Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (4 page)

Miles
waited until they were driving away to answer. “Andrew—the tribal elder—told me
Billiot murdered another member. He went to prison but got a reduced sentence
for confessing to manslaughter. When he got out, Andrew kicked him out of the
tribe.”

“Who’d
he kill?”

“His
father.”

Noah
was at a loss for words for a moment. “Why?”

“That’s
what I want to know. Andrew politely told me it was tribal business and that he
couldn’t share it with me.”

“You
think his sister will tell us?”

“If
she’s alive, I hope so.”

“Have
any ideas where to look?”

“I
think we need to include Abbeville in our little road trip.”

They pulled into
a long driveway out in the country off Highway 167 in Abbeville. The rocky
driveway was lined with pine trees and led to an old house with chipped white
paint. In front was a large pond with the branches of a mayhaw reaching across
the surface. There were two cars already there. Miles had Noah park near them. They
went up the front steps of the porch, and Miles rang the doorbell. Noah didn’t
understand why Miles looked uneasy.

A short, old
lady with snowy auburn hair answered the door. When she saw Miles, her eyes widened
and her jaw slackened.  

“Hello, Miss
Clothilde,” said Miles.

The woman’s lips
pursed into a thin line and her eyes grew hard.

“I’m very sorry
to show up unannounced, but I needed to speak with you about Andrew Verret.”

The woman was
about to say something—Noah figured it was going to be something unpleasant—but
just then a little girl of about twelve came up behind the woman and said, “Maw
Maw, me and David want to go fishing. Can we borrow Paw Paw’s old poles and go
out to the bayou?”

Miles looked
like his heart stopped when he looked down at the girl with the red hair and
green eyes. He couldn’t look away from her.

“’
May
David
and
I’
,” corrected a young woman with blond hair who came up behind the
girl.

“
May
David
and
I
,” repeated the girl, frustrated. “Can we, Maw Maw?”

“I told them all
the fish were hibernating for the winter, but …” The young woman stopped when
she saw Miles, and she looked as surprised as Clothilde when she first opened
the door. Her eyes met his, and they shared a look that was a strange mix of
fear and fond nostalgia.

“
Maw Maw
?”

“Yes. Y’all go,”
said Clothilde, ushering the girl away. “Make sure to wear your coats!”

Miles watched
her leave, his mouth turning downward. The young woman rested her hand against
her chest and tilted her head tenderly, smiling sadly at Miles.

“You should
leave,” said Clothilde.

“Mama!” said the
young woman in a hushed voice.

“No, I’m sorry.
I didn’t know …” said Miles. “I’m sorry, Mary.”

“Miles, it’s
okay,” she said, smiling radiantly. “It really is.”

“Baby, you
coming?” A man’s voice called out from inside the house.

“Yeah! Be right
there,” said Mary.

Miles looked
like a tiny knife stabbed him in his heart. Mary’s sad smile returned.

“I just need to speak
with your mother,” he said.

Mary nodded. “Be
nice, Mama,” she told her, and then retreated into the house.

Clothilde
stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She barely gave Noah a
glance and refused to look at Miles. She sat on a rocking chair and looked out
at the pond. Miles leaned against a post, and Noah sat on the front steps and
looked out at the property, letting Miles do all the talking.

“Please forgive
my intrusion,” said Miles.

“What did you
need?” Her voice was stiff and just polite enough.

“In the time you
knew Andrew Verret, did he ever mention someone named Joe Billiot?”

She thought for
a second, still staring at the pond. “That Thomas Billiot’s son?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know
much about him. I knew of Thomas, though. When Andrew was teaching me to be a
traiteur, he was called away one evening for an emergency council meeting. Next
time I saw him, he wasn’t the same man. He was … broken inside, I guess you’d
say. Said that he had to make a hard decision. I asked him about it, but he
couldn’t talk about tribal business. It was his wife Joyce who told me.” She
stopped to look at Miles.

“I know that his
son, Joe, killed him. I just don’t know why. I think, though, it had something
to do with him being a skin walker.”

She looked back
at the pond. “That’s part of it, yes. But Joe had been knowing that. He was a
young man at the time. He grew up knowing that’s what his daddy was. But Thomas
started to change. He got meaner and started taking it out on the children.”

“Joe and Millie.
I didn’t know until very recently that he had a daughter.”

“She had very
little schooling. After their mama died when she was eleven, Thomas relied on
her to take care of the house while he went to work. One day, when she was about
seventeen, he found out she got pregnant. But it was by a married man. That
made Thomas mad. He wanted her to give the babies up, but she wanted to keep
‘em.”

“Twins?”

She nodded.
“Joyce told me—now you understand this is how she heard from Andrew who was at
Joe’s testimony in front of the tribal council—she said Joe had come back from
work to hear Millie screaming from inside the house. He ran to open the door,
but it was locked. He pounded and pounded, yelling at her to unlock the door.
He saw his daddy’s truck there, so he knew he was home. He finally busted open
a window and ran to the kitchen to find Millie on the floor, clutching one baby
to her chest, and Thomas … he had another baby—the boy—laid out dead on the
table next to an opened book.

“Joe said there
was a shadow over his daddy’s face. Not like you could see, but you knew it was
there. He yelled at his daddy to stop what he was doing, but it’s like he
couldn’t hear him. He flew into a rage and tore after Thomas, hitting him,
kicking him. Thomas’ eyes started to glow, and Joe knew what was coming. Thomas
turned into a wolf and attacked his son. Last thing Joe saw before he passed
out from the blood loss was Millie crawling through the window with her baby
girl.

“Joe came to
sometime later. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was light enough to see. The
kitchen was a mess. The baby was gone from the table. He stumbled outside and
saw his daddy’s truck was gone. He called out for Millie. He found her, shaken
and pale, clutching her baby in his truck with the doors locked. It looked like
she hadn’t slept at all. His windshield was smashed, and there was a big stick
nearby. There were bloody paw marks all over the hood. He figured Thomas was
trying to get at her and then finally gave up.

“He got her to
open the door for her, and he drove her to his friend’s house in Lafayette. And
then he went home, loaded his gun with bullets he had dipped in white ash—best
way to kill a skin walker—and he waited. Thomas showed up that night. As soon
as he opened the front door, Joe shot him.”

There was a long
moment of silence when she finished talking. Miles said, “The father of
Millie’s children … what was his name?”

She searched her
memory. “He was a Thibodeaux. That’s all I remember.”

Noah gave Miles
an uneasy glance.

“Do you know
what happened to Millie?” said Miles.

“Joyce said
Andrew went looking for her a couple weeks after Joe killed Thomas. He wanted
to help her and her baby, but Joe’s friend said Millie gave her baby girl away
to protect her, and then she left. We don’t know who she gave the baby to, but
as it turns out, Millie got a job working as a seamstress at a dress store
owned by my friend Ya. I told Andrew. He went to her to offer her any help from
the tribe, but she turned him down. Said she just wanted to move on with her
life. He insisted, though, and gave her a house that belonged to his brother
who died the year before.

“Ya closed that
store about fifteen years ago. I don’t know if Millie moved away, but she was living
in Andrew’s brother’s house out in Palmetto Island. Ya’s store was in Perry, a
little south of here. Palmetto Island is south of that. Just stay on highway
eighty-two. Take a left after you cross the bridge and stay on highway
six-ninety until you pass Pleasant Drive. It’ll be the first house on your
right not far after that. It’s set far back from the road, so look for the
mailbox.”

Clothilde got up
from her rocking chair and opened the front door, stepping inside her house. “That’s
all I know, Miles. Please don’t come back here unannounced again.” She gently
closed the door.

***

They found the
house just where Clothilde said it would be. Miles had Noah pull the car into
the long, overgrown driveway. The day was growing older, and late afternoon shadows
pooled around nooks and crannies. The house was a flat, built up on blocks,
with red brick and small windows. It wasn’t much to look at, but it seemed
sturdy enough to withstand hurricane weather. An old car from the late eighties
was parked under a shed connected to the house.

Miles got out
and walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell. Noah sighed, grabbed the
doll, and joined him on the porch.

The door opened.
Standing before them was a petite woman of about forty with wide-set eyes and a
small, hard mouth that looked like it hadn’t smiled in years. Her tanned skin
was creased with too many wrinkles for someone her age.

“Millie
Billiot?” said Miles.

“Who wants to
know?” she said.

Miles took the
doll from Noah and held it out for her. “Your brother gave us this to give to
you.”

Her mouth fell
open slightly as her small hand gingerly reached out for the doll, and she
cradled it lovingly in her arms, lost in perhaps the only good memory she ever
had.

Noah glanced
uneasily at Miles, but he shook his head faintly, indicating for him to give
her a moment.

Finally she
looked up at Miles, the doll still in her arms. “Joey sent this?”

Miles nodded.
“He misses you.”

The look on her
face went from confusion to gratitude to joyful sadness in the span of a few
seconds.

“Well, I … I
didn’t even know he was still ali …” Her voice cracked, and she looked down at
the doll again. “Where is he?”

She spoke in the
dreamy voice of someone who has lost touch with reality. Noah shot Miles
another worried glance, but he didn’t notice.

“He’s in the
same place he’s always been,” said Miles.

Her eyes
faltered a second as she searched her memory. She squeezed her eyes shut and
shook her head frantically. “No, no, no. There’s no one there. That’s a bad
place, no one lives there.”

“It’s not a bad
place anymore, Millie. Joe is there.”

She shook her
head harder, her eyes still shut tightly. “No! The bad thing is there!”

“Joe killed the
bad thing. It’s gone. It’s never coming back.”

“You’re lying!
It’s not gone!” She slammed the doll hard against the door frame, dropping it
to the floor of the porch, and shouted, “IT’S STILL HERE!”

Her eyes flew
open and now they were glowing, tiny rings of molten gold. Saliva spilled from
her lips, and her teeth were like small daggers.

Miles raised his
hands and began to drain her energy, but she pounced right away. They fell together
down the steps, rolling onto the ground.

In the split
second it took for Noah to react, he saw her morph into a large cougar that
started clawing and tearing at Miles. She got in a couple of good swipes before
Noah tackled her. They tussled for a moment before Noah body slammed the beast.
It let out a wail of pain.

It rebounded quickly
and swiped at him, clipping his arm. Noah yelled and charged the cat, smashing
it into a tree. It kicked him with its powerful hind legs, its claws sinking
into his abdomen.

It took off into
the woods, and Noah wasted no time in running after it. He heard Miles calling
out from far behind him, telling him to come back, but Noah couldn’t bring
himself to turn back. He shot through the brush and dodged trees and splashed
though the murk of patches of swamp. Her scent was strong, and he followed,
only yards behind.

At last, he
caught up with her. She lay weak and wounded, panting heavily, her rear leg
caught in a hunting snare. She helplessly pawed the ground with her front legs,
trying to pull herself up, but it was no use. Her eyes found his. She was defeated,
and she knew it.

Noah hesitated,
wiping sweat from his face. He was going to kill it. It had tried to kill him,
tried to kill Miles. But now all he could do was look upon this animal with
pity as it whimpered in pain and suffering.

He swallowed hard
and knelt beside the cougar. He hesitantly and gently pried the trap from its
leg.

It growled and
limped away, but turned to look back at him, not with gratitude, but with keen
curiosity.

Noah watched it
fade into the growing shadows and then he returned to Miles.

He hadn’t
realized how much blood he had lost or the extent of his injuries. By the time
he made it back to the house and saw Miles leaning against the car with the
grimoire in his hand, Noah was close to passing out.

Miles wasn’t in
such good shape, either, but he was clearly alarmed when he saw Noah hobbling
toward the car. He rushed to him as Noah collapsed to the ground, holding his
abdomen. Miles lifted his shirt and saw the blood trickling from several
punctures. He went to his car and got out his black case and brought it back to
Noah. He removed his holy water, poured some on his hands and on the wounds,
and he prayed.