The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) Read online

  That’s when Colette let loose with an ear-numbing snore. I could scarcely believe such a huge snarling sound could come out of such a petite woman.

  Fortunately, all was not lost. I had a secret weapon. Spring? Hey Spring? Can you help me go to sleep here?

  Snoring sounds started echoing through my brain as Spring showed her annoyance with me.

  Come on, Spring, I’m sorry!

  The internal snores continued, playing counterpoint to the ones reaching my ears the normal way.

  Oh god. I was doomed.

  Pixies Suck

  The next morning, after a long, noisy, uncomfortable night, a stab of pain in my head poked right through my comfortable woolly blanket of sleep.

  I yelped and struggled to sit up in my sleeping bag. A huge insect buzzed around my head, sparkling in the morning sunlight. From the sting it had given me, I assumed it was a wasp. I waved my arms around frantically trying to slap the thing away before it stung me again.

  Colette sat a short way away from me on her sleeping bag. “Finn!”

  The bug, or whatever it was, buzzed my ear. I tried to smack it. “Graahhh!”

  I scrambled out of my sleeping bag to get away from my little tormentor.

  Behind me Colette cried out, “Finn, c’est une fée!”

  I stared at Colette and eloquently stated my confusion. “A fee? Huh?”

  She pointed her finger at something beside my head. “Regardez-le... I mean, look!”

  I followed the direction of her finger and saw a startlingly large dragonfly whose wings flashed with a rainbow of color as it hovered a few feet away from my head.

  Spring relieved me of my misapprehension quickly. It’s not a dragonfly, Finn. Look at it.

  I scowled at the bug that certainly zipped around like a dragonfly, but in one of its stationary moments, I saw that it really wasn’t a dragonfly. A tiny, naked, human girl with bright yellow hair and black eyes returned my regard. She was held aloft by tiny shimmering wings.

  Spring sent me an image of the little creature landing in my mouth just before I snapped it shut. Close your mouth Finn. I doubt it will fall for that old ruse, anyway.

  I shut my mouth, but it dropped open again as my brain tried to digest the fact that a quite fetching micro-girl, check that, micro-woman buzzed around my head. She zoomed right at my face.

  I ducked and put my hands up to ward it away, but instead of hitting my face, it went over my hands and stung me on my head again.

  “Ow! You little shit!”

  Turn around, Finn. It’s behind us.

  I whirled around to confront my tormentor again. She buzzed in place about three feet away. In her tiny little hands, she held a tiny little handful of hair.

  “Hey, that’s my hair!” I tried to swat the little blighter out of the sky. It was about as effective as if she were an agitated housefly. She zipped, zoomed, zigged, and zagged around my head faster than I could follow and then came in for another run. I frantically flapped both hands around my head again, hopping to keep her off this time, but it was to no avail. Another sharp pain heralded the loss of more of my hair. She buzzed away with her booty.

  She’s gone.

  I spun to look at Colette. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me. She half spoke, half-whispered, “C’est une fée!”

  “What?”

  She shook her shock away, and wonder cracked her face into a huge smile. “That was a..., it was a..., did you see that Finn?”

  “Yes, I felt it, too. The little asshole pulled out my hair!”

  “How do you call it in English?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. A sprite or a pixie, maybe?”

  Colette’s smile turned into a laugh of delight. She clapped her hands together with a look of joy on her face. I’d never actually seen anyone older than a baby clap with delight like that, but on her it looked completely right. She said, “I have heard of zees pixies, but I have never seen one before.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because they’re imaginary.”

  I do not think this word means what you think it means, quipped Spring.

  Hush.

  Colette pointed to the ground a little way from us. “It flew over to ze flowers. Let’s go see.”

  She pointed at a small patch of Black-eyed Susans a short distance away. Their yellow petals and black centers were beautiful in the sunlight filtering through the green shade of the trees. Colette carefully approached the patch of flowers, while I hung back about ten feet. I liked my hair just where it was, thank-you-very-much.

  Colette knelt down in front of the nodding flowers and started a singsong crooning. Her back blocked my view, so I sidled around to see what she was doing. As I moved back into their line of sight, the dozen or so flower heads all turned to face me.

  I stopped cold. I didn’t like this at all. I moved sideways a bit more just to see what would happen. They kept following me like I was the sun.

  See, I told you that you were my sun!

  Colette noticed that I seemed to be the object of the flower’s attention as well. She gave me a calculating look and chewed on part of her lower lip. “The flowers, they like you, Finn.”

  “Great.”

  She studied the flowers more closely. “Oh, vous êtes adorables!” She lowered a finger into the flower patch and the little pixie popped up out of the flowers and landed on it. Colette kept up a murmuring stream of little sounds, cooing as if the pixie were a baby.

  She beamed at me. “She ees so precious!”

  I rubbed my sore head and muttered, “Yeah, like a baby rattler,” but my sourness was dissolving in the stream of sugar that my eyes were feeding me. If Scrooge himself were to see this, he would mend his rotten ways in minutes—without the help of any dead guys.

  Colette exclaimed in delight, “Finn, she has made your hair into a necklace!”

  Lucky me. Pixies like my hair. Oh, yippee-skippee.

  The little sprite took off from her perch on Colette’s finger and hovered above the flowers. A double handful of other pixies zipped up from the flowers and joined her there. From where I stood, each of them appeared identical to the others. The newcomers’ attention was focused on the first pixie carrying my hair necklace. They buzzed excitedly around her.

  Colette’s delight was almost a physical thing. It kept rubbing off on me like a purring kitten. The scintillating rainbows cast about by the pixies buzzing wings were startling and beautiful. Unwisely, I took a couple steps forward to see them better.

  Dave and Jim arrived at the edge of the camp. They were both wet from a morning dip in the lake.

  I called to them. “Hey guys! Check this out!”

  At my call, they started ambling our way, and all the little pixies turned to look at me.

  Uh oh. I took a step back and then the pixies zipped into motion. They buzzed straight through the air at me. You think bees are intimidating? Try a dozen tiny, nude girls with dragonfly wings intent on plucking you bald.

  I turned and ran, but they were faster. They dive bombed me and snatched chunks of my hair two or three strands at a time.

  I tried to swat them away, but they were too fast for me, and they easily avoided my hands. All but one, that is. My frantic flailing got her mostly by accident. I hit her with the palm of my hand and my fingers automatically closed around her tiny form. She bit me. I yelled and threw her to the ground. She hit hard, bounced, rolled a couple times, and then didn’t move.

  Before the guilt even had a chance to get started, tiny, ear-piercing cries of rage filled the air around me. Instantly they were on me again, but now they were out for blood. Suddenly I was being attacked by a dozen tiny nude girls with dragonfly wings and very sharp teeth. Each of them would make a strafing run, hit teeth first, and fly away leaving a little bloody patch behind. If you hadn’t guessed by now, it hurt!

  I cursed, redoubled my efforts to swat them out of the air, and took off through the woods. Through sheer luck, I managed to smack a couple as I ran,
but that didn’t stop them. Fortunately, after a few minutes of crazed crashing through the forest, the attack stopped. It took me a couple minutes to realize it and halt my panicked flight. They were gone.

  I stood for a moment to allow my breathing to slow, and then I sat down heavily on a nearby rotting stump. Once I stopped moving, the pain from the bites came crashing into my consciousness.

  Ow. Holy crap Spring, what were those things?

  I don’t know, Finn, obviously some kind of fairy.

  You’re a dryad, shouldn’t you know these things?

  You forget that you are older than me. I’ve only been around for half a year at most.

  Oh yeah, I forgot... I’d woken her by bringing the Caduceus home this spring.

  I examined the dozens of bloody little divots in my arms. They looked nasty, but the pain was fading. In fact, the whole episode suddenly struck me as funny. I started chuckling, and then I was laughing out loud. The more I laughed, the better I felt. In fact, I felt like dancing.

  I stood up with my arms out. Spring! Come dance with me!

  If I had known that stimulating your opiate receptors made you want to dance, I’d have tweaked them a long time ago.

  I didn’t care what she was doing. I felt great.

  I was busy dancing with myself when Dave came running through the woods at me. He was dressed in nothing but swim trunks and flip-flops and had a couple of bloody divots taken out of his hide as well.

  I laughed at the sight of him. Of course, lacking a built-in pharmaceutical lab, he failed to see the humor in it.

  Breathing hard, he stopped and scowled at me, “What’s so funny, monkey boy?”

  I giggled at him. “You are! You should see your face! I didn’t know a person could turn so red!”

  “Ha ha... Twit.” Dave inspected the bloody wounds on his arms and then squinched at me. “Shit, Finn, it looks like you’re nearly healed up.”

  I tried to contain my giggles. “I got a great doctor who does house calls.”

  “Think she would be willing to send some of that loving my way?”

  I frowned, “I don’t...”

  We are almost done here. Go put your hand on his arm. Let’s see what we can do.

  I did as Spring asked and found myself unable to focus through the happy juice in my system. Spring took over and guided me. We reached out with our aura and bathed Dave’s arm in it. As I tapped into the Caduceus, the area around the stick grew hot and then the heat moved in a burning stream down my arm. It flowed out my palm and into Dave leaving behind a fiery, tingling sensation.

  It took a lot more concentration and power to heal Dave than myself. I guess it would be more correct to say that we encouraged Dave’s flesh to heal itself. We were sort of supercharging it.

  As the healing continued, the rest of me started to heat up and come down from my earlier high. My breathing grew ragged as the exertion started taking its toll. In the last few months, I’d managed to strengthen my stamina considerably. I could feel the difference it made, but still, I felt like I was running a marathon.

  Before I was done, Dave screamed and jumped into the air, breaking our contact.

  I looked around for the threat and saw nothing. “What happened, Dave?”

  Dave bent over and frantically tore at a vine that had wrapped itself around his foot. “This weed attacked me!”

  I walked over to get a better look. At least that was the plan, but my legs were stuck in place. The ground rushed up to greet my face, and I barely got my hands out in front of me to lessen the blow.

  I hit with an “oof.”

  When a quick internal survey revealed no major damage, I twisted awkwardly and looked down at my legs. Both were wrapped by big-leafed vines. “Holy crap!”

  Frantically thrashing my legs around freed me from the clutches of those evil vines with relative ease. They weren’t very thick. I leaped up and hurriedly backed away as some of the remaining vines started to snake toward me. When the vines reached their maximum length, they just quivered back and forth in frustration.

  That’s how Colette and Jim found us. Jim called out. “Are you guys all right?”

  Dave finally got the last of the vines off of his foot. The fact that they were still moving and writhing around obviously made it harder than it should be. “No, we’re living through the day of the mini-triffids here.” He held up the still-wriggling plant bits in his fist.

  “What are these triffids?” asked Colette.

  “Cheesy old science-fiction movie,” said Jim.

  While they talked, I was still working to remove the bits wrapped around my sweats. “Something is really wrong here, guys.”

  They walked up to us. When they were about ten feet from us, the vines suddenly flopped over limply, just like vines should.

  Jim raised his eyebrows and said, “Uh Dave, that’s poison ivy that you’re holding.”

  Dave threw the vines to the ground. “God damn it! I fucking hate poison ivy!”

  I copied him and threw the ones from my legs into the woods. I should have known better, but the moving, wiggly part had occupied my attention.

  Dave stomped around in frustration. “Aw crap! This is going to suck! It’s already starting to itch!”

  Jim explained it to the wide-eyed Colette. “He has a severe reaction to poison ivy.”

  “It just wrapped itself around my legs! Did you see them moving?”

  “We weren’t close enough. I couldn’t tell if they were moving or you were just shaking them in your hands.”

  I looked at Jim. “Trust us; they were moving before you got here. It was seriously freaky. I’ve no idea what’s going on here, but we need to get out of these woods.”

  Jim was the mountain man amongst us. “First, we need to get the two of you back to the lake to try and rinse off the poison before it binds to your skin.”

  Dave stopped hopping around and looked at Jim in surprise. “Really, that works?”

  “It should help as long as you rinse it really well within fifteen minutes of contact.”

  Dave was off. He didn’t bother to turn his head. “Come on let’s go!”

  We followed after him. Colette jogged next to me. She took in my blood-covered arms and legs and said, “Finn, you are hurt. You must allow me to clean and bandage your wounds.”

  Uh oh. I tried to brush off the drying blood. “It looks worse than it is.”

  She scowled at me. “Do not be ridiculous. Let me see.” Without waiting, she grabbed my arm, pulled me to a stop, and examined the bloody spots. After a few moments, she looked at me with accusation in her eyes. “There is a lot of blood, but no wounds. How can this be?”

  I studied the ground and shuffled my feet a little nervously. “I just heal quickly, I guess.”

  Colette didn’t say anything else to me, but she scowled as if she was angry at me for not being more wounded.

  I started after Dave and Jim again. “Come on, I didn’t get it as bad as Dave, but I’m sure I got some on the back of my hands and believe me, that sucks.”

  Dave, Colette, and I made a detour around our camp to avoid encountering any more of the cannibal pixies while Jim played the hero and went in to grab some soap.

  When I reached the lake-shore, Dave was still in his swimsuit and just jumped in, but I faced a conundrum. I only had my underwear on underneath my sweats and I was much too shy to wade into the lake with just underwear. I decided to just walk into the lake pants and all. I got about two steps before I heard Colette behind me.

  “Finn, you should take off your pants before you get into the water. You don’t want to get them all wet.”

  I stopped and looked at Colette over my shoulder. “I can’t, I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “You do not need a bathing suit. Just take off your sweater pants.”

  “They’re sweatpants, and I don’t want to take them off.”

  Dave decided to help. “Colette, our Finny boy is a delicate shy flower. He’s emb
arrassed about how small his penis is.”

  I glared at Dave. “No Dave, I just didn’t want to make you feel inadequate.”

  “You Americans,” she scolded. “You are so puritanical! You are too silly.”

  I heard the sound of clothes rustling behind me and Dave’s eyes widened, quickly followed by a shit-eating grin.

  If I turned around, I knew what I would see, and I froze while my face heated up. Colette gave a laugh behind me and then ran past me into the water. Yep, she had nothing on but tiny white underwear.

  Now if that isn’t an invite to play ‘hide the salami’ I don’t know what is!

  Oh god. Just shoot me.

  Colette waded into the water and turned displaying her muscular, trim physique and modest but perfect breasts. She laughed and waved at me. “Come swimming, Finn, the water is fantastique.”

  Colette’s unclothed state caught my little soldier’s notice. I knew I had to act fast—before he came to full attention. I stripped off my sweat pants, bemoaned my stupid looking baggy white underwear, and dashed to the water before I could change my mind. I splashed in, lost my footing, and fell face first into the lake. It amazed me that the water didn’t immediately start boiling around my hot face. When I came up sputtering, both Dave and Colette laughed at me from further into the lake. I crouched in the water and made my way out to their bobbing heads.

  When I got closer, Dave turned to Colette. “Not only is he a delicate shy flower, he’s also got two left feet.”

  I glared at Dave. “Laugh while you can, monkey boy!”

  He saw that I was ready to pounce and tried to get away, but I jumped too quickly. I snagged a leg, and pulled him under with me. Of course, I got dunked just as bad as he did, but I did it voluntarily. We both came up sputtering and laughing.

  “Here’s your soap,” announced Jim from the shore.

  Colette called back, “Come and swim with us!”

  Jim, still in his swim trunks, shrugged, pulled off his tee shirt and headed in completely unselfconscious of his snow-white tan.

  After Jim delivered the soap, Dave and I busied ourselves washing the spots that were touched by the ivy. Dave had to wash his arms, hands, and everything from his knees down.