Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3) (18 page)

So I reached for the ice-cream (yes, I was full, but we’re
talking triple-choc-chunk with toffee swirls) and, putting on a bright tone, I
asked, ‘So, what’ve I missed on
Britain’s Got Talent
?’

And Si launched into a description of pole-dancing hamsters
and naked dance troupes and a traffic warden in a mankini singing an operatic
version of ‘Billie Jean’ that had me laughing like I hadn’t laughed in months.

Luke woke me the next morning. He was running to me, across
the beach, shouting my name. I was running to meet him before I even opened my
eyes, but I didn’t get far: tumbling out of bed, I collided, hard, with a wall.
Smooth, grooved wood. The summerhouse.

A dream. Only a dream.

And yet – it didn’t need to be. He was out there, just
streets away. In just minutes all the months apart, all the missing and longing
and aching in my every cell, could be over.

I could be with him.

Could I be with him?

My heart screamed,
Yes!
My head…

This wasn’t the time. Sighing, I hauled myself off the floor
and worked on untangling myself from the sheet that was wound around my feet.
The summerhouse had been silent since my girl-meets-wall thump. I called out
for Jude. He’d taken the sofa downstairs last night. Well, I assumed he had –
when my eyelids started dropping he’d walked me over here and made up the sofa,
but then he’d returned to the house to sit up with Si, and I hadn’t heard him
come in. I called out again. No answer. I was alone.

I’d slept in a t-shirt and shorts provided by Si, and now I
had no choice but to put yesterday’s clothes back on. Si had offered me some of
Cara’s clothes that she’d left in his room, but I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t
wear them. We should have packed cases in Cerulea, I realised. But then, we’d
been in a rush. And could you even Travel holding a case? I had no idea.

After a quick wash in the tiny sink of the kitchenette, I
went to the window and peeked through the voile to check for signs of life in
the house. I saw none, but the back door was open. An invitation for me to come
in? When I cracked open the door to the summerhouse I heard the low hum of
voices. Male.

Luke – was Luke here? I found myself wrestling with the door
knob:

Close it! He mustn’t see you!

Open it! You must see him!

A figure appeared on the decking outside the house. Jude,
holding a mug of coffee and looking out to sea. The bird of hope fluttering
within plummeted to its death. If Jude was there, Luke wasn’t (or Jude would be
wearing that coffee).

I opened the door and stepped out into the fresh morning
air. No voices to be heard now, just the piercing cry of seagulls.

Crossing the lawn, I saw Jude looked tired. Worried.
Serious.

‘Everything okay?’ I asked as I climbed the steps of the
decking.

‘We have company,’ he said quietly and jerked his head to
indicate the room behind him.

‘Who?’ I whispered.

‘Michael.’

My eyes widened. ‘Evangeline sent him?’

‘I’m not sure. He hasn’t said much. Wanted to wait until you
were up. But he says he wants to help.’

I thought about the time I’d spent with Michael at
Kikorangi, his willingness to admit he saw cracks in the Cerulean world.

‘Perhaps he does,’ I said.

Jude nodded a little, and I stepped past him and entered the
house. Michael was sitting on a sofa at the far end of the long living room. Si
was as far away from him as possible, in the kitchen, fiddling with a very
sparkly coffee machine.

‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Coffee and croissants?’

I smiled a
Yes, please
and then headed over to
Michael. He was perched on the edge of the sofa, as if frozen in the process of
either settling back to relax or standing to leave.

‘Hello, Scarlett,’ he said.

I sat down on an Eames chair set at a right angle to the
sofa.

‘Michael,’ I said. ‘What brings you here?’

He glanced up the room, at Jude, who was still on the
decking, back to us. Then he looked at me and said, ‘I heard you’d left. With
Jude. Gone rogue to find your sister.’ He waited as if he’d asked a question.

‘That’s right.’

‘Why?’

‘Why leave like that? Because it was the only way.
Evangeline wouldn’t give her blessing.’

‘I know. I didn’t mean that. I meant, why look for her? I
thought… isn’t she with the Fallen now?’

I narrowed my eyes, thinking of Evangeline’s mysterious
source – the one who’d apparently witnessed Sienna taking a life. ‘What do you
know of Sienna and the Fallen, Michael?’

‘Only what Evangeline told us. Barnabas sent an email out
yesterday on her behalf to all the adults at Kikorangi.’ He scrabbled in his
back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. ‘I have it here, if you
want to…’

I took it from him and opened it up. Si appeared and placed
a steaming mug and a plate dwarfed by a large croissant on the table in front
of me, and then backed off muttering something about going for a run on the
beach and seeing us later. I lay the paper beside the plate, smoothed it out
and read:

Re: Jude and Scarlett

As you may be aware, this morning Jude took Scarlett from
the island. He plans to use Scarlett to find her sister and then bring them
both back to Cerulea.

They will not find Scarlett’s sister and bring her back
to Cerulea. Sienna is a fully initiated member of the Fallen now, and will
never be welcome on the island.

With this action, Jude has wilfully defied me. I gave him
express instructions not to remove Scarlett from the island, where she is safe.

I am saddened and disappointed by the betrayal of two
members of our family. Let it be known that unless Jude and Scarlett return
within a week, to fulfil their purpose in Cerulea, I will be forced to take
action.

Yours,

Mother

I looked up. Michael was watching me with an unreadable
expression on his face.

‘Has Jude seen this?’ I demanded.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did she send this out?’

‘To inform us all, I suppose. To stop the rumour mill. And
in the hope that you’d touch base with one of us and we’d show it to you.’

‘Why not just come here herself and deliver the threat? She
must have suspected we’d have come to Si’s.’

‘She doesn’t leave the island, Scarlett.’

‘I forgot. Women can’t Travel.’

‘Don’t,’ corrected Michael.

‘Huh?’

A voice behind interrupted us:

‘Michael, did Evangeline send you?’ asked Jude bluntly. He
came to sit down on the sofa to the other side of Michael, neatly sandwiching
the guy between the two of us.

Michael shifted further to the edge of the seat, and said,
‘No. No one knows I’m here.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I told you. To help, if I can.’

‘Why would you help us?’

‘So you can find Sienna. And then come home. So you won’t be
outcasts.’

‘Do you know where Sienna is?’

Jude’s voice was sharp, his manner that of an interrogator.
Michael remained calm, though I saw his discomfort in his eyes, which for once
weren’t staring but shifting restlessly.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and Jude let out a sound of
frustration, which he cut off the moment Michael added: ‘But I know where you
can start looking.’

‘Where?’

‘Newquay. Where you crossed paths with Daniel in a back
alley, Scarlett.’

I turned on Jude. ‘You told Michael about that?’

‘Told Evangeline,’ he said. ‘We have to report incidents
with the Fallen.’

‘Evangeline told Reuben,’ explained Michael. ‘And Reuben
asked me to look into it on the quiet.’

‘Reuben?’ I queried.

‘Cerulean for the Newquay area,’ said Jude shortly.

‘The man you saw attacked wasn’t the first, Scarlett,’ said
Michael. ‘Reuben had patched up a bloke weeks before who said he’d been jumped
in those back alleys by someone with “freaky hands”. So he asked around, did
some surveillance. When he found nothing – no one – he asked me to dig about.’

Jude looked peeved. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Michael? You
knew I was looking for Sienna.’

‘Didn’t seem much point unless there was a lead. And then,
when I found… well, by then you were with Scarlett on the island and not
looking for Sienna any more. I thought you’d given up on her.’

Jude looked more than peeved now.
‘Given up –’

‘Focus,’ I told him. Then, to Michael: ‘What did you find?’

‘A Mr Gabriel Vindico.’

Jude jolted violently. ‘Gabriel?
The
Gabriel?
You
found the head of the Fallen, Michael?’

‘No. But I found his name at the end of a very long and
winding trail of paperwork, on the certificate of incorporation for a holding
company that had a controlling stake in a nightclub called Infinity.’

‘He owns the club that backs onto the alleys?’

‘I think he did once.’              

‘And now he uses it?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘It would explain why Daniel was lurking about…’

‘And my sister!’ I interjected suddenly. ‘Jude, remember, I
saw her in that club!’

Jude was shaking his head, but before he could speak Michael
said:

‘You saw Sienna there? The same night that you met Daniel?’

‘Yes. By the exit. But then I lost her.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ He sounded annoyed.

‘Because I never told Evangeline. Because there was nothing
to tell.’ Jude turned to me. ‘Scarlett, we discussed this at the time. Sienna
wasn’t there. What you saw wasn’t real.’

‘But –’

‘Sienna’s been Claimed. You know what that means, how
precious she is. Gabriel would
never
let her wander around some
nightclub heaving with people. He’ll be keeping her someplace safe.’

‘Maybe she escaped,’ suggested Michael.

Jude shot him a look and then said firmly to me, ‘She can’t
have been there. Think about it, Scarlett. If your sister were somehow free,
she’d have come for you –
she
’d have come to find
you
.’

I nodded slowly. He was right. If my sister hadn’t been
captive all this time, she’d have been at my side long ago.

Captive.
The word sent an icy shiver down my spine,
and I reached for my coffee, sitting forgotten on the table. But lukewarm as it
was, it did nothing to stave off the cold.

*

Later, after Michael had gone and Si was back from his run,
we sat in the living room – Jude and me on the sofa, Si halfway up the room on
a twisting length of plastic that looked more sculpture than chair – and we got
Si up to speed.

‘Do you trust Michael?’ asked Si.

‘No reason not to,’ said Jude. ‘If he lied and he was here
on Evangeline’s orders, then surely the most she’d have told him to do was
convey her threat, and perhaps try to convince us to go back to the island. But
instead, he gave us a lead on Sienna’s whereabouts. No way would Evangeline
have supplied that. She’s made it clear enough she
doesn’t
want us
finding Sienna – even in that email.’

‘So Michael’s betraying Evangeline too?’

Jude winced at the ‘too’, but nodded. ‘Looks like it. Which
is strange. He’s always been a bit of a loner. But I thought he was
Evangeline’s man through and through.’

‘I haven’t had that impression,’ I said.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I mean, I’m not saying he’s a rebel or anything. But
he’s intelligent and curious, and he thinks beyond what he’s told, questions
it.’

‘You think he’s
anti
-Evangeline?’ Jude looked
horrified.

‘No. Just that he sees shades of grey between her black and
white.’

‘He seemed pretty genuine, from what I saw,’ offered Si.

‘If his information’s sound,’ I said, ‘then Club Infinity is
connected to the Fallen. So we go there and… what?’

‘And nothing,’ said Jude. ‘If we make our presence known
then eventually someone from that side will come to us, I’m sure of it. You
nearby… they can’t ignore that. You’re of interest to them; that’s what
Evangeline told me before I Claimed you. Hopefully, it won’t take long for them
to act. Then we can get back to Cerulea within the week.’

I stared at him. So that was where he was at – hopeful we’d
trot ‘home’ together by Evangeline’s deadline. Would we? Would I? Would I have
a choice either way?

‘Go to Newquay and wait,’ said Si. ‘That’s your plan?’

‘Yes,’ said Jude.

‘All of it?’

‘Er, yes.’

‘But what about when they find you both? What are you going
to do then to get Sienna back – and keep Scarlett safe?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Jude admitted. ‘I never really got
much further in my mind than finding Sienna. After all those months of looking,
I guess that’s been my sole focus.’

I understood that; I was in the same place.

‘We just need to find her,’ I told Jude. ‘When we get to
that point, we’ll think of some way to get her away.’

‘Like what?’ pressed Si.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Reason with them?’

‘Reason with people whose main hobby is murder?’

‘Okay, then. We’ll, we’ll – take her by force?’

‘You two, against
them
? Remember what they do. What
neither of you would remotely consider.’

‘Then we’ll be clever about it. We’ll find a good reason for
them to release Sienna. We’ll come up with some trade that interests them so
she can go free.’

Jude banged his hand down on the coffee table, making me
jump. ‘Scarlett!’ he said loudly. ‘Don’t you even dream of doing that!’

‘What?’

Si’s head was shaking hard enough that his face was a blur.
‘No, Scarlett. You can’t.’

I stared from Jude to Si, mystified. Then, in a flash, I got
it: they thought I was offering myself up to trade – that I’d trade places with
Sienna, sacrifice myself to save her. I sat back in my chair, stunned. I hadn’t
thought of that. I
should
have thought of that. Like for like. Her life
for mine. The same choice she made for me, to save me – could I make that to
save her?

‘I see the cogs turning, Scarlett Blake,’ said Jude. ‘No way
am I letting you do that.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I said dismissively – though I filed the
thought away for consideration later. ‘Clearly, we’re not going to come up with
some magic “vanquish the bad guys” solution here and now. But we have to go
anyway. We have to try. We’ll just have to wing it.’