Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(12)

“I saved your lives, you fool!” he snarled. “Father was dying anyway! Don’t you see that? The master serum made him sick. He was trying to keep Lord Vesper from taking our secrets. He died to give you time to escape. And now you stand here arguing with me when you should be running! You aren’t even smart enough to save!”

Thomas charged, but this time Luke was ready. His little brother seemed to move in slow motion. Luke could not match his strength, but he used Thomas’s momentum against him. He raised his feet, planted them on Thomas’s chest, and rolled backward, sending Thomas flying over him and crashing into the dining table.

“Stop it!” Mother screamed.

Jane started crying. Katherine covered her ears and stared at her brothers in shock.

Thomas was crumpled against the table. Luke stalked over, turned him on his back, and placed his elbow against his brother’s throat.

“I am done with you!” Luke bellowed.

All his rage boiled to the surface: the teasing he’d endured from the villagers for years, the jeering from his fellow students at Oxford, the suspicious looks from his own family. No one ever trusted him. He’d always been the odd man out, the strange, quiet child with the shifty eyes. Now he’d tried to do the right thing. He’d obeyed his father, spoken from his heart, and tried to save his miserable family. And they blamed him for the disaster!

Thomas’s eyes bulged. He choked, grasping weakly for Luke’s face, but Luke was too slippery for him to grab.

That’s right, Luke thought. You call me a snake? I’ll prove I’m just as dangerous!

“Stop it!” Jane shrieked. Luke realized she was pummeling him with her tiny fists. “Stop it, Luke!”

Stunned, he released Thomas and stepped away. Katherine rushed to his aid. Their mother simply stared in horror.

For a long while, no one spoke. There was no sound except the roar of the fire. Luke stared at his hands, suddenly overcome with shame and self-loathing. He had almost killed his brother. Was this because of the serum, or had this evil been inside him all along?

He looked at his family’s terrified expressions, and he realized something more important than the house had been destroyed tonight. Their trust, their love — whatever mutual bond had held them together around this dinner table for so many years — had died along with their father.

The flowers blackened, the vegetable garden smoldered, and their family home collapsed in a roar of white heat.

“It was Vesper,” Luke said stubbornly, though he knew it wouldn’t matter.

Thomas rubbed his throat. His eyes still looked too large for their sockets. He said nothing, but Luke read his expression perfectly: Your fault. All your fault.

This time, Luke controlled himself. The serum was working its way through his body, slowly enhancing his senses, his understanding. He could see five or six moves ahead, as if the world had become a chess game. He knew anger wouldn’t serve him now. He might as well argue with the flames as argue with Thomas. He needed to withdraw, find a safe haven, study his father’s research. He could not stay here. And he certainly couldn’t trust Thomas or Katherine.

“I tried to save you all,” he said. “I tried to obey Father’s orders. None of you would listen. So I’m going.”

“Going?” Jane looked on the verge of tears again. Luke’s resolve weakened. He couldn’t stand to see his sister in pain, but he also couldn’t travel the world with a ten-year-old girl in tow.

“Perhaps we’ll see each other again, Jane,” he said half-heartedly. “Mother will look after you….”

His voice trailed off. One look at Mother’s face told him she was in no condition to tend to anyone, even herself. Luke had seen that look too often on plague survivors throughout Ireland and England. He had seen the hollow-eyed women who had lost their entire families, their entire villages. Olivia Cahill might as well be a ghost herself.

He met Thomas’s and Katherine’s eyes one last time, and they silently agreed on one thing: their mutual hatred.

“Good-bye, then,” Luke said. He turned and walked into the darkness.

He heard Jane crying, calling his name. He waited for the others to call him back, to realize their mistake and beg him to stay. But they never did.

Olivia grieved alone.

In the morning light, the ruins of the house looked like a black and shattered eggshell. Smoke still burned in her lungs, but her eyes were so painfully dry she could not cry.

She had wrapped Gideon in a singed linen sheet, his head cradled in her lap. She stroked his hair, willing him to open his eyes, but of course he did not. By the time she had found him, he had breathed his last. The flames had not killed him, but the heat and smoke had. Two other men had died in the fire. They had been badly burned, but Olivia recognized them as Vesper’s guards — Balthazar and Craven. This had given her a steely anger to counter her grief and enough strength to move their bodies. Ironically, they had fallen across Gideon — perhaps trying to tackle him to prevent him from escaping. They had shielded Gideon’s body from the worst of the flames. He looked remarkably peaceful. His hair was so sooty and scorched that he appeared young again — all the gray burned away.

Her fingers trembled as she caressed his brow. She wanted to shout at the sky. She wanted to curse Gideon for leaving her. But she couldn’t blame him, even now. She had known when she married him: His heart was too big to be constrained. He cared for her deeply, but he cared for all humanity, too. He could never give up his mission to improve the lot of the poor and sick, to defeat the plague once and for all. He would do anything to save others. He had died — the stubborn, infuriating, gentle man — because he believed it was the only way to save his work and his family.