The Legacy: A Custodes Noctis Book (9 page)

“Galen?”

He looked up at his brother. Rob’s eyes were a little red around the edges. “Yeah?”

“I…”

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Galen said softly.

“A little.” Rob smiled. “I left you some hot water.”

“How are you feeling?” Galen ran his eyes over the bruises still coloring his brother’s face.

“Sore, but mostly okay. Of course, you know that,” Rob added with a laugh.

“Yeah.” Galen sat quietly for a moment longer, aware of the warmth resting on his shoulders. With a sigh he stood up. “I’ll be right out.”

Rob was waiting for him when he finished, standing in front of the pictures of their father and uncle. His brother smiled at him and they headed down to the shop. Galen stopped to look out the back door. “Always have to check, people leave things out there sometimes.”

“Things?” Rob asked as they walked through the shop.

Galen shrugged. “Yeah, things.”

“Like?”

“Oh, you know, people, animals…” Galen smiled. “My shop functions as a clinic, sort of…I can stitch a wound and things like that, people come here sometimes.”

“Or drop the victim off outside?”

“Yeah, that too,” Galen said, opening the front door. “I need coffee, you?”

Rob laughed. “Do I have to have it cut half with milk?”

Galen laughed too, remembering the indignant protests of his brother when he had been allowed coffee, but only lattes. “No, I think you can have real coffee if you want.”

Galen led the way thought the shop and out to the espresso stand. “Morning, Becci,” he said as she slid the window open. He heard his brother’s little intake of breath.

“Good morning, Galen, your mocha’s almost ready. What does your friend want?”

Galen looked over at Rob. “Well?” When he received no answer, he gave him a discrete nudge. “Coffee?”

“What? Oh, Americano, thanks,” Rob said, smiling at Becci.

“Okay.” She started the coffee, then turned back looking from one to the other. “You two look alike.”

“Rob’s my brother,” Galen said, grinning.

“You never mentioned a brother,” Becci pouted, “never once.”

“We haven’t seen each other in awhile. Rob’s been…” He stopped, unsure what to say.

“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 the 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.