Thorn Jack (20 page)

“You came to see Angyll.” Anna frowned. “To talk about the beast.”

“Annie, you've
got
to stop that,” Christie said as he looked around the shop. “I don't need to meet any more rejects from
The Shining
and you're acting like one of the creepy kids.”

“I'll tell you what I know.” As she sat them down at her table and touched the ivory box of Tarot cards, Finn grimly decided a fourteen-year-old girl in a Snow White T-shirt shouldn't be saying things like, as she did now looking at Finn, “They've noticed you.”

Christie sat down at the table with Finn. His left leg began a nervous jitter. “
Who's
noticed her?”

“The serpents and the wolves. You need to be careful.” Anna lifted something from around her neck and set it on the table: a tiny, Celtic cross. “The cross symbolizes two worlds which must, always, remain separate, yet intersect. The last divinity made the pact that keeps them from having any influence in our world, unless permission is granted from us. It is an ancient pact, but it's fading.”

Finn actually pinched herself to make sure she'd heard correctly. Christie's eyes were wide. He said, “Can you tell us who they are?”

“They should never be named. But they are not nameless.”

Christie knuckled a hand through his dark red hair. “Are they ghosts?”

“That realm crosses theirs.”

Finn looked at Christie. She pictured Jack's sharp, shadowed face. “What about Jack?”

“That one”—Anna's gaze came to Finn—“that one is a jackal. Three are lost because of him.”

“What does that mean?” Christie sounded worried. “That doesn't sound like a positive thing.”

“What does that mean, Anna?”

Anna's eyes were wide. “He doesn't want to be in the dark anymore.”

Finn bit her lip and shoved shaking hands into her coat pockets. She felt sick.

“You're not going to see him anymore, are you?” Christie wrapped one hand in a sleeve cuff. “He's literally
heartless
.”

“There are a lot of Jacks.” Anna began to chant, “Jack Daw. Jack in the Green. Jack Frost. Jack the Giant Killer.”

“Jack the Ripper,” Christie murmured.

The lights flickered, and shadows branched across the ceiling. A gust of wind smashed the shop door open, and a flurry of leaves and dead insects swept in. Finn rose, her hair whipping over her face. “Anna, how do you know all of this?”

“Absalom told me.”

Christie, bewildered, said, “The orange-haired guy who sells pot?”

Outside, something laughed like a hyena and Finn's head snapped up . . . she remembered that sound from the night Christie had gotten a tooth shot into his ankle at the house called the Sphinx.

“No!” Anna rose. “By oak and ash and hawthorn too, I cast you out, into the yew!”

The wind was sucked back out. The door slammed shut, but the air stank like old ice.

When Christie raised his head, his eyes glinted silver.

Finn stepped back, shaking her head, denying it. It wasn't
Christie
gazing at her with hungry malice.

Anna pointed at him. “You are not allowed to do that! You're breaking the rules!”

“I always break the rules.” The voice that issued from Christie's lips was mocking, male, furred with malice . . . and horrifyingly recognizable.

Finn looked down at the bracelet of iron flowers Christie had given her and wondered if her heart would burst.
This can't be happening. It can't. . .

The thing inside of Christie ran fingers over Christie's face, his collarbones. “He's a bit skinny, but he's got a sweet face. And he's innocent. Shall I trot him to a place where he can be
educated
?”

A ferocious anger overwhelmed Finn, breaking the fear-chill. “Caliban.
Get out!
”

The smile on Christie's face was malevolent.

“That is not the spirit's true name.” Anna hadn't moved. “You must speak his true name to draw him out.”

“That's right, darling.” The thing inside Christie leaned toward Finn and the smile twisted. “Kiss me and I'll leave him. Promise.”

Suddenly, the shop door banged open. A female voice spoke, commanding and calm, “Caliban Ariel'Pan.
Amach!
”

The silver vanished from Christie's eyes as the cold snapped from the air. Finn caught him as he slumped to the floor.

Standing in the doorway was a woman, her dark hair pulled into a coif, her stylish white coat and heels enhancing her Italian-model look. Her expression was fierce.

“Winter widow,” Anna murmured as Finn, kneeling on the floor with Christie in her arms, stared at her history professor and whispered, “Professor Avaline?”

AS SOPHIA AVALINE, GRIMLY SILENT,
drove them from Hecate's Attic, Finn felt the chilly night had become a threat. Christie was rubbing his hands over his face.

Professor Avaline met Finn's gaze in the rearview mirror, then circled her Cadillac around and cruised down a street of mostly closed shops and shabby row houses. She stopped the car near Max's Diner. “Out.”

“What?” Christie sounded offended. “You're abandoning us
here
?”

She turned off the engine. “I'm coming with you. We need to talk.”

Finn thought it felt amazingly good to get out of a luxury car and file obediently into a bright diner that smelled like french fries and coffee. And it was interesting how Italian-model Avaline ordered things off the menu as if this were the most familiar place in the world. When the waitress left, Avaline caught Finn's eye and tucked the plastic menu back behind the ketchup and mustard. “My father is the owner.”

“You're kidding.” Christie, fiddling with a fork, dropped it.

“After what just happened,” Finn said to Christie as she retrieved the fork, “
that's
what astonishes you?”

“I'm pretending it didn't happen,” he said, then to Avaline, “Do they have hard liquor here? I think I need some.”

“That makes it worse.” Sophia Avaline looked as if she was about to give bad news. “It's best to have a clear mind when dealing with them.”

Christie winced and whispered to Finn, “She
knows
.”

“She can hear you,” Finn whispered back. She took a deep breath. She had to continue this conversation despite the quiet horror implicit in every word. “How do you know? About the Fatas? I mean, you're . . . older . . .”

Christie lightly kicked her ankle and Finn grimaced. “I mean—”

“You mean I'm not the target age of their usual prey?”

“Prey?”

“Most adults aren't aware of them. They are unable to affect—or are uninterested in—anyone past their midtwenties. But I am one of the gifted. And the ones who noticed you, Finn Sullivan and Christie Hart, are called many things . . . fallen angels, spirits, skinwalkers, djinn—”

“Fairies?” Finn spoke as the waitress arrived with their coffee and food and gave them a wary look before drifting to another table.

“I wouldn't use that term. ‘Fatas' will do.” Sophia Avaline sipped at her black coffee.

“But what,” Christie said, as he gazed queasily down at his hamburger, “are they, really? Like if you were to explain them scientifically?”

“There is no science to describe them. They are spirit things who have found a way to mimic flesh and blood.”

Finn ate a french fry and reached for her coffee with a shaking hand. “All of them?”

“All of them.” Avaline didn't seem the least fazed by this. “And because they are, to most, an unknown element, they are dangerous.”

“It isn't just you, is it?” Finn tried not to think of Jack as a ghost. “There are others at HallowHeart who are like you. Wyatt . . .”

“We found each other. We are the ones who have always known about them, when everyone else forgot.”

“But you're not all from Fair Hollow.”

“We've each had our own encounter with a Fata, in our youth. And in our youth, we met at HallowHeart. I was born here.”

She looked away and it was the first time Finn had ever seen her cool composure crack. “Professor Avaline . . . who are the others that know?”

The remote dark gaze returned to her. “It isn't my place to tell you. We remained here, we became teachers here, because of Reiko Fata and her family.”

“Let me ask you something.” Christie glanced at her sidelong. “Does Reiko know that
you
know?”

“She does. There is a tentative settlement between us and them, for now. What the one who attacked you did”—Avaline looked at Christie—“would be considered, by Reiko's tribe, to be mischief, nothing more.”

Christie's voice was tight. “Can any of them do it again?”

“Possession is a risky endeavor for them. Keep something of silver about you . . . a ring or a medallion, preferably with an image on it you feel is protective.”

“You know a lot about them.” Finn squinted at Avaline.

“Well.” Avaline's mouth thinned. “We've had to. HallowHeart isn't just a place for
students
to learn.”

“So
that's
what you're doing,” Finn whispered. “You're teaching others about the Fatas.”

“What little we know.” Avaline sighed. “Then, of course, there are students like you, who create difficulties. We will try to keep you safe.”

“So you're not some secret government organization?” Christie was peering out the window.

“Mr. Hart”—Professor Avaline frowned at him—“the two of you, and Sylvie Whitethorn, have come to the attention of malevolent creatures who manage to move unseen among us when they want to. I am advising you to end all associations with them, especially since you've been found vulnerable and were, just a few moments ago, influenced by one of the worst.”

“Why can't
you
do anything about them?”

“We're an
informal
border patrol, Christie Hart. We're not organized. They have never, as far as we know, killed humans; they merely
influence.
They are territorial, and, sometimes, psychically parasitic, but I have no proof of murder. I'm afraid if we act against them . . . we'll only instigate a confrontation that would not end well for us.”

“Can they”—Finn's voice was strained—“make someone
want
to die?”

Sophia Avaline's silence was an answer.

“Finn.” Christie laid a hand on her shoulder. He looked at Avaline. “So they can't kill us, but they can make us crazy? What about those parties?”

Avaline was watching Finn, who sat with her head down, digging at the wooden table with her short fingernails.

“Those parties, their revels, are to recruit the vulnerable, Miss Sullivan. I can't tell you what to do—I and the others . . . we need to walk a fine line.”

“You're neutral, is that what you're saying?” Christie pulled himself to his feet. “Let's go, Finn. We'll walk back; she's not on our side.”

Finn rose. Although she still had a million questions, she couldn't ask them right now . . . she was too angry . . . and she didn't think Sophia Avaline would answer them.

Avaline's voice stopped them as they started toward the door. “Serafina. There have been disappearances, nothing proven. I am
not
on their side. Now let me drive the two of you home.”

THAT NIGHT, FINN GOOGLED “FAIR
Hollow disappearances.”

There weren't many, but the four listed were disturbing enough. Each had occurred during a different time.

1925—Beatrice Amory, eighteen years old

1968—Abigail Cwyndyr, sixteen years old

1972—Thomas Luneht, seventeen years old (But he'd been found in the woods, with no explanation as to how he'd come to be there. Later, he'd killed himself.)

1997—Eve Avaline, seventeen years old

“
Avaline,
” Finn whispered. The only commonality was the young ages; the times of the disappearances formed no pattern. The girls' bodies had never been found. She gazed at the pictures of the missing on her screen. She was sure that the ghostly girl she'd glimpsed at Drake's Chapel when she'd first arrived had been blond Abigail, and Eve had given her the silver dagger at Tirnagoth.

Finn covered her face with her hands, and a shudder ran through her. Christie, only a few hours ago, had gone darkside. Professor Avaline was a witch and a member of a secret society. Jack's family was as terrifying as things from a horror movie. And a ghost girl named Eve—probably related to Professor Avaline—had given Finn a silver knife.

She wanted to crawl into her closet and lock the door.

She drew Lily's journal from where she kept it beneath her pillow. She hadn't read all of it—it was scary and amazing and it was a part of her sister she'd only just discovered. Now she scanned it, searching the stories and scribbled references and sketches for something she dreaded finding.

There was no mention of a Jack, only one scrawled sentence beneath the drawing of a girl with a snake's body:
I saw her again, the girl in red. Her skin is so white. I know she is one of them.

Reiko . . . ?

Finn knelt beside her backpack and drew out the silent film in its red casing, the film Jack hadn't wanted her to see.

She hurried down to her da's office, calling to him that she needed to use the projector. She could hear eggs frying and his voice on the phone.

As she pulled the projector out and spooled the reel, Finn felt grateful to Lily's boyfriend for showing her everything he had about photography and film. Then she turned the projector on.

The film began as it had before, in what she now recognized as the Tirnagoth lobby in black-and-white. The young man finished his turn toward the camera, his eyes inky, his dark hair sleeked back, his smile wicked. His black suit seemed to breed shadows as he beckoned.
Jack.
A pretty girl in a flapper dress appeared, a bandeau in bobbed hair that Finn imagined would be red. She was the third girl gone missing—Beatrice from 1925.