Illuminate

by Tracy Clark

  I didn’t know how long I lay there pondering heaven; I only knew that I had the sudden realization of gravity, and of the ground against my back, and the sound of crickets, and the kiss of a light breeze on my face. Earthly sensations. Alive.

  No explanation for why I wasn’t dead, but the second I knew I was miraculously alive, I knew where I needed to be. I ran all the way back to Rancho Estrella, ducking behind trees every time a car passed. Too many cars were passing, every one shooting cold fear through me and propelling my spent body forward.

  When I’d reached the compound, the sounds of fighting and struggle were all around. Scintilla lay dead on the ground near the entrance, strewn amidst debris from the quake. My heart twisted painfully, but there was no time to mourn. Arrazi moved like dogs in packs between the buildings and were searching them as they went. I had to stay out of sight, certain they could sense my energy by the way their heads veered in my direction, hound-like, when I passed too closely. I’d snuck into my house and found the one gun I’d hidden on the shelf and ran to find my people.

  Ran to fight.

  That’s when I saw Cora flung to the mud by the Arrazi’s attack and fired.

  My hand still buzzed from the gun. I knelt over Cora and ran my hand along her jaw, sending her energy though I could see she didn’t need it because of Mami Tulke’s help. I just wanted her to feel it, to feel me.

  Her eyes flew open, then wider still, and she rolled from Finn’s arms and hugged me. “How—?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t,” I said through laugh-crying. Over her shoulder, Finn was smiling at me, and his gladness for me cemented a friendship I never thought was possible.

  When she let go of me, Finn hugged me as well. “Thanks, mate. Fookin’ hell I’m glad to see you right now.”

  The sounds of people running nearby made us jump to our feet. “Where’s the garden supply shed?” I asked Mami Tulke. I had to find Claire and know she was all right. I’d seen the systematic way the Arrazi were searching buildings and killing those inside. Claire and the women would be helpless against them. Mami Tulke pointed the way, and we ran together toward the garden.

  We spotted another small troop of Arrazi prowling the area and ducked behind a pungent compost pile hoping they hadn’t seen us. The shed was just a few meters away, door closed. I prayed that was a good sign.

  Rustling sounds whooshed over our head, and I craned my neck to see what it was, barely catching a glimpse of an Arrazi—who’d obviously gained his sortilege—whizzing over us and then landing between us and the shed. I lifted the gun to fire, but Cora shoved my arm down. “What if the bullet goes into the shed?”

  “Keaton?” Finn said, recognizing the tall guy who blocked me from my daughter. Finn stood in front of us and started to say something else to the Arrazi, but within a blink, the man had teleported again and landed in front of Finn, nailing him with a punch that doubled Finn over. More Arrazi ran around each side of the compost heap, flanking us. Ripping pain tore through me. There were too many. I fired at one to my right but missed. Fired again, and the gun clicked ineffectually. Empty. I threw it to the ground.

  A young Scintilla woman, Hannah, snatched it up as she fell forward next to me. I couldn’t think why, unless she had spare bullets and a way to stop the attack. I tried to remember what her sortilege was.

  Amidst the groans of the Scintilla around me, and the gasping pleas from Finn, I heard another voice. A child’s piercing scream, “Leave my papa alone!” and I quailed down to my aching soul. How could they let her run out of there? Stars dotted my vision as I watched my little girl bolt from the shed toward the deadly scene in front of her. She stopped in front of the man who was kicking Finn in the ribs. Finn rolled on the ground with his arms around his coughing body, trying to get up.

  Claire’s fists were balled at her sides as she stared up at the man. The ravaging of our auras stopped when the amused Arrazi became distracted by the brazen child in front of them. “What have we here?” I heard one of them say. “A stray? Maybe we can keep her.”

  “Oh God…” Cora moaned. “They can’t take her. She’s not one of us!” Cora yelled, hoping to deter them from thinking she was Scintilla or valuable as property. She wasn’t special at all. They had to feel that.

  With every bit of strength I had, I stumbled forward toward her, struck by the enormity of her aura and the ferociousness of her gaze. The Arrazi’s energy whipped out like a tentacle, almost teasingly, like a cat that wants to remind of its claws. But before it struck her, her aura inexplicably reached around the man like giant squeezing vise grips and choked the life from him.

  I saw his Arrazi energy leave his body before he dropped and I saw—even as my mind rejected the abhorrent possibility—Claire’s aura explode in white.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Finn

  “It should be impossible,” Mami Tulke gasped, her old face full of stunned astonishment. “She’s just a child.”

  The Arrazi backed away with wary glances at Claire and then darted off through the buildings. No doubt they’d be back.

  “Is it Claire’s sortilege as a Scintilla?” I asked. It seemed the only explanation, though for all of us, sortileges were said to come during young-adulthood. What a terrifying thing to take a life at such a young age.

  The Scintilla shook their heads at my question.

  Cora squeezed my elbow and muttered. “Finn, her aura is glowing pure white right now,” she said, still staring in awe across the vegetation at Claire. “And it’s so big. I’ve never seen one so big. Claire’s Arrazi.”

  Impossible.

  “Arrazi don’t change until much older. And she didn’t blow back,” I said. “Even if she is Arrazi, none of us are supposed to be able to attack another of our kind. I know,” I said, remembering when Clancy tricked me into attacking him. “I’ve tried it, and it’s how I’ve been blocking some of their attacks.”

  Claire stood alone in the garden, her chin trembling as she looked at her father—her Scintilla father, according to some mad scientist in Ireland—whose life she had just saved. Cora reached for Giovanni, but he shrugged away from her touch. When it became clear that he was paralyzed by shock or maybe even revulsion, Cora did the most beautiful and brave thing. She ran through the knee-high squash plants to where Claire stood frozen and scooped her in her arms. Claire wrapped her legs around Cora’s waist and her arms around her neck.

  So tiny, this little killer.

  I marveled at Cora, shushing and comforting Claire while swaying softly as the child cried against Cora’s neck. Cora’s open and giving heart was evident in her actions; the walls between races were crumbling within her.

  Mami Tulke pressed Giovanni’s face with her hands, forcing him to look down at her. “Gather yourself up. Do not reject your own blood.”

  “I saw,” the big Italian man, Raimondo, said. “I saw her kill. I told you she was among us.”

  “But how can she really be from me? Maybe her mother was Arrazi… She was an experiment, Dr. M’s experiment…” Giovanni’s voice was as small and shattered as I’d ever heard it. “She’s a mutated version of them.”

  Mami Tulke scowled. “I’m not hearing that. You only have to look at her to see. Beyond that, ask your own heart. Once you throw off the black smoke of your prejudice, you’ll see the truth. You’re her family. Go to her.”

  I imagined the internal leap it must have taken Giovanni to move his feet forward. The Arrazi were the enemy. A battle still raged around the village as Arrazi indiscriminately hunted and killed, and it would only be moments before we were attacked again. A large group of Scintilla joined us in the garden, looking haggard and battle-damaged. They murmured fearful comments about Claire and some not so kind ones, too. Hindsight makes everyone a sudden prophetic genius.

  Their whisperings also said that hope was fading that the Scintilla would survive the night. The fate of uniting the two races seemed more impossible than ever.

  Giovann
i reached for Claire, but the little girl didn’t seem ready to let go of Cora, so he wrapped his arms around them both with Claire sandwiched between them. They stood entangled, looking every bit the family in a way that tore at my insides.

  “Doyle!” yelled a familiar voice. The night and the dark clothes hid the face of the person who called out my name. The voice I recognized. Lorcan Lennon. Cora and Giovanni startled when he called out, and I saw the recognition shadow their faces as Lorcan got closer and the light from a building floodlit his features. “Christ,” he yelled. “You’re all standing around like a Goddamn beacon. Could you be any more daft?”

  He was right that the cluster of Scintilla emitted an unbearably strong shockwave of energy, but what did he mean by sounding like he gave a damn? Giovanni’s face twisted into one of vengeance, and he started to run toward Lorcan, but Cora stopped him with a fistful of his shirt.

  “You cursed me!” Giovanni yelled with a finger pointing at Lorcan.

  “You’re obviously still alive, aren’t you?” Lorcan said. “Or has the opportunity to save your fair maiden not come up?”

  “He did save me,” Cora said, suddenly looking at Giovanni. “And he… I thought he died. But…” None of us had had a chance to ask Giovanni if he knew what happened.

  Lorcan touched a finger to his chest like this news both astonished and pleased him. “Then it worked.”

  “What worked?” I said.

  Lorcan repeatedly looked behind him in a dodgy way that set my hairs to standing. Something was very off and clearly he was expecting someone to arrive.

  He looked back at me. “I removed the geis off him, eejit.”

  “Why would you do that?” Cora asked.

  “One would think you wished him dead with a question like that,” Lorcan said, looking as confused as we did. He shrugged at me. “You were there that day, Doyle. How could anyone see the sight of the silver aura and not have it affect them? It was—I was changed by it.”

  I recalled his face at the facility when we’d seen the wall for the first time. Lorcan had looked visibly moved, as was I. “But you cursed him after we saw Gráinne’s aura in the wall.”

  “Only because I knew she’d be watching everything I did. Then I had to learn how to undo it. It’s not like we’re born with a manual.”

  “Lorcan, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. You’ve been—”

  “I’ve been secretly trying to help. Shhh!” he hissed, spinning around. “Get the fook out of here, all of you,” he said with a flap of his hands like he was shooing flies. “She’s coming, and if you’re still here when she gets here, you’ll all be dead.”

  Lorcan’s implausible warning fell like a bomb around us. If Ultana was coming, I had no doubt it would be lethal. The group of Scintilla and I scattered from the garden toward the trees that shielded the river beyond them. We’d have to cross the river, somehow. Cooper was already murmuring about how he’d part the water for us and get us through. At the edge of the garden, a group of Arrazi stepped from the trees, blocking our escape. We veered to the right, but another group formed a half-circle with their backs to the east—same on the west. Like the hub of a wheel, we all spun a quarter turn and saw the approach of another group of Arrazi behind Lorcan.

  Their energy was a slow-moving wave that was as threatening as a knife to the throat when it hit. I recognized the Lennon’s lawyer, Makenzie, among them. In the middle of the group was a figure that looked just as she did the first time I saw her. She pulled her hood back from her pale face. A braid of flaming red snaked over her shoulder.

  Relief flooded me, but I’d feel much better if there weren’t twenty other Arrazi surrounding us, and Lorcan’s ploys were confusing. I needed to talk to Saoirse, but I was unwilling to leave Cora unprotected even though she held in her arms the most lethal Arrazi I’d ever known of aside from Ultana Lennon. Where was she, anyway?

  Turned out I didn’t need to approach Saoirse. She held up her hand to signal the Arrazi flanking her to stop and strode confidently past them and up to me. The smile she gave was a wilted flower. “I see we’re late.”

  I grasped her arms and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Better late than never. I’m glad you’re here.” When I pulled back, her seafoam eyes lingered on the Scintilla over my shoulder before darting back to me. “Are the Arrazi with you on our side? I have something huge to tell you. We found out how to end this. The Arrazi must stop their attack and hear us out. I can’t believe they’re not attacking now.”

  “They are waiting for the order.”

  “What’s the whispering?” Lorcan said, suddenly at our side.

  I shoved Lorcan’s chest. “Leave us alone. You may have cursed your way into your sister’s business, but you have no place in mine.”

  “What do you think that was back there?” he asked. “I warned you she was coming.”

  Saoirse glared at her brother.

  “She—I thought you meant your mother.”

  Both Lennons looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  Lorcan threw up his hands. “Are you mad? What the hell are you talking about? My mother is dead, fool.”

  “Then why were you having me followed? The Arrazi who came to my house, who murdered my mother…” My chest heaved with anger. “They specifically said ‘she’ was looking for the cover to the Book of Kells.” The words left my mouth and I knew instantly my error. I turned to Saoirse with a boulder of dread in my stomach. “Not you?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” Lorcan groaned. “I’m sure she had something to do with my mother’s death and the takeover of Xepa. Why do you think I put the geis on her? I was trying to keep tabs on what she was up to. My sister’s a conniving snake.”

  You know about baby rattlesnakes, Finn? The baby ones…are the most…dangerous… They can’t control their venom. Careful the baby ones.

  Mari. She’d tried to warn me.

  Saoirse acted as though Lorcan weren’t standing there, leveling suspicion on her shoulders.

  “It was you who beat up Mari and you hit me over the head when I had Ultana by the throat? Jaysus. My mother saw your secrets. She told me you felt responsible for the death of your mother and—”

  “And now we’re both motherless.”

  I lunged at Saoirse, knocking her onto her back. “Tell me the truth!” I roared. Her hand gripped the back of my neck, and she answered with a string of words that were more like a seductive incantation. “My mother killed herself, but it was me who convinced her she was immortal rather than having the sortilege for an unnaturally long life. I hoped she’d someday do something arrogant and stupid, and she did. The man who worked for me was in the cave—as you know, Finn. He told me what happened. She drove that knife into herself because she believed she wouldn’t die.” Saoirse chuckled at the thought. “She was a monster. You know that. She was wicked and deserved to die, and I took care of it. You don’t want to hurt me, Finn. You want to be a team. Work together with me. I am not your enemy, the Scintilla are your enemy.”

  Confusion muddied my mind, pressing all previous thoughts under the silt. Her words felt like truth. Why was I fighting Saoirse?

  “Don’t listen to her, man!” Eejit Lorcan, why was he trying to protect me from Saoirse?

  “That’s right, Finn,” she murmured. All that existed was her slender body underneath mine in this cloud of green. I could only watch her lips. “You and I belong together,” she crooned. “Stand with me now. Let’s finish the enemy and be together as we should be. The Arrazi are going to rule this world and you and I will lead them all. I told you before, we were meant to unite.”

  She rolled me onto my back and pressed a kiss to my lips like she was sealing an envelope of agreements with me. “Stand with me now,” she said, holding out her hand. I grabbed it and, together, we faced the Scintilla.

  Chapter Sixty

  Giovanni

  What in the hell was Finn doing rolling around with the red-headed Arrazi girl like splend
or in the damn grass?

  When he stood hand in hand with her and faced us, I said to Cora, “It’s like she put a spell on him, isn’t it?” His expression was blank, though he was entirely focused on us and his energy reached across the field like nerve gas.

  Cora, stupid-stubborn-headstrong Cora, handed Claire over to me, broke our ranks, and marched up to them. “What’s she done to you?” She clutched Finn by his shirt and shook him.

  From next to me, Samantha yelled to her, “Cozening. It’s her sortilege. Like mine. I know it when I hear it.”

  The redhead’s glare at Samantha and then at Cora standing in front of her, daring to challenge her, was evident even across the darkness. Cora cocked her head at the girl. “You have a sortilege to make him believe what you want him to believe?”

  “Yes. A gift from your sweet mother,” the girl said. “Finn’s uncle was kind enough to share her with me. Numerous times.”

  She sounded so self-satisfied and smug, I wasn’t at all surprised when Cora cracked her with a slap across the face. Saoirse’s head snapped sideways. She slowly refocused on Cora and latched onto Cora’s aura hard enough to yank her forward onto her knees, where Saoirse then took the opportunity to knee Cora in the face. Cora fell to the foliage.

  All Finn had to do was step between them. He could stop the attack, but he was just standing there like a zombie.

  Claire struggled against my grasp, her little voice saying, “Let me go. I can help Cora.”

  “No. I—” How could I give permission for my child to kill? I could barely handle the fact that she could. But someone had to. I had to. I set Claire down next to Dun and ran full-out toward them. Just as I reached Cora and screamed at Finn to snap the hell out of it and remember the truth, he ripped into my aura, pulling it from my body with agonizing swiftness. I fell back onto the grass next to Cora.

  Our hands met. I rolled my head to the side to look at her, but her eyes sought her attacker’s. She gasped out these words. “It’s our belief in our separateness that causes all the pain on the earth. I know the truth about us. Please, Saoirse, listen to me…”