[trese] Five Men

[pielcanela]

I. Crispin

"I had a dream about her again last night, Kuya... she looked like Alex, but wasn't Alex."

Crispin didn't understand this, because whenever he dreamt of Alexandra, she was Alexandra.




The Alexandra in Crispin's dreams was magnificent. Powerful. Cruel.

She smiled, and her smile held no warmth in it. And the way she looked at him pierced into his soul.

She was beautiful, and terrible, as her smile was. All of humankind and inhumankind revered her, worshiped her, feared her. They prayed to her for salvation and prayed in secret for her damnation.

Beneath her feet lay a mountain of skulls. A river of blood flowed around her castle of sinew and bone.

All together they ruled. Together, the three of them - she, he, and his twin - they were the trinity that none dared challenge. She let Crispin and his brother drink in as much blood as they wanted, let them feast in as many hearts as they would, human and inhuman... for as long as it suited her fancy.

They were kings of the new world, the three of them. All thanks to her strength, her being unfailing, unforgiving.

But when Crispin touched her...

(When she wanted Crispin to touch her)

...she was soft. And fragrant. And meek. And so tender, her flesh against his teeth.

She told him what to do. And he did it, gladly. And he lost himself in it, in the task, in the moment, in the necessity -

And then he woke.

And Basilio would be sleeping, either in his warm bed in the Trese household, or in his cozy little corner of the ether. Basilio would stir, feeling his older twin brother stir.

They did not share dreams, but they did not have to - the part of them that was human knew shame. Crispin kept his dreams to himself.

Basilio, on the other hand, sometimes let his dreams slip out in daylight.

That was how Crispin knew that Basilio dreamt of a false Alexandra.

To Crispin, there was no other Alexandra, save for the beautiful and terrible one.




II. Maliksi.

It was well known in the underground that when only one of the War God's twins was abroad, it meant one of two things:

One, that Alexandra Trese had assigned the other one elsewhere, on similarly important business; or

Two, that whatever this one had in mind to do, it was not the other one's business.

On one day of every year, Alexandra let the twins loose. That was popularly known as their birthday. That was one of the very few times when anyone could remember them spending the day apart.

They wreaked havoc where they could, within limits.

The "limits" were defined only by Alexandra's jurisdiction. And no one in any world had the right to question it. Once, Basilio caused a firestorm in Basilan. Once, Crispin caused a bloody riot in a religious parade. Casualties were minimized, but expected.

The twins had many enemies, but they all knew better than to attack either of the twins on those days - one twin would rush to the other's defense. And if worse came to worse, Alexandra herself would make an appearance. She was responsible for them, after all, and she gave her assurance that since the masks were fused to their spirit-selves, the damage they caused was manageable.

At any rate, they weren't always out to take lives. For example, Basilio wanted to spend his 27th birthday in a strip club run by water goddesses.

Crispin had other plans.




"I'm not here to make trouble," was what he said at the door. He said that after knocking out (but not killing; he was well aware of the Treses' truce with the Tikbalang clan, and how even he had to abide by it) the members of the Tikbalang prince's retinue who were stupid enough to stand in his way.

"I just wanted to clear that up," Crispin finished with a smile.

Maliksi, the Tikbalang prince, was unfazed. He was quite young, and even when faced with the evidence, he knew little of what the War God's spawn can do.

He thought he was a match, poor fool. The arrogance in his glare, the tension in his equine haunches - they were only too easy to grab hold of and squeeze out.

The prince stood. 300 years and 10 feet tall, glowering over him. Crispin stood undaunted. His spirit form could very easily pierce the prince's ancient earthen heart and make it still.

"Let me get this straight," the prince began. "You're asking - no, telling me - to stop sending gifts to Alexandra Trese. To stop imposing my presence in Alexandra Trese's life." A hint of amusement entered his otherworldly voice. "And yet you do this not because she asked you to. Why? Are you saying she can't handle her own personal affairs?"

Crispin did not answer. He did not need to.

"Think about what you do without her say-so, godling," the prince of the half-horse tribe said in a low voice. "As long as you wear that face, you are hers. One word from her, and you'll stop."

He moved, and in a single bound was face to face with the War God's spawn. Crispin did not move a muscle. The Tikbalang prince did not move a hair.

"I have no such restraints," Maliksi breathed onto his face. The steam from his nostrils smelled of brimstone.

They held each other's stare for what seemed like ages. But time was nothing to immortals. It was simply fact that before an eternity came to pass, one of them would have to back down.

It turned out to be Maliksi. But he made it clear with a loud snort that he did it out of boredom, not surrender. He shifted back into his human disguise, and dropped onto the expensive leather sofa nearby.

"Your request," he said lazily, "has been heard, but not acknowledged. You have no power over me, son of War. I will do as I please, as I have always done." He continued, maliciously, "And only Alexandra Trese's word matters to me. If she doesn't like my attention, she can tell me herself to leave her alone."

He waved his hand; a gesture for Crispin to leave.

"Go. Remember that if it were any other day than this, I would have ground you into pulp under my hooves. But I honor this day in deference to my clan's alliance with the Treses."

There was little else Crispin could do after that. He couldn't kill, or even maim Maliksi, even if every fiber of his being was telling him he should. Maliksi was a threat to Alexandra, he had convinced himself of it... though he knew that the Tikbalang prince was nothing to him and his brother, if push came to shove.

He had made his point. Maliksi may have emerged from the encounter unscathed, but his minions were certainly going to feel it in the morning. It was enough. Crispin turned to leave.

"People think your brother's the one who's touched in the head," Maliksi called after him, "but it's really you, isn't it?"

It didn't even occur to him to dignify that with a response.




III. Jason

He would always remember when she was 17.

The twins were 12. Their faces were new and had not yet set.

Like Alexandra, the twins never attended regular school. But they were taught how to read, write and compute, how to gauge friendly and unfriendly entities, and how to behave around polite society, sometimes by Alexandra herself.

They stayed home, mostly - he and his brother running around the house in spirit form whenever they weren't needed, causing mischief wherever and however they could.

But having the masks meant the desire to cause mischief was not as strong, and so they mostly... hovered.

It was a new thing for Crispin, the hovering. In the past, when they rarely took human shape, he and Basilio could do just about anything... though it was, of course, much more fun if they had their bodies. The feel, scent, noise, sight of carnage was much more stimulating.

But when they were little, they were never as calm. Being tempered like this felt...weird. Unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.

They hovered, watching and learning. There were things they couldn't do. Like spy on people while they were showering or sleeping. Or hover near Alexandra when she wanted to be alone.

But there were fun moments about hovering. For example, there was the time when the twins found out about Hank and Isabella. And the moments when he and Basilio spied on the nuns in the convent nearby (they both agreed that Sister Natalia was their favorite; in spirit form, they helped her escape from a car accident, once. She prayed by the roadside, being very vocal about her gratitude to the "angels" who had saved her.

(It was cute).

And then there were the not so fun moments.

Like whenever Jason came round.




Crispin couldn't quite understand why the very mention of the name made him seethe.

Jason was a young aswang, only a little older than Alexandra: the son of a friend of her father, who acted as his clan's messenger. He came over whenever the Trese clan needed information that his clan was in possession of. He often took the form of a black dog, with eyes that shone with a faint green light, like batumbuhay in pitch darkness.

In human form, which he sometimes chose, he was a tall young man, broad-shouldered, with short-cropped black hair and intense brown eyes.

Sometimes he sought Anton Trese. But more often than not, Anton was out on a mission, and he had to talk to Alexandra.

In March, one fateful year, when Alexandra was 17, Crispin noticed that Jason was over a lot. Even when he didn't have any particular information to share.

And Alexandra agreed to meet with him. Alexandra let him inside their usal-protected gates.

Crispin hovered when Jason was over - sometimes with Basilio, sometimes not. When he was not with Basilio, he had it worse -

The bloodlust. The desire to take down. To dominate. To kill.

Even with the masks, the desire to fight was always there. Always. But it no longer boiled over, not like it did when they were children.

Except there was that one time when Jason came, and neither Anton nor Alexandra were around.

Crispin spotted the young black dog sniffing at the gates of the house in the dead of night.

To this day, he maintains that what happened afterwards was not his fault.




"He looked suspicious," Crispin muttered feebly. "Like he was planning something."

He was 12. It's hard to speak with conviction when you're 12. Especially if you're bound to a supernatural collaring device that makes you subservient to the person whose identity is imprinted on that device.

In Crispin's case, that someone was Alexandra. And also, by extension, her father, Anton Trese.

Anton's aura of anger was pronounced, impossible to ignore. But Alexandra's aura was calm, almost oppressively so.

She stared Crispin down unwavering, and he could feel himself shrinking beneath her gaze.

Beside his brother, Basilio stood, mortified and wordless. He had not been around when it happened. He couldn't quite understand. "Kuya, why did you do it," the look on his face said. "You should've known better."

Anton was pacing back and forth in front of the twins... rattling off something or other about their "training" and how at their ages, they should've outgrown the urges to cause harm to other entities without the abject authorization of a Trese.

"You're my boys," Anton Trese was saying, "you're Alexandra's boys. You should know by now how it works. You respect whom she respects."

When Crispin looked up at Alexandra, her stare pierced into his soul, and he had to look away.

She was 17. She was catching the gaze of a supernatural creature who had viciously attacked a boy whom she had secretly liked.

And the human part of Crispin secretly cringed.

"Explain yourself," Alexandra said simply, sternly.

For a second, Crispin's breath caught in his throat.

But when he found his voice again, he found it was surprisingly easy to explain. He had been watching the boy. He had mistrusted the boy since day one. The boy came in the middle of the night, when both Anton and his daughter were out of the house, and he looked as if he was trying to find a way into the house - what else was Crispin supposed to do?

Anton asked him something, then, about finding a way to inform Alexandra of the possible intruder, of waiting for Alexandra's orders. About why he wasn't able to remember this very simple procedure.

But what he was asking slid right over Crispin's head. Whatever it was, it didn't matter.

What mattered was that Alexandra's steady stare softened a bit during his explanation.

What mattered was that she leaned toward him, and said into his eyes: "Don't you know by now that I can take care of myself?"

Even Anton's declaration of punishment after that didn't matter.




He was separated from his brother for two weeks.

He was kept in isolation, inside an antique wooden chest, invisible chains of fangs and blades biting into his spirit-skin.

The less angry he felt, the less the chains bit. Two weeks later, he was pliant enough to be set free.

Basilio, significantly weakened and hungry with brotherly concern, bit, punched and kicked, drawing blood relentlessly - Crispin's and others - until Crispin was his old self again.

Or at least a semblance of his old self.

He would never regret what he did. Even in the two weeks spent digging black holes into his palms, gnawing on his own bones, he would feel that he did the right thing.

The young aswang named Jason would never appear at the Treses' gates again. Another from his clan would convey the messages - a mangy, brown, wizened old thing. And from the glint in his eyes Crispin could tell that he knew exactly how to deal with upstart young spirits.




Alexandra was never going to have a normal life.

It was something she had chosen, and something she was born with: not something Crispin had caused.

Still, he felt that in some way, his and Basilio's presence in her life helped it along.

And it filled him with pride.

And it filled him with remorse.




IV. Domeng

It made sense that she would fall for a human. A weakling, to boot - one who wouldn't survive a night of wrestling with the lamang-lupa for the coveted mutya. One who would foolishly not even desire supernatural powers.

He could have been just another human. Fragile. Ignorant.

But he was different.

Alexandra knew he was different. He reeked with the sort of power that the spirits wanted. She might not be able to smell it on him, the way the twins could, but she could certainly sense it.

He wasn't even anything special; a common public servant. A bleeding heart. A pathetic human who had dedicated his entire life to helping other pathetic humans.

All he had was his pure, selfless heart. But because of this, the supernatural world desired him. Spiritual strength is a currency in the hidden worlds - this is something most humans do not know.

And Domeng had a great deal of it. This, also, is something most humans do not know: that this small, plain, unassuming man would be filthy rich in some form.

The first time they met, Crispin hated him on the spot.

"Can you believe that guy," he once whispered to his brother. His brother made a face.

"What are you talking about?" Basilio whispered back. "He's harmless, isn't he?"

Crispin knew that. And it wasn't Domeng he hated, not exactly, but it wasn't something he could easily explain, not even to his brother, the one person who knew him best.

It was the way Alexandra looked at Domeng when she wasn't on her guard. And before now, Alexandra was always on her guard. Domeng wasn't even trying to charm her, which was worse; she was simply attracted to him, like powerful things are attracted to other powerful things. That was the nature of kindred spirits.

He had seen that look before - on Jason. Although this time, it was different.

It threatened everything.




V. Basilio


The Alexandra in Basilio's dreams was kind. Gentle. Forgiving.

The sound of her voice made his blood-hunger melt away.

She wore clothes of light. Crispin always found that particular recollection funny, though it wasn't funny to Basilio. Bright light, like stars reflected on the blade of a knife.

A kris.

She opened her spirit-arms, and Basilio drifted into them.

And she smiled, and all was well, and Basilio was calm and protected and safe.




Basilio was good at letting things slide. He woke up, and the woman of his dreams remained in his dreams. He went about his life with the same lust for experience, for sensation, that always comforted Crispin about his brother.

But Basilio dreamt of a woman who looked like Alexandra, but wasn't Alexandra.

Crispin instead dreamt of a woman who could be no one else. When he laid his eyes on Alexandra, both in dreams and in waking, he didn't see an ethereal being. Not a woman clothed with supernatural light.

He saw a human woman who was beautiful and terrible. He saw her darkness, and he saw her strength.

He saw her unguarded, and he saw her lonely.

He had yet to decide if it was his human side, or the side of him that could lay entire cities to waste, that would not know what to do if anything happened to her.

If he ever let her out of his sight.