Scintillate

by Tracy Clark

  I smiled at him and his sunny aura. “I’m going to call for a ride into Dublin.”

  “Come with me, child. I’m going into town to open the pub anyhow,” he said, tossing me a lemon scone.

  We walked together to the car. Clancy opened the door for me, which was very sweet. I wondered if Finn was watching us as we drove away. I know Ina was. Clancy waved at her. Ina’s cold stare from the front window was the last I saw of Rising Sun Manor.

  “You come all this way to see that boy of ours?”

  “I’ve always wanted to come to Ireland. It’s held a certain fascination for me my whole life. You might even call it an obsession. But I have to admit,” I said, picking at the seam on my jeans, “I’m glad I got to see your boy, too.”

  Possibly for the last time. Pain rolled in my chest.

  Clancy grinned through his white beard. “You’re sweet on each other, that much is clear. Do you have family here?”

  “I-I’m not sure. I’m looking.”

  He gave me a sideways glance and patted my arm consolingly as he parked in front of Christ Church. Giovanni leaned against a stone wall. He smiled when he saw me.

  “You know him?” Clancy asked, peering at Giovanni with his eyes narrowed.

  “Yes. He’s helping me, um, find my people. Well, thanks for the ride.”

  “Good luck on your search, lass. I’ll be seeing you back at the house, I reckon.”

  Giovanni didn’t move. After his ultimatum that had snowballed into my parting with Finn, I wasn’t in the mood to smile back. “Tell me you’ve had your espresso. Because I have a lot of questions and you’re gonna need to be alert.”

  He raised one eyebrow and cocked his head, silver-blue eyes twinkling in the morning sun.

  Giovanni opened the large church door for me and swept his arm in an exaggerated bow when I walked past him. I was about to start in on my list of questions, but the inside of the church vibrated with such a reverent hush I stopped in my tracks, causing Giovanni to bump into me.

  “Scusi,” he whispered. His hand lingered on my shoulder a moment, making it tingle all the way down to the cut on my palm. I stepped away. We walked through the church in silence, awed by the ornate beauty and history. I came upon a beautiful rectangular table fashioned of scrolled iron, topped with a copper tub full of sand. Votive candles nestled in the sand, prayers for peace from pilgrims who came before us. To the right of this table was a painting with three figures—they looked to be women with ornately braided hair—seated around a pedestal table. All of them were painted with disks of light around their heads.

  The longer I stared, the more sure I was. “Auras.”

  Giovanni’s hushed voice answered from over my shoulder, so close his breath fell against my temple. “Of course. Go to the Bible. Even it says, ‘There is a natural body and a spiritual body.’”

  “I’ve seen this in paintings before. I always thought it was how the artists depicted divinity.”

  A quiet, sardonic laugh came from over my shoulder. “Sí. The divine in all of us.”

  I turned to look at him, close still, staring at me with crystalline eyes. So close, shock waves of pleasurable energy darted back and forth between our auras. We stood there a moment and gazed at each other, our silver auras flickering, competing with the luminosity of the votive candles next to us.

  Giovanni’s eyes settled on my mouth and his lips parted a little. His aura pulsed faster with his heart rate, and mine sped to match. He moved his head a fraction closer. I’m sure he could see my aura flare wildly as I realized what was happening. I put my hand on his chest to stop him. “Tell me everything you know about us.”

  He covered my hand with his for a moment, then held on to it and led me to a row of wooden chairs. We settled in, facing each other. Sparks ricocheted from where our knees touched. I shifted slightly. At some uncomfortable point, we were going to have to discuss the obvious energy between us. I thought it was the unique alchemy of two Scintilla, but a girl knows when she’s about to be kissed.

  “Since I was a boy, I’ve been researching this. References to auras are prevalent in many cultures: ancient Egypt, India, China, all over the world. The energy that dwells within us and around us has been called by many names. Chi, kundalini, Odic force, prana, electromagnetic fields. Hell, you could even look at pop culture: Obi-Wan Kenobi and the damn Force.”

  I looked around, hoping no one heard his increasingly excited rant. He softened his voice. “There is evidence everywhere of what you and I can see—in art, literature, and history. For a time, it was common to talk of someone’s light. Now it’s been suppressed, except in New Age circles, which sadly are not taken very seriously.”

  I thought of that New Age nut from TV, Edmund Nustber, and had to agree. “Why has it been suppressed?”

  Giovanni shrugged. “Why is anything true hidden away? Fear? Greed? Control? The existence of auras and spiritual energy isn’t easily provable, but there are people who are working on it, who’ve been working on it for a long time.”

  “Like my mom.”

  He patted my hand and pulled a Bible from the back of our chair, flipping the pages to a certain passage. “See here,” he said, pointing to Ezekiel 1:22. “‘Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads.’”

  “Wow. I feel like I’m the only person on earth who was in the dark about all of this.” Of course I was. My dad had purposely kept me in a darkened room all my life. I sighed. “Can you please explain what you meant when you said there was more than one kind of human, because my mother’s journal spoke of that, too. If Scintilla are one kind, what are the others?”

  “Here’s what I believe.” He held up three fingers. “There are three breeds of human: those who give, Scintilla. There are the Arrazi, those who take.” Giovanni shrugged. “And then there’s everyone else, regular people. Though I do think some of them have faint traits of Scintilla or Arrazi because of family history. The people with the auras of all white, I believe they are Arrazi.”

  “So, people who drain you, make you exhausted when you are around them, you’re saying they are descendants of these takers, the Arrazi?” That would explain people like Janelle and certainly Serena Tate. “And people like us? According to you, we are givers?”

  “Yes. Though, pure Scintilla are extremely rare. We are givers of light, Cora. It is a beautiful thought, no? Problem is, the Scintilla have all but disappeared.”

  “My mother. Her parents.”

  “My parents.”

  “Why are we disappearing, Giovanni? What’s happening to the Scintilla?” It was odd saying the name like I was talking about characters in a mythic tale.

  He leaned close. I could smell the hint of espresso on his breath. His aura collided with my own again, and I felt a sudden infusion of scintillating energy. “You want to know what I think is happening to the Scintilla?” He looked around. “I think we are being hunted by the Arrazi.”

  On instinct, my hands pressed together in front of me. I didn’t like the sound of being someone’s prey. I’d had a taste of that in California.

  “We’re being wiped out. I don’t know the reason. If I did, maybe I could stop it. I couldn’t stop it—” His eyes misted over with a teary film. His voice suddenly choked, and his raw emotion choked me up as well. Of course he would be emotional. He’d lost his parents so young. I’d been searching for answers for a few weeks. He had been searching his whole life.

  “It’s too late for our parents. I’m sorry, but I believe that in my heart,” he said with such surety it threatened to shatter my hope. “We will never see them again. But we are here.” He reached out to me, but his hand hovered inches from my skin. The contact was as real as if his hand cradled my face. He dropped his hand and stared intently into my eyes. “I thought there was no hope. Until you showed up. There must be a reason we’re both here together, Cora.”

  “What reaso
n?”

  “To find out the truth. To protect the givers of light in this world.” My hand was taken up in his. “To protect each other.”

  The chill of vulnerability slid over me. Like a baby deer in a wide-open field. “How do you know who’s doing the hunting?”

  “Like any prey, we have natural enemies. I’d heard the word Arrazi more than once in my life. And I watched people feed, it’s the only way I can say it. One man took another man’s aura in a pub. At first I watched with interest because I’d seen the give and take of energy, but not one so blatant, so violent. I had no idea he was killing him until the man slumped over.” Giovanni snapped his fingers, making me jump. “Lights out. And the taker, his aura turned pure white, like that man at the airport we saw when the old couple died.”

  I gasped. “Yes. I know.” I could barely breathe with the memory of it. “And there was one in California, too.”

  Giovanni’s eyes went wide. He touched my hand.

  “I saw him kill two women. He tried to kill me. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been through.”

  His mouth opened in surprise. “It’s true then, what I’ve heard. There are a few Scintilla scattered everywhere. And where we are, there is the Arrazi.”

  “But the woman he killed, she wasn’t like us. She had a normal aura. Colorful.”

  “As did the poor man in the pub.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There must be a reason they are killing regular people, too. We need to find out. I think there is a man who has been following me. He could be Arrazi. If we could follow him—”

  I jumped to my feet. “I’m not volunteering to be bait for some soul-suckers!” An elderly couple looked over at me with shocked expressions. The woman crossed herself.

  Giovanni got up and took my elbow, leading me deeper into the heart of the church. “If we could find out why they are killing and why there are so few Scintilla left in the world—”

  I shook my head. “I came here to find out any information I could about my mother. I want to know about her. About myself. This is all too much.” I started to cry, overcome. “I want to go home.”

  Giovanni pulled me into a hug. He was so tall that my face landed squarely in the middle of his chest. I could hear his heart rumble against my wet cheek, feel our auras commune and wrap us in an electrical storm.

  One of us should pull away.

  “Miss Cora.” When I didn’t answer, he held me back at arm’s length. I blinked my tears away and looked up at him. “I know you’re scared,” he murmured, brushing my tears with the pads of his fingers. “I bet our parents were scared. We can’t let them down. Please don’t run back home. You’ve already said there is a killer there. If he comes after you—”

  “He already has.”

  He squeezed my upper arms with a gentle shake. “You must understand, until we find out what they are after, we can’t hope to stop them. Please help me do that.”

  I had to look away from his pleading eyes.

  My gaze landed on a statue nestled in a marble column. Out of one smooth green-gold stone was carved a statue of Madonna and child. She held her child in front of her heart. I walked over, touched my palm to the smooth curve of the mother’s head, and ran one finger over the baby’s head. It didn’t look like a baby at all.

  It looked like a mother and a little girl.

  Turn right, turn left. Stay here or go home. Get up in the morning and attack life, or stay in bed and pretend you aren’t a motherless child who has seen murder right in front of your eyes. It was as Finn had said, all choices.

  If I left now, I was no better than my father. Even if my mother was dead, I couldn’t abandon her again. I finally appreciated her quest to uncover the truth. It wasn’t just herself she was concerned about. She worried about me. About everyone like us. She was trying to understand the truth about humanity. I had to carry on in her place.

  Giovanni approached, but he stopped shy of reaching me.

  “I’ll help,” I said. “For as long as I can.”

  Thirty-Seven

  W

  e walked from the calm of the great cathedral into the noisy hum of Dublin’s city streets. “How can I get hold of you if I need to?” Giovanni asked, pulling out a very high-tech phone.

  “For a wandering orphan with no family, you do pretty well,” I said, motioning to his phone.

  He shrugged. “Yes, well, I did say some people would give almost anything in exchange for what I can offer.”

  “I’ll give you my cell number, but please try not to use it. I’m afraid my dad will figure out how to find me by the cell phone records. I’ll give you a digit for every question you answer.”

  “I’ve already answered a kilo of questions.”

  I conceded that he had and gave him all but the last digit.

  “I appear to missing one,” he said, frowning at his phone.

  I crossed my arms. “Why did you say I wasn’t safe with Finn?”

  Giovanni cocked his head to the side. “That’s what I have to answer to get the last digit?” He looked down the street, apparently deciding. I didn’t like the look in his eyes, but after the overheard conversation with Finn’s parents, I needed to know.

  “I felt from him a—” He squinted at something. “There is a man coming. I’ve seen him before.” Giovanni grabbed my elbow.

  “Are you trying to get out of answering my question?” I asked as he tugged me away from the church. I didn’t know what he felt around Finn, but I knew what I felt. Still, I wanted an answer.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Either this world is decidedly smaller than people think, or this man really is following me. This might be our chance. I wonder if we can turn the tables,” he said. “His aura, it is white.”

  My heart thumped at that word. “White? I’m—I’m not ready for white. We have no plan!” Panic hammered at my heart.

  Before I could think what to do, Giovanni abruptly turned a corner, hauled us into a recessed doorway, pressed me against the glass, and said, “Look over my shoulder. Is he still there? He’s in a suit. Red tie. Do you see him?”

  I tried to ignore the startling intimacy of our bodies pressed together, the charge of our energies colliding, the spice of him so close, and looked around his arm. The man who stared back at me from across the street let his mouth spread into a slow, sick smirk.

  The hospital.

  The grocery store.

  It was the same smirk he gave me in the park after he drained the life from that woman. Terror hit me full force.

  Something else hit me, too. Pure rage.

  I was tired of this game. He’d had plenty of times to kill me and never had. Though I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from him as possible, I tried a different tactic. I grabbed Giovanni’s hand. “Come with me.”

  We stepped off the curb and started into the street. Confrontation was a stronger, more potent brew in my blood than cowardice.

  “What were those World War Two pilots called?” Giovanni asked, squeezing my hand. “The Japanese ones who—” He still had his phone in his hand and suddenly held it up, pushing record on the camera.

  “Kamikazes,” I answered, staring straight ahead at the man who had not moved. “And not a helpful image right now.” I didn’t know what kind of mix fear, desperation, a thirst for answers, and a dash of stupidity made, but it kept my feet moving toward him.

  The man looked surprised at our approach, yes, but amused, too. I didn’t like amused. Screw this guy. I wanted answers. If this man was what Giovanni had called an Arrazi, he was another piece in the puzzle. If we could get him to talk, maybe we’d be closer to having a full picture.

  We crossed the street and stepped up onto the sidewalk where he waited. His arms were folded over his red tie, his dark eyes no longer amused. They were ravenous. Predatory.

  “Two of you,” he sneered. “And you,” he said, cocking his head at me. “Hello again.”

  “Yes, two of us, one of you,” Giova
nni said.

  The man with the white aura laughed. “Oh, you think there’s but one of me?” He stepped even closer and bent forward, almost conspiratorially, to say, “There’s an army of us.”

  Giovanni glanced around us nervously. I clasped his forearm. This was not someone to take your eyes off. The man sarcastically waved to the camera, mocking us.

  An explosion of aggression fired from me, propelling me forward. I shoved him in the chest. “Why are you following us? What the hell do you want?”

  He stumbled back, caught his balance, and fixed me with a deadly gaze that stopped my heart. “It’s not what I want that matters.” He smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket down calmly and spoke with mock civility. “But since you asked so very politely, I will tell you. I want nothing more than to devour every…last…drop of your precious life and leave you dead on this sidewalk.”

  I shook with fear and adrenaline but pressed on. If I could just get more information from him… “I’ve seen you do that. I’ve seen you murder,” I seethed. “But you won’t kill me. If that’s what you really wanted, I’d be dead already.”

  His fingers gripped my chin, lifting it up. “Are you actually eager to die, young lady?”

  I slapped his hand away.

  “Don’t touch her! We know what you are, Arrazi,” spat Giovanni, literally, on the man’s shiny black shoes.

  Whips of white energy stretched toward Giovanni like tentacles. His body lurched forward violently as the man pulled his glorious sparks from his chest. I leaped onto the man’s back, throwing punches as fast as they would come, though my arms felt leaden and ineffectual. The man reached back and tossed me to the ground. My teeth clattered with the impact.

  The distraction I offered was enough to stop the ravaging of Giovanni’s aura. He punched the man in the mouth but was apparently too weak to do any real damage. Pulling on Giovanni’s arm, I spun him away. “Run!”

  We tore down the sidewalk, skidding around corners, swerving around pedestrians, weaving in and out of traffic. I was in a panic. Running for my life from a taker. A murderer. How stupid to think we could confront him. I’d almost gotten us killed.