Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (12 page)

“Oh, yeah, the
nerve
of that guy! I’m so glad I don’t have anyone stepping up to pay
my
student
loans. I mean, really, how dare anyone pay off my debt?! How rude is that?! Oh,
oh! And
then
to offer to take me to
Paris
along with one of the
hottest guys I’ve ever met? Well, if someone did that to me, I’d just be beside
myself with misery.”

I glared at her.
She gave me a quit-being-a-dumb-bitch look. “Okay,” I admitted, “you’re right.
I’m being ungrateful and stupid about this.”

“If you don’t
want to go because of the nature of the work, then don’t go. But if you don’t
want to go just to spite Miles, then you need to do some soul-searching,
girlie. I don’t blame you for being angry with him or Miss Clo or even your mom
for not telling you that he’s your bio dad, but they probably had a good reason
not to. And your dad, Mr. Jerry, was awesome, and you had a pretty good life as
a kid. I’m not saying you have to start calling him Daddy, but maybe you can be
a little more accepting of Miles since he’s trying to make an effort.”

I sat quietly in
my recliner, staring at the spot where the glass broke off of the coffee table.
I felt very small at that moment, because she was right. I just didn’t know why
it was so hard for me to let go of things.

“Is all this
paladin stuff why you and Lucas aren’t together?”

“Yeah. Pretty
much.”

“Honestly, I
think you aren’t giving him enough credit. He’s not some foolish guy who falls
head-over-heels in love with someone and doesn’t care about the consequences.
He’s a dad first. He wouldn’t get himself involved with you—not in that way,
anyway—unless he really knew what he was getting into. He wouldn’t do that to
Jon or to himself.”

“Yeah, I guess
you’re right.”

“But if you get
together with Lucas, then you have another problem to deal with.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“What to do
about Noah.” She grinned. “I can take him off your hands for you.”

I rolled my
eyes. “He’s not on my hands.”

“Good! Then I
can put him on my hands. And he can put his hands on me. And we can have our
hands on each other. And can you put the fan on, because it’s getting a little
warm in here.”

I laughed.

“Can I say
something else?” she said. “Can you
please
go to Paris with Noah? I want
to live vicariously through you!
Please
!” She knelt down on the carpet.
“Ouch! My leg still hurts. You probably need more training.”

I laughed again.
“Sorry. Yeah, I do need a little more training. I’ll
think
about going,
okay?” She sat back on the couch and giddily bounced up and down, and I just
laughed again. “I love you, Care Bear. Don’t ever change.”

By the time she
left that evening, I was in a great mood, but that didn’t last for long.

***

No one called me
in my dream, but that would have been a welcomed relief compared to the
nightmare that left me shaking when I woke up a little after 4:00 AM.

There was
nothing chasing me. No one was out to get me. But it was the worst dream I had
ever had. I was in a cold room with no windows and only one door. The floor and
walls were made of dark gray stone that were bathed in cold, dim light from a
source I could not see, like the light in winter just after dusk. Lying beside
each other on the floor in front of me were the bodies of everyone I loved:
Lyla, Clothilde, Lucas, Jonathan, Carrie. They hadn’t been attacked in any way
that I could tell. It was as though the life had been completely drained from
them, nothing left, just an absence of consciousness and thought, of breath and
blood. Their very souls were gone, and all that remained were shells, vessels
that looked like them but contained nothing of the people they ever were.

It was the most
alone I had ever felt in my life.

I finally got
back to sleep just after 6:30 and didn’t wake up until almost noon. I was still
in my T-shirt and pajama shorts when there was a knock at my door. I opened it
to see Noah smiling with a light rain falling behind him, and his dark hair
glistening. I rolled my eyes and let him in.

“I haven’t made
up my mind yet,” I told him, and then plopped down on the couch, put the TV on
mute, and resumed eating my bowl of Coco Krispies.

He took off his
jacket and draped it over the arm rest of the couch and sat near it and then
looked around the room. “No Halloween decorations?”

I let out a dry
laugh. “Please. Every day is Halloween for us.”

He chuckled.
“Pretty much. How was your summer?”

I shrugged.
“Working for minimum wage at a clothing store downtown. Nice and uneventful.
Just how I like it. What about you?”

“Uneventful.
Except for running around the world, killing Watcher Angels, that sort of
thing.”

“Nice,” I said,
shoving a spoonful of Krispies in my mouth.

“Yeah. Gretchen
and Felix came back to help us. We finished off the last of the Grigori in
South America.”

“Yep. Uneventful
summer vacation.”

“We still have a
slew of Nephilim to hunt down, though.”

“What’s after
that?”

He shrugged.
“Turned paladins, demons, monsters … you name it.”

“Jesus, it never
stops, does it?”

He shook his
head, his eyes distant. “Nope.” He looked me up and down, and I started to
become self-conscious about my appearance.

“What?”

“Rough night?”

I glared at him.
“How would you know?”

“Told ya. We’ve
all been having weird and bad dreams, even Ruby. And, no, she’s not the one
doing it.”

“Like I’m
supposed to believe that? She’s had it in for me since I met her.”

A wicked gleam
shot across his eyes as he tried to hide a grin.

“What?”

He raised his
eyebrows, and a huge smirk crept up in the corner of his mouth.

“
What
?”

“I probably
shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, but … she’s your sister.”

He told me while
I had a mouthful of cereal. I stopped in mid-chew and said, “What?”

“Yeah.” He was
trying really hard not to laugh.

“Oh, come on!
You’re so full of it!” I managed to say with my mouth full.

He shook his
head, full on laughing now. “I’m dead serious. She’s your sister. And she knows
it, too. That’s why she, uh, doesn’t exactly get along with you.”

“You kidding?
She
hates
me
.
How?! How is she my sister?”

“Miles. He had a
thing with Ruby’s mom back in the day.”

I swallowed
finally. “I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true. Cee
Cee told me a long time ago that he’s her dad. Ruby never talks about it, but she
accepted it years ago.”

I stupidly
stared at him.

Still laughing a
little, he added, “That’s where she gets her blue eyes. It’s recessive on
Miles’ side.”

After a moment
of shocked contemplation, I said, “My God that man gets around.”

That had Noah
rolling.

“Un-
believable
!”

“Hey, if it
makes you feel better, I think she’s come to accept you a little more now.”

“Oh, yeah. That
makes me feel so much better. Thanks.”

He laughed at my
obvious sarcasm as I shoved in the last spoonful of cereal. I caught his eyes
for a second, and he started laughing again.

“What?”

“I’m lying.”

I just stared at
him.

“She’s not
really your sister. She just doesn’t like you. I just wanted to break the
tension.”

I was speechless
for a moment. “Seriously? None of that was true?”

He shook his
head.

I punched him in
the arm.

“Ow! That
actually hurt,” he said, rubbing his arm.

“Good! I can’t
believe you just did that to me!”

He laughed
again, and I playfully punched him. We tousled on the couch, and before I knew
it, he was on top of me with my wrists gently pinned above my head as we explored
each other’s eyes. It was a feeling like two magnets on top of each other, an
invisible, almost tangible pressure between our bodies, and it magnified as he
inched closer to me, his mouth nearing mine.

There was a
knock at the door.

He stopped. Our
eyes latched onto each other for a second, and then we separated. I had to the
shake the cobwebs from my mind in the few seconds it took me to walk to the
door. When I opened it, Lucas was there. He looked frustrated. When he saw me
still in my sleep clothes and then saw Noah on the couch, his eyes changed to
hurt.

“I’ve been
trying to call you.”

“Oh, sorry. I
started turning off my phone at night.”

“Save the
battery?”

No, I just don’t
want any more mysterious calls from a stranger telling me I have to do
something.
“Yeah.”

“Well, I wanted
to tell you that your grandmother is in the hospital.”

My heart sank
into my stomach. Seeing the look on my face, he added, “She’s fine right now. She
was having some chest pain this morning. Lyla called 911 and then tried calling
you from the hospital, but she couldn’t get you, so she called me. I went
straight there. They stabilized her, and they were waiting for the doctor to
see her when I left to come get you.” He glanced at Noah. “But I see that
you’re a little
busy
right now.”

“Stop it,” I
whispered. “We weren’t doing anything.” I left the door open and headed for my
bedroom. “Let me change really quick and I’ll come with you,” I called over my
shoulder.

“I have to pick
up Jon at my neighbor’s house. I told the hospital to call me and tell me what
the doc said. Lyla’s still with her.”

Noah got up from
the couch and put on his jacket. “I need to go, Leigh. Let me or Miles know
your plans, okay?”

I came out of my
bedroom in flip flops, a fresh t-shirt, yesterday’s jeans, and my hair in a
messy pony tail. “Okay,” I said to Noah.

As he passed
through the threshold he and Lucas brushed up against each other. “Plans?” said
Lucas.

Noah stopped and
looked at him. “Can’t really talk about it. Sorry.”

“Figures. You’re
all trouble for her, and I don’t like it one bit.”

The corner of
Noah’s mouth twitched like it wanted to smirk. “Really?”

“Uh huh. She
wants a normal life.”

“You don’t know
what she wants,” Noah said softly, almost to himself.

“That so?”

I glared at both
of them. “Stop it.”

Noah nodded at
me. “Gotta go. Don’t take too much time thinking about it.” He zipped up his
jacket and left.

Lucas turned to
me. There was a fire in his eyes. “Do these
plans
involve you leaving
again?”

I crossed my
arms. “Maybe.”

“What about
Lyla? You just going to keep leaving her?”

His words stung.
“I don’t have time for this. I need to go see Maw Maw.”

He left without
another word, but the last words he said stayed with me all the way to the
hospital.

***

When I finally
got to Abbeville General, I went up to the front desk and asked for Clothilde
Deville’s room number. The receptionist, a heavy-set blonde with a strong
Southern drawl, tapped away at her computer for a moment and then shook her
head.

“How do you
spell that, sweetie?”

“C-L-O-T-H-I-L-D-E.”

Darlene,
according to her name tag, had a perplexed look on her face. “
Cloth-ild
?”

“
Clo-teel
,”
I corrected.

She tapped the
keyboard again. “I see she was admitted early this morning in the Emergency
Room, but now she’s in a regular room. Dr. Kelly Lane is with her now in Room
one-twenty-three. You can go right in.”

“Thanks.”

When I opened
the door, the first thing I saw was Lyla asleep on the bed near the window. Then
I saw the doctor at Clothilde’s bed. She looked okay, but tired. But you kind
of always look like that when you’re in your eighties, I guess.

The doctor had a
bright smile, and I thought it’s a good thing when a doctor is smiling.

When Clothilde
saw me, she looked away, like she was ready for me to start an argument. That
hurt. All I cared about was if she was going to be okay.

“Hi, I’m Doctor
Kelly Lane,” she said, extending her hand. “Are you a relative?”

I shook her
hand. “I’m Leigh, her granddaughter. Is she all right?”

“Miss Clothilde
here was admitted this morning for chest pain and severe leg pain.”

“Her knees?
She’s been having problems with them for years. I’ve been telling her to get
them checked out.”

“Not exactly her
knees. She has PAD. That’s—”

“Peripheral
Artery Disease,” I finished. Clothilde, her lips pursed and eyes hard, stared
out the window.

“That’s right,”
said Dr. Kelly. “She has considerable blockage in both legs. We did an
Angiogram, and I’m afraid the flow in her arteries is
not
good in two of
them. One has eighty percent blockage, and the other has ninety-nine percent.
We’re scheduling her for double by-pass surgery for tomorrow at Lafayette
General. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve done this procedure a couple
hundred times.” She smiled reassuringly.

“Thank you,” I
said.

When Dr. Kelly
left, I sat on the bed next to Lyla, who was still asleep, putting myself in
Clothilde’s view. Her eyes caught mine, but I waited for her to speak first. It
was a longer wait than I thought, but at last she said, “You not gonna fuss at
me?”

I shrugged. “I
kind of want to because you haven’t been very honest with me. I’m actually just
relieved that you’re okay.”

“Okay? You call
having to have major surgery okay?”

“Why did you lie
all this time about your pain? Why did you say it was your knees when it wasn’t
joint pain?”

“I didn’t feel
like foolin’ with it, and I didn’t want you to worry.”

“So you wait
until you have to be rushed to the hospital, and you didn’t think that would worry
me?”

She eyed me. “See
that? You’re angry.”

“Seriously? I’m
not angry, just worried. But at least we caught this now, so you can have the
surgery and get better. No more pain.”

She looked away
and said nothing.

“What’s wrong?”
I said, but got no response. “It’s okay to be afraid. I’ll be at the hospital
with you, so you won’t be alone or anything. And you’ll be up and about in no
–”

“I’m not going
to have that surgery.”

Now it was my
turn to not say anything. She looked back at me, her eyes daring me to say
something contrary.

“Why not?” I
said at last.

She heaved a
great sigh. “I’m too old. I’m too old and too tired.”

“It sounds to me
like you’re giving up.”

She stared out
the window.

“Don’t you
dare
,”
I said. “You’re not ready to leave yet. If you want to take it easy, I’ll take
Lyla to live with me.”

“It’s not that.
I feel like I’m being called home.”

“Don’t talk like
that! And besides, you’re not. I don’t see the Guardians waiting for you.”

She winced.
“Don’t talk about things like that.”

I threw my hands
up in exasperation. “I can’t help what I am now!” I said a little too loudly,
and Lyla stirred beside me but didn’t wake. Dropping my voice to a whisper I
added, “I’m sorry that I became a dark paladin, but I did it for a good reason.
I don’t regret for one second saving Lucas, because Jonathan still has a
father. I’ll
never
regret that.”

She gave up, hopefully
understanding that what I did was a blessing and not a curse. She let go of
that debate, but brought back the latest argument. “I’m still not having the
surgery.”

I wanted to
scream, but I gritted my teeth and insisted, “Yes you are. It’s either that, or
let me try to heal you.”

“Lyla already
tried. That’s why she’s so tired.”

“She did? Did
she do anything?”

Clothilde shook
her head. “She was panicked and couldn’t concentrate very well. I felt a little
something, but not much.”