Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (8 page)

Seven
years later …

Her life poured out of her. Not just her
blood, but everything that made her good, every bit of light that encompassed
who she was. He felt it slip away from her body. The panic and fear smothered
him, rattling him from the inside out. Something was crushing his chest, and he
found it too hard to breathe. He took her hand in his and whispered, “No, no, don’t
go. Please, baby, don’t go.”

He cradled her body in his arms and laid
her down in his car. When he got to Miles’ house, he put her on the big table
in the living room.

“Hurry!” he told Miles.

He stood, as distraught as Noah, looking
just above her body. “The Guardians have come for her. I’m sorry.”

“No! It’s not too late!”

“It is! I’m sorry, but I can’t do
anything for her.”

“What’s going on?” Ruby had just entered
the foyer from the kitchen. Her bag was slung over her shoulder, but when she
saw the body and all the blood on the table, her shoulders slouched, and the
bag fell to the floor. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, and then ran over to them.

“Can you help her?” said Noah, tears
running down his cheeks.

“She can’t,” said Miles.

“Ruby, look at me!” said Noah, grabbing
her shoulders and turning her toward him. Her eyes found his. “Can you help
her?!”

“I … I think I can keep her soul from
leaving, but only for a little while.”

“No!” said Miles. “I forbid it. If you
do that, it’ll damn you forev—”

“It won’t! Not if I control it. But
Noah, you’ll have to do exactly what I say. You can save her, but you’ll turn
dark.”

“I don’t care! Whatever it takes.”

While Ruby prepared the body, Noah did
as instructed. He hunted down the man who shot her. He was in Metairie. Noah
peered through the living room window. The guy was packing a suitcase and
yelling at a woman.

Noah kicked the door open in one motion.
The woman screamed. The man grabbed a shotgun and aimed at him, but Noah was
faster. As soon as he had the guy in his bare hands, the instinct for revenge
took over. He became a savage animal, ripping him apart while the woman
screamed behind him. When he was done, he scooped up some blood in a vial Ruby
had given him and then rushed back to Miles’ house.

Ruby stood with her eyes closed, her
hands just above the body. There was white and black powder on the forehead,
mouth, and chest. White and black candles burned on each corner of the table.
Miles was off to the side, nervously pacing back and forth.

“I got it,” said Noah. His voice was
thick with grief.

Miles saw the blood all over Noah’s
shirt and hands. “Is he still alive?”

Noah paid him no attention. He looked at
Ruby. “What do I do?”

Miles stood in front of him and grasped
his shoulders. “Is he still alive?!”

“No! I killed him! He deserved it,
Miles!” His voice quivered, and tears seeped from his eyes. “You know he did.”
He whispered the last part.

Miles let him go and stared at him. Noah
registered the disappointment in his eyes, but there was something else. Miles
was afraid.

Ruby looked at Miles. “After he does
what I tell him, you’ll have to heal her wound when she comes to.” He nodded,
and Ruby picked up a dagger from the table and handed it to Noah. “Cut your
forearm.”

Noah hesitated only slightly, glancing
at Miles who reluctantly nodded for him to go ahead. He took the blade, jabbed
it into his arm and cut from the crease, stopping an inch before his wrist. He
gritted his teeth and groaned in pain.

“Take your blood, mix it with his blood,
and make a cross over her head, her mouth, and her heart.” After he mixed the
blood and marked the crosses, she handed him a piece of paper and said, “Say
this nine times aloud, then put some blood on your lips and kiss her mouth.”

With a shaking hand, Noah held up the
paper. “By the powers that be, I ask for Nadia Ancelet to come back to me.
Return her soul by any means necessary. I take full responsibility.” He said it
eight more times and then dipped his fingers in the blood mixture.

The bitter metallic taste coated his
lips, and he placed them to hers. Nadia’s body arched and her eyes flew open.
She gasped for air.

Ruby clasped her hands to her own mouth
and tears fell from her eyes.

Miles could only stare, awestruck.

Noah smiled as Nadia’s eyes found his.
“Welcome back, Naddie,” he murmured.

***

Present day …

The pain …
blood, so much blood … his mother crying for him … crying … dying …
        

… and then
her
face, her
touch, her eyes, the image of her smoking a cigarette down by the pier, slow
dancing with her, laughing together … his constant … “Nadia, nothing about
being like them is beautiful.”

Noah awoke with
a start, drenched in sweat. He had just had the dream again.

He threw the
covers off and got out of bed. Standing for a moment in the dark, the image of
Nadia was all he could see in his mind’s eye. He had trained himself to see her
when he had nightmares. It always comforted him, but lately the nightmares were
intense, and the feelings lingered somewhere in that dark place of his psyche.

He went
downstairs, not needing to turn on the light thanks to his gift he inherited
from his mother. He opened the refrigerator and stared blankly at the leftovers
and juice before realizing he was just anxious, not hungry. He sighed and
returned to his bed with the intention of reading and even picked up his
paperback of Matheson’s “The Incredible Shrinking Man” that he kept by his
night stand, but changed his mind when he glimpsed Nadia’s picture in the
corner of his eye.

Putting the
bookmark back at the start of chapter twelve, he picked up the frame and stared
sadly at her smiling face. He had taken that picture one day when they had gone
to City Park, the same park where she was killed by one of his own kind.

Staring at her
picture, he felt himself about to break down and sob, but part of him wouldn’t
allow it, and instead his desire overtook him, washing over him, turning to
lust, and he wanted her so badly right now, wanted to make love to her like he
did all those years ago when they were stupid teenagers clinging to each other
because they were both orphans, before she made her decision to join the
convent, back when desire and love were the only things that mattered.

“Nothing about
being like them is beautiful,” he whispered to her silent, smiling face.

He put the frame
back on the night stand, bumping his phone with his hand. He picked it up and
saw he had a text message from several hours earlier, when he was asleep. It
was from Leigh, a reply to the question he had asked.

No
, was all it
said.

It was a little
before 4:00 AM. He showered and stayed up, reading, watching TV, light
exercise. Anything to keep his mind busy.

He went to
Miles’ house a couple of hours later and found him eating breakfast at the
kitchen table.

Miles took one
look at him and said, “You look terrible. Everything okay?”

Noah smiled but
not with his eyes “Thanks. And you’re not exactly a ball of sunshine yourself .”

“Another rough
night?”

Noah nodded,
putting some bread in the toaster. “More dreams.”

“They’ve been
more frequent lately. So have mine.” After a moment of careful consideration,
he said, “I had asked you before what they were about, but you dodged the
question. Are they about Nadia?”

Noah glanced at
Miles in the corner of his eye before quickly looking at the toaster. “No. Not
in the beginning, anyway. Lately it’s been about my mom and things that
happened to her before I was born.”

“The night you
were conceived?”

Noah clinched
his jaw, and he walked over to Miles’s refrigerator and pulled out the orange
juice, closing the door a little harder than normally.

“I know you’d
rather not talk about this, but it might be important.”

Noah unscrewed
the cap and took a big gulp. “How…how can I see what happened that night if I
wasn’t there? Am I subconsciously projecting what I only
think
it was
like?”

Miles shrugged.

“Well that’s
helpful.”

He smiled. “I’m
sorry, my friend. I’m just as confused as you are. But let’s not brush it off
as mere dreams. It seems as though there’s been a good bit of this type of
thing happening lately.”

“What? Weird
dreams?”

“
Prophetic
dreams
and the like.” Seeing Noah’s quizzical look, he added, “Cee Cee told me about a
year ago, when Leigh returned to Louisiana after her brother died, she began
having dreams that her mother was talking to her, and she also had dreams where
her niece was in danger. About that same time, Father Ben told me that Lucas
Castille’s son, Jonathan, was having nightmares about Walter Savoy and then
about his father being killed here in New Orleans. Ben said he believed that
Jonathan’s Down’s syndrome might have crossed with his paladin blood line and
given him an extra ability, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Anyone else dreaming
stuff like that?”

Miles nodded. “I
am. But mine are a little different. I keep getting phone calls in the middle
of the night. I hear a voice on the other end of the line. It sounds familiar,
but I can’t place it. And then I wake up, and there’s no evidence to show that
I’d received a call.”

“What’s the
voice say?”

“That we need to
go to Paris.”

“So that’s why
you’ve been in such a hurry to go.”

“That and
because of those damned masks.”

“You still have
them, though, right?”

“Oh yes. They’re
in my vault. But we still don’t know who sent them.”

“Leigh said no,
by the way.”

“I figured she
would. We need to take a trip out there and convince her. In these dreams I
have with the voice telling me to go to Paris, it tells me that Leigh’s family
is in danger and she needs to come with us to save them.”

“Then I’ll help
you get her there.”

She had been hearing gun shots all day.
It was hunting season, and their house was on the edge of the woods. Daddy told
her she could play outside, but not to wander out of the back yard, especially
not to go into the woods. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes hunters would
cross the property line if they saw a big buck on the other side. Most of the
guys Daddy knew stayed in their deer stands on their own property, but every
now and then, some of the trackers would pretend not to see the signs posted.

Today was one of
those days.

Two loud shots
rang out. She covered her ears after the first shot, but they were close enough
that she felt her chest vibrate. Someone had definitely crossed the property
line. She was going to go tell Mama, but the sound of rustling leaves from the
tree line made her halt, and her curiosity got the best of her.

She crept up to
the edge of the woods and peered through the shadows made by the leaf canopy.
Tiny sun rays danced on the fallen leaves with every sway of branch, making it
difficult to distinguish movement at first. But soon the little fawn came into
view. It staggered and fell, breathing quickly before picking itself back up,
only to fall again. From where she stood, she could just make out a spray of
tiny holes on its side, where blood trickled out.

Knowing she
would get punished if she crossed the tree line only made her hesitate for a
moment. But she knew that she couldn’t let that poor little thing suffer and
die alone. She went to the fawn, afraid to touch it at first. It made a strange
sound, and she couldn’t tell if it was wheezing or crying. Before she knew it,
tears were falling down her cheeks. She cradled the fawn’s head in her lap and
stroked its soft fur.

“I’m
sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

Daddy killed a
buck every fall. Just one. It was enough to feed the family all winter. He
didn’t take pictures with it or put its head on the wall. He only took what he
needed, and they always thanked God for the gift that was provided. He never
shot at a doe, especially one with fawns.

She cried for
the little thing in her lap and watched its chest rise and fall rapidly. She
prayed for its pain to end, for its suffering to go away quickly. Over and over
she repeated her prayer, “Please, God, no more pain.”

She was hardly
aware of the warmth in her hands.

As she stroked
its fur and sobbed, she was finally aware of the heat, but there was no pain.
Soon, the heat was inside of her, and she felt like she would burn up. Through
blurry eyes, she saw something miraculous happen: tiny silver pellets bubbled
up from the fawn’s wounds and spilled out onto the red and brown leaves. The
blood ceased to trickle, and the animal’s breathing slowed.

She sniffled and
stopped crying. The heat in her hands subsided, and the fawn shakily stood up
and blinked at her.

When Daddy came
home from work later that day, he was introduced to his daughter’s new pet.
Mama couldn’t help but giggle at his expression.

“Can we,
Daddy?!” his daughter begged.

After some
coaxing from Mama, he said, “Okay, Lyla. But just until she’s big enough
to take care of herself, okay?”

“Yay!”

***

“Hey, Lyla!
Heal
this
!”

She turned
around just in time for a dead mouse to hit her in the face. Ignoring the
laughter from the kids around her, she scooped up the mouse, thinking it might
have been alive, but it had already passed. The boys had been teasing the girls
who all screamed at the sight of it. Lyla was the only one who didn’t scream
and carry on. This made her a bigger target, and now even the girls laughed at
her.

Not wanting the
boys to keep throwing it around, she tossed the little body over the fence,
careful to aim for the flower bed.

“You gonna
date that mouse, Lyla?” It was Logan Williams, the one who bullied her the
most.

“I bet you
wanna marry it, huh?” added Taylor Marcantel, who had a huge crush on
Logan. She stood there with a disgusted sneer on her face, a hungry look in her
eyes. It was the look kids get when there’s a fight about to start—when they
want
a fight to start. It was the look of a pack of wolves getting ready to take
down a deer.

Lyla tried not
to show her embarrassment but felt her cheeks flush anyway. She didn’t want to
give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry, so she walked away with her head
down, counting the lines in the cement walkway to keep from hearing what they
were shouting as they followed her.

Taylor and her
best friend Tanya skipped on either side of Lyla and sang in unison to the tune
of
Frosty the Snowman
: “Ly-la, the freak show! What a stu-pid,
ug-ly girl! She makes love to mice and to the rats that eat her eyes and nose!
Oh, Ly-la, the freak show! …”

She saw Miss
Doris and Miss Lydia on duty by the gym. They were chatting with each other,
laughing about something. Lyla kept a calm, even pace and changed course for
the gym. If she ran to tell the teachers that would just make it worse later.
But if she got close enough to them, the other kids would hang back.

Taylor and Tanya
stopped their singing, but kept skipping. Logan’s best friends, Bobby and
Skeeter, hung behind him, laughing because Skeeter had just spit in Lyla’s
hair.

Why won’t the
teachers look this way? Why don’t they shut up for two seconds and look this
way and see what they’re doing to me?!

Logan said,
“Why are you so ugly, Lyla? Why are you so stupid? I’m gonna come to your
house while you’re sleeping. Know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna fill your bed
with rats and mice.”

Almost there.
Don’t run. It’ll be worse if you run.

“And you know
who’s gonna stop me?” continued Logan. “Not your mom and dad! They
couldn’t stop
anything
. They suck at being cops!” The other kids
all laughed. “Maybe that little retard friend of yours will save
you.”

More laughter.

Lyla rounded on
Logan and punched him in the face, clipping his nose. He would have fallen to
the ground if Bobby hadn’t caught him. He felt his nose and checked his hand.
There was blood coming from his left nostril.

“Lyla!”
It was Miss Lydia from near the gym.

Taylor pushed
Lyla down and kicked her leg. “You stupid freak!”

Lyla grabbed a
handful of dirt and threw it in Taylor’s face, getting some in her eyes. Taylor
screamed.

Lyla started to
get up, but Logan tackled her, and the two started going at it: hair pulling,
fists flying, yelling, kicking, biting.

Just before Miss
Lydia and Miss Dorris arrived to break up the fight, Lyla grabbed a handful of
dirt and shoved it in Logan’s face. He swallowed some of it and rolled over in
a coughing fit.

***

Lyla sat in the
plastic chair in the hall, staring at the floor outside the nurse’s office.
Logan was treated first because he was in worse shape. When the nurse was
finished with him, he was sent to the principal’s office to wait for one of his
parents to come pick him up. Taylor was mostly fine, but Miss Lydia took her to
the girl’s restroom to flush her eyes with water.

Lyla had gotten
the lecture about fighting from Miss Dorris, who sat in another plastic chair,
waiting for the nurse to come out and get Lyla. Miss Dorris, two years from
retirement, scolded Lyla for starting the fight, telling her that violence is
not an option when others are calling you names. She concluded the lecture with
the old saying, “Sticks and stone may break your bones, but names will
never hurt.”

Liar
.

Nurse Philip had
left his position at the school to work at a hospital in Shreveport at the
beginning of the school year. Lyla was sad to see him go. She had been in one
other fight before this (the first of many to come over the next couple of
years), and Nurse Philip was sympathetic, saying that he used to be bullied,
too. He joked around with her and told her to keep her head up. She even
thought he was pretty cute.

There was a new
nurse whom Lyla had never met. She was very pretty. Long blond hair, blue-eyed,
gorgeous smile, about thirty. When she stepped into the hall to call Lyla into
her office, a heavy French accent fell from her lips.

“Go ahead
and sit up here,” she said, patting the paper-lined patient table.

Lyla set her
booksack down, boosted herself up and waited while the nurse—Eloise, according
to her school badge—gathered her materials. The office smelled different from
the last time she was there. Nurse Eloise wore a ton of flowery perfume, but
there was something else beyond the scent of gardenias. It reminded her of the
time she and Jonathan dug for earth worms on the edge of a meadow once when
their parents took them fishing. There were wild gardenias nearby. After they
had collected enough worms, they went to pick some flowers, but found a wasp
nest. They screamed and laughed as they ran away, lucky that they hadn’t gotten
stung.

“So,”
said Eloise, “You seem to have won your fight, no?”

Lyla, who was
mentally still in a meadow digging for earth worms, said, “What?”

She brought some
cotton balls and alcohol to the silver tray near the table. Lyla winced when
she saw the alcohol. “You won your fight I believe,” said Eloise,
taking Lyla’s chin in her gloved hand and gently turning her head to the side.
“The other boy looked worse. You just have a little cut below your eye and
some swelling. Not too bad, no?”

Lyla shrugged
and stared at the floor.

Eloise smiled
and patted her knee. “We’ll get you all fixed up.”

When she was
done, Lyla opened the door to head for the principal’s office. She dreaded
seeing who was there. It wasn’t so much that she would be in trouble. She hated
seeing the disappointed look in her parents’ eyes.

Eloise was
taking off her gloves to throw them in the trash when Lyla turned around to go
back for her book sack by the table. When she turned, she saw Eloise’s profile
and something that made her gasp: a tiny black spider had crawled out of the
corner of the nurse’s mouth. It scurried away from her lips, down her slender
neck and then into her shirt.

Hearing the
gasp, Eloise turned to Lyla and furrowed her brows when she saw the little girl
staring at her. “What is it?” She smiled, a puzzled look on her face.

“My book sack.
I …” She picked it up off the floor and headed back for the door.
“Um, thanks.”

“You’re
quite welcome,” said Eloise, still smiling, puzzled.

Lyla closed the
door and went to the office where Maw Maw Clo was waiting for her. She looked
pissed.

That night, Lyla
dreamed that millions of tiny black spiders were crawling over her house,
through the chimney, coming out of the faucets and the toilets. It creeped her
out, but what made her wake up and scream was the part where the tiny spiders
started coming out of her parents’ mouths as they sat in their recliners,
watching TV like everything was normal.

***

Mom and Dad were
talking about Uncle Lucas needing to find a woman, that it was a shame he was
single. Mama let a bad word slip about Jonathan’s mom, and Dad corrected her.

“She can’t
hear us. She’s out like a light,” whispered Mom.

But she wasn’t.
Not yet. She was lying uncomfortably in the back seat with the belt fastened
across her lap, her eyes closed, almost drifting off while Mom and Dad spoke in
hushed voices, and the radio droned softly with commercials on the oldies
station. She and Jonathan had worn themselves out swimming and playing in Uncle
Lucas’ new pool.

She was just
about asleep when Mom yelled, “David!”

Lyla was jolted
violently to the side and would have crashed into the door if not for her seat
belt, though she did feel like someone had punched her on the side of her gut.
The car felt like the Tilt o’ Whirl at the fair for a few seconds, swerving out
of control before it careened into a ditch, hitting a cement culvert with a
loud crash. Her body wanted to propel itself forward, but it was stopped again
by the seat belt, once more feeling like a punch in the stomach. Tiny shards of
glass flew at her face, slicing into her skin and piercing her eyes.

She screamed and
put her hands to her face. Every tear that welled up in her eyes stung like
someone stabbing them with hot needles. The cuts on her skin burned every time
the salt hit them. She panicked for a second, but remembered what she could do.
She cupped her hands over her eyes and felt her palms heat up until it was
coursing throughout her body. The tiny shards of glass slipped through her
lashes with her tears until her eyes were cleaned out, and she felt the wounds
close up on her face. Even the pain in her gut subsided.

Realizing she
could see again, she removed her hands and understood why Mom and Dad hadn’t
made a sound yet.