dance hall. By the time they reached her… she’d been killed.

When Damon raced toward her with every intention of trying to revive her with his vampire blood, Michael had stopped him because a crowd had already gathered. Damon had turned on him for real then, blaming Michael for not leaving when he’d told him to.

They had fought after that for months … calling truce for moments at a time for words with feeling but it always led to another fight. Michael knew Damon was getting darker and darker and that Damon wanted to kill him. If he did try, then Michael would defend himself and one of them would die.

It was then that Michael did something he swore he wouldn’t do… he went to see Syn. Syn was the first vampire. He’d gone to sleep and not woken for centuries but Syn wasn’t dead for he couldn’t die… at least not that anyone knew of. They weren’t sure why he’d chosen to sleep the last couple of centuries away, but it had seemed like Syn was waiting for something that hadn’t happened yet.

Michael walked around the statue that marked Syn’s resting place within the mausoleum. He knew Syn was deep below him. He talked to the empty tomb, hearing his words echo around him… sometimes in whispers and sometimes in deafening screams.

Fighting with Damon was driving him mad, he hadn’t meant for it to ever go this far. He wasn’t even sure either of them had truly loved the girl. He felt his heart spilling out because of the pain he had caused his brother… and Katie. He didn’t know if Syn was listening, but it was enough to at least tell someone else the truth.

The statue’s eyes moved watching him. It was the likeness of Syn but without coloring. The candles that were lit around him shimmered and dimmed then flamed high as the statue moved. Whispered words drifted up from the ground in a language long forgotten.

The silence that followed was like soothing thunder and Michael knew Syn had forgiven him even if Damon had not. He rubbed his palms over his arms trying to chase the chills away. Syn was a man of magic and Michael wondered what spell had crawled deep inside him.

He picked himself up and made his way out of the catacombs and into the mausoleum only to find Damon was standing there waiting on him. Again, soft words conveying emotion were exchanged but it wasn’t long before they became heated. Michael just wanted it all to end… wanted to embrace his brother and start over.

Damon had taken the first part of his statement literally and, before Michael could stop him, pulled a wooden spear from inside his jacket. Michael felt the timber penetrate his heart and he dropped to his knees. Looking up at Damon, he opened his mouth to say something but all that he could get out was a gurgle.

Michael fell on his side, feeling the blood pause in his veins and turn to ash as his vision slowly faded to black.

With tears in his eyes, Damon stumbled away knowing he was now damned. Syn’s voice started echoing within his mind making him scream. He grabbed his head and doubled over trying to silence the voice but you couldn’t silence Syn.

At that moment everything within Michael roared back to life with a vengeance. Feeling the excruciating pain of the stake in his chest still killing him, he reached for it and pulled the wood from his heart. It hurt just as bad coming out as it had going in.

“Damon!” Michael screamed as he struggled to stand and went in search of his brother. It was worth every ounce of pain to see the look on Damon’s face when he realized Michael was alive.

Michael let the bloody stick slide from his sleeve and in an instant, he stabbed Damon. “Feel this brother!” he screamed as he returned the favor. It killed a part of him to do it but this had to stop somehow.

When Damon was resurrected, Michael had sat down on the ground to try to catch his breath. Michael understood what Syn had done… what the words in the air of the catacombs had been. It was a spell that only Syn could do and it would make it impossible for Michael and Damon to kill each other… maybe make it impossible to die at all. Oh, they could kill each other… but it would only hurt.