Demon Night

parents’ divorce—before they’d been separated by a continent and too wrapped up in their own obsessions to find each other again. Before their father had brought them together again to announce that he was dying; before Charlie had destroyed her own life, and brought another year of separation on them.
    And if not for Jane slapping her awake when she most needed it, Charlie knew they’d be separated now.
    Jane pulled two diet sodas from the fridge, set one in front of Charlie. “We’re in trouble today.”
    With her drink halfway to her lips, Charlie stopped and stared up at her sister. “What does that mean?”
    “Dylan’s gone. He had a meeting.”
    “Oh, no. Did he leave something for us to eat? Or are we going out? And maybe a movie?” Charlie asked hopefully.
    Jane grimaced. “He left instructions. And shopped for ingredients while I was sleeping this morning. If we didn’t at least make the attempt…” She trailed off, and her expression seemed caught between pleading and stricken.
    “You’d feel bad.” Charlie would, too, but not as bad as—“Food poisoning would be worse. We can make sandwiches. Something we don’t have to cook.”
    Jane pointed to the grid of yellow stickies on the refrigerator. “I thought of that. But one of those was supposed to remind me to buy bread.”
    “Oh, God,” Charlie groaned. “Okay, you’re smart, and I can mix drinks. I suppose we can try.”
    After a fortifying chug of her soda, she joined her sister in the kitchen—and then stared in disbelief at one of the drawers Jane pulled open. Each spatula and serving spoon was perfectly aligned. A glance in the icebox revealed the same: everything neatly stacked and labeled.
    With such organization, they might actually be able to cook whatever he’d planned for them.
    “You know, Jane,” Charlie said. “I’ve thought for a while that you spliced and diced DNA to create Dylan, because he’s too good to be true. Now I’m convinced of it.”
    “You should see his closet.” Jane threw a wry glance over her shoulder, then stood on her toes to retrieve a pan from the rack above the island.
    A roasting pan. Charlie frowned, some of her apprehension returning. “What are we making, anyway?”
    “I can’t pronounce it.” A wave of her hand directed Charlie to the recipe lying on the counter. “Something with duck, I think.”
    “Canard rôti au thym et miel, sauce airelles et pommes de terre rôties,” Charlie read aloud, and managed not to wince as her voice butchered the fricatives. “Roasted duck with thyme and honey, a cranberry sauce and roasted potatoes? Is he crazy? I was thinking macaroni and cheese or spaghetti. I can do those.”
    “I don’t think Dylan’s ever had mac and cheese.”
    She scanned the directions. “This is going to take a couple of hours. I won’t be home until—” Almost dark. Closing her eyes, she fought the wave of panic that rolled through her.
    “Oh. Are you going to be late for work?” Jane sounded almost hopeful—glad of the excuse.
    Charlie shook her head, determined. She could be out in the night; no one was watching her, no one was waiting. At least not here. “No. My shift doesn’t start until eight.”
    “Maybe we can turn the oven up to a higher temperature. I’m too hungry to wait that long.” Jane slapped a paper-wrapped duck on the island. “How’s work, anyway? Old Matthew?”
    “Both good. Except for the assholes that make a mess with the peanuts. And Legion?”
    As they did each time she spoke of her research, Jane’s eyes lit up, and her smile creased two dimples in her cheeks. “Good. Actually, fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like the blood samples we’ve been getting, Charlie, and the implications for medicine are astounding—spontaneous cell regeneration and repair. And not just trauma usage, which is intuitive, but reversing any degenerative disease. But though we’ve successfully replicated the blood composition, we can’t force it to behave in the same way as the original.” Jane continued, peppering the rest with jargon; the duck lay naked in the pan and they had unloaded most of the contents of the fridge when Jane halted mid-sentence and glanced at Charlie. “Okay, I got a little carried away.”
    “You lost me at ‘platelet storage lesion.’” Grinning, Charlie waved away the apology. “You’re talking about changing-the-world stuff. You have a reason to be carried away.”
    “I could save it for Dylan,