Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4) (3 page)

‘Oh. My. God.’

‘Scarlett, wow – this is really, really good.’

‘Mmmm-nnn. Dlshhh. Sheaven.’

I sat back in my chair, letting a forkful of warm chocolate
and pear fondant and vanilla-pod ice-cream melt on my tongue, and smiled
serenely across the table at my guests. Finally, once the gooey, sweet mouthful
had slid down my throat, I said lightly, ‘Just something I threw together, you
know?’

It was the same kind of response I’d given all evening to
the regular flow of compliments – for the starter, courgette and parmesan soup
with crispy pancetta garnish; and the main course, beef Wellington with a
porcini and chestnut mushroom duxelle, served with dauphinoise potatoes, oven-roasted
vegetables and rich beef gravy. Tonight, I was Twycombe’s answer to Nigella
Lawson, it seemed (at least that’s what Luke had murmured in my ear at one
point in a tone that suggested Nigella to him was on a par with Theo James for
me).

All in all, a success on the culinary front, and judging by
the constant hum of chat and laughter, the social side of the night was on
track too.

After a quick round of introductions for the benefit of
Michael, who’d seen Cara and Luke from afar before but never spoken to them, Si
broke the ice at once by telling us about his parents’ latest art acquisition –
a marble sculpture by a notable London artist that looked, according to Si, a
lot like snogging seahorses. I could have hugged Si for the choice of subject
when, straight away, Michael joined the conversation to explain that in fact
the work was a reimagining of Rodin’s ‘The Kiss’.

From there, the conversation had moved through movies,
music, building renovation, recipes, fashion, surfing and the relative merits
of Coke versus Pepsi – all safe, light topics. If Si and Cara and Luke were
taken aback at all by Michael’s humourless delivery, they gave no hint of it,
remaining friendly and interested in all my Cerulean guest said. And Michael
followed suit, pushing past his usual quiet nature and asking us all questions.
I was touched by the effort he made, but it fuelled my anger with Jude: if
Michael could manage to join in, why not Jude?

Of course, I concealed my disappointment that the evening
wasn’t what I’d wanted it to be. Unsuccessfully, it appeared however in Luke’s
case. Leaning over as Cara and Si gave a lively account of a recent ‘Foofoo and
Flounce’ fashion show at Plymouth University, he whispered, ‘You okay?’ I
smiled and told him I was great, but he didn’t look convinced. He knew me too
well.

*

When the dessert plates were scraped clean, we abandoned –
at my insistence – the mess in the kitchen and settled in the living room.
Exhausted as I was, it was heaven to sink into the soft, squishy cushions on
the sofa. Luke sat beside me, right against me, and rubbed a thumb
absentmindedly on my thigh, which sent tingles right through me.

‘What a fabric,’ commented Si, stroking a hand down the arm
of his chair.

You’d think, given the fact that the material in question
was a loud 1980s’ floral number, that Si was teasing. Not so.

‘Thanks,’ said Cara. ‘Took an age to source it, but it’s
pretty close to the original fabric that got smoke-damaged.’

Michael was looking lost, so I stepped in to fill the gaps. ‘Luke
renovated the cottage while I was gone, with Cara’s help.’

‘My way of moving on, without actually moving on,’ said
Luke.

Michael was still blinking in confusion, so I said, ‘A fire.
There was a fire here, the night I… the night I left. The cottage was damaged.’

‘Oh,’ said Michael. He stood up. ‘The portfolio, Scarlett?’

‘Right. Yes. Over there.’ I pointed to my grandfather’s
writing desk, where I had laid the portfolio, and Michael crossed the room and
began carefully untying the cords that held it closed. We all watched – me
expectantly, the others curiously – but it soon became clear this was a slow
process.

Leave it to Cara to create a distraction:

‘It’s no good! It’s coming off!’ she declared dramatically
and, executing a pelvic thrust in her armchair, she started wrestling with the
belt on her retro mini-dress.

‘Underwear!’ yelped Luke, shielding his eyes.

Gentleman as always, Si reached over to yank down his
girlfriend’s very short dress so that it was almost decent once more.

‘There... oh, that’s heaven.’ Cara threw her belt joyously
into the air and nearly took out the light fitting.

‘Cara!’ snapped Luke. ‘Behave yourself!’

‘What?’ said Cara. ‘It’s Scarlett’s fault. She’s the one who
made all that
stupendous
food. Did you learn to cook on the island then,
Scarlett?’

Thankfully, I was saved from answering by Michael clearing
his throat. We all turned to see him standing awkwardly at the end of the sofa,
holding out a stack of thick sheets of paper.

‘Here,’ he said.

Looking confused, Luke took the papers. When he saw the
sketch on the first one, I heard his breath hitch. He took in the design
carefully, and then laid it down on the sofa and examined the next, and then
the next and the next. Finally, he looked up.

‘These are stunning,’ he said. ‘But I don’t understand…?’

‘They’re just ideas,’ said Michael. ‘At this stage. To fit
with the ocean theme. When we meet in the venue, we can firm up concepts.’

‘Er…’ Luke looked to me for help.

‘A gift from me to you,’ I explained. ‘I’ve commissioned
Michael to paint for you. Artworks for The Project.’

‘You’re a genius, Blake!’ announced Cara. ‘Quick, let me
see, let me see!’

As Cara commandeered the sketches and bent over them with
Si, Luke kissed me with smiling lips. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you,
thank you, thank you.’

Then he stood up so that he was level with Michael and said,
‘I’m blown away. This is absolutely brilliant.’

‘It’s what I do.’

‘Well, you do it with style, mate.’

Result. Luke was now officially friendly with a Cerulean,
and I had added another – peace-making – Cerulean to the group, to lessen the
focus on Jude and bridge the yawning gap between the two warring parties. I was
confident Michael, albeit in his awkward way, would soften Luke’s distrust of
Jude; after all, Michael and Jude were friends and had known each other all
their lives.

‘Look, that’s us surfing – that’s us in Twycombe cove!’ cried
Cara, pointing to one of the sketches she’d laid out on the coffee table. ‘See,
there’s you, Luke, taking the wave, and there’s Scarlett, wiping out, and
there’s Si coming in to me, sitting on the beach...’

As Cara and Si and Luke huddled around the table, chattering
excitedly over Michael’s sketches, I watched the artist watch those who were so
clearly impressed by his talent. There was something in his expression that
unsettled me; he looked vulnerable, hungry almost. I had seen him look that way
before, I thought, but when?

He caught my eye then, and I covered my confusion with a
smile of gratitude. He returned the smile and said, ‘It’s time I left.’

*

Since my return home, I’d developed an obsession with the
news: reading it online, watching it on TV, listening to it on the radio.
Before now I’d avoided it, seeing it as thoroughly depressing and having little
to do with me. I could just imagine the lecture my grandfather would have given
me on social responsibility. But I was eighteen, and what eighteen-year-old
wants to think about politics and legislation and international conflicts and –
worse – death and depravity and cruelty all around? Well, me apparently, now
that I was a Cerulean.

The local news was a source of masochistic torture for me:

An old lady found cold at the bottom of her stairs a week
after having tripped and fallen.

A young mother beaten in front of her two children by a
stalker.

A family pitched out of a speedboat and then run over by
it.

A toddler mauled by a dog on an outing to a park.

A man stabbed in the street while trying to break up a
fight.

Each item haunted me. Time and again, I tortured myself with
the thought,
Could I have helped? Should I have helped?
At night, I
tossed and turned with dreams of who may have been behind the violence of the
most shocking stories. And as I tore myself from each nightmare there was
always one image left emblazoned on my mind: my sister standing over an old man
slumped in an alleyway, a look of satisfaction on her face.

This news obsession had become my guilty secret – a
compulsion it was easy to hide from others, given the many hours of solitude I
endured each day. And now that Cara and Si and Michael had said their thank yous
and good nights, and Luke was outside locating Chester (who’d been suspiciously
quiet throughout the meal), I couldn’t resist turning on the radio.

I was listening to a report of a train derailment outside
Plymouth – a bad one, it sounded, with emergency services dispatched from all
over the county – when a voice behind made me start guiltily and drop the dish
I was rinsing into the sink.

‘Busted!’

I didn’t turn around. I carried on washing up, cursing the
colour I could feel flooding my cheeks. It wasn’t from shame, but anger. So I
was a news junkie? This was who I was now, someone who cared, someone who was
meant to care. Couldn’t he understand that?

‘Scarlett Blake…’

‘I’m just washing up,’ I said somewhat testily.

A handful of cardboard sleeves was thrust under my nose. The
printed text on the top one read:
Gourmet Meals to Deliver Ltd – Meals by
Top Chefs Delivered Straight to Your Door! – Beef Wellington with Porcini and
Chestnut Mushroom Duxelle.

Oh! I had to smile. Partly with relief – we weren’t going to
have
that
conversation tonight – but also with humour.

I looked beyond the packaging to the dancing blue eyes of my
challenger. ‘Where did you get these?’

‘Scattered across the lawn,’ said Luke.

‘That blasted dog!’

He laid the offending articles on the counter and said, ‘Where
did
you
get these?’

I sighed. Nothing to do now but ’fess up.

‘Mum,’ I said. ‘She sourced the dishes from a company –
she’s been researching caterers for her wedding planning business. UPS brought
them this afternoon in refrigerated crates. But I hid that packaging thoroughly
in the recycling bin!’

‘Ah yes,’ said Luke. ‘The bin that Chester’s upended.’

At the sound of his name Chester appeared at the door. In
his mouth he carried a drool-soaked gravy container.

‘I should’ve tied you up,’ I growled at him, jabbing a
washing-up brush threateningly in his direction.

The dog gave a little whine but then set to wagging his
tail. We both knew I’d never tether him; he was too much of a free spirit and I
was too much of a softie.

I sneaked a look at Luke. He was leaning on the counter and
looking at me with raised eyebrows.

‘I thought,’ he said seriously, ‘since you got back, we’d
agreed a total honesty policy, Scarlett.’

‘Er…’

He grinned. ‘Relax! You’d have pulled it off if it weren’t
for Chester. At least now I don’t have to worry that you’re the better chef.’

‘Ooo,’ I said, ‘competitive much?’

‘A little,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘But mainly I just like
you best as you. Culinarily challenged and all.’

‘Hey!’ I chucked a handful of bubbles in his face.

He ducked, laughing, and then pulled me in for a long, soggy
kiss.

‘Forgive me,’ he murmured in my ear, teasing my earlobe with
his lips. ‘What I meant to say was that you did an
amazing
job of
heating up dinner.’

‘Luke,’ I protested weakly, ‘I’m washing up.’

‘Leave it until tomorrow,’ he instructed, working his way
down my neck.

And with his hands now untying the apron strings at my back,
and his mouth moving across my collarbone and down to the neckline of my top,
there was nothing to do but surrender and demonstrate that in fact I really could
do an amazing job of heating things up.

A little later I gave Luke a long, lingering kiss at the
front door.

‘Love you,’ I told him.

‘Love you,’ he told me.

He touched his forehead to mine and we stood silently for a
moment, eyes closed.

‘I wish I could stay,’ he said.

I had to swallow a lump in my throat to reply: ‘Me too.’

Thumb under my chin, he gently tilted my head up. He frowned
as his eyes searched mine.

‘Something’s upsetting you.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s not nothing. It’s
him
, isn’t it? You missed
Jude tonight.’

‘I said it’s fine, Luke.’

He dropped his hand. ‘Isn’t it enough, Scarlett, just to be
with me?’

What could I say? Of course I wanted to be with him, only
him. But no, he wasn’t enough. I needed more in my life than him. I needed to
be more than Luke’s girlfriend.

‘I love you,’ I said again.

His shoulders slumped and he sighed. ‘I love you too,’ he
said. ‘I’d better head off. Let you rest.’

‘Don’t go,’ I whispered.

He smiled sadly. ‘You know I have to. You have to let me go.’

He kissed me once more, with none of the passion of moments
before, and then he walked to his van, calling for Chester. I bit my lip and
watched silently as he wrestled the dog into the van, got in himself, gave a
half-wave and then drove away from me for the second time that day. Only when
the rear lights of his van had faded into the black did I say softly the words
I’d held back: ‘And you have to let me go too, Luke.’

‘First sign of madness, you know, talking to yourself,’
commented a disembodied voice in the night.

I yelped and stepped back beneath the amber lamp that lit
the porch. My searching eyes made out a figure in the gloom, but before I could
so much as think
Ahhh! Intruder!
into focus came a figure I knew well:
tall and lithe, with cropped blond hair, stormy eyes and a rueful smile.

I relaxed: it was Jude. Then I tensed up: it was Jude!

‘Hey, Scarlett.’ He stopped in front of me, hands in his
pockets.

Admonishing the bit of me that itched to throw my arms wide
and hug him – after all these weeks, he was a sight for sore eyes – I frowned
and crossed my arms.

Jude cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Er, about this evening…’

‘This evening was meant to be about you and Luke burying the
hatchet,’ I reminded him coldly.

‘Yes, I know, but –’

‘Which you promised me – via rubbish one-line texts, I might
add – you would try to do.’

‘I know that, but...’

‘I needed you to come, Jude. I’m going insane playing human
here.’

‘Okay, but –’

‘Michael came!
He
made the effort!’

‘But he didn’t –’

‘And I made a big effort too, Jude! I spent hours this
afternoon preparing dinner!’

Jude’s eyes widened. ‘You
cooked
?’

‘Yes, I cooked!’ I snapped. ‘Well, kind of… Anyway, that’s
beside the point. It was selfish and cowardly and... and... and just plain
mean
of you to blow me off, Jude.’

‘Scarlett.’ He rubbed a hand wearily over his face. ‘Won’t
you invite me in for a cuppa? It’s been a pig of a day.’

I thought about telling him where to go, but the part of me
that was so happy to see him after all these weeks clamoured for me to lose the
attitude. So I sighed and turned and led the way down the hall. In the kitchen
the radio was still on, the news having handed over to a late-night love show,
and Ronan Keating was crooning that song from the
Notting Hill
film. I
clicked the radio off before Jude could take inspiration from the idea of
saying it best by saying nothing at all, and clicked on the kettle.

‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked, banging mugs around with
unnecessary force.

‘Better make it coffee,’ said Jude. ‘Full-caff.’

I turned to look at him then. He’d slumped at the table and
I saw, in the bright light of the kitchen, that he looked exhausted and paler
than usual. An unpleasant suspicion began forming in my mind. Had I been
totally unfair?

Quietly, I finished making the coffees, set them down on the
table and settled in the chair opposite him.

He took a sip and winced, then smiled a little. ‘I forgot
about your coffee.’

I took a sip myself. ‘Tastes fine to me.’

He raised his eyebrows and said lightly, ‘And your dinner,
did that taste fine?’

‘It did. You’d have liked it.’

I sat back and looked at him expectantly.

‘I was going to come,’ he began. ‘Honestly. Look’ – he
shrugged off his jacket to reveal a smart grey shirt in place of his usual
t-shirt – ‘I was dressed and ready.’

‘So what happened?’

He looked down into his drink. ‘There was an accident,’ he
said. ‘Many people were hurt. Killed. Several of us went, to help. It was… We
were there a long time. We did what we could. We saved some, at least.’

I stared at him in horror. I
had
been unfair! All
evening I’d been assuming the worst of him, and he’d been out there, being the
very best.

‘The train derailment,’ I whispered.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How did you…?’

‘It was on the news. I’m sorry, I never thought…’ My eyes
filled and I blinked the tears away furiously – what right had
I
to be
upset now? ‘I’m sorry, Jude,’ I repeated bleakly.

‘It’s okay. You weren’t to know.’ He took another sip of his
coffee, grimaced, and then said in a lighter tone, ‘So how did Michael get on
with everyone?’

But I was shaking my head. ‘No, Jude. Don’t change the
subject. I
should
have known.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t see how. It’s not like you were nearby
to feel the pull of those in need – or you got a phone call alerting you, like
I did.’

‘I don’t care!’ I declared passionately. ‘Don’t you see,
it’s wrong – me sitting here enjoying beef Wellington and chitchatting, and you
out there saving lives!’

‘Michael was here with you, and he’s a Cerulean. It’s not so
simple that you should always be out there helping people, Scarlett.’

‘But Michael
does
that. Not tonight, but often – most
days. It’s part of his life, part of who he is. And I’m no different to him and
you now. I should be helping too, Jude.’

He opened his mouth to speak – to protest, I thought – but I
blazed on, tapping my mug to hammer home my points.

‘Just because I turned my back on Cerulea, doesn’t mean I’m
the girl I was before all of this. You and me in Newquay, you taking me out and
explaining the light, me healing that young mum in the clothes shop – healing
her! I took away her pain, Jude! It doesn’t all just disappear because I’m back
here at the cottage, back with Luke.

‘I feel… I don’t know,
responsible
. Like I’ve a duty
to use this gift. Like to not use it is wrong. What Sienna and Daniel and the
others do, how they use the gift to take lives – that’s wrong. But in a sense,
is it any less wrong to have the gift and not use it? Isn’t that taking lives
by omission, by failing to save them? If I’d been there tonight, maybe I could
have…’

I trailed off then. My mug-tapping had reached such
passionate proportions that I’d slopped coffee all over the table.

‘Scarlett,’ said Jude seriously as I got up to fetch some
paper towels, ‘if you’d been there tonight, if you’d seen what I saw, you may
not be so keen to do what the men do. The women in Cerulea, they’re protected
from that horror.’

Images of twisted metal and mangled limbs and terrified
moaning plunged me into nausea. I scrubbed at the spillage and demanded
fiercely, ‘You think because I’m female that I should be protected from it?’

I saw his discomfort – the truth was, on some level he did
believe that, because he’d been brought up to be a gallant bloke. But he knew
enough of life off Cerulea not to confess to the outmoded belief.

‘Look,’ I said, sinking back down into the chair opposite, ‘I
get it. It’s a harrowing, exhausting, emotional business. You see stuff that no
one should see. You wouldn’t wish it on me – you care about me. But Jude, I
know my own mind. And as difficult as it might be, I have to learn to help too.
You have to show me.’

He said nothing, just regarded me with eyes that were an
unfathomable grey.

‘Remember when we left Cerulea,’ I said, ‘when you told me
you would leave with me? You said then you were doing it for me, and for
Sienna. But also because it was the right thing to do. Teaching me how to help,
Jude, that’s the right thing to do, and you know it.’

He sighed, but I thought, by the slumping of his shoulders,
perhaps I was getting somewhere.

‘Of course,’ I added slyly, ‘I could go off and do it
myself. Appear out of nowhere in the local Accident and Emergency department
and start healing people all over the place.’

Jude shot upright, eyes wide. ‘You can’t!’ he declared. ‘There
are rules, Scarlett! What if you were discovered using your power? What if you
healed someone who wasn’t meant to be healed? What if you went too far with
someone, and ended up expelling all your light – then it would be you in the
morgue!’

‘The
morgue
!’

‘Yes, the morgue! I
told
you that, the day you ODed
on time with Luke! If you stay around humans too long, or you overdo the
healing – if you let too much of your light leak out, you will
go to sleep
and you will not wake up
! Scarlett, you have to remember this stuff!’

I hid the smile tickling the corners of my mouth. ‘You’d
better teach me then,’ I said. ‘Properly. Make sure I know all the rules of
being a Cerulean among people really, really well.’

Slowly, his fists unclenched and I saw understanding dawn on
him. I had baited him. I wasn’t so stupid as to blaze off and do this alone; I
wasn’t so daft that I’d forgotten the consequences of going too far. He looked
relieved and then, begrudgingly, amused.

‘Scarlett Blake, when you want to be, you can be a highly manipulative
person.’

I batted my eyelashes at him and said, ‘Just be glad I only
use my powers for good.’

He laughed.

‘So when do we start?’

‘Monday morning. Nine a.m.’

‘Suits me.’

‘Do
not
be tired. You’ll need all your energy.’

‘Early night. Got it, capt’n.’ I saluted.

Jude rolled his eyes. ‘If this is anything like teaching you
to Travel…’

‘Hey! I got that.’

‘Eventually. Have you been doing it here?’

I shook my head. The truth was, I’d done it once since
coming home – the day after my zonk-out, as a demonstration to Luke and Cara
after I filled them in on my months away. Cara had erupted into Chester-level
excitement, and had promptly began plotting all sorts of cheeky escapades we
could get up to with my newfound ability. But Luke had been white-faced and
tight-lipped, and he’d said nothing at all. He’d simply thrown a cushion at
Cara to halt her stream of ideas and then changed the subject.

‘Er, no, I’ve not been Travelling,’ I told Jude now. ‘Really,
I’ve been nothing but a good little human.’

‘I see.’ He took a swig of coffee and then cleared his
throat and said, ‘And how are things with Luke?’

That he’d made the connection between my not Travelling and
Luke spoke volumes. With all the history between us, Jude understood. He got
me. Which was why I’d so missed his friendship in these past weeks. But now, to
talk to him about my relationship with Luke – was it disloyal?

‘I don’t mean to pry,’ said Jude when I didn’t reply. ‘I
just want to be sure you’re okay.’

I looked at him and saw the concern in his eyes. This was
Jude, who’d told me I must return to Luke, that I must fight for the person I
loved. I could talk to Jude; he was rooting for Luke and me to make it work.

‘It’s the same between us,’ I said, ‘but different. It’s
like we’re supposed to just pick up where we left off, but we can’t because I’m
not the same. I think really he wants me back as I was then. He says stuff like
“I like you best as you”. But he means the old me. Not this me.’

‘It’ll take some time to adjust, I guess,’ said Jude diplomatically.

‘I guess. It doesn’t help that I see so little of him now.
When I do see him, we’re all about having fun, making the best of the time, not
talking about serious stuff.’

‘Have you told him about me teaching you to use the light?’

I shook my head. ‘I thought perhaps if you two were here
tonight, with Michael as a buffer, he may chill out a bit about the Cerulean
stuff. I thought if we could get to a point that you and Michael talked a
little about what you do, he’d get how important it all is.’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here, if it would have helped.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll sort it out with him.’ I sighed. ‘“The
course of true love never did run smooth”, right?’

‘So they say.’

‘Not for you either,’ I added softly, hoping to turn the
conversation now to Jude – I was desperate to know how this past month had been
for him.

In seconds he was on his feet and shrugging his jacket back
on. ‘In my case, Scarlett,’ he said in a hard voice I didn’t recognise, ‘the
course of love shuddered along and then stopped. Dead.’

I winced at the word.

‘Well, in that case it can’t have been love, Jude,’ I
attempted. ‘The girl you’ll really love is still out there, ready to find.’

Leaning over, Jude gave me a brief hug and said, ‘Thanks,
Scarlett, it’s a nice thought.’ But as he faded away in a blur of blue, I could
read the truth written in his haunted eyes: he loved my sister,
loved
her, and he had lost her forever.