Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1)

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  “Sarah, get the gun! On my bed,” he managed to cry out before the creature was on him, lifting him up as if he’d been a rag doll, and throwing him against the wall. The sgian-dubh had fallen out of his hand.

  Sarah heard his words, but it took her a few seconds to process them. Her head was swimming, she felt disconnected from her body and the world around her – she could see stars already, she knew she wasn’t going to be standing for much longer … the sickness, together with the shock and exhaustion, was making her body shut down.

  The gun. Get Harry’s gun.

  She got up slowly and disappeared into the landing. For a second it looked like the Feral couldn’t decide whether to finish Harry off, or to follow Sarah. In that instant of indecision, Harry dragged himself to where his sgian-dubh was lying, and raised his hands again, trying to summon the strength to cast the spell. As it saw what was happening, the demon threw itself at Harry, with all its might. Harry used the dagger to shield himself. He knew it wasn’t going to be enough to stop it, but at least it’d slow the Feral down for a while. Harry tried to get its knee, but he missed, and stabbed its thigh instead. The demon screeched again, and black blood spurted from the wound. Harry tried to stab it again, but the demon grabbed his arms and lifted him up, holding him close so that they were face to face.

  Harry looked into the Surari’s eyes – red, ancient, full of an anger that went beyond human comprehension. He readied himself to die.

  “Sarah, run!” was the only thought that was left in his head, and the only thing he could say.

  The Feral was about to break Harry’s neck, when a sudden noise, like a cork being popped, made it stop. It looked over its shoulder. Sarah was standing on top of the stairs with the gun pointed towards them. She had fired, and grazed the demon’s side. Her arms were shaking so badly that she could barely keep the gun up. The demon let Harry go, and Harry fell to the floor with a thud, feeling something crack.

  My ankle. Shit, my ankle.

  The Feral put its head up, and howled – a terrible, otherworldly howl that made Sarah’s and Harry’s skin crawl. Sarah raised the gun once more. She fired, and missed again.

  “Sarah,” whispered Harry in despair. The dagger had fallen and disappeared out of sight. Harry knew that the demon’s next move would be to attack Sarah, and tried to drag himself up. His ankle gave way, and he fell again. He realized that all hope was gone. There was nothing he could do.

  The demon jumped, one mighty, incredible jump that took it to the top of the stairs, and in front of Sarah.

  I don’t want to die like this, like a lamb to the slaughter. I’m a Midnight.

  She threw the gun away and raised her hands, like in a spell, or a curse. The demon hesitated, then threw itself at her. Sarah screamed in terror, forcing herself to keep her eyes open as the demon’s hands crowded over her face.

  One split second later, it was all over.

  Blackwater was dripping down the stairs.

  Harry was standing in the hall, frozen.

  Sarah was drenched, and unconscious.

  Shadow ran to Sarah and started licking her face. Harry shook himself and limped up the stairs.

  “Sarah … Sarah.” He took her wrist. Her heart was still beating.

  She’s alive.

  He cradled her for a few minutes, wondering had Sarah died, what would he have done? How could he have kept on fighting, in a world without her?

  “You’re all I have,” he whispered, even if she couldn’t hear. It had become his mantra, something to pull him through all the deceit, something to help him go on.

  Harry carried Sarah to her room, limping painfully, with Shadow circling them round and round, and put her on the bed, gently. She was burning, and she was drenched in that horrible blackwater, like the stuff you’d find at the bottom of some mossy, rotten well.

  He went into the bathroom and wetted two towels. With one he washed her face, her arms, her legs, trying to erase every trace of the blackwater. Then he folded the other one four times, and placed it on her forehead to cool her down.

  Sarah whimpered and curled up on her side.

  She’s sleeping. Thank you … God? Whatever it is that kept her with me.

  He sat beside her bed, to watch her while she was sleeping, to listen to her breathing like you would listen to a song.

  “Mary Brennan’s demon is dead, but you haven’t won.”

  A woman’s voice filled the room, and Harry jumped up, looking around. He saw that something was shining on Sarah’s bedside table. The sapphire was singing again.

  Mary Brennan. The second-last name on the list.

  Harry took the sapphire. How could it be? How could something speak through that stone? He considered washing it in salty water, like Sarah had done, to break the spell. But he stopped himself. He had to hear what it said, if the sapphire chose to speak again. He sat in Sarah’s armchair, holding the gem in his hands, waiting for Sarah to wake up. Shadow was on the windowsill, erect, alert. She didn’t like Harry being in Sarah’s room.

  A low sound broke the silence, just a few guitar notes. Harry realized it was Sarah’s mobile, its screen shining blue on her bedside table.

  A message. Harry didn’t hesitate to read it.

  For that hazelnut latte, call me. Jack.

  In your dreams, mate. He erased it, and felt ashamed at once.

  He took her hand, and Sarah clung to it in her sleep, whispering something: his name. Harry leaned his head on the bed, and after a few minutes, he was asleep too.

  16

  Voices

  I should have listened to the voice of danger

  But I listened to the one of desire

  Cathy

  Tonight my mind is burning. Tonight I feel like there’s a fire in my head, and it hurts like hell. How did they survive again? And why, why the order to send the demons one by one? I was given no reason for this, and it makes no sense to me. I have no choice but to do what He says, or He’ll just crush us all, and my revenge on the Midnights will never be complete.

  We’re dancing a senseless dance with Sarah and her pretend-cousin. Sarah and I are playing a piece together, her cello and my piano fusing and melting in a melody of hate. A melody of love, a twisted love with no place to be.

  I’m in so much pain. If I try to sleep, the visions from hell come at once. The price to pay for using the Dark Arts. I never thought it would be like this.

  The instructions to my Valaya are clear: kill Sean, bring me Sarah. They keep failing. The Surari get slaughtered, and the humans die. Heart failure, strokes, whatever name you want to give to what happens to them after their demon dies: the fire in the brain. The fire that tortures me tonight.

  Michael has started feeling strange already. His ears are ringing, little black lights are dancing in front of his eyes. He’s putting it down to stress. He’s planning to summon another Feral – it’ll take a long time, but it’ll be worth it, he thinks. He doesn’t know that the flames have started and that they’ll consume him soon, very, very soon. As for Mary, nothing yet. The little spark is there, right between her eyes, but she’s still to feel any symptoms.

  Next out on this deadly dance is Sheila. Her Surari is stronger than Mary’s and Michael’s, I know I can count on it. I don’t know how Sarah and Sean managed to survive up to now – luck, or skill or even destiny, this blind cruel design that inflicts itself on us – but this time, it will be over for them.

  Oh, how it burns. Every thought I think tonight is like being branded over and over again with a white-hot blade. Like some monstrous blacksmith working in my head.

  Please let it be over soon, because there’s only hatred and pain left of me.

  Morag hadn’t taught me for long, but I was good at witch-craft. Very, very good. It came naturally to me, like I was destined to do this. Morag had wondered many times if there was Secret blood in me, somewhere in my family history, because I took to magic like a seagull takes to the air.

  Witchcra
ft is not about good and bad. The Dark Arts, White Magic, really the distinction is just a matter of naming something the way you want it to be. White Magic can kill; the Dark Arts can free you, so which is good and which is bad?

  And anyway, good and bad didn’t really exist for me any more. I had been innocent and now I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong, and I didn’t care.

  The night before I was set to leave the Islay mansion, I had slipped some books into my suitcase. I’d done it in despair, taking them from Morag’s desk at random, trying to keep something of them with me. I’d taken the books, and Morag’s knife, the one engraved with her name.

  When I could bring myself to look at the books, a long, long time later, I realized that one of them was different from the others. I suppose I should say it was a big, black book with red letters burnt into its cover like wounds, but it wasn’t. The book that changed my life was anonymous looking, with a red fabric cover worn out by use, its pages thumbed over and over again – yes, the Midnight family had used the forbidden book a lot, it seemed.

  The title was simply ‘Valaya’, the ring.

  At the beginning, I wasn’t thinking about revenge. I could not think of James in those terms. I had contained my hatred and anger because I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting James, though he had hurt me so much.

  But then, as I used the book the way it should be used – no half-hearted stuff for me – He heard me. He started talking to me, and His voice gave me a reason to be. His struggle was mine, His war coincided with mine. We could help each other. He whispered in my ear over and over again that it would be right to feel that way, to feel that I wanted to destroy them.

  He told me that I did feel that way already, that I had always wanted to hurt them since James had left me. He said revenge was the only way I could set myself free. I allowed myself to believe that I could be free of pain, by inflicting pain on them.

  The discovery exalted me: I hardly slept, I hardly ate for months, learning all I needed to learn, moulding my heart and my soul around the new rules, the new life that was opening in front of me. A year it took to master the arts enough to call my demon. When Nocturne appeared, hurt and bleeding and dazed from the passage, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I couldn’t believe how powerful I had become. He was proud of me, like Morag used to be.

  And then, ten long years to find the others. Ten years I lived on hatred and barely much else. I played like I was possessed, and I got even better, going from strength to strength as my body grew weaker. When the Valaya was ready, it was time to do what I had dreamt of for so long. The Midnights knew I was coming, but they hadn’t known it for long enough to get ready, properly ready. By then Morag was dead, and that had been a disappointment. I would have enjoyed finishing her myself, but sure, you can’t have everything.

  The day after I’d killed James and Anne I felt like I was going to die. Ill, pained in all my bones. Like I’d been poisoned. I could barely move. Nocturne kept vigil hidden in the trees, and my pupils from the Valaya looked after me, fed me, cared for me, as I lay trying to stop myself from moaning in agony.

  I knew then what price I was really paying for using the Dark Arts. I knew that the sickness would get better, but not go away. I thought it was a price I could pay; I thought it was a fair bargain.

  I listened to Him as He sang to me through the pain-filled nights that followed, and His voice made me feel even more determined to finish the job. To claim Sarah for my own at last, to take her life and kill her. Faith hadn’t been allowed to live, and soon Sarah would be dead too. Only fair, don’t you think?

  And if death was in the cards for me too, that would be a relief. That would be the answers to my prayers. Because the instant I had pushed Morag’s knife into James’s heart, in that moment I remembered that before I had opened that cursed book, killing would have been as alien to me as eating human flesh.

  Since He had started talking to me the Cathy I used to be was gone, and there I was, cutting Anne’s throat from ear to ear, because that was slower and more painful than stopping her heart with a single stab. Looking into her eyes as she bled to death, I watched my people clean up, so that the butchering would take the name of accident.

  And so it was done. Another Cathy had been born when I had opened the book, slowly as I worked through its pages, like a long, painful labour.

  The moment I realized what had happened to me was the moment I knew there would be no real freedom from pain, nor from memories. Then the moment passed, and the woman I was lay forgotten, and Anne’s blood on my body adorned me like a scarlet cloak.

  17

  Beneath It All

  Some might call it love

  This thing that holds us hostage

  Leaf

  Too close, this time. I punished Cathy for it, of course. Once the door was open in her consciousness, once she had started encroaching on our territory, she was fair game for us. They’re all the same, really. They look at the Dark Arts as something they can use; they have a near-complete certainty that they can control the forces they summon. They are wrong. It’s easy for my father and me to slip into their minds, look at them day and night with eyes that never sleep. This time, Catherine went too far with Sarah. She’s playing our game, I know that, and she’s doing me a great service – what better way to win somebody’s heart, than to be their saviour? But she has to suffer for the pain she’s inflicting on Sarah, even if she’s doing it to my advantage. That is my decision.

  Let the punishment come, until Catherine’s time to serve us is over. As for Sarah, pain and fear are great teachers. They will purify her, they will mould her, they will get her ready for me.

  18

  Cascade

  Silver pages

  Under the moon

  Memories

  Of you and me

  “She’s still pretty unwell. No, I don’t think she’ll be back before Monday. Thanks, I will. Bye.”

  Harry put the phone down. That instant, it rang again.

  “Yes?”

  “Harry, it’s Juliet. Sarah wasn’t answering her mobile last night, and I’m worried.”

  “Hi Juliet, she’s got the flu, she didn’t go to school today.”

  “The flu? Does she have a temperature?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  “You don’t need to. It really is just flu, and a very sore throat.” And a Feral trying to kill her.

  “I need to see how she is. I’m coming up right now, I’ll cook you lunch.”

  Harry sighed. Better to let her see with her own eyes that everything was fine.

  “Ok then. I never say no to a nice lunch.” Juliet giggled. Harry could be very charming, when he wanted to.

  “Trevor and the girls will come too. Trevor is here for a couple of days; he’s going back to Newcastle tomorrow.”

  “Great, then we can finally meet.” Finally, he thought, sarcastically. I can’t wait.

  “Who was it?” Sarah had appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d had a shower, and had put on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She felt a bit better, after having slept a dreamless sleep for a few hours.

  “Juliet. They’re coming to see you.”

  “They?”

  “Trevor, and the girls too. Don’t look too happy!” smiled Harry. “Back to bed now, you’ve got to rest. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

  “Sure, caffeine man. How’s your ankle?” She smiled.

  “Yep, that’s me. My ankle is OK, it was just a sprain. I’m walking, anyway. Oh, I phoned the glass repair guy, he’ll come later to fix your window, so you don’t have to feel like you live in an abandoned warehouse.”

  “Thank you. Are you coming up to share a coffee with me?”

  “I’ll be straight up.”

  Sarah was still weak. She was leaning on her pillow, her face the same colour as the sheets, the blackness of her hair a startling contrast, like a raven on the snow.

  “Here’s y
our coffee. I need to speak to you. Yesterday, while you were unconscious, the sapphire spoke. It was a woman’s voice. She said that the demon we killed belonged to Mary Brennan, and that we haven’t won.”

  Sarah frowned. “I thought the spell only worked to tell us if there was an intruder?”

  Harry shrugged. “I thought so too. Here’s the sapphire. I took it in case it spoke while you were sleeping.” Harry took the gem from his pocket, and put it in Sarah’s hands.

  “Strange. Maybe that’s what my mum meant, when she said that spells hardly ever work like you expect. She said they can be dangerous, too.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and took a deep sigh. She curled up, and her hair fell to cover her face like a silky curtain. Harry felt this irresistible desire to run his hands through her hair … He raised a hand … and stopped himself.

  He was supposed to be her cousin. Had he shown any signs of how he felt, she would have been completely freaked out, and rightly so.

  It was his turn to sigh, in frustration.

  “Something else. This arrived for you this morning.” It was a white envelope. “It doesn’t have a stamp, so it must have been delivered by hand. Somebody put it through the letterbox.”

  Sarah took it. It had her name on it, written in an elaborate, old-fashioned handwriting, like an illuminated manuscript of long ago.

  Sarah opened it. Inside, a red leaf. Her heart started pounding.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s …” she hesitated.

  Harry winced. “Jack?”

  “No, of course not.” Sarah felt guilty. She didn’t want Harry to worry after all they’d been through. She took a deep breath. She had promised not to tell anyone.

  “I—I see someone, in my visions. I don’t know who he is. He gives me leaves.”

  “In your dreams?”

  “Yes. And he left a couple of leaves around. In real life, I mean.”

  Harry frowned. “You have no idea who he is?”