The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (11 page)

Panic seized me. “What happened? Are you alright?”

She nodded and pointed the gun into the room.

I looked past her and saw a man lying still on the floor.

“Holy... Who’s that?”

“Fergus.”

I walked up to the still form and saw blood had spattered around the man’s head and a pool of it had soaked into the tan carpeting. The whole room had the sharp copper scent of blood and something else. Something that smelled like death. Apparently, Colette wasn’t the source of the smell. Flashbacks of standing over Dave and Gregg’s bloody forms threatened to overwhelm me.

Freak out later dude. Stay with me.

I blinked and forced myself back to the present. I looked back to Colette. “You shot him?”

She stood with her arms limp at her side, the gun pulling down her right arm and shook her head. She looked as shocked as I felt.

“What happened?”

“When I came in, he was here, dead. He is still warm.”

I looked at the corpse and back to her and then to the gun in her hand. Suddenly, I knew what must have happened. “You picked up the gun that shot him?”

She looked at the gun in her hand. “Oui.”

Episodes of CSI came flooding into my brain. “You shouldn’t have touched it! The gun will have your prints on it now.”

“Zey would be on the ze gun anyway.”

“What why?”

“He is my gun.”

I goggled at her. “Why do you have a gun?”

She blinked at me and spoke to me without inflection, “For the protection. Everyone has a gun in the United States.”

I sat down heavily on the bed, looked down at the corpse, and wondered who might have done this. I believed Colette’s story. I could see the truth in her eyes.

I don’t know Finn, maybe she’s a spy! A deadly seductress pulling you in with her feminine wiles.

Oh come on Spring. Why would she be here hanging out with us then? Besides, you know her. In the time we’ve known her, have you ever seen anything to make you think she was capable of this? Has she ever done anything suspicious?

Well, she seems inexplicably attracted to you. That’s pretty suspicious
.

Gee
,
thanks.

Don’t mention it. Once we get some meat on your bones, you’ll make our dead hunk here look like a girlie-boy.

I caught myself starting to think about what she was saying.
Spring! Stop it. We’ve got a real dead guy here. Colette’s not a spy, and she didn’t do this.

I don’t know, but it would be totally rad.

And totally silly. Okay, let me think this through.

I hoped I’d been looking thoughtfully at Fergus as I had my silly conversation with Spring. I asked, “Do you know this guy?”

“It is Fergus.”

Oh, right. She already told me that. “This is the Fergus who was following us?”

“Yes.”

“Well how did he get here first? Who shot him? Why would anyone just shoot him and leave? I’ve got to call the police.” As you might be able to tell, I was a little anxious.

She shook her head. “No! Do not call the police.”

“I have to, Colette, this guy was murdered! His murderer is still out there! He might come back!”

She nodded. “I must leave, and you must come with me.”

“Huh? No! That’s a bad idea. Then the police will be after us, too.”

“Zey will be after me anyway. They will think I shot him.”

“No they won’t! I’ll tell them I was with you all night.”

“But you were not with me all the night, Finn.”

Oh crap, she was right. I hadn’t been here when she came into her room. I thought hard. “Look, I’ll tell them you were with me all night and we came up here together. I know you couldn’t kill someone.”

She eyed me speculatively. “Will they not have the cameras here?”

“Yeeees.” An idea popped into my head. “But, I think I can fix that. I’ve got to go downstairs, but I’ll be back in a few minutes. Can you stay here while I deal with this?”

She lowered her brows. “What are you going to do?”

“Hey, I’m a science guy. I’ll take care of the cameras.”

“Are you sure this is something you can do?”

I nodded emphatically.

You’re going to go to hell if you keep lying like that,
said Spring.

If this is the worst thing I do, I’ve got no problems.

After I left the room, I went over the command I was going to give the night clerk. When you are a gamer like myself, you spend a lot of times thinking about how to phrase wishes, so they couldn’t get turned against you. The key was to think of all the different things that might go wrong and to account for them in the wish. I kept telling myself this wasn’t much different. Once downstairs I went to the front desk. No one was there, so I dinged the little bell. A kid my age came out from around back. His name-tag announced him as Eli. I couldn’t think of any smooth way of asking, so I just said, “Excuse me, but do you have cameras recording the lobby here?”

He nodded and pointed to the camera bubble sticking out from the wall over my head. Okay, so obvious and I were still not talking to each other.

“Are the pictures stored on site or off?”

“On site.”

“Good.” I narrowed my eyes, since that seemed like the thing to do when you were about to use Jedi mind tricks and said, “I want you to do whatever you have to do to destroy everything that has been taped for today and then come back here when you are done.” I put my will into the command and felt the answering heat from my Caduceus as I tapped into its power. My use of the power brought up my sight, and I noted the man’s dull red aura as he turned around and went into the back room. I congratulated myself on my well thought out command and the fact that it actually worked. I didn’t know how they stored the video, so this way, he would do whatever was necessary.

I was dealing with the wave of fatigue that swept through me after the shocks and exertions of the night when I heard a smash in the back and then a series of loud smacks.

Oh crap, what was he doing back there? I ran between the two marble-topped counters and into the back. The kid had a black box on the floor and was busy beating it with a hammer. The box was crushed and dented in places, but it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to destroy it completely. If there were a hard drive in the box, it probably wouldn’t even get damaged.

I hit him with my will. “Stop!”

He did. He just looked at me curiously. “Hey, you shouldn’t be back here.”

“It’s okay, just wait.” This wasn’t part of the plan. I leaned back against wall and waited for my head to clear a bit. I tried to examine my options.

We can burn the place down!

No Spring, we can’t burn the place down. Too many people would be hurt. Now hush, unless you have a suggestion that doesn’t involve hurting anyone.

I got nothin
’.
’

My nerves were jangling, and the noise was interfering with my thinking. It made no sense, but I was sure that any minute now this guy’s supervisor would come walking in. I took a moment before I leaned down, grabbed the box, pulled the cabling off it, and stuck it under my arm.

I looked at Eli. “You have no idea what happened to this box. No one ever came into the back. It’s been a normal, uneventful day. Wait here for a moment, then carry on normally.”

I turned and left unsteadily on rubbery legs. I came through the door just as a man was ringing the bell for service.

“Can I help you sir?” I asked unevenly while trying not to look as dazed as I felt.

Behind me, I heard Eli say, “Hey, you shouldn’t be back here!”

I cringed and gritted my teeth. I commanded them both. “Just stand there and don’t move.”

The man at the front shook his head and said, “What are you talking about?”

Aw, poop on a Pringle. I tried not to collapse from the wave of fatigue that washed through me. I gave the man an ingratiating smile that probably looked more like a death rictus. “I’m sorry sir, it’s been a long day.”

I turned my back to him and prayed that the force was still with me, and that I wouldn’t black out. “Okay, okay, Eli, I’m going home, and you won’t even remember I was here. The desk is yours, please help this man.”

Eli’s brows furrowed at me with confusion, then he turned to the customer and said, “May I help you sir?”

I offered up my thanks to whatever saint represented wizards, fools, and idiots and staggered away with the dented box under my arm. I followed the signs to the stairs, sat down for a couple minutes, then painfully climbed to the second floor. No way was I going to wait and maybe have to take an elevator with another guest. I was worried that I had been gone too long and that Colette had split, or gotten attacked, or something, but I couldn’t push myself any faster.

I walked to her room and knocked on the door. She opened it quickly, and I waddled in with the box while trying to ignore the foul smell.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s the box that holds all the surveillance video. I, uh, snuck it out of the back room.”

“What happened to it?”

“Er, I dropped it?”

Happily, for me she wasn’t really interested in the box. She said, “You are very resourceful. Are you sure that you’re willing to do this for me?”

I nodded emphatically. “Yes, I know you didn’t do this.”

Unless she’s a spy, or a diamond thief.

Colette smiled at me. She gave me an enthusiastic hug and a real kiss that made me forget all about my annoyance at Spring. When we were done, I flopped down on the bed.

“You do not look well, Finn.”

I waived my arm in the air above me. “Oh, just too many adrenalin rushes this evening. I’ll be fine. It was hard to not stare at the body, but Colette and I managed to talk seriously for a moment making sure our stories matched, then we made the call and went down to the lobby. We packed up a bunch of Colette’s things in a carry-on along with the recorder, took it to the car, and hid it in the trunk. When I came back in, Eli was chatting amiably with Colette. I eyed him warily and joined them. He looked up at me, gave a frown, and I got ready to hoodoo him again.

“Sir, is that your car right out front?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, but you aren’t allowed to park there. Could you move it to the parking lot?”

I breathed a sigh of relief, and not too long after I got back to the lobby, the cops showed up. I guess that Colette hadn’t told him what was waiting up in her room because Eli was cool and relaxed up till that point.

When two cruisers with flashing lights pulled up, his eyes bugged out, and he said, “Sorry, I’ve got to go use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” He nearly fled into the back offices. Colette and I shrugged at each other and waited for the officer’s to come in.

Officers Buck and Tandy were the first to arrive. In the last few months, I’d reluctantly become acquainted with a lot of the cops in the city. Buck was thick in the body and a bit pompous, but he wasn’t a bad sort. On the other hand, I rather liked officer Tandy. When I’d been in jail, she’d brought me back a couple of her homemade cookies. That automatically made me her fan. Seeing them side by side, I realized she was a bit thick around the middle as well. Both had graying hair. I guessed them pretty old, somewhere in their mid-forties.

We guided them up to the room, answered their questions, and then we were relegated to the lobby. Several more cars and an ambulance showed up and there was a steady stream of people for a while. Sometime during the general coming and going, Detective Hunter showed up and started running things.

There was some consternation when they discovered the recorder missing. They gave Eli the third degree about it, and he just wilted under the heat of their ire.

Their exchange made me realize something. I slouched down into my chair, put my face in my hands and tried not to groan.

Colette put her hand on my arm and asked, “Finn, are you okay?”

I heaved a big sigh and said, “I’ll tell you later.”

Great idea, Finn. If the killer has been caught on the tape, we can mail it to the police station anonymously.

Well, what if Colette and I are on it coming in at different times?

Can’t you erase that?

I don’t know. It depends on the hard-drive the operating system, and the amount of damage done to the drive. I suppose. God, this sucks.

I didn’t know the half of it. Detective Hunter walked through the entrance and

Detective Hunter stepped up to us.

“Finn, we’ve gotten what we needed from you, you can go home.”

“Okay, thanks.” I stood up to leave. “Come on, Colette.”

Hunter put her hand in front of Colette. “Unfortunately, Miss Delacroix needs to come down to the station with me.”

“But she was with me all night!”

Hunter stared at me through narrowed eyes before she said, “Relax Finn, this has nothing to do with this evening.” Relax? It was all I could do to peel my shoulders off my ears.

I glanced at Colette. She didn’t look frightened, just annoyed.

“So, why do you need her? She’s going to stay with us tonight.”

“Sorry Finn, but there are some irregularities in her passport and I’ve been asked to hold her overnight.”

“But—”

“It is no problem Finn, I will go with her,” said Colette.  She put her hand on my arm and gave me a quick smile. “I will see you tomorrow, no?”

I nodded, suddenly afraid for her. She calmly walked out with one of the officers.

“Finn?” Hunter’s hand touched my shoulders and I jumped. I’d forgotten she was there.

“Huh?”

“Go home, get some sleep. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Okay.” For the first time all night, I felt tired. Dead tired and anxious.

“Why won’t they let me go down and see her? What could Homeland Security want with Colette?” I couldn’t keep the whine out of my voice as I sat at the breakfast table with my mom.

“I don’t know, Finn, maybe this guy in her room was some sort of terrorist?”

“I don’t know. This sucks. If I could just talk to her...” She hadn’t answered her phone or responded to any of my texts.