The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (3 page)

Ah, crap
. Johnson was a thin, graying, sixty-ish shadow-ridden patient who’d been fighting pneumonia for the last several weeks. I didn’t really know him, but I had looked in on him a couple of times.

A while back, Anderson had asked me to check and see if the shadow on him was somehow making Mr. Johnson’s pneumonia worse. All I could tell through my second sight, without actually touching him, was that a largish shadow rode him, and its oily darkness covered most of his pale blue aura. Just looking at it, I nearly peed m
y pants.

Now, I stood with the phone to my ear trying to think of a way out. The doc didn’t have to spell out the options to me. I could try to take the shadow off of Mr. Johnson before he died, I could wait for him to die and deal with it then, or I could try to teach meditation to the next person it infested.

While I contemplated what Anderson was asking, Spring had her own strong opinions.
I know it’s bogus, but everything dies
,
Finn. Life doesn’t come with guarantees, and you are not responsible for saving everyone.

I know
,
Spring, but I just keep thinking about what one of these things did to Holly. What if Johnson’s shadow finds another little girl when he dies?

Dude, look on the bright side, it might attach itself to a little boy or an old man instead.

Ha, ha, you very funny dryad. You know what I mean.

Yeah, but you do know you have a personal white knight complex when it comes to women, right?

Spring, I don’t want
anyone
to go through that nightmare.

But it would be particularly horrendous if it were a little girl or a pretty woman...

Oh, shut up.

Being in my brain, Spring knew she’d hit it on the nose. I didn’t want to be someone who only thought little girls were worth saving, but for whatever reasons, the idea of a little girl or woman being touched by one of these things packed a more deeply visceral kick in the gut for me than if it were an old man.

Anderson spoke into my silence. “Finn, are you still there?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s too early for me to be talking without a pot of coffee in me.” True, as far as it went.

“Can you come in right away?”

Oh god.
I ran my hand over my suddenly sweating forehead. “Uh, yeah, I guess I have to.”

You’re being an idiot.

“I know this can’t be easy for you, Finn, but I don’t have anyone else who can do what you can do.”

I took a shaky breath. “I know, Doc, I know.”

“Good, I’ll see you in an hour.”

“Well—” The phone went dead as he hung up. I slammed the phone down. “Sure thing, Dr. Asshole!”

“Finn!” said my Mom from behind me.

Oops, didn’t know she was listening. “Sorry, Mom. He’d didn’t hear me—he’d already hung up.”

My mom’s look of stern disapproval didn’t waver. “Yes, but I heard it.”

I hung my head—that sometimes worked on my mom. “Sorry, Mom.”

“You’re forgiven. So, what did Dr. Anderson want?”

“He needs me to come in this morning.”

“Oh? Why so early? What’s the rush?”

Uh oh. A direct question. I was hosed. I couldn’t lie to her, because her Finn-dar would spot it immediately.

“Well...” I couldn’t think what to say. She didn’t know that I had actually worked directly with the shadows after my encounter with the one infesting Holly. My instinctive defenses had torn Holly’s aura apart and almost killed her. Mom knew about that encounter because she’d been there.

Like everyone, except my dad and I, Mom hadn’t seen anything during that encounter with her eyes except the aftermath—Holly lying unconscious on a couch and me babbling about ripping her soul in two. It had sucked for everyone involved, and I hadn’t wanted to worry my parents any more. The last couple of months had been horrendous enough for them.

As far as they knew, I was just trying to teach meditation to these patients. I’d never told them I’d pushed other shadows off their victims, or been ridden and controlled by Wendigota for a time after Gregg’s wake.

While I searched for a story, I could practically hear the “beep-beep-beep” going off in her head. My mother lowered her brows and voice. “Finn... what’s going on?”

The door to the garage opened and my dad came through, no doubt having just completed a delicious breakfast of live guinea pig.

During the fight between Spring and my friends, while trying to save my dad's life, I’d accidentally turned him into a ghoul or something. It’s a long story, and I don’t want to repeat it here, but the short version is that the only thing that would sustain him was living flesh and the magic acorns that had grown when Spring was, uh, sexually harvesting me for her oak tree.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said.

Maybe I was saved! “Oh, hi Dad!” I needed a distraction. “How was breakfast?” I was hoping my dad’s dietary requirements would shake Mom off the scent of my deception.

That’s low, even for you.

Hush
,
Spring...

Dad beamed in unholy and unfathomable early morning cheer. “Excellent, thank you. What got you up so early?”

Damn.

My mom, unshaken, folded her arms and with her dangerous voice said, “I was just waiting to hear this myself.”

My dad looked from my Mom to me. “Is there something I’m missing?”

“I don’t know, Jack, Finn was just going to tell me all about it. Weren’t you Finn?”

At least Spring was happy.
Dude, you’re soooo busted. No way they’re gonna let
you go. Be happy! This is a win-win for you Finn. If your parents stop you, you don’t have to feel guilty about it, and you won’t have to feel guilty about lying to them anymore.

Spring please!

“...weren’t you, Finn?”

I rubbed my hand over my face. It came away wet from the sweat.

Crap. Here goes.
“Dr. Anderson wants me to pull the shadow off of a guy at Shady Oaks.” I rushed to get everything out before they could stop me. “He’s dying and Anderson thinks if I can pull the shadow off, it might save his life.”

My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Okay, but be careful Finn.”

I looked at him in shock.
What the..?

My dad’s easy acceptance had blindsided Mom too. “Oh no, Jack. This is not going to happen. Finn almost killed Holly pulling that thing off her. What happens if he kills this man? What then? You know how Finn is. That would destroy him and then haunt him for the rest of his life. Not to mention what he’s going to do with the thing—hope it just lands on someone else? What if it attacks Finn? No, he’s not going to do it.”

“Not going to do what, Mom?” Holly walked into the kitchen—just because things weren’t already a big enough fuster-cluck.

My mom snapped at her. “Nothing that concerns you, Holly.”

Holly visibly wilted under the heat of her new mom’s displeasure. Holly was better than she had been, but she was still a little uncertain about her new position in our family. My mother saw it, too.

She immediately went and gave Holly a hug. “Oh, Holly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. You’re fine. It’s nothing to do with you.”

While that was happening, my dad told her. “Dr. Anderson wants Finn to pull a shadow off of a sick man at Shady Oaks.”

My mom looked betrayed, but Holly took it in stride, and her face grew serious. She’d been shadow-ridden, lived at Shady Oaks, and knew many of the other shadow-ridden patients. Holly met my eyes and said, “Mr. Johnson?” When I nodded, she said, “You should do it, Finn.”

My mom took a half step back from Holly’s small form. “No Holly, I can’t let him do it. Where would he even put it if he were successful?

“On the cow with the other ones.”

Ah, fricking frack crap!
The blood drained from my body into my feet.

Mom was on me like the red on my face. “What other ones, Finn?”

I squinched my face in shame and looked at the floor under my lowered brows. “I...uh...well, we..., er, I moved one of the shadows off of a patient and stuck it on a cow.”

“You what? When were you going to tell me this?”

“Um... Never?”

“Finn, I can’t believe you’d go off and do something like this without telling us!” She was getting red, too. “Who was it?”

“His name was Daniel.”

“But he died, Finn,” added my Dad.

I gawked at him. “How did you know that?”

“You went to his funeral.”

Oh, right. It was the first time in weeks that I’d thought of Daniel, and the sudden flood of guilt threatened to crush me. How could I have forgotten what I’d done? The memory of that day crashed through me. How could I forget that? What kind of a monster was I?

I started to hyperventilate. Spring was there immediately, soothing me, calming me.
Finn, shhh. It’s okay. Nothing’s wrong with you. I’ve just been helping you think about other things, so you can get on with your life...

What!?! Frack
,
Spring! You can’t do that!

Sure, I can. It’s the same as I did when Wendigota had taken you. I kept you from remembering me or Gregg’s soul with some creative redirecting.

I started to shake, and my dad’s strong hands grabbed me, supported me, and guided me to a chair at the kitchen table.
Spring, that’s not right!

You would rather suffer?

“You killed a man trying to remove one of these demons from him, and you want to do it again?” said my mom.

I shook my head weakly, “No Mom, it wasn’t like that.”

She snapped. “This isn’t a game, Finn! What’s wrong with you?”

That shot went right through to my heart. I just gaped at her and started drowning in the flood of guilt.

Holly leaped between us and stood in front of me with her arms out protectively. Her strident little voice was filled with fear and tears. “Leave him alone! He didn’t mean to do it!” She became nearly hysterical. “He saved me, and the Senator, and Daniel.
It wasn’t his fault Daniel died! The shadow made him do it! He saved me! He stopped it! You don’t know what it’s like! You leave him alone!”

Holly turned, threw herself on my lap, and attempted to decapitate me with a fierce hug around my neck. She was shaking and crying, and I couldn’t breathe, nor could I bear to push her away.

My dad came to my rescue again. He put his other hand on her shoulder. “Ssh, Holly, it’s okay. Nobody’s mad at what he did, but you have to let up on his neck because he’s turning purple.”

Holly released me with a start and stared at me with wide, tear-filled eyes. My little sister’s concern about breaking me drove everything else out of my mind, and I laughed. I’ve noted before that I tend to laugh at wildly inappropriate times. It’s like I have a sorrow circuit breaker built into my brain.

Well, apparently Holly had it, too, because a laugh exploded out of her along with about a gallon of snot. Looking down at my goobered shirt just made it even funnier. The two of us started to build up to rollicking guffaws when my dad’s hand left my shoulder, and he said, “Helen? Wait, come back.”

That flipped the breaker right back, and suddenly, nothing was funny as I watched him follow my mom down the hall. I looked back at Holly and saw her face—white with terror.

“Is she going to send me back?”

My already-torn heart just flipped over, tits-up, and died. I put my hands on either side of her face and tried to keep my voice steady. “No Holly, no! She would never do that! You’re here forever. She’s not mad at you. She’s mad at... everything.” That hit the nail right on the head. With everything that had happened to us, she had never once lost it. She had been as strong and as steady as a rock, and she didn’t even have a dryad to help her.

I tried to explain it to Holly. “Sometimes, people just get upset or angry. She... she loves us very much, and the thought of what happened to us can be overwhelming. She’ll be okay, just you wait and see. She’ll be okay.” I hoped, I really hoped.

That was smooth
,
dude. Way to avoid telling them the whole truth.

They don’t need to know the whole truth. It would crush them.

Maybe your mom, but your dad has been cool as a pickle about everything lately.

That’s cucumber, and I’m glad someone is.

I got Holly up and off my lap and spent a little time getting us both cleaned up. My dad came back into the kitchen looking grave. He said, “Finn, she’s pretty upset right now. Go do what you have to do. I’ll stay here with your mother and sister and we’ll wait for you to get back. Then we’ll have a family talk.”

I painfully tried swallow the dryness from my mouth and nodded. At that moment, I was more afraid of that talk than I was of the shadow I was going to go confront.

Standing at the foot of Mr. Johnson’s bed, listening to his labored breathing, and looking at the darkness, which now completely covered his aura, I reconsidered the whole fear thing. At that moment, I would have given anything to be having a knockdown drag-out with my parents.

I regularly run out of adjectives to describe what these monsters feel like to me. They’re singularly nasty. Imagine reaching into an ice-cold bucket of wet leaches—active, hungry, rotting leeches. Now imagine pulling out a double handful of the slimy, squirmy bloodsuckers, and watch as they latch onto you for dinner. I’d rather do that than touch a shadow with my mind.

Well..., on second thought, maybe not. But still, yeeech!

Worst thing ever or not, I couldn’t do it, and I turned to leave, but Dr. Anderson stood between me and the door, blue eyes blazing.

I shook my head unsteadily and shivered. “I can’t, Doc, I can’t do it.”

His laser beam stare splashed harmlessly off my shield of fear and shame. “Finn, you have to do it. No one else can.”

“But you don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know how it feels to touch them with your mind!”

He didn’t blink or move. “It’s true I can’t see it like you can, but I think you know that I do understand what it feels like.”