Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

  * * *

  A few minutes later, a small figure emerged from the front door and entered his car. As the yellow Hillman Imp shrank down the driveway, a figure dropped silently from a turret to perch on the manor’s edge beside Adonis.

  “We did all you asked, father,” the figure said. “We gave him every reason to decry us.”

  Adonis watched the disappearing taillights spook the deer on the front lawn and sighed. “You did well,” he said, “though that was, perhaps, more truth than acting by Ianthe.”

  “It’s not her fault. The Mainlander is—”

  “I know what she is,” said Adonis mildly, “and it changes nothing. Tanner is unimportant in what is to come.”

  Adonis’s elder son shifted his grip on the stone. “Clytemnestra propositioned him.”

  Adonis suspected Leander had more to report – Erato’s tale and his judgements on its veracity – but Adonis would deal with all that later. He leaned against the parapet and sighed again. “And still he chose us.”

  “He denied Clytemnestra…” said Leander, but it was a stretch. The prophecy was clearer than that.

  “But not me,” said Adonis. Not Archi. Young Paddington had done everything but physically lick his boots.

  “We still have seven days, father.”

  “I was wrong, Leander!” Adonis turned, furious. He didn’t need platitudes now! So many years of planning had been ruined, wasted, pointless! “I was wrong and his mother was right, damn her!” Adonis grasped the parapet with both hands, reassured by the cool stone.

  Leander shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “If James isn’t the demon,” he said, “then we know who is. We can stop him from ever coming here.”

  Adonis chuckled. Trust Leander to attempt to solve an impossible problem. “Have I taught you nothing, son? The demon is in the prophecy; he will come to Archi.” Adonis patted Leander’s shoulder. It was good to know he was still one step ahead of everyone else. “But we’ll be ready.”