Monday night
Well, it took a while, but I'm back. Total weirdness!! But what can you expect when it has to do with Derek Rayne and the Legacy. I had 2 visitors - one right after the other. Crazy.
Afterwards, I had to get my head on straight so I went for a run - away from here. Took the ferry over to Tiburon then ran around Richardson Bay over thru Sausalito then on up the hill to Battery Spencer on the Marin Headlands. There & back was a good little jog - the best I've had in a long time - about 20 mi. give or take - and going up the hill past Camp Baker & Horseshoe Bay is a hellava hill. I'd forgotten how steep it was. I'll be sore as hell, but, God, what a view. I'll swear I could see all the way to the Farallon Islands. Angel Island looked like - I don't know - undamaged. It just looked so pretty sitting there - so safe & tranquil - like all's well with the world.
Then on the way back I stopped in Tiburon at that Chinese joint on Main St. I think I had a little too much of everything. 1st good meal I've had since before - well, just before. I'm paying for it now - my gut is not a happy puppy.
But that run & that view & that dinner sort of put some things in perspective & made others more of a mystery than ever.
Where was I? The house plans:
I thought they were done in '87. That was the date on the ones I saw, but, according to Hewett, his copies date to the early '80s. Derek knew. Dammit! He knew for years what might be in store for him. Is this why there was that hidden part of him that no one dared touch? All those secrets that we thought were nothing but control & game playing? Why he kept everyone at a distance? Even when we kicked back to watch a game or relax over brandy, he still let you know that line was there - don't step over it. Is that why he couldn't seem to commit to what I know he wanted most? A family. Why this is the end of the Rayne line? Was that why the Darkside waged a personal war against those he cared for? Was it to destroy the goodness & kindness in his soul, to sap his courage - to burn it all to a crisp so that they could turn him before he fulfilled his destiny - before he stopped them?
Anyway, after Rachel & Alex brought the laptop on Sat. I started digging. Worked at it most of Sat. night & all day yesterday. Most of last night too. I went into the Legacy.net, not case histories, etc, but into administration & financial areas. After what Hewett said, I was curious to see the Legacy/Luna money setup & to see how Derek protected it all. I kept hitting walls. Dozens of codes and passwords have been changed since his death. It's funny, it got so that I could almost tell which trail was going to deadend. I finally gave up on that & started to dig at the non-Legacy stuff - like Luna, the Rosicrucians, & Old-man Hewett himself - again I hit firewalls when I went in those same directions. Just for the hell of it, I tried running down some of the family trees - so many of those Legacy families are related. There's really a core that is so intertwined that it's almost one family. The Boyles flitted in & out. This time I wasn't blocked at first. But when I got back online this morning, stuff that I looked at earlier was gone or different. Somebody's changed the database already. Dammit! I had no way to print out or save that much material.
I'd started to wonder if Derek and the whole damned Council was in cahoots about the suicide thing. It'd be just like that pig-headed bastard to take the blame - to protect us and the Legacy. Now I'm not so sure but what there isn't more than that. Secret upon secret. Which brings me back to my visitors---
The first was an old man - a Brit. For the life of me I don't know how he got on the island, or how he got off. There aren't that many places for a boat to land and what with all the weekend commotion the rent-a-cops are so thick at those spots they're falling over each other. I shouldn't call this guy "old". I'd say he's about 65, thick white hair, skin like fine leather, steel gray eyes. They were the coldest eyes I've ever seen. Colder than Derek's when he was on the hunt or Dad's when he was on a drunk, colder even than Richter's before a kill. He was packing artillery and he moved like a cat. He's a "predator"- top of the food chain, I'd say.
He said he had known my dad in 'Nam and knew Sloan, too. Called them both "Class A sons-a-bitches." Said he owed Winston big time. He asked me if I knew what Derek had said to Rachel about Sloan and Baron de Rais - that it was better to "let sleeping demons lie"? He said I should take that message to heart, that it was best to let "sleeping precepts lie" as well. "Leave off playing Sherlock," he said.
I asked him if he was delivering a warning from the Legacy. He seemed to find the thought hilarious. "Those priss-arsed, sanctimonious bastards?" he said. "Not one of the lot was fit to wipe Derek's arse - let alone mine." So I guess he knew Derek too. I asked who the message was from. All he said was "a friend".
Then something distracted me. I glanced away & when I turned back, the old man was gone. He didn't even leave a trace - not so much as a broken twig or a bent blade of grass - and no one else saw him - but he wasn't a ghost. He was there sure as Hell.
-----
That brings me to my 2nd visitor - the distraction - Fr. Joseph Thomas. Surprise! Surprise! Should have known he'd turn up sooner or later. Still it was a surprise - what can I say? He pulled this thing out of his pocket & asked, "Is this yours?"
It was my pen! How's that for a coincidence? It's all black and needs new innards. Got pretty well cooked. I asked how he knew it was anything important - could have been mistaken for a burnt stick. He said absolutely everything brought out is examined, and anything that seems of even the least significance is shown to him. (Goes to show how out of the loop I am.) All he said was "I had a feeling." Sounds like a certain Dutchman I used to know. But then he said there was no trick to it - not with NB on the ring around the middle. I'll be damned! All these years & I never noticed. These funny, little, squiggly NBs engraved all the way around that brass ring. Hell! I just thought is was some sort of silly design.
Anyway, the good father asked if I had a beer. That blew me away. Said he'd been keeping an eye on me & noticed where I had them stashed off the end of the pier. We talked for a while. Alex said she sensed that maybe Fr. Thomas and Derek had been friends. She might be right - I think maybe he's not only mourning the precept, but the man too. I see a bleakness in his eyes like I see in my own reflection.
I don't know what to make of him now. He's still a hard ass, but maybe not as hard as I thought. He told me the service & ground breaking will be on Sunday & that he hopes Philip will come. You know. Maybe he should just stay away. I told him I didn't give a damn if Philip Callaghan came or not. But he said Derek would want him to officiate. He said he hadn't seen Philip - he's in retreat. Whatever that means. He told me that while I was grieving, Philip was in mourning too. But that I had the advantage. I had been here with Derek & would have been with him at the end, if Derek hadn't chosen otherwise. He said that Philip had made a choice to leave. Now he's afraid he made the wrong decision - or maybe the right decision for the wrong reasons. He said all priests reach that moment - that crisis of faith, but maybe not so traumatically.
You know why I think Philip's tied in knots. I think he thought Derek was indestructible - that he'd always be here. He took Derek's presence, his life, his friendship for granted. He even had the gall to turn his back on that friendship when we needed him, yet Derek was still there for him, like when that monster, Ravenwood came after him. Now he's gone & Philip didn't realize how much Derek meant to him until now. Fr. Thomas said he'd wager Derek would ask me to be Phil's friend. Derek did ask, but I'm not sure I can be as forgiving as he was.
Then he asked me if I was ready to get back to work. "Get back to work"... LOL... Derek again. Are these things out of nowhere going to keep reminding me of him? He said if the San Francisco House is to be rebuilt it'll need a new precept - not just an interim one - a permanent one - and since I'm already here sitting on the dock with a precept's ring hanging around my neck, it might as well be me. It's strange - I got the feeling that was coming directly from him, not through him as a messenger boy for the Ruling Council.
When I tried to ask the good father about the old man, he froze over like an iceberg. All he did was let out a grunt. But then he said that I'd be wise to not let my mouse sniff in too many rat holes - one might contain a cat or even a saber toothed tiger. Then he got blunt & said, "No cyberprobe goes undetected or ignored - no matter how many back doors you use." Guess I got caught red handed. Wonder if that's what brought the old man here too. I triggered a burglar alarm somewhere."
Finally, I asked if this had all been some plan that the Ruling Council & Derek had cooked up. If Derek had known all along what he was going to have to do - and they just let him go it alone? How long had he known? I can't get that out of my mind. Christ, what a death sentence to live under.
He said that one day I'd be told, but now the Legacy is still trying to sort out what happened in the portal chamber. He said they still don't know. I'm not sure I believe him - he's too much like Derek to accept at face value. Does it just go with the territory, I wonder?
-----
All this makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of inner, inner circle within the Legacy - a secret society existing inside a secret society - or maybe a separate group that overlaps the Legacy, but could include non-Legacy people too - like that old man. Maybe I've been sitting out here on the dock too long or that run today rattled my brain, but I always wondered at some of the things the Ruling Council let Derek get away with - without even a slap on the wrist. There was that time that he accused himself to flush out Charles Banyon, who had turned vampire. How could he be certain that Banyon would be selected to be on the tribunal? It was a very gutsy thing for Derek to do. But it was so self-assured... almost arrogant. Tremayne resigned RP over that. In a way, Derek actually placed himself above the Ruling Council - & who stepped into the void - Sloan.
I thought Sloan was too hard on Derek. It wasn't till later, really after he was gone that I began to understand their relationship. I wonder if Derek actually set it all up to not only nail Banyon, but to unseat Tremayne - knowing that Sloan would succeed as RP. & when Sloan sacrificed himself to save Derek & all of us - again - no fallout on Derek even tho' the blame over the sepulchers could have been laid at his doorstep. Why did they let all 5 sepulchers stay here? Derek seemed to know so much - so many secrets. He kept so many things here that should have been transferred to London for safe keeping. I'm not sure even Sloan knew what he had. I know that lots of people were suspicious of Derek - or just didn't like him. He knew that too - warned me of it in his letter - yet he always basically says - not to worry - it's all taken care of.
I never really thought about all these undercurrents within the Legacy - cliques & factions - jostling for power & money. Does it go even farther? I don't think that anything I thought I knew is really real. I guess there's nothing I can do. I'll follow Derek's lead - I'll lay back & play the game - keep my ear to the ground - wait & see what happens & hope II meet my own destiny half as well as he did.
All I do know - like I wrote this morning - is that I am a soldier, like my father before me, like Derek Rayne, the precept before me..I went back to read what I just wrote. I suddenly realized that up there on the battery overlooking the Golden Gate - something happened to me. I wrote that Angel Island looked so safe and tranquil --- & it's true --- all is well with the world. Thanks to Derek. All my anger faded away up there as I looked at his jewel, set in the blue waters, the bridge with its incessant traffic humming along, the busy city with its sky scrapers & all those people going about their lives in total ignorant bliss. How can I be angry that someone's courage and love saved all of this for us?
In the end, he made the decision to act alone to protect his team, his friends, the Legacy itself. So be it. As commanding officer, it was his call. I'll always regret that he didn't see any other way and I'll always pray that he understood how much he meant to me & how much he taught me. I thank God for those short years that we called each other friend. Although I'll never be able to fill the empty hole he left in my soul, I do understand his choice and honor the decision of a brave and good man. I will always trust in Derek Rayne, the best human being I'll ever know.
| Photos from Battery Spencer |
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