Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) (42 page)

“Jesus!” Mike jumped up, putting his hands out to keep the creature away from him. “You’re dead. You’re dead! Stay away!”

With shaking hands he tried to reach for the gun he always kept in his belt.

“For God’s sake, Mike! Put that away!”

“Stay away from me.”

“It’s me. Niall. It’s me!”

“You are dead!”

“Do I look dead to you?”

White-bluish skin, blue lips, blue nails. “Yes, actually! Look at your hands! And your face!”

“Oh, yes. It won’t last. I’ll be back to normal in a few hours. Mike?”

But Mike couldn’t hear him, as he had passed out on the sand, unconscious, with his face in a tangled mass of seaweed.

Niall could smell the alcohol fumes coming out of his friend’s body. He was coming to, blinking and rubbing his face. In spite of the fear and danger, Niall was finding the whole situation quite amusing.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Mike as he saw him.

“You said that before.”

“You’re dead!”

“You said that too. No, I’m not dead. Well, I was. But I came back.”

“How … how …?”

“Remember when you asked me what my power was? And I said the singing? I have another one. All Flynns do. We can’t be killed by water.”

“So you’re alive?”

“As alive as you are.”

“You’re alive!” Mike threw his arms around Niall’s neck, and immediately retreated. “Yes, well. I was worried.” They both looked at the sand for a while.

“Have this.” Mike took the hipflask out of his pocket.

“Oh yes. I need it.” Niall took a greedy gulp.

“How was it?”

“The Bourbon? Oh, the best. You can’t beat it. Except for Irish whiskey, of course, but you can’t have everything.” Mike noticed that Niall’s voice sounded a bit gurgly, as if he still had water in his lungs.

“How did it feel to drown? To die?”

“Rotten. Still, it was my first time. My grandfather did it nine times, apparently.”

They sat in silence for a while, looking at dawn breaking over the sea, while Niall was gathering his strength and warming up.

“So what now?” Niall untangled some seaweed from his hair.

“We need to get to Sean.”

“They’ll see us. They’ll find us.”

“They think we’re dead.”

“They’ll soon realize we’re not.”

“We’ll be in Scotland by then. Come on.”

“To the airport?”

“To the port. I know someone who can get us into a freighter.”

“Cool! A few weeks at sea!” Niall’s face lit up.

“I could think of a few other words, to be honest.”

“Ah, it’ll be grand.” He smiled, emptying his pockets of clams and barnacles that had gathered in them.

On their way to New Orleans, Mike dropped the letter for Sean in a mailbox. In case they didn’t make it.

I’ll never forget

The black-haired girl and her peaceful eyes

Too soon for her to go

Castelmonte

I couldn’t bear the wait any more. I was nearly relieved when they turned up at our door, all designer suits and sunglasses. The Turin Valaya had found us.

I let them in. I invited them to sit at my table.

Marina and Aiko had gone to a
fiera
, a fair, in a nearby village; Leandro was fishing. I was alone, thankfully. Better me than them. They had something left to live for.

Maybe this would be the time when I saw Harry again …

I shook myself. I couldn’t let myself think like that. I had to fight. For Aiko, for the heirs.

“Where is the Ayanami heir?” they asked me in heavily-accented French.

“I don’t know.”

They laughed. Two men, both young, both handsome in that Italian, arrogant way. As if they owned the world.

“You’re beautiful,” said one of them. “That puts me in a good mood.”

“Yes. Like we could take our time to get the truth out of you.”

He put something on the table. It was a little vial. No mess then, no demons, no blood. A drop of that down our throats and we’d be the walking dead, like my husband had been for days, weeks even. All they had to do was convince us that dying would be better than living, and if I thought of what I’d heard the Valaya did to their victims, I had no doubt we would agree with them very, very quickly.

Still, I felt nothing. I wasn’t afraid. I was getting ready.

Because seeing the future is not my only power; there’s something else that we Brun carry in our blood. Something a lot more dangerous – something that, unlike the visions, had come back to me. I knew because I’d been checking. I’d tried it out on little animals, squirrels, birds, whatever I could get my hands on. Cruel, but necessary.

It had returned.

I brushed my hair away from my face. I could see the two men watching in appreciation. I was wearing a pair of jeans that clung to my body, and a strappy top. I thanked my lucky stars for having chosen that attire.

“I’m sure we can find an agreement,” I said, getting up slowly, seductively, and walking over to where they sat.

The first man had jet-black hair and a million-dollar smile. He was looking at me like you’d look at something to devour. I put my hand on his shoulder and sat on his lap, my face close to his. I brushed his cheeks with my hands.

“You can have them. Just let me go.”

“You’re one of the heirs, Elodie. We can’t let you go,” said the other man, with shining eyes.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” I whispered.

“I’ll tell you what the deal is. You give them to us, and we take what we want anyway,” said the man I was sitting on, with an ugly, angry voice, pawing at my waist, at my breasts.

“I see I have no choice,” I purred in his ear.

“Exactly. You have no choice.”

“No. I don’t think you understand.” I took his face in my hands again, and pulled it to mine. My lips met his lips, and he kissed me greedily for a few seconds, fumbling under my top.

Until he started gasping.

How ironic that my husband had to die of poison, that they wanted to kill me with poison, when I’m poisonous myself. The man gasped for breath as I set him free, falling on the floor, his mouth open like a fish out of water, desperately trying to inhale. His skin was turning white, a bluish-white like you would see on someone who’d drowned.

All I needed now was a split second, an instant where the other man would be too surprised, too shocked to move. And I nearly had it. But not quite. His gun was out already, and he was ready to shoot me. It would be nearly at point-blank range, straight into my stomach. I imagined myself on the ground, covered in blood, like the swan. The prophecy was about to come true.

But right at that moment the door opened, and an abyss of despair opened with it: Aiko and Marina were framed in the door, still smiling, not having registered what was happening inside.

The man turned around and fired. There were screams, and bodies falling. All I knew was that I had to put my lips on his, and I did.

The two men from the Valaya were lying on the floor, asphyxiated.

And so was Marina, holding her heart. Aiko was crying, her little hands covered in blood, tears running down her cheeks.

There was nothing I could do. By the time I’d kneeled beside her, she was already dead. It was her, Marina, the dead swan lying in a pool blood – not me. If that had been a sign of what was meant to happen to me one day, the chain of events that was going to lead to that must have shifted somehow, an imperceptible change that led to an entirely different outcome.

Or maybe that was just an accident. My prediction would still come true. The time would come for me to be the bloodied swan.

“We all have to choose a side,” Leandro had said. Nobody is safe, nobody can hide. I left Aiko with him, in a tiny wooden hut in a secluded valley. That would work until winter closed in. Two months, and then the snowfalls and the cold would make the hut uninhabitable. Two months, and they would have to find another way.

But I knew that I couldn’t be there any more. I had to follow the trail Harry had left, and destroy the Enemy.

But I couldn’t do it on my own. And there was only one person I could trust with my life.

Sean Hannay.

Forgive me

Thoughts of her torture me every moment. I miss every second of every day. I can’t lose her, I just can’t.

She’s not safe. That Nicholas Donal makes my skin crawl. I trust him as much as I’d trust those bloodthirsty ravens of his. I would ask Mike and Niall if they know anything about the Donal family, but I haven’t heard from them in a while now. No signal. Their phone is down, they’re impossible to contact. I fear the worst, that they’ve been found and killed – by the Surari by the Sabha, take your pick.

Nicholas has revealed to Sarah the existence of the other Secret Families, the existence of the Sabha. He has put her in the greatest danger. Does he not know that the Sabha have been infiltrated? Does he not know that we can’t trust anyone? Or is he one of them?

I should have told Sarah everything. I made the same mistake as her parents – I kept her in the dark, thinking the time would come to tell her.

I watch her night and day. I look at her sitting at the window, brushing her hair. Oh, I remember the smell of her hair! I watch her going to school, and coming home. I’m so close to her at times that I could touch her – and she has no idea I’m there.

Tonight, I saw Nicholas walking up the path. I saw her face when she opened the door, her joy at seeing him. It was like being set on fire.

I have to find a way to get back into her life.

And I can only think of one way: telling her the truth.

I was beyond

I am Persephone

I wasn’t surprised when the vision formed in the aeroplane window. When I left Castelmonte I felt something in me unknotting, unfolding, flowing again – as if my power was a river, and a boulder had been blocking its flow. The rage over Marina’s death, the sense of liberation that filled me when I got out of hiding and joined the battle again, had pulverized the boulder and left dust in its place.

I saw Sean, and a black-haired girl I recognized as Sarah Midnight. I saw her on her knees; someone was standing over her. I saw her soul leaving her, a little white light floating above her head in a crazy rhythm, upset and lost and confused, unsure of where to go. Sarah fell on the ground as her soul left her, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. The vision dissolved, and the reflection of my pale, haunted face replaced it.

My heart started racing, and bitter tears filled my eyes. My visions always come true. Everything I see in glass or water comes true.

And I’ve seen the death of Sarah Midnight.

First published 2012

by Black & White Publishing Ltd

29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL

www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

This electronic edition published in 2012

ISBN: 978 1 84502 433 8 in EPub format

ISBN: 978 1 84502 434 5 in Mobipocket format

ISBN: 978 1 84502 370 6 in paperback format

Copyright © Daniela Sacerdoti 2012

The right of Daniela Sacerdoti to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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