Like Father by Nick Gifford Page B

ever heard of kobolds?”
    Danny took the sheet. It was a printout of a web page.

    The Kobold
    Kobolds are to be found in Germanic (Teutonic) folklore.
    A kobold is a small, goblin-like, domestic spirit, who can be both helpful and mischievous. He often helps with household chores, but sometimes hides tools and implements. He can get very angry if he is not fed properly. The kobold can be an unpredictable creature, dangerous when crossed, and fiercely protective of the family in his care.
    Some kobolds are believed to be spirits dwelling in caves and mines. Other kobolds have specific names - like Goldemar or Hodeken. Goldemar can see the secret sins of the clergy, while Hodeken taunts unfaithful wives.

    “You’re telling me we have a family gremlin?”
    “You’re the one who talked about inner demons,” said Cassie. She snatched the paper back and shoved it into her bag.
    “In my father’s head,” said Danny. “He was mad. Hearing voices.”
    “Hodeken’s voice, you said.”
    He nodded. “Maybe he knew the kobold legend,” he said. “Maybe it was in a story he was told when he was a child, and when he started to crack up it came back to him: the name, the memory of an angry little spirit.”
    “This is like Scooby Doo ,” said Cassie.
    He looked at her, waited for her to explain.
    “In every episode something freaky happens, but they always end up finding a perfectly rational explanation for it all. It’s usually the janitor.”
    “It’s better than not having an explanation.”
    “But what about the talk board?” Cassie reminded him. “How do you explain that?”
    He couldn’t.
    “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go with the Hodeken thing. Some kind of domestic demon that’s attached to our family, causing all our problems. A German curse. So where is it? Where is it hiding? Why haven’t we seen it?”
    “It’s spoken to you,” said Cassie softly, reacting to his raised voice. “On the talk board. Some people say they’re all around us – spirits, ghosts, strange entities – but most of us are just too blind to see anything out of the ordinary. We’ve all forgotten how to see them.”
    “You believe that?”
    “I don’t dismiss it,” she said, still talking softly. “Maybe you just need to learn to look properly.”
    He shook his head. He was worked up and he fought to calm himself.
    “Maybe it’s me,” she said hesitantly.
    “What?”
    “Maybe I’m the kobold. The mischievous spirit that’s entered your life. You have to think the unexpected.”
    He remembered his earlier realisation that Cassie was the one person who could get under his defences.
    He shook his head again, angry and confused. “I don’t need this,” he muttered. She was playing mind games with him, stirring up things best left untouched.
    Silence. They were near the end of the track now.
    “I can’t work you out, Danny Schmidt.”
    He looked at her, puzzled.
    “I don’t know how to read you. You’re so aloof all the time, as if you’re above little things like being friendly and talking to people. Talking to me. You hold the world at arm’s length. And then sometimes I think I’m connecting. But I’m not. I don’t think I’ve ever connected with you, have I?”
    He watched her as she spoke.
    He kept himself calm, in control again.
    “I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s been like for you, to have been through what you’ve been through,” she continued. “But I’m trying. I don’t know what’s happening now, either. You have problems, Danny. You’ve come up against something really ancient and frightening and if you don’t handle it just right your world will explode.”
    “No,” he said. He couldn’t believe what she was telling him.
    The battle he had to face was the battle he had been facing for the last three years: the battle not to lose to the family madness, not to end up like his father. That was what it came down to.
    And the way to do that was to shut everything – and