The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (2 page)

We worked on it for an hour with no obvious results from either of our vantage points.

When Dr. Anderson called the time, I felt like a complete failure. I looked at him helplessly. His return gaze was completely impassive. I found no sympathy there. (Not that I was expecting any.)

Janice chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, handsome. I was always a slow student. We can try it again tomorrow.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Really?”

She struggled to push her bulk out of the chair. She looked at the two orderlies and asked, “Boys, how about helping the fat lady up?”

They sprang to her aid, and when she was standing, she addressed me again. “If there is one thing I’ve learned, swami, it’s that grim perseverance will often get you there as reliably as beauty and talent.”

I stood and smiled at her ruefully. “That’s good, ‘cause I have no idea what I’m doing.”

She barked out another laugh. “You’re a lousy cheerleader, but I never liked those bimbos. Thanks for trying to help.” She turned, and headed out of the room.

Deep down, in it’s cage inside my mind, my own personal shadow squirmed once again as she left. The only difference between the one riding Janice and the one I carried in its cage was size. Mine made hers look like a sunny day.

I turned to Anderson as he watched her leave. “Sorry, Doc. She’s a nice lady, too.”

“Anyone who can function under the onslaught of these parasites is a truly remarkable person,” he replied.

I had to nod in agreement. Both of us had taken turns under the yoke of a shadow. It sucked big donkey... thingy.

I left the session with Janice feeling frustrated and useless. I knew how to strip that shadow right off of her. I had the ability to do it, too, but it took power, power from myself and my Caduceus. I’d done it several times before, and by the last time, I’d barely ripped the soul of the infected person at all... Okay, that sounds bad, but when it really went bad, it went really bad.

Big Bertha squirmed within its cell whenever I got close to a shadow-ridden person. I’d no idea what might happen if I reached my mind out and applied some of the power of the Caduceus to touch another shadow, and I didn’t want to find out.

How’s Bertha doing?
I asked Spring. The creature was actually named Wendigota by the Native Americans it had terrorized centuries ago, but Bertha was less scary.

Still locked tight and secure el cap-i-tan dude.

Thanks Spring. Any change at all?

It’s hard to tell, but I don’t think so. The cage looks pretty stable.

That’s good.

Yep, so let’s not screw with a good thing.
Translation: don’t mess with any more shadows. I agreed with her at a very deep level. The thought of being under the control of that monster again freaked both of us out, but I didn’t think I’d be able to stay away from the shadows. I had to help these people somehow, because I knew how they felt.

I plopped myself into one of the comfy chairs in the common room fighting disappointment and sleepiness. I’d had to get up at the unholy hour of eight in the morning and that just sapped my will to live. I needed something good in my life, something to offset the PTSDs I carried from the horror I’d endured a little over a month ago.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Finn!” Colette’s lilting voice pulled me right out of my well of self-pity. A pretty woman talking to me? Maybe the Karma Fairy had decided I’d had enough.

Yeah, right.

Just seeing Colette cheered me up. She was friendly, pretty, and her French accent spoke the language of love directly to my libido. We’d only talked a few times, but I really liked Colette, even if Spring wasn’t impressed with her. The first time I met the French intern, Spring told me she thought that Colette was too petite, too slender, to be a good breeder and, in any event, was on birth control pills. Spring counseled me to find someone else to breed with.

We didn’t see quite eye-to-eye on the whole purpose of getting a girlfriend.

Spring’s running commentary on suitable mates meant that I could rarely have a conversation with a healthy girl without blushing. Still, I was determined to get to know Colette. I had the inside track. Dr. Anderson had told me that she was an unpaid intern and would undoubtedly appreciate an offer of a free lunch or three.

I stood up. “Hi, Colette!”

I’m telling you Finn, she’s not worth the effort! Those aren’t baby-making hips.

Shut up
,
Spring. Please?

Colette came up to me with a sunny smile and leaned forward with her expressive lips in a pucker. I knew immediately what she was going for because I saw her do the double cheek kiss with one of the orderlies once. I leaned to the right and she leaned the same way. We had to stop before we collided. I blushed and immediately, we both shifted left and then right again. Each time pushing in and then pulling away. We probably looked like a couple of mating cranes or something.

I finally pulled back in complete embarrassment. She pulled back as well and laughed. Her eyes sparkled at me, and a mischievous smile curled across her lips.

She grabbed my hands lightly in hers, and her smile broadened. “Finn, stand still.”

I did, acutely conscious of the touch of her hands on mine. She pursed her lips again and leaned forward to my right. She stood a few inches shorter than me and had to stand a bit on her tiptoes to bring her lips to my right cheek. She said into my ear, “First, you kiss to your left.” Her cheek brushed mine lightly and her lips smacked ever so softly next to my ear. A shiver ran down to my toes. She pulled back, caught my gaze with her twinkling eyes, and leaned to my left. The touch of her cheek on mine was as light as a butterfly kiss. “Then you kiss to your right.” Her lips smacked softly again, and she stepped back. “Simple, no?”

I was so aroused that I thought I was going through a second puberty. I squeaked out, “No. I mean yes!”

She patted me on the cheek still smiling. “You are cute when you blush.”

Of course, I blushed even harder.

Don’t just stand there with your dick on your forehead
,
Finn. Ask her to lunch.

I pushed past a hundred carefully cultivated rejection-avoidance mechanisms and blurted out, “Would you like to go to lunch with me?”

“But, of course. I am very hungry.”

“Great!”
OhmygodOhmygod, she said yes! Ohmy...
A jolt of pain flashed behind my eyes as Spring kicked me in the mental keister. It did the trick. “Uh, do you like pizza?”

She smiled with delight and said, “I love zi American pizza.”

“Great.” Now I was at a loss. I’d never gotten this far before.

She made it easy. “Shall we go?”

“Oh, right!” Grateful dork relief washed over me, and together, we walked out. I opened the door of the manor for her and followed. Her tight (heart shaped!) derriere sashaying away speared my attention and reeled me in. She glanced over her shoulder at me, and I ripped my eyes back to her face in panic.

“It is beautiful today, no?”

I swallowed and hurried to her side. “Uh yeah, nice day.” I didn’t want her to think I was a jerk, so I vowed only to look at her face. It didn’t seem like it should be hard, after all, she had beautiful brown eyes, a pretty, heart-shaped face, and expressive lips. I was wrong. It was nearly impossible for me to keep my eyes where they belonged. The moment I let my guard down, I’d find myself staring at various parts of her slender, yet shapely, figure. Spring’s mocking was no help whatsoever, but Colette made it very easy on me. She kept up a chatter of small talk and ignored any nervousness or impropriety on my part. Soon, I found myself relaxing and chatting back. Miracles do happen.

***

We sat down with our plates stocked from Frankies lunch buffet. I was a little self-conscious when I saw she’d only taken one slice of pizza. I tried not to grimace as I looked down at the four large slices piled on my plate. I didn’t need to worry. She didn’t even look at my plate. She just put her hand around the cross at the end of the necklace she wore, bowed her head in prayer, and then crossed herself. I’d never actually seen somebody cross themselves except in the movies. Being from a family of (lax) protestants, we didn’t do that. I wondered if that would be another strike against me in her eyes.

In addition to being a goofy, love-starved teenager?
added Spring.

Yeah that
,
too. Now, please leave me alone so I don’t look like an idiot
,
too?

I could feel the reply to that behind Spring’s mirth, but she didn’t need to state it aloud.

Spring retreated while Colette and I chatted over our lunch. It consisted mostly of her plying me for information about my life. During a pause in the conversation, I asked the question that I’d held in check from the first moment I saw her. “So, why did you come here?”

“Eeu, I am learning the psychology, of course.” ‘Eeu’ is French for ‘um’, but a hell of a lot sexier. Her lips puckered slightly when she said it as if she were ready to give me a kiss. It was mesmerizing.

Close your mouth
,
boy. You’r
e
drooling.

I shook my fantasies out of my brain.

“No, I mean, why here? Why the middle of Ohio? There are a lot of places you could have gone besides our cloudy, little town.”

She took a delicate bite of her pizza, chewed, and spoke around the small mouthful. “Oh, she is easy. I wanted to go to a place that was not like Paris. I was tired of the city and I’ve never been in Ohio. Dr. Anderson, he is a well known psychiatrist, and it will be good for my learning record to work with him.”

“Oh, really? He’s well known?”

She laughed and, with a toss of her head, dealt with a disobedient strand of her kinky brown hair. “Of course, if you did not know this, why are
you
here?”

“Well, it kind of happened by accident.”

“So what do you do with the doctor?”

“Well... I’m... teaching meditation to some of his patients to see if it can help them.”

“Oh, you practice the meditation? What type do you practice?”

“Um...” I’d only ever heard of one type of meditation. “Transcendental Meditation?”

“You follow the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi?”

“Uh, yes, he’s very good.”

He’s dead you know,
said Spring.

Crap, how do you know?

I pay attention.

“Finn, what is that you wear under your shirt?”

The change of topic took me by gratified surprise. “This? Oh, it’s just a stick I found.”

“A stick?”

I pulled out my Caduceus from under the button-down shirt I wore to the clinic. It’s an ultra-hard, dense, black piece of driftwood about 4 inches long, roughly wedge shaped with the wide end flattened a bit and the other end narrowing to a wavy, uneven point. I’ve been told by the ghost of an ancient warrior priestess that it’s a piece of the Earth’s long-gone Tree of Life. She didn’t actually tell me what that was, or what had happened to it.

Colette’s eyes grew larger, and she reached for it. “Oh, she is beautiful. May I hold her?”

I shook my head and pulled back. I had no desire to explain any odd feelings she might get from it. “No, I, uh, I don’t like other people to touch it. It’s, uh... very special to me... I hope you don’t mind?”

She gave me a momentary queer look and then waved my concern away. “It is nothing. Where did you get this stick?”

“Oh, I found it near one of the Native American burial mounds here in Ohio.” Actually, “‘under,”‘ would be more accurate.

“There are a lot of these mounds here?”

I nodded. “And lots of Native American artifacts. What about yours, the cross you wear around your neck?”

She looked down at the two-inch, ornate, silver cross hanging below the hollow of her throat and reflexively touched it. “This was given to me by my Mémèr. It was given to her by her Mémèr, and so on. It is very old.”

“Cool.” I would have asked to see it if I hadn’t just rebuffed her request. Instead, I switched the subject to the old things I liked to collect. We went off into a conversation about the rich artifact hunting in the Ohio Valley. I’m good at finding things, and I have an extensive collection. I promised I would bring in some of the arrowheads and other things I had found. I probably would have promised to give her my whole collection if she’d asked.

From our first conversation, I could tell that Colette was incredibly worldly and had traveled everywhere, yet she seemed genuinely interested in my life—even if I could only tell her about the boring, non-weird stuff. All in all, it was a very successful first date, even if it wasn’t really a date per se.

After that first day, we made it a semi-regular event. Sometimes my friends or others from the clinic joined us, but my favorite times were when it was only the two of us.

Colette was more physically demonstrative than anyone I knew. She didn’t shy from hugs or kisses. I thought it was enchanting, but I just put it down to her being French. She was 8 years older than me, so I didn’t let myself think there might be something more between us, but hey, I never claimed to be quick on my feet.

I’m pleased to report that I nailed the whole double kiss thing. I
can
be taught—even if it doesn’t always stick.

Colette made the whole working with shadows thing more bearable, and gave me something better to dream about at night than headless bodies and dead friends.

I was able to ward off one or more of the shadows when I was only ten, but none of my “students” at Shady Oak’s ever had any success. As you could see with Janice, it wasn’t for lack of trying. With each failure, Dr. Anderson leaned on me harder to try the direct approach again. The pressure on me peaked when, weeks later, Dr. Anderson called me at home at seven in the morning. My eyes kept crossing with the effort to keep them open when I took the call.

“Finn, I need you here. Mr. Johnson is slipping away quickly. He’ll die soon if we can’t do something for him. The only thing that might help him is to have you pull the shadow off of him.”