The Legacy: A Custodes Noctis Book Read online

  “Traveling,” Rob stepped in smoothly. “I was traveling a little before I finished grad school.”

  “Grad school? Wow, both of you? I’m impressed,” Becci said, leaning out of the window to hand them their coffee, her precariously taped scarf shifting a tiny bit. “Oops.” She straightened it up. “New idea, theme days. Today’s scarf day, what do you think?”

  “Nice,” Rob breathed. Galen gave him a little kick.

  “Great idea, Becci.” Galen turned and walked back to the shop, stopping to turn on the open sign on the way in. Rob walked behind the counter and sank down on one of the stools. “Grad school?” Galen set his coffee down on the counter and grabbed the dust cloth.

  “Yeah, finishing up my Master’s, just have the thesis left.”

  Galen felt the slow smile spreading on his face. “Really? That’s fast.”

  “Psychotically fast, or so I’ve been told.” Rob grinned. “I got to college a little early, so I was ahead of the others.”

  “Yeah? Subject?”

  “History and Lit, specializing in the sagas of Northern Europe. I thought, well…” He shrugged, a smile on his face. “It’s part of the tradition, isn’t it? I guess I’ve clung to the idea I was Custodes Noctis all these years. The sagas seemed a natural thing to study.”

  “Nice.” Galen finished dusting and picked up his coffee.

  “You?” Rob asked. Galen shrugged. “Before you deny something, Galen? I saw the doctorate on the wall.”

  “Oh, I found that in a box of cereal.” Galen laughed. “I just filled in my name.”

  “Yeah, right. Subject?”

  “History—of medicine actually, mostly Dark Ages, specializing in Western holistic traditions.” Galen grinned. “I’ve clung to the traditions, too. It went with the Gift, and so I ran with it. I’m a Master Herbalist, too.”

  “Nice.” Rob grinned at him. “Very nice. Can I help with something?”

  “Not today, I’ll put you to work soon enough, but today you are going to rest. Get it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.” Galen smiled and straightened the shelves, putting out the order he’d gotten the day before. He carefully set out the magical items he’d gotten, making a phone call to let a customer know one item had arrived. Rob watched him the whole time, a smile on his face, his eyes thoughtful, before getting up and wandering around the shop. Stopping before the small statue behind the counter, he looked at Galen and smiled.

  “I remember this from when I was a kid,” he said, running a hand over the surface.

  “I moved it from the window after a break-in, but it’s the same one,” Galen said, fussing with the objects in the display case.

  Rob watched him. “Like Dad,” he said softly.

  “What?” Galen straightened and looked at his brother.

  “Not just herbs and vitamins and using the Gift now and then to help heal people. There’s magic here, the real thing.” Rob looked slowly around the room. “I can see it, you know. It has a funny shine. When I was a kid, I thought that was how all shops like this look, but they don’t. Very few have real magic, that sense of actual power in them.”

  Galen shrugged. “Dad did most of that. Dad and Uncle Bobby. I’ve only added a little. I’ve had more time to study, since they were full Keepers and I…I…” He stopped, swallowing the pain that suddenly flared in his chest.

  “Galen?” Rob came over and put a hand on his back. “What is that?”

  “It’s nothing,” Galen started, then paused when Rob sighed. “Okay, sorry. It’s an ache I get sometimes.” He smiled. “All better now. And I can’t take credit for the shop, it’s everyone who came before, really.”

  “Galen…” Rob frowned. “Don’t you realize you…” He shook his head. “It’s nice to be back where there’s magic.”

  Galen smiled at his brother and continued straightening things around the store. Rob wandered back and forth, running his hands over some things, picking others up to examine them closer. Finally, he settled back behind the counter and watched Galen with the thoughtful smile on his face again.

  “Rob?” Galen said after a silent fifteen minutes. The silence had been comfortable, natural, like his brother had never been gone at all.

  “What?”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  Rob chuckled. “You mean now, after all these years, knowing you and Dad and Uncle Bobby were dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A friend said I needed to come here.”

  “Seer?” Galen raised his eyebrows.

  “No, shaman actually, medicine man, Billy Hernandez. He helped me learn to control the Sight. It was out of control, my adopted family thought I was losing my mind. Of course, they thought that every since I knew Grandma had cancer, and that was when I was eight.” Rob smiled. “I think they sensed something about my Gift. Galen…” Rob stopped himself for a moment, he glanced at Galen then smiled again. “No, not yet,” he said softly, under his breath. Galen was sure he wasn’t meant to hear.

  “What?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. Anyway, I went to a witch and she helped a little, but it was more than she could handle, you know?” Rob looked over at him, Galen nodded. “So she sent me to New Mexico and a shaman she knew there. I stayed with him for the whole summer of my junior year. He helped a lot. Then, three days ago, he called out of the blue and said I had to come here, no explanations, just I had to come.” He shrugged. “So I did, I thought the least I could do was visit the cemetery and leave a stone for all of you.” He smiled at Galen. “That’s the tradition of the Custodes Noctis, isn’t it? Leave a stone? I have some special ones I found in New Mexico. I guess I only need two, not three.”

  “Yeah,” Galen said, walking back to his brother and sitting down beside him.

  “Five years now, isn’t it?” Rob asked. “I remember when my parents told me. I almost came up her then. I was the last of the family and I thought…” He frowned suddenly. “Who called? I remember, that same day I answered the phone once and it was just a dead line.” He looked at Galen. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Galen smiled sadly, the memory of that day fresh and painful as an open wound. “Yeah, it was me.”

  “Galen, why didn’t you…?”

  “I damn near did. It was a close thing. But I was dead, remember? I thought you’d need to know, so I called expecting your mother to answer, and it was you. I knew it was you, even though your voice had changed. Shit, Rob, I… I needed you, hearing your voice…it nearly destroyed me that day, nearly took away the resolve. It was back, Dad and Uncle Bobby were gone and I was alone and I suddenly wanted the life I’d given up when I died.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Rob asked, meeting his eyes. Galen swallowed. “I’ll go get us another cup of coffee, be right back.” Rob stood and walked out of the shop. Galen watched as his brother spoke to Becci and turned back with two cups in his hand. Rob was smiling when he came in. “She likes you,” Rob said, handing him the coffee.

  “Uh…” Galen felt the blush running up his cheeks.

  “She told me how you saved her friend Sandi and how you have the, I quote, ‘bestest band’ in the whole Northwest.” Rob was smiling at him, a teasing smile. “She wanted me to know what a cool brother I had.”

  “I…uh…”

  Rob laughed and slapped him lightly on the back. “Sorry. She does like you, though. She wouldn’t take my money, so I asked her why.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll get used to it again, Brat.” Galen smiled. “Thanks.” He sipped the coffee for a minute. “Five years ago…”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was late. I’d been doing a little shopping, I wanted to send something special for your eighteenth birthday.”

  “You?” Rob looked at him with surprise. “You were the one who sent the gifts? I should have known.”

  “How? I was dead.” Galen shrugged. “I’d been shopping and got home late. Dad and Uncle Bobby had already closed t
he shop for the day…”

  Past

  Five Years Before

  Galen pulled his jeep in behind the building, parking next to his father’s truck. The lot was quiet, the shadows deep where the glow from the streetlight brushed against neighboring buildings. Galen sat for a minute in the car, his hands still on the wheel. Five years. He’s going to be eighteen. I wonder…It’s been five years, nothing has happened. I wonder… do we dare let him know? He sighed. Great birthday gift, huh? Little brother? You know how I’ve been dead? Galen grabbed the packages off the seat and opened the door.

  As he did, the old scar in his chest suddenly came to life, twisting with a new agony, breathtaking in its intensity. Galen leaned against the side of the jeep, trying to get his breath as the scar ground against his heart. “Dad?” he called weakly, knowing his father would sense the call. Unlike attacks in the past, this one slowly increased until Galen was gasping for air, trying to stay conscious long enough for his father to reach him. He thought he heard a car door slam close by, but he was completely focused on trying to stop the pain flaring in his chest.

  “Take him,” a voice said from in front of him. Hands grabbed him and pulled him away from the car.

  “Dad! Bobby!” he yelled, knowing they would hear him.

  “Good,” another voice said. Galen forced his eyes open, he recognized the death scent of the thing. “Good, we have him.” It was wearing the body of a woman in her late fifties, blood-red nail polish glittered on claw-like hands. She raised her hand, and with a sick smile, placed it on his chest. Galen heard his voice scream in pain.

  “Stop,” Parry said from behind him.

  “This one is incomplete, take those two,” the woman said in the voice of the thing. Galen was dropped to the ground.

  “Galen!” his father shouted.

  “I’m okay,” he called back, forcing himself up off the ground and staggering back to the jeep to grab a weapon. He saw the woman gesture to a group of people behind her, they moved forward as Parry and Bobby stepped between Galen and the thing. As he reached the jeep, the scar gave another twist, the pain forcing him back down. Galen braced himself against the car, waiting for the pain to pass.

  “Bobby, no!” he heard his father shout as his uncle screamed. Galen forced himself up, wrenched the door of the jeep open and grabbed his sword from under the seat. Turning, he paused only long enough to take in the situation.

  His uncle was lying on the ground, Parry in front of him. Bobby was bleeding, a large knife buried in his chest. Parry was trying to hold off the thing’s followers. Galen shoved the emotion away, letting his training take control before he stepped forward.

  The thing approached his father as Galen neared. Parry ran his sword into the thing, the blade sliding through the body with ease. It screamed as the magical blade pierced It, Its hands reaching for Parry and sinking into his chest.

  “No!” Galen shoved the thing away, dropped his own sword and pulled his father’s blade from Its body. The thing’s followers were trying to pull the woman back into the car.

  “Fools,” she hissed, pulling away and stepping towards Galen again. “Take this one, we can complete it still, take this one and those two. Don’t let them die on the way.”

  “Never,” Galen said, raising his father’s sword, the sword that would have been his one day. The power of the blade hummed against his hand. He swung the blade, cutting a swath across the thing’s chest. It screamed, clutching at the bleeding wounds on Its body. Its followers were pulling It towards the car.

  “No, no, fools, take them,” It screamed in fury.

  Galen could hear sirens in the distance as the thing was finally pulled into the car and, with a squeal of tires, they were gone. He dropped on his knees beside his father. Parry was cradling Bobby against him.

  “Let me help, Dad,” Galen said gently, reaching his hands towards his uncle. He put his hand over his father’s and tried to draw the light down into his uncle’s body. He focused the healing, ignoring the explosion of pain behind his eyes, ignoring the darkness tugging at the edge of his awareness. Suddenly his hands were pushed away.

  “It’s too late, Galen, you can’t help him, you can’t help…” Parry broke off, coughing, blood welling on his lips.

  “Dad?” Galen put a hand on his father’s arm, pain flowed up from the touch. His father was dying. “No, let me…”

  “No, Galen. I can’t, you know that. Not without…the bond is too strong, I don’t…” His father paused. “You need to…Rob…” He moaned. Galen put his hand on his father’s forehead, trying to ease the pain. “It felt something in me, you have to…Your brother…We…” Parry’s head dropped down against Bobby’s. “Bobby? He’s dead, Galen. Bobby’s gone…I…”

  “Please, Dad, let me try and heal you.”

  “I’m dying, Galen, and even if I wasn’t, you know how it works. Don’t try. It would kill you…Don’t deny… Galen…you have to watch out for your brother.”

  “Dad, what about Rob? What should I do?”

  “You and your brother, Galen, you need to know…We should have…” Each phrase was punctuated by a gasping cough. Galen shifted so he could prop his father up and ease the gasping breaths. “Rob, you have to…” Parry cried out in pain suddenly. “Galen, please. Help, let me… I…” Tears mixed with blood on his face. “Please.”

  “Dad, no.” Galen’s eyes had filled with tears.

  “Please,” his father said. “I…I’m…You need to…I have served faithfully, I have walked…”

  Galen put his other hand over his father’s heart. “Dad…”

  “Thank…Galen…” His father was gasping for air, Galen knew he was slowly drowning on his own blood.

  “I’ll do my best, Dad,” he said quietly.

  “Rob…” Parry started coughing again. “Please, Galen.”

  “In living we serve, in dying we serve, the line continues, we are joined with our present and our past.” Galen spoke the formal words as he let the light slowly flow out of his hands, aware of the pain in his father. “You have served the world, now rest until you are called again.” His father closed his eyes as Galen took the pain away, gently slowing his father’s heart until it finally stopped.

  * * *

  Galen scrubbed a hand across his face, the past moving away as the room came back into focus. His brother’s arm was around his shoulders, warm and comforting. “Rob, I’m sorry, they’re dead because of me.” Galen looked over at his brother, aware of the tears in Rob’s eyes.

  “No, Galen,” Rob said quietly.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do. I called to let you know they’d died, thinking maybe you’d take that as a warning, too. I didn’t know if It would come again, but I think the ritual had been broken. The first part was accomplished, I’m sure, so It could live, but what It would do with us wasn’t.”

  Rob nodded. “I’ve learned a little more about what I think It is, and yes, I’m sure they went through the first part, but not the last. They need both of us.”

  Galen looked at his brother. “Were we right? Is it…?” He stopped, suddenly afraid of the answer.

  “The Legacy, Galen?” Rob met his eyes.

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “I think it might be,” Rob said cautiously. “We need to talk about it, Galen. What happened then, what’s happening now. We have to know if this is the Legacy.”

  “How would we know?”

  “The sagas tell us the First Emrys imprisoned an Old One in the body of a creature that walked the earth. They say that members of the line will be the fulfillment of the Legacy.”

  “I remember. Doesn’t the world end before the line can finish it?”

  “I’m not sure the world actually ends, but the Old One is released to walk on the earth again.”

  “Me, my fault.” Galen put his head in his hands for a minute.

  “I don’t think it’s just you, Galen, it’s…” Rob started, the door banged open before he could
finish.

  “Galen?” Rhiannon stormed into the store. “Where the hell were you…” She stopped, looking at Rob, the color draining out of her face.

  Rob stood and walked around the counter, a happy smile on his face. “Rhiannon?”

  She launched herself at Rob, luckily she wasn’t very big, but even with that she nearly bowled him over when she came into contact with him, her arms going around him as she pulled his head down against her shoulder. “Rob?” Rhiannon said, a smile on her face. Galen noticed something that didn’t happen very often, tears were running down Rhiannon’s face.

  “Yeah, hi,” Rob said, his voice muffled.

  “Hi, yourself.” Rhiannon pulled away, smiling up at Rob. “How the hell are you?”

  “I’m okay. You?”

  “Great, even better now.” She turned to Galen. “He was the Keeper last night?”

  “Yeah.” Galen grinned at her. “I was a little surprised.”

  “Only a little?” Rhiannon laughed at him.

  “Yeah, a little. What are you doing here?”

  “Came to check on you, considering the day. Guess I’m not needed now.” She grinned at them, then walked over to Galen and picked up the cup of coffee in front of him. She took a drink and made a face. “Mocha. You always drink mochas.”

  “You could try buying your own. He drinks real coffee,” Galen said, pointing at Rob.

  “Good boy.” Rhiannon grinned at Rob, she picked up the other cup and took a drink. “Yes, much better.” She hopped up on the counter and looked at Rob. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too.” He smiled at her.

  “Rhiannon?” Galen said. “Rob lost his car the other day, think you can find it?”

  “Sure.” She jumped down. “I’ll call Greg and Caleb and we’ll have it back here before tonight. What kind of car is it?”

  “Jeep, like mine.”

  “That’ll make it easy.” She got a few more details and held her hand out for the keys. Rob turned them over with an odd smile on his face. She gave him another hug and headed out the door.

  “It’s a little like getting hit by a tornado,” Galen said as Rob sat back down beside him.