Chapter Twenty-One

In which there is a Reunion

Alexander thought to his sister, and the next thing he could hear was the slamming of a door. He stood outside of the chapel and waited, anxious about what would happen when he saw her.

And then she was at the bottom of the stairs. She came up and he went down and they met in the almost middle.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself," and it was like he was seeing her for the first time. How could she have been like this and he had never seen it?

"Alexander, nothing that went before matters. What you knew or didn't know, it doesn't matter because now you know and it's all good," she smiled at him, took his hand and the two of them went back into the chapel. "Isn't it beautiful in here?"

"And I can come up here anytime I want?" Alexander looked at his father.

"I'll get you a key. With three of us, it might take some time management, but I'll take that any day over hiding things from the both of you."

Delia and Damien regarded each other and she spun until she dizzily collided into her father, "He's different, you're different, it's all different," she giggled.

"Yes, to all of the above...and you're very happy right now," Damien took her right hand and twirled her a few times.

"So are you," she looked at him.

"I feel it. This has been a huge weight on me ever since you started noticing you weren't like other people and now, I could sleep for a week," he could sense disappointment from both his kids, "don't worry, that's not going to happen. Delia, you need to know that I told him who your mother was and he's not to say anything to you. We'll have a talk tomorrow when I come home from work. Alexander, do you need me to stay home again?"

"No, D-man, I'm fine."

"I would like some time up here," Damien looked at his watch, it was after three in the afternoon, "then we'll gorge ourselves on Chinese food and popcorn and watch movies. How does that sound?"

Delia gasped, "Can we watch The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby!"

"Not tonight, Deedle. Let's give everything a rest for a few hours."

"But soon?"

"Yes, soon, I'll be down eventually, but there is something I want to say."

"About what?" Delia wanted to get her brother alone, but was sensing some anxiety from her father.

Damien paused, and then cleared his throat, "About the other night, when I came home..."

Alexander took a step towards his father, "You're welcome. I understand now, why you needed to come up here. We love you and we're happy and...honored to be able to help you. So, it's all cool now, daddy-o."

"I'll see you two later."

"Let's go, we can go to my room."

Alexander let Delia pull him out of the chapel and he shut the door behind them.

Downstairs, she handed him her key to the chapel. It was no longer shiny after being handled for three years, "You can keep this until Damien gets you your own, but I want this one back."

Alexander put the key in his pocket and sat on Delia's bed.

She sat down next to him and at first, neither spoke, but he turned to her, "I'm scared. I'm scared that I don't know who I am anymore, I'm afraid of changing, I'm afraid of doing something wrong. I'm terrified that things will change between us. I'm afraid that you'll die, or that if I don't do the right thing, I'll be killed. But on the other hand, they're not who I thought they were. They do things that if we did them, people would call us evil and yet...he lied to father, he lied to his own followers. Damien killed seven priests and had babies killed and their god stood by and let it happen all for the maintaining the pretence of having his son born. If it's all sides," he shrugged, "then it's all sides and I'm not going to get hung up on the morality of it, though I'm sure that's easier said then done."

Delia took his hand, "I love you and I want that to be enough, but I won't be hurt if it isn't. You have an open mind and that's good and no, they're not who people think they are. They lie, cheat, hurt and kill. You're learning and you're not the Antichrist right now, so father doesn't expect you to know everything. The best part is now we can all do this together, no one will be left out anymore. And no one will ever touch you, they'd have to get through me first."

"The Amazing Damien guessed that I wanted to be a chef and he knows about your not so secret secret about wanting to be a vet."

She shrugged, "It's not surprising, I guess. He's pretty observant when it comes to us."

"Huh."

"Huh, what huh?"

"That's all you have to say to that?" Alexander got up and by the time he was standing, he was furious. "We've had our lives hijacked and all you can do is shrug and blindly accept what's in store for you? It's so easy for you to give up something you want? See, I can't talk to you. You don't understand. I know what I want to do with the rest of my life and now I can't do it. Everything about all of this has always come so easy for you. I'm not in charge of my own life and that pisses me off."

"Is that a fact," she felt a tiny flash of anger, but she quickly suppressed it; what she was feeling wasn't her brother's fault.

"Is what a fact?"

"That all of this was easy for me," her voice was quiet.

"What do you mean?"

But he no more got the question out of his mouth, then he understood. Fear, pain, sorrow, loneliness, isolation, anger, hate, anxiety, despair, trepidation and emotions that he couldn't put a word to came at him like daggers and then it suddenly stopped, like a spigot had been shut off.

He reached down and pulled her up, "Nope, not anymore. If we're in this together, then I want I all of it. If we're done hiding things from each other, then we're done hiding things from each other, so whatever you got, I want all of it."

And Delia gave to him all the negativity that she had hid for three years. Her fear that Damien would reject her, worrying that she would never be good enough for their father, that he would realize that Alexander, like Damien, could be both Antichrist and run Thorn and she would be superfluous and, more importantly, expendable. She had been designed to be like her father: driven, ambitious, to do what he liked to do...to be more like her father than his own son and that had, early on, made her angry. Like Alexander, Delia had had dreams and aspirations apart from running Thorn and now she, like Alexander, would never get to see those dreams be realized. This, and more, came at him until she had bared all and she leaned against him and he put his arms around her and held her.

He gently pushed her away and spit into his hand, "Never again do we hide things like this. We have each other now and we tell each other everything."

She spit into her hand and they shook, "We tell each other everything. Feeling better?"

"A little, I think I just want to take a break from all of this tonight, but one more thing."

"And what would that be?"

He was silent and looked her in the eyes, "Don't go dying on me. Ever. I couldn't handle going through any of this on my own."

"I won't because there's no one else who could handle how annoying you are."

"Wow, for a second there, I thought you were going to start treating me with the deference I deserve," he made sure she understood that he had made the comment in jest.

She snorted, "As if. The only thing you'll ever be to me is my annoying little brother."

"Good, because the only thing you'll ever be to me is my nagging, older sister. Should we call for dinner now?" Alexander had turned and stretched, when something glossy in Delia's trash can caught his attention. He went over and pulled one of the pieces of paper out of the can and then turned to her, "Why are all your brochures from Harvard in the garbage?"

"Because I can't go to Harvard."

"What do you mean you can't go to Harvard? You've wanted to go there since you were eight. The recruitment officer sends you christmas cards every year."

"That's because I'm Damien Thorn's kid and they would consider it quite the feat to land one of his, seeing as how he went to Yale."

"That doesn't answer my question."

She let out an exasperated sigh, "I can't watch you and go to school in a different state. I need an MBA, so I'll go to Yale with you. This way, I can do both."

"But Yale's business school isn't Harvard's..." Alexander looked at the brochure, "this is unacceptable. I'm going to speak with father," he turned to leave, but his sister blocked the door. "Delia, let me by."

"You cannot go up there. Father asked for privacy and when one of us asks for privacy in that room we give it, no questions asked. Being in that room isn't like going to any other room in this house. It's about communing with God and being one with Him. If we go up there, the house had better be on fire, or Armageddon had better be starting."

"Fine, then I'll say something to him when he comes down," Alexander jammed the paper in his pocket.

"Fine, but we don't go up there."

"Do you have money to pay for the food if it gets here before he comes down?"

Delia went to her dresser, opened the top drawer and pulled out her wallet and then followed Alexander to his room and they pooled their money, which was over three hundred dollars, more than enough to pay for the food. Both of them went downstairs and called Chan's and went into the family room and picked out three movies, one of which was Godzilla, which meant getting the movie projector from downstairs and setting up the screen.

It was six-thirty when Damien finally appeared downstairs and found his children in the kitchen, having brought all the dogs inside from letting them out to heed nature's call. He was drinking a glass of wine and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, until Alexander shoved a piece of paper in his face.

"This was in Delia's trash. She says she's not going to Harvard now because of me. If there is only a slim chance that anything will happen, why does Delia have to give up going to the school that she's wanted to go to since she was eight?"

Damien looked at his daughter, "Was this the nothing important from the other night?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you come and talk to me about this?"

"One, I only now just realized it and it's not like we've had much time recently to discuss much else besides Alexander."

"Okay, well, it's not like you're going to school tomorrow; we still have a few years to figure out..." but Damien stopped talking because a huge smile sat on his son's face.

"Delia and I will both go to Harvard."

"Xander..."

"You're not the only one who can give things up, you know. Saint Delia, first in line to sacrifice something for the family. You're not disappointed, are you?" Alexander had directed the question to his father.

Delia ran off to answer the door bell and get the food.

"Of course not, that was...I'm proud of you. I know you wanted to go there, but things will be easier with the both of you at one school...assuming of course that you both get in."

Alexander reached out to his father, but it was like trying to read a brick wall because Damien had, with a smile on his face, shut himself off from his son, "I can't tell whether you're being serious or not."

Delia came back with food and Damien helped her put the bags on the counter, "Did you order the whole restaurant?"

"Not exactly," she went over to her brother and punched him in the arm, "that's for calling me a saint." Then she threw her arms around him, "That's for giving up Yale. And now we can be in some classes together in our freshman year!"

"Ooh, think of the competition. One of us will be graduating with the highest GPA."

"By one of us, you mean me, don't you?" she locked eyes with her brother, who smirked back at her.

"We'll see."

Damien smiled, "Well, I'd better be looking at the individuals with the first and second highest GPAs, or your both out of the will."

"Oh no, Delia, then we won't get father's many selections of ties and tie clips."

"Oh, well, our loss."

"Enough banter, let's eat, I'm starving."

They loaded up their plates with food, grabbed drinks and brought everything into the family room. Alexander and Delia had set up the card table and everyone put their plates on the table and Alexander closed the drapes and went to the projector.

"So tell me what we're watching," Damien took a drink of wine, though he knew very well what movie his children had chosen to start off their night.

Alexander cleared his throat, "For your cinematic pleasure this evening, we will be presenting Godzilla or Gojira. Made in Japan in 1954 and directed and written by Ishirō Honda, or Honda Ishirō if we being Japanese about it and it is not the crappy 1956 Hollywood effort dubbed in English with Raymond Burr thrown in for good measure."

Delia and Damien applauded and everyone settled down with their food and watched the movie.

The three of them passed the evening watching movies and eating. Once Godzilla was over, they took away the projector and watched the other movies on the VCR. Delia and Alexander moved to the couch and spent the rest of the night curled up next to their father.

Damien had also noticed a theme with the movies: they had chosen ones that he liked and so Godzilla was followed by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and the evening had concluded with The Odd Couple.

It was after midnight when everything was done. The leftover Chinese food was put in the fridge and the leftover popcorn went into the garbage.

"Alright, bedtime," Damien took care of things downstairs while the younger Thorns, and the dogs, headed upstairs to take care of brushing their teeth, and getting ready for bed. Damien headed up stairs too, changed, brushed his teeth and got into bed and that's where he was when he heard the knock on the door.

"Come in."

Both Delia and Alexander came into their father's room, their sleeping bags and pillows under their arms, "Can we sleep in here tonight?"

He put down his book, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, but we don't want the evening to end so..." Delia shrugged and Alexander nodded.

"My floor is your floor."

The two dogs stayed out in the hall and the younger Thorns came in, rolled out their sleeping bags, dropped their pillows on top and then sat on their father's bed.

"Was it good night for you?" Alexander looked at Damien.

"Very...and a good day."

"You're going to work tomorrow?"

"It's been a few days and Paul is going on vacation soon, so I want to be back before he leaves."

Delia continued, "Then Alexander and I were wondering if it was okay if we stayed here alone tomorrow."

"I don't know..."

"Damien, nobody comes to the house uninvited. We'll call the cleaners and tell them to come the next day and we'll call Cecile and tell her that everything is back to normal and she can start teaching me how to cook."

"And even if anyone does turn up who's uninvited, then I can teach Xander how to hone his skills," she gave her father a wicked smile.

"There will be no practising, on people or with each other for right now. I don't know if you two can hurt each other, but I'm not about to find out, so any practising that gets done, gets done with me there, do I make myself clear?"

"As crystal, D-man."

"You two can stay home alone and we'll talk tomorrow after work, Delia."

"Okay, but it doesn't matter who she is. I told you once that I don't have a mother, I only have you. Well, that's not completely true. I have a grandfather and grandmother and a brother. That's all the family I have, or want...until Alexander has a baby."

Alexander snorted with laughter, "You have a grandmother. You know, that explains why you never got angry when I'd call you a bitch."

"Alexander, don't call your sister names."

"That makes you the grandson of a bitch."

"And we all know what that makes father..." Alexander jerked his thumb in his father's direction.

"You know, you two can go back to your rooms if you want."

"Delia, from whom do you think we inherited our senses of humor? Damien, is Satan particularly funny?"

"Maybe jackals have a sense of humor that science has yet to discover."

"I'm going to sleep now," Damien adjusted his pillows.

"What does Satan look like?" Alexander looked at his father.

"I don't know. I couldn't tell you that anymore than the nazarene could tell you you what his father looked like. I wasn't walking around looking like this waiting to be born. I can feel him and that's enough for me. I also want you two to start thinking of where you want to go for summer vacation, though I already know where Delia wants to go, but if you both don't start behaving yourselves, I'll take you to Disneyland."

"I was wrong, he does a sense of humor, and a dreadful one at that. She wants to go to England."

"Is that where you would like to go?"

"Yes, but do you?"

"Why wouldn't I want to go?"

"Because you almost died there."

Damien grinned, "Almost being the operative word. If both of you want, we can go to England."

"Clean your chimney, guvnah? Cor blimey, she's a cracking bird, ain't she?"

Delia laughed at her brother's ridiculous accent.

"Yeah, but don't do that. Is that a plan then?"

Both children nodded in agreement.

"Okay, England it is. Does Delia want me to arrange a meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace?"

Damien and Delia had already discussed going to England once Alexander knew who he was, so the questions that her father was now asking were part of a long established ritual and as usual, she frowned at her father's first suggestion.

"Would Delia like to go to Stafford-upon-Avon and see Shakespeare's birthplace and perhaps take in a play?"

She was more excited this time since she genuinely enjoyed Shakespeare.

"Would Delia like me to take her to all the places that I killed those useless priests and relieved them of their horrible knives?"

She leaped across the bed and into Damien's arms, though she was no longer small enough to jump on her father so most of her landed beside him.

"Ouch, those elbows are pointy. Okay, this jackal says it's nearly one thirty and some of us poor slobs have to get up and go to work so he wants his pups in bed."

"Who are the pups?" Alexander walked across the bed and stood behind Delia, bent over and began to move her hair.

"Remember, young jackals are called pups, so that's what we are, we're his pups."

"Normally, I'd demand to be called something a little more masculine than a pup, but given the circumstances, pup it is," after some looking, Alexander found Delia's three sixes and touched it. He jumped off the bed, "I guess I can't say your adopted any more. Wanna see mine?"

"I've seen yours before, but sure."

Alexander sat on the bed and Delia stood behind him and it took her less time than it had taken him to find her mark.

"That was fast," he looked up at her.

"Like I said, I've seen it plenty of times, while you were sleeping," Delia and Alexander both came back to Damien to say goodnight. Alexander hugged his father.

"Alexander, good-night son, I love you," Damien returned the hug.

"I know you love me more because I'm going to be the Antichrist. It's okay, it'll be our secret," he had less than discretely whispered that last part and he let go of his father and made his way to his sleeping bag.

"Goodnight, Deedle," he held her, "you'll always be special. I love you, Junior."

"Goodnight," she hung onto Damien not wanting to let go and let the day come to an end, "I love you, too." She joined her brother on the floor and Damien turned off the light.

"Xander, did you know Damien was a hippie?"

He burst out laughing, "I don't think so."

"It's true. He used to drive around in a hippie van, smoking pot and turning people on to the ways of Satan."

"I think you're mixing up father and Scooby-Doo, though that would make a slightly more interesting cartoon."

"Groovy, outta sight," Delia held up her two fingers as the peace sign.

"Disneyland," came the response from the bed.

"He does understand that we know that he's not half as annoyed as he wants us think that he is, right?"

"Yeah, but as the dad, he has to make obligatory dad comments, like 'if you two don't knock it off, I'm turning this car around and taking us right back home,'" Delia deepened her voice to sound like her father.

"Or in our case, 'If you two don't knock it off, Tom is turning this car around and taking us right back home.'"

"Oh, I think Tom's driving days are way over," both of them laughed.

"I forgot to tell him to wake me up so that I could cook breakfast for him," Alexander spoke in a whisper to Delia.

"Maybe he'll wake us up before he leaves," Delia whispered back to him. She rolled over on her side and now she and Alexander were facing each other. "So?"

"So. I woke up this morning a human being, thinking that the my family was possibly involved in organized crime. Now I'm going to bed knowing that I'm no more a human being than our dogs, Satan is my grandfather, and one day I'll be the Antichrist, part of a long chain of us meant to guide human kind to better and brighter tomorrow; so, all in all, just a regular, hum-drum day at the old Thorn homestead."

Delia began laughing.

"I bear my soul to you and you laugh," though now he was silent, "do we have souls?"

"Yes, all three of us, as does Satan. And we're psychologically like them, so we have a little more in common with people than do the dogs."

"I'm okay, for a fraction of a second, and then it all comes back to me. It's so overwhelming."

"I know, but you don't have to have everything all sorted out right now. That being said, Sleeping Beauty, gone are the days of sleeping until ten in the morning. We're on summer vacation and your time would be better spent learning things...about you, about them, about Thorn, about all kinds of things. It doesn't mean that you can't have fun, we have lots of money, we can afford to have fun, but it means that you can't have fun all the time. Look at Damien, look who he is. Does he sit around the house? Does he philander around with women? Does he take vacations six months a year? Does he take three hour martini lunches? No, we hardly see him when he comes home from work because he has his nose in a stack of reports. When someone in the basement sneezes, Damien Thorn in his office says bless you because he pretty much knows everything that goes on at Thorn. And you don't have to do it all now, you have enough with learning about who you are, what that means in terms of being the Antichrist. That means spending more time with Damien...lucky duck."

"And you'll help me?"

She smiled, "I've been waiting three years for you to ask me that. We'll help each other, I always need help with my people skills and I can help you with business stuff and what goes on at Thorn. Do you know, for example, whether our company is publicly traded or privately held?"

"Delia, I have no bloody clue what you just asked."

"Well, you're going to get a bloody clue. Public companies are traded, you know, like on the stock exchange. It means that the public can buy shares that the company makes available. However, since the public can buy shares, it means that that company must make available to its shareholders things like how much taxes it paid and what it owns in assets. Do you understand how much money we have?"

"Mucho?"

"The money you think we have is the tip of the iceberg. We have our fingers in all kinds of pies; pies, Xander, the general public is a lot better off not knowing about. Now that you know who you really are and the kinds of things we might get up to..."

"Thorn is a private company?"

"Well done, grasshopper. Right now, Damien owns the majority of the shares. One day, when we get old enough, you and I will own the most, next to father."

"Here I thought I was going to be a go-getter by asking you to teach me about jackals."

"You already know pretty much everything there is to know about jackals, so we can move on to other things."

"I think I like that people don't live here with us."

"As do I. It makes us weird compared to other people who have, well, nearly the same amount of money as we do, but I don't care. We can say and do all kinds of things without people watching."

"Like what?" Alexander and Delia moved closer to each other and their voices were inaudible, but whispers were followed by giggles and titters. "And I thought you were such an innocent child," Alexander clucked his tongue at Delia.

"Now you'll learn how the Thorn pups misbehave."

"Delia, do the dogs listen to us because we're like them?"

"Kind of, but they're special dogs...you understand that, right?"

"Special how?"

"They come when we think about wanting them. They're familiars, from Satan to protect us."

"Really?"

"Think him here."

Alexander thought Damien's dog to him and the dog came padding over and lay down between them, "Cool."

"Your dog stayed with you today because he could sense that you were troubled. They know when we need them."

He should have realized that...all the times that his dog had magically appeared just when Alexander had needed him most. He reached out and stroked the dog's head and smiled, "I know one thing I've done before you."

"What's that?"

"Killed people."

"Is that a fact?" this time, the question was laced with dark humor.

"You're lying," though the tone in his voice already let his sister know that he knew that she wasn't.

"Am I? Don't you think it's odd that a ten-year-old boy drops dead while playing baseball, Alexander? A shame, really, but then, maybe poor, misguided Steve Paret should have watched his mouth and not called a certain someone a whore; or put forward the unacceptable notion that he and the future Antichrist were the same because they were both happened to be male. He was supposed to be in the same as class as I was come September, but, well, I'm sure you can understand why I simply couldn't abide that."

It had been two summers ago. Delia had insisted on going to the baseball game, though she wasn't friends with anyone who was playing. It had been the fifth inning when the boy had gotten up to bat and then, he began shaking and convulsing and trying to get something off of him and then he had collapsed dead. His father had run out onto the field and his mother had fainted and when it was clear that Steve Paret was dead, Delia insisted on leaving.

She had been eerily silent on the way home and had spent much of the day ignoring him until before dinner, when she had wanted to go play in the stables. He had gotten used to her odd behaviour so hadn't pressed her about anything that had happened after the game.

"You're not disappointed with me, are you?" she was trying to make sense of his silence.

"I'm just disappointed that I didn't get to him first," he yawned, "I'm tired, nagging one."

"It was a long day, annoying one, but it's over now and it only gets better from here. I don't mean to make you feel bad about anything."

"I know and I don't."

"Good, we'll start tomorrow...I mean later," like Alexander, she was finding it difficult to stay awake.

They couldn't move any closer to each other because the dog now lay between them, but it didn't matter, one mind touched the other, and their thoughts and feelings swirled together, each with its own unique song and color and once they were satisfied with how they had said goodnight, it didn't take long until the Thorn children were sound asleep.

Damien, who had not fallen asleep, but had instead waited until his children calmed down and eventually fell asleep, smiled in the dark. There was a peace and a calm in the house and inside of him that hadn't been there in a long time. Until it was gone, he hadn't really realized what a burden all of this had been. Now, there would be no more hiding things from anyone any longer.

Like his children, Damien was finding it difficult to stay awake and so reached out to his Father and let the day come to and end and fell asleep.

AUTHOR'S NOTE,

And so the inevitable can no longer be postponed...

I'm not sure how people will feel about the next turn that the story is taking, so I'm giving a heads up so that readers can decide for themselves if they feel like reading. I debated this for a while and I've decided to go ahead with my original plan to have Delia and Alexander be involved with each other. It will be the focus of the next few chapters and will be a part, in some degree or another, of other chapters.

This site doesn't allow MA content and I've done my best to keep it M, which won't be an issue until later.