Centaur Legacy (14 page)

Daniel’s face had turned sheet white,
his jaw hung open, and it looked like he’d seen a ghost. “We gotta’
go, Beau.”

I turned to Daniel and asked, “What’s
wrong. What do you know?”

“I got a call from Cami last night. She
said she was going to South Dakota.”

“Was she okay?”

“I don’t. . . I’m not sure. She and I
argued a little, and I didn’t answer the phone when she called
back. C’mon. We gotta’ go, now!”

I nodded respectfully to
Lacey as a good-bye and rushed out the door after
Daniel.

(Beau Strayer – Daniel’s
house, San Diego, CA)

Daniel drove us to his father’s house.
We knew taking his father’s plane would be the fastest way to get
to Cami, but for that he needed to tell him what we were up to.
When I met Derrick, Daniel’s father, I wasn’t surprised at all.
Daniel looked like a younger version of Derrick, but Derrick’s
demeanor reminded me of my father. There was no mistaking it: he
was a Centaur.

“Daniel, I haven’t seen you in a week,
and now you’re demanding the use of my plane. Why can’t you fly
commercial?”

“I already told you, Dad. We need to
get there fast. Beau’s got his pilot’s license. He’s okay to fly
your jet.” Daniel was stuffing clothes in a backpack standing in
the doorway of the living room.

Derrick eyed me suspiciously. He knew
what I was, as well. “We think my sister’s in danger. I called my
father, but his jet’s in Charleston. It’d be faster for us to take
a commercial flight than it would be to wait for his plane to
arrive. Daniel mentioned we might be able to use yours.”

He grimaced. “I’ve known your sister
since she and Daniel were in the same third grade class, so I can
empathize.” His looked passed me to his son. “I’ve told Daniel, she
isn’t his concern.”

Daniel interrupted, “Dammit, Dad! I
never ask you for anything. I’m asking for this now.”

Derrick looked at Daniel and said, “You
know how I feel about you around her. You know why I feel the way I
do. Why do you need to go?”

“You told me once that if a Centauride
were ever in trouble, it was every Centaur’s responsibility to come
to her aid. Cami’s in trouble.”

“Daniel, you aren’t a
Centaur.”

“Thanks for the reminder, Dad. I almost
forgot.” The fury subsided and his voice lowered when he continued,
“I couldn’t do anything for her when she was in trouble before. I’m
going to do this now, with or without your help.” Daniel bowed his
head and left; I could hear his footsteps climbing the steps to his
room.

“Sorry you had to see that, Beau. Cami
has a way of bringing out the worst in him.”

“It’s okay. He and Cami are really
close.”

“Despite my best efforts to the
contrary.”

“Daniel told me you weren’t in favor of
their friendship. Did she do something that made you feel that
way?”

Derrick snickered. “I’m not human. Just
because I couldn’t carry my bloodline doesn’t mean that I don’t
honor the traditions Zeus set down for us. She didn’t have any
business befriending a male human.”

“Did you know who her mother
was?”

“Do I look like an imbecile? Of course,
I knew she was Angela Chiron.”

“But you never told anyone.”

He shook his head. “I wanted to. I
wanted to call Angela’s mother a hundred times. When I met Angela,
I couldn’t believe she was a single parent working as a waitress.
She was a Chiron. She was our generation’s Centauride. She had
responsibilities to our society.”

“But you never called?”

“No. She and I spoke one evening when
the kids were young. Like everyone else I believed she had been
murdered, so when I saw her I was elated. I assumed she had married
a Centaur who died and chose not to return to our society because
of her grief.”

“Did she tell you that’s what’d
happened?”

“No.” Derrick paused as if struggling
to put his thoughts into words. “When I recognized her, she said
she intended to raise Camille as a Chiron and would introduce her
to her herd the next year – she just needed more time. The
following year, Cami was still enrolled in the same school as
Daniel. And the next and the next.”

“So you only confronted Angela the one
time?”

“When Cami turned eighteen, she had a
human boyfriend, and I was furious. Daniel had told me about him.
He was a mechanic. Can you imagine? It wouldn’t have made a
difference if he were a state senator; the fact was he was human.
He had a blue collar job and he had no business being romantically
involved with a descendant of Chiron.” Derrick wasn’t putting on a
show for me. I could tell he was still angry about the whole
situation. Cami was twenty-two now, so I can just imagine his
reaction four years ago.

“From my own experience, I knew how
hard it is for a Centaur to find a Centauride. I couldn’t believe
Angela allowed Camille to date a human. I confronted Angela and
asked her if she planned to arrange a marriage or to allow Cami to
choose. Angela said Cami would make choices her whole life; she
would let Cami choose to be human or Centauride when the time was
right.”

“So, what’d you do?”

Derrick’s voice trembled, “I told her I
might have to make a call to Zandra.”

“How did she react to that?”

He shook his head, “She said, ‘Go ahead
and try,’ like it was a challenge or something.”

I couldn’t understand why if he felt so
strongly, he never made good on his threat. “But you never called
Zandra?”

“That’s the strangest part. Every time
I picked up the phone to do it, I got distracted. I wondered if
there was some sort of enchantment that wouldn’t let me divulge
Angela’s whereabouts. After several days of trying to call,
unsuccessfully, I picked up a pen and paper and tried to write a
letter – I couldn’t do that, either.”

“Angela was protected by Aphrodite’s
magic.”

Derrick smiled, “I knew it! I knew
there was a reason I couldn’t make that call.”

“So why were you opposed to Daniel
being her friend? At least he could offer her some protection if
she were ever in danger.”

“I saw that look in his eyes when he
was in the seventh grade. I didn’t want him to get hurt. He didn’t
understand things. You and I knew what we were from an early age,
but Daniel’s different. He carries Centaur blood, but he isn’t a
pure-blood. There aren’t enough Centaurides to go around for the
pure-blooded Centaurs. I couldn’t let him get involved with Cami,
knowing her future would never allow the two of them to remain in
contact.”

“So, you didn’t have a problem with
Cami. You just assumed she’d eventually join her herd, and you
thought Daniel would get hurt.”

Derrick tipped his chin as his eyes
fell to the floor. I didn’t have much time, and this might be my
only opportunity. “Derrick, I’m twenty-nine.”

“I remember that age. Why are you here
with Daniel? You’ve only got a year of eligibility
left.”

“I’ve pretty much decided to hang it
up.”

His bewildered eyes met mine as his
voice echoed the same confusion. “Hang it up? You mean you’re
leaving your herd?”

I forced a smile on my face, “I don’t
want my father to bribe another father just so I can carry on the
bloodline. I have a brother who’s already married; our bloodline’s
secure. I’d rather start my life now, on my own terms.”

His voice was powerful and his tone
unashamed, “Beau, don’t waste a day, let alone a year. You have a
finite period of time, and you’re letting it slip away.”

“You regret your decision? Marrying a
human?”

“It wasn’t a decision. There were no
other options for me. You still have options. If your father is
able to arrange a marriage, let him arrange it.”

I shook my head. “I’ve decided I’m not
going back. I’ll find a human, and I’ll do it on my
terms.”

“Or maybe ten years from now, you’ll
look back on this day and be upset that you didn’t do everything in
your power to fulfill your destiny.”

Daniel’s voice echoed in the hallway.
“This is what you wanted to talk to Pops about? Hell, I coulda’
told you he regretted every day of his life for at least the last
twenty-three years. I’ve been nothin’ but a disappointment, and
Mom’s never been good enough for him, either.” His spiteful words
didn’t even register with Derrick. Daniel turned to me, “We’re
taking the plane. Let’s go.”

I looked back at Derrick as he glared
at his son. Derrick was nothing like my own father. I never wanted
to be like Daniel’s father. I’d always disliked the Centaur way. It
felt mechanical, in some respects unfeeling.

I refused to father a son who would
grow up to think he was inadequate or a disappointment. The more I
thought about it, the more sure I was that I was making the right
decision. I could marry for love, have a family that wouldn’t be
governed by the rules that had nearly suffocated me my whole life.
This was the life I wanted, and it was mine to take.

Derrick still held onto a lot of
emotional baggage from not being chosen. Daniel was a constant
reminder to him. The bitterness that Derrick felt was his own
choosing. I refused to share it.

(Camille – Rapid City,
SD)

I was still groggy from the flight.
Mom’s spirit had told me the only thing impeding my powers had been
the fact that I didn’t embrace them. She wasn’t kidding.

When we stepped off the plane and onto
the tarmac, I could see spirits all around me, human spirits
walking aimlessly on the earth mingled in with everyone else. I
could feel their loneliness, their confusion, in a few – their
anger. Living people walked through these scattered spirits. A
baggage-handling cart barreled past, paying no attention to the
lights of energy haphazardly sprinkled everywhere.

Several of the spirits had climbed onto
the wings of an airplane awaiting take-off. I silently wished them
luck, although I thought if their idea was to somehow launch
themselves into the heavens, it may be a waste of what little
energy they still possessed.

I felt woozy as we walked into the
terminal building, as if I were at a cocktail party with voices in
all directions. The constant chatter all around me was deafening.
As I looked at the thirty or so people waiting, few seemed to be
speaking aloud. I realized it was their thoughts spilling in from
all directions: some soft and thoughtful, others angry and loud, a
few in different languages – it was overwhelming.

I tried to steady myself by putting a
hand up against a wall for support. I changed my mind: it didn’t
sound like a cocktail party – that would have been some assembly of
civility – these competing thoughts in all directions reminded me
of being at a rock concert with hundreds of people while the
warm-up band played. No one really listened to the music at first;
they just shouted over the music playing in the
background.

I heard Drake’s voice, but I couldn’t
understand him.

Bracing both my hands on my temples, “I
need to get out of here.”

“Cami, Cami, look at me.” I
looked at him. I hated catching anyone’s eyes because the moment I
did, their future lay out in front of me, like a slinky with all
the twists and turns that would befall them mapped out in front of
me. Drake saw my expression and took my hand in his. His touch
blocked out most of the sensory overload. He led me toward a wall
away from all the people. I heard his thoughts,
“
Are you okay
?”

“Oh, it’s too loud.”

“What’s too loud?”

“People, their thoughts, it’s too
much.”

“You can hear everyone’s
thoughts?”

“Their thoughts are loud, some are in
different languages. I keep getting glimpses of people’s futures.
It’s making me dizzy.” I tried to speak over the competing
thoughts, but I ended up shouting. “We need to get out of here. I
can’t think straight.”

“Concentrate on my
thoughts.
Listen to what I’m thinking, and
it should keep the others at bay
.”

I did what he told me, and to my relief
Drake was replaying our conversation on the plane in a constant
loop in his head until after we had our bags and a rental car. Once
inside the car and away from the others I said, “Thank you. I’m not
sure how I’m going handle all of this.”

“We’ll steer clear of crowded places
until after you’re used to it.”

I had heard about Mount Rushmore
growing up as a kid, but South Dakota had never been on my “must
visit” list. It turns out there was a whole lot more to see than
some presidents’ faces on a mountain. From the minute we drove away
from the airport there were billboards every fifty feet, each
advertising some place we weren’t supposed to miss during our trip:
Mount Rushmore, Rushmore Caves, Bear Country USA, Custer State
Park, Sturgis Bike Rally, Deadwood, old trains, Reptile Gardens,
and hundreds of other possibilities, but we were driving so fast, I
didn’t catch what they were promoting. Every store we passed had a
similar sign, “Black Hills Gold 20% off.” Some said thirty percent,
a few said sixty percent – I’d never even heard of Black Hills
gold.