Blackfin Sky (33 page)

Thank God, Sean got her away!

Gage held the amber skull in his hand, its gaping maw mirroring his own. If Sky had had any control over her own body, she felt certain it would have been convulsing under the weight of Gage’s power.

‘Grandpa…’ Sky couldn’t turn to see who had just run into the clearing, but she recognised Jared’s voice, even out of breath. ‘Stop this … stop what you’re doing!’

Something hit Sky from behind, and it took her a moment to realise it hadn’t been anything touching her physically. Some force was pushing back against the hold Gage had over her, until she was able to stumble back, away from him. She rushed to her father, who was still frozen with the metal pole inches from Severin’s face. She twisted the pole out of his grip and set it to one side.

Gage looked furious when Sky turned back to see what was happening. He gripped the skull with white knuckles as he faced his grandson, but Jared stood his ground. He was taller than the old man, his shoulders hunched with whatever he was doing to counteract Gage’s power. But he was shaking with the effort, and Sky saw that he wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. She needed to free Gui and Severin and get them out of there before Jared lost the battle.

‘Get the skull!’

Jared’s voice screamed inside Sky’s head, and she ran at Gage. He was so fixated on his grandson that he only saw her at the last moment, and the world spun as he tried to use his tricks to disorient her. But Sky was already on top of him.

A woman screamed, but Sky couldn’t see who. It hadn’t sounded like her mother.

Flailing almost blindly, one of Gage’s gnarled hands wrapped around her throat before her hand connected with the cold amber. It thudded to the ground somewhere nearby. Shouts from Gui and Severin followed almost immediately, but Sky couldn’t hear them.

The full weight of Gage’s power fell on her, pinning her to the ground, pushing her down into it until she could neither move nor breathe. Crushing, suffocating, breaking.

Then only light.

29

‘Sky.’

Sean’s arms held her, not crushing like the ugly weight of a moment ago. But his whispered word was barely spoken before another scream tore through the grey light of a Blackfin afternoon, and Sky blinked until the scene before her made sense.

She had only been unconscious for a moment, but it had been long enough for Gage to pick up the skull and knock Jared out with it. An ugly gash showed the spot where the skull had connected with Jared’s, and his eyelids didn’t even flutter as Gage leaned over him.

Gage looked up at the woman’s scream, and Miss Schwarz glared down at him from where she stood on the roof of Sean’s jeep, wearing only one shoe, and with her hands tensed like claws, ready to tear out Gage’s eyes.

‘Isn’t that the woman from the diner?’

Sky gasped as Jared appeared next to her just outside the ring of tent poles. A glimpse inside the ruined structure showed him still lying unconscious next to Gage, whose eyes were fixed on Miss Schwarz.

‘Uh … yeah.’

‘Sky, who are you talking to?’ Sean peered at the spot where Sky was looking at a very wide-eyed Jared, but he of course saw nothing.

‘Jared. I’ll explain later.’

‘
You let Jimmy die!
’ Miss Schwarz raised her hands, and as she did so a great plume of fire rose from the ground in front of her. It curled and twisted in the air, forming a giant ball of flames.

The orange glow made Gage look even more demented. He held the skull up in front of him, but Miss Schwarz swept her hand towards him, sending a tendril of fire streaking across the space between them. It wrapped around his arm like a lasso, and the skull rolled free into the grass.

From where she stood, Sky saw Severin’s eyes follow it, though neither he nor Gui could move to pick it up yet. Except that Gui
was
moving.

‘You started the fire, Jani. All that followed was your doing.’

Sky swallowed a gasp at hearing her father’s voice. It sickened Sky to hear it being used by someone so twisted.

Miss Schwarz shrieked, and the fire wrapped tighter, higher up the mime’s arm. Gage’s face twisted in pain.

‘You took him from me!’

Sky looked up and found Jared staring at Severin.

‘Why does he look so familiar?’

Sky looked apologetically at Sean before answering. His arms were still wrapped around her, holding her up, keeping her grounded.

‘Severin’s my father. He saved you from the wolves the night the circus burned down.’

‘Yes! I remember…’

With that, Jared’s astral form disappeared from where he had been hovering next to her, and Sky saw him roll over and groan in the clearing.

‘It was you, Jani. You killed him.’

The look on Gui’s face as he taunted Miss Schwarz would have broken her heart had she not known Gage was behind it.

Seeing his chance, Gage lifted Jared by the collar of his jacket with his free hand, and held him up like a shield. Jared blinked dazedly as the fireball surged in front of him.

‘Miss Schwarz, stop! You’ll kill Jared!’

Miss Schwarz paused at hearing the terror in Sky’s voice, but not for long. ‘What do I care, Skylar? I tried to warn you.’

So that explains the note, then.
‘But he’s your son!’

As one, every person in the ring who could move turned to look at Sky as she stepped forward, Sean at her side with his hand firmly holding hers.

‘My boy died in the fire! He was too little to control it, then, and I was too late … but I saw him!’

The woman’s face crumpled with grief as she sank to her knees on the roof of the jeep. Still the fireball moved slowly towards Jared and the man cowering behind him.

Sky understood now. ‘He didn’t. Gage made you believe you’d seen him die so he could keep him from you.’

Miss Schwarz’s scream was deafening as the truth hit her. The fireball swelled as her rage fuelled it.

‘Miss Schwarz, don’t! You’ll kill them both!’

Jared was conscious enough now to struggle against Gage’s hold, and wrested himself free of his grandfather’s one-handed grip. He staggered out of range of the fireball just as Miss Schwarz lost control of it.

The fire surged forward in an instant, engulfing Gage in a roar of fury, grief and loss. That was the only sound as it swallowed the man who could utter no cries of his own.

The spell broken, Miss Schwarz slipped from the roof of the car and wept, crawling towards where Jared lay staring at the spectre of the man who raised him burning in the ruins.

Sky was lifted into a bear’s arms, her father’s mumbled apologies and promises making no sense to her as he made them in French.

‘What about Mum?’

Sean answered next to her, his hand still holding hers. ‘She’s awake, but doesn’t seem to know where she is. We should probably get her to the hospital. Jared and Miss Schwarz, too.’

Sky felt Gui nod against her hair. ‘You are a good boy, Sean Vega. Thank you for everything you have done to protect my family.’

Gui set Sky on her feet again, and she swept one final look around the clearing as Gui held open the car door for her.

‘Wait, where’s Gage’s body? And where did Severin go?’

Though the flames lingered on the ground where Gage had stood, there was no sign of the man they had seen burning moments earlier. An ugly, impossible thought occurred to Sky.

‘Oh God, did he just make us hallucinate that? Did we just see what Gage wanted us to see?’

The sound of another car engine firing in the distance seemed to confirm it.

But where did Severin go?

Sean held out his hand to her as she slid into the seat next to him, Gui taking the backseat with Sky’s mum in his lap, and Jared and his mother squeezed in next to them. They held onto each other in silence, both looking like they were suffering from shock.

‘If Severin has the amber skull,
coco
, that’s who Gage will go after.’

Sky knew her father meant to reassure her, but the thought of Severin being hunted by the demented mime only twisted her stomach. But she nodded, watching in silence as Blackfin Woods fell away behind them, then Blackfin itself was hidden behind the towering peaks of the Lychgate Mountains.

EPILOGUE

There were no bells this time. Sky materialised three feet from where Severin stood, leaning against the same guardrail which had splintered under her hands almost six months earlier. She steadied herself, still unused to the trick of stepping out of her own pathway only to dive back in at a different location.

Severin turned to her with a cheroot hanging from his lips, a smile curving the corners of his mouth.

‘My beautiful daughter.’

Sky smiled in spite of herself. ‘You don’t look old enough to call me your daughter.’

Severin smoothed his hand over his jaw contemplatively. ‘The years have been kind, haven’t they?’ Sky could tell from the light in his eyes that she wasn’t going to get a better explanation from him. ‘I was just standing here wondering when you’d figure out how to find me.’

Sky laughed, sitting down on the boardwalk so that her legs dangled over the edge. After a moment, Severin sat next to her.

‘The message you left me was kind of hard to ignore.’

He graced her with an enigmatic smile. ‘Your home was most obliging.’

So obliging, in fact, that the wood grain on every panel of every door had realigned until each one presented her with the same image: the pathway, the place, and the time Severin would be waiting for her. A map which only she could read. The Blood House was as enthralled by Severin as everyone else, it seemed.

‘Tell me, how is your mama?’

He turned sparkling blue eyes towards her – the same blue eyes she saw in the mirror every day, the lightning flashing deep within.

‘She has good days and bad days,’ Sky said. It was the only answer she could give. Lily hadn’t been the same after Gage had abused her mind, and it was only in the last few weeks that she had started to talk coherently again. But there was some improvement, and Sky hoped it would continue. It had only been six months, after all.

‘Are you going to kill him, if you find him?’ she asked. There was a long stretch of silence, but Severin did no more than suck on his cheroot and stare out over the ocean. ‘I heard you threatening to kill him the first time I travelled to the circus, you know. Who were you talking to?’

Severin laughed. ‘I have threatened to kill Gage many, many times,
chère
, but I suspect I may have been talking to Gage’s wife at the time.’

Sky looked at him blankly.

‘Madame Curio – did you never meet her?’ Severin laughed, seeing her horrified expression. ‘But to answer your question – yes, I plan to kill him. Gage will never let us be while he lives. It is so tiresome having to constantly watch one’s
derrière
when we should be out unravelling the mysteries of the universe.’