The Brotherhood, Chapter One

Chapter One
Chris
 
            Christopher Robin had just returned home.
            He snuck up back into the house by climbing the pipe, and slipping through his open window. Immediately he collapsed on his soft bed and allowed himself to sink into the mattress. Before he went to sleep he got up and hid his “tools” under a loose floorboard.
When they said training was going to be tiresome they were right, Chris thought weakly.
            Slowly he went to sleep and there his torment began.
            He was alone in a dark place and a sudden burst of air brought hell with it. Faces, so many faces circled him, and jested him. Make sure he always remembers those final seconds.
            Chris gave in to his last piece of conscience and kneeled in his nightmare and asked for forgiveness. All he found was vindictiveness and malice.
            ‘Chris! Wake up you lazy baboon time to go to school.’
            The voice of his mother rang across the house and stirred him in his sleep. Before the faces could return he jumped up. A small moan slipped from him; the simplest of movements made his body ache.
            Unfortunately he couldn’t say a thing. As far as his mother knew Chris was at Mac’s house for the past week. Of course if she had called Mac’s house the phone call would’ve been directed towards somewhere else.
            He dragged his exhausted feet towards the bathroom and closed the door silently behind him. In the bathroom he was allowed to fully inspect himself. On his face there were several dark magenta bruises. His jet-black hair was messier than usual. Under his brown intense eyes were dark shadows that hinted of extreme exhaustion.
            In other words he was a mess.
            Slowly, he stared into his eyes in the mirror. Perhaps his mother was right, his eyes did change. Certainly, they were much more serious, much more mysterious.
            At least the chicks like mysterious guys he thought humorously now dig the eyes hot stuff.  He rolled his eyes at himself.
            ‘Well at least I am sure I am a lunatic,’ he told himself out loud.
            Five minutes later he was downstairs enjoying his scrambled eggs. He reached out and added a pinch of pepper and salt on them. Adding the right amount was never a quality of his mothers’.
            His mom, Angelique Robin, about 36 years old but she doesn’t look like that. Compliments used to shower her about her brown lush hair and wide brown eyes when she was young. However those days were over and she knew it. Everyday she’d stare in the mirror at herself, staring at those beginnings of wrinkles. She never thought Chris would notice, but he was always there, always watching.
            Of course Chris was the origin of the problem. Whenever people saw him with her they’d jump and cry, “We never thought you were that old to get a 15 year old boy! Wow you must be in your forties!”
            She’d purse her lips, smile one of her fake smiles, and reply venomously “That’s my boy Chris, oh Hanna dear you have gained some weight…” She wouldn’t talk to him the rest of the day.
            It’s true his mom isn’t perfect but she has a heart of gold. She may care too much about her appearance but she’s an angel. Every Christmas eve she would be down at the homeless shelter feeding the needy with Chris. To her dating was a phase every guy went through. She’d understand anything. Cranky mothers, lecturing, and boundaries were her most despised things. That’s why Chris considered his mother cool.
            As he meditated upon that someone gripped his biceps. In a flash he was up, a hand on the person’s hand and another went for the shoulder. Then he quickly dropped his arms beside him. ‘Niki … you freaked the hell out of me!’ he clutched his heart and dropped down.
            Niki was one of Chris’ best friends. Their friendship started in a very peculiar way. Two years ago, a guy named Kyle and some of his “little” (If you can call two pair of bulls little!) friends were bullying Niki. Chris was sick of seeing her squeal and scream, returning home with bruises on her face. The worst thing was that when people heard her they just diverted their gaze and kept walking.
            This time it all took place at the bicycle shed.
‘No… please… don’t!’ thump.
            Chris heard one of the punches land and then a groan emitted. Anger blazed inside of him. Looking at the outer wall of the shed he found some holes. Slowly he began to climb. In a matter of seconds Chris was on the wooden roof watching them.
            Thump.
            The sound was awful in Chris’ ears. His heart began to beat like a drum roll.
            Creeaaaaaaak
            A small pause, then the wood underneath of him gave away. Battered and bruised from the fall, Chris groaned slightly. He then remembered the grave matter he was in. He sprung up immediately expecting a fight.
            Kyle turned to look at him with those icy blue eyes. The latter sneered ‘See Niki, your boyfriend finally came to the rescue.’ His two companions cracked their knuckles and advanced. In those few seconds Chris had analyzed his position and meditated every move and every possible result.
            Two shall advance, one faster than the other. I must sidestep him then a punch in the solar plexus would knock him out. To make sure he stays down, an elbow on the back would do. It must be not too powerful.
 The other shall witness this there is two possibilities: He might not soak this in so the same moves would work or he would be an expert in martial arts and would advance with caution and power.
            By the way I saw him punch Niki, he’s probably a martial arts expert and he is right handed. If I feint to move to the left side and go to the right, he would find it extremely difficult to defend himself.
            I shall as they say ‘sweep him of his feet’ and a quick, precise kick in the diaphragm would suffice.
            All of this had been analyzed in the very few seconds he saw them from above and on the ground.
            The lighter of the two came running at him first, Chris easily sidestepped him and thrust a swift fist in the solar plexus. With a small puff all the air in the boy’s lungs were exhaled. His face went blue. Punches in the solar plexus make the diaphragm stop for a few seconds
            Thank you Karate, thought Christopher with grim smile.
            Ugly Number Two hesitated for a second.
            Kyle watched all of this wide-eyed, ‘Well? What are you waiting for! Get him!’ he screamed. Ugly Number Two stood on the palms of his feet with a low centre of gravity. Chris made a growling sound; he was right the boy was an expert.
            As quick as light, Chris crouched and darted towards to the right, which would be his opponents left side. Without any warning his opponent swung a fist. In the very same second Chris darted to the other side. Now Chris held his furious opponent arms behind his back.
            An elbow in the solar plexus and his opponent collapsed on the floor.
            Ugly Number One didn’t learn the lesson and decided to take another shot at Chris. Not the smartest thing to do.
            Chris grabbed him from his hair and banged him against the wall. That wasn’t in his plan. He elbowed him in the solar plexus and his opponent collapsed on the floor. Chris then slowly turned to face Kyle whose face was white with fear.
            He muttered something that sounded like leave me alone. He stared at Chris who feinted to pick something from the floor. In a second Kyle was on his bike and far from Chris’ reach. He jeered and taunted at him, until he hit a rock and the bike flipped. Chris’ face broke into a grin.
            Niki was in a corner all that time hugging her knees and sobbing. Once the small struggle was over, she looked up hopefully. ‘Who – who are you?’ she asked in between her sobs. She squinted at him with her hazel eyes through the dusty dim light. He offered her a hand to help her stand up. Slowly and painfully she stood up, leaning her weight on his hand.
            Chris found himself holding Niki while she wept into his chest. ‘They – wanted to … to hurt me even more … I can’t take it…’ she sobbed. Ugly Number One groaned and began to stir. ‘We should get out of here,’ Chris suggested.
            Five minutes later both were alone in the woods.
            Niki was grateful for Chris’ warmth. She hugged herself close to his body. It seemed that he just radiated heat. Chris felt extremely uncomfortable, but the girl was freezing. It was the only way to warm her up or he could take of his shirt and give to her. He liked the first alternative more.
            Slowly she began to regain her senses and was able to get a grip of herself. He made sure she was back home, safe and sound. By the time Chris woke up from his emerged from his lapse, Niki was gone.
           
***
 
            Next day he woke up from a rather annoying call from his best friend, Malcolm.
            Chris kept hitting the phone.
            ‘Damn it where is the snooze button?’ he muttered sleepily. Slowly he realized it was the phone.
            ‘Ughhh – hello?’
            ‘OI!’
            Surprise coursed through Chris’ body and fell off the bed. He groaned loudly from the fall. Don’t worry about yourself Chris, your head broke the fall, he thought. In a few seconds he relocated the phone and went back talking to his soul brother.
            He coughed softly and began talking in a British accent just to tease his friend.
            ‘Hello Mate, how are you doing? Jolly good, I hope. I'm fine, just thinking of going to the chippie and have a wee cuppa. Would you care to join me?’
            ‘Shut the hell up.’
            ‘Why thank you! That’s very kind of you after waking me up in such a gentle manner.’
            ‘I really need you mate, there is some heck of a website in front of me, you’ll love it. Especially you man,’ he teased ‘it has something to do with Sherlock Holmes.’
            Chris jumped up and dressed in about five seconds. ‘I am on my way!’ he shouted. He put on his plain old jeans and an old shirt and ran all the way. Exactly ten minutes later he had arrived at Mac’s house and found him staring with excited chocolate brown eyes at the laptop screen.
            Malcolm or Mac was kind of short for his age. Christopher often thought of him as a shrimp with brown curly hair. About a month ago his mother forced him to wear braces so whenever he talked, it sounded like he was slurping out his words. People everywhere underestimated him because he looked a bit scrawny. Even Chris wouldn’t want to be his opponent in a fight; he was just full of hot fuming anger sometimes.
            ‘So what’s the problem now? Your laptop crashed? Can’t pass a game level?’
            Mac slowly shook his head and pointed at the website. ‘Can’t stop staring at the video,’ he muttered ‘just reached the end.’ Chris pushed Mac out of the comfortable ebony leather chair and sat down. He seemed to snap out of the hypnotic trance and pressed play.
            In a minute Chris was just like him, astounded.
            The video replayed itself.
            A young man in his thirties appeared. His black hair was spiked up with gel and his face shone with the hint of plastic surgery. Raven black eyes just magnetically glued them both to the screen. Slowly his face stretched into a smile and spoke softly.
            Hello, I am Dimitri.
Welcome, to the greatest Detective Game, why is it the greatest? That is because this takes place in your very own town. As I traveled around the country, each town I visited I left clues, tips and hints for our mysteries.
            Solve them now, not just for fun, but also for money.
            Still not convinced?
            If you accept this following mystery and you are able to unveil the true answer, you will get to meet me. Not just that my young friend, we will book you a job ready for you to claim when you graduate.
            Now my friend, will you close this and skip this offer?
            Or will you seize this opportunity?
            It is time to choose and the choice is yours.
            Your own fate is in your hands.
Choose well.
            Then the screen went dark.
            ‘This is too good to be true.’
            Chris nodded to his friend’s statement.
            ‘So why am I here?’ he asked. Mac smiled nervously and fiddled with his brown hair for a while. His mouth opened a couple of times to speak but then he shut it again.
            ‘I need your help! I accepted it and been on it for a whole hour and I still can’t solve it.’ He wailed.
            ‘Why me?’
            ‘Because you’re the best detective I ever knew, you’re the next Sherlock Holmes!’
            Chris grinned ‘Thanks for sugar-coating me but I was going to do it anyway just for the heck of it.’ Mac smiled at him and thrust a paper towards him. ‘That’s the first clue.’
            He closed his eyes and began touching the brown paper. It was coarse and old; it was parchment. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at it carefully. It was blank; nothing written. He noticed something rather weird. The paper smelled of wine and lemon.
            Mac watched his friend with awe.
            Then he saw him smile and lick the end of the paper.
            ‘What the heck are you doing. That’s the clue man!’ he screamed.
            ‘Give me a torch, a powerful one, come on.’ Chris ordered. Mac grumbled while searching for it. After a while he found one in the bathroom; what it was doing there, no idea.
            Chris took it from him and turned it on. He brought it so close to the paper and kept moving it like a scanner. The paper didn’t change at all.
            Suddenly yellow writing appeared.
            ‘Lemon juice; the perfect invisible ink,’ Chris grinned. Mac could feel his jaw drop and his eyes pop out.
            Mac snatched the paper and began to read. After he was done, he looked puzzled. He handed back the paper saying ‘It’s too obvious, it’s a riddle but it’s way easy.’
            Chris took a look and this is what he read.
Look far beyond the sky,
You shall find the twinkling eye.
Towards it you will go,
Finding the place of the crow.
Staring into the speechless Guardian’s eyes
Leave behind felony and lies.
Find the man who you don’t seek.
Pay him and he shall speak.
            ‘How is this obvious again?’ he asked Mac.
            Mac shrugged ‘It sounds we go to their headquarters, it has a flag of a crow and they have a security guard they call the Guardian.’
            ‘Excellent let’s go Watson!’
            Mac grinned and led the way to Creepy Place.
***
            Turned out that Creepy Place isn’t so creepy.
            That was Chris’s first thought when he saw the building. To him it looked like a Greek wonder that somehow survived thousands of years of exposure to the elements. It was a small replica of the White House. Small in this case meant twice as large as villa.
            There was only one guard on the door; the Guardian. It fitted exactly with the riddle. In his left hand he was holding a yellow flag with a crow on it.
            ‘Not the best flag eh,’ Chris whispered to Mac, who exploded into giggles ‘that’s more of a death omen than a flag.’
            As they approached the entrance the guard exploded into a string of rude words.
            ‘You filthy dirty little street rats why don’t you go smoke your crap somewhere else! This a respectable building,’ he puffed out his chest proudly ‘the owners here are one of the richest people in the world, so get the heck out of here!’
            Mac grabbed Chris from his arm and led him away. As they walked around the building, Chris was thinking about what just happened.
            ‘- I mean our best chance is to knock out the guard and storm inside man,’ Mac suggested.
            Suddenly Chris broke into a smile.
            ‘What?! I know it’s silly but still, it could work!’
            ‘No it’s not the idea, which is quite nice by the way, it’s the guard himself.’
            ‘Yeah, what about him?’
            ‘The riddle said “speechless Guardian” am I right?’
            ‘Yeah, so?’
            ‘I think he swore at us pretty loudly man, and I am pretty damn sure he isn’t speechless.’
            Mac’s eyes widen in realization.
            ‘Oh – my – God, how… But … what the heck does that mean then?’
            Chris stood silent for a moment, analyzing every bit of information. His tactical mind crossed out places that didn’t fit and finally narrowed down his search.
            ‘Malcolm what’s the only place that has crows as a common bird and speechless or dead guards?’
            ‘The cemetery! But that doesn’t explain the star. The flag here has a star as a crows eye.’
            Suggesting problems is Mac’s area of expertise that made him a valuable companion on adventures.
            Really?
            No.
            Suddenly Mac gasped.
            ‘Of course! The North Star! It is the twinkling eye, and it leads straight to the back entrance of the cemetery. We have a night adventure. Let’s go home and get ready, this is going to get scary …’ then Mac cracked an evil smile.
***
            Home sweet home.
            Chris came back and the whole house smelled of Vodka; his mom has been drinking again.
            A small funny thought crossed his mind. He just imagined Mac’s reaction when he’d tell him this.
            ‘VODKA!! VODKAAAAAA FROM MUZZER RUSSSIIAAA!’
            He couldn’t keep himself from smiling and knocked on his mothers’ door. ‘Mom? Are you okay?’ he said through the door. At that moment something caught his eye. Blood drops were on the floor. He followed the trail with his eyes; it started in the bathroom and ended up here.
            Immediately he’s worst thoughts came to the front of his mind. Adrenaline took over of his body. His heart was like a jackhammer. With a kick he knocked down the door.
            There was his mother eagle-spread on the bed. He ran over to her and kept pushing her.
 ‘Mom? Mom wake up…’
He saw bloodstains on her mouth and saw the empty bottle of pills and freaked out. Shaking badly, he picked up the phone and did something he never did before; he called the police.
***
            The police marched in flashing their cameras every time they saw something. Samples of her blood were taken. A new bottle of the same pills were bought. They scanned the room to find fingerprints but none appeared.
            Christopher decided to scan the scene one more time. He opened his eyes to find his mother on the bed, the empty bottle clenched in her hand. Blood droplets were spread everywhere. Slowly he began to notice some details that escaped him.
            Besides the smell of wine there was this faint smell of a kind of cigarette he knew. The name escaped him, but he was sure he’d remember later. Also he never found the bottle or glass of Vodka his mother was supposed to be drinking. Most of his mother’s lipsticks were open and thrown on the floor.
            He got up from his seat and began working on this peculiar case.
            This isn’t any case Chris, he thought firmly, this is my mom dead here, I will know who did it.
            Several clues that escaped him began to jump in front of his face. How in hell did I miss that? He asked himself. He detected two things from the chaos of the lipstick.
            First, one of the point of the lipstick was crushed beneath whoever killed her.
            Second, a red lipstick was smeared against the side of a black shoe. When he saw the point of the lipstick was a bit flatter than it should be and saw slight black marks on it, it was a piece of cake.
            It was still no good.
            Max was right.
            Things are going to get scary.