Brian nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess. It’s crazy. Marston said…” He paused, then spoke in a rush, words tumbling over themselves. “He said he wanted a psychic baby and I’m the father.”
“He what? How…” The last bit of that sank in. “You? Like, you and Lori?”
“Yeah.” Brian leaned forward, blinking hard, fingers woven together tightly as he rocked his clenched hands up and down. “Me. He said… he said those sex girls that I had— you remember the girls?”
Nick nodded silently. Brian had told him how Marston had sent him a hooker now and then to give him a blow job, as a reward he didn’t want and couldn’t refuse.
“He said they took the condoms to him and he used it. That. Mine. In Lori.” Brian pressed his lips shut, and Nick saw a familiar, convulsive ripple of his body and Adam’s apple.
“You’re not gonna puke,” he said firmly. Brian’s reactions to stress were too fucking predictable. “Marston was the slime of the earth, but we can deal, okay?”
Brian nodded but didn’t unclench his lips.
Nick pushed to his feet. “What you’re saying is that Marston… Marston wanted to breed a psychic baby. Yours and… Lori’s.” It sounded crazy, and impossible, but scarily like something the magic-obsessed millionaire might have done. They’d found foul things in the mix of magic items in that bunker, some made from body parts.
“He said he actually did that.”
“Jesus. Son of a bitch. And Lori didn’t know?” How the hell could she miss something like that?
“She knew he did stuff, to get her pregnant. She thought it was his, that he wanted an heir to the barony. His baby, you know. After three years without one.”
“Oh.” That made more sense. He felt a flash of pure white rage. Damned Marston to hell! To tell a girl who thinks she’s carrying your child that you knocked her up with her brother’s spunk. And Brian. What he must’ve felt. Breeding them like animals! Forcing him on his sister! “Too fucking bad he’s dead! I’d rip his fucking head off his fucking body and spit in the bleeding stump.”
“Damon—” Brian shut his mouth fast, pressing his lips together.
“Good!” Nick had been sure Damon was in that day’s mess, somewhere, and now he could guess how. “Don’t tell me for real, but good for him. I hope Marston took a long fucking time to die.”
Brian was silent, sitting there on the bed. Nick couldn’t read the drawn expression on his face or the slump of his back. He went over and sat down slowly beside him. Brian leaned against him, not away, so Nick braced an arm behind him, letting their shoulders touch. “Are you okay? No, stupid question. Of course you’re not fucking okay.”
“I am. Mostly.” Brian stared down at his hands. “It’s not like it’s a surprise anymore. Like for you. I’ve had time to think about it.”
Nick clenched his teeth against more anger, against asking why didn’t you tell me sooner?
After a moment, Brian said, “I keep pretending it’s not true, though. It might not be true. It could’ve just been Marston, trying to have the last word.”
“You think?”
Brian’s shrug bumped Nick’s chest. “I’d like to, but… Lori knew him best and she thinks it is.”
“That must totally suck.” Ridiculously feeble words for what it must be like. He still didn’t like Lori all that much, but Jesus, he could feel for her on this. “So what does it mean? If he did? For the baby, I mean. I don’t know shit about brother-sister, um, marriages.” He substituted for the word incest at the last moment because that was one hell of an ugly way to describe this mess.
“We don’t know. Lori asked Doc. Zander. Kind of roundabout, asking about hillbillies marrying their cousins and such.”
“Doc doesn’t know about the baby?”
“No!” Brian looked around fast. “No one else knows. You and me and Lori and Damon. Just us.”
“Okay. All right.” Nick lifted his hand and draped his arm over Brian’s shoulders, tugging him close to minimize their height difference. “What did Doc say?”
Brian’s rigidity softened under his hold. “He didn’t seem to think it was that big a deal. Unless something bad runs in the family.”
Nick tried to lighten his voice. “So no two-headed babies?” He grunted as Brian elbowed him and not gently. But he didn’t let go, and Brian leaned on his shoulder instead of pulling away.
Brian’s said hoarsely, “It might have my dyslexia, or my weirdness.”