by Tracy Clark
I stuffed my hands in the worn pockets of my leather jacket to quell their shaking and followed close enough to feel the unique blends of energy that trailed behind them like the wake of a boat. It was this picking through their auras—like one might with flowers—when I realized that there might be levels to people’s energy, wavelengths that varied with each person. I sensed that some were more potent than others, more…vibrant.
As my attention to their vibes focused, my need increased. Too soon, an experiment in how to extract what I needed without killing turned into abysmal hunger.
I was new at this and alone. I’d have to somehow control myself.
My stomach felt hollowed out. Nerves frayed so that I became edgy and irritable, wanting to clout everyone who bumped me or looked at me sideways. My limbs grew cold and no amount of walking or rubbing my arms would warm them. Shame forced my head down so I’d not look anyone in the eye.
I hated this new hunt.
When the group turned into a crowded pub, I followed behind, close enough to hear which drink each preferred. Close enough to listen to the harmony of their jokes and laughter. Close enough to gently pull the strands of their auras braiding toward me.
I couldn’t say for certain from whom the spike of sweet energy came. It was like smelling a familiar intoxicating perfume on the wrong person. There was something vaguely Cora about it, effervescent and light. Pain constricted my heart. I shut out the din of the pub, closed my eyes, and took the energy in, inhaling with my whole body.
Shattering glass nipped me from my reverie.
The laughter stopped as friends gasped and congregated around the young man who’d dropped his drink. Onlookers would simply think he’d had too much in him. I knew differently. His was the sweet energy I took too much of. He was still alive, I saw with relief. I slipped from the pub. Once I was out of close range, I ran.
The energy was short-lived—a snack when I needed the meal. I rolled in my bed, punched the pillow over and over. I had to take to the death or it’d be like never having enough to eat.
I needed to kill again, and soon.
Thirty-Four
Cora
Giovanni bent to me. “Cora, it’s time to call my contact. I’ve been telling you—”
“Yes, I guess it is,” I said, more resigned than decided. I’d said no enough times. I didn’t know what to do, but we needed somewhere we could stay undetected. I hated to see the fear in my mother’s eyes. “We’d be risking your contact’s life,” I warned.
“He wants to help us,” he said. “It’s his life’s work.”
“Really? Okay, call him.” Maybe the Scintilla did have friends in the world.
After a long, antsy hour spent fidgeting and stirring coffees that had grown cold, a gray van pulled up in front of the pub. Giovanni spoke briefly with the driver through the passenger window. To my surprise, a young woman stepped out and slid the van door open for us. She wore a black fedora and introduced herself as Teruko Yamagata. Sweetly pretty, with expressive eyes and full lips pursed as if there were a surge of words she’d trained to hold back.
I felt a subtle spike of energy when I passed Dun and Mari. It was like walking through a light spray of perfume. Were they nervous about this newcomer? The feeling didn’t feel like fear, though. More magnetic. This feeling had pull, like…attraction.
Teruko dipped her head in a courteous nod as we climbed in the van and slid the door shut with a clang. I instantly felt cocooned behind the tinted windows. It was exactly what I needed to feel: unseen, concealed. Perhaps going to Giovanni’s friend was a good idea.
“They are preparing for your arrival at the institute,” Teruko said. “You’ll be quite comfortable.”
“There are rooms?” Mari asked. “’Cause I need a bed like bacon needs eggs.”
“There are rooms, yes. Most of the staff is from Japan and lives at the institute full-time so it is fully equipped for guests. Including eggs,” Teruko added with a smile.
“Do you have many guests?” I asked.
Teruko’s eyes briefly met mine in the mirror before she returned her gaze to the road. “They come and go.”
Soon, too soon, we pulled up to an office building in what looked to be a hardly used, old industrial section of Dublin. A dilapidated storefront with awnings like droopy eyes stood watch across the street. More of the streetlights were dark than were lit, and the ones that were lit flickered irregularly. There was no name on the outside of the building. It was as nondescript as a smudge of gray lead on paper. A black security gate yawned open, and as we drove into an underground parking lot I glanced out the back window and the gate shut behind us. I noticed my mother staring at the gate, as I was.
We didn’t like anything resembling a cage.
Once inside, we were asked to sign in on an electronic visitors sheet, which also took our fingerprints. Then we were shown into a large, opulent waiting room—a gorgeous mix of sapphire blue, black, and white. Four curved white love seats formed a broken circle around an illuminated blue floor. Teruko asked us to sit and make ourselves comfortable. We all gaped when we realized the sofas circled a saltwater aquarium built right into the floor.
Dun knelt down, pressing his hand against the glass as tiny purple fish darted up to greet him.
“Honey, I’m home,” Mari sang as she flopped into the white cushions and leaned her head back. “Look at this place! More swanky than any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Do you think we’ll be safe here? By the way, how do you suppose that squat Irish elf found us at the hotel anyway?”
“Finn.” The metallic taste of ire coated my tongue. We’d managed to go some time without pointing the finger, but it had to be said. It had to be said by me because I was the reason nobody else had said it already. “It’s too much of a coincidence. You and Dun run into him on the street and later his uncle shows up.”
“I’d kill him if he wasn’t going to do it himself,” Mari blurted, but her eyes quickly turned apologetic and she looked away from me.
“I think his plans have changed,” I said.
Soft Japanese music floated on the air, recounting centuries of drops from soft rains. Giovanni yawned and slid down in his chair, fatigue etching his watchful eyes. The more relaxed this place tried to make me, the more on edge I felt. Our eyes caught.
“You’ve been here before?” I asked him.
Giovanni nodded. “It’s had some noticeable improvements since,” he said.
Teruko returned. “The doctor is ready for you now.” She spun with crisp precision and, with the push of a button, opened a wall panel I hadn’t even noticed was there. Polished. That was the best word to describe not only Teruko Yamagata, but the entire atmosphere of this facility.
I whispered into Giovanni’s shoulder. “Someone invested big money into the place. Which means—”
A disheveled man appeared through the open wall panel. He was everything his facility wasn’t: rumpled lab coat and stained tie, smudged glasses, and nose hairs in serious need of trimming. Or…braiding. The only thing polished about him was his bald head.
I scanned his aura for the darkness of bad intentions, the cloudiness of covering up, the mud of confused feelings. I’d watch this stranger for the black smoke of lies. Instead, he radiated the blue of high intelligence and inquisitiveness, reminding me of my father. There was one thing I’d never encountered—patchiness in his aura around his head.
He greeted Giovanni first with a two-handed shake. “I’m glad you’re all right, I certainly am. When I hadn’t heard from you, I feared the worst.”
“I know,” Giovanni said with a nod. “It’s been some time. We’ve run into trouble.”
“’Course you did. ’Course you did. Your kind always does. You’ll have to tell me all about it, later. Would it be too optimistic to assume you’re all Scintilla?” he asked, beholding us with his brows raised in hopeful anticipation. Mari and Dun shook their heads. He greeted each one of us in turn, expressing gladness that w
e’d come to him. But when he came to my mother, they looked at each other with wary recognition. “We’ve met before?” he asked her. “You look very familiar.”
“Yes. I—interviewed you once a—a long time ago.”
Realization struck. “Dr. M?” I asked. “The Dr. M? From your journals?” I’d wanted to find him.
The doctor put his hands on her shoulders and spoke in a low, concerned tone. “I’d always wondered why you never came back. You were supposed to—”
“I was attacked.” My mother wrung her shirt in her hands, but she didn’t look away.
Dr. M threw his hands up, startling us. “Awful. God-awful business what’s happened to your kind. I fear if we don’t find a way to stop the slaughter, there will be none of you left. This dark world is no home for the givers of light.”
“Light is exactly what’s needed when things are most dark.”
Everyone stared.
I said it with less conviction in my heart than my voice portrayed. It was a highly idealistic thing and sounded like something my father would say, something he tried to impart before he died. It felt true, though. I just never thought I’d be a torch in the world’s darkness. Being a light was for other people, like Gandhi and Mother Teresa, and…Bono.
I stepped forward and extended my hand. “I’m Cora Sandoval, Gráinne’s daughter.”
He looked back at her with his hand still holding mine. “I don’t recall you saying you’d had a child. No, you wouldn’t, would you? To protect her. And the father?”
“Dead.”
“Was he—?”
“No,” my mom said with a shaky voice. “He was not—like me.”
The doctor nodded sympathetically and swept his arm toward the elevators. “I’m sure you’re all in need of rest. Teruko will show you to your rooms. Please, feel at home. This is a sanctuary, your refuge. No one will come after you here.”
I hadn’t taken a deep breath since I’d arrived so I tried to force myself to relax. As I blew out my fear in one long exhale, a question came to me. “But we can leave if we want?”
Dr. M stopped and turned. His aura flared with a bit of muddy seaweed color, which curved toward me. “Why would you want to? It’s not safe out there, don’t you agree? You’d be foolish to leave, and we mustn’t bring them back here, to us.” He leaned in, his aura reaching in the hooklike way of someone who wants attention. “The Arrazi won’t stop, you know?”
“How do you know about all of this?” Mari asked.
“Because I’m—”
Each of us flinched.
“No, no! Oh, dear. I mean to say, I believe I am of that bloodline, like so many regular humans who have traces of either Arrazi or Scintilla. But, no. I cannot suck your life’s energy from you.” Then, he smiled wryly to himself. “Though my ex-wife might argue that point.”
“Isn’t it rare for someone who is just a regular guy to know about all this?” Dun asked.
“There was a time when my research on the energy field of the human body led to some very suspicious things happening to me, or to my facilities, my computers, and even people I had met.” He gestured to my mother. “You, for instance. You were the first self-professed giver I had ever encountered, and until you brought your daughter in today, I’d despaired that I’d never encounter another pure female giver again. If you recall, I wanted to conduct further tests. But then you disappeared and I feared the worst.”
“And yet you kept at it,” Giovanni said, sounding impressed.
“Few people can resist the allure of a locked box. Don’t you agree?” Dr. M continued on without waiting for agreement. He seemed to do that a lot. “The more trouble I encountered, the more determined I was to know what was being hidden. It wasn’t until I obtained the support of investors that the funds were there and security was truly tightened so that I was safe to do my important research, chiefly, how to generate a synthetic form of your unique energy. Now then,” he said with a clap, “I should like to meet with you tomorrow. You have no idea how glad I am that you’ve come to me.” He looked at Giovanni and they shook hands before we filed into the elevator.
We rode in silence to the top floor. “Penthouse?” Mari whistled.
Teruko spoke without turning around, but the amusement in her voice was evident. “I think you’ll like it very much up there.”
Once the doors opened, the first thing I saw were five people, two men and three women, dressed in black pants and white shirts lined against the wall. Teruko said something in Japanese. They gave her a bow and, in turn, peeled from the wall and introduced themselves to each of us.
“This way, please,” said one of the women to me, her arm gesturing to the hallway on our right while the guys were already being led to the left by the men and soon turned a corner, out of sight. Gráinne and Mari were obediently following their attendants. My mother looked nervously over her shoulder at me so I quickly followed.
Giovanni hadn’t looked back. I couldn’t help but wonder, if he had found such a refuge, why had he ever left this place at all?
Thirty-Five
Cora
My mother and her attendant stopped in front of a door just as Mari and the lady leading her stopped in front of another. “It looks like you’re right next door to Mari,” I said reassuringly, despite my own misgivings about being separated. I kissed my mom on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She nodded and the door closed between us.
I was led around another corner and mentally mapped that we had gone two right angles turning left both times, like a square. My heart fluttered with every step away from the others. Being alone felt strange now. Trust in Giovanni’s judgment was the only thing that kept me from resisting the arrangement.
Serenity was a concept I thought I knew until I walked into that room. Candles glowed in wall sconces, casting yellow circles onto the walls. A delicate pink bonsai tree stood on a pedestal that looked to be part of a tree trunk. I traced a finger over the spirals of age lines in the wood. Low to the ground and covered in downy white blankets was a platform bed. The woman slid a rice-paper door aside. “Your toilet,” she announced, but it was more than that. It was heaven. A circular soaking tub sat in the corner, surrounded by small lanterns. Someone had already filled it with water. Jasmine steam rose lazily into the air.
The woman bowed at the doorway. When closed, the door beeped and a red light flashed on the pad. I heard a metallic click of the lock. I instantly reached for the handle and yanked the door open. I exhaled.
The woman turned to see why I’d emerged. “Need something, miss?”
“I—I wanted to say thank you,” I said and shut the door again.
A white silk robe hung on a wooden peg next to the soaking tub. My beaded dress fell to the floor. I stepped up the teak steps and stared into the still water, round like a pupil, reflecting my face back at me. Sliding slowly into the soothing water, I let it ease the tension from my legs, my shoulders, neck, and jaw—which I hadn’t even realized had been clenched.
Relaxation was a gift, and I silently thanked Dr. M for it. His intensity and passion for his work reminded me of my father. Longing fisted my insides. I had to add Dad to the list of people I was doing this for. One of the last things he said to me before he was killed was that he believed I was the key to the energetic imbalance in the world. Crazy. But if he believed it, and his idea showed promise with blood tests, then maybe I should try to believe it, too.
What a responsibility belief was.
Reluctantly, I got out of the tub when the water had grown too cool and wrapped myself in the robe. I padded with wet feet on the smooth wooden floor toward the bed. Blackberries filled a white bowl on the side table. I ate the entire bowlful and fell onto the bed with the memory of a warm summer day on my tongue.
Water ran somewhere outside. The last thought I had before I drifted to sleep was whether it was rain. I thought of Finn, standing in the rain with pained eyes the night we escaped. I had a heart hangover fro
m seeing him at the party and finally, alone, I could let myself cry. And I could finally allow myself to decide that our love story was over.
I woke with a start. The shadowed figure of a man showed through the rice paper on the wall. Sunlight streamed in behind him, pushing his shadow across my legs. There was a tap tap and then Giovanni’s rich Italian voice said, “Cora, I’ve got something to show you.” It was an uncharacteristically singsong manner for Giovanni to speak in. I swung my legs onto the floor and slid open the door.
The sound of water was louder with the door open, but Giovanni’s broad chest and shoulders blocked my view around him. He had on some kind of white pajama bottoms but was shirtless. He cocked his head sideways. “You missed breakfast,” he said. “I’ve been relaxing in a chair up here with Dante’s book, but I began to worry.”
My stomach growled loudly in response. We both laughed.
Giovanni’s face turned serious for a moment, and he reached out and touched my hair. “Wild tangle of curls,” he murmured, “like vines around a flower.”
“A flower?”
He released the black coil of my hair and closed his fingers. “Your face.”
Warmth rose up my neck and onto my cheeks. “Shut up.”
His brows furrowed. “Compliment one-oh-one, in which you learn how to gracefully accept kind words about yourself.” He shrugged. “I speak the truth. You are the most wildly, naturally pretty girl,” he said. “It’s rare to be so comfortable in your skin.”
The way his voice softened and his eyes swept my face, my lips, then found a resting spot on my collarbone, kicked up a nervous feeling in me. My skin felt decidedly uncomfortable all of a sudden, like soft fingers brushed across it.
“I also wanted to ask what you were going to say last night about what it means that Dr. M has investors.”
“Oh, um, I think it shows that someone else knows the truth. Someone else knows there are different kinds of humans, and they have their own reasons for wanting to pay for his research and security. That makes him an employee. Don’t you want to know who he works for?”