«What the hell?» Butch muttered, looking at Vishous.
By way of explanation, Manny bent down and rifled through his bags. As he searched for what he hadn’t intentionally brought with him, he knew without a doubt he was going to find it. Fate had lined these dominos up too perfectly for this moment not to happen.
And yup, there it was.
As Manny straightened, his hands were shaking so badly that the picture frame’s bracer flapped against the back of the matting.
Given that his voice was gone, all he could do was turn the glass around and give the three of them a chance to look at the black-and-white photograph.
Which was the spitting image of the male named Butch.
«This is my father,» Manny said roughly.
The guy’s expression went from yeah, whatever to bald, blanching shock, and his hands started trembling as well as he reached out and carefully took the old picture.
He didn’t bother denying anything. He couldn’t.
Payne’s brother exhaled a cloud of wonderful-smelling smoke. «Fucking. A.»
Well, didn’t that just sum it all up nicely.
Manny glanced at Jane and then eyed the man who might well be a half brother. «Do you recognize him?»
When the guy slowly shook his head, Manny looked over at Payne’s twin. «Can humans and vampires. .»
«Yup.»
As he went back to staring at a face that shouldn’t have been so familiar, he thought, Shit, how did he put this. «So are you. .»
«A half-breed?» the guy said. «Yeah. My mother was human.»
«Son of a bitch,» Manny breathed.
As Butch held the picture of a man who was undeniably identical to himself, he thought, rather bizarrely, about the yellow signs on highways.
The ones that said things like BRIDGE MAY BE ICY. . or, WATCH FOR FALLING ROCK. . or the temporary GIVE ’EM A BRAKE before you got to a work zone. Hell, even the ones with the silhouette of a deer leaping or a big black arrow pointing to the left or the right.
At this moment, standing here in the foyer, he would really have appreciated some advance warning that his life was about to go pigslick, off-the-rails.
Then again, collisions were collisions and couldn’t be planned.
Raising his stare from the photograph, he looked into the human surgeon’s eyes. They were a deep brown, a good old-fashioned port color. But the shape of them. . God, why hadn’t he seen the similarity to his own before?
«You’re sure,» he heard himself say. «This is your father.»
Except he knew the answer before the guy nodded.
«Who. . how. .» Yeah, great journalist he would make, huh. «What. .»
There you go. Add when and where and he was Anderson-fucking-Cooper.
The thing was, though, after having mated Marissa and gone through his transition, he’d finally found peace with who he was and what was doing in his life. Over in the human world, on the other hand, he’d been estranged from everyone, running parallel but never truly intersecting with his mother and his sisters and his brothers.
And his father, of course.
Or at least the guy he’d been told was his pops.
He’d assumed that with his true home and mate here, he was done with assimilating, having reached a peaceful reconciliation with so much that had been painful.
But didn’t this just kick all that shit up again.
The human spoke gravely. «His name was Robert Bluff. He was a surgeon at Columbia Pres in New York City when my mom was working there as a nurse—»
«My mother was a nurse.» Butch’s mouth felt dry. «But not at that hospital.»
«He practiced a number of places — even. . over in Boston.»
There was a long silence, during which Butch tested the cold, confusing waters of a possible unfaithfulness on his mother’s part.
«Anyone need a drink, true?» V said.
«Lag—»
«Lagavulin—»
Butch and surgeon both fell silent as Vishous rolled his eyes. «Why is this not a surprise.»
As the brother hit the bar in the billiards room, Manello said, «I never really knew him. Met him, like. . once? I can’t really remember, to be honest.»
V made like a flight attendant and returned front-and-centered the liquor.
As Butch took a haul from a glass, Manello did the same and then shook his head. «You know, I never liked this shit until after. .»
«What.»
«You boys started fucking with my head. Used to like Jack. Last year, though. . everything changed.»
Butch nodded even though he wasn’t tracking. Man, he just couldn’t stop looking at the picture, and after a while, he found that in the strangest way, this was all a relief. Ancestor regression had proven that he was related to Wrath, but he’d never known, or particularly cared to know, exactly how. And yet here it was. In front of him.
Shit, it was kind of like he’d had a disease all this time, and someone had finally put a name to it.
You have Other-father-itis. Or was it a Bastard-oma?
It all made sense. He’d always thought his father had hated him and maybe this was the why behind that. Although it was nearly impossible to imagine his pious, straitlaced mother ever straying, this picture told the story of at least one night with someone else.
His first thought was that he had to get to his mom and ask her for specifics — well, some specifics.