Legacy First Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3 of the Legacy Series

by Ryan Attard

  We walked until we reached a footpath, bending and twisting as the path spiraled onward. Finally, we reached the top of a hill. I walked to the very edge and peered down. The edges were jagged like a cliff, and for a second a touch of vertigo overtook me. Steeling myself, I focused on the scene in front of me instead.

  It was beautiful.

  All around me, a sea of green grass waved gently in a breeze that did nothing except soothe the senses. Sunlight gave each blade of grass a bright verdant color, which no photographer or artist could ever duplicate. Just gazing at the beauty before me made me feel humbled. I felt like I could cry over seeing this, like I didn’t deserve to even feast my eyes on such beauty. Truly a paradise.

  I heard Tenzin rustle the grass as he approached me. “This is a sinless world of beauty and serenity.” His tone was hushed, reverential. “This is where you will learn the true meaning of peace.”

  I didn’t say anything. If I had opened my mouth I would have wailed and cried, and I wasn’t sure I could stop. So I merely nodded and thanked him silently. Thoughts of darkness never even entered my mind.

  This was the one place where Alastair Crowley would never find me.

  ***

  I always knew that I never wanted to become a priest and training with Tenzin did nothing to change that opinion. If anything, he made me hate the lifestyle completely.

  Once you got over the fact that we were training in an artificial universe that could only be described as a nature photographer’s wet dream, it became quite hellish. Time flowed differently in every dimension, but six in the freaking morning was horrible no matter what universe you were in.

  We would get up and began our day with a set of exercises. Sort of kinesthetics-meets-yoga in an exercise I liked to call Does-Erik-Bend-This-Way. Then, once I managed to fold myself like an origami paper, the physical regimen would start. I was used to the running, the pushups, the treetop acrobatics and other stuff. Swimming was a new one. Tenzin would make me swim down the length of the river, and I could swear that the sly old bastard would alter the current of the water. Once the water level rose, thanks to my sweating, I was allowed to have a break.

  An hour or two later the combat training began. Tenzin looked old but that didn’t mean he couldn’t kick some serious ass. We delved into every style he knew: aikido, karate, kung fu, you name it.

  It was horrible. Nothing I knew worked on him. It was like all that training I did as a child served as nothing more than a distraction compared to his skills.

  Sometimes, he would tie a blanket or a tarp around a tree trunk and make me punch and kick it.

  “The point of this is not to strengthen your body. That can be easily done with a few physical exercises.” Tenzin would pace around gently, letting the breeze direct him, watching my every move. “This is a test of the mind. Focus everything into that strike. Your body and mind have to work as one.”

  Gone was the gentle hermit, replaced by a drill sergeant with a powerful, commanding voice.

  One day he interrupted the routine and asked me about my magic. I told him about the curse again.

  “So, it is limited to just your body, yes?”

  “Right,” I said. My breathing was heavy, and I felt like crap. Whatever he wanted to say, it was a godsend. At least now I could catch my breath.

  Tenzin’s eyes closed, a sign of deep thought. “Give me your hand.” His fingers curled gently around my palm. “Please focus all your magic on your hand.”

  I raised my eyebrows, remembering the pain I felt when I tried using magic after the phoenix incident. It seemed like a million years ago.

  But Tenzin’s eyes made me trust him, and so I did. Pain flared from my shoulder all the way to my fingertips. I jerked my hand back and shook in agony.

  “What was that supposed to achieve?” I nearly yelled. The pain had driven me to my knees.

  Tenzin remained unfazed. “It gave me a reading of your aura.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I shot back, cradling my arm.

  “It may be the key to helping you use magic again.”

  That piqued my interest. “And what makes you think you know how to reverse this curse?” I asked as I stood.

  “I never said I could reverse it,” Tenzin explained. “But you can work with it.”

  “How?”

  “Well, your healing ability is the key here. Your body automatically drives energy towards the location of an injury. This seems to be an unconscious reflex. But what if you could control it? What if you could channel just a small bit of energy into your fist as you punch, thereby increasing your power?”

  “Beats the whole point if I’m rolling in pain,” I replied.

  “Pain and energy are related. Control one, and you control the other.”

  “You sure this will work?”

  Tenzin took a long pause and looked at me from head to toe. I still cradled my arm, shivering as spasms of pain went through me. My clothes were in desperate need of replacing, and I looked like a battered mess.

  “Yes, I am sure it will, provided you believe it will work,” Tenzin replied with a slight nod. “And that is not all. Your aura extends from your body by approximately thirty centimeters. I believe that with the proper training, you can use magic as long as it is limited to that area.”

  “And can you give me this proper training?”

  Tenzin smiled slyly. “You have been doing it all along.”

  And thus began the third stage of my training. It went from a physical stage to one that required more brain-power and attention than just your average fight session. Sometimes, we would forgo the use of the tree altogether. Tenzin would make me assume a fighting position and guide me through.

  “This is called meditative fighting, also known as shadow boxing,” he said when he first introduced me to this new regime. “Assume the fighting stance. Picture the motion in your head. Feel it, live it. Now, execute the motion and focus all your being into the exact point of impact.”

  I spent the first two weeks barely able to move an inch, let alone punch. Tenzin had shown me a kata, a sequence of movements he wanted me to finish.

  Day one had me down by the first step.

  But, as the weeks passed, I noticed that I managed to complete the sequence, one excruciating inch at a time. The pain became less, until all that was left was a dull throbbing, like a reminder that I was toying with stuff I couldn’t fully understand. Once I could do it without stopping, Tenzin began to join me.

  It was fairly basic once you get down to it—position, concentrate, strike, repeat.

  Tenzin would do the same thing, except he would mutter something during the concentration part. It wasn’t the ethereal sound I usually heard when someone cast a spell—rather, this sounded like syllables and vowels, something I could emulate if I could get my tongue to roll the right way.

  I asked Tenzin about it, once I got used to the sequence.

  “It’s not magic,” he replied with a smile. “When magic is used, the language spoken cannot be deciphered by human ears. It is a long-lost language, a language that is not human, but purely natural. Understanding the language and consciously speaking it means that one has complete control over the nature of magic itself. It means that you are magic itself.” He paused for a breath. “No, Erik, my words aren’t magic. This is simply a Buddhist chant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the true meaning of that exercise is gratitude,” he said. “Every day, I pray my thanks to Kami-sama in the form of that sequence.”

  “Can you teach me?”

  “Sure.”

  There were a lot of vowels strung together like a monotonous chant, but I never regretted my decision to learn it. It was the perfect distraction from the dull throbbing, and to be honest, I did feel something every time I moved and exhaled a vowel, like a tuning fork resonating perfectly.

  It may have taken him a few weeks, but Tenzin never backed down on his promise of helping me find
serenity in this place.

  ***

  Two months.

  That’s how long we lived in that paradise. Occasionally, we would stroll outside to the real world for errands and such, but really, who would live in such a stinky, noisy world when you could live in paradise without anyone else to bother you?

  I mean, once you get over the painful training and never-ending philosophy lessons with an old Asian man, life was pretty sweet.

  But all good things come to an end, and this one was going to crash and burn.

  Tenzin woke up one morning and sat down to meditate as he usually did. A few minutes later he was by my side.

  “Erik, we must leave.” His tone was urgent. “I believe I sense a danger in the city that is harming humans. We must stop it.”

  I was still groggy from my sleep. “What are you, a police scanner? What makes you so sure?”

  “I have my methods,” he replied. “And I resent the police scanner comment.” He winked at me. “If anything, I would prefer to be called God’s Radar.”

  Chapter 34

  “This is it?” I said. “This is where your supposed danger is?”

  We stood in front of a Victorian house straight out of a portrait. Colorful paint and a big front yard, all surrounded by a black gate. On the left was a flat, one-story house, which I suppose served as a storage room of sorts. The main house looked like something out of a Disney movie. It even had that beige and brown paint, as if the architect’s inspiration came from a picture book. Heck, it even had a pretty clock tower. All that was missing was a sign that said You must be this tall to ride.

  Except this was no fun ride. It was the Carson Mansion, a milestone Victorian monument, and never open to the public.

  “You want us to find a monster in there?”

  Tenzin squinted at the house. “I do not believe that I am mistaken,” he said after a while.

  “If we go in there, we’ll get arrested,” I said off-handedly. I always made it a point to stay away from the authorities. I was a rich, privileged kid and a street bum all rolled in one, precisely the two types of people the police hate dealing with.

  Besides, with my attitude they’d probably shoot me just to shut me up.

  “Why would that be?” Tenzin asked. I suppose in a temple in the mountains with a lifestyle of a priest and a hippie, the concept of private property wasn’t a familiar one.

  “It’s private property. That house has never been open to the public. It’s some kinda country club or whatever, only reserved for the rich and famous,” I replied.

  “Are you not rich and famous?”

  “I’ve lived in a forest and on the streets. What do you think?”

  “But your name carries significance.”

  “Only to the magical community,” I replied.

  “Should we not simply ask to be allowed in, then?” Tenzin asked.

  “We’ll be shot on the spot.”

  “Why is that?”

  “We look homeless.”

  “Let us break in, then.”

  “If we damage anything, it’s our heads on a platter,” I replied.

  “Even if we save the inhabitants from danger?”

  “Funny how people think, huh?”

  Tenzin shook his head. “Man has always placed too much importance on material objects, often at the expense of irreplaceable things.” He began walking away from Carson Mansion, slowly moving along the sidewalk.

  I stayed by his side.

  “The monster I sense here reflects that greed,” he continued. “A yokai spirit is born out of greed and lust for power. It takes the shape of a heart-broken woman, usually wearing white and surrounded by small licks of blue flames. These are the souls of her victims. In life, her soul died because of greed and misery. In death, she seeks to satisfy her hunger by consuming the souls of others. But once she eats too much, the blue fires will incinerate and destroy her.”

  “Then, why are we hunting her?” I asked. “Let’s just wait until she burns up.”

  Tenzin’s stern expression appeared again. “She will kill again and again, Erik, until she reaches her limit. That may be a hundred victims from now. Are you willing to wait until a hundred people die?”

  I shook my head. If there was ever a Nobel Prize for guilt-tripping people, Tenzin would bring home the gold.

  “Fine,” I said. “How does she attack?”

  “She simply appears. Which is why we must keep vigil over the house.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  He pointed at a coffee shop. “We eat first. Maintain our strength. Tonight, we observe the place for any activity.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Why couldn’t you have just said ‘stakeout’?”

  Tenzin’s bushy, gray eyebrows shot in the air. “Because I do not know how to pronounce that.”

  It was late in the afternoon when we went into that coffee shop. Tenzin had pulled out a small bag of money and actually paid for a meal—something I’d never seen him do. “I need all my focus on the house,” he explained when he noticed my look. I didn’t question it, partly because I wouldn’t understand half of it.

  Also, because my burger and fries appeared on my table and I was too busy cramming a day’s worth of calories down my throat. Any meal where a fluffy ghost bunny wasn’t sniffing at my food was aces in my book.

  About three hours later, Tenzin and I were lurking behind a house opposite Carson Mansion.

  “So, what are we waiting for?” I whispered for no reason at all. The area was illuminated, and people occasionally walked by without so much as a glance.

  “Anything out of order.” He leaned against a wall and closed his eyes. “I shall be able to feel it.”

  That was the beginning of two hours of wasted time. I paced around, shuffled my feet and cracked my knuckles, neck, and every part of my body that ached or itched. Tenzin would occasionally crack an eye open, smirk, and close it again. After two hours of fidgeting I had just about had it with all the waiting and the silence. The sun was setting gently, and in an hour or so it would be nighttime. And I did not want to spend an entire night waiting for some ghost to pop up.

  I turned to Tenzin to ask him something when he jerked upright, instantly pushing himself off the wall.

  “What?” I asked.

  He held his hand up, silencing me. His eyes snapped open. “It’s in the house.”

  We ran all the way to the Mansion, vaulting over the gate. Something about the stillness of the place bugged me, but I chalked it up to supernatural vibes. I mean, there was a soul-sucking lady ghost inside Carson House—if that didn’t set off your Spidey-Sense, I don’t know what did.

  No alarms went off, no beefy guys stepped out to throw us out, and no rich people sent their grunts to gun us down.

  Nothing, not even a spotlight.

  We broke the door down, and it looked like a bull had been set loose inside. Furniture, chandeliers, papers—everything was intricate and beautiful.

  Everything was also upturned and smashed to bits.

  My stomach sank. Every little thing inside this house must have at least a five-figure price tag. If we were caught, I’d have to sell a kidney and an eyeball just to cover the cost of the damage in the kitchen alone.

  A scream erupted from outside, and we raced towards the stairs. Overlooking the entire city was a balcony, giving me a bird’s eye view. I followed the direction of the sound. From a large window I got a glimpse of a minor horror show.

  On top of the roof of the storage room was an elderly man, well into his sixties, and dressed in a tux. He was running and stumbled on something, sending him sprawling onto the ground. Behind him, trailing ominously like the ghost she was, the yokai followed. Three little blue flames hung around her, like floatation devices. Catching a glimpse of her, the old man screamed hysterically and crawled away.

  I unwrapped Djinn from its blanket and prepared to break the window with the butt of the weapon. It wasn’t like a broken wi
ndow would matter much after the disaster all around us.

  Tenzin held me back.

  “Allow me.” He placed his fingertips on the glass pane and suddenly jerked his body like a whip. His palm cracked against the glass, shattering everything including the frame, into tiny fragments.

  “A derivation of the One-Inch Punch,” he explained.

  “You gotta teach me that someday,” I remarked, impressed.

  There were no shards to rip at my skin or clothes, so I just jumped out. It wasn’t the longest jump I’d ever made, and I landed with a thud and rolled behind the yokai. She didn’t seem to notice me.

  Tenzin leapt down as light as a feather. He didn’t roll. He didn’t even flail his hands. He should have broken something, but instead he strode calmly next to me. I heard the murmur of a familiar chant. A blazing white stallion reared on two legs and whinnied loudly enough to wake up the entire state of California.

  The horse deva galloped towards the ghost, snorting billows of luminescent clouds. The yokai froze in place and let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a blender and a scream. I

  t didn’t matter—the stallion maintained its momentum.

  Seconds before the impact, the yokai disappeared, leaving the stallion to falter and snort at the empty spot. It disappeared in a puff of brilliant little sparkles.

  “You got her, right?” I asked Tenzin.

  He fixated the spot the yokai had occupied seconds earlier. “No,” he said quietly. “She got away.”

  Suddenly, a dull, raw crack rang out from the direction the man had run, echoing through the still night. We spun instantly.

  The old man lay face up. Behind him, cradling his clearly broken neck was a small, thick creature with brown, leathery skin and bloodshot eyes. A hand with three thick fingers and an opposable thumb was wrapped tightly around the old guy’s neck.

  “My, oh, my.” Holding the man’s hand was another man wearing a fedora and a pinstriped suit.

  “You’re not even worth the effort,” he said, disgusted, as he roughly let go of the hand. A wailing shattered the night behind him, and he reached out with a gloved hand, never taking his eyes off us.