Violets Are Blue - James Patterson [9]
The tiger’s massive jaws opened wide, then clamped down onto the man’s head. The cat’s jaws were strong enough to pulverize bone.
The man screamed, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Amazingly, the tiger stopped.
Just like that. On verbal command.
“You win.” The blond man laughed and patted the tiger, which released his head.
The man then twisted sharply to the left. His movements were almost as quick and effortless as the cat’s. Now the young man pounced. He attacked the tiger’s vulnerable creamy white underside, grabbing onto flesh with his teeth. “Got you, you big baby! You lose. You’re still my love slave.”
William Alexander stood off in the distance, watching his younger brother with a mixture of curiosity and awe. Michael was a beautiful man-child, incredibly graceful and athletic, strong beyond belief. He wore a black pocket-T shirt and powder blue shorts. He was already six feet three and a hundred eighty-five pounds. He was flawless. Both of them were, actually.
William walked away, staring into the distance at the rich, green hills. He loved it out here. The beauty and the solitude, the freedom to do anything he wanted to do.
He was very quiet inside — an art that he was still mastering.
When he and Michael were small boys, this whole area had been a commune. Their mother and father had been hippies, experimenters, freedom lovers, massive drug takers. They had instructed the boys that the outside world was not only dangerous but also wrong. Their mother had taught William and Michael that having sex with anyone, even with her, was a good thing, as long as it was consensual. The brothers had slept with their mother, and their father, and many others in the commune. Their code of personal freedom had turned bad and eventually got them two years at a Level IV correctional facility. They had been arrested for possession, but it was aggravated assault that put the brothers behind bars. They were suspected of much more serious crimes, but none could be proved.
As William stared off at the foothills, he marveled at the concept of the unbridled mind. Day by day he left behind the shabby baggage of his past life. Soon he would have no false morals, or ethics, or any of the other bullshit inhibitions taught in the civilized world.
He was getting closer to the truth. So was Michael.
William was twenty.
Michael was only seventeen.
They had been killing together for five years, and they kept getting better and better at it.
They were invincible.
Immortal.
Chapter 11
THAT NIGHT, the two brothers hunted in the town of Mill Valley, in Marin County. The area was beautiful, small mountains teeming with strapping, healthy evergreen and eucalyptus trees. The redwood house was maybe a hundred yards ahead, up a steep, rocky slope that they climbed with ease. A brick walkway led to an entryway with double wooden doors.
“We have to go away for a while.” William spoke to Michael without turning around. “We have a mission from the Sire. San Francisco was just the start.”
“That’s excellent,” Michael said, and he smiled. “I enjoyed what went down there very much. Who are these people, the ones in the big fancy house up there?”
William shrugged. “Just prey. They’re nobody.”
Michael pouted. “Why won’t you tell me who they are?”
“The Sire said not to talk, and not to bring the cat.”
Michael asked no further questions. His obedience to the Sire was complete.
The Sire told you how to think, feel, and act.
The Sire was accountable to no one, to no other authority.
The Sire despised the straight world, as did they.
This definitely looked like the “straight world” up ahead. The large house had all the trappings: gardens tended and watered daily, a small pond filled with koi, several layers of terraces leading up to a large house with more than a dozen rooms — for just two people. How obnoxious could anyone be?
William walked right in the front door, and Michael followed. The foyer had twenty-foot ceilings, a ridiculous