I Love Bane

I love Bane. I cannot help but love Bane. Aside from the fact that he is hot (I wish I could project him out of my mind so you could see how hot he is), he is someone I could totally be friends with (if he was real and not a figment of my imagination.)

I love his dry sense of humour. While Dev is the friend that does outrageous things that makes one laugh (most often in utter disbelief that he did that), Bane is the friend with whom one exchanges the secret understanding smirk when Dev is scooping innards off the floor with tongs for Nightscare. He is the friend whose smartass remarks tend to defuse a tense situation rather than fuelling it (like Dev.)

I love the relationship between the twins. The way Bane and Demon played off each other in the werewolf bar was one of my favourite moments in the second book.

Demon turned back to him, slowly. “What is your name?”

The bartender looked alarmed. “I ain’t givin’ you my name! I ain’t done nothin’! I ain’t gettin’ my name on your list!”

Demon raised his eyebrow at me. I took my cue and shrugged. “I didn’t hear you say anything about The List,” I said, making sure that I said it in capital letters.

“I just wanted to know the name of the guy with whom we’ll be spending the rest of the day,” Demon said to me.

“And all night too, if we have to,” I agreed.

My brother turned back to the bartender who seemed to be getting paler by the second. “Bane, pick a table,” Demon said holding the bartender’s gaze steadily.

Bane and Demon have a wonderful, caring relationship. This is obvious in the way they comfort one another, even if it is with humour rather than full on sympathy.

“I am sorry about Carys, Bane.”

We were both quiet again, staring at the floor. Finally, he looked up at me. “Do you want me and the others to kick them out of our house?” he asked. “I can tell that Dev is just itching to connect his boot to Ambrose’s ass.”

Leave it to my brother to make me laugh about this.

However, their affection is also apparent in the interactions they have where words are not necessary.

I was soon standing in the doorway of Demon’s bedroom. I did not bother to knock. I opened the door quietly. Demon was sitting on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest, his forehead resting on his knees. I moved into the room quietly, closing the door behind me, and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him. I did not say anything at first, partly because I wanted him to sense my presence so I didn’t startle him and partly because I was happy to sit quietly with him for a moment.

I shifted over to sit next to him. I put my arm around his shoulders. Demon didn’t lift his head but I felt him relax at last.

Protecting his brother is paramount for Bane, even with all the damage he sustains over the duration of a week.

I knew the voice and as I turned, I instantly folded my wings, forgetting Tanith, Darkmoon and everything except the man running toward me.

He reins in his anger (and if anyone has a right to be pissed off it is Bane—poor guy!) because he knows Demon is on edge.

We were both silent except for the sound of my fists slamming into the concrete block. “What happened?” he asked after a while.

“What makes you think anything happened?”

“This temper is not typical of you. I am usually the one down here trashing the place. Besides,” his voice changed to a low, long growl. “I could feel your anger from the other end of the house.”

 I stopped, breathing hard. “Sorry,” I said guiltily. “If I had known that you were in the house, I would have held it in.”

Bane has a great deal of empathy for other people as well, even for those who do not always deserve it, for example, when Zane suddenly becomes the flunkey after Conrad’s defection from the Graces.

I took pity on him while the other Deadlies stood there enjoying his humiliation. He glared at me and didn’t bother to thank me as I held the door for him. He kicked the bag out onto the front porch. We all sighed in relief as the door closed behind him.

I love that Bane takes shit from no one—not even Demon. Everyone thinks that he is the good-natured twin. I think he can be just as aggressive as his brother is. The other Deadlies think that Demon is the cold-blooded killing machine. Even they do not consider that Bane, as Demon’s twin, may harbour some of the same characteristics. This is clear from the way Riot teases him in the first chapter (something that he might not attempt with Demon—remember how the Deadlies all get nervous whenever someone says something to Demon or does something that could potentially set him off) and the difference with which the bar owner treats Bane as opposed to Demon.

“Now that is a shame.” I shook my head and swallowed the last of my beer. I set the bottle down. “We’ll have another round,” I told Cherie who had drifted over again.

 “Look, uh—” Burrows floundered.

 I was slightly offended that he didn’t know who I was. “Bane Hellblazer,” I told him.

 “Dev Xander,” Dev waggled his fingers at him.

 “Right. So, listen, um—” the big man said and looked at Demon expectantly.

 “Fechín,” my brother added softly.

 The big man paled. “Wrath? You’re Wrath?”

Bane warns people repeatedly throughout the book that he is Demon’s twin. It never really comes home to them until he proves it.

I whirled and stabbed the nearest Red Eye as Demon took the head of the one on the floor. He was up and we took down another before anyone else could react. Within seconds, the bodies of six dead Red Eyes lay on the floor around Demon and me.

Tiny gave the chain around my waist a hard yank suddenly, almost pulling me off my feet. Once he realized that I was not Wrath, I ceased to scare him. “Hey,” he grinned. “I have to thank you for the gift.” He showed me that he had my sheath and blade on his back. “Guess you won’t need it, huh?”

He was feeling very cocky. That was okay. He would learn.

However, as Tiny and everyone else soon learns, Bane is a Deadly and he is Wrath’s twin all the way down to the lethal blade in his hand.