Moriaty gasped. His words had stung her like a colony of bees poking and jabbing at her from different ends. He couldn’t bear to see her so inconsolable so he turned away from her. Basil didn’t want Moriaty seeing the hurt in his eyes nor did he want her to see the regret on his face. Without saying anything else, he picked his bottle from the dirt ground and walked away from her. Moriaty was too stunned to make any remark or comment. She simply watched him amble away toward an inn she just noticed. There were people going into and leaving the place. She looked up at the doorpost and saw a giant signpost – Hanford Inn Bar. Moriaty took note of it, aware that her family owned shares in the property despite not setting foot there quite yet. After, she moved toward the same bench that her colleague had just vacated; she cast a brief glance toward the verdant scenery that Basil had been looking at a while back. Everything he exclaimed was somewhat true. Most of it anyway.

With the thoughts spinning on her mind, Moriaty took her seat on the bench he had left, rested her back and exhaled deeply. She then cast her gaze toward the inn once more only to see Basil’s frame edge toward the door.

*****

Basil couldn’t get Moriaty out of his head as he dragged himself toward the door of Hanford Inn Bar. For him, her concerns for him could be real. She might just deeply care, just enough to show it. Because when he thought about it, she could easily have just found someone else to talk to – yet, she chose him. Then Basil caressed his frizzled hair as he discarded the thought. “But she might just have found me by chance. If she hadn’t, it would have been someone else.”

The clash in the mind of the drunk Lovecraft prevented him from entering the inn at that precise moment. Basil decided to take a stroll, roaming nearby instead.

As he sauntered through the streets, news of Brock’s passing frittered into his ears. Everyone seemed to be in on the secret of his demise – which meant it was no longer a secret. It seemed to be the talk of the town. Basil could hardly walk past a couple of townsfolk without them commenting about Brock’s unfortunate death. That angered him the more. He was a bit disappointed in Brock for failing to kill the person who had caught him off guard.

Why did you get yourself killed in the first place? He mused.

Some even had the effrontery to mock Brock in his death, right in Basil’s face! How dare they! Basil thought. He was aggravated by the mere gossip floating about. That they were even making his dear friend the subject of their mundane chit-chat without having met or known him like he did. This only made him lose his cool the more. Brock had been a superbeing that he had nothing but deep respect for. None of these low-life cretins knew what he stood for which meant none of them were really in any position to talk about him in the way they did.

He sighed as he stared backward to where he had left Moriaty, the youngest of the Lovecrafts. Poor girl, he thought. Now he seemed to understand perfectly why she needed someone to confide in, especially with the town folk refusing to let the dead rest in peace. There was no way she wouldn’t go bonkers when she consistently heard the whole town discussing him however way they liked. Since Basil could easily wash off hurtful remarks off his body like dirt, no thanks to who he was, he didn’t really feel upset if anyone hurled at him. Besides this, he had learnt to condone more pain than anyone for as long as he could remember – his mixed-race ethnicity had left him with no little slurs every now and then. For what it was worth, it had only made him tougher. His thoughts drifted back into the past when he was much younger. He recalled some of the moments he and Brock had spent together. After all, he was the closest being he had as family up until the time of his passing. Basil remembered how he had been abused violently as a lad and even neglected by people he referred to as family because of the colour of his skin and the way that he looked. Basil was originally from a white family. But his mother, no thanks to the love that she had for a black man, lay with him. The black man was a hardworking labourer who was owned by a white family known as the Smiths. He was no ordinary man nonetheless. Basil’s mother became pregnant because of their sexual relations and he was the product of their intercourse. However, no sooner than he had been born did his blood father disappear. It took a while for Basil to learn of his true nature – that the rare blood gene flowed in his veins. And before then, he did have life rough – he suffered his fair share of challenges, no thanks to racial discrimination. However, once his power had manifested, it didn’t take long before Brock singled him out. And ever since, he had come directly under his tutelage; Brock took him under his wing and taught him everything that he needed to know about his true nature. Basil temporarily remained with the Smiths as Brock didn’t want to be seen as a kidnapper. His secret guardian was always in hiding, protecting him from the shadows while he made sure that his powers remained concealed from public knowledge. There came a time that Brock could no longer stand and watch idly in the shadows – he had to do something about how they maltreated the poor boy. He stepped out into the light and adopted Basil; the Smiths were more than happy to let him go as he had brought nothing but shame to the family.

Basil remembered a statement that Brock made about himself and others like him: “We are a race pure as it gets, something their puny minds could never understand.” He recalled he had made that statement the very day that Brock had introduced him to the rest of the Lovecraft family. They welcomed him with open arms because of Brock. Basil was directly told about who he was and learned everything that he could possibly know about the identity of his birth father. He even remembered Brock once telling him that his blood father might have possessed the same powers as he did. For as long as Basil could remember, Brock was the first person to treat him with respect and decency. And that singular act of maturity and equality would forever change his life. His actions would forever be etched on his mind. Indeed, Brock was someone he could never forget.

Snapping to, Basil blinked as the wind gently teased his hair. His stroll brought him by the front of the inn once again. Enough thoughts about the past, he mused. He entered, then made his way into the bar and asked for whisky. The waitress, Felicity, brought him the bottle he requested without wasting time.

He picked up the glass that came with it, raising it a little above his head. “Brock, drinks are on you, brother,” he muttered. He looked up and gave the roof a cheeky smile. “Drinks are on you, my friend,” he repeated again. This time, under his breath.

*****