S_EPUB-55

Fifty

riffin’s knife glinted in his hand. Clancy wasn’t holding a weapon, but then he didn’t need one. Neither of them did.

Giovanni struggled to his feet and gripped my arm.

“Who are you?” my father demanded.

Gráinne whimpered, crawling away to the corner of the shed. Her fingers clutched at the wooden slats as if she could tear them away and run. My dad’s eyes followed her, and then he looked at me. I nodded slightly, and I knew he knew. I saw pure fear and rage in my father’s eyes and in his aura. And I saw the moment a decision clicked in place for him.

The whole world suspended, hung in its big black night, and waited.

Dad rushed Griffin, whose knife was held ready. Their bodies clashed for the briefest moment, no more than the time it takes for a bird to land on a branch and then flit away. In the space between breaths, their movement stopped. Then Dad’s hands grasped at Griffin’s arms and slipped down them as he fell to his knees. Blood dripped from the tip of the knife.

“No!” I screamed. The spark of Giovanni’s hand fell from my arm as I ran toward my father, but before I reached him, Clancy swung full out, his fist slamming straight into the side of my temple. The pocked wood of the ceiling rafters slid around dizzily, and I dropped to the rough floor of the shed. My vision blurred.

“Sometimes I think you possess no sense of self-preservation at all, girl,” Clancy spat.

Griffin’s knife was at my throat before I could move again. My father’s blood trickled across my neck. Or was it my own? Instinctively, I reached up to push the knife away, but the second my hand landed on the woven leather handle, visions bombarded my mind.

Clancy and Giovanni speeding through Dublin in a car. Giovanni lying unconscious, bloody, and beaten in the backseat. Griffin caressed the knife, unsheathed on his thigh. Clancy’s resonant voice:

He’d better live, Griffin. There’s an army of people who would kill for just one. But three…it changes everything. I can’t believe our fortune. The Society can’t know about this.

He’s nearly dead. We should finish him. How long since someone claimed to have taken a Scintilla to death? Don’t you want to know what will happen?

No, idiot. You’re shortsighted. Too many impatient people have done that, killed when they could have collected. You went too far with the boy. I said to bring him in no matter what, not kill him. Daft bastard. We need him. The only thing we can do now is put him in with the women and see if they can save him.

But, Mulcarr, keep three together? Isn’t that dangerous?

Trust me. It’s more dangerous to let him die.

I screamed when a sharp, searing pain burned between my shoulder blades, bringing me back to the present. My hand was still on the knife at my throat so it couldn’t be that. I arched my back and cried out again as a hot iron branded my skin. That was a familiar pain.

Giovanni ran forward but stopped short when Clancy yelled, “Don’t be a fool. Do you want her to die right here, right now?”

My father coughed and clutched his side. I pulled my gaze from Giovanni’s extreme blue stare and silver energy reaching for me like arms and shifted my head slightly to look at my dad. The blade bit into my neck as I turned. Dad’s hands were bright red. He hadn’t moved from his knees. But he hadn’t fallen, either. That was good, right? There was a lot of blood, though, dampening his shirt. Gráinne sucked in her breath and began to cry.

“How did you find us?” Giovanni asked. “Fergus said he drugged you.”

“Soul on a string. Soul on a string,” Gráinne chanted from the back of the room. She had obviously returned to Crazy Land, and I wasn’t sure I could blame her. This was too small a taste of freedom to have it end so soon.

“Hush now, pet,” Clancy crooned to my mother. “I have you to thank for my ability, Gráinne. Astral projection is a handy power. Luckily, I was able to slip into it when my brother-in-law drugged me. You were still at my place when I went under, still within my reach. I followed you here, astrally.” He smiled, sinister. “I can follow you anywhere, pet.” He leaned down over me. His hand ran across my throbbing cheek. “A very affecting good-bye you gave my nephew. Near broke my heart.”

I gritted my teeth and swatted his hand away. “If you had one.”

Griffin pushed the knife harder against my throat. It punctured my skin, slicing a gash in my neck. Something hard settled into my collarbone. Disoriented, I reached for it, expecting to feel a piece of my white bone protruding from my skin. But my fingers instantly recognized the shape of the key.

“Don’t hurt her,” my father choked, the blood under his rib cage spreading into an alarming scarlet blot. “Please. I’m begging you.”

Clancy stood, put his hands on his hips, and surveyed the room as if deciding what to do with all of us. Giovanni’s fingers twitched against his jeans like a gunslinger.

“That’s a right nasty wound you’ve got there,” Clancy commented to my dad.

My dad’s brows furrowed deeply as he worked through possible arguments, trying desperately to find a crack in Clancy he could exploit. “Money,” my father gasped. “How much will it take to let us go?”

Clancy laughed. “There is no price large enough, chap. I cannot buy what a Scintilla can give me. But you do have something I can use.”

My dad heaved forward like he’d been yanked by a giant, invisible hand. I realized then that he had. Clancy had reached inside him and dragged his colors, his beautiful colors, right out of his body in a slow, steady stream, drawing them into his own.

I struggled to free myself, but Griffin slid his knees over my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. The jagged edge of the knife pressed deeper into my throat. “Stop! Please stop,” I cried. “You don’t need him right now.”

“No, pet. This is purely for pleasure.”

My dad had that same bewildered look that Mrs. Oberman had. That the lady in the park had. Like they couldn’t understand why their energy was plummeting with every weakened beat of their heart, why their vision had narrowed to a scary point of light intent on consuming them. I now knew it was like drowning slowly.

Watching it killed me. Tears as hot as the blood on my neck slid down my temples. “Please…,” I sobbed. “I love you, Daddy.”

“Take me!” Gráinne suddenly screamed. “Take all of me. To the death. You know what might happen, Clancy. Do it!”

“Rumors,” Clancy scoffed. “Legends. And you’re far more valuable to me alive than dead.” Clancy grabbed a clump of my father’s hair. “He’s worth nothing, however. There are millions like him all over the world.”

“No, no, Benito,” she cried. Gráinne wept in a ball. I struggled harder against Griffin, felt another sharp nick in my skin, a stinging line of fire across my neck. And I didn’t care. I needed to get to my father. I thrashed, kicked, bucked my body up against him, used every ounce of strength I had to get to my dad, all while the knife bit repeatedly into my neck. But it was useless. Griffin was too strong.

My father reached out to me. Clancy’s aura exploded into white as my daddy’s aura broke from his body. He fell over in a pool of his own blood. His warm body, his crimson blood, his dark eyes open, fixed on a horizon I couldn’t see. The essence of him, stolen.

Gone.

“Noooo!” The word bounced around the little wooden shack. I stared up at the rafters as the screams echoed around me. My father was dead. I was numb with shock, overtaken by a pain too great to accept. The air touching my skin, the air I sucked into my lungs—every cell in my body was saturated with an all-encompassing pain. I wanted to close my eyes and sink into myself. I almost did, but the knife suddenly released from my neck, the flash of steel sailing over top of me toward Giovanni.

I expected to see the knife impale Giovanni, but the handle flew right into his outstretched hand. I tilted my head back to see Griffin standing, staring in dazed shock. I swung my legs around, heaving a kick right into his crotch, doubling him over. Giovanni lunged past me, flying through the air, sweeping down to drive the knife into Griffin’s body.

I scrambled to my feet. As soon as I stood, I was paralyzed by the familiar tug on my aura. Clancy’s eyes were fixed on me. His greedy white aura took up the small room. It reached for me, stronger than before. Pulled me out of myself. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t reel myself back in, couldn’t tuck my soul away from harm.

Giovanni leaped in front of him, releasing me from the manacles of Clancy’s energy. I gasped to catch my breath. Without pause or mercy, Clancy began taking from Giovanni’s silver spark. He meant to weaken us all so we couldn’t fight. Giovanni’s body shuddered. He was already weak; he couldn’t take this assault. His head slumped forward, and he fell like a crumbling wall, folding at the neck, the waist, the knees, until finally, he landed in a heap at our feet.

I raised my arm to hurl the only weapon I had, chucking the key as hard as I could.

It landed square in the middle of Clancy’s forehead and bounced to the floor. He blinked, startled, and stumbled forward a bit, fingering his forehead for blood. The key lay on the floor between us. I took a quick step forward and scooped it up.

“Don’t move,” Clancy said, holding his hand up, palm facing me. I saw his ring. Embossed within the smooth, gold oval winked an emblem. Two pyramids, joined at their apices. The same insignia that was engraved on the key in my fist stared at me from his outstretched hand.

“Where did you get that key?” he demanded.

It had to be important. My mother had made sure this key and its secrets were buried. Until I dug them up. I glanced at her, hoping she could help me with answers, but she was still sobbing on the floor. I needed to touch Clancy’s ring. I needed to know what secrets it held and if it would show me anything I might use against him. I struggled to recall the vision from the knife.

“You’re afraid,” I ventured. “I can see it in your aura.” It was a lie. I could see nothing but white. I took another step forward. If I was going to bluff, I was going all in. “I know what you’re scared of.”

“Little lass, there is nothing I fear from you.”

I grasped for the fragments of memory the knife contained. “You’re afraid for them to know what you possess.”

Clancy’s eyes widened a fraction. I stepped forward again.

“I. Will. Kill. You.” Clancy’s lethal words puffed out in a cloud of curling black, and I knew.

I forced a smug smile onto my face. “No. You won’t. And it’s why Griffin didn’t kill me before. You have three of us, just like you need.” His eyes flew open in surprise. I could see his mind scrambling. I took another step toward his palm and the eye. One more step. It was my only hope. I was so close now. Inches.

Clancy closed his fingers over the ring and lowered his clenched fist to his side. A sigh rushed from me. What could I possibly do or say to get us out? “They’re on their way here now,” I spit out, desperate.

He grabbed me by the neck and squeezed. Silver sparks of energy flew off my body toward him. He sipped slowly from my aura. A cold, pressing ache radiated from my chest outward. I scrambled for the word he’d used in my vision, hoping it was the right one. “The—the Society.” I gasped. “I contacted them. Why do you think I have this key?”

His hand dropped from my neck, and he stepped backward. His white aura retreated into his skin like a frightened animal. I didn’t know who or what the Society was, but Clancy Mulcarr was obviously very afraid of them showing up. “They wouldn’t like to find you here with three Scintilla.”

Clancy surveyed the shack with a frantic look. My mother, rocking in the corner, crooning to herself; Giovanni, barely conscious but stirring; and me, strangling him with his own words. Using his secrets and his lies against him.

“I will never stop until I find you,” he said as he stepped to the door. “And when I do, you three will die.”

No smoky words in that statement.

And then he fled into the heavy mist.

Giovanni struggled to sit upright. I took his shoulders and blew my energy into him. Fast and frantic, I gave him whatever he needed to be a help and not a hindrance. We had to get out of here fast. I didn’t fully trust that Clancy would let his prize go so easily.

“What? No kiss?” Giovanni said as he wobbled to his feet. He reached for Gráinne’s hand, but she sat frozen in fear, covering her head with her arms. He picked her up and slung her over his broad shoulder, his knees buckling a moment before he steadied himself. “Come!” he shouted to me on his way toward the door with my mother flapping against his back and reaching out for my father.

I couldn’t leave my dad in this place. I tugged on his arm, but he was so heavy. Too heavy. “Help me!” I screamed to Giovanni.

Fergus fell through the doorway of the shed with car keys in his hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said, surveying the scene with shock. He dropped to my father’s side and felt futilely for his pulse. Sympathetic eyes met mine. “I’m sorry. I went to check on Clancy. I didn’t expect he’d be alert. And I didn’t expect his friend to show up.”

Clearly, they had fought. Fergus’s cheekbone swelled and blood clung to the corners of his mouth.

Giovanni rushed back in. “We must go, Cora. Don’t make me carry you out of here as well, because I will.” He savagely ripped the knife from Griffin’s body and wiped it clean on his pants leg.

“I can’t leave him here.”

“You must!”

I fell to my knees over my dad’s body, adrenaline and sorrow hitting me all at once. I bowed my body over him, his blood soaking my knees. His colors gone forever.

Somewhere in my mind I heard Griffin groan on the floor. Arms gripped my waist, but I didn’t fight them. I let Giovanni and Fergus pull me up. They poured me into Fergus’s car, and we screeched away from the shed and down the dirt road leading toward Rising Sun Manor.

“You’ll have to ditch this car very soon,” Fergus said. “I’ll retrieve it when it’s found. There are some supplies in the trunk, and cash.” We drove up to the manor, and Giovanni slid into the driver’s seat when Fergus jumped out, waving us on. “Godspeed!”

I leaned my head into the cold glass of the window and glanced over my shoulder at Gráinne, who had curled into a fetal position in the backseat. It wasn’t going to be easy to be covert with her, and we needed to find a place to regroup. To recover our stolen strength. To mourn. To figure out where we could possibly go from here.

Giovanni placed his hand tenderly on my leg. “I’m so sorry, Cora.”

I bit my lip and turned my head away. But something niggled at my brain. “The knife,” I said. “I don’t know how, but it looked like you took it from Griffin. Did he throw it at you?”

“No. He didn’t throw it.” I glanced at Giovanni and could see by his eyes and the way he worked his mouth that he struggled with his words. “I didn’t tell you everything. It’s like with the book at the library… I pulled it to me.” When he saw me trying to understand, he added, “The Arrazi are not the only ones with special abilities. I’ve used mine to steal. Many times. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered, glancing at the tattoo on my hand, reliving the memories that had assaulted me when I touched certain objects. I hadn’t been able to look, but I knew there was a knife etched on my back. How poetic. I didn’t understand why I had to be marked by the objects, but for once I was glad I had the ability to retrieve memories. That, and being able to detect the lie in Clancy’s aura. It had saved our lives. This time.

“Take me home,” Gráinne moaned from the back. For a second, I wondered if she meant the home she’d had for the last thirteen years or our home, the one that lived on in her mind all the time she’d been a prisoner. Did she imagine in her wrecked head that we could stroll through its daisy gate and red door once again? Live happily ever after?

How I wished to be home, too. Sitting on my bed, with Mari, with Dun, spread out on the floor, all of us listening to music, trashing the VIPs, complaining about Dad’s strict ways. Dad…

That was another life.

This new life demanded more, so much more. If my father was right, it demanded we somehow find a way to stop the Arrazi and balance the energy in the world. Do that, all while staying out of the Arrazi’s clutches and avoiding a hidden Society that even Clancy had feared. I nearly laughed to myself. One girl, one boy, and a crazy woman were supposed to fix the universe’s energy? We either attempt the impossible or we spend our lives running. Hiding. More people die. And the world goes down with our cowardice.

Rain pelted the windows as we bumped down the narrow drive toward the iron gate.

“Home,” Gráinne moaned again.

I swiped at a tear snaking down my face, and a new determination etched into my soul. “We don’t have a home,” I said. “Until this is over, there is no home for us. There is no home for the hunted.”

I looked back at my mother mumbling in the backseat.

No wondrous thing was ever discovered were it not for someone brave enough to seek it.

Those words weren’t just Mom’s legacy. They were my father’s as well. And now, mine. I wasn’t done seeking answers. I refused to live my whole life running. I would not let my father die in vain. Scintilla were something beautiful in a sometimes ugly world. We were givers of light in the darkness.

I would not let the light go out on my watch.

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