The Legacy: A Custodes Noctis Book (23 page)

“Dad?” Galen kept his voice calm.

“He’s hurt himself.”

“What do you mean? Like getting up? Or what?”

“He, they don’t know how, but he—he’s torn the stitches out, and he’s…” His father’s shoulders dropped, Bobby put an arm over the shaking shoulders. “Galen I don’t, I didn’t know what to do. I thought…But Galen…” His father looked at him for a moment.
He’s lost. He’s not there, Bobby isn’t there. Something’s interfering.
 His father drew a breath that sounded like a sob.

“Dad? Please.” Galen was trying to stay calm.

“He…He…” His father couldn’t seem to finish.

“Dad?” Galen looked at his father. “Uncle Bobby?”

“He’s hurt himself,” his uncle said.

“What? How?” Galen snapped.

“He’s gotten a scalpel somehow and…” Bobby swallowed and his eyes focused for just a moment. “I thought I saw…” And he was gone again. “He’s been cutting himself, Galen.”

“They want to move him to the psych ward so he can be more closely monitored,” Parry said.

“No,” Galen said. “No, not an option. There’s nothing wrong with Rob,” he said, bringing the memory of his brother in the bed, covered in blood, to mind. “He’s a Keeper…”

“It might be the only way to help him, Galen.”

“No. Take me down there, Dad. I need to see him.”

“He’s sedated, Galen, he wouldn’t know you’re there.”

“He would know, Dad. He would, you know that.” Galen tried shaking his father’s arm.
He knows that. I remember when Bobby…

“Galen, you sound like your brother. He said the same thing.”

“What? Of course he did. You don’t think he’d know if I was there? Was Rob here in my room, Dad? Bobby? Before I woke up?” His father and uncle actually looked at him, really looked at him, Galen saw recognition in their eyes for just a moment. “He was, wasn’t he? Twice? No, three times.” He paused. There was something about that third time.

“Yes he was, Galen,” his father said, still focused on him. “What is it?”

“There was…” Galen looked at his father and uncle. “What was it, that third time? Someone was here. No, some
thing
was here. I don’t think it was human. It felt familiar, though. The thing, that thing that took Rob, it was here at the hospital!”

“Galen?” his father said. Galen looked up, the momentary recognition was gone.

“Galen! Galen! Help!”
Rob’s voice slammed into his brain with physical force.

“Rob?” he said it out loud, his uncle and father looked at him as he swung his legs off the bed. They grabbed his arms, trying to restrain him as he pushed himself up. “Rob, I’m coming.”

“Hurry, they’re taking me. Galen, please, they’re ta..kin…me…Ga…”
Rob’s voice faded, replaced with a cold darkness and the edges of insane laughter.

“Dad, I need to get to Rob, now!”

“No, Galen, you need to lie back down.”

Galen struggled to throw off their restraining hands. Nothing of his father and uncle were in the hands that held him.

“No, Galen,” his father said.

Galen tore the leads off the heart monitor and heard it stop beeping. He pulled himself free and yanked the IV out of his hand.

“Galen, you can’t.” His father was desperate.

Parry stood in front of him, his uncle had placed a restraining hand on his arm again. “Dad?” he said very quietly. “Uncle Bobby?”

“Galen you can’t.”

“Get out of my way. Either help me or get that hand off of me.” The hand dropped away. His father was staring at Galen with… “Oh, no, no, no!”
Galen panicked and ran out of the room. He threw the door to Rob’s room open.

Rob was gone.

“No!” he yelled. His father and uncle came up behind him. “Gods damn it, what did you do?”

“Galen…” Parry began, but it was too much, Galen struck out in his anger, in his desperation, and connected with his father. Parry rubbed the side of his face, his eyes wild. “They weren’t supposed to take him yet. I was going to bring you down to see him before…But they said he…It was the only way to help him, Galen. You don’t know what’s been happening.”

“Dad, don’t you see? Bobby?” Galen felt desperate tears in his eyes. He grabbed his father and shook him, shouting, hoping his father would look at him. “You’re the one who doesn’t know. There’s nothing wrong with him, he was telling the truth.”

“No, Galen.” Parry was shaking his head. Galen looked at his father, Parry looked broken.

“Dad, what’s wrong with you? This is Rob we’re talking about! Rob! He’s
Custodes Noctis
, Dad!”

“Galen…I’m sorr…”

“No, no, Dad!” He grabbed his father’s face and wrenched it around, forcing him to look at Galen. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Galen saw something in his father’s eyes. “Dad?” Before he really realized what he was doing he placed a hand on his father’s face, feeling what was there, trying to get a sense of it in the very few seconds he knew he had. A cold, flat dark pervaded his father. Words that didn’t sound like Parry floated through his consciousness. The sense of who he was, what he was, was completely gone, like something had stripped him away and left a shell of the man behind.

Parry struggled against the touch. “No,” Galen said firmly and focused everything into that touch, into his father, forcing the cold away. Bobby was tugging on him, but Galen ignored him and stayed focused on driving the darkness from his father. As the cold began to move, Galen felt the sluggishness of drugs in his father, tasted their metallic taste on his tongue. Parry was still struggling. “No, Dad,” Galen said gently.

“Galen?”
his father’s voice was confused. Galen was starting to tremble, the healing was quickly using up his reserves of energy. Bobby was still pulling at him, his touch full of the same cold darkness that had filled Parry. It was moving, almost gone from him. “Galen?” His father put a hand over his, Galen felt warmth in the touch. “It’s…I’m back.” Galen let his hand drop and turned to his uncle. “No.” Parry stopped him. “I’ve got it.”

Galen collapsed on the bed as his father grabbed his uncle, placing both hands on the side of Bobby’s head, he struggled against the touch for a moment before relaxing and sighing.

“Bobby?” Parry said gently.

“Present, I think,” his uncle said with the half-smile that reminded Galen of Rob.

Galen groaned, his father and uncle looked at him.

“What?” Parry said, looking at Galen and the empty bed. “Galen? Where’s Rob?”

“You don’t remember do you? Oh, gods, Dad, Bobby…” He put his head in his hands. “That thing, it has him. It has Rob again.”

Chapter Fourteen

Galen’s head was in his hands, the scar was twisting happily in his chest. The closer they got to the end, the more he was aware of the movement. The pain was growing slowly, but surely, and under it all the hissing, vile whisper.

“They were drugged?” Rob asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Galen said, looking at his brother.

“How did it happen, Galen?” Rhiannon asked. “I can’t imagine Parry or Bobby…”

“Dad said he remembered a nurse coming in to check on Rob. She brushed past him, he said he sensed something in her, but it was too late. She must have had something in her hand. He blacked out and the next thing he really remembers was when he woke up in Rob’s room.”

“Nothing?” Rhiannon said.

“No, he had vague flashes, but nothing else. Same thing with Uncle Bobby.”

“They knew, they had to know, that Parry and Bobby were Keepers,” Rhiannon said, looking at Galen.

“Yeah, and whatever it was they were giving to Dad and Bobby, it countered their Gifts as well as removing the sense of who they were.”

“But how, Galen? How would they know?” Rhiannon asked.

“They were looking for Keepers. They knew who we are, what we are. And they knew how to stop us,” Rob said quietly.

“Yeah. And we knew if they had managed to get to us, we had to find Rob, save him. And fast,” Galen said.

Past

Ten Years Before

Day Six to Day Seven-Galen

The hospital room was quiet for the space of several heartbeats. Galen’s father and uncle were looking at him with shocked disbelief. Galen took a deep breath, forcing the drugs and the whispering voice out of his father had taken a grim toll on his body. “That thing, it has him. It has Rob again,” he repeated, utterly defeated.

“No, Galen, that’s impossible, we killed it. It’s dead,” Bobby said, looking from Parry to Galen. He blinked and his eyes lost focus. “No, wait…” He paused.

“What is it?” Parry said.

“I saw…I think I saw…”

“It’s here, or it was, in the hospital,” Galen said.

“Rob tried to tell me, I think. I couldn’t…” Parry put his head in his hands. Bobby put a hand on his back. “What was wrong with us?”

“You felt cold, gray,” Galen said, trying to articulate the feeling he’d gotten from both his father and his uncle. “I heard something in your head, it wasn’t you. I couldn’t sense you at all.”

“Parry?” Bobby said gently. “We should get back to Galen’s room, let them think we’re playing along right now.”

“You’re right. We don’t want to alert them quite yet,” Parry said with a growl in his voice. “Not yet.”

Galen pushed himself up off the bed. “Good idea.” He paused as the room spun around him.

“Galen?” Bobby said. Galen glanced at his uncle, Bobby was staring at him.

“I’m okay.”

“Galen, you look terrible,” his father said, stepping towards him.

“It’s worse than he looks,” Bobby said grimly.

“Let’s just get back to my room,” Galen said wearily. “Can you help?” he asked his uncle, not ready for the reaction he knew he would get when his father touched him. Parry was frowning at him. Galen tried to smile.

“That bad, Galen?” Parry asked.

“Let’s get to my room,” he repeated, swaying on his feet. His uncle put an arm around his waist, Galen sagged against him. Bobby took his weight easily and half-carried him back to his room. The trip down the corridor passed in a blur, all he really knew was one minute he was in Rob’s room and the next he was being settled gently back in his bed.

Galen’s chest had started aching, and the partially closed wound in his side felt open and raw. The remnants of the drugs he had been given, as well as those he had moved from his father and brother, were pulling him down. He sighed, trying to stop the trembling in his chest.
“Rob?”
He tried reaching out to his brother, but
there was only darkness where Rob’s voice had been.

“Bobby?” Parry said quietly. Galen opened his eyes. His father was looking at his uncle, his hands hovering over Galen’s body.

“The wound in his side isn’t healing right, there’s a gray film surrounding him and…” Bobby trailed off.

“Bobby?”

“There’s something wrong with his heart, Parry.”

“His heart?”

“The thing, it was here in my room, I remember…” Galen said looking at his father, ignoring the pain in his body. “It stopped my heart.”

His father closed his eyes briefly. “I think I remember that, too.”

“Be careful, Parry,” Bobby said as his father dropped his hand onto Galen’s chest. Galen saw a spasm of pain flash across Parry’s face.

“No, Dad, you need to be able to help Rob.”

“It’ll take all three of us, Galen,” his father said, putting a hand on his head.

“No,” Galen said firmly, blocking the warmth from his father’s hands. “You need to be strong to help Rob.”

“Stop fighting me, Galen, let me do this,” his father snapped.

“Fighting you?” Bobby’s voice was full of disbelief.

“Galen, please,” his father’s voice was desperate. Galen still blocked the light coming from his father’s hands. “Bobby?” his father said quietly. Bobby stepped to the other side of the bed and put one hand on Galen’s chest and the other on the back of his head.

“No, please, you have to…” The sound of a heartbeat filled him, he started to drift. “Have to help…” He couldn’t block his father any longer, he felt the warmth and the light slide into his body as he slipped away.

“He blocked you?” Bobby asked quietly from one side of the bed.

“Yeah,” Parry answered softly.

“Can he do that?”

“I guess so, and he did more than that, Bobby. He brought me back even with…” Parry sighed. “He’d healed Rob a little, too. I felt the residue in his system.”

“Parry, you know what this could mean.”

“Yeah.” Galen heard his father sigh again.

“Your sons? Our boys? Is this…?”

“I don’t know. I…” The sound of the door opening stopped his father’s voice.