by A. D. Koboah
Had I somehow teleported somewhere else earlier on? And the man I had seen. I didn’t think he was a threat, but why did he appear in place of the brown mare?
What was happening to me and what did it all mean?
The soft whisper that had begun with the first “waking dream” was growing insistent. It was not a warning like the ones I’d had my whole life. It seemed instead as if its purpose was to draw me toward some unknown revelation, whilst the man I had seen was pulling me away from whatever that was. But I had no idea what any of it meant.
Avery entered the kitchen then, disrupting me from my thoughts. He came to an abrupt stop, his gaze on what I was wearing. He frowned. Then he caught the drift of my thoughts, most probably just vague impressions of the self-loathing that had made me drown myself in large, ill-fitting clothing. His eyes became as wide and dark as the windows separating us from the night. He paled. He stared at me intently, his eyes narrowing as if he were peering at thick fog, trying to see what lay beyond it. Before that fog could clear, I spoke.
“What, Avery?” I snapped. “Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you start anything with me now!”
Mallory entered the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking from me to Avery.
I burst into tears. Mallory came to my side and put her arm around me. She glanced at Avery in bewilderment. He merely shrugged, trying to look disinterested. He was still pale although he was no longer staring at me, his attention taken away from what he had almost glimpsed beyond the fog.
“It’s all right, Dallas,” Mallory said.
With a disapproving glance in Avery’s direction, she pulled me toward the kitchen door.
“He hates me,” I sobbed with my head in my hands as she led me out of the kitchen. “I love him but he hates me.”
I heard Avery sigh over the sound of my noisy sobs.
Mallory led me to the drawing room and we sat on the sofa. She retrieved a box of tissues and handed it to me. I took them gratefully and dabbed at my tears.
“It’s okay. I’m all right,” I was able to say after a few moments.
“You’re not okay, Dallas. What is it?” Although there was a reassuring smile on her lips, her eyes had narrowed. “Has Uncle Avery said anything to make you—?”
“No,” I said, tears springing to my eyes again. I raised my voice although I knew Avery could hear us. “He’s just mean to me. He doesn’t need to even say anything, he’s just mean!”
I heard him sigh and then felt a puckering of energy as he entered the void. I knew he hadn’t gone far from the mansion, just far enough so he didn’t have to hear my voice.
“It’s all right, Dallas,” Mallory said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I-it’s nothing, Mallory. Do you mind if I borrow some of your clothes until I can go out and buy some new ones?”
“Well, yes of course. But you always look so glamorous. It’s like living with a movie star. Why would you want to start dressing like an old lady?”
That self-loathing seized me in its clammy grasp once more. I again felt that fear mingled with horror as I stood over the corpse, certain its eyes would open and I would be assailed by that hungry gaze once more.
“It’s hard to say,” I said. “I just—”
I came to an abrupt stop.
It was as if all sound, all air had been sucked out of the room. I felt a sudden warning, but like no other I had felt before. It was like I was standing in the middle of the road whilst a truck came hurtling out of the dark toward me with only a few seconds before it hit. And then I felt it, that cruel menace forever on the periphery. It flowered like a dark, putrid mushroom as it tip-toed along the negative emotion elicited by the waking dream, using it as a doorway through which it would be able to swallow me whole.
I tried to warn Mallory. She was looking at me in consternation, no doubt wondering why I was struggling to speak. I could only utter a single word.
“Go.”
Unimaginable fear coursed through me when instead of fleeing the room she closed the space between us, concern ingrained in her features.
“Dallas? Are you okay?”
No.
That word was a moan in my mind. I searched for help, but Avery was too far away.
Shadrach.
I could feel Shadrach’s presence nearby, my sixth sense telling me he was on his way to the mansion, hoping to see me for a few moments. He was closer to the mansion than Avery, perhaps close enough to...
Shadrach, help...
Then it hit with the force of a speeding train and I was ripped out of the drawing room and thrown into inky darkness...
...I was wrenched out of the darkness and through the air. I hit something solid and pain bit deep. Shattering, eviscerating pain as if I were being torn in half. This pain had nothing to do with my physical body, but was a psychic pain that made me feel as if all strength had bled from my limbs. I sank to the ground and moaned, unable to think, speak or even register where I was and what had just happened. I expected to feel carpet against my fingers, but soft, moist grass was what I lay against. I opened my eyes.
Avery stood over me, silhouetted against a half-moon. For a split second, the sight of him brought comfort amidst the confusion until I saw his expression and the way his eyes and face had hardened with rage.
Fear shot through me and for a brief moment everything around me changed. I not only saw rain and emerald fields before me, I was soaked through to the skin. Avery stood before me, dressed in a brown three piece suit, a sword held aloft in his hands, its long sleek blade turned alabaster in the moonlight. His fangs were bared, his face a knot of rage and hatred.
A scream almost escaped me, but then it was gone and I was on the grounds of the mansion by the garages, warm and dry once more. Avery was still standing over me dressed in jeans, his hands empty. He shot forward and grasped me by the shoulders. I froze, shock and fear, but most of all the pitiful pinch of a bruised ego, making me cry out. I tried to bury myself into the garage wall I had fallen against, but there was nowhere for me to go.
“Avery,” I gasped.
For a moment I didn’t think he would respond, but he hesitated.
“What are you doing, Avery?”
The hands on my shoulders loosened and the rage I could see began to subside.
“Dallas?”
For some reason the confusion in his voice was worse than the blistering rage I had witnessed only moments ago. He seemed utterly powerless for a few moments.
“What are you doing? Let me go, please.”
He straightened and then took a step back, but something in his stance was still alert. Then I became angry and tears sprung to my eyes.
“What the fuck did you do that for? What the hell...?”
The words trailed away. I could hear Mallory calling Avery from the drawing room, her voice sounding small and shaky.
“Avery, don’t hurt her. Avery, you don’t understand...”
I didn’t need to hear any more, it all came back to me. I felt total and paralysing horror and my stomach clenched painfully.
“Mallory. Oh my God. Mallory!”
I rose to my feet, a long wail escaping from my throat. I tried to run toward the mansion, but Avery caught hold of me and wouldn’t let me go.
“What did I do? Mallory! Oh my God! Mallory!”
***
The drawing room.
Shadrach. Help...
Fear prickled along my skin as instead of trying to get away, Mallory placed a hand on my shoulder, her brow creased in concern.
I had only one hope left. I didn’t know if Shadrach had been close enough to hear me, but he would not be able to get inside the mansion without being invited in. I had only been at the mansion a few days. I didn’t know if my invitation would allow him to enter.
I spoke into Mallory’s mind.
Invite him inside. Invite him into the mansion.
She jumped, clearly shaken an
d confused.
“Who? What are you talking about, Dallas? Who should I invite inside?”
It was as if I were a prisoner within my own body watching it operate of its own free will from a long way away. I reached for Mallory’s wrist and pulled it away from my shoulder. She let out a sharp gasp and my heart clenched in misery even as I squeezed her wrist, hearing small cracking sounds. Gasp was all she could do for I had seized hold of her mind, preventing her from uttering a word. She could only stare at me, her eyes wide with shock as tears of pain sprung to them. Her mouth hung open and her bottom lip trembled.
Dallas, Dallas, her thoughts beseeched me.
I released her wrist and for a moment her eyes brightened with relief. I grabbed her neck and dug my nails into the delicate flesh. Her face twisted with pain and a tear fell onto her cheek. I smiled and increased the pressure, breaking the skin.
“I have wanted you dead for decades,” I said, my voice sounding slightly higher, almost childlike. “You who gave him a reason to live. I have you now. Although I want you to die slowly and painfully, only a broken neck will wreak the kind of pain I want him to feel.”
At those words anger burned a molten trail through me and I seethed, not only at the words, but at the fear mingling with the tears that were shining out of Mallory’s eyes.
I brought my other hand toward her head, meaning to take hold of her hair and snap her head from her neck. At that moment the memory of my Aunt’s funeral came to me along with that aching helplessness I had felt at her death. My anger burned brighter until I was sure it would consume me from the inside out.
I was not going to let anything use me to hurt Mallory.
My hand froze inches from her as I fought against whatever was controlling me and had forced me to say those words. Mallory looked to the hand that hovered near her head, watching the tension in it as it struggled to move toward her.
Hope filled her eyes as yet more tears slid from them and onto her cheek. Then she seemed to remember the words I had spoken into her mind, and although she did not know who I was referring to, or if it could even save her, she heeded them.
Come inside.
From then on she continued to repeat my name, as if it were a prayer that would deliver her from the evil that had control over me.
I had managed to seize a vestige of control over the hand that sought to snap Mallory’s neck so perhaps I could gain further control. I searched frantically around the room until my gaze fell on two swords hanging above the fireplace to my left. The blades were engraved with silver. The mere sight of the swords made a queer, shrinking desolation tighten my stomach, but my anger, along with the sight of my renegade hand inching closer to Mallory’s head, made me throw my telekinetic energy toward one of the swords.
The sword was snatched away from the wall and came to hover in the middle of the room directly before me and Mallory. At the sight of the sword hovering mere yards from us, her face grew ashen and her eyes became unfocussed. I feared she was about to pass out. Although I continued to battle whatever had a hold of me, I could not make the sword slice through the air and into my heart.
My head snapped to the left when I felt a puckering of energy. My attention was torn away from the sword and it fell to the floor.
Shadrach materialised in the room.
For a seasoned killer like Shadrach, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the scene that met his eyes. His lips were curled in a sardonic smile and it appeared he was about to speak when his gaze fell on Mallory’s tear streaked face, her mouth quivering with the effort to speak although she couldn’t utter a word. Shadrach’s smile grew smaller and when he tore his gaze away from Mallory and to me, it fled altogether.
I don’t know what he saw as he peered at me, but it made his eyes grow shadowy with fear.
He took a step back, and perhaps he meant to flee, but his gaze was once more drawn to Mallory. It seemed he couldn’t look away and I saw something flicker within those dark windows.
He vanished.
He re-appeared moments later inches from me, reaching for the hand around Mallory’s neck. Before he could touch me, I released Mallory and hit him, my movements as fast as light flashing across molten silver. He went hurtling across the room as Mallory sank to the ground, her hands to her neck. Shadrach vanished before he could smash into the wall. A moment later he was by Mallory’s side, his arms around her. The air around them wavered. I wrenched him away from her before they could disappear. I punched him in the chest, feeling his chest bones cave in. He sank to the ground and a low moan escaped him. I reached for him.
“Shadrach!”
I turned toward the sound and found Maryse standing a few yards away from me, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at Shadrach. She tore her gaze away from him and to me. The air around her wavered as she backed away.
I went to lunge at her when strong arms encircled me from behind, locking me in an iron hold. The room wavered and vanished. Moments later I found myself wrenched out of the void and into ghostly moonlight. I tore myself out of the iron hold, crashing into the garage wall.
***
Held tight in Avery’s arms, I screamed and screamed out Mallory’s name, my distress increasing as she cried out for me and begged Avery not to hurt me. He wouldn’t let me see her, or even tell me how badly hurt she was. His face ashen, he drew us into the void.
His room swirled into view around us moments later.
He released me.
“Stay here,” he said, his eyes wide, that helplessness I had seen before leaping out at me.
He disappeared, leaving me on my knees in his room, crying.
Long hours passed before he returned. I had been curled up on his bed, crying softly.
I sat up.
“Is she—?”
“She’s all right.” He was pale and his hand shook as he ran it through his hair. “The cuts to her neck—her wrist. It’s all healed now.”
He paused and looked away, and for a moment I thought he was about to give into the emotions thrilling through him. He managed to compose himself.
“So is he. Your friend. You could have easily killed him, too. Especially since he is still weak from turning you into a vampire.”
I remembered my invulnerable nails, as hard as diamonds, digging into the soft flesh of Mallory’s neck, small amounts of blood oozing, her face creasing in pain. And of Shadrach on his knees whilst I reached for him, my hands grasping for his misshapen chest, blood darkening his T-shirt.
“Oh God!” I moaned.
Tears overwhelmed me again and I let out a loud, wrenching sob. Avery stood as silent as a statue as I wept; his face blank as if he were somewhere else entirely. Noises from within the mansion pulled him out of his thoughts. He turned toward the door, that lost look still in his eyes.
It was Mallory, the sound of her heels tripping swiftly down the corridor toward Avery’s room.
I expected Avery to try and stop her from entering, but he just stood there. Moments later the door was wrenched open and Mallory entered with Shadrach close behind her. She had changed into a long sleeved, camel-coloured dress and high heeled pumps.
Maryse appeared at the bedroom door moments later. She stood there and fidgeted. When she glanced up and saw me staring at her, she ducked out of sight and down the corridor. Moments later I heard her moving around in the field of flowers outside the mansion.
Mallory immediately moved to me and placed her arms around me. She hugged me tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Mallory. I fought so hard, but—”
“Shh, Dallas. You would never hurt me.” She pulled away to wipe the tears that were streaming down my face and smoothed back my hair. “Uncle Avery wants me to stay with Shadrach and Maryse for a day or two, but I want you to know I’m fine and I know you’d never hurt me.”
She rose, her gaze on Avery. A silent look passed between them.
She placed a hand against his arm briefly before she kissed me on the head
.
I moved to Shadrach and threw my arms around him. When I pulled away, he merely smiled and placed his hand against my cheek.
“Shadrach,” Avery said. “I didn’t get to...” His voice trailed away and he was suddenly lost for words.
Shadrach waved away his words, seeming embarrassed by them. His gaze returned to Mallory, his eyes softening, the expression on his face suggesting a glimpse of something he thought had been lost.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Mallory said.
She hugged me once more before she left the room with Shadrach.
Avery stood by the window for a while, still in a daze. Then without warning, he turned and left. I was alone again, my thoughts churning with what had taken place in the drawing room. I lay down on his bed and cried.
I didn’t expect Avery to return to his room. I was sure he hated me even more now after what I had done, but he returned just before dawn.
“Avery, I know you won’t want me at the mansion after what I did. But I didn’t mean to hurt Mallory. I...I can’t even explain it, but I wasn’t—”
“I’m not going to send you away, Dallas. Especially not now.”
I expected him to say more, demand an explanation for what had happened in the drawing room, an explanation I wouldn’t have been able to give. All I remembered clearly was the sense I was watching myself from afar, my body filled with a cold malice. Instead he said nothing at all about it, but sat on the bed, that shell-shocked look still on his features.
I sniffed and wiped away my tears, so miserable I wanted to sleep and never wake up.
“Avery. I—?”
“Go to sleep, Dallas. Please.”
He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. He appeared to be fast asleep moments later.
Twenty-four hours ago I would have seen this as the perfect opportunity to seduce him, but now I was just thankful I didn’t have to be on my own after what had happened. I lay there for a while and stared at him. Then, doing my best not to wake him, I inched closer and lay my head against his shoulder, my hand on his chest. I was surprised to feel him move, his hand coming up to grasp mine. For a second I caught the drift of his thoughts, a scorching snarl of emotion that had wound itself tightly to him. It wasn’t something he meant for me to see, but more what my intuition grasped from him.