“Ready, Sarah?”
“I want you to free Leaf.”
“Oh, so that’s his name. I don’t think so. We’ll kill you and keep your friend.”
Sarah closed her eyes, then she opened them again, slowly. She looked into Cathy’s eyes. Cathy moaned and folded unto herself, holding her head. She could see two green blades dancing in front of her eyes, cutting her over and over again.
Nocturne let Leaf fall on the ground, where he stayed, too weak, too hurt to get up, and ran to Cathy. He took her by the shoulders with incongruous gentleness, lifting her up and putting her down again, away from Sarah.
The Midnight gaze didn’t seem to work on Nocturne. Sarah knew she didn’t stand a chance, but she didn’t want to just wait for Nocturne to wring her neck. The silence was deafening. Sarah wondered where the night noises had gone, the cars, the owls, the river flowing. She couldn’t hear a thing, like everything was suspended, everything was waiting.
She looked into Nocturne’s red eyes. He lifted his arms, those long, muscular arms hanging down to his knees. Sarah didn’t look away, didn’t whimper, didn’t beg. She stood her ground, and looked at him. She felt that they were watching her – Anne, James, Morag, Mairead, Harry. She felt that the Midnight family was watching the last of their own being killed, and that she had to go with dignity.
“Nocturne!” someone shouted.
Harry’s voice. Sean’s voice.
He had materialized out of nowhere, the way he always did, silently. He had been watching her all along, Sarah realized, like he used to do when she was at school.
Sean raised the knife and started tracing signs through the air. Cathy started doing the same at once – it was like a strange duel, where they fought with their fingers, and without touching each other. Sarah could see the concentration on their faces. Under the orange light of the streetlamps, Sarah saw a drop of sweat trickling down Sean’s forehead. Cathy lifted her other arm and gestured to Nocturne, still tracing the mysterious signs in the air. Sean growled, his movements growing quicker, sharper.
In the same instant Nocturne shuddered and shook himself, freeing himself from the invisible cage that Sean had built with his runes. He made a strange, deep sound, like a lament – then he grabbed Sean as if he’d been a doll, lifted him up, and threw him down on the tarmac. Sean didn’t move again. Sarah saw his blood on the ground, trickling down from his side onto the grass behind him.
He’s dead, she thought in despair, and she looked at Cathy with such hatred, such spite that Cathy felt herself burning up, burning with all the anger and jealousy she had accumulated through the years.
“You think you’re better than anyone else, don’t you? A Midnight! And your parents thought the same. They thought they ruled the world. You look at me like your mother looked at me. Like she despised me. Like I was nothing. And look at me now.”
“Yes. Look at you now,” said Sarah, with a calm, even voice.
Cathy couldn’t bear it. She shrieked in anger, and for a moment she looked more like a demon than Nocturne.
“Just like your mother, aren’t you? Looking at me like I’m nothing compared to you!”
Sarah shook inside at the mention of her mother.
“What do you mean, just like my mother? What did she ever do to you? What did I ever do to you?”
“Of course they wouldn’t tell you, would they? I’m not even worth a mention. Like I never existed.” Cathy’s chest was rising and falling fast, her face contorted. Sarah felt struck by a wave of rage, and nearly took a step back as if it had been a physical blow – but she stood her ground, and waited. “It was all planned, all arranged. Morag had adopted me, she had taught me. James and I loved each other. Anne—” she spat out the word— “took everything away from me. Everything.”
“My parents loved each other. You didn’t come into it, Cathy. They loved each other more than anything else, more than they loved me.” The realization of what she’d just said hit her hard, and her heart fluttered.
“James loved me, until Anne came. I was supposed to be your mother.”
“But you aren’t! You aren’t my mother, are you? And you did all this … all this … because your boyfriend left you twenty years ago?”
A moment of silence.
“My husband. I was your father’s wife.”
What?
“Do you want to know why he cast me aside and married your mother? Because I couldn’t have children. Our baby died. I was told that was it, for me, no more children. The same night, Sarah, the same night …” A sob interrupted her. “The same night Morag and your father told me I could take all the time in the world to recuperate. They told me they would pay for the best doctors. That they would look after me until I was better. And then, I was to pack my bags and leave their house.”
Sarah gasped. “My dad wouldn’t do something like that,” she started. And then she stopped. He would. And so would Morag Midnight.
“I couldn’t be your father’s wife, because I’m barren,” Cathy hissed, every word a drop of her blood being spilled. “They sent me away because I couldn’t provide their precious heirs!” Her face was streaked with tears. For a moment, she looked like the heartbroken, abandoned girl she’d been twenty years before. Sarah shuddered.
Then she dried her eyes, and her faced changed – she was Catherine Hollow again, The Mistress. She was there to finish what she had started. She lifted her hand, and drew a rune in the air.
Nocturne heard her call, and he knew the moment had come, the moment to kill the last of the Midnights.
Sarah closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was Leaf, looking at her from the tarmac with those obsidian-like eyes, unable to get up. Then the blow came, and it was devastating. Sarah fell on the pavement, her head exploding with pain, and she saw black. That’s it, this is how it feels to die.
But the grass and the asphalt came back into focus, and the feeling of the hard ground against her cheek.
I’m not dead. But with consciousness came pain, a sharp, terrible, sickening pain in her chest, every time she breathed. She started crying silently, because the pain was so strong, so unbearable, she couldn’t take it. And it was just the beginning. She wondered how long it would take her to die, whether they were going to be merciful, and do it quickly – or let it linger.
She clutched her stomach and closed her eyes, waiting for another blow.
And then she heard a sound.
A suffocated scream.
It was Cathy.
Sarah opened her eyes, and what she saw was etched into her memory forever.
45
Nicholas
Time for me to burn,
Time for me to rise anew
Leaf was standing, one of his arms extended, the palm of the hand raised and exposed. Nocturne was immobile, frozen, his chin lowered to his chest, swaying gently from side to side.
Cathy was looking on in disbelief. This boy whom they had taken without him posing any resistance, whom they had tortured and played with – he had stopped Nocturne and was keeping him prisoner. How could it be?
“Who are you?” she shrieked.
“I am fire.” His voice was soft, barely a whisper. All of a sudden, Sarah could smell dead leaves, moist earth, and smoke – all the scents that Leaf seemed to carry with him.
Cathy raised her hands frantically, trying to weave her runes. She suddenly looked very small, her beautiful face turned towards the night sky, as if in prayer. It was no use. The ravens were on her in a flurry of black wings, and this time they hit in perfect silence, without a single cawing. They covered her completely, so that all Sarah could see was the top of her blond head, now tainted with red, and her twitching feet.
When they had finished they raised in flight, dozens of little beaks lifting up what was left of Cathy. They dropped her in the river, her body disappearing in a gentle noise of waves and splashes.
Leaf lowered his hand – and for a second, a split second, Leaf and Nocturn
e looked at each other.
And then flames sprung up all around Nocturne, blue flames that rose up to the sky quicker than the eye could see. They licked Nocturne’s body, then bit it, then devoured it, and still Nocturne wouldn’t move, wouldn’t cry out.
The blue flames burned and burned in front of Sarah’s horrified eyes, until all that was left was a charred, shapeless mound, smouldering like coal.
Everything had happened in an eerie silence. Cathy hadn’t even had time to scream, and all she could do under the ravens’ beaks and claws was whimper; Nocturne hadn’t made a sound, except the noise of his skin crackling, and a hollow thud as he’d fallen on the tarmac, half burnt already. The flurry of the ravens, the soft splash of the water as it swallowed Cathy’s body, the hissing of the flames as they rose: the silence of the night had barely been broken.
And the whole of Sarah’s world had changed.
Sarah had lifted herself up, kneeling on the tarmac, holding her side. She had blood on her hands, her own blood – but she wasn’t sure where exactly it came from, where the cuts and bruises were, and she didn’t bother to check.
It was over. Cathy and Nocturne were dead, at Leaf ‘s hands. She saw that Sean was standing behind Leaf, stooped, shaking.
At least he’s alive, she thought with relief. And then she remembered.
Murderer.
“Who are you?” Sean cried out at Leaf ‘s silent figure. “And don’t give me that I am fire shit. Who are you?”
Leaf turned around. Sarah had to blink as she saw his face – his eyes were so black, his skin so pale, his features were perfect, nearly angelic; it was as if she saw him for the first time.
“My name is Nicholas Donal. Of the Donal family.”
“A Secret Family?”
A secret family? What does that mean? A family like ours, like the Midnights? Are there more like us?
“Yes.”
“I’ve never heard of you.”
“We’re not in the Sabha. We keep ourselves to ourselves. Not that I owe you an explanation.”
Sabha? Sarah’s head was spinning.
“Go away, Sean.” Sarah was trying to stand up, but her legs were failing her. Both men took a step towards her, but Sarah recoiled from Sean’s hands and took Nicholas’s instead. He wrapped his arms around her waist to sustain her. Sarah let herself go for a second. She was tired, so tired, and so sore. She clung to Nicholas, and her thoughts started to dissolve. The mist that Nicholas always brought with him started to rise, leaving her warm, dazed, unable to let go.
“Nicholas Donal,” she whispered.
“I’ll take you home. It’s time for you to leave, Sean.”
“Sarah …” he pleaded.
“I’m warning you …” Nicholas’s eyes flashed, and there was the sound of wings flapping, somewhere among the trees.
“No, Leaf – Nicholas. No. Let him go!”
“He killed your cousin.”
Sarah shook her head. To see Sean covered with those ravens, like Cathy had been …
“Please let him go.”
Nicholas held her close. “All that matters now is you,” he said, and his words sounded like a lullaby. She closed her eyes, resting her face on his chest.
Nicholas Donal. His name twirled in her head in a whirlpool of dead leaves and ravens.
“Take me home,” she whispered.
46
On the Edge
And the words we said became
Echoes of nothing
Leaf
She had to be on the edge, looking down. She had to be sure the end had come. I wanted her to feel total despair, complete and utter lack of hope, before I intervened. The more pain she’d felt, the sweeter my arms would seem to her. The more afraid she was, the safer I would make her feel.
To see Cathy’s reaction was hilarious. She thought I was a helpless boy, a toy she could break to hurt Sarah. Her face when I froze Nocturne! And the best thing – her expression as my Elementals descended on her. I wish my father could have seen that. I suppose pain was her redemption. And there must have been a lot of pain.
It worked. Sarah believes in me now. And how beautiful she looked, so pale, so frightened. Her blood is very red; her fear smells like nightly flowers.
Nicholas Donal is now my name – how ironic, another man who can’t tell her his real name, just like Sean. But that’s all behind us now. Now we can start thinking of our life together.
47
Ash
Salty tears in salted water
The hand I couldn’t see
To hold my restless thoughts
In his loving palm
Sarah couldn’t remember how they made it home. It was as if she’d blinked, and they were there. He was opening her door, leading her in. They stood in the darkened hallway.
“Nicholas … The Secret Families … are there more like us? Like the Midnights?”
“Many more. And we’re all in danger.”
She moaned softly. Her ribs were hurting.
“Shhhh. You need to rest now. I’ll keep watch, don’t worry.”
Will you stay? she nearly said. But she stopped herself. She needed to be alone. She needed to take it all in, Leaf ‘s identity, Cathy’s death. The Secret Families. Sean. The Sabha.
“When will I see you again?”
“Soon. I promise.”
Sarah’s face was raised towards him – and it would have been easy, so easy for their lips to meet – but Shadow came running down the stairs on silent paws and jumped straight on their entwined arms, so that Sarah had to catch her.
“Shadow!”
“Hello, lovely cat,” whispered Nicholas. Shadow hissed. Nicholas ignored her. “Will you be OK? Do you want me to help you to bed?”
Sarah blushed. “No, no.” She pulled away, holding on to Shadow like a barrier between them.
“I just meant …” He sounded embarrassed, confused.
“I know. I know.”
“I’m going, then. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch. You’re safe.”
Sarah nodded.
“Thank you. Nicholas, I need to know. About the Secret Families, and the Sabha. I need to know everything.”
“I’ll tell you everything. They hid the truth from you. Sean, your parents … But I’ll tell you everything.” Sarah flinched at the mention of her parents. Cathy’s revelations had been unbearable, so painful that she wished she hadn’t known.
A soft kiss on her hair, one last breath of leaves and smoke rising from his chest, and he was gone.
Sarah took her clothes off carefully, trying not to rub against her cuts and bruises. She stepped into the shower. The scalding water washed away the blood, the dirt, the smudges of ash that had risen from Nocturne’s pyre. She stayed under the shower for a long, long time, trying to untangle her thoughts.
Her parents’ murderer had been a broken woman who had learnt the black arts. And that was all.
Or maybe not. If there were more Secret Families, more people like her, maybe there were other Valaya too. And a Council – Sabha, they called it – some sort of organization that united the families. But not her own. And not Nicholas’s.
It was all a mystery. She couldn’t wait for Nicholas to tell her everything.
Sean was gone. The thought flashed into her head, and she felt a stab of pain. Every time she’d woken up terrified after a vision, he had been there, watching over her. She thought of his arrogant smile, his fearlessness, the way he made her laugh even in the most frightening of situations. She thought of his eyes, so clear and bright. His voice, so soft – as familiar to her as her parents’. She could still hear it. She longed to speak to him so much – no, not Sean. Harry. She wanted her Harry back. She just wanted to close her eyes and listen to his voice.
But it had all been a lie. He was a murderer and a liar.
Sarah couldn’t stand upright any more. The pain in her ribs was unbearable. She turned off the water, and wrapped a towel around herself, carefully.
A deep tiredness overwhelmed her, and she could hardly move. She dried herself a bit, but had no energy to dry her hair. She slipped on her shorts and T-shirt, and lay on top of the blankets. A few minutes later she was asleep.
Shadow nestled herself against Sarah, and closed her amber eyes. She saw a black shape outside the window, and froze. It was the ravens. She jumped on the windowsill.
“It’s OK, Shadow. They’re friends,” whispered Sarah, her head on the pillow.
But Shadow kept watching the ravens, her tail tapping the window seat in an anxious rhythm.
In closing her eyes, Sarah had hoped with all her might not to dream that night, to be allowed to rest. But what she wanted bore no influence on her visions.
She dreamt she was underground again, just like in the vision she’d had in the library. She was trapped in a little cave under a standing stone. Again she freed herself, squeezing out into the open. She found herself in the circle of stones in the middle of the night, under the whitest, purest of moons. The wind was cutting her face, and it smelled of winter.
There were lights dancing in the sky above her, changing colour as they moved – green, blue, yellow. The Northern Lights. It was beautiful beyond words.
Her heart missed a beat when she realized that Nicholas was there once more. His pale face, his black, burning eyes …
He raised a hand and showed her an opal resting in his palm. The quartz was shining with a light that came from its centre – a whirling light, turning and turning into the stone. Sarah took a step towards him – but Nicholas took a step back, as if wanting to stop her from coming near him.
Sarah felt that the opal was pulling her, as if she and the stone were somehow connected. She saw that what was swirling in the stone was a little white cloud, frantically folding and unfolding, trying to free itself.
Sarah looked at Nicholas, losing herself in his black eyes. His expression was unreadable at first. Bit by bit, Sarah saw his eyes changing. Something was taking shape, an emotion that she couldn’t identify.
Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) Page 29