Hero's Curse (7 page)

“Sure, that’s fine.” She gave me back my driver’s license and credit card.

I noticed how tired I was. I told myself I wasn’t running away from Mina as I made my excuses and headed back upstairs. A couple of hours later I was lying on my bed, thoughts spinning like an ADHD gerbil on an exercise wheel, when I heard soft footsteps coming up the stairs and a knock on my door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Andi. Can we talk?”

Crap! Like I needed this. I thought about my options. I needed to squash this fast, but if I was too brutal, it might make my stay here uncomfortable. I’d had enough of taking shit calmly. Salt Lake City was large enough to have other homes with thresholds. I put on some shorts and threw my door open. I didn’t try to hide how irritated I was at the situation.

“Andi, I’m not attracted to you. Nothing is going to happen. Go to bed.” I shut the door in her shocked face. I felt better. I fell asleep immediately.

Chapter 5: Of Men and Angels

I woke up rested. My phone said it was 5:52 a.m. I listened and the house was silent except for an intermittent grunting snore; my super hearing was useful. I didn’t know why but I was certain Mina was snoring; it was cute. ‘Goddamn!’ There I go again. She wasn’t even my type. I usually go for older, low maintenance women who have been around long enough not to expect perfection from men. I needed to find out what the hell was going on. I’ve never, even as a kid, been infatuated. A woman snoring…cute? I was disgusting myself.

I got up to brush my teeth. I was just as androgynously pretty as I had been last night. Put a wig on me and I’d look like a hot chick. I thought about the conversation I had with Andi last night. Now that I was rested, I knew I’d been harsher than I should have been. She was just a kid. Even though she was a pain in the ass, she hadn’t meant any harm. I had been on edge about everything and taken it out on her.

Andi most likely hated me; she had good reason. I wondered if she would tell Mina. Probably, they seemed close. If Mina knew, I wondered how she would react. Oh well, I had all day to look for a place. There’d be other homes with decent thresholds. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get away from the women in this house.

I had energy I needed to burn off. I checked out my feet. Evolutionary biology and the theory that human beings were designed to run barefoot appealed to me. Some of the best long distance runners in the world run barefoot. I still wore shoes when I worked out in a gym, but for the past year when I ran outside, I went barefoot. The calluses I’d built up were all gone. I had a feeling I wouldn’t need them.

I thought about my handshake with Ben. I looked at my hands. They were subtly different. The attachments of my muscles and tendons had changed. It looked like my increased strength had an anatomic basis. Chimpanzees and humans share ninety-eight percent of the same genes, but the average chimpanzee is five to seven times stronger than the average man. Chimps are stronger because their bones are denser and their tendons are positioned for better leverage. There are always tradeoffs. Humans float in water; chimps sink. Chimps don’t have the speed and endurance that humans do. I wondered if my speed and endurance had been affected for the worse.

B said Trolls were night creatures. I only needed to stay inside a threshold while the sun was down. It was a little past dawn, so I dressed and went outside. The morning temperature was still cool and the sky was a perfect blue. I turned on my phone running app to record my speed and distance, then took off. As expected, my feet didn’t hurt; I felt like I was running on padded carpet.

I was easily running a six minute mile compared to my normal ten. I sped up and ran as fast as I could. It was a struggle, and it hurt, but I was able to keep a four minute mile pace for two miles. In the past, I had never been able to crack five-and-a-half minutes. It was good to know my speed and endurance hadn’t dropped, and strangely reassuring to know my running speed wasn’t completely outside the boundaries of the humanly possible.

I dropped down to a five minute pace and made a fifteen mile loop. This pace wasn’t easy. I had to work to keep it up, but it was doable. Athletes who have both speed and endurance—whether they’re men like Lance Armstrong or horses like Secretariat— have oversized hearts. I placed my hand over my heart; I wasn’t sure but my heart felt like it was larger.

On the way back, I saw a bakery that was open for business. I bought a bunch of croissants and Danishes with different fillings along with four large cups of coffee. A peace offering to the Swenson girls wouldn’t hurt. I ran two miles back to the house, balancing the coffee tray in one hand like a waiter, and carrying the pastries in a bag with the other. My agility and coordination had also improved. I was never in danger of losing the coffee cups.

It was a little before 7:30 when I got back. I could hear Mina and Andi up in their respective bathrooms. Ben still wasn’t moving. I snuck into the kitchen and poured three of the coffee cups into an insulated coffee pot and left the pot and all the pastries on a plate on the breakfast table. I took a few seconds to gulp down the cup I hadn’t poured and then went back outside. I wasn’t up to facing the women just yet.

I had my first court-ordered psychological evaluation when I was thirteen. A visiting brother to the orphanage touched me; in response I crippled him. It had happened in the days before religious pedophilia made the news, and no one believed my story. The highlights of the evaluation were that I was highly intelligent, had anger management issues, hated authority, and had a pathological need to remain in control. I had been railroaded into juvie, but the psych eval was accurate.

I didn’t have a problem with my intelligence, hatred of authority, or my need for control. My anger bothered me. I made unforced errors when I got angry. For the last few years, I’ve been dealing with my temper with Tai Chi and meditation. Before I could deal with any of my current problems I needed to get my head on straight. I walked to the middle of the backyard. My shirt was soaking wet, yet I considered keeping it on; I was becoming self-conscious about how I looked. Fuck it. It was the way I looked—might as well get used to it. I stripped my shirt off and began the classical Yang style, the eighty-eight forms.

Within minutes, my heart rate slowed and my mind began to float. I was aware of everything but I didn’t care about anything. The trance state relaxes me; I have thoughts without emotions. For forty minutes I got lost in the forms. Tai Chi looks easy because the motions are so slow, and if done right, beautiful. What most people don’t realize is your knees and hips are kept bent almost continuously. Keeping your center of gravity one foot lower than normal, never standing fully erect for forty minutes is strenuous. After a fifteen mile run and eighty-eight forms, my legs should have been exhausted; they weren’t.

About fifteen minutes after I started Tai Chi, Mina and Andi came into the kitchen. Shortly afterwards, Andi got into her car and took off. From her uniform, it looked like she was off to practice. She had been munching on a croissant while she walked to her car, which was probably a good sign. I knew Mina was watching me, but at this point I didn’t care.

I went straight into a flashy Tae Kwon Do form that was all jumps and flying kicks. No one with experience jumps when it counts. Throw yourself into the air and you’ve just committed yourself to a trajectory you can’t change. If you have an experienced opponent, he’ll grab you while your feet are up and slam you into the ground. In Tae Kwan Do tournaments it’s illegal to hold on to your opponent, and it’s almost impossible to score a point with a punch. Without those artificial rules, you’d never see flying or jumping kicks in a match. I use these kicks to train, to work on speed and bursts of strength. I never leave the ground in a real fight.

The form starts off in a standing prayer position—feet together, knees and spine straight, hands chest high, and palms together. I went straight into a simultaneous side and back kick. My new vert was about eighteen inches higher than it had been. My feet were close to seven feet in the air as I did the splits. When I landed I felt like I was on a trampoline, I went straight into a spin jump wheel kick, getting even more air. Sixty seconds later, I finished with a spinning jump roundhouse. I wasn’t even breathing hard. Being a paladin wasn’t all bad.

I grabbed my shirt off the ground and went back into the house. Mina was waiting for me, sipping on a cup of coffee. Her face was serious. “Did you really slam your door in Andi’s face last night?”

“Kind of—do you mind if I take a quick shower and get dressed before we continue with this conversation?” I didn’t wait for her answer. I turned and quickly went up the stairs. When I got to my room, I took a few minutes to check on my emails. I wanted to stop sweating before I showered. I had an email from B with the heading ‘A message from God.’ I shook my head. B wasn’t as funny as he thought he was. He wanted me to go to a coin shop on 200 East Broadway in downtown Salt Lake City.

When I came back down, Mina stood, arms crossed, one foot tapping impatiently. I didn’t know how to even begin to explain myself, “Uh…”

Mina let loose a sly grin and shook her head, “Vic, you don’t need to look so worried. Really, I appreciate you setting Andi straight. She’s been acting up since our parents died. She had no business going up to your room last night. When she told me what happened, I was really more upset with her than you. You could have been more diplomatic, but I’m glad you’re not into high school girls. Andi has a strong ego. She’ll be fine.”

The last thing I expected was for Mina to thank me. She took a long, considering look, went off topic and surprised me again, “You don’t like the way you look, do you?”

“Yeah…are we good?”

“Sure, we’re fine. Vic, I saw you outside doing Tai Chi. What style of martial arts were you doing afterwards? How were you able to jump so high?”

“I’m really sorry, Mina. I wish I had more time to talk but if we’re good, I really have to leave. I have an appointment and I can’t afford to be late.”

“Oh, okay.”

It could have just been wishful thinking, but I think she looked disappointed as I took off. I really didn’t like the way this girl made me feel. Jesus! I acted like a tongue-tied kid around her. I needed to get a grip.

I had only been driving for a few minutes when I realized I was starving. I pulled up to a McDonald’s drive through and ordered ten Egg McMuffins and a large orange juice. The cashier wanted to give me more drinks. I had to go back and forth with her a couple times to convince her all the food was just for me and I only needed one drink. I pulled into a parking space and in the next few minutes ate everything.

You have to pay for increased horsepower with worse gas mileage. It looked like my new body worked the same way. I was faster and stronger but I needed more calories. I wasn’t famished when I finished but I could have eaten a couple more breakfast sandwiches without a problem.

Salt Lake City isn’t that big of a town. After I got going again, it only took ten minutes to drive to the coin store, Rare Change and Medallions. There was only one person in the store. The instant he saw me he walked around the counter with a huge smile, his hand out for me to shake. “Welcome, you must be Victor Paladin. You look exactly like your great, great, great grandfather.”

I expected the guy to burst out into a ‘Ho, ho, ho.’ He resembled a miniature Santa Claus dressed in civilian clothes. He had a bushy white beard, red cheeks and nose, and comfortably large gut. He was tiny, barely five feet tall, and had a faint Irish brogue. He even had the round rimless glasses.

I had been paying so much attention to his looks that it took a few seconds for what he had said to penetrate. “You knew one of my grandparents?”

“One of your multiple great grandparents; his name was Regal.” When the tiny guy smiled, he was straight out of an illustrated story book; white beard, twinkly button eyes, and rosy cheeks, “I can see by your face you think the name is ridiculous, but your line has always preferred ‘majestic’ names.”

I told myself not to get my hopes too high, “Did you know my parents?”

His smile disappeared, he soberly replied, “No, I’m sorry I didn’t. I was briefed about the mix up when you were orphaned, but with ‘need to know,’ I wasn’t told anything about your mother and father. I can tell you a lot of stories about Regal. My name is Aidan Cahill.” As we shook hands, his expression brightened. “Please, please, let’s go downstairs where we can sit and talk more comfortably.”

Before I could ask more questions he turned toward the rear door and shouted, “Tim, come and take over the counter!”

A few seconds later an average sized blonde guy with the beginnings of a pot belly and thinning hair came in the room. He looked to be in his late twenties. His smile was so large that it almost broke his face, and he looked at me with something approaching awe. He ran over to where I stood, and with too much pleasure, grabbed my hand with both of his. “I’m Tim Hardy, Master Aidan’s apprentice. We’ve been without a paladin for almost a year now and it’s been a mess. I never expected our replacement to be a real honest to Jehovah ‘Paladin’. You’re just in time for the Redcap hunt. Oh my God, it’s such an honor!” he gushed.

“Thanks, Tim.” I glanced at Aidan with a what-the-hell’s-up-with-Tim look on my face. He nodded at me, chuckled, and jerked his head toward the door. I gently pushed Tim away from me. He didn’t want to let go of my hand. Luckily, Tim didn’t have magical strength.