by Tracy Clark
Dr. M pushed some buttons and video footage popped up. A camera was obviously mounted in the dash of the van, and we watched as Teruko and Mari faced each other, knee to knee, locked in conversation. I’d rarely seen Mari so enamored and vibrant. Then Mari did something totally unexpected. She reached out and caressed Teruko’s pale cheek. It was incredibly tender for the girl I’d always known to be tough as steel. Teruko leaned into Mari’s hand, graceful as a cat leaning appreciatively into affection. They smiled shyly. My throat swelled with tears.
Mari leaned forward, held Teruko’s face like a rare treasure, and kissed her waiting lips.
There was such scorching beauty in that kiss. I remembered that mix of feelings with Finn, like he was the only fire I wanted to warm by, the sweet and the sensual heat of craving. My stomach fluttered with the memory of our first kiss in the forest.
I was right about her attraction. Oh, Mari…why didn’t you tell me? Maybe, I hoped, maybe they went off for a walk together. Maybe they were okay. Maybe they’d come back and have a love story. Then I thought of Dun. In order for Mari to have a love story with Teruko, she couldn’t have one with him.
While they kissed, the camera showed someone approaching from behind the van. Both girls startled and turned toward the passenger’s side door. I bit back a yell. To a normal person, it looked like the guy was simply talking to them through the window. But as Mari reached to slug him, as their bodies drooped and then slid sideways without him ever touching them, I knew they’d been weakened by someone taking their energy. Though the footage was grainy and the man’s face was only from the side, when he opened the door and yanked Teruko out, I gasped with recognition.
“You know that man?” Dr. M asked.
I shuddered with the memory of his bulky mass on top of me, smelling like a mixture of old pickles and whiskey, and ruthlessly stealing from my soul. “Yes. I’ve been attacked by him.”
“That confirms my suspicion,” Dr. M said. “An Arrazi.”
My bones felt like they were made of ice. “Yes. He is.”
“This is the one who attacked you the night of the party?” Giovanni asked, the glint of steel in his voice.
I chewed my lip as the footage showed him jerking Mari out of the car by her arm, throwing her over his shoulder like a small child, and disappearing behind the van. The thought of Mari being hurt by him was sickening. I bent forward, feeling faint, and felt Giovanni bathe me with soothing energy, which I accepted without argument. Watching that video was torture. Surely that Arrazi would kill her. He had a coppery sadistic streak that I could feel in his energy. She had no Xepa ring on her finger. No ace up her sleeve. He would have no reason to stop.
The song of death was loud in my ears.
Forty-Seven
Finn
Ultana raked her eyes over Mari, pondering, I supposed, what to do next. I prayed it wouldn’t be to kill her. I also prayed Mari would keep her antagonistic gob shut. “Daughter,” Ultana said with false sweetness. “Come here, please.”
Saoirse walked to her mother with timid steps. “Yes?”
“How are you feeling, dear? Now that you’ve conquered your hunger?”
My fingers dug into my palms.
“B—better, Mum. Stronger.” Saoirse’s eyes were trained on the floor.
“Wonderful,” Ultana said, trailing a finger under Mari’s chin. Mari’s nostrils flared, but she didn’t flinch. “I’m willing to bet there is the sweet spice of Scintilla in this one’s aura. Would you like to know how that feels in your blood?”
“Stop this,” I said. “She has information we need. You don’t have to play this cat-and-mouse game with someone…someone like her. It’s low.” I raised my chin. “Beneath us.”
“I’m not a mouse!” Mari roared. No, she wasn’t. I gave her a warning look and her eyebrows pressed together.
“I can get the information from her. Let me alone with her.” My heart hammered. I was on dangerous ground. I needed to try to help Mari, but I also needed Ultana to trust me. This was the edge, and I was teetering over it.
“Saoirse, take our guest to the spare room on the second floor.” She looked down at my legs. Saoirse reached for Mari, who jerked her arm away.
“Don’t touch me! I’ll kick your scrawny little ass!”
Saoirse looked at me, pained, then to her mother, and in that moment, her body went rigid, her eyes hardened. I wasn’t the only one being tested by Ultana. Saoirse leaned in toward Mari and spoke low, “I am capable of killing you in less time than it takes for you to threaten me.”
Ultana sneered.
The fight in Mari’s face fell and her voice softened as she looked down at her friend, dead on the floor, then looked up to meet Saoirse’s gaze. “You cried as you killed her. I don’t think you want to kill. That, right now, is just one of the differences between you and me.”
Saoirse led Mari from the room with one hand on the small of her back. Ultana and I were alone but for the dead girl on the floor. We considered each other.
“Finn, I like you,” she said. “I want nothing more than for the Arrazi people to gain strength and status in this world. You want that as well, right?”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Ultana,” I said, swallowing the pit in my throat. “I wish our strength and status didn’t depend upon annihilating another race.” She was too shrewd to serve an outright lie to, and I was already on thin ice. With Ultana Lennon, I had to mix my truths with deceit. Someone like her would swallow them better that way. I wanted nothing more than to ask her direct questions, pull the truth from her, and take off to save Mari, but I was afraid she’d feel my obvious sortilege as it affected her. Even if she now knew that I had contact with a Scintilla family, I didn’t want her to know I was one of the rare Arrazi who’d taken from one. I had to bide my time. Not to mention the fact that with my legs, I wasn’t taking off anywhere.
“I want to thank you for helping Saoirse. I recognize how hard the first few times can be…for some. You’d do well to banish your conscience as well. You must trust me when I tell you that our survival absolutely depends on their annihilation. Mine. Yours. Our families. I have big plans for you, and if you stop fighting what is natural, things will be much easier. You could go far, live a very successful life. Accept what is.”
“Thank you. I’ll do my best,” I said, tight-jawed but attempting to sound contrite. She and I had very different measures for what made a successful life. I still didn’t plan on living out one that included years of killing. I’d stick around long enough to know in my heart I’d done everything I could to help Cora and find answers. If I died after doing that, my life would have been a success.
Lorcan burst through the door moments later. “The van is gone, Mum.”
Ultana sighed. My hopes rose that this would give Mari an edge and keep Cora’s location a secret. For now.
“We need to dispose of her,” Ultana said, motioning to Teruko like she was a piece of rubbish.
“What do you do with…the bodies…after?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Lorcan bent and scooped the girl off the floor. “Arrazi bloke nearby, he’s a director at a funeral home. Cremates them for our family.”
“Got it all worked out, haven’t you?”
“Bet your arse. There’s a whole world of logistics you obviously know nothing about.”
Ultana plucked scissors from the top of a table and bent over the girl in Lorcan’s arms. She was such an odd woman. Volatility ran under the surface, and I feared what she’d do next. At the same time, I had to look. Everything Ultana Lennon did was a possible clue. She held the scissors close to Teruko’s head and snipped a lock of her hair where the black bled into bright pink. She laid the scissors down, and then picked up the hair between two fingers, like one would the stem of a rare flower, and held it up to the light. After that, she slipped her hand into Teruko’s pocket and fished out a euro.
She didn’t offer an explanation. It had the creepy effec
t of a serial killer taking mementos. Except this wasn’t her kill. She walked out of the room with both items. Very soon, I heard the opening of the glass cabinet and the clinking of the coin being tossed into the collection plate.
Forty-Eight
Cora
“I fear the worst,” Dr. M said as we stared at the monitor that replayed their fate over and over. “I have no idea how to find them.”
I tried to appeal to him even though I seethed. “You have to let us out of here. We came to you with the genuine wish to work together to find answers. We’ve trusted you. You cannot keep us prisoner.”
“I can, actually. For your own good. The fact that there are different energetic classes of humans is one of the best-kept secrets in human history. Have you thought about why that is? It is for your safety that I must confine you. You watched that monitor. Look what happened today. They’re getting more brazen every day.”
Giovanni’s arm brushed my shoulder. “But neither Teruko nor Mari is Scintilla. Their abduction could have nothing to do with this.”
“By an Arrazi?” I reminded him with my arms crossed. “It’s connected. Maybe they know we’re here.”
“Right,” Dr. M said, with a worried look. “If you’re out there, what’s to stop them from taking you?” He pointed at both of us. “You are the prize here. You are the coveted ones.”
“You mean hunted.”
“Semantics. You are wanted for what you are. I’m trying to replicate your energy so that we can offer it to them peacefully.”
“Offer?” I asked. “You mean sell it to them, for profit.”
“How do you intend to create our energy?” Giovanni asked. “By producing genetic offspring?” I knew it was only a matter of time before he swung the bat of truth at Dr. M. “I know what you did. I know that Claire is mine.”
“Donating sperm does not constitute ownership, Mr. Teso. You signed the papers when you were here five years ago.”
I threw up my hands. “Talk about semantics. It’s his DNA! And he wasn’t even an adult when he signed papers. What you did was wrong. How could you make a child without someone’s consent?”
Dr. M stared at Giovanni for a moment. I couldn’t help but feel there was another silent conversation I didn’t understand. “I can’t genetically create a Scintilla. I’ve tried every method, to no avail. It comes to this—artificial means of creating a being with the energy of a purebred Scintilla has proven impossible. Claire was my grand experiment. And”—he sighed dramatically—“my grand failure. I don’t know why this is so. Perfectly normal humans can artificially proliferate, but not the Scintilla. I can only conclude that realizing the aim of regenerating Scintilla energy will only be achieved by natural means. I believe that is the missing component. It’s the only theory I’ve been unable to test in a controlled environment. I must test out this hypothesis with the two of you. Everything else is years in the making and we’re running out of time.”
His last statement pinned me in place. My head buzzed, whirling around and around, spitting out question after question. Did he just say what I think he said?
Giovanni stood in stunned silence. I already knew he desired a world with more Scintilla so we could somehow decimate the Arrazi and win our freedom once and for all. But if I understood correctly what Dr. M was getting at, it was the most ridiculous plan I’d ever heard. “The two of us cannot populate this earth with more Scintilla, you insane piece of—”
Dr. M pointed his finger. “Be careful what you say now, dear Cora. You have no power here.”
“You don’t get to tell me I have no power over my own body!” My pulse rocketed so high, I felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.
“This is all about power,” Giovanni said, still too calm, too level. I watched him carefully, aware that his life had definitely prepared him to be more cunning than I. “You want something from us. We have more power than you realize.”
“This is about the world ripping apart at the seams,” the doctor said. “This is about survival, not only for one species but of humankind on Earth.”
“This is about money and power,” I said. “The only two things men like you care about. You want us to believe that you suddenly subscribe to the ‘world is going to hell in a handbasket and we’re the saviors’ theory? I don’t even buy that theory, and it was my own father who first suggested it. Clancy Mulcarr told me that we were worth a fortune on the black market. This is about either money or power, or both. No rational person would suggest what you’re suggesting if there weren’t something in it for them. I’ve heard enough of this,” I said, turning away. “I have to go find my cousin.”
Dr. M ignored my statement. “You get to save at least one Scintilla from being sold on the black market. Don’t accuse me of wanting to profit from you. I could have sold all of you already if that were my aim.”
My blood turned to ice. “Who will we save?” But before he opened his mouth to speak, I knew. I stood and stepped close to him, thrusting my hand at his chest. “You’re threatening to sell my mother?”
Two more men entered the room, armed, waving their guns in my face. That made four. Hands clasped my shoulders from behind. Giovanni pushed me behind him to shield me.
“I may not see auras, but I can see plain as day that you’re enamored with her,” Dr. M said to Giovanni. “We don’t have the luxury of time. This is the only theory I’ve not yet been able to test because I’ve never had a pure Scintilla female to test before now. It’s vital to my research and to the survival of Scintilla all over the world.” He smoothed his hair back. “I have no doubt that you’ll be motivated, both of you, to let nature take its course for the greater good.”
I pulled from Giovanni’s arms and lunged for Dr. M, not caring about the men and their guns. Would they shoot me if I was so valuable? “My mother has been through hell! How can you do this to her?” I screamed. “And you’re just going to wash your hands of Mari and Teruko? I swear you will pay for this. I swear it. You are an evil, opportunistic son of a bitch.”
It was Giovanni who pulled me back and held me against him.
Dr. M pinched the bridge of his nose like I was an exasperating child. “Cora, in war, a great many atrocities can be justified. I am called upon to do things that might seem wrong to some. What you’re being asked to do, by comparison, is rather basic.” He pointed to a door. “Through that door is another world where the only thing that you need concern yourself with is how willing you are to not only help save your mother, but your whole race. Use your time wisely. You won’t have much of it.”
The men motioned with the tips of their guns for us to go through the door. I looked to Giovanni and he blinked hard. At least in the short term, it would get guns out of our faces. With five men and four guns, he couldn’t risk using his sortilege to disarm them. The time for combat would have to wait. Now was a time for strategizing.
I had to get us out of this place, all of us. I shoved past Giovanni and kicked the door open. “He’s the worst kind of crazy, Giovanni. He’s crazy with a cause. Oh my God.” I gasped. “That’s what the holes mean. He’s not lying. He’s imbalanced. He thinks he’s going to change the world. Coming here was a mistake.”
We were sealed in what looked like an apartment. There was a living room with plush couches, a television, warm lamps. More frickin’ fish.
“The last time I was here, I was fifteen. I thought he wanted to find more Scintilla, to help keep us safe. I knew he wanted to re-create our energy, but I thought he meant scientifically. I was young and desperate, and when asked to donate sperm, I assumed he wanted to run tests on it. I had no idea he’d go this far, Cora. None.”
“We can’t give in,” I said. “Even if we did do what he’s demanding, what do you think would happen after that, huh? You think he just wants to be Uncle M to a posse of our Scintilla babies? No way.” I wore a path back and forth on the carpet. “No way is this happening.” My hands clenched. My body shook violently. My eve
ry breath was snatched out of my mouth before I could fight for another.
“Cora—”
“No!”
Giovanni stared at the ground. “I was going to suggest we try to sleep. We need to think. We need a plan to get out of this appalling forced intimacy. I will not stand before you and say I don’t want you. But not like this. Never like this.” His sad blue eyes glossed over. “My dreams were always of you facing me with love in your eyes, tilting your flower of a face up to me to be kissed, offering your lips because…because you wanted me, too. I’d never want you coerced. God, Cora…it takes something potentially beautiful and twists it into something so ugly.”
I wasn’t surprised at what he said. I knew. I’d fought similar yearnings, because while they may have been right in some corner of my broken heart, they were wrong to the whole of it. Would I ever let the light shine in again, even if it was a lesser light than the one it knew with Finn?
“Say something.”
“What you feel,” I said, unable to admit my confused feelings, “is as much of a farce as what Finn felt for me. We are what we are. We cannot help attracting each other. It’s an illusion from our energy, a mirage.”
“By that description, you will never believe in love.”
“No,” I said, the press of hurt spreading like a weighted blanket over my body. “I don’t believe in love anymore.”
“It’s not love you don’t believe in, Cora. It’s your own lovability.”
What did it matter what I believed? We weren’t locked up in this pretend house to talk about love. The reality was too horrible. My cousin was missing, and we were prisoners again—and we were being asked to create a life to save a life.
Forty-Nine
Finn
Lorcan wordlessly carried the body out of the house and drove away. It was an ugly business, all of it.
My desperate thoughts immediately turned to Mari, upstairs. How could I get her out? Cora had already lost her father. I couldn’t let another of her family be taken. Mari didn’t deserve this. No one did.
