The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (39 page)

“Finn, can you reach it?”

She’s right, Finn, we need that! This looks just like your aura. With a piece of this much power, you would be untouchable. You could be the next Genghis Khan! One day, twenty percent of the world’s population could carry your genes!

I snorted at Spring, but Greed took an axe to Thought, Caution, and Fear. It made short work of its opponents and pushed their bloody heaps off to the side. I took a ginger half-step forward and slipped on a smooth dome beneath my foot. I tried to compensate and my other foot landed on something that gave beneath it with a brittle crunch.

I flailed to catch my balance and failed. I fell forward and grabbed for the edge of the stone altar. I caught one forearm of the statue as my feet went out from under me. A piece broke off the arm and I fell into the water. I flailed around some more and jumped back up from the frigid cold.

In my hand I held a shard of flow-stone. It had broken off, leaving a hole in the statue and exposing a smooth, dark surface.

Don't touch it!
yelled Spring as I reached forward and felt the yielding touch of flesh.

Jen's yell expanded my world from that smooth expanse of dark skin.

I looked around just in time to see the school of blue lights pulse with white malevolence and dive at me. Where they hit, they speared through me, leaving trails of white hot anger and cold fear. The fear overwhelmed me.

I screamed, fell back into the water and pulled up my golden shield. I scrambled in the water, got to my feet and ran for the shore, following Jen.

“Go! Go!” I shouted at her.

My shield held the lights back, but I could feel each one of them trying to beat through my defenses. Urgent need, hatred and anger filled them while terror filled me. I splashed through the water, and though I fell a few times, I was soon out of the cavern and back upon the path. A short time later, I realized the assault had stopped. I kept running after Jen just to be sure.

Jen glanced back and then slowed to a stop. The light from her phone failed with a beep as her phone shut down.

“What was that, Finn?” Jen asked.

“There's a woman under th
ere
!”

We need to go back and get that other caduceus, Finn!

“In the world of dumb ideas Spring, that one ranks near the top.”

I'm serious. Those spirits can't get through your shield and the ones who did, didn't do us any damage.

“No, we are not going back.”

Jen stood still, listening to half of our conversation.

But...

“No, we are so not going there, Spring. Whoever is under that stone is still alive. You felt her, too.”

She didn't look so tough.

“Maybe not physically, but she has a caduceus.”

Not if we take it from her.

“Drop it, Spring. It's too dangerous. Whoever or whatever put her there went to a lot of trouble to make her hard to find. All those skeletons should be a good indicator of what happened to people who messed with her.”

“He's right, Spring, this isn't the time,” Jen added. “Maybe we can come back later when there aren't people trying to kill us outside as well.”

Pooh. Cowards.

Yes, but we are live cowards.

When we arrived back at the cellar, I tried as best I could to close the door. It was tough without a handle. Dave was huddled in the nest trying to warm back up. We updated him on what had happened. The caduceus pushed his greed buttons too, but in the end, he agreed with our decision.

“Damn, I wish I’d seen that, but we don’t need another monster running around loose,” he said. “We are going to have to be better equipped before we come back to get it.”

“
If
we come back to get it. Right now, w
e need to find a way to bar this door again,” I said.

“Finn,” said Dave. “In case you forgot, what we really need to do is find a way out of here. Jen’s beast-men of ill intent from her vision are probably searching the church by now.”

“He’s right Finn, we’ve got to get out of here,” said Jen. “We can come back later.”

I shook my head to clear it. Whatever that thing was, it was older than Christianity. If Colette or the other Delacroix found it, they would be devastated, if not killed by its guardians. I couldn’t let that happen.

“On second thought, maybe we should just stay put here,” suggested Dave. “Jen could hide us if anyone comes nosing around. Even better, if it’s Mark’s guys and they start fighting Colette’s family, we can wait here till they kill each other.”

“No, Dave, if Mark is up there, I need to stop him, to help him.”

It quickly became clear that our only course of action was to get to the upper chapel and try to worm past or incapacitate any people in our way.

Jen headed up the stairs. She told us she could sense whether there were people in the room above us. I was impressed. I hadn’t realized she had that skill. She gave us the all clear. We opened the door and hurried out as quietly as possible. My mind was reluctant to leave the cave and drop the memory of soft warm flesh under cold hard stone. I shook it off and made sure to close it back up again before rejoining my friends.

Dave had found a few simple cotton robes adorned with the cross that were worn by those leading the worship. Jen had another in hand and threw one to me. She whispered, “Maybe this will buy us some time if we’re seen.”

“Is anyone out there?” I asked.

She shook her head, and I breathed a sigh of relief. If the intruders had been here, they’d left again. Jen put up her “not my problem” hoodoo, and we hurried to the front of the chapel. After checking with Jen, Dave cracked open the door and looked out onto the courtyard.

He let the door shut. “Nothing going on out there.”

“Could you have made a mistake about the attackers?” I asked Jen.

She scowled. “No. This was the same as when I knew you’d gotten hurt and when your family was attacked. I know what I saw, even if I couldn’t tell who they were.”

“Maybe the religious clowns here are conducting night maneuvers hoping to scare us out?” said Dave with his eye still to the small crack between the closed doors.

Jen pursed her lips, grimaced, and chewed on Dave’s idea like it was a chunk of raw liver.

“That just doesn’t feel right.”

“Maybe they were just performing recon?” I suggested.

Her doubt showed on her face. “It was a lot of people, Finn.”

I didn’t like contradicting her or suggesting I didn’t trust her, but no one was out there. “Maybe it was just a dream?” I asked.

Doubt crept into her face, pushing her eyebrows up at the center. “I don’t know. It didn’t feel that way. When I heard you shouting for me, I came back.”

She sure wasn’t just sleeping Capitaine,
noted Spring. I had to agree with her.

Dave gave a little warning, “Pssst. Someone’s coming.”

“Are they close?” I whispered.

“Hard to tell,” he whispered. “It looked like something was moving near the opening of the courtyard.”

“Come over here,” I said moving to the front right corner of the chapel.

“Just a sec...”

We waited tensely for him to see some other movement. Nothing happened for a very long few minutes while Dave plastered his eye to the small crack.

Every second wound my tension tighter. Something was going to happen.

Dave gave a little curse and then dove over to us as the door started opening carefully. Dave stayed on the ground while Jen and I stood absolutely still. Beside me, Jen stiffened under my hand. She was putting out her cloak of indifference.

The door swung open, letting in a little light from outside. I strained to see what was happening. A strange animalistic silhouette stepped silently into the room and scanned it carefully before it stepped back.

I heard a muffled voice. “Nothing here, sir, it’s not the front door, looks like a church or something.”

I didn’t hear a response, but the door closed quietly, leaving us alone in the room.

“They’re leaving!” whispered Jen.

I whispered back. “He said ‘sir’! It had to be my Uncle Mark.”

“Or a lieutenant,” replied Dave quietly as he got off the floor. “Did you see the mask he was wearing? It was a gas mask.”

“Crap, they’re planning on gassing everyone! The Delacroix won’t stand a chance against that.” I couldn’t let them kill Colette—or her family.

I hopped to the door and put my eye up to the crack. It was so small, I had a hard time believing Dave had seen anything at all. I took a chance and opened the door a tiny amount. Through it, I could only see shadows on the ground and stars in the sky.

I pulled up my Sight and suddenly about a dozen auras flared across the yard.

Sweet,
said Spring enthusiastically.
Now if we only had a sniper rifle...and a bell tower. Then we’d be in luck.

...and any skill at all,
I pointed out.

Hey, we kick butt at Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Far Cry!

Yes, but they’re games designed to let pimply faced kids like me feel powerful.

Oh, yeah. Works pretty well
,
doesn’t it?

Shhh.

I examined the auras more closely, looking for one that was more powerful than the others. I knew that one would be my uncle. The shadow would want him to keep the most power for himself.

It would also coat him in dark black slime.

Oh, right.
I’d forgotten about that. I wondered if I’d be able to see him at all with my Sight.

Wait, of course I would. The Sight doesn’t have anything to do with light. Does it?

A flash of visible light from the southern wing preceded an earsplitting alarm, which pierced right through my brain. Ow.

I guess they finally found the front door.

They sure had. The alarm was followed by a
foomp
and a crash of glass. A dozen spotlights in the courtyard turned the darkness into daylight, highlighting the figures who looked like short Cyclopses with a single protruding eye and the snout of a gas mask. As one, the attackers threw off their night vision goggles and started firing. The shots sounded muffled to me, but it might just have been the noise of the alarm overwhelming everything else. There was a shout from the house, and several of the attackers fell to the gravel.

I shouted over the alarm at Jen. “Come on, we have to find Mark! We have to stop them before good people start dying.”

Dave and I both grabbed one of Jen’s hands, and we ran out into the firefight protected by her hoodoo and my prayer. Instead of moving across the central courtyard, we took the colonnade across from the main entrance. It offered us some measure of protection from the occasional stray bullet.

Several bodies had piled up in the main entrance to the south wing. I couldn’t tell who they were and I couldn’t afford to look. Instead, I searched through the people in the courtyard with my Sight.

Nearly everyone still standing had a bright aura of power, but none of them carried the black weight of Wendigota.

“I don’t see him!”

“Maybe he’s outside the courtyard,” suggested Dave.

I pulled him and Colette forward to the end of the colonnade and looked out to the long winding drive, which lead to the house.

The alarm shut off, allowing my brain to pay a bit more attention to our surroundings. Smoke was now pouring out of the south wing and several family members ran out through the main doors only to be picked off one by one.

Rage filled me. They were killing innocent people. People I knew and loved.

Jen yanked my arm. I whirled on her. She said, “Finn, listen! Someone’s up on the wall above us!”

As she said this, I heard a crack of a rifle above us and a shout of pain from across the courtyard.

I concentrated my senses on the sniper and felt more than saw the unmistakable miasma of a shadow.

“It’s Mark. You two, stay down.”

I ran down the colonnade to the north entrance. The door was locked and barred. I pulled back, poured my power-enhanced will into my limbs, and slammed forward with everything I had. The doors shuddered under the impact but didn’t open, so I did it again, and again. Finally, the heavy doors flew open and I ran into the hall, ignoring the pain in my arms and wrists.

Behind me Dave said, “Slow down! Don’t go after him yourself, you idiot.”

I paid him no heed. My urgent anxiety left no room for caution and thought. I sped down the hall to the stairs, bounded up them three at time, swung back to the front and smashed open the door leading to the top of the wall. I entered the treacherous, tight, spiral at full speed. When I came to the trap door, I smashed both my hands against it and heaved.

Finn, just unbolt it
,
you idiot!

That would take too much time. I smashed against it again and the door flew open to smack on the stone catwalk between the crenellations.

So much for surprise.

I leapt up and landed on my feet facing an anonymous assassin in a black gas mask. He had his gun up and pointed my way. His aura oozed blackness and malice. It came from Wendigota, so the one being ridden had to be my uncle. I dodged randomly as I heard the muffled pop from the gun. A bullet grazed my right shoulder. I accelerated toward him as fast as I could, desperate to reach him before he let loose another bullet. I was too slow.

Another pop and an impact smacked my head back. I weaved, lost my footing and met my uncle’s foot with my face. Everything flashed electric white, then black.

When the darkness faded, I was already up and fighting.

I got it, Spring!
I took back control of my body and jumped back out of Mark’s lethal range. My right leg gave out underneath me with a bowel-loosening grinding of bone and muscle. Apparently, when I wasn’t paying attention, I’d taken a serious blow to the leg. I tumbled back but offset my impact against the stone by slapping my arms down. I was completely out-classed, but I still had some skills.