“How did you find us?” Giovanni asked. “Fergus said he drugged you.”
“Soul on a string. Soul on a string,” Gráinne chanted from the back of the room. She had obviously returned to Crazy Land, and I wasn’t sure I could blame her. This was too small a taste of freedom to have it end so soon.
“Hush now, pet,” Clancy crooned to my mother. “I have you to thank for my ability, Gráinne. Astral projection is a handy power. Luckily, I was able to slip into it when my brother-in-law drugged me. You were still at my place when I went under, still within my reach. I followed you here, astrally.” He smiled, sinister. “I can follow you anywhere, pet.” He leaned down over me. His hand ran across my throbbing cheek. “A very affecting good-bye you gave my nephew. Near broke my heart.”
I gritted my teeth and swatted his hand away. “If you had one.”
Griffin pushed the knife harder against my throat. It punctured my skin, slicing a gash in my neck. Something hard settled into my collarbone. Disoriented, I reached for it, expecting to feel a piece of my white bone protruding from my skin. But my fingers instantly recognized the shape of the key.
“Don’t hurt her,” my father choked, the blood under his rib cage spreading into an alarming scarlet blot. “Please. I’m begging you.”
Clancy stood, put his hands on his hips, and surveyed the room as if deciding what to do with all of us. Giovanni’s fingers twitched against his jeans like a gunslinger.
“That’s a right nasty wound you’ve got there,” Clancy commented to my dad.
My dad’s brows furrowed deeply as he worked through possible arguments, trying desperately to find a crack in Clancy he could exploit. “Money,” my father gasped. “How much will it take to let us go?”
Clancy laughed. “There is no price large enough, chap. I cannot buy what a Scintilla can give me. But you do have something I can use.”
My dad heaved forward like he’d been yanked by a giant, invisible hand. I realized then that he had. Clancy had reached inside him and dragged his colors, his beautiful colors, right out of his body in a slow, steady stream, drawing them into his own.
I struggled to free myself, but Griffin slid his knees over my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. The jagged edge of the knife pressed deeper into my throat. “Stop! Please stop,” I cried. “You don’t need him right now.”
“No, pet. This is purely for pleasure.”
My dad had that same bewildered look that Mrs. Oberman had. That the lady in the park had. Like they couldn’t understand why their energy was plummeting with every weakened beat of their heart, why their vision had narrowed to a scary point of light intent on consuming them. I now knew it was like drowning slowly.
Watching it killed me. Tears as hot as the blood on my neck slid down my temples. “Please…,” I sobbed. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Take me!” Gráinne suddenly screamed. “Take all of me. To the death. You know what might happen, Clancy. Do it!”
“Rumors,” Clancy scoffed. “Legends. And you’re far more valuable to me alive than dead.” Clancy grabbed a clump of my father’s hair. “He’s worth nothing, however. There are millions like him all over the world.”
“No, no, Benito,” she cried. Gráinne wept in a ball. I struggled harder against Griffin, felt another sharp nick in my skin, a stinging line of fire across my neck. And I didn’t care. I needed to get to my father. I thrashed, kicked, bucked my body up against him, used every ounce of strength I had to get to my dad, all while the knife bit repeatedly into my neck. But it was useless. Griffin was too strong.
My father reached out to me. Clancy’s aura exploded into white as my daddy’s aura broke from his body. He fell over in a pool of his own blood. His warm body, his crimson blood, his dark eyes open, fixed on a horizon I couldn’t see. The essence of him, stolen.
Gone.
“Noooo!” The word bounced around the little wooden shack. I stared up at the rafters as the screams echoed around me. My father was dead. I was numb with shock, overtaken by a pain too great to accept. The air touching my skin, the air I sucked into my lungs—every cell in my body was saturated with an all-encompassing pain. I wanted to close my eyes and sink into myself. I almost did, but the knife suddenly released from my neck, the flash of steel sailing over top of me toward Giovanni.
I expected to see the knife impale Giovanni, but the handle flew right into his outstretched hand. I tilted my head back to see Griffin standing, staring in dazed shock. I swung my legs around, heaving a kick right into his crotch, doubling him over. Giovanni lunged past me, flying through the air, sweeping down to drive the knife into Griffin’s body.
I scrambled to my feet. As soon as I stood, I was paralyzed by the familiar tug on my aura. Clancy’s eyes were fixed on me. His greedy white aura took up the small room. It reached for me, stronger than before. Pulled me out of myself. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t reel myself back in, couldn’t tuck my soul away from harm.
Giovanni leaped in front of him, releasing me from the manacles of Clancy’s energy. I gasped to catch my breath. Without pause or mercy, Clancy began taking from Giovanni’s silver spark. He meant to weaken us all so we couldn’t fight. Giovanni’s body shuddered. He was already weak; he couldn’t take this assault. His head slumped forward, and he fell like a crumbling wall, folding at the neck, the waist, the knees, until finally, he landed in a heap at our feet.
I raised my arm to hurl the only weapon I had, chucking the key as hard as I could.
It landed square in the middle of Clancy’s forehead and bounced to the floor. He blinked, startled, and stumbled forward a bit, fingering his forehead for blood. The key lay on the floor between us. I took a quick step forward and scooped it up.
“Don’t move,” Clancy said, holding his hand up, palm facing me. I saw his ring. Embossed within the smooth, gold oval winked an emblem. Two pyramids, joined at their apices. The same insignia that was engraved on the key in my fist stared at me from his outstretched hand.
“Where did you get that key?” he demanded.
It had to be important. My mother had made sure this key and its secrets were buried. Until I dug them up. I glanced at her, hoping she could help me with answers, but she was still sobbing on the floor. I needed to touch Clancy’s ring. I needed to know what secrets it held and if it would show me anything I might use against him. I struggled to recall the vision from the knife.
“You’re afraid,” I ventured. “I can see it in your aura.” It was a lie. I could see nothing but white. I took another step forward. If I was going to bluff, I was going all in. “I know what you’re scared of.”
“Little lass, there is nothing I fear from you.”
I grasped for the fragments of memory the knife contained. “You’re afraid for them to know what you possess.”
Clancy’s eyes widened a fraction. I stepped forward again.
“I. Will. Kill. You.” Clancy’s lethal words puffed out in a cloud of curling black, and I knew.
I forced a smug smile onto my face. “No. You won’t. And it’s why Griffin didn’t kill me before. You have three of us, just like you need.” His eyes flew open in surprise. I could see his mind scrambling. I took another step toward his palm and the eye. One more step. It was my only hope. I was so close now. Inches.
Clancy closed his fingers over the ring and lowered his clenched fist to his side. A sigh rushed from me. What could I possibly do or say to get us out? “They’re on their way here now,” I spit out, desperate.