Illuminate

by Tracy Clark

  “There must be a way. Maybe we can convince Lorcan—”

  She laughed. “Are you joking? His rotten core fell straight from our mother’s tree. He’s ruthless. He won’t change.”

  If this was the abrupt end of our plans together, if this was my last visit to the inner circle, I wanted to know something. “What were you about to tell me before he came in? You sounded as though you’d found something surprising.”

  A slow nod showed she now deliberated whether she should tell me what it was. She came around the desk to stand in front of me, slipping her hands into mine. She looked up at me with her red brows creased in worry. “Instructions have been given to Arrazi worldwide.” She looked down at her feet, and I found myself staring at the shades of red in her hair like one would a leaf, waiting with a knot in my stomach for the rest of what she would tell me. It was bad, this news. I could feel the dread rolling off her. Her face tilted up again to look into my eyes. “Arrazi have been directed to take advantage of the sudden deaths all over the world—the drop-dead people—and to kill openly and indiscriminately.”

  I literally staggered back. “Directed by whom?”

  “I don’t know yet. I saw a document in my mother’s computer files. She said it was ‘only the beginning.’”

  “Of what? Widespread murder and panic?”

  “Of the Arrazi stepping out of the shadows of shame and into power.”

  “Worldwide…” My mind was reeling at the enormity of an edict like that. This was so much larger a dark horse than I’d hoped to rein in. “We’ve got to find out who issued that order. We’ve got to…” What? My flailing fists were laughable on the chest of a giant like this. A ball of sickening dread grew in my stomach. “How can we possibly stop this?”

  Saoirse placed her small hand on my cheek and looked at me with compassion and, worse, resignation. “I don’t know that we can.”

  My parents’ reaction was equally as shocked as mine had been. “You’d think we’d have heard rumblings of this,” my father said to my mother. “You especially, Ina, with the Mulcarr family being so prominent.”

  “We lost our prominence when it was clear we weren’t going to cooperate with Ultana. My brother can hardly confirm or deny the plans,” she said. It was only in moments like that that I felt any pang of remorse at all for killing him.

  “Is it too much to hope that the edict hadn’t gone out yet?” Dad wondered.

  I forced myself to take another bite of roast chicken. Food wasn’t what my body craved, and I felt increasingly miserable. “I think the order must have gone out,” I said. “Clancy and the other Arrazi at Newgrange killed every last person there when the first people dropped dead. They were all in on it. When Clancy gave the signal, they all knew what to do. It was gruesome.”

  “But imagining it happening all over the world is another matter. The world will fret about pandemics, and there may very well be one, but in the midst of it, silent killers will take more lives. Panic—that’s what they’ll cause—widespread panic, rioting, lawlessness.”

  “And the rest of them will go to church.” I’d said it in half jest but as soon as I did, a missing rung slid into place. Of course! “Ask yourselves who would benefit.”

  My mother’s hand flew to the crucifix she always wore. “You can’t be suggesting…” Then her eyes rounded. “That’s why she went to Rome?”

  “Aye. It was something Ultana said along with other clues, but with this latest news, doesn’t it make you wonder who in the world would want the Arrazi to so openly and blatantly kill?”

  “Ultana wanted it,” my father said. “She sat at this very table and spoke of the Arrazi finally being accepted.”

  “Exalted was her word,” my mother said with a liberal sip of wine.

  He shrugged. “Maybe it goes no further up than her?”

  “You didn’t hear Ultana in that tomb, Da. When she knew she was actually going to die, she seemed happy to taunt Cora about formidable enemies still to face down. Ultana’s the one who pointed her finger at the church.”

  I wondered what Cora had learned in Rome. She knew I’d found something I wanted to show her, but we didn’t speak about what she’d found. I only knew she was en route to Chile, and I hoped to God she’d make it, but a sour dread coated my spirit. If Arrazi had been instructed to kill in this manner, no matter where Cora landed in this world, she wasn’t safe.

  “How far gone are you?” my father asked with concern, probably noticing my pallor and trembling hand as I halfheartedly lifted my fork. I needed to kill.

  “I might have a couple days,” I admitted. “Saoirse and I spoke about going together.”

  My mother looked to him and a silent communication passed between them. “I don’t trust her, Finn.”

  I dropped my fork. “If she’s willing to help me, then she’s the only Arrazi who might be able to counteract her mother’s evil. Though her brother poses a problem.”

  “I do know that feeling well,” Mum responded. “If she’s truly good, then I feel for her. But I saw something in her eyes…” She took a deep breath and another sip of wine. “Secrets change, sometimes moment to moment, depending upon who the person is speaking to or what they most want to hide in a situation. I’m learning much about my sortilege since I acquired it,” she said. “I had a moment with Saoirse in the library when I came in to show you the news of Cora. A secret flickered by in her eyes as fast as a changing channel. It was as if the picture she showed, the secret, changed as her eyes shifted from you to me. I can’t be sure—”

  “What was it you saw?”

  “Saoirse Lennon feels responsible for her mother’s death.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Giovanni

  A rental car pulled up outside of Mami Tulke’s house as I sat pondering the mysteries of my daughter’s unique energy. Two middle-aged women got out, one white, one black, looking very disheveled and tired. Their auras looked similarly weary. The black woman had gray dreads that defied gravity. Probably more visitors to the “ranch” as guests called it. Their auras were benign enough, though the white lady was going through something rough. Her aura was thin, flimsy, and the deep gray-almost-black color of grief.

  One couldn’t be too sure, though, so I got up to greet them and get a better feel for their energy. Just then, Mami Tulke opened the door and gave a surprised gasp. She walked to the women with her hands over her mouth and then pulled the sorrowful woman into a tight embrace. The woman immediately dissolved into tears on Mami Tulke’s shoulder. These were no mere guests of the ranch.

  It was an intimate moment, and neither the woman’s companion nor I knew what to do with ourselves as it played out in front of us. We smiled awkwardly at each other.

  “I had to come,” the woman said to Mami Tulke. “I’ve been totally in the dark. No one has explained what’s happened, and I can’t get ahold of Cora. Then I saw her on the news, and I knew I had to come here.”

  Cora. That’s when Mami Tulke gestured me closer and introduced me to Janelle Sandoval, Cora’s widowed stepmother. I immediately understood the grief. “This is Faye,” Janelle said, introducing us to her friend. “Faye’s been a godsend. She’s the only reason I was able to skirt the media before they landed on my doorstep.”

  “I met your granddaughter,” Faye said to Mami Tulke, her bluish aura undulating like smooth waves. “She came into my bookstore in California when she first began seeing auras.” Her aura paused, like a held breath for just a moment. “I told her what I could, but in the end…” Faye shook her head. “I let her down. When I saw her on the news, I immediately contacted her house and spoke to Janelle.”

  “Faye offered to let me hide out at her home,” Janelle said. “But I realized I had to get here right away before they figured out my name and stopped me at the airports. I think we were lucky to get here.”

  Mami Tulke and I shared a look of dismay. Janelle’s travels would be traced. It was only a matter of time. Who was I kidding? I
t was only a matter of time before the whole damn world landed in the Elqui Valley.

  Faye touched Mami Tulke’s shoulder. “Not a day’s gone by that I haven’t thought of Cora and wondered about her. I shut the door in her face. I was scared, but I’m sure it was nothing to how scared she must’ve been. If I can help, in any way, I want to try. Never too late for redemption, right?” She gave a nervous but throaty laugh.

  “Why did she come to you for help?” I asked, fascinated by this account.

  “I own a spiritual bookstore in Santa Cruz. She was so sweet and bewildered and looking for answers. Didn’t know an aura from an abacus, that girl. But she was eager to learn. I knew she was special. She detected my cancer within minutes. That’s a gift,” Faye said, pressing her palms together. “It wasn’t until she mentioned that her aura was pure silver that I suspected how special she was. I started looking into it, but then someone vandalized my shop and left a threatening note.”

  These two women fascinated me, but perhaps only because of their connection to Cora before I knew her. One thing stuck out, though. “You said you knew silver auras were special?”

  “Like I told Cora, it was a scrap of something I’d either read or heard. To this day, I don’t know where. I only recall that pure silver auras were rare and that there were people in this world who sought them like a prize. I told her as much, that there might be people who want nothing more than to get their hands on her.”

  Grim feelings settled over me when I thought of Cora. “She knows that now, I assure you.”

  “She’s on her way to us, I hope,” Mami Tulke said as we walked toward the front door where Claire skipped up and met them, too. Mami Tulke ushered the women inside, saying, “You came here to get away from the storm, but I’m afraid we are the epicenter of much more than earthquakes.”

  A car horn stopped me in the drive. I turned around. Adrian waved from the SUV. I’d nearly forgotten about my plans with him.

  Adrian’s buddies had drawn the crudest map in all of treasure hunting. More time was wasted trying to decipher whether descriptions of the indentation in the hill fit the one we spotted from the side of the winding river, and once we were upon the hill, it looked completely different, causing us to question ourselves. It wasn’t until we found a pile of rocks in the shape of a cross that we knew we were on the right track.

  “That’s why they used it as a marker. What asshole disturbs graves?” Adrian explained.

  We worked together to move big boulders aside and then used the shovels Adrian brought to dig around the bottoms of the largest ones so we could use a long piece of steel as leverage to move them. It was sweaty, grueling work, and we both cursed ourselves for not bringing more help. Once the last enormous rock was moved aside, the opening to the cave was revealed.

  I stuck my head through the hole. “Got a flashlight?” I called out.

  He ran to the truck and returned not with a flashlight but a lighter. “Here, man. It’s all I got.”

  With light, it became evident that we scored fairly well on this deal. The Scintilla might have little defense or power. Our sortileges were a mix of potentially useful ESPs to sugary sweet abilities. But in this cave of boxes, which presumably were filled with guns and ammunition, we had the makings of an army.

  Defenseless no more.

  I fished my buzzing phone from my pocket. It was a text from Cora—a miracle it had gotten through to me in the remote section of the valley.

  Just landed for layover. Worried. I think there’s “one of them” on this flight.

  Adrian, the weapons, the sun on my neck, the sounds of the wilderness around me—they all faded to nothing as I responded with two texts, praying they would go through. A while later she responded with one word: bye.

  Deflated, I kept working. It took two hours to count the guns, knives, grenades, and boxes of ammunition. We restacked them in the crates, realizing we’d need more help if we were to move them down to the ranch. Adrian and I took what we could easily carry, leaving the rest for when we returned. The work kept me from obsessing about Cora and the possible Arrazi on the plane with her. Please let her come back to me.

  When we were done, we drank syrupy warm sodas and watched the sun dip below the mountains before setting off again toward the ranch. I had battle plans to make and training to start.

  Adrian drove me back to Mami Tulke’s. Without going inside I could see that the house was abuzz with activity. Claire’s voice carried to me like birdsong. Someone laughed—Faye, I guessed, from the richness I’d heard earlier. There was a man’s voice, too. One I didn’t recognize. My chest lurched when I wondered if it was possible in any way that Cora could have arrived already. I ran to the door and burst through it, causing everyone to momentarily look up, startled.

  Claire was at the kitchen table, cutting out shapes in a large round of dough. The adults hovered around a computer, their faces lit blue-white by the light of it. A man named Suey with a crisp silver aura, whom I’d met down at the ranch, smiled at me when I walked in. He was the resident computer guru. “This almost looks celebratory,” I said.

  “A small victory,” Mami Tulke answered, patting the man on the back. “Janelle brought Benito’s computer. Suey just hacked it.”

  “Everyone’s after Benito’s research,” Janelle said. “We need to know what he knew.”

  People wanted Cora’s blood, figuratively and literally.

  Janelle elaborated. “On his home computer he kept the information from the tests he did on Cora when he took her blood in the hospital. If we can find out exactly what he learned, maybe we can throw it like a bone to those vultures. Maybe they’ll stop focusing on Cora and figure out how to save those poor people who are dying.”

  “What if they aren’t mutually exclusive?” I asked. All eyes were on me, questioning. “What I mean is that—” I looked at Janelle apologetically. “I’m sorry. The night Benito died, he spoke about his experiments. He believed that Cora’s cells brought the abnormal cell samples from the people who’d died back into normality. I don’t have the expertise to express it the way he did. But he made it sound as though they were connected, that a severe energetic imbalance was causing both the increase in natural disasters in the world and causing the deaths. He spoke as though the Scintilla were an antidote.”

  “Do you believe that?” Faye asked, astonished. “You believe that the awful natural disasters are because of the energetic imbalance in the world?”

  “I do,” said Mami Tulke firmly.

  “If there’s an energetic imbalance,” I said, “I think it’s because the Arrazi have nearly wiped us all out. If you want to know the truth, I think that if they are removed, the world will be a better place.”

  Janelle’s mouth hung open. “Removed? Are you talking about killing people?”

  “I am.”

  “What. In. The. World?” Faye gasped.

  “That’s what’s going on here. I don’t know how much you know or what Cora’s father told you, but that’s what you’ve walked into. I’m sorry to scare you, but the people here might very well be the last Scintilla on earth, and we’re fighting for our lives.”

  She took it in, swallowing hard. Her aura beat with resolve, the cranberry red of courage tinged with a bit of fear. “I knew what Cora was, yes. Honestly, I knew she was special from the moment I met her. When our relationship got serious, Benito was honest with me. He didn’t want me to marry him, to be a mother to Cora, without knowing that someday there could be danger. I knew that Grace—Gráinne—had disappeared many years ago, probably because of what she was and that it could happen to Cora.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I walked into a future with them with my eyes open. My husband may be dead,” Janelle’s voice cracked, but she held her chin up and continued, “but my commitment to Cora, and to the vows I gave Benito, are very much alive.”

  Mami Tulke rubbed small circles on Janelle’s back while simultaneously infusing her with loving energy and thanked her. Janelle
’s energy calmed, and the group turned back to Suey, who’d been typing away as we spoke.

  “Everything Giovanni said is here in Benito’s notes.” Suey barely stopped pecking at the computer as he spoke. “When Benito writes about dark energy, it’s in a way I’ve never heard applied to human cells before.”

  “So what…?” I said. “Are we supposed to donate blood to the entire human race?”

  Suey shook his head and frowned at the screen. “His notes talk of dark energy on a macro and micro level, but I don’t think he meant dark energy in a cosmological context. I think he means negative energy: collective negative energy in such an overwhelming amount that’s affecting the earth and everyone on it. Not blood, Giovanni. I don’t think that’s what he meant. He seemed to be of the impression that somehow the Scintilla’s energy can act as a counter to the negativity, and that we can literally save the world from destruction.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Cora

  Maybe I shouldn’t have texted Giovanni. Everyone was already worried enough. But I couldn’t shake the sensation that an Arrazi had been near me on that plane. It was like a scent carried on the breeze—something so fleeting, I wasn’t sure if it was real or my imagination, and who else but Giovanni would understand?

  Nobody really paid much attention to me or looked suspicious, but I was unable to relax from that point forward. We’d landed at a smaller commercial airport to refuel. Many disembarked from the plane to eat and stretch, but I was too afraid of not being able to get back on again. I needed to get as close as I could to my family. I’d freaking walk there if I had to.

  While we sat on the tarmac, Giovanni texted me back: Pull your own energy in. Do not reach out to feel for danger or they might detect it. Give nothing of yourself.