Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (17 page)

“You’ve seen it
for yourself, no? If you wish to learn, I will be more than happy to teach you
as I have taught Miles. But, I caution you to keep this between the two of us.”

“Why? Wouldn’t
Miles be glad that I’m learning?”

“Quite honestly,
I do not think so. I know the two of you don’t have a normal father-daughter
relationship, but I do see that he cares for you a great deal. What we are
doing here is very dangerous. It presents a great temptation to the Dark Side.
The more powerful you become, the more you are tempted to cross over. He
trained with me and fought at my side for several years. You are, in a sense,
just beginning. He would not want you to gain so much power so quickly.”

“Okay,” I said
at last. “I want to learn.”

For the next two
hours, Charmagne helped me harness my power. I found that my senses were
heightened when I harnessed someone’s energy. Colors seemed brighter, sounds
clearer. She said I was catching on quickly, even more quickly than Miles had. That
was our first training session.

The next
morning, Noah and I met up with Felix while Miles and Charmagne did some
research about area covens. Felix was glad to see both of us. He said he
couldn’t stay long, but gave us the key to Gretchen’s apartment. He assured us
that he searched it thoroughly, but he was happy to get a couple more pairs of
eyes to go over anything he may have missed. More importantly, Noah could
possibly pick up on a scent.

Gretchen’s
apartment was tiny but cute, and it was three floors up from one of the
charming Paris streets, the kind tourists flock to, with bakeries and boutiques
and sunny flower carts. I smelled bread baking from where we were, and the
window wasn’t even open. My stomach growled, and I reminded myself to ask Noah
if we could stop for a quick bite when we left.

There was a
small crack in the middle of the wooden door. It didn’t strike me as odd, but
Noah regarded it curiously. Nothing seemed out of place inside, but then again
I barely knew her. Everything was nice and neat, no overturned furniture or
pictures askew on the walls. It was at this point I realized that I watch too
many movies.

“Look around for
a note pad or something she wrote on,” said Noah.

We split up. I
found myself in the kitchen, and I assumed that my hunger was taking a bigger
toll on me than I thought. On the side of the refrigerator, there was a single
word written in haste with an erasable green marker:
Hecate
. I took a
picture of it with my phone.

“Got something,”
said Noah from the living room. When I joined him, he was putting down the
waste paper basket near the desk against the window. He had a crumpled piece of
paper in his hand, and he held it up for us. “A note. With a slit in it. Which
I’m guessing …” He picked up a small dagger from her desk and then went to the
door, opened it, and compared the blade to the slit in the door. “Yep.”

“What does the
note say?”

“It’s in French.
Yours might be better than mine.” He handed it to me.

“It says,
Give
it back.
”

Noah grinned.
“Pretty good.”

“What do you
think they were talking about?”

He shrugged.
“Did you find anything?”       

“On the fridge
there’s the word
Hecate
, but I’m not sure what it is or even if it’s
important. It looks like she wrote it down in a hurry, though.”

“That’s an
ancient Greek goddess. I’m not too good with that stuff, but Miles can probably
tell us when we get back.”

We went
downstairs, and the smell of the bakery hit me again. “Hey, do you mind if we
get something to eat? I’ve been craving a genuine French croissant since we got
here.”

Noah rolled his
eyes and laughed. “You’re such a tourist.”

“I don’t care
what I am, I’m still hungry. And besides, Lyla made me promise I’d eat one.”

Noah pulled the
door for me, and just as we were about to go in, someone with a helmet and
motorcycle jacket ran up to us and slammed into Noah. They both tumbled onto
the sidewalk. The guy in the jacket got up, ran across the street, hopped on a
motorcycle and sped away.

“You okay?” I said,
helping him up.

Noah reached
into his back jeans pocket. “He took the note!”

“What?”

“The note from
Gretchen’s apartment!” He took off after the guy. I followed for about a block,
but Noah was so much faster because of his ability, and they cut off into a
side alley.

Giving up, I
went back to the bakery and waited for Noah to return. Before I could enter, I
was accosted by another guy in a jacket and helmet. He wrapped his arms around
mine, put a hand over my mouth, and dragged me to the alley where a guy with
dark sunglasses and a skull cap waited with a car door open. All of my kicking
and screaming did no good. The guy with his arms around me threw me into the
back seat and the other guy sat beside me.

I found myself
in between a woman with dark sunglasses, long red hair and a black fedora on my
left, and the guy with the skull cap on my right. The one who took me climbed
into the front passenger seat and removed his helmet. He was identical to the
guy next to me. Another woman in dark sunglasses and wearing a long, purple wig
sat in the driver’s seat. She was white as a ghost, most likely had albinism. They
all looked to be in their mid-twenties to early thirties. As soon as the doors
were closed, the driver sped off down the alley and out onto the street a block
away from where I was taken. She kept going, casually driving past the little
tourist areas, and no one knew that I had just been kidnapped.

“Who are you?!”
I demanded.

With a thick
Irish accent, the woman in the fedora said to me, “What were you doing in that
apartment?”

“You always
kidnap people to ask them a question?” I said.

The guy in the
skull cap cupped my chin and turned my head toward him. Speaking slowly and
clearly, with an American accent, he said “What were you doing in the apartment?”

“Why do you want
to know?”

He put his hand
out in front of him, palm upward, and a small ball of fire formed in the
center. “
We
are asking the questions. Now, tell us what you were doing
there.”       

His twin in the
passenger seat told the driver in French, “Keep driving. Cross the bridge.
Don’t attract attention.”

These kinds of
situations never end well. I summoned up my power through my core and focused
on the driver, draining her energy. As I felt my insides turning colder, she
slumped in her seat and passed out.

The guy in the
passenger seat managed to say, “Olivia!” before the car veered off its path
just as we were about to get on the bridge. He grabbed the wheel and turned it right
before we could hit the barrier. Instead, we crashed into a tree, narrowly
missing several screaming pedestrians.

The car crashed
on its side, and the twins got most of the impact. They were dazed, and the
driver was still unconscious from me draining her. The only coherent one was
the Irish chick, whose fedora was now somewhere in the front seat. I acted
quickly, knocking her head against the window a couple of times. I reached over
her to open the door, but when I did, she screamed so loudly I felt my ear
drums would shatter and my head would explode. It wasn’t a scream like that of
a normal person. It was more of a high frequency sound. Whatever it was, it
roused the others. I couldn’t focus enough to drain her energy, so I knocked
her into the window again. That did the trick. I got the door open and pushed
her out.

Running across
the streets, I was almost run over twice. Lost, I didn’t stop to ask for
directions. I ran back in the general direction from where we had come. It
couldn’t have been more than a few blocks, but the little streets all looked
the same to me. Soon, I was able to follow the smell of the bakery. Noah was
there when I rounded the corner.

“Where did you
go?” he said, scowling.

“I was just
kidnapped, thank you very much.”

“What? Who took
you?”

“Like I know
that?”

“What did he
look like?”

“It was four of
them. Two girls, two guys. I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

“What did they
want?”

“To know what we
were doing in Gretchen’s apartment. And you’re not even interested in how I was
able to get away from them? Because I’ll tell you right now, it was pretty
cool, and I’m pretty damned proud of myself.”

He ran his
fingers through his hair and cursed.

“Why are
you
upset?” I said. “What happened to that other guy?” Noah cursed again. “Oh! He
got away, didn’t he?”

“Come on,” he
said, headed for our rental car, his eyes narrowed and jaw locked.

“We know what
the note says, so it’s not that big a deal, is it?”

“It’s not the
note that I wanted back. I wanted him—
them
. I want to know why they
wanted that note so badly and how they knew we had it. And what they have to do
with Gretchen.”

***

Back at
Charmagne’s, we filled Miles in on our search of Gretchen’s apartment. He was
also particularly interested in the people who accosted us.

“Well, at least
two of them are paladins,” said Miles. “The one who emitted the fire and the
one with the piercing scream.” He looked at me. “I don’t think they were trying
to hurt you, though.”

“Seriously?” I
said. “Why the hell did they kidnap me?”

He shrugged.
“Don’t know, but if they were trying to hurt you, you wouldn’t be standing
here. The fact that your eardrums are still intact is a good sign.”

I huffed. “That
just means I got away before they could do any real damage.”

“How
did
you get away?”

Remembering that
Charmagne asked me to keep our lessons a secret, I said, “I reached up front
and jerked the driver’s arm. She crashed into a tree.” I decided to change the
subject. “Does
Hecate
mean anything to you? Noah said she was a goddess.”

He nodded. “The
goddess of witchcraft and magic, among other things.”

“What other
things?” said Noah.

“Crossroads, the
moon, fire and so on. But it’s the witchcraft element that gets my attention.”

“You think there
really is a coven then.” said Noah.

“There
are
covens here. All over Europe. But whether or not this particular coven has
turned to the dark side is something we need to find out. To do that, we need
to find them.”

“Someone told
her about Hecate,” I said.

“Hmm?” said
Miles.

“She wrote it on
the fridge like she was in a hurry. I’m guessing someone gave her some
information over the phone maybe, and she needed to write it down quickly.”

“Too bad we
don’t have her phone to check the call list,” said Noah.

“Felix is coming
back from Germany tomorrow evening. I’d like you both to get with him and see
what you can come up with,” said Miles.

“Germany?” said
Noah, rolling his eyes. “Casper?”

Miles chuckled.
“It seems so. I’ll get with Charmagne to retrace Gretchen’s last steps.
Hopefully tomorrow we can find something.”

***

After everyone
had gone to bed, I met up with Charmagne for another lesson. She was excited
when I told her I was able to drain someone.

“My dear, I
think you are surpassing even Miles with how quickly you learn,” she said.
“Before we know it, you’ll be a great fighter, and Miles will be so proud.”

Even though I
tried to not think about him being my father, it made me feel good to know
someone would be proud of me again.

I laughed.  “In
the sewer?” I stared at him, waiting for the punch line.

Felix nodded.
“Yes. Now let’s hurry before we are seen.”

“Sure,” I
muttered to myself. “Who wants to tour the Louvre or see the Eiffel Tower when
there’s a big party waiting for you in the sewer?”

“The Tower is
overrated,” said Felix.

“Ya beat me to
it tonight.” A pretty Japanese girl with a British accent and a shock of neon
pink in her raven hair bounded up to Felix and clapped him on the back.

He grinned at
her. “I beat you here for once, no?” he said. “Aimee, you remember Noah?”

She smirked, and
her black eyes looked him over once before holding his gaze. “Of course. How’ve
ya been?”

I think for the
first time ever I saw Noah blush. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled.
“Good, and you?”

“Better now that
ya here. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has. Uh,
Aimee, this is Leigh.”

“Hi,” I said.

She nodded at me
and smiled.

“Let’s get on
with it,” said Felix, trying not to laugh. “Down we go!”

Aimee lifted the
lid to the sewer like it was no heavier than a Frisbee and placed it on the
side of the manhole. She descended into the sewer without a second thought. Noah
grinned at my doubting face, and then he followed Aimee. I was next, and I
clung to the rungs embedded into the wall. Felix followed, pulling the lid
above his head.

When Aimee made
it to the bottom, she took out a flashlight and guided us. She and Felix led us
through almost a mile of twists and turns in the Paris underground. As we
progressed, the walls and ground changed from a gigantic drain to an old
limestone quarry.

“So, does your
paladin club always meet down here?” I said.

“Not always,”
said Felix. “We do have to be as discrete as possible, however. It was Casper’s
turn to choose a location, and he’s a bit of a raver.”

“Puttin’ it mildly,
yeah?” said Aimee. Felix laughed.

“How many in
your group?” I said.

“I just found a
new recruit in Cape Town about a week ago,” said Felix. “That makes ten of us
now, including Gretchen and Charmagne.”

Aimee said, “That’s
not a lot, considering all the Dark Ones that seem to be out there. In New
Orleans, it’s just four of you, isn’t it, Noah?”

Noah sighed.
“Yep.”

 “Unfortunately,
there are fewer and fewer paladins as the years go by,” said Felix, as we
rounded yet another corner and entered another tunnel. “They simply choose not
to have children, knowing that one day they could possibly be exposed to this
dark world. I understand it. I truly do. But I wish there were more of us. We
don’t even have a descendant from each original paladin. Nadia was the last one
I knew who was a descendant of Yvon. Not that she could have helped in battle
unless she was a dark paladin.”

“Why? What kind
of extras would she get if she had walked the line?”

“Well, you know
how she could know a person’s or object’s history just by touching it?”

I nodded.

“As a dark paladin,
she would have been able to project illusions, to make the enemy see what she
wanted them to see. It’s quite useful. I’d love to have that ability, myself.”

“And no one else
can do that?”

“Oh yes! I’m sure
there are descendants all over the world with that power, but it’s very hard to
track down other paladins. So many of them don’t know what they are. They just
think they’re freaks of nature or maybe they’re ostracized from their
communities, so they hide their abilities. Others don’t even know they possess
such powers because they’ve never been called to make the choice or no one has
told them they have it. Charmagne has been doing much travel in the last few
years, looking for others, documenting them, trying to stay in contact with
them. It’s been difficult. Even Miles has had a hard time in the States.”

Noah cut in.
“Don’t freak out with what you’re about to see,” he told me.

We rounded a
corner, and I was caught off guard by walls made of bones and skulls. I stopped
short, my mouth open. Noah reached for my hand.

“You okay?” he said.

“Wait a second.
I know what this is! This is the Catacombs, right?”

“Very good!”
said Felix, shining his flashlight on the ancient remains. “

“I thought you’d
be scared,” said Noah.

“No, I actually
think it’s pretty cool. But I’m not going to lie. Looking at it at night,
mostly in the dark, is creepy as hell.”

“You’re doing
better than I did my first time,” said Aimee. “I still don’t like it much, but Casper
and his bloody raves …”

Before long, I
heard rhythmic thumping coming from far down the corridor. When we rounded
another corner, I saw light at the far end, and heard echoes of laughter
blending with the club music. As we neared, I saw white flashing lights, and
some people walking around with miner helmets, but most had flashlights and
glow sticks. The walls were covered in graffiti. We came to a stop at a large
alcove with strobe light shooting out of the rough limestone archway that was
flanked with bamboo torches. There were easily five hundred people inside the
cavern.

“Now we just
need to find everyone,” said Aimee.

Felix nodded
toward Aimee and gestured to the right. “You and I can take this side.” He
looked at Noah and me. “We can meet back at the entrance in twenty or so.”

After we had
moved on, I asked Noah what this Casper guy looked like. We had to considerably
raise our voices over the music.

“In his forties.
German. Small blue eyes, always looks like he’s squinting. Lean build. Little
shorter than I am. Have no idea what hair color. Last time I saw him, it was
neon green, and before that it was yellow with black spots, like a leopard.
More than anything, he has a smug look of superiority. ”

“Sounds like you
two don’t get along.”

He chuckled. “I
never had much interaction with him, but the couple of times we’ve met, I got
the feeling he’s a
tad
Eurocentric, and he doesn’t make it his priority
to help anyone other than himself. Tell you the truth, I don’t care one way or
the other about his personality as long as he’s willing to help.”

“What’s his
power?”

“Flora
manipulation.”

“Oh, a plant
guy. Cool. I can finally tell Carrie how that works. We kinda figure he’s like
a super farmer or something. Grow some big ol’ ‘maters.”

“Carrie. She the
one who has a crush on me?” When I didn’t answer right away, he looked over at
me and smirked. 

“Now who’s
smug?”

He laughed.

Moving through
the crowd wasn’t easy. I got knocked to and fro by gyrating bodies and tripped
out kids with lollipops in their mouths. A DJ was on a makeshift platform with
his equipment hooked up to a small generator. He blasted techno and electronica.
Maybe it was just my Louisiana roots, but I wanted to toss all that music and
play some Todd Knighten & Knight Train.

I felt someone
grab my hand. I looked back to see some young guy with long, blue hair and a
stupid grin on his face. He said something in French, but I couldn’t make it
out.

“I’m sorry,
what?”

His eyes lit up.
 “An American! I love Americans! Would you like to dance with Molly?”

It took a moment
to register what he was talking about, but then it clicked. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”
He took my hands and started swinging my arms slowly. “Molly is such a tease.
Are you sure you don’t want just a little dance?”

I pulled my arms
back. “No, thank you.”

“I’ll tell you
what. First one is free, okay?” He pulled a small plastic bag from his jacket
pocket.

“I’m good,” I
said, more adamant.

“Come on. One
little taste?”

Noah stepped in
between us. “Get lost,” he told him. By the look on Frenchie’s face, Noah meant
business.

We continued to
make our way around the room. It smelled like sweat and alcohol, and I was
getting tired of it. A couple of minutes later, Noah stopped and jerked his
head to the side. His nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I said.

He pushed
through the crowd, heading for something I couldn’t see.

“Wait!” I
yelled, struggling to keep up with him. I found him in the corner of the alcove
with his hand wrapped around some guy’s throat.

His skin was
dark as coal, and his black, deep-set eyes were hard and tense as he tried to
pry Noah’s fingers off of him. A girl near him tried to pull Noah away from
behind. I recognized her. She was the Irish girl—one of the people who
kidnapped me. She was the screamer. I rushed at her and threw her up against
the wall. Then someone had their arms around mine, trying to pull me off. I
realized it was Felix. Aimee pulled Noah off the guy. Everyone shouted at each
other.

Aimee yelled,
“Stop!”

“Who the hell are
you?!” Noah growled at the guy, getting in his face.

The girl I had
pinned against the wall struggled and said, “You don’t want me to scream again,
do ya?”

Felix managed to
pry me off of her. “Stop it!” he said.

In the corner, a
guy in his forties with a smug look of superiority and a platinum blond faux
hawk with pink highlights laughed, giddily enjoying the tussle.

I lunged for the
girl again, but something invisible blocked me. It felt like I hit a wall, but
there was nothing in front of me. Noah looked perplexed, too. I looked around
and saw the big black guy with his hands lifted and his eyes closed.

I turned to Felix.
“Who are they?!”

“We’re paladins,
too.” The girl with albinism—the one who drove when I was kidnapped—stepped
forward. She didn’t have a purple wig this time. Her natural long, white locks,
dyed with blue and black tips, cascaded down her shoulders all the way to her
tail bone. Flanking her were the twins who were in the kidnap car.

Noah and I
settled, but he was still fuming. “What the hell is this, Felix?!”

Felix looked at
the big guy Noah had just attacked. “All right, Saul.”

The guy lowered
his hands and opened his eyes. The Irish girl rubbed her shoulder and cocked
her head to the side, raising her eyebrows at me.

“No, don’t stop!
That was the most excitement I’ve seen all night!” said the guy with the faux
hawk. He had a thick German accent, and I was sure that was Casper.

“They’re helping
us,” said Felix.

“Helping?” I
said. “They tried to kidnap me!”

Noah nodded at
Saul. “And this one here bum rushed me and took something from me.”

“My apologies,”
said Saul, with a South African accent. “I didn’t know you or why you were in
the apartment. We were watching you through the window from the building across
the street. We saw you take something and thought you might be with the coven.”

“I asked them to
help us,” said Felix. “I told you I’ve been recruiting paladins. Aimee found
Sonja,” he pointed to the Irish girl, “and Olivia,” he pointed to the girl with
albinism. “Noah, you remember Casper. That over there is Saul, and the twins
are Alex and Oscar.”

“Pleased to meet
ya,” the twins said in unison, grinning.

“Alex,” said
one, raising his hand.

“Oscar,” said
the other, also raising his hand.

The only way I
could tell them apart is that Oscar had blue eyes, and Alex’s eyes were brown.

“Sorry about
that whole kidnapping thing,” said Oscar.

“We weren’t
gonna hurt you. Honest,” said Alex.

“We just had to
be sure you weren’t with the coven,” said Olivia. “We weren’t going to hurt
you.”

“You could have
asked, you know,” I said.

“I’ve let my
guard down with the Dark Side
once
,” said Saul, lifting his shirt. A
long, jagged scar ran across his chest. “It wasn’t pleasant.” He lowered his
shirt.

“Let’s get into
another area. It’s too loud in here,” said Felix.

We all started
to follow him out of the alcove, except for Casper who had ignored us when the
action died down. He was dancing with some guy half his age while a techno song
pounded the room.

“Oy!” said
Aimee. “We’re headin’ out, Casper!”

He paid her no
mind. Alex and Oscar each grabbed one of his arms and pulled him away. He still
danced as they marched him out of the room.

Our group went
further into the catacombs, past the strobes and bamboo torches. There were
hidden chambers everywhere. Some of them were chill rooms with clouds of smoke
hovering outside and people lying around, smoking and laughing, some painting
the walls with incredible art that would only be seen by the few underground
clubbers who ventured into these parts of the catacombs.