Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (2 page)

Anger … shame …
disbelief … rage.

The next two
years of Noah’s life spiraled out of control as he tried to come to grips with
what he was and what happened to his mother. His straight A’s turned to D’s and
F’s, having to go to summer school. He lost best friends he’d had since first
grade, and he’d been arrested several times, mostly for petty theft and
vagrancy. Hiding his wings became a source of great frustration that led to
being bullied in gym class when he didn’t want to undress in front of the other
boys. After winning several fights and even putting one boy in the hospital, no
one picked on him anymore—at least not to his face.

Selena was at
the end of her rope. She was a struggling single mother, working as a second
grade teacher at St. Anthony Elementary. The more Noah got into trouble, the
more the school frowned upon Selena’s ability to balance work and home. The
school fired her after one dark night, shortly after Noah’s sixteenth birthday.

***

“Just relax, my
baby. Breathe in, and let your mind be at peace,” came the comforting words of
Cee Cee Baptiste. Selena sat at a little table across from Cee Cee, the rotund
and beautiful Creole of Color who owned a Voodoo store in the French Quarter.

“I’m trying,”
said Selena, who sounded worn and tired, and on the verge of tears.

Cee Cee reached
across the table and held both of Selena’s hands in hers. The strong scent of
myrrh filled the air around them. Selena had a rosary in one hand, and some
sage in the other. Between her and Cee Cee was a lit white candle in front of a
picture of the Virgin Mary.

“It’s going to
be okay, my baby!” said Cee Cee, with delight and reassurance.

Selena let a
couple of tears fall, and she nodded, wanting to believe her.

“If you think
Noah’s bad, I’m gonna have to introduce you to my niece Ruby one day.” Cee Cee
laughed loudly. “My sister Lornette up the wall with Ruby. Lawd!” She laughed
again, and that made Selena smile. “There you go! I like to see that beautiful
smile.”

Selena pulled
away the hand holding the rosary and wiped the tears from her eyes. “He’s all I
have, you know? I love him so much, but he won’t listen to me.”

“Lot of kids
like that when they that age.”

Selena frowned.
“He’s different.”

“Different how?”

She hesitated.

Cee Cee laughed
again. “Baby, you been coming to me to help you for almost a year now. You can
tell me anything.”

“I know … it’s
just that I … I don’t know how to start. I don’t think you’d believe me. I
don’t believe it myself sometimes, except when I catch a glimpse of Noah’s
back.”

Cee Cee looked
perplexed. “His back?”

Selena looked
away, and gently withdrew her other hand and placed the sage on the table. She
tucked her rosary into her purse and got up. “Can I think about this and get
back to you next time? I want to tell you what’s going on, but … you know.”

Cee Cee smiled kindly.
“I know, my baby. You take all the time you need.” She got up, threw a warm
shall over her shoulders and walked Selena to her car.

“Thank you
again, Cee Cee,” she said as she slid into the driver’s seat.

“Anytime!”

Selena turned
the key to start the car, but nothing happened. The red light for the battery
came on. She tried again, and still nothing. “Oh, come ON!” She tried once more
and still nothing.

“Battery?”

Selena replied
by putting her head back on the head rest and staring at the ceiling.

“Hang on! I’ll
be right back.” Cee Cee returned with her car—an old ‘80-something Grand
Marquis—and pulled up next to Selena’s Tercel so that they were facing each
other. She got the jumper cables out of her trunk and hooked up the cars. She
gave it several tries, but the battery was completely dead.

Selena put her
face in her hands and rested them against the steering wheel, wondering how the
night could get any worse. She still had papers to grade for tomorrow, and she
had not even prepared dinner for Noah, though she couldn’t be sure that he was
home at all.

The driver’s
side door opened, and Cee Cee motioned for Selena to get out. “Come on. I’m
gonna drive you home.”

“Oh, no. You don’t
have to do that. I can get a cab or take the street car.”

“Oh, hush, you!
You don’t live that far. And I’m not about to let you wait out in the cold for
the street car.”

Selena thought
it over.

“Well come on!
Hurry before my chariot turn into a pumpkin!” she laughed loudly, and Selena
gave her a big hug.

When they got to
Selena’s house, she told Cee Cee, “Thank you again!”

“You don’t need
to keep thanking me! I’m glad to do it.” She gave her a big, warm smile.

“Will you please
at least come inside and have some pie? I didn’t make it myself, but it’s from
that new place over on Burgundy.”

“Oh, I heard
they were good.” She thought it over for a moment. “Well, I’m not supposed to
have too much sugar, but I don’t think a tiny slice will hurt.”

As soon as Selena
opened the door, she heard loud rock music coming from Noah’s bedroom. She
winced. “He’s going to go deaf, I swear.”

“Now, if it was
some good ol’ music, like some Sam Cooke or maybe some Frank Sinatra, I’d
understand, but I can’t understand half of what they singing on those songs
today,” said Cee Cee, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

Selena took out
some saucers and forks and set them down on the table, and then pulled a pecan
pie from the refrigerator, setting it between the saucers. “I thought I’d never
want another pecan pie again after I pigged out at Christmas, but I saw this
and couldn’t resist. Please, help yourself,” she said. “I’m going to go ask him
to turn that noise down.”

“Don’t argue
with him. You don’t need any more stress tonight,” said Cee Cee, already
cutting herself a large piece of pie. “You got any milk?”

“In the fridge,”
Selena called over her shoulder, on her way upstairs.

The music was
almost unbearable outside Noah’s door. She knocked, but got no answer. She
knocked louder, but still no answer.

“Noah!” She
pounded on the door. “Noah, please turn down the music! We have company!”
Again, no answer.

She hated
barging in on his privacy, but her ears could not stand it one more second. She
opened the door.

What she saw
felt like someone had just punched her in the gut. She was certain her heart
stopped for a few seconds, and was unaware she was not breathing. Her son—her
little man—was lying face down on the carpet, blood—
so much blood
—soaking
into the carpet, streaming from the gashes in his shoulder blades, and a long,
sharp sword at his side. Near his desk were his beautiful, dark purple wings.

When she finally
caught her breath, Selena screamed. She knelt down next to Noah, her pants now
getting soaked with his blood. She put her hands on his head and held it to her
lap. By the time Cee Cee made it upstairs, Selena was sobbing and rocking back
and forth.

“Oh, my God in
Heaven,” whispered Cee Cee.

“He’s still
alive,” sobbed Selena. “We need to get him to a hospital! Call 911!”

Cee Cee spied
the stereo near the window and turned off the music before rushing to Noah’s
side. She placed her hands over his head and then his back. And then she
noticed the wings by the desk. “He won’t make it in time.”

“Please! Please
call them! He has time!”

“No, my baby.
But there’s someone who can help him.” Cee Cee rushed downstairs as quickly as
she could and picked up the phone.

***

He got to
Selena’s house in less than ten minutes. Cee Cee ushered him inside and
upstairs. The scene in the bedroom did not frighten him or surprise him, but as
soon as he saw the wings on the floor, a grim shadow fell upon his face, and
his green eyes narrowed.

He looked at Cee
Cee, and she knew what he was thinking. She shook her head and said, “Just help
him. Please.”

He met Selena’s
pleading and confused eyes—the desperate eyes of a mother faced with losing her
child—and promised himself that he would do all he could.

“Please step
back,” he told her.

“Come, baby,”
said Cee Cee, gesturing for Selena to join her near the door.

“Who is this?” said
Selena. “What’s he going to do?”

“Shhh. Just let
him work. And pray, my baby. Pray.”

He set his black
bag on the floor beside Noah and took out a bottle of holy water. Pushing a
lock of his salt-and-pepper hair from his eyes, he got to work.

Over the next
twenty minutes or so, the man said a multitude of prayers as he poured holy
water over Noah’s back and head.

Cee Cee and
Selena prayed together, holding each other’s hands, eyes closed in
concentration.

When he was
done, the man asked for a towel. Selena left and came back with one and handed
it to him. The man whispered some more words she couldn’t hear and then poured
some holy water directly on Noah’s shoulder wounds. He took the towel and wiped
the area. When he removed the towel, the wounds had closed. He examined the
scars and shakily stood up, wiping sweat from his brow.

“He will live,”
he told Selena.

She cried again,
but out of relief, the fist removed from her gut, and her heart beating
fiercely again. “Thank you!” she said, and hugged him. His expression remained
grim, though.

“I’ll help you
get him onto his bed, but he needs plenty of rest and fluids. It will take some
time for his blood to build back up, but he will be okay.”

“Thank you,” she
said again. Together, they lifted Noah and placed him in his bed. Selena sat
beside him, wiping his face and crying, while Cee Cee and the man went downstairs.
He was pale and had to hold the rail tightly.

“I wish you had
warned me before I came here,” he said, washing up at the kitchen sink. He was
drained and exhausted.

Cee Cee sat at
the table and resumed eating her pie. With her mouth full, she said, “I didn’t
think you’d come.”

“You’re right. I
probably wouldn’t have.”

“But it was a
good thing that you did. I know that boy’s not like the others.”

“How can you be
so sure?”

“His momma’s one
of us.”

He put down the
dish towel he was using to dry his hands and stared at her with surprise. “She
is?”

Cee Cee licked
her fork. “Mmm hmm. She don’t know it, though.”

“How do you
know?”

“She been coming
to see me for about a year now. I was able to read her quite a few times. She
definitely has it. Descendant of Gerard.”

“And you’re just
telling me this now?”

She looked at
him in the corner of her eye and raised an eyebrow. “I know you, and you
would’ve been trying to recruit her from day one. She’s a good woman with too
much on her plate, being a single mother and all, struggling with work and her
boy. She don’t need to be running around, battling demons and spirits and,
and—”

“And Nephilim?”
he finished.

She eyed him
again. “Now I know you have your reservations, and you’re welcome to ‘em, but
you wrong about this boy, Miles.”

Still tired and
drained, he leaned back against the counter and looked up at the ceiling.
“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Miles came back
on the third day to check on Noah. He asked that Selena give them some privacy.
She excused herself and
went downstairs to make a pot of
soup for Noah’s lunch.

“How are you
feeling?” asked Miles.

Noah shrugged
and then winced. “Shoulder blades are sore.”

“Before long you
won’t even feel it. May I take a look?”

Noah gave a
hesitant nod and then rolled over onto his side. Miles pushed up his T-shirt
and saw the scars were now pink. “It looks good,” he said, and Noah rolled onto
his back again.

“Um, thanks. For
saving me or whatever.”

Miles smiled.
“Your mother told you why you have those wings, yes?”

His eyes shifted
away from Miles and he nodded. “Yeah.”

“What did she
tell you?”

“That my
father
,
if you want to call him that, was an angel. Well, not the kind that floats
around in the clouds and plays a harp or whatever. She called it a
Watcher Angel
.
I would’ve thought she was crazy if I hadn’t started growing feathers and a
pair of weird bones jutting out of my back.”

“I see. Did she
explain to you what these Watcher Angels are?”

“Kind of. She
said she couldn’t find very much information on them. She said they lived with
the humans and could have children with them, but she didn’t know why this guy
was so bad.”

“Did she tell
you his name?”

His eyes found
Miles’ again. “She said his name was Raymond.”

Miles frowned.
“There was no Watcher named Raymond. I’m sure that name is just a cover.”

“I don’t really
want to know his real name.”

“I can
understand that. Aside from your wings, have you ever noticed anything else
peculiar about yourself? Maybe something you can do that no one else can, or
something you can do better than others?”

He searched his
memory and shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“Well, it looks
like you’ll be okay from here on out. It was nice meeting you, Noah.” Miles
smiled politely, and he headed for the door.

“Wait, that’s
it?”

He turned back
to look at him and nodded. “Yes.”

“I mean, it’s
kind of … weird, you know. Like how do you know so much about these Watchers?”

Miles thought
carefully before answering. “I deal with many things of this nature.”

“What do you
mean
deal with
?”

He smiled again.
“Tell you what. If you find yourself exhibiting anything else unusual, like
what I asked you about, then pay me a visit.” He fished a business card out
from his wallet, borrowed a pen from the desk, wrote something on the back, and
handed it to Noah. “Take care.” And with that, he left.

Noah looked at
the card in his hand. It had a phone number and the words:

Miles
Knighten

Historian/Anthropologist

Knighten
Oil Co.

On the back of
the card, Miles wrote down an address in the Garden District.

***

Meanwhile,
Selena’s spirit diminished. The day after Noah’s incident, she called St.
Anthony Elementary to tell them that she needed off for a few days. Since she
wasn’t sick, they insisted on knowing why she needed to miss work. She confided
in the vice principal that it was a delicate issue. She told her that Noah had
attempted suicide, but that he was going to be okay. By that evening, the principal
called her to tell her that she was sorry about what happened to her son, but
the school felt she would be better suited as a stay-at-home mom so that she
could properly rear her son. Even though Selena pleaded with her, the principal
put her foot down. And that was the beginning of a new set of worries for
Selena.

***

Noah’s return to
school was met with much whispering and amused stares from the other boys. They
were too scared of him to tell him anything to his face, but he still heard
stifled laughs as he walked the halls. They did a poor job of trying to look
inconspicuous as they craned their necks over their shoulders to look at him in
the back of the classroom.

Noah did his
best to stay calm. He couldn’t get in trouble again. He didn’t want to do that
to his mother, so he kept his head down and avoided eye contact. And, as the
day wore on, the laughter became more pronounced as the boys realized Noah
wasn’t going to do anything to them. All it took was one foolishly brave boy
named Nick—a running back on the football team who was twice Noah’s size—to
cross the line.

After school,
Noah started his walk home. St. Anthony’s School for Boys was a just a block
from the Mississippi River and a half mile from his house in the Irish Channel.
The Girls’ school was just down the street from the Boys’. Noah usually took
the main route home, but he didn’t want to see any more of the boys that day,
and he didn’t want to hear any more of that annoying hushed laughter. He
instead went a block east toward the river and followed the pier to his neighborhood.

After he passed
the Girls’ school, he smelled cigarette smoke and looked around. He saw a lazy
plume of smoke coming from behind a post on the dock. A pair of legs wrapped in
navy blue tights stretched out from under a blue plaid skirt on the other side
of the post. As he got closer the angle shifted, and he saw the profile of a
pretty girl with wavy brown hair and porcelain skin with light freckles. She
puffed on the cigarette every now and then, huddled in a heavy coat and looking
out on the water. When he got closer, he saw that her eyes were red and angry,
and he heard her sniffle.

He almost didn’t
say anything, but it was reassuring to know someone had as bad a day as he had.

“Hey. Are you
all right?”

She blew smoke
from her mouth and looked up at him. “Fine,” she said, and resumed gazing at
the river. He noticed that she had a heavy French accent.

He started to
leave, but part of him wanted to talk to her, to find out why she was crying.
“No one ever told you that cigarettes can kill you?”

She shot him a
glance over her shoulder. “Plenty of girls my age smoke where I’m from.”

He shrugged.
“Then that makes it all right, I guess. See ya.” The girl did not respond, and
he gave up.

Noah got maybe
fifteen yards down the pier when he heard the unmistakable donkey laugh of Nick
DiMartino. He glanced over his shoulder to see Nick and his friend Bus (so
named because the high school giant was once hit by a bus that did absolutely
no damage to him) coming his way, but they didn’t notice him yet. They were too
busy trying to kick each other in the privates and laughing like a couple of
idiots.

They did,
however, notice the girl sitting by the post on the dock. They stopped in their
tracks, and Bus nudged Nick with his elbow and nodded in the girl’s direction.
He whispered something to him, and Nick’s donkey laugh went at full force, his
breath puffing up into the air.

Nick shoved Bus
toward the girl, who hadn’t noticed them—or pretended not to notice them—and Bus
stopped short of falling. Still laughing, Bus pushed Nick toward the girl,
egging him on. At last, Nick adjusted his pants and walked over to the post,
casting one asinine look over his shoulder at Bus who had his hands over his
mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

Noah couldn’t
hear what Nick said to the girl, but she reacted pretty much the same way she
did to him, which was basically to ignore him. Nick, however, wasn’t quite as
disinterested or polite as Noah. When the girl clearly wanted nothing to do
with Nick, he looked back at Bus, who, with his red face and tears glistening
from the dim winter light, looked like he was about to pass out trying to keep
from laughing.

Nick scowled and
said something else to the girl. This time, it got her attention, and she
looked offended. She flicked her cigarette up into his face, and this sent Nick
into a rage. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled up onto her feet. The girl
screamed out in pain, and this, in turn, sent Noah into a rage.

Dropping his
book sack, Noah rushed at Nick, knocking him down. They wrestled for a moment
before a stunned Bus realized what was going on. He hurried to help his friend,
pulling Noah off of him. Together, the two of them took turns pummeling Noah,
bringing down their fists and then kicking him when he was down. The whole
time, the girl screamed at them to stop and even tried to pull them off, but
they just pushed her down. All Noah could do was curl up into his jacket and
protect his head and ribs.

“Put ‘im in the
river!” said Nick. “Roll ‘im! Roll ‘im!” He and Bus stopped kicking and rolled him
off the dock and into the water.

“Stop it!” the
girl screamed.

Nick whirled
around and pinned her up against the post. He put his knee in between hers and
put one hand up her skirt and another up her shirt. The girl’s big brown eyes
widened with horror. She tried to scream, but he took the hand from her shirt
and covered her mouth.

“Hey, Nicky,
c’mon. What are you doing?”

“Shut up! This
lil’ bitch needs to learn a lesson.”

“C’mon, man, you
don’t want to go to jail or nothin’.”

“I’m not gonna
go to jail. She’s not gonna tell on me. Are you, you lil’ French bitch?”

“Dude, c’mon.
Let’s go! Someone’ll walk by here any minute.”

While they
argued, neither one heard the displacement of the water’s surface tension or
the squishy footsteps of waterlogged sneakers coming up behind them. Before Bus
knew what hit him, he was suddenly lifted off the dock and thrown toward the
pier, landing hard against a commercial garbage bin.

Nick looked back
at where Bus was just standing, and he saw Noah coming at him at high speed.
Shocked, he moved away from the girl, stumbled and fell backward onto the dock.
Now it was Noah’s turn to pummel Nick. He went at him with a ferocity that
scared the girl. She was afraid he would kill him.

“Stop!” she
yelled at Noah.

Noah stopped. He
bent down and, with a steady, gritty voice, said, “Right now, I have enough of
my faculties to stop myself. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop next
time. Do you understand me?”

Through a bloody
mouth and nose, Nick gave a barely audible “Yeah.”

Noah got up,
grabbed the girl’s black backpack near the post and handed it to her. “They
won’t bother you anymore,” he said.

She was too
stunned to say thank you, but managed a nod.

Noah continued
down the pier, picking up his book sack where he had left it. The girl ran to
catch up with him. “I’m Nadia, by the way,” she said, out of breath.

“Noah.”

“Sorry I was
rude to you earlier.”

He shrugged. “Looked
like you were having a bad day.”

She frowned.
“It’s just that … I really miss my family back home. I cried a little today,
and some of the girls saw me and started making fun of me and my accent.”

“Where’s your
family?”

“Back in France,
not far from Paris. We were all supposed to move here, but my mother was about
to have a baby, and they didn’t want to move so close to the due date, so they
sent me here first so that I could start this semester with everyone else. They
thought it would be easier on me.”

“And it hasn’t
been?”

She huffed. “I
hate it here. Everyone is so mean.”

Noah laughed a
little.

“Everyone except
you so far.”

“No, no I get
it,” said Noah. “I kind of feel the same way to tell you the truth.”

They walked for
a while in silence. Noah’s teeth were chattering, and he was sure tiny icicles
were forming on his hair. When they got to the end of the long pier, they
stopped.

“So, where are
you staying?” said Noah.

Nadia looked a
little embarrassed when she said, “At the convent at St. Genevieve’s.”

“You’re staying
at a convent?”

“My parents have
a friend here, and he arranged for me to stay there until they move here in a
few weeks.”

“Ah, cool. Um …
well, I live right up that street over there. Do you need me to walk you
anywhere?”

Nadia blushed.
“Oh, no. I’m just going to cross over that way and wait for the streetcar.”

“Oh, okay. I can
wait with you if you want.”

She looked like
she wanted to say yes. “That’s okay. I’ll be fine. You should get out of those
clothes quickly. I mean, go home and change quickly. So that you can warm up.”

Noah grinned.
“Yeah, I know what you meant.”

“Thank you for
everything, though.”

“Sure thing.”

They both went
to press the button at the crosswalk at the same time. When they did, their
hands touched, and Nadia’s eyes widened and her mouth slackened.