Stuart Raft had joined them in viewing the tapes, and they could see that what he saw distressed him.
"In the show my character never wonders about his twin, never asks about him… it is as that twin never existed. The writers evidently explained the situation to themselves that they wanted to keep the actor while the character itself had run its course. So, they decided. He is a twin. While no one ever mentioned any family for him. And when the twin appears, that twin is not curious at all about his brother's fate."
"The writers thought that they were making it up, but they were in fact chronicling what would happen in the future. They did not think about a twin, until the need for a twin arose."
Stuart sighed. "I did not ask what happened to Owen, because I knew. And if I never talked about him, it was because… because…"
He stopped, gathering himself. He had kept it inside too long. But now the time had come to say it.
"Owen and I were different. We had the same upbringing, and the same…. problem. But while I craved respectability, he wanted to be free… Free from the constraints that our condition imposed on us. He wanted to live like everybody else, and not have to worry about our… problem. So he sought easy solutions. Which never worked as he planned…. I had accepted that he would come to a bad end unless he changed his ways, but I could not convince him of that… So I was surprised when he came in to my office and asked for help. That he needed money to get out of town."
"Did he say why he wanted to get out?"
"Only that he was in a bad situation, and that he feared for his life."
"I can imagine" Heather said "Irina was plotting to get out of Maurice's control, the fae trapped in the dead girl's body also planned on escaping and their plots did not take into consideration that Raft could be hurt. They just did not care about him. Also Maurice had taken Raft as a project, as an experiment of sorts, and now he might have thought that the experiment was over and that it was time to dissect him…Maurice thought a lot like George Midler about his experiments"
"I promised him to get him the money. I was not happy. I had written him off years ago, but still, he was my brother, and I had to help him. We met at the outskirts of town. He barely managed to thank me when he fell at my feet dead. And then this man came forward from behind the bushes. I was Maurice, of course, but I did not know him then"
-0-
"Well, he will cause me no more trouble."
Stuart rushed him but Maurice stopped him with a gesture. "I see that you feel confident because it is not the full moon. But I can change that. BE A WOLF NOW!
Stuart fell the change go through him. Felt the pain in his body as some bones stretched and others contracted, felt the fur pull through the skin. And he smelled the freshly killed meat.
Then he stopped thinking. He was only smelling the meat.
-0-
"And so I began eating Owen's body. I ate him. I ate my brother…. So you see why I do not talk of him."
"It was the beast jnside you. It was not you."
"Still, I ate my brother."