Page 5 of Heartless Heathens
“Who the fuck said you could speak my family’s name out loud? Don’t you think you’ve spoken it enough?” My twin whispered from behind the old man, holding a sheathed knife to his throat.
“Are you threatening me boy?” He trembled, arms pinned to his side, frozen from fear even though his voice rang out loudly.
“The Escuras don’t do anything without each other. You should have known they would both be here. It’s me who’s the surprise, and trust me when I say I don’t want to be here just as much as I’m certain you’ve been praying every night for me not to come,” Sonny said, nodding his head to Corvin who then pushed Frollo, dead center, between his shoulders.
He stumbled forward into our circle, nearly falling if it hadn’t been for me catching him by the back of his priestly robes.
“When I threaten you, it won’t be with a sheathed knife.Father.” Corvin proceeded to play with the tip of the sheathe, not hiding his contempt for the headmaster.
“You must be Santorini.” Frollo cleared his throat and smoothed out his clothes, finally acknowledging Sonny and sizing up the six foot four tattooed, blue-eyed, scary-looking mother fucker and trying to hide his very obvious nerves. “Arlan Black’s adopted bastard came to find God then?” he sneered. “I relish the sight.”
Sonny scoffed.
“I think you’ve got it backwards. It’s your God who’s looking forme.” He crossed his arms over his chest, wisps of his inky black hair draping over his eyes.
There weren’t many people alive whodidn’tknow, or at least know of, Arlan Black. The guy had been living in infamy as one of the world’s richest multi-billionaires. Whatmostof them didn’t know was that he was the leader of a Satanic cult thousands of years old. With his bloodline dead, he’d spent Sonny’s entire life grooming him to take his place as leader.
“I’ll show you to the dormitories, then you can see yourselves out until the start of term,” Frollo said, turning forward to try to pretend like he hadn’t just been humiliated by three guys twice his size and a third of his age.
It was impossible not to feel that way around my brothers. Corvin was my blood, my older twin, even if only by just a few minutes.
Sonny Santorini grew up with us, side by side. Our friendship was orchestrated by our families, you know how rich people like to stick together. Arlan Black was the ringleader, but he wasn’t the only one. We came from money, veryoldmoney. Money that’d been around since before this country was founded, and money that would be here to help us see to its end.
Our father married into this tepid cesspool, which meant our mother had a very strict prenuptial agreement to protect her and her children’s finances. The minute she died every penny she ever had was frozen and put into an account for Corvin and I, our father disappeared, and my mother’s arrangements listed Arlan Black as our legal guardian.
After all, he’d been the one who’d drawn up Lolita Escura’s legal documents to begin with. He’d also already been raising Sonny Santorini, and when you’ve got one orphaned rich heir to look after, what's two more for your servants to raise?
He wasn’t a decent old man. He lived far too disconnected from the reality we were living in. He favored money, power then Satan over his followers. If there was anything left in his cold shriveled heart after all that, he left it for us.
Spoiler alert—there wasn't.
It wasn’t all his fault, it’s not like there was someone to shove the truth in his face like the old days. Even the internet was censored, unless you were able to find a hacker willing to take American blocks off your phone. Then you could see what the rest of the world had to say about us.
And they didn’t give a shit either.
There was no American media anymore, no one who would speak out and attempt to get people to wake up to the reality of what was happening behind the picture the church had painted for their “New Holy Future.” Homeless people were cleared from the streets and prisons began to convert into labor warehouses to support major corporations.
They called them poorhouses as an attempt to shine the light on history repeating itself, but the irony was missed, and the nickname stuck.
Capitalism was the real disease, and the church knew just how to use people’s greed and desires to fuel their needs. It was the poor who were at fault here, not creating enough children to work in the restaurants, and retail stores they shopped in. It was the sick and disabled’s fault for not putting in enough hours to get every box shipped quicker than humanly possible.
And people didn’t just buy that shit. They ate it up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Who didn’t love a good fall-guy?
I remember learning about the branches of government as if they were Greek mythology when I was a kid, none of that shit existed anymore. The supreme court was the only remnant of the old United States, and all it was now was a megaphone to enforce the church’s ridiculous laws.
The country was a shithole, and we were headed deeper into the pit of it if we couldn’t remove the church’s hold from the nation. The elite, the very wealthy, lived differently. But everyone else…they weren’t so lucky. Cogs crushed under the wheel as it drained their blood and turned it into fuel for the capitalists to thrive off of, like a fountain of youth elixir.
Metaphorically speaking of course.
As for the majority of non-Christians, if they had the means they fled at the first hint of separation of church and state collapsing. Roe v. Wade being overturned was the first sign. Too used to the predictable outcome, they knew better than to stick around to watch it fester and to lose everything they and their ancestors had spent so long fighting for.
Sonny was none too happy to be here. I couldn’t blame him. We were supposed to be starting Oxford in the fall, instead we were here catering to Arlan’s antics.
Arlan Black was King Shit. Our families had been connected for generations, and his daughter had been raised with our mothers. Just the same as we’d been raised with each other. Except now he was the only still living member of his two thousand year old line, and by the looks of it, he was likely too old for any chance of a new offspring happening.
He was grasping at straws with each day the grim reaper creeped closer and now it seemed he was desperate. I guess it didn’t matter how old your money was if you had no one to give it to. If your legacy ended with you and there was no one willing to drive it forward. He may have raised us, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t a Black. I was an Escura, and Sonny was a Santorini.
