by Tracy Clark
We stopped at the elevators and suddenly a horrid memory intersected with dire need. An emergency ax gleamed through the glass of its red case next to the elevator doors. My eyes sought Giovanni. The silver corona around him splayed and jabbed. Before I could do anything, the elevator arrived and we were ushered inside.
“Where are you taking us?”
“We’re moving you, my dear, to another location. I had no idea that our financiers had Arrazi working for them. Frankly, it’s a very dangerous situation, indeed.” He turned to me, intense and sweating. “I know you think I’m the enemy but I’m not. I was misled—”
“Let us not talk of being misled,” Giovanni snarled.
Dr. M ignored him. “I’d have never known what those two men were if you hadn’t said it. They could have killed us all in an instant. They could have taken you.” Sweat beaded on his bald head as he spoke in an ever-higher pitch. “I’m so close to the answers. Soon we will know if one theory of mine holds water.” He glanced at my stomach. “Soon.”
“I will not leave here without my mother and Dun.”
“Where is Claire?” Giovanni asked.
“Everyone is to meet downstairs. We will take you where no one will ever find you, don’t worry.”
That was exactly my worry.
The elevator door opened at the parking garage level. Dr. M stepped out into the garage. Giovanni turned his back to the doctor, drawing the Taser at Dr. M’s waist through the air, into his bound hands behind his back. He fumbled and squeezed the trigger, hitting one guard who jerked and fell to the ground. The other guard lifted a gun and I rammed my shoulder into his stomach. The gun fired, blasting a hole in the ceiling of the elevator. My ears rang. Giovanni shocked the second man, and I leaped from the elevator and pressed the button, closing it on the two men.
I kicked the red firebox and yanked the ax out through the broken glass as Dr. M snatched the stun gun from Giovanni’s hands and fired. Giovanni fell in a contorted heap at our feet.
Dr. M raised the Taser at me.
I didn’t see myself, or the doctor. For one blinding moment, I saw my mother hacking off the hand of her attacker. The residue of that memory accumulated with my own fury and desperation. Pure blind rage pushed my arms up. I stepped to the side as he fired and swung the ax as hard as I could. Pain shot up my arms as blade connected with bone. Screams filled the air. Dr. M’s hand and the Taser fell to the floor at our feet as he shrieked and bled. I scooped up the weapon and fired it at him.
“Cora!” Dun came running up the ramp toward me but was blocked by a barred gate, which was accessed by a fingerprint security panel. “I can’t open it,” he yelled, clutching the bars separating us.
I fought down the nausea that threatened to overcome me as I picked up the doctor’s dismembered hand and pressed a clammy finger on the pad.
The gate rose into the ceiling. Dun ducked under it, ran forward, and hugged me. “Holy crap, that was the sickest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Where’s my mother?”
“We were all walking toward the vans when we saw the fighting start. Goddamn, girl,” he said. “That was some serious ninja shit you just pulled off. When I saw what you were doing, I went kapow all over the dude that was guarding us and ran over here. I don’t know how much time we have, I only punched him unconscious.”
Dr. M moved and I pulled the trigger again and again. His body rippled and twitched with each hit. It wasn’t until Dun pulled me against his body and wrapped his arms around me that I realized I was wailing.
Giovanni began to come to, and both Dun and I helped him to his feet.
“Claire,” I gasped to Dun. “Is the little girl with you?”
“No. I think she’s still inside. They were supposed to be bringing her down.”
Giovanni’s head bobbed but his words came out clearly. “Leave me here. I have to find her. You get yours. I get mine, remember?”
I regretted ever saying that. It was anger talking. I couldn’t leave him. Then I’d be no better than Finn. “No. We’ll find her,” I said, gritting my teeth. Sunshine streamed in through the garage entrance. We were so close…
I looked back toward the facility, toward who knew how many guards or guns or Arrazi might be lurking. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure, small and tentative as a doe in the woods, stepping cautiously toward the sunlight. My mother. She was moving instinctively toward freedom. “I have to get her.” I ducked out from under Giovanni’s arm. He sagged against Dun, whom I handed the bloodied ax to. “Get his hands untied if you can,” I said, and ran.
She’d reached the street and was running thoughtlessly down the sidewalk when I caught up with her. “Mom!” I said spinning her around. “Stop. They’re still back there. Dun and Giovanni and…and the little girl. We can’t leave them.”
Blinking against the harsh sun, my mom opened her mouth to speak but the sound of screeching tires cut her off. A car pulled up. Bodies piled out. My mother’s eyes turned from bewildered to horrified as two men jumped out. As a sharp puncture sunk into my arm, I saw what had caused her face to morph to terror.
Clancy Mulcarr.
The sky reached out and smacked me down.
Clancy
Had
Found
Fifty-Six
Finn
It was incredibly hard to pull myself up out of the mental quicksand that my uncle had thrown me into. The needle was wielded by a man I’d recognized: Ultana Lennon’s driver, the one with the scarred mouth. He wasn’t Arrazi—no competition or threat. Was Clancy in league with her all along? Why would the same guy who worked for Ultana also be a henchman for my uncle if they weren’t working together? How the hell could he lie to me?
Maybe he didn’t lie. Clancy had promised not to hurt Cora. An angry puff of laughter escaped me. He never said anything about not hurting me.
Scheming bastard. I should have dug his heart out with that shovel when I’d had the chance.
I pulled myself to sitting. I’d been unconscious for some time—that much I could see by the slant of the sun between the ramshackle buildings. The Society’s research facility was a few doors down. I knew in my gut I was much too late, but I had to go in. I had to see for myself that Cora wasn’t there. Maybe I was wrong about him and Ultana. Maybe Clancy would have no way to get past the security. I felt for the master key. Still there in my pocket, thankfully, or I’d have no way to get in the building myself.
I stumbled to the front entrance and nearly fell backward when the doors opened and three people tumbled out. Cora’s mate, Dun, wielding a goddamn bloody ax, Giovanni Teso, and a wee lass who couldn’t be more than five in years. Giovanni had her cradled in his arms. Damn if she didn’t look like his own fair child. Dun bled from a deep gash in his hand, and he met me with a surprised but challenging glare.
I held up my hands in surrender, as if that meant anything. I could take from them all without a touch and they bloody well knew it. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. Though I wanted to hurt Giovanni. Visions of his hands on Cora’s fine skin flashed in my mind. Yeah, I wanted to hurt him.
“Not much of an exciting fight then.” Dun panted.
“Where’s Cora?” Giovanni bellowed so loudly the little girl tucked her head to his neck in fright.
My gut caved in. “Please tell me she’s with you. Because if she’s not—”
“Of course she’s not with us. She ran outta this place after her mother over two hours ago,” Dun said. “We haven’t seen her since.” Giovanni continued to stare at me with unmasked suspicion.
I raked my fingers over my head and mumbled profanities a small child ought not to have heard.
“Dude?” Dun asked.
“Clancy’s got her. I know he does. He’s got them both. He stabbed me with a needle of something and left me unconscious on the street. We’ve got to go to my place, see if he’s taken them there.” I looked at Giovanni. “Like before.”
“Why should w
e believe anything you say?”
“I’m not Cora’s enemy,” I said pointedly. “I’m an Arrazi, yes. I can’t fookin’ help that. But I am a man and I have free will about who I help and who I hurt. Please. We have to get you off this street, and we have to find her before it’s too late.”
There was far too much staring going on and not enough movement so I walked away. Hell with ’em. We didn’t have all damn day to deliberate. I had to get back to the manor. I heard the discussions going on behind me as I got out my phone and called for a cab. When one pulled up within minutes, the group ran my way.
“Ho there,” said the driver when he saw the bloodied ax and the warrior who carried it. “What kind of trouble you be bringin’ with you? I want no part of it.”
“No trouble,” I said. “We don’t bring trouble. We bring money, and lots of it. Get us there and it’s yours.”
Dun rested the ax between his feet, but his hand stayed firmly gripped on the handle. “I figure if you’re willing to walk away from one Scintilla, one crazy-pissed Indian, and a child of questionable heritage, you’re more concerned about finding Cora than killing us.”
“Bet your arse.”
We were uncomfortably quiet on the way. Even the child was quiet, though I noticed her staring at me more than once. She had a peculiar energy about her and even more peculiar eyes. I was drawn to her but also strangely intimidated. Odd.
“Not this gate again,” Giovanni protested as we pulled up. I actually felt for the guy. He’d escaped, only to come full circle where he’d started.
I paid the cabbie a fortune and we piled out of the car. If the situation hadn’t been so urgent, I’d have laughed at my mother’s expression as she opened the door and gawked at the four of us. “There is no rational explanation to account for what I’m seeing,” she said.
“Mother, Clancy has Cora. I’m sure of it. Please, hide them in the lighthouse and keep them safe until I return.”
“I’m going with you,” Giovanni said, setting the girl at my mother’s feet. The tender look my mom bestowed on the child made me sure she’d be okay. Giovanni noticed, too, but his voice shook when he said, “Please…Claire’s all I have,” and it made me wonder what had happened that he didn’t count Cora on his list.
“Where we goin’?” Dun asked. With that ax dangling from his hand, he truly looked like every bad old American Western I’d ever seen.
“Your hand needs stitches quite badly,” my mother said to Dun.
Giovanni stepped to Dun. “Protect her,” he said, placing his hand on Dun’s shoulder. “She’s my daughter.”
Whoa. So I was on the right track. “Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll take the car.”
We drove into the back end of my property as far as the car could travel. When we hit the woods where Clancy’s secret prison was located, we got out and ran through the trees.
As soon as we reached the path that led to his underground lair, I motioned for Giovanni to be quiet and follow me. Voices bounced through the trees and we ducked. I peered around the trunk and saw a van with the engine running. Exhaust curled into the evening air. A man slammed shut the back doors to the van and climbed into the driver’s seat. “She could be in there,” I said. “We have to follow. C’mon.”
It was maybe impossible to track the van in the time we’d have to spend running back to my car, but there was only one road that exited onto the highway from Clancy’s edge of our sizable property and we could intercept the van if we were fast enough.
My energy flagged as we ran full-out to reach my family’s side of the property for the car. When the hell would I be able to go longer without taking? The constant urge was wearing on me. Giovanni and I ran across the gravel, threw ourselves into the car, and sped onto the highway. Our strained spirits filled the car with a thick sludge of tension.
We approached the T in the road where the van should pass, if we hadn’t already missed it. I’d block the van with our car. I’d stand in the road myself, if I had to.
“You could kill me now,” Giovanni said, his fingers tapping on his leg.
“Yes.”
“I know you want to,” he said. “For taking her from you.”
My teeth scraped together. “Don’t give yourself that much credit, man. You don’t deserve her, either.”
His mouth opened to respond, but then the van came into view before we reached the intersection and sped past. “Damn it!” I pulled out behind it. It was definitely in a hurry to get where it was going, making it hard to follow without being obvious about it.
“Do you think she’s in that car?” Giovanni asked in a voice that was as tight as a new guitar string.
“I do think it’s possible, yes. The question is, how are we going to rescue her and her mother?”
“Can you attack them, as an Arrazi?”
“I can’t attack another Arrazi, no. And they have syringes with some kind of sedative.”
“Yes, they used one on Gráinne when we were attacked at her old house the night we escaped from yours.”
“Shite.”
The van pulled onto a familiar road, one both Giovanni and I recognized as the entrance to Newgrange. I turned off my headlights and stayed back a ways. Instead of pulling into the historic site, the van continued past it and rambled down a narrow private lane. We pulled over and watched it roll to a crawl, turn, and drive in reverse up to a hill.
Quietly, we got out of the car and crept closer. Because the back of the van was opened toward the hill, we could not see much when the man opened the doors and pulled someone out. I heard the squeak of a gate as they went through.
“Now,” Giovanni said, rising from his crouch.
I pulled him down by his arm. “I have to be the one to do it,” I said.
Even in the gloom of darkness, I could see the disgusted look he gave me. “Why, so you can be her knight in shining armor again? I don’t think so.” He rose to standing and I grabbed his arm. The violent gust of Scintilla energy he threw at me sent me into spasms of hunger. I released his arm.
“What Lorcan said to you back there at that lab was a curse. It’s his sortilege. Trust me, if you save her life, you will die, just as he promised.”
“I would die to save her,” he said through clenched teeth. His eyes flashed hotly. I believed him.
“Well, as much as I might have wished for your demise, my friend, let’s save that as a last resort, shall we? I’ll go in first. If I don’t come out with her, you do as you wish.”
Before I could start off toward the van and the hill beyond it, we heard the sound of someone running, and we ducked behind the car. A hooded figure in black darted past us and through the gate.
Giovanni sprinted forward. I leaped up and tackled him.
Fifty-Seven
Cora
Consciousness came slowly, like emerging from under deep black water. No dreams. No thoughts. Just heavy pressure. Oblivion. They’d obviously injected us with the same thing my mother got hit with before. We were in the back of a van, rumbling and swaying on a curved road. I tried to sit up but my hands were tied in front of me and my body felt weighted and uncoordinated. The van skidded to an abrupt stop and the back doors opened, framing two dark silhouettes.
One grabbed my feet and yanked. I slid toward the door, my back scraping on the metal floorboard. My mother was pulled out after me. I teetered, trying to gain my balance and bring my mind fully up to the surface.
In the darkness, we were pushed through grass wet with dew that made my feet cold and soaked my pants below the knees. I shivered under the half-lidded moon. It looked bored.
Clumps of brush and trees dotted the hilly grass. The trill of water flowed nearby. Having been blindfolded in the van and barely conscious, I had no idea where we were now or how long we had been traveling. We could be on the other side of Ireland for all I knew. My eyes kept straying to my mother’s back as she was led in front of me. I had the urge to step in the impressions her tiny feet left i
n the damp grass. Her head dipped low, gazing at the ground as if she couldn’t care less where we were headed. If my own shadowy despair was any indication, I could only imagine hers at being back in the clutches of Clancy Mulcarr.
Still, hope was a feral bird inside me. There had to be a way out of this.
“Ah now,” Clancy said, chucking me under the chin. “Don’t look so low. You won’t be my prisoner forever. This time, little spark, I am going to kill you.”
Okay, so no.
We stopped at an ancient scrolled gate set between two brambly, overgrown hedges. It screeched in the gloom when one of the men pushed it open and shoved us through. In the predawn light, it looked like a gate guarding nothing but a pile of dirt. I squinted into the darkness and realized it was a pile of dirt…dirt with a door. This was similar to pictures I’d seen of Newgrange before it was excavated. Another burial mound? Possibly one of the many dots I’d seen when standing upon Newgrange? I recalled the tour guide saying that there were many others all over the Boyne Valley that had yet to have been excavated.
Why this place? On the postcard of the triple spiral tucked inside my mother’s journal she’d written, “Origin story?” Sickeningly poetic that this should be the place of the conclusion.
Clancy pulled out a ring of keys and fumbled in the darkness for the right one to unlock the apple-sized padlock hanging from the arched wooden door in the side of the mound.
“Welcome home,” sang the man behind me—a non-Arrazi. “Where’s the other van, do you reckon?” he asked Clancy.
Clancy glanced back. “Shut it. They’ll be along soon.”
A match was struck and three torches lit, casting an orange glow inside the mounded room. It was the kind of damp and cold that soaks through your skin and coats your bones with condensation. Would I ever know warmth again? I reached for my mother’s bound hands. With sadness in her eyes that was darker than the night, she clung to my hands and pressed her forehead to mine.