Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (20 page)

“We don’t know
what you’re talking about,” said Felix.

“Our book! Give
it back!”

“What b—?”

“Enough! I will
allow one of you to live to tell your friends. And one of you will not survive
long enough to betray us again.”

“What do you
mean? We didn’t betray you,” I said.

One of the other
witches giggled, and a small black snake slithered out of the corner of her
mouth.

“Quiet, Elsa!”
scolded the head witch. She lifted her hand, a bolt unlocked, and a door to the
right opened to reveal a demon hound. It jerked its head toward us, cocking its
ears, and then caught us in its sight with those horrifying silver eyes.

The door behind
us unlocked, and the door opened. “Now, to determine who lives, one of you will
just have to outrun the other,” said the head witch.

Felix raised his
hands to attack, but couldn’t do anything because of the binding spell. “Run!”

I had just
enough time to see the creature charge for us and hear the witches laughing.

We shut and locked
the chamber door and heard the demon hound crash into it just as we stepped
away. It roared and banged on the other side of the door. The wood started to
splinter. We continued up the tunnel until we reached the greenhouse and out
into the garden, where there was barely enough light to see. By this point, we
heard the hound charging again.

Felix held out
his hands, and little sparks of electricity emitted from his fingertips. “We
can fight here,” he said.

We stood our
ground, ready. Rapid footfalls approached from inside the greenhouse, and in no
time, the beast leaped from the doorway.

Felix shot down
it with a bolt of electricity. It howled with the most horrific sound I had
ever heard, like a wolf but with distinctly human intelligence.

To our surprise,
we saw another hound approaching and two more behind it. And they were coming
fast.

Felix zapped the
two out in front, and I got one to stop when I started concentrating on
draining its life force. The problem with this is that it took too long, and we
heard more on the way. Felix killed another as I finally finished draining the
one I had.

“I’m tapped out
for the moment,” he said, and he noticed how long it took me to finish off one hound.
We saw four emerge from the tunnel and charge across the greenhouse.

“Run!” he
shouted.

We found the
trail and raced through the forest, dodging rotted branches and shrubs. Behind
us, we heard the snaps of dead tree limbs and the quick crunch of leaves coming
at us faster and faster as the demons howled with rage.

I suddenly
noticed Felix wasn’t beside me. I turned around to see he had fallen. One of
the demon hounds was nearly upon him. And I froze. My mind didn’t want to work.
I was petrified.

“Help!” he
yelled.

Just as the
hound jumped on him, I raised my hands and drained it. He finished it off by
frying it. He staggered to his feet, his brows drawn together, scowling at me.
“I could’ve been killed! And you were just standing there!”

“I’m sorry!”

We broke out in
another run. More hounds were coming our way. I saw Felix’s car in the
distance. “Can you take a couple of them out?” I said.

“Maybe one.”

I stopped, and
when Felix noticed I wasn’t at his side, he stopped, too. “Are you crazy?!
Hurry! They’ll be here any second!” he said.

“We won’t make
it to the car in time. Take down that tree!” I pointed to a massive hornbeam
packed with long branches.

Felix smiled in
the corner of his mouth, raised his hands, and aimed for the trunk of the tree.
His powerful bolt cut through it in a matter of seconds. A thunderous crack
shot through the forest as the great tree toppled over right in front of the
charging demons. We could no longer see them, but they roared with fury.

Felix looked
exhausted, but we hurried to his car, got in and drove away.

Felix hadn’t
said a word to me all the way back to Charmagne’s. I knew he was angry with me
for hesitating to help him, and I couldn’t blame him. I don’t know what got
into me, but I hated it. I couldn’t even bring myself to look him in the eyes, but
more than that, I was afraid of myself, of my power.

When we got to
Charmagne’s, she, Miles and Noah were in the living room. I heard Miles yelling
before I saw them.

“How could you
have let her go out without my consent?!”

“I didn’t
let
her, Miles! She took off with Felix and–”

Charmagne
stopped when we entered, and everyone’s anxious eyes turned toward us. Ridge,
gravely quiet, stood at the foot of the staircase.

“We were about
to go looking for you,” said Miles. He took in our disheveled appearance—Felix’s
dirt-streaked clothes and my wild hair—and he said, “Are you both okay?”

“Barely,” said
Felix, taking a seat beside the fireplace. “The witches unleashed some demon
hounds on us. We did have a small conversation before that, however. They said we
betrayed them and they wanted their book returned. We said we didn’t know
anything and asked them what book. They accused us of lying and being thieves,
and then they unleashed hell. The only reason we’re alive is because they let
us live. They wanted us to pass on their message. But they certainly didn’t
make it easy. All they needed was one of us to get out alive.”

“Good job
getting out of there,” said Noah, impressed.

“It was harder
than you think,” said Felix, staring at me. I gazed into the fire and said
nothing but felt everyone’s eyes on me.

“Well,” said
Miles, “We should find out more about this book. Did they give any indication
what it’s about?”

“Just that it
belonged to them. They said it was rightfully theirs, and they want it back,”
said Felix.

“Rightfully
theirs,” repeated Charmagne, lost in thought. “What book would belong to them?”

“They’re witches,
so they’re descendants of Anseis. It could be something related to their blood
line,” said Felix. “Or it could just be a book of spells particular to their
coven. It could be anything, really.”

Miles’ jaw
slackened, and he and Noah shared a look. “Surely they can’t mean …” said
Miles.

“What is it?”
said Charmagne.

Miles looked at
her. “You don’t suppose they mean the Book of Avelina, do you?”

She looked as
dumbfounded as he did. “That could very well be. But why would they think we
have it?”

“Maybe they
think Gretchen took it,” I said.

“What use would
Gretchen have for it?” said Felix. “She’s a fire paladin. I don’t believe for a
second that she would have taken that grimoire.”

“But all signs
point to her going to the Garden of Hecate. She was there for a reason,” I
said.

“No,” said
Charmagne, resoundingly shaking her head. “If Gretchen went to them, they were
luring her there for some reason. To take her power, perhaps.”

“Can witches do
that? Take another paladin’s ability?” said Noah.

“It’s possible
they found a spell in the grimoire that could do such a thing,” said Charmagne.
“Maybe she … came to and made off with the book?”

“Just the same,”
started Miles, but he was interrupted by a loud thud coming from upstairs.         

Ridge ran toward
the noise, and we all followed. It came from Danielle’s room, and when we
entered, it was ghastly how frail and sickly the girl had become. Her face was as
pale as the moon, except for the dark circles under her eyes. Locks of sweaty hair
clung to her head and neck.

Ridge picked her
up off the floor and put her back in the bed. Her room looked off somehow, like
it needed a good cleaning, or things weren’t as bright as before. I supposed it
was just the dim lighting coming from the hallway.

Charmagne sat
beside Danielle and pushed her hair away from her face and kissed her forehead.
She looked at Miles. “They’re killing her. I want them dead.”

***

I awoke in the
middle of the night to the sound of glass breaking downstairs and feet running
in the hallway. I staggered out of bed to see Miles and Charmagne heading
downstairs. Noah and Ridge had run into the living room ahead of us, and there
we found an injured barn owl flapping around on the floor near some broken
glass next to the fire place. Its wing was bleeding, and there was a note tied
to its leg.

“You guys see
that?”  I said, pointing at the note.

Noah wasted no
time in scooping up the owl, turning it upside down and taking off the note. He
was about to toss the owl back through the window.

“Wait,” I said.
I placed my hand on its wing while Noah kept it from squirming too much. In a
few moments, it was healed. The owl thanked me by biting my finger.

“Damnit!” I
hissed, sucking on the tip of my finger.

Noah chuckled
and carefully tossed the bird out the window.

“What does it
say?” said Miles.

Noah unfolded
the note. “It’s in French.” He handed it to Charmagne.

Her face dropped
as she read aloud: “When the devil’s hour comes upon you, one will turn against
the others. Give it back.”

“What’s the
devil’s hour?” I said.

“Three AM,” said
Miles, looking at his watch. “That’s a little less than an hour from now.”

Charmagne put
her hand to her throat, her eyes wide with fear. “Ridge. Bring Danielle here.
We must all stay together.”

As he left,
Miles said, “Yes. Stay together. Everyone be on high alert.”

“How can they
make one of us turn on the others?” said Noah.

“They have
ways,” said Charmagne. “They’ll do whatever is in their power to get what they
want.”

“We need to find
what they want, then,” I said. “We need to find that book.”

“We need to find
Gretchen first,” said Miles.

Noah and Ridge
kept watch at the windows, staring out into the night like silent guards.
Charmagne, Miles and I sat and waited, hardly speaking to one another. I kept
glancing at the clock over the mantle. I’d think twenty minutes had gone by,
but it would only be two or three minutes.

After what
seemed an eternity, it was one minute until 3:00. The second hand on the clock
painfully glided past the numerals, finally reaching the twelve. The clock
struck three. We all faced each other. Charmagne was on the sofa with Danielle,
holding her hand. It was too quiet. I was barely aware of my own breath.

Miles was the
first one to notice it. He pointed a finger toward the window the owl had
crashed through. Seeping in through the hole was a white fog. It crept in
through the other window, too.

“Nobody move,”
said Miles.

As the fog
filled the room, I recognized the smell right away: wet earth. My heart beat
harder in my chest. My tongue was dry. I couldn’t swallow. Before the fog
consumed the whole room, I saw Noah coming toward me. I felt his hand grab mine
and squeeze it reassuringly.

“Everyone all here?”
said Miles. I noticed his voice was slightly panicked.

“Danielle and I
are here,” said Charmagne.

“Here,” said
Ridge.

“Here,” I said.

Noah did not
respond. I squeezed his hand but realized it didn’t feel like a human hand. It
was slick and scaly. I let go and looked over my shoulder through the white
blanket of fog. There were two monstrous gray eyes staring back at me, moving
closer.

I screamed and
jumped up, edging my way toward the foyer. The whole house was consumed by the
fog. “Miles!”

The only
response I got was a snarl and growl, unlike any animal I ever heard. It was
something not of this world. There were two of them, and then a third. I shrank
back against the doorway between the living room and the foyer. I saw several
figures heading for me, all with horrible eyes and sharp teeth. They were
smelling for me in the fog.

I raised my
hands and tried to drain one. It fell to the floor. I would have kept draining
to kill it, but two of them rushed toward me.

I felt my way to
the front door, opened it and took off running. There was no fog here, just the
dark forest with enough moonlight for me to see.

I heard them
behind me, and I thought of the demon hounds Felix and I faced. These were
different. They stalked after me with humanoid bodies, green and black scales
and those demonic eyes.

I tore through
the woods, dodging brush, kicking up leaves. They screamed at me with their
inhuman voices, gaining on me. I finally found a place where I thought I lost
them. I hid behind a grove of large trees with thick trunks. My heart was about
to pound out of my chest. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and listened. I
couldn’t hear them.

But there were
other sounds. Tiny rustling in the leaves, and small, gravely voices that
laughed in whispers somewhere in the trees. And as I stared at the trunks, I
realized they had eyes that stared back at me. They moved with me as I shifted
my head. The branches bowed lower and lower, reaching out for me.

I crawled
backward in horror, trying to gain my footing to run away, but slipping on the dead
leaves. I heard a baby crying behind me in the rotting hollow of an ancient
tree trunk. I peered inside to see it wasn’t a baby, but a barn owl, the same
one that crashed through the window. It bit me again and flew away.

I watched the
blood slowly drip down my finger as the branches edged closer for me. In the
distance, I heard the creatures approaching. I felt myself sinking and laid my
head on a pile of forest leaves.