Illuminate

by Tracy Clark

  But for every voice of dissent, for every naysayer, there was another voice of someone who needed to believe in me. Why? I had no idea. Maybe a lifetime of faith—faith in the truest sense—had finally paid off when proof fell at their feet. The families of the children certainly believed I’d brought them back to life. All of the children reported having some kind of afterlife experience. They’d spoken of seeing lights: gold-blue spirals that beckoned them like winding roads to heaven.

  “Spirals…” I whispered, astonished.

  The lock sprang free on the door, and then Edmund dropped a small bag on my lap. “Ladies first,” he said, gesturing to the bathroom.

  “You sure? I might be a while.”

  I locked myself in the bathroom and took deep, bracing breaths. This was a wild notion that too much thought would depress. I stared long and hard at my reflection. If there was anything the last few weeks had taught me, it was impermanence. Everything changes. I lifted the scissors and took another strengthening breath.

  Rather than fear, every snap of the scissors shot a rebellious jolt of power through my body. Another strip of long curly hair fell from my head. I didn’t mourn the hair that pooled around my feet. I was proud.

  I had a sudden flash of memory, of telling Giovanni when I first met him that I pitched my tent in the “low maintenance camp.” Vanity was never my vice. This was survival. I had to make it to Chile, and if looking like Betty Boop upped my chances of survival, then fine. Hair would grow back, if I survived long enough.

  Permanent though, were the markings that felt like a punishment for my sortilege. Evidence of memories forced their way onto my body, much like Arrazi forced their way into my soul. I resented the intrusion. Though my marks were a badge of what I’d lived through. Battle scars.

  It took forever to cut my hair. I showered and futzed with it for about a minute, tripping out on the way the curls arched every which way all over my head. I wondered what Mari would say and mourned her all over again. I didn’t know what the reaction would be when the guys saw me, and I’d kinda run out of give-a-fooks. Without preamble, I opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom.

  “Surprise!” Dun yelled, but his voice did this funny little squeak on the “ise” part of the word, like a balloon whizzing overhead and falling to the floor, empty.

  Edmund snored on the couch and only twitched with Dun’s shout. A room-service slice of chocolate cake and a bowl of half-melted ice cream sat on a table in front of the TV. One lone candle blinked in the dim room.

  “Um, happy birth-to-a-badass day?” Dun said.

  Perfect. Tears filled my eyes as I tentatively crossed the room, bending forward to blow out the candle. “I wish…” I said in a rush of breath. But the wishes were too many, too complicated, and were for more than just myself. If my wishes had power, the whole world would be different. “I wish Mari were here,” I whispered. “She’d tell me how to use black eyeliner and red lipstick to complete my look.”

  “True that,” Dun said, clearing his throat. He had enormous silent wishes, too. I could see them in his eyes.

  “Let’s wish together,” I said, holding his big puppy-dog paws in mine. We clinked forks and ate cake by candlelight, neither of us needing to say anything. Some moments carry more weight without words. Some moments are perfection in the horror, reminding us of what’s worth fighting for.

  We climbed into bed, and the best birthday gift Dun could give me, far surpassing sprays of chocolate frosting, was to run his hand over my shorn hair as I drifted off, like it was the softest downy treasure, and remind me that I was still and would always be…me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Finn

  “Your office is ready for you,” Makenzie said to Saoirse, ducking her head into the doorway of the dining room. No longer Ultana’s office—Saoirse’s office. That fact was driven home when Saoirse motioned for me to go with her into a place I’d only been in before by breaking and entering.

  In the hallway, Makenzie put a restraining hand on Saoirse’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t you rather first acquaint yourself privately?” she asked, her eyes pointedly saying it was a breach to take me into the office.

  Saoirse shrugged from her grasp. “I trust Finn. Did you question everyone my mother trusted?”

  Makenzie’s deep breath bordered on condescending, as if Saoirse just didn’t know any better. “Your mother trusted no one.”

  “Did my mother have the trust of others?” Saoirse asked, cheeks flaring red.

  “I trusted her judgment.”

  “And her judgment was to appoint me as her successor.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Lennon. It wasn’t my intention to offend. If you need anything further, don’t hesitate to contact me.” Makenzie spun on her high heels with her briefcase in hand and left us.

  “I think you’re already being tested,” I said. “You handled her well.” I nearly put my palm to her flaming cheek to reassure her. She was a little thing but tough. This couldn’t be easy on her.

  “Come on in,” she said, putting her delicate hands onto the triple spiral carved into the wooden door and pushing it open. I gazed around the room as if it were the first time I’d seen it, luxuriating in the freedom to look at things with more leisure and less fear. The ashes of Dante I’d taken from the wooden heart were still in my room, concealed inside my guitar. I planned to take them to the hidden room and chronicle how they came to be there for some future descendant to find—if there were future descendants.

  The wooden devil looked down over the desk where Saoirse now sat. “The night of the party at Christ Church, you told me of Dublin’s neighborhood, Hell, and the devil who guarded its gates—”

  “I could have been talking about my mother,” she joked, riffling through a stack of mail, which she dropped on the desk. Her face turned serious, self-reproaching. “I shouldn’t have said that. Are you asking if that’s the devil?” she said, gesturing above her.

  “Yes.”

  “My mother was a collector and took great pride in acquiring things that no one else could. The more important the artifact, the more she wanted it. There’s one artifact that eluded her, however, one thing she’d have given all her collection to possess—her personal holy grail.”

  My mouth went dry. “Oh?”

  “Oh yes. She spoke of it many times. She actually thought she could find the missing cover of the Book of Kells.”

  The tinny laugh that came from me sounded bogus even to my ears. I prayed my face didn’t turn scarlet. “Wasn’t it stolen for its gems and tossed in a bog somewhere by Viking raiders?” I said, still keeping humor in my voice despite my racing heart. So, Ultana wanted the book. Did she have any inkling that the Mulcarr clan possessed it? Her interest in me made more sense if she did. I might have simply been her means of getting to it.

  “I don’t think she cared a whit about the gems. I heard her say that the gems were nothing compared to the value of the secrets it was rumored to hold.”

  I turned my back on Saoirse, pretending to interest myself in the books on the shelf so she couldn’t read my face. “What would be the point of possessing a treasure like that only to hide it away in her private collection?”

  “Oh. She didn’t mean to hide it. She meant to destroy it.”

  I spun around. “That’s nuts!” There’d be nothing to gain from destroying those pages of the illuminated manuscript unless it contained something that threatened Ultana. Saoirse didn’t reply or even look at me. She was absorbed in what she was doing, pressing her palm to the scanner. The computer on the desk flared to life.

  “Let’s see your secrets, Mother.”

  There was no way I was leaving that room, unless Saoirse asked me to. I wanted to hear anything she might tell me. Her trust in me was flattering but felt like a gift wrapped in too many layers and that peeling them back might reveal it wasn’t such a gift after all.

  After nearly an hour of me reading a book plucked from Ultana’s shelf, and Saoi
rse tapping away at her mother’s secrets, she sighed loudly. When I looked up, she was biting her lip and frowning. “If I’m right…” she said, but before she could finish her sentence, Lorcan burst through the door and stumbled toward the desk.

  He tipped forward and pointed at Saoirse, his bloodshot eyes radiating anger. I jumped to my feet. “It’s not right,” he slurred, totally ossified. “Mother told me things. Certain things for safe keepin’ in case she ever disappeared. She said they had the power to make her disappear.”

  Saoirse tapped a key and the computer blinked to black. “Who, Lorcan?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he roared. I put a hand on his chest, which he slapped away. “The reason you don’t know is that you weren’t meant to. I was meant to! You did this, little sister. Somehow, you did this. You’re not supposed to be behind that desk. I am.”

  Slowly, Saoirse stood, pressed her tiny hands on the wood, and leaned forward. “You’re supposed to be behind this desk? Look at you, you drunk bastard. Control of Xepa was supposed to go to someone with absolutely no self-control? That’s rich.” Her voice was so measured, so level, it was eerie. Like with the man at her doorstep, asking about her mother, she sounded like there lived a cold beast in her who snarled in spite of its cage. “You’re pathetic. No doubt she told you things. She told me things, too. It was insurance to tell each of us things. Day One and we’re going to stop this nonsense now. I cannot allow you to undermine everything because your ego is butt-sore. Respect our mother’s wishes or you will be out. Give me a reason and you’ll be gone.”

  “Gone?” he spat.

  Even I wondered at her use of the word “gone.” Their glares were rancid enough to tell me that each felt justified and neither was backing down. Nothing like the death of a powerful and wealthy person to make the family members bare their teeth over the carrion of money and/or power she left behind. They were both threatening. The difference between them was that he was piss drunk and, therefore, threatening and volatile.

  My body hummed with adrenaline. “Look,” I said. “It’s fresh. You saw your mother’s body just yesterday. I’m sure this is a shock to both of you.”

  “Notice how I didn’t see the body?” Saoirse reminded with a hostile glare at her brother.

  He rolled his head my way, almost as though he’d forgotten my presence. His thick finger shook as he pointed at her again. “You trust this bogtrotter more than your own family?”

  Saoirse didn’t answer, but the reply was in her body language, her eyes, in the fact that I was in the inner sanctum of Ultana’s—now Saoirse’s—empire.

  Lorcan swayed and spit as he said, “He cares about one thing—his precious Scintilla. He killed his own uncle for her, you know.”

  “Hey!” I yelled. “She already knows what I was forced to do that day. I trusted her enough to tell her! And you will not say another word about it. To anyone,” I warned him. Saoirse was right, the secrets of the dead are less guarded, and I found I no longer needed to keep silent. “You don’t know what he did behind your mother’s back—or maybe you do,” I added. “He kept a Scintilla woman prisoner for over a decade. He preyed on her daughter and kidnapped her as well and, when he had a third Scintilla in his grasp, he worked to keep that a secret from Ultana so that he wouldn’t have to share the power of what he had—what your mother wanted. He was a traitor to Xepa, and a ruthless, conniving bastard.” I was gasping from the purge.

  He rolled his head away from me with a sneer on his lips and focused again on Saoirse. “She’s the one on the news, you know. His pretty Scintilla…the one from the party.” Saoirse’s eye twitched. She’d suspected it when we saw the news, but I wouldn’t confirm it. “Did he trust you enough to tell you that?”

  Her eyes flitted to me and back to him.

  “If he killed his own uncle to protect her, what makes you think he won’t kill any of us to protect her?”

  “Christ, Lorcan. How did this become about me, or the Scintilla? You’re bent because your dear mum didn’t trust you enough to run her massive network, and you then stray in here, bellowing about trust? Evidently, you don’t trust your sister’s ability to do what she’s been asked to do.”

  “Exactly,” Saoirse said. Lorcan had rattled her. She folded her arms protectively over herself.

  “I don’t trust you,” he bold-facedly admitted. His body swayed again. His nose flared. He was a bull, pawing at the ground. “Somehow you manipulated your way into my position, and I’ma promise you something, luv, you will run all of our affairs with me as your equal partner, or—”

  Or!

  That word was the curse of a geis. I reared back and punched him full-out in the mouth to stop the careless words from tumbling out. He fell to the floor, devil eyes boring into me as he swiped blood from his lips and finished his sentence. “Or you, sister, will die.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Giovanni

  “Just because someone painted a picture of people with auras and imagined that Jesus and his mother had silver auras does not make it true,” Will said after my phone was passed around for everyone to see. “It really only tells me that whoever painted it was Scintilla or knew about us.”

  “Would you still doubt it if I said the painting was done by Michelangelo?” I said, pointing out the tiri gondi monogram.

  Maya gasped. “The Michelangelo?”

  “It’s not as though he knew Jesus personally,” Ehsan said, doubt lacing his words.

  “He left a trail of crumbs, picking up from a trail left by Dante Alighieri and with a key that Mami Tulke swiped from the statue of St. Peter. It’s why Cora went to Italy. And this is what she found.”

  After Adrian and I had secured the map to the stash of weapons, we met up with the others. Our group congregated near the cathedral, trying to get more news to take back to the Elqui Valley in case we still didn’t have access. The crowds were thicker in the Plaza De Armas than they’d been earlier, and an extended line formed well beyond the palm trees of the square, stretching at least two city blocks long, leading into the church. “What’s that about?” I asked.

  “Emergency baptisms,” Maya said. “People here are convinced that she was a sign that the end is near and that her miracle was a reminder to the faithful. Some guy is even performing baptisms in Simon Bolivar’s fountain.”

  “Funny how faith is a ladder some people only want to climb at the last minute,” I said, stopping to stare down in shock at an exquisite chalk drawing of Cora’s face someone had done on the sidewalk. They’d drawn the glow of a saint’s light over her head. If they only knew…

  Will gestured to the eager initiates. “Well, maybe seeing is believing. Would these people be here if they hadn’t seen proof of a miracle on TV?”

  A derisive grunt came from Adrian. “Opposite of faith, ain’t it?”

  The supplies were loaded into the truck. We’d intended to stay overnight in the city to avoid the long drive back to Mami Tulke’s on the same day, but there were no rooms to be found. It would be nearly sunrise before we got back.

  I didn’t know how I was going to break news of this magnitude to Mami Tulke when we did get there, but I knew it’d be better coming from me than the radio or television. The only good news I had given her earlier was that I’d spoken to Cora and that we might soon have her back with us. Whatever the world brought next, at least we’d be together.

  If she made it.

  I’d look into her expressive eyes, as faceted and as deeply hued as a dark emerald. I’d once again smile at the stubborn jut of her jaw when she challenged me. With luck, I’d someday hold her body against mine and let our sparks collide in a rage of silver and taste the sweet flame on her skin.

  Flushing when I realized Ehsan was waiting for me to reply to an unheard question, I cleared my throat. “Pardon, what?”

  “I suggest we begin weapons training in the village immediately,” he said in his calm, thoughtful sandpaper voice. Even so, Maya made a disapp
roving huff. “I don’t like it, either. But this business with Mami Tulke’s granddaughter has me on edge. Very on edge. They know her name now. They know where she lived with her father in California. If we are days away from the media descending on us here, isn’t it safe to say that we’re days away from our enemies coming as well?”

  Maya sighed. “I never thought I’d say this, but maybe the media coming will be helpful. The Arrazi can’t kill us with cameras in their faces.”

  “You don’t think so? The Arrazi can kill live on CNN and the world would just think that we dropped dead like all the other drop-dead people. No one could prove they murdered us, and they’d walk away with superpowers to boot. The whole world will have a front seat to a race war, and they won’t even know it.”

  “So negative.”

  “Realistic.”

  Will turned on the radio, more to shut us up, I think, than to hear the news—a regurgitation of the same information over and over. No one knew where the dark-haired enigma might be. It didn’t seem likely she’d return to California, where legions of media waited, ready to pounce with their cameras and their questions. They’d tracked down the company where her father worked, which claimed that he’d requested an emergency leave of absence and hadn’t been heard from since. A report had surfaced that Benito Sandoval had been one of a team of scientists studying the mysterious deaths and that records of his experiments were being requested by the CDC and other agencies.

  “What a damn mess,” I grumbled, my soul twitching with the need to have Cora in my presence.

  The rest of the drive was quiet as we journeyed along the pleat of the valley to the village nestled within. We’d taken turns sleeping and driving through the night. Concentrated stars shone down on me as I climbed from the car in front of Mami Tulke’s house. I told Adrian we’d go to the hiding spot for the weapons later after more sleep, though I suspected sleep might elude me. The bottom dropped out of my heart as I turned toward the house and saw the blue-white flickering of the television through Mami Tulke’s living room window.