FFM26: Inheritance

I inherited the house when my father passed, and it was the first thing he'd given me in twenty-seven years.  In light of twenty-seven missed birthdays, a missed wedding and two missed grand-children, I thought it was a nice parting gift on his part.
The circumstances of his death were vague at best; he had no known health conditions, and none of the coroners could find signs of heart failure or stroke.  For all intents and purposes, it looked as though he had just fallen over where he stood one day, and lay there until a neighbor came over for the weekly poker game.
I didn't want to attend the funeral, but my wife told me that I needed to.  When I blew her off, my boss repeated the sentiment, forcibly ejecting me from the office.  By the time I got home, my ticket was already booked, and Janice was halfway through packing my bags for me.  It was decided.  The following morning, I was on a 747 to Florida.
I watched them put him into the ground, and wished that I felt something more than frustration.  When a middle-aged woman with spiderwebbed tear stains asked if I knew the deceased, I told her that he used to be a friend of my mom's and excused myself.
The house was much more than I had expected.  From the outside, I could count what looked like five bed-rooms, spread across two floors.  The interior was classy and well-maintained, with rich wood paneling and leather furniture.  It looked like it should have been home to a gentleman's club, where old white men would sit around and smoked cigars back in the day.  It certainly smelled like the cigars that he loved so much, mixed with the faint hint of his cologne clinging to every surface.  I ran my hand over the smooth oak as I made my way in to his den.
The coroner's report had said that he was found in front of his fireplace, as though he was looking at his mantle.  Retracing cold footsteps, I stood in the spot where my father died, and looked over his mementos.  Random assorted photos littered the marble shelf, full of faces that I'd never seen.  Directly in the center stood a photo of a young boy that looked remarkably familiar, framed in gold.  I picked the portrait up to look at it, and marveled at the memories of how goofy I looked in third grade.  I hadn't expected to find any sign of myself in the house, and the silly picture held my eyes for a long time.  
"You were a good looking boy," a voice murmured softly from nowhere.  
The picture-frame shattered on the floor, forgotten in the moment of shock.  
"Hello?"  I barked.  "Who's there?"
The house responded with silence.
From the mantle, a twinkle caught my eye.  Hidden behind my picture, there lay a dark blue crystal.  A tiny fire seemed to burn at the core of the stone, casting a faint dim glow.  
"Yes.  There we are," the stone whispered.  "My, how you've grown."
"Dad?"  I whispered, feeling like quite the jack-ass.  I hadn't heard his voice in years, but there was no mistaking it, even if it was coming out of a rock.  "Wha--?"
"I know there's a lot I never told you," he said, in a tone that was both ashamed and apologetic.  Only now did I begin to realize that I wasn't hearing it with my ears.  "But you have much to learn, fast.  I tried to keep you safe with your mother, and protect you from the things I deal with, but things didn't go how I'd planned."
"What..?  What are you talking about?"  The room seemed to tilt and twirl around me, my head spinning with disbelief.  
"I'm sorry, son, I tried.  But there are too few mages in the world, and someone has to hold off the forces of darkness."
I still wasn't sure that I believed any of this, but I was pretty sure I knew where this was going.  Time to inherit more of Dad's bullshit.

….

Turns out I was wrong, back then.  I didn't know where it was going.  I've been wearing this god-damned necklace for a decade now, and it gets harder with every day.  I spend my nights face to face with demons and forces that would drive the average person insane, and the rest of the world churns on, oblivious.  I haven't seen either of my boys in five years, but they'll understand some day.  The generations of ancestors that live in my amulet assure me that they will.
In the meantime, I lance a silver stake through the heart of a possessed school-teacher, chanting a sacred mantra over her demonic shrieks.  Arterial spray showers my arms with a vile, black substance, and I twist the spear, fighting back the urge to scream myself.
And somewhere in the back of my head, I hear the words that I so longed for in my childhood:
"Good job, son.  Good job."