Blood Brothers Page 0,99

of the dorm. We were across from each other. Within two days, we'd switched. Our respective roommates didn't care. We bunked together right through college."

"And apparently still are," Cybil commented.

"Remember you read my palm that first night?"

"You read palms?" Fox asked.

"When the mood strikes. My gypsy heritage," Cybil added with a flourishing gesture of her hands.

And Cal felt a knot form in his belly. "There were gypsies in the Hollow."

"Really?" Carefully, Cybil lifted her wineglass, sipped. "When?"

"I'd have to check to be sure. This is from stories my gran told me that her grandmother told her. Like that. About how gypsies came one summer and set up camp."

"Interesting. Potentially," Quinn mused, "someone local could get cozy with one of those dark-eyed beauties or hunks, and nine months later, oops. Could lead right to you, Cyb."

"Just one big, happy family," Cybil muttered.

After the meal, chores were divvied up again. Wood needed to be brought in, the dog let out, the table cleared, dishes dealt with.

"Who else cooks?" Cybil demanded.

"Gage does," Cal and Fox said together.

"Hey."

"Good." Cybil sized him up. "If there's a group breakfast on the slate, you're in charge. Now-"

"Before we...whatever," Cal decided, "there's something we have to go over. Might as well stick to the dining room. We have to get something," he added, looking at Fox and Gage. "You might want to open another bottle of wine."

"What's all this?" Quinn frowned as the men retreated. "What are they up to?"

"It's more what haven't they told us," Layla said. "Guilt and reluctance, that's what I'm picking up. Not that I know any of them that well."

"You know what you know," Cybil told her. "Get another bottle, Q." She gave a little shudder. "Maybe we should light a couple more candles while we're at it, just in case. It already feels...dark."

THEY LEFT IT TO HIM, CAL SUPPOSED, BECAUSE IT was his house. When they were all back around the table, he tried to find the best way to begin.

"We've gone over what happened that night in the clearing when we were kids, and what started happening after. Quinn, you got some of it yourself when we hiked there a couple weeks ago."

"Yeah. Cyb and Layla need to see it, as soon as the snow's cleared enough for us to make the hike."

He hesitated only a beat. "Agreed."

"It ain't a stroll down the Champs Élys茅es," Gage commented, and Cybil cocked an eyebrow at him.

"We'll manage."

"There was another element that night, another aspect we haven't talked about with you."

"With anyone," Fox added.

"It's hard to explain why. We were ten, everything went to hell, and...Well." Cal set his part of the stone on the table.

"A piece of rock?" Layla said.

"Bloodstone." Cybil pursed her lips, started to reach for it, stopped. "May I?"

Gage and Fox set theirs down beside Cal's. "Take your pick," Gage invited.

"Three parts of one." Quinn picked up the one closest to her. "Isn't that right? These are three parts of one stone."

"One that had been rounded, tumbled, polished," Cybil continued. "Where did you get the pieces?"

"We were holding them," Cal told her. "After the light, after the dark, when the ground stopped shaking, each one of us was holding his part of this stone." He studied his own hand, remembering how his fist had clenched around the stone as if his life depended on it.

"We didn't know what they were. Fox looked it up. His mother had books on rocks and crystals, and he looked it up. Bloodstone," Cal repeated. "It fit."

"It needs to be put back together," Layla said. "Doesn't it? It needs to be whole again."

"We've tried. The breaks are clean," Fox explained. "They fit together like a puzzle." He gestured, and Cal took the pieces, fit them into a round.

"But it doesn't do anything."

"Because you're holding them together?" Curious, Quinn held out her hand until Cal put the three pieces into it. "They're not...fused would be the word, I guess."

"Tried that, too. MacGyver over there tried superglue."

Cal sent Gage a bland stare. "Which should've worked-at least as far as holding the pieces together. But I might as well have used water. No stick. We've tried banding them, heating them, freezing them. No dice. In fact, they don't even change temperature."

"Except-" Fox broke off, got the go-ahead nod. "During the Seven, they heat up. Not too hot to hold, but right on the edge."

"Have you tried putting them back together during that week?" Quinn demanded.

"Yeah. No luck. The one thing we know is that Giles Dent was wearing