Thorn Jack (34 page)

As Caliban strolled to BrambleBerry Books, he grinned at the welcome sign over the door. He stepped in, freezing the annoying bells every shop in Fair Hollow seemed to have over the door.

When Finn Sullivan saw him, she dropped the book she'd been reading and watched, wide-eyed, as he moved idly to a shelf of books and placed one finger on the spine of a book titled
Sacred Lovemaking.

She said, “Get out.”

He admired her courage, shaky as it was, and looked at her, aware of the effect of the fluorescents on his white skin and silver eyes. “Make me.”

She wore a black T-shirt, a tartan skirt with black tights and clunky shoes—she wouldn't be able to run fast in those. She had bracelets, one of silver and one of iron—his nostrils flared at the poisonous reek of both metals. A draft stirred the tawny hair that tumbled around her Renaissance-prince face. Dark-rimmed eyes and a sweet mouth . . . he could see what Jack found enticing. He imagined her in nothing but her tawny skin and a necklace of pearls and let his thoughts show in his eyes.

She bolted for the door.

He reached it before her. She struck out, the iron bracelet searing across his face. He yowled in pain and recoiled. Finn dashed back through the shop.

The door chime rang. As the pretty crow girl stepped in, Caliban grabbed her by one of her braids.

“Sylvie Whitethorn,” he whispered. She had a tiny silver skull piercing one earlobe. He kept his lips away from it. The burn across his nose made him clench his teeth. “Let's talk.”

Something slammed into him, crashing him against the door. He snarled and turned on the fox poet, who backed away as Caliban stalked toward him. “
Christie.
Let's see what your insides look like.”

As both girls fled onto a street scattered with witnesses, the Christie boy followed.

Caliban laughed as he sank to a crouch and touched the wound across his face.

AS SYLVIE TAPPED 911 ON
her cell, Christie sat with Finn on the bench a block away from the shop. Finn, thrumming with antagonism and fear, pushed her hands through her hair as she hunched over. Christie said wryly, “Bad night?”

She looked up at him through a tangle of hair. “You have no idea.”

“Who
was
that psycho?”

They still hadn't remembered because of Reiko's spell. Finn took a deep breath and spent the next fifteen minutes telling her friends about her recovered memories and recent escapades. It was as if a light went on inside of each of them, as if her words had triggered
their
memories—they looked stunned, scared, and, then, horrified.

After Finn finished, Sylvie sat quietly. She was pale, her braids almost unraveled. Finally she said, “I remember now. Damn it.”

“The Fatas. How could we . . . ?” Christie, looking uncertain and confused, was trying to make sense of what Finn had just told them; he clenched his hands as the police cars pulled up to the book shop. “I just slammed into Caliban-the-psycho a second time. Should I go for a third? I've always wondered what my spine looks like and I'm sure he'll show it to me. What if the cops can't see him?”

“Oh, they won't.”

THE POLICE HADN'T CAUGHT CALIBAN—HOW
could they? And Mrs. Browning had closed the bookstore for the night.

When Finn returned home, she found a note from her father—he had gone to poker night with Sylvie's dad. She was alone in the big, old house.

She locked all the doors and windows, checked them a second time, then sprinkled the sills with sea salt. She went to her bathroom, closed the door, and sank against the antique tub, her face in her hands. Curled in the dark, she thought of Angyll and Anna, of Mary Booke and Nathan. And of her sister, who hadn't been able to tell anyone about the things she knew, and so had been all alone.

She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't let Jack's world devour her. And, as she finally realized she couldn't save him without sacrificing everything else she loved, the darkness collapsed over her.

She knew what she had to do.

ARMED WITH IRON JEWELRY AND
silver, with mistletoe and vervain in their hair, Finn, Christie, and Sylvie walked through the rainy woods on a mission. Christie, as usual when dealing with Fata things, was grouchy. “Why, Finn, did you tell the prince of darkness you'd meet him at Drake's Chapel?”

“I didn't tell him. I had to call a friend of his—the guy who owns the arcade . . . Jack doesn't have a phone.”

Christie muttered something about dead people not needing phones because they could just possess people and tell them stuff. She ignored him.

“Christie. Quiet. Finn needs us.”

“Yeah. Well . . . I do not approve of this. Why did you say I'd like this?”

“Trust me,” Finn told him. She hadn't told them everything; she hadn't mentioned the Black Scissors or the bone key or Reiko's heart. They didn't need to know the sordid stuff.

They continued forging through the trees until Drake's Chapel appeared in the moonlight. Inside, dozens of candles flickered on the altar, illuminating glittering graffiti on the wall:
The Children of Dragons have red hair.

Jack was seated on the altar steps. Behind him, the altar was now cluttered with small tombstone statues, old wine bottles, ornaments, broken clocks, and figures made of twigs. Finn, wondering who was leaving such items in a chapel supposedly built by Queen Elizabeth's dragonish buccaneer, Francis Drake, moved forward. “Hey.”

“Murray gave me your message.” Jack looked at Christie and Sylvie. “They smell like they're afraid.”

“Maybe if you didn't say things like ‘They smell like they're afraid,' they wouldn't be. And we were attacked by Caliban tonight.”

Jack cursed, and Christie and Sylvie drew back. Finn moved to the altar to crouch beside him. She couldn't let anyone guess what she was doing. “Jack—”

He said, his head bowed, “Nathan tried to kill himself.”

She whispered, “
No.
”

“He's fine. I've got him stashed somewhere. He argued with me, got hysterical, and I had to shut him up—I think there was a kiss in there somewhere—”

“Stop trying to distract me. It doesn't work.” She was aware of Christie and Sylvie taking positions nearby. “Is he okay?”

“He's no longer a candidate for All Hallows' Eve.”

Sylvie gazed warily at Finn. “What is he talking about?”

“They were going to sacrifice Nathan on Halloween . . . right?” Christie guessed. “So, what are they going to do now, your
family,
to pay the devil?”

“They've got alternatives—and it's not the devil they pay.”

“And what are the alternatives, Jack?” Finn watched him.

“Ghost man,” Sylvie's face, shadowed by two braids, resembled a spooky doll's as she leaned forward, “if something happens to Finn because you've dragged her into this, I'll—”

“You'll what, pretty girl?”

“I'll stomp you.”

Jack's smile was dazzling, and Finn heard Sylvie's breath catch. Then he turned his attention to Christie. “And you, fox boy? What'll you do?”

Christie's voice was ragged. “I'll see you buried if anything happens to Finn or Sylvie.”

“Don't make threats you can't carry out.”

“Finn.” Christie turned to her, his eyes wide. “He's not a real person. He's a horror movie.”

Jack straightened. “Let's set aside our delicate feelings and remember who knows what will keep all of you alive. Now, listen, children—”

“Remember, there are two of us here who don't trust you,” Christie reminded him.

“Look at them, Finn.” Jack's eyes silvered. “A witch and a knight, untrained. These are your allies. And she,
she
has an entire
tribe
of carnivores and ghouls.”

“Tell me what's going to happen on Halloween, Jack.”

“They are going to choose another willing victim.”

“They can't use Nathan. How will they find someone willing to die for them?”

“Shakespeare's plays are based on the Fatas' histories. He was a favorite of theirs—
Titus Andronicus, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream
. . . all of their wars and tragedies, played out before a mortal audience. They are ancient, Finn. Don't you think they planned for this potential setback? They'll find another. The one hundred years of coddling isn't always required; that's just a bribe. They only need someone willing.”

“He's trying to scare us,” Sylvie murmured as the candlelight cast crooked shadows across the walls.

“I can't scare you”—Jack gazed at Finn, his eyes dark—“can I? Fearless girl.”

She had never understood why the word
fearless
was used with fairy-tale heroes. There was always fear, especially when one was being systematically terrorized. But she
did
understand how that fear could become an insane form of anger, so she leaned close to whisper, “If I prick you, will you bleed?”

“Yes.” And he looked at her as if he had lost everything.

“None of them will ever be safe, will they?” The Black Scissors' serpent key, his finger bone, hung on a silver chain between her collarbones, burning against her skin. “Not my friends. Not Anna Weaver. Not my da.
She'll
find a way to wreck them.”

“Yes.”

Her fingers unsteady, Finn unhooked the thin chains holding the Renaissance prince's locket and the moth key from around her neck. She pushed them into his hands and felt cold as she let them go. “I can't do this. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

He stared at her with such naked despair, she almost broke. Then his lashes flickered down, his eyes became silver, and, softly, he said, “What a shame.”

Sylvie whispered, “
Finn,
” and Christie stared at her as if she'd lost her mind.

She continued, backing away, “Don't come to me anymore. I should have forgotten you, because this isn't a fairy tale. People can really get hurt. People have been
killed
.”

His face was white, as if all the blood had drained from him. “Go, then.”

“Sylv, Christie . . . can you leave us for a second?” She knew that she sounded bad, but they did as she asked, stepping out of the chapel. When they had gone, she turned back to Jack, who remained as still as a corpse. It hurt to see him like that, as if he were dying before her eyes. She wanted him to be free. She wanted him to live without the desperation and anguish revealed in the way he hunched his shoulders, lowered his eyelashes, rubbed at his chest where there was either a heart or a hollow. She wanted him to smile without shadows and feel sunlight again. She leaned down to him and whispered fiercely, “If you want me to be safe, find her heart and bring it to me.”

Jack looked at her as if she'd stabbed him. His voice scraped out, “Finn . . .”

She backed away, toward the exit. She turned and ran.

JACK DIDN'T REMEMBER LEAVING DRAKE'S
Chapel, because the tawny warmth of Finn's gaze deserting him was all he could think of. She'd made a choice, the only choice that would save her. Already, he felt the heart shrinking inside of him, the blood fading.

As he moved swiftly through the woods, he smiled despite the anguish twisting through him like barbed wire. When he was no longer flesh and blood, Finn would have robbed the Fatas of their Teind.

When he slid over the sill into Reiko's Tirnagoth apartment, she was waiting for him. He collapsed then, arms over his head, because this was all that he had now, this terrible slavery.

“What has she done?” Reiko walked toward him, her voice urgent. “
Jack?
”

He lifted his head. “She's gotten her common sense back. She told me to go away. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Reiko knelt beside him, her black gown slithering, her dark perfume like poison.

He looked at her and whispered, “If you want me to die for you, I need proof that she'll be safe from you. I need your heart.”

Reiko's eyes narrowed and menace breathed from her, harmful as a snake's venom. She smiled charmingly. “And how did she learn about my heart? My little vulnerability?”

“I told her.”

“Of course you did.” She bared her teeth. “I need you to be flesh and blood—already it's fading from you. You need this girl's love. She needs yours.” She rose and left the room for a moment.

When she returned to kneel beside him, she folded his hands over a glass box etched with symbols. He stared at it and saw within it a fist of glossy red stone shaped like an anatomical heart. His hands tightened on the glass.

She smiled. “The heart that grew inside of me—a
sidhe
heart. You'll never be able to open that box or break it or do me harm. She may keep it and believe I can be defeated. You'll remain mortal and die for us, while the girl you love will be safe from us forever. And you do love her, don't you, Jack?”

“How do I know you won't take this back from her once I'm gone?”

“Jack.” She folded herself around him. “I've nothing to fear from her once the Teind is done. You'll willingly die for us, won't you? For her?”

He felt breath and blood returning and didn't know whether it was despair or relief that shook him.

JACK WAS SITTING AT REIKO'S
feet when David Ryder arrived with Caliban Ariel'Pan and a pretty Jill who didn't look frightened. A savage Victorian figure in brown velvet, with spurs on his boots and one jeweled hand gripping a stag-headed swagger-stick, the
Damh Ridire
sat in a carved chair and ignored Jack, who removed one of his knives and began trimming his nails.

Ryder said, “Are we having difficulties, Reiko?”