Scintillate (24 page)

The door sprang open. Two men rushed through. Finn’s father…and…

And mine.

I jumped into my father’s arms. He held me tightly and planted kisses in my hair. Our bodies shook together with sobs. My daddy was here. He’d get me out safely. Take me home. I clung tightly to him, but someone dragged at my back, tugging me away from my rock.

“Don’t touch her!” Gráinne shrieked, nearly choking me by yanking on my shirt. “Let her go!” She pulled with more strength than I thought her capable of, and out of control, like someone drowning.

Reluctantly, I let go of my father. Poor thing. I turned to explain who he was but stopped short. Gráinne’s face was drained of all color, and she hadn’t had much color to begin with. She wasn’t looking at me but over my shoulder, at my father. Her birdlike hand covered her heart. A dried-leaf of a whisper escaped her lips. “B-Benito?”

Forty-Eight

M

y father clutched my hand as he moved toward Gráinne. But when he reached her, his grasp slipped softly from mine. Her delicate face nestled in his hands like a heart made of snow. “Grace?”

I blinked tears. Everything fell away, leaving nothing but my parents standing in front of me, staring in awe. I was blinded by the intense light of them, the heartbreaking beauty of two lost souls finding each other again. It was like watching a supernova reassemble itself.

I wept where I stood.

Then my father reached for my hand again, reminding me that the last piece was me.

I fell into their embrace. We huddled and gripped each other tightly. Gráinne looked at me as if for the first time. Now she knew.

“We need to go,” someone whispered urgently. “Quickly.” We broke apart, but more whole than ever, and started for the door.

Fergus helped Giovanni up from the bed and threw his arm under his shoulders to support him. I hadn’t realized Giovanni was too weak still to walk on his own. Clearly he didn’t like being aided by someone he considered an enemy because he was trying in vain to pull away.

“You want to be stubborn or you want to be free?” I snapped.

The five of us spilled into the hallway where Finn still crouched on the floor against the wall. His mother had propped him up against the dark slate. His head rested on his arms over his knees. I stopped and stared, unsure what to do.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.

Finn didn’t look up. “My father will get you to a safe place,” he answered with effort.

“Are you really willing to die?” I asked in a whisper.

“Go. Hurry!” he croaked.

Ina ran her hand over her forehead. “We’re both doctors, and we can’t save our own son.” Her eyes implored, her voice barely audible, “Please, Cora.”

Finn spoke through gritted teeth. “I. Will. Not.”

I jogged away from him toward the rest of the anxious group waiting for me at the end of the hall. My dad stretched his hand out toward me.

I stopped.

Turned.

And ran back to Finn.

I kneeled on the floor next to his shaking body. “Do it,” I said, inwardly cringing. “Take only enough to be okay,” I added, uncertain whether he could control what he took from me.

“Cora!” my father yelled.

“No.” Finn tried to push me away, ineffectually. “I won’t hurt you again, Cora. I promise I won’t. I’d rather die.” His body may have been weak, but his eyes were alight with fire. He meant what he said. And he’d die keeping that promise.

One of my tears landed on his cheek.
The rain is lovely on you,
I remembered him saying.

I placed my hands on both sides of his face and lifted his chin. He wrapped his around my forearms and tried to pull them away. “I was wrong to think I’d never hurt you. I know I need to let you go. Because I love you, I need to let you go.” He dragged a ragged breath into his body. “I don’t want this,” he said. “I don’t want to be this.”

“It’s who you are,” I whispered. “And this is who I am.”

Again, he knocked my hands away from him. I nodded, resigned. “Fine. But look at me,” I said, livid because he made my heart ache fresh and raw. I wanted to stop being punched, over and over again, with the impossibility of us. For the rest of my life, would I always feel like the other half of me had been ripped away? I could barely speak through my tears. “When I kiss you good-bye for the last time, I want you to look at me.”

We stared into each other, like all of those times before, dropping into a warm pool of wonder in each other’s eyes. I bent and put my lips to his. I let my mind reel through our history from that first moment in the hospital, to the night he carried me out of the coffee shop, our kiss in the redwoods, being so happy to see him again in Ireland that I thought I might never go home, to the seconds before he changed, when I was willing to give him all of myself because I loved him with all my heart.

Finn might love me. I’d never know for sure. Neither would he. And that was the biggest reason I had to let him go. The doubt would always tarnish what we had together.

I hadn’t needed a thing from him, and I loved him.

That
was the truth. My truth.

For this one last moment, this last kiss, I set aside my confusion, my hurt, and my rage, and let my memories, my love, wash over him. Into him. Whether he liked it or not.

I willingly breathed my spark into his body.

He might die, but it wasn’t going to be because I did nothing.

Finn’s hands found their way to my hair. He grasped me tightly, returning my kiss. His lips grazed mine, tasted my tears, then he pulled his face away from mine. Just barely. The tempest of our quick breathing swirled over my lips.

“I hope someday you forgive me,” he said, tears pooling over his warm brown eyes.

“And I hope you forgive me.”

His eyes sprang wide with realization. I could already see his aura changing. A white ring of light surrounded his head. I thought he’d smile, but he didn’t. “You’ve only delayed my death, luv.” He gazed at me with an agonized face. “It’s like inhaling you,” he whispered. “You’re part of me. You’ll always be part of me.” I got to my feet and motioned for him to come, but he waved me away. He glowed with white, and it terrified me to feel the pull from my heart to his.

“Go, Cora!”

I turned and ran.

Forty-Nine

I

t was a strange, vulnerable sensation to exit through the final locked gate of Clancy Mulcarr’s secret underground prison. The walls of the garden were so camouflaged by trees, you could barely see it if you didn’t know it was there.

“Where does Clancy live? I don’t see a house.”

“On the opposite side of these woods. We looked there first and found nothing. But then Ina said she’d seen a forest in her vision. This is the only patch of forest on our land,” Fergus explained. “It was hard to find this place, though, with it being underground. We had to look for worn paths in the trees.”

With Fergus’s help, we found our way through a knotted cluster of trees out of Clancy’s compound. Thick fog curled and slithered around the bottoms of the trees along the path, moving like a living thing. Moisture clung to my skin. The world felt more expansive than before. Or maybe I felt smaller, more defenseless. Like evil suddenly had talons and at any moment could snap me up and plop me back into a cage.

Every footfall crunching into the gravel sounded like an army of horses in my head. I expected Clancy to pop out from behind every tree. Ahead, through the foliage, the lighthouse tower in the distance rose over the fog like a finger pointing at the moon. I couldn’t believe it. “All this time, we were only a couple miles from your house?”

“Right under our noses. Bloody bastard,” Fergus said with a grunt.

“How much time do we have before his drugs wear off?” my father asked, always the scientist. He had both my mother and me by the hand. He grasped a little too tightly, but I didn’t mind.

“I’d guess an hour or so. It was pretty heavy stuff, but it took us a while to find you.”

“It won’t matter,” my mother muttered. “He’ll find us.” She proceeded to chew nervously on the tip of her thumb. “He’s a ghost. Soul on a string.”

Fergus led us through another grove of trees and thick ferns. As we exited into a clearing, I saw an old shed on the edge of a dirt road. He sat Giovanni down on a large rock and fished a ring of keys from his trouser pocket. Fergus opened wide double doors to a tack shed. We followed him inside. It smelled of horsehair and dirt, and the tang of green grass crushed under a boot heel.

“We’ve got to find a safe place to go,” I said, unable to control my restless pacing. We were standing in a shed on the same property as Clancy’s house. And I wouldn’t go to the manor. Drugged or not, he was there. Not nearly far enough away. Nowhere would be far enough. He’d had three Scintilla.
Three.
The magic number that kept cropping up. The number he said would make him unstoppable. And now he’d lost his prize. Would he ever stop looking for us?

“We have to call the police,” my father said. “He kept a woman imprisoned for nearly thirteen years! He needs to feel what it’s like to be behind bars. I don’t care about any of this aura crap anymore. He can’t keep another human prisoner and get away with it.”

I’d never heard my father’s voice so desperate or so full of bitterness.

“Aye, you can call the police. Press charges. He deserves it. But it won’t make you any safer. He’s but one of many Arrazi who would seize these three.” Fergus clasped his hand to my father’s shoulder. “Or worse. Much worse. The Scintilla had almost been relegated to myth. It’s been so long since word of one had come ’round. But now…” He looked at Giovanni, Gráinne, and me with unconcealed wonder. “When people find out about you three, it will be open season.” He leaned in close to my father. “If it were my family, you can bet your arse I’d hide them away. Go off the grid, my friend. Find a mountain home far away from people, and live there forever.”

“That’s not a life. That’s another prison.” My voice ricocheted off the walls. We all looked around us for a moment, but the only sound was the screech of crickets in the night and the distant static of the ocean far below.

My father put both hands on my shoulders. I knew he was about to tell me what was and what was not going to happen. “I’m not that girl anymore,” I informed him. “We need to decide together.”

I turned to Giovanni. His matted blond curls were the brightest thing in the room besides our silver. His face wore the bruises of his beating and his lip was still swollen. A Nordic angel after battle. He’d been staring gloomily at me since he sat down on a bale of hay underneath a row of horse halters.

“Can we go to your hotel until we figure out what we’re doing?” I asked.

“We cannot go there,” Giovanni said. “That is where they found me. There
is
one place we can go. I know a man in Dublin, a doctor. I told you about him. He would help us. I know he would.”

“I’d rather contact the embassy,” my father said. “They can keep us safe until we leave the country.”

“And what are you going to say to them, Dad? Excuse me, but can you give us safe harbor because a bunch of soul-sucking lunatics are after us?” I threw my hands in the air. “They’ll think we’re insane.” I looked at my mother curled up like a pill bug, her lips moving frantically but without any sound.

“We’re not staying in this country, Cora. We’ve got to leave Ireland.”

“We’ve got to find a way to end this for good. There
has
to be an answer. You heard Fergus, Dad. They’re after people like us. They found us, found
me
, in Santa Cruz, California, of all places! Nowhere is safe.”

That girl’s not safe anywhere.

“Of all the unsafe places in the entire world, this is the
most
unsafe! You’ve flown right into the heart of the hornet’s nest. Your mother believed this is where it all started: that the origins of Arrazi and Scintilla started here, at Newgrange. Well, I’m not having it. I’m not losing either of you again.”

“I can’t leave.” My mother’s little voice startled us all.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t have any identification. No passport. Nothing. I don’t exist. I don’t exist. They erased me. They erased me, Benito.”

I kneeled down and hugged her. She was so broken. I wondered if she’d ever be normal again.

“Damn. My passport. Those bastards took everything from me, too.” Giovanni cursed in Italian, patting down his pants pockets. “My wallet, my cell phone. But I have a copy of all of my identification hidden in a locker at the airport. You don’t travel as much as I have without learning how to protect yourself.”

“I have no idea where my stuff is.”

“We gave Clancy your things when he left with you,” Fergus said as he went to the door.

My heart constricted painfully. “The journal.” I needed a passport, yes, and cash, and clothes. But the journal was the biggest loss. The thought of that evil man with my mother’s writing sent fresh hate through me.

“I’m sorry,” Fergus said, seeing my distress. “We thought he would get you to the airport. Try to get comfortable in here for a bit. Rest if you can. I will hurry up to the house and get the car. When I come back, I will tap three times, like this. Then pause. And once again.” He knocked the code softly on the wood.

“Why are you helping us?” Giovanni asked him, not trying at all to conceal his distrust.

“I suppose it’s the drops of humanity in my blood,” Fergus answered with a smirk. “Like any Arrazi, I’ve always been curious as hell about what my sortilege would be if I—” He looked at his feet. “But Ina feels like hers is a curse, so maybe I can live the rest of my life not knowing.”

“We appreciate your help,” I told him sincerely, even though his presence scared me. I could tell he didn’t much like being under the weight of our suspicion, and Giovanni wasn’t exactly diplomatic about it.

Fergus looked at us, one by one. “You’re welcome. But don’t go thinking too highly of me. It’s not as though I’m not tempted. I may be human, but I’m still Arrazi.”

And with that, he left.

My dad paced. A few steps, then around for a few more. “It could take weeks to get passports. Even fake ones. We need to get to Chile,” he said with conviction, mostly to himself.

“You think we can hide away at Mami Tulke’s?” I asked, and then suddenly remembered. “That conversation with Mami Tulke,” I blurted, ignoring his startled look. “I tried to ask you about it the night we fought. You said she needed to help me again, Dad. How could she help me if I’ve never met her?”

A resigned sigh puffed out of him. “Until recently, she’d been able to block it.”

“It? You mean stop me from seeing auras?”

My dad nodded. “That. But more importantly, to block others from sensing yours.” He rubbed his hands through his graying hair. “Until you got sick.”

The air rushed out of me. “You knew what I was. You knew all this time. How does Mami Tulke know about all of this?”

“Because, sweetheart, she’s one of you.
Scintilla
. We were trying to keep you safe. Protect you. Look what happened to your mother.”

I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t squabble anymore about his protecting me. “So that’s why you were suddenly willing for me to go to Chile?” I asked, daring to hope there was a way she could help.

“I keep thinking if we can get to her, she can help all three of you. Maybe she could block it again if you were actually with her.”

“How did Mami Tulke do it? I know she’s some kind of medicine woman but—” I imagined potions, incense, chicken feathers…

“That’s
her
sortilege,” he said. “To cast a veil over a Scintilla. It’s called shielding. But she was suddenly unable to do it. Something’s changed.”

“With her or with me?”

“With the whole damn world.” Dad ran his hands through his mussed hair. He looked like he’d been through hell.

“What do you mean?”

“The world is undergoing a major, major shift. The discoveries of dark energy and then the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe were monumental. Science has focused its attention on the outer space of dark energy. I knew, because of my mother, your mother, you…that energy is much more personal—it affects us all—and so I began to study how dark energy might be impacting our planet and the people on it. Energy is not just something that is
out there
,” Dad said, pointing toward the sky. “It’s everywhere.”

“We’re made of it,” my mother mumbled. “Star stuff.”

I couldn’t help thinking of Finn’s starry tattoo; a family crest of sorts, he had said. Giovanni shuffled behind me. I looked over my shoulder. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but I could see his high interest in the conversation by the way his silver aura arched over my body toward my father.

My dad continued. “The increase in natural disasters was a sign that there is a serious crisis or imbalance going on in our world, but the more critical sign now is the people who are mysteriously dying.”

“Please slow down,” Giovanni requested. “I’m trying to understand what you are saying and what this has to do with us.”

My father held up his hands. “Sorry. I’m studying the incidents of people who are dying, just…dying from no known cause, all over the world.”

“It’s Arrazi,” I said, sure of it. “It happened right in front of our eyes at the airport in Dublin.”

“That was you?” Dad gasped.

“Yes. And there was a man with a white aura across the street—Arrazi.”

“No, no, no,” my dad interrupted. “The blood of the people who are dying shows a cellular abnormality. Violent expansions, if you will. Cellular activity is accelerating and expanding at such a rate that, well, I believe that dark energy is killing them, not the Arrazi.”

“And?” I asked. “What if you’re wrong?” If it wasn’t the Arrazi killing those people, then I didn’t see what this had to do with Scintilla and Arrazi at all. How could he possibly connect ancient breeds of humans to this theory about dark energy?

I still believed it was the desperate Arrazi doing what they were born to do, but I was trying to be open. I had a new respect for my father. His interest wasn’t just in trying to save the Scintilla he loved. He wanted to save the world.

“And your blood, Cora, it has the same abnormality. Only—”

“When those people died of our sickness, I lived.”

My father smiled as he did when I was little and had finally grasped a complex math problem he’d been trying to explain. “I know I sound crazy. But somehow, I think you, the Scintilla, are the key to the energetic imbalance. You lived! It somehow has to do with your life-giving, positive energy. I believe that. I proved it in the lab when I combined your cells with the cells of one of the victims. The expansion slowed, was brought back into balance.”

“You’re trying to tell me a few Scintilla are supposed to save the world? Oh, a simple little thing like that?” My voice sounded shrill, near panic at the enormity of what my father proposed.

“We can hardly save ourselves,” Giovanni pointed out rather unhelpfully. He reminded me of Mari that way.

“In so many cases, simple doesn’t mean easy, sweetheart.” He stepped close and put his arm around my shoulders. “People are going to keep dying. Catastrophes are going to keep occurring. The Arrazi are going to keep killing innocent humans. And if they find you, they’ll kill you, too.”

“Or enslave us,” I said with a nod to my mother.

Giovanni placed a hand on my shoulder. “Unless we correct the imbalance by killing all the Arrazi.”

My father and I both flicked our gazes to Giovanni. To kill for our own survival was as callous as what the Arrazi had been doing all along. Could I kill Finn, or his parents, who appeared decent at heart despite what they were? There had to be another way.

My mother reached out. “Sit with me, Benito.” It hurt the most when she sounded normal because I knew it wouldn’t last. He looked at her like she was new. Again.

My heart broke for the sorrow in their faces. Lost years. Promises broken in order to keep promises. Sorry was greenish-yellow, cloudy fingers grasping from Dad’s heart outward. I peered at my mother’s silver aura and could swear the silver softened, liquefied, in front of her heart as if her aura was fractured there.

My dad kneeled down next to her and placed his hands on both sides of her face. “I want to get you out of here, Grace. Make sure you’re safe. I used to look for you. I used to go with Cora to the redwoods, hoping you’d come.” He hung his head. “Eventually, I gave up hope.”