#nethers

“Well, what do you think?” Russ asked with a poorly concealed snicker. “Humans helped design the park; it’s supposed to be one of the best on this side of Nethers. Great for all ages!”

Toby snorted. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

“No,” Russ retorted, grinning. “But I thought it’d be a good start to break the ice.”

Toby sighed heavily and closed his eyes again. “A place like that would be fine if we needed to entertain kids. The only vacation I need is a quiet weekend with my doting husband. I don’t care about the place.”

“You’re charming, but no fun,” Russ said. A pout drew on his lips as he returned his attention back to searching on his phone. “Oh! Here- how about hiking in Mount Delin? I went there four years ago, pretty nice area.”

Toby opened his eyes for only a split second, glanced over the generic mountain picture, and closed his eyes again. “Hiking is work.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s fun,” Russ hummed. “And I get the best pictures of the valleys there. Rich folk in Halwin pay premium for ‘em.”

Toby folded his fingers together over his chest and pictured Russ four years ago among the gargantuan trees with a camera in both hands while his treasured sniper’s rifle probably nestled against a trunk somewhere nearby along with a single, large duffle bag that contained all of the drifting demon’s possessions. They still had that ragged duffel bag somewhere in a box, he was sure of it.

For awhile, Russ continued to proffer different locations for them to travel together. After showing an image of some beach house in a dubious part of North Harbor, he felt Russ stiffen underneath him. He opened his eyes with a frown, to which Russ offered an awkward smile and said, “Don’t react- Seth is down here.”

It took all Toby’s self-restraint not to whip up in the booth and look for himself. His breath quelled in his lungs and he nodded. “What’s he doing?”

“Well, it’s what he’s not doing that is more important… which is not gunning us down in a rain of bullets, covered in blood from a bloodbath upstairs. He looks… normal? Chatting up the bartender right now.”

Toby calmly eased himself up into a sitting position and rubbed his tired eyes. He watched Seth make his way towards them with a faster pace than casual. He noted with increasing alarm Seth’s forced smile as he pretended to lazily lean on one arm over their booth’s back.

“Everything alright, Seth?” Toby asked quietly.

“Yeah, yeah. Meeting is fine.” Seth waved a dismissive hand. “Claire is working her miracle-magic, as always. I think they’ll be finished within the next hour, actually.”

“Good,” was all Toby replied with. He and Seth locked eyes for a moment before the demon glanced around, pointedly hovering his gaze over the few other occupants including the piano player, bartender, and staff members readying the club for the night. 

“You know how boring those mediations get after awhile… I needed a breather. Know a good room I could smoke in for a bit?”

Toby climbed out of the booth, ignoring Russ’s petulant frown as he did so. “Yeah. You want a bottle of cognac too?”

Seth barked a laugh. “And take out a second mortgage to pay for it? I’ll pass, thanks.”

Toby shrugged and moved to walk past Seth. As Seth joined his side, he stepped closer to Toby and whispered, “I need to talk with you. Alone.”

The comment strummed all the tight strings in Toby’s chest that had not settled down since his talk with Marie. He nodded grimly and led Seth through the staff entrance. His office was too far away for a discreet meeting, so he kept them in the main staff hallway, dodging between the rushing staff members, and ducked out of a door further down the way. The abandoned hallway housed a string of rooms intended for dancing practice and staff meetings, unused and ignored at this time of day. He stopped in front of one and ushered Seth inside.

Toby didn’t turn on any lights, but he did loosen the blinds on the one window of this room. Loose peels of faded golden light from the streetlights fell into the room. The room held a minuscule wooden stage, a few long tables, a small bar, and a piano. Layers of dust and dirt covered most of the furniture. This particular room had seen little use for quite a long time, and none of the staff would dare use it without express permission from Sybille herself. They would be alone.

Seth looked about before he walked to the wall beside the bar. Framed pictures cascaded that wall. It was a veritable timeline of the history of the Brancato family in relation to Ember’s Lounge, which were really one in the same. An aged, brown picture featured in the middle of the collage; Toby’s father held a drink up from his position at a piano and his mother leaned over it in one of her ostentatious dresses, jewelry dangling all over. The photograph captured the day Beau had rebranded the family name, taking it from some human he had been impressed with on the other side, as well as christened their new club. From there the photographs fanned out with images of the seven immediate children, Toby included, during various celebrations that had taken place at the club. 

Seth followed one branch until its abrupt end to the right. He stopped in front of a particular photograph and sighed heavily, a deep frown on his face. Toby knew the picture by heart, because he had also often stood in front of it in much the same way recently. Although he usually held a half-empty bottle of rum with him when he did. It was, by far, the picture that featured Marie Brancato at the happiest she had ever been in her life. It was the night of her first solo in the Levont Symphony. She had just played for half of the city along with the wealthiest tourists who patronized the arts.

Now, after they fired her quite stolidly for her erratic behavior, Marie would be lucky if they ever let her step foot into the building again.

Her deep smile in the picture, however, stemmed from another source beyond her triumphant performance. She leaned onto the arm of a demon in a rented tuxedo that didn’t fit well over his muscular chest and arms. His fanged and sharp grin matched the mirthful lil of his golden eyes. Toby remembered that he had taken great pain to keep the fluffed crop of his white hair contained around his down-curled horns, but to no avail. By the time they had posed for this picture his hair had fluffed back into its usual lumpy cloud.

Seth audibly sighed again. “Reed really isn’t that bad a guy—"

“Stop,” Toby cut in roughly, his lip curling on one side to reveal a fang. “Don’t say his name here.”

Seth appraised him a moment before continuing. “He just couldn’t handle family life, Toby. He wasn’t built for it. He runs when he feels suffocated- he’s always been like that, even when we were kids.”

“Then he shouldn’t have tricked my sister into marrying him in the first place.”

Seth raised a brow. “It might’ve been the other way around, if I recall correctly.” He held his hands up when Toby growled. “Sorry, sorry- that’s obviously not what I wanted to talk to you about. You know the Raider street house?”

Toby strode forward and placed himself between Seth and the photographs, unwilling to expose his family further to the demon’s scrutiny. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and leered down Seth. “I don’t keep up with Neverra’s drug houses. I haven’t worked the streets in years.”

“Still, I’m surprised,” Seth said quietly. He pulled out his phone and glanced between it and Toby as he searched through it. “We had to pay your ma a fortune just to set up operations on Raider street, since it’s so close to your territory. She’s going to get a good monthly cut of the profits from here on out. It’s also within the circle of the murders.”

Toby shrugged and remained silent. He did not like this unexpected topic, and he was certain he wouldn’t like where it was going.

Seth finally found whatever he had been looking for on his phone. He looked up at Toby with a somber expression. “I got a call from Ike, the guy who runs it. He insisted it was important enough for me to leave the meeting for.”

Seth stepped closer to Toby and held up the picture on his phone. Toby’s heart froze and then almost fell out of his chest entirely. The screenshot showed Marie like he’d never seen her before. In this image, she looked exactly opposite of the accomplished pianist in the photograph at Toby’s back.

In the pixelated, grainy image, Marie Brancato brandished a gun at a few bewildered, burly demons on the opposite side of the room while a bleeding demon writhed on the floor at her feet. Her hair black hair hung in wild, stringed heaps about her head and shoulders. The sleeves of her trenchcoat hung too loosely against her frail body, exposing the scarlet skin of her delicate wrists. With a lurch in his stomach, Toby recognized the coat as one that Reed had left behind.

“This was about an hour ago,” Seth explained. When Toby’s eyes flashed up at him, Seth held up one hand. “She’s fine, for now. Ike managed to talk her down after he gave her a pile of fent and locked her in a room.”

Toby glanced back at the picture and his eye picked up more details. He snatched the phone from Seth’s hand to clutch the screen closer and focused on the part of the image that stopped Toby’s heart entirely. On either side of Marie, clinging desperately to the loose folds of her trenchcoat, were two toddlers. One buried her face so deep into the fabric of the coat that only her feathery white hair and tightly coiled, downturned onyx horns were visible. The other child was an almost identical mirror of his sister, except his face was turned slightly to stare, wide-eyed, at the carnage before them.

“Why…” Toby breathed out, unable to finish the question as his entire chest seemed to seize up. He trembled as he poured over every detail the poor picture allowed of the two children, then gritted his teeth and handed the phone back to Seth with shaking hands. “Why would she have brought the twins with her?”

Seth shook his head. He turned off his phone, his sad eyes downcast on the ground. “She’s hooked on Caine, isn’t she, Toby?”

Toby sank down into the piano seat in a daze. He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know.”

“That’s what the Raider house specializes in. She has to be. It wrecks demons, Toby. Completely wrecks them. It’s no wonder she’d do something like this. How the fuck didn’t you know?” Seth’s voice was accusatory now, but Toby, instead of feeling defensive, felt rightfully chastised. 

“I knew she’d been using. I brought her some myself. But… she seemed better last time. I just thought… she needed it, to get through this.” Even as Toby said it, he knew how weak that sounded. 

 Seth was silent for a long while before he spoke again. “Listen, Toby… I know Reed—" Seth paused when Toby lifted his head, a vitriolic flare in his eyes directed at him. He sighed and tried again. “I know that asshole is just a greaseball who deserves to be left in the past where he belongs, but… I had good memories with him. I don’t want to see his two children and their mother get killed because they drowned in the wake of his wreckage.”

Toby ran his hands over his face again before he looked back to Seth with a weary expression. “What does Ike want?”

“At first he seemed like he wanted to go straight to the boss, throw the Brancato’s under the bus, and use it as an excuse to break the talks upstairs.” Seth sighed heavily. “But then he shifted gears, and I talked him into the more profitable and discreet route.”

“How much?”

“He wants 200k within the next hour. Then you can walk out with her and the kids, he gets to pocket all the money, and no one is the wiser.”

She was coherent enough to snap at him. Promising. He resettled his elbow on the table and leaned forward, as though she were sitting across from him now. It wasn’t difficult to imagine; they had spent their entire lives in this club. The version of Marie he pictured across from him now was the Marie he knew before that bastard got a hold of her. Her silky black hair pulled back in a tight braid behind her horns, a sanguine smile under her iridescent eyes.

Toby glanced towards the piano. Start with a fact. “The player Diane replaced you with is a fucking nightmare. Norman and Arthur were pouring Ernest glass after glass of scotch just so he wouldn’t notice the idiot’s key-banging.”

The renewed quiet put Toby on edge with a cringe. Had he chosen his words too poorly?

Eventually, she breathed again and asked, “Arthur helped entertain? I swear that boy grows another five years every time I see him.”

“He’s doing well for himself, actually. He and Diane got the booths sold out for that broad they’ve got headlining next week.”

“And you fucking doubted her, Tobias Brancato. My sister is a lot of things, but she sure as hell has good taste in leading acts.”

An airy mirth filled Marie’s voice and gave Toby more hope. He pictured her again across the table with that radiant smile of hers. The fantasy had pulled him so deeply in that her next question caught him off-guard.

“The piano player they replaced me with… what does he look like?” She waited for Toby to describe him and then clicked her tongue. “You big fucking liar. That’s John Preston; Ma probably paid a fortune for him to play tonight. He’s usually exclusive to Levont Regal.”

“No, he’s terrible,” Toby insisted. “Every player is terrible compared to you.”

The weak, desperate laugh from Marie descended abruptly into a bout of wracking sobs. Toby listened to her cries and sniffles until she breathed sharply again and spoke in a shaking voice. “Oh- fuck, Toby… what do you even want?”

“I want you to keep your promise and play tonight.”

“I’m too late—” A hitched sob interrupted her pinched voice. “Ma wouldn’t even let me in, after I stood her up again, and on tonight of all nights.”

“She will. And I’ll escort you to the band pit myself. You can play the rest of tonight. You just need to be here.”

Marie did not respond. He heard a small whine escape from her, and then he knew with a cruel clarity that she sat paralyzed on the floor of her bedroom again, curled over some jacket or other piece of clothing that the bastard had left behind. Just like he had found her last time.

“I can’t- I really can’t.”

Toby’s heart picked up in pace again. He was losing her.

“You can,” Toby insisted. “Just pick yourself up off the damn floor and get over here, Marie.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, and he immediately regretted his tone. Her presence shied away behind a shield, the retreat as solid as if it were a physical barrier Toby had hit against. His back grew rigid with tension and he found himself fruitlessly clutching for the right words now. Surely something in his wild speech would stick and pull her back to him.

 “Come on, Marie. You can wear that one dress you always love, and I’ll get Nicky to make that gross burger you like before you go on. Just get yourself cleaned up and over here. We can smooth the rest when you’re here. Bring the twins with you, you know the staff loves seeing ‘em—“

“I’m sick, Toby. I can’t go,” she wailed. 

Before he could reply, she continued with an endless string of whispered rambles about her aches and pains, and Toby knew he had lost her yet again. He listened as her speech deteriorated into simple, potent sobs again. He thought back, calculated just how many doses of Caine he had left her. The new drug mixture was fresh from the Neverra’s black market. Human scientists supposedly designed the drug specifically for demons. The number that Toby remembered made him swallow a lump that had formed in his throat. That stash should have lasted much longer than this.

He restrained his own growing sense of despair and pushed himself to speak. “Marie- stop. Listen to me. How much do you have left?”

“I ran out yesterday,” Marie admitted between wails. She sniffled and then her tone turned acrid. “You didn’t bring me enough.”

Toby glanced at Russ, thankful the other couldn’t hear. Russ would have had plenty to say about that comment, to both Marie and Toby. He hunched his shoulders, squaring up as though for a physical fight. “Marie—"

“Oh, Toby,” she whimpered. “I-I can’t make it there. I need you here, please. Bring me more.” Her voice suddenly shifted with the new prospect, and a high trill of desperation infected her words. “Please, Toby. Come get me, bring me more- then I’ll go back to the club with you. If you really want to, we’ll take Harriet and Harlan- please, Toby. If you can just bring me some more now, I’ll be alright.”

Toby forced the growing surge of nausea and panic down. He kept his voice as calm and neutral as possible. “Marie, I can’t do that. You know I can’t leave yet.”

“So that’s it, then!” Marie’s voice grew into a crescendo that left Toby’s ear ringing. “You’re going to just leave me to the wolves and abandon me like everyone else? Fine, then. I’ll handle this myself, like a fucking Brancato is supposed to. Isn’t that what Ma has been saying this whole time to me? Isn’t that what you’ve wanted to say to me all this time? Well, fuck off now, Toby. I’ll take care of myself like you all want me to.”

Before Toby could even process her sudden barrage of bitter words, the call went dead. He numbly lowered his phone, unable to work through the swirling mess of panic, heartache, and fury that filled his mind. Most of all, he felt a chill from the sense of foreboding that came with her final words.

Russ shifted close to his side again and raised a brow sardonically. “Went well, then?”

Toby continued to stare at the phone even after he had placed it on the table. The conversation replayed so fiercely in his mind that he barely felt Russ’s presence at his side. Russ enclosed both his hands over one of Toby’s, and only then Toby said with a frown, “We need to get over there.”

“What’s the rush?” Russ asked with a sigh. “She’s just going to grovel on the floor like she usually does until someone peels her up again. There’s no reason to bust our asses getting to her.”

“As soon as the meeting’s over, we’re going,” Toby said with finality. “Juliet can handle security after that.”

Russ’s head tilted in thought as he eyed Toby carefully. He sighed again and nodded. “Fine, Toby. I think it’s another waste of time, but I’ll follow you no matter what. In the meantime, though- you also have a promise to keep.” Russ unlocked their hands and then shifted further back into the booth. He grinned and held his arms out. “Come here, big fella. Time to shut your eyes for a bit.”