Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3)

by A. D. Koboah

  In that moment, with fear searing my mind, an odd hush fell on everything around us. The low beat of music from the club, the sound of cars in the distance, the lullaby of the sleeping city—it all became muted. It seemed as though I was in tune with everything around me, the ground beneath our feet, the night which hung soft and tender around us, even the air seemed thicker and I imagined if I reached out a hand the motion would cause ripples in the air. I was so in tune with everything around me it felt as if I could press my will upon the world and it would heed me.

  As I watched, wishing we could move into the void and out of the car park before Auria reached us, the shimmering air around Auria and her disintegrating form slowed to a stop, as did Avery by my side. In those few extraordinary moments of utter stillness, I didn’t question what was happening or even try to understand it. I reached for Avery, moving much faster than was possible even for a vampire, and pulled him to me. We vanished into the void.

  Chapter 15

  I fled, holding tight to Avery, darting in and out of shimmering fissures. Each time I dipped out of the void, the world bled into being around us in blunt slashes of indigo sky, harsh angles of skyscrapers changing to open fields and then woodland as we left the built up city areas and into rural Georgia. As we fled I felt her close behind us, a dark power with nothing but rage at its heart. Despite how old and fast she was, I was sure I could outrun her. I just couldn’t remember how. I also could not understand how it was she could follow us until I realised that before the odd moment when time appeared to halt, my thoughts had been laid out for her to see. She had known where I intended to go to, being close enough each time we materialised to scan my thoughts and see where I would leap to next. We were in Louisiana by the time I realised this. I immediately shielded my thoughts, but fear as potent as venom continued to thrill through me for she had no doubt seen the mansion in my mind and Mallory was there, most probably on her own.

  My heart clenched as I moved out of the void once again. We were almost at the mansion. Before the indigo sky and charcoal trees could fully gather into view, I was knocked out of the void with a violence that set my teeth on edge. Avery was torn out of my grasp. I was thrown through the air and against something solid with a loud crack. I sank to the ground and opened my eyes to see I was in woodland near the grounds of the mansion, wisps of moonlight letting in shards of bluish light through the trees.

  Auria stood before me. She advanced only to come to a halt. Feverish fear flooded her eyes, her mouth opening in a silent gasp. Her attention was torn away from me by something behind her. She spun around, her movements a blur, and ducked as Avery brought his sword down on her. She struck him.

  Avery was sent hurtling to the ground. He was on his feet again in less than a second.

  In a quicksilver move, Auria knocked the sword out of his hand. She threw him against a tree and pinned him there.

  I shook myself out of my daze and let the void surround me, materialising on my feet behind Auria. I launched myself at her, my arms around her neck. I dragged her away from Avery. Her hand, with nails as sharp as knives, dug into my head. White-hot pain flared across my skull. I screamed. She grabbed a handful of my hair and threw me over her shoulder. I landed with a sickening crack on my back. Pain broke over me in shattering waves. Avery made a move toward Auria, but the force of her telekinetic power knocked him off of his feet to fly through the trees and out of sight.

  I lay stunned on the ground, pain breaking over me; and for a brief moment the bluish light of the moon disappeared and I was in a grove surrounded by a tight cluster of trees bathed in the peach light of dawn, strips of fire streaking across my back.

  I blinked and the moonlit woodland reappeared.

  Auria was standing over me with Avery’s sword in her hand. I made to move, but was slammed back onto the ground by a hot telekinetic blast. I was pinned there, unable to move. She brought the sword down, aiming for my heart.

  The queer feeling I’d experienced in the car park overcame me again and everything seemed to still as I watched the sword come down toward my chest. Again it felt as if I was in tune with everything and all I had to do was press my will on this moment, and make time cease for long enough to fight my way out of Auria’s telekinetic hold.

  My attention was snapped away from the sword, and the feeling fled from me when Avery materialised by my side, his hands clasped around the blade of the sword as Auria brought it down. He cried out as it sliced through the flesh of his palms, but I doubt he felt the pain, his face twisted with fear. He pulled on the blade, drawing it away from my heart so it sliced through my chest beneath my left breast.

  Pain flared and my vision swam before my eyes as Auria drove the sword down into the ground almost to the hilt. She knocked Avery away. He fell onto his back.

  She was upon him moments later, pinning him to the ground. I gasped in pain, tears springing to my eyes.

  “What is she?” she said, staring at me with that fear still flooding her eyes.

  She turned to Avery again. His gaze was fixed on mine and full of abject misery.

  “No matter,” Auria continued. “Whatever she is, she will soon be dead, taking her secrets with her. As for you, I have searched for you for a long time to repay you in kind for the pain you caused me.”

  Avery forced his gaze away from me and to Auria.

  “Auria. It doesn’t have to be like this. I’ve been searching for you, too. I...I need your help. I need you.”

  She was silent and just stared at him, the hatred momentarily gone from her eyes and I could see that despite her anger, she was stirred by his words. He reached out a blood covered hand and brought it to her face whilst his other hand inched toward the dagger at his hip. Before he could reach it, she grabbed that arm, and with a quick, spiteful twist, snapped his wrist.

  He cried out and his face flamed with pain. She removed the dagger from his hip.

  Still pinning him down by the neck with one hand, she brought the dagger to hover above his face, an icy smile on her lips, her eyes gleaming with a black light.

  “Who would have guessed you could be so devious? Even after what you did to me and the pain you caused, I still find myself enchanted by this face of yours.”

  She brought the tip of the dagger to his cheek and pressed against it, drawing a glistening trail of blood.

  “How I wish I could scar that face permanently.” She smiled. “Let us see if it is possible for a vampire to grow back a new face once it has been cut from his skull.”

  “No!” I screamed.

  She brought the dagger to the top of his head.

  Anger coursed through me. I could feel the Other, always at the edge of my consciousness, looking for a way in. As I lay there I realised why I did not get a warning before Auria appeared. Despite the fact that she was so old and strong, she was no match for me. I knew this instinctively. I could defeat her, just as I could have easily outrun her. I just couldn’t remember how. But the Other I could feel clambering for a way in could focus the powers I had not learned to use yet and kill Auria.

  I let it take over and it surged in like a soulless black wave. I was shunted to the background where I could only watch.

  Auria came to a complete stop, frozen in time, her features locked in a gleeful snarl, the dagger still held to Avery’s head. Avery gasped and just stared at the sight before him for a few seconds. Then he knocked the dagger out of her hand and scuttled out from under her. Still on his back, he continued to scuttle away from her until he backed into a tree. Then he sat up, turning his gaze to me. His eyes widened and all the colour drained from his face when he stared into my eyes and no doubt saw something else peering back at him.

  I used my telekinetic power to extract the sword from my chest. I let it hover above me for a few moments before I flung it away. I sat up, my hand against the wound in my chest, blood seeping through my fingers.

  I released Auria and she shuddered into motion. She reared back in shock when
she saw Avery was no longer beneath her. She turned her gaze to me and once more fear flooded her eyes. The air around her wavered. I snared her telekinetically and she was torn out of the void before she could fully disappear.

  She just stared at me, trembling, her face frozen in terror. I lifted her into the air with my telekinetic power. She began to scream.

  I laughed.

  Avery was before me. He held my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him.

  “Dallas! I know you can hear me. You can’t kill Auria, we need her. Fight it!”

  The Other’s rage flared. It had waited for so long to kill Avery. It saw its chance and lashed out in a spike of telekinetic energy.

  Avery was thrown from me, but I battled against the Other and brought him to a stop in mid-air. I lowered him to the ground against a tree and kept him pinned there, his eyes wide in his pale face as he stared at me. I turned my gaze to Auria whose screams still rang out in the moonlit woodlands.

  “You served me so faithfully over the centuries,” I said, my voice unnaturally high as before. “But you failed me. At the last moment, you failed me. I won’t let it go unpunished.”

  Auria’s screams were cut off when I clawed at her with my mind, tearing her throat out. Blood poured from the wound as the flesh plopped to the ground beneath her. I bit at her cheek with my telekinetic power and the flesh was ripped from it in bloody ribbons. I wrenched one of her fingers from her hand next, all while she was still alive, her face a mask of unadulterated pain and terror. I held her mutilated body in the air, continuing to tear chunks out of her long after she was dead.

  “Dallas, Dallas!”

  It was Avery shouting my name, and he had been for a while. I continued to tear chunks from the corpse although all there now was to Auria was half a skull, thin tendons of flesh keeping her head to her neck. Nearly her entire torso had been ripped out, fragments of it littering the woodland floor. The air was now heavy with the scent of blood.

  “Dallas! I know you’re still in there somewhere, you have to take back control!” Avery cried.

  I felt something slam into the back of my head. Pain exploded through me and the Other slithered away in response.

  I crumpled to the ground, releasing Auria’s corpse.

  As if from a distant place, I saw Maryse move into sight, a metal rod that looked like it had been pried from the mansion gates in her hand. She turned to Avery, who was still against the tree, his face as pale as a bleached skull.

  “There. That’s how to get things done,” she said.

  She stared around at the blood-splattered ground along with the chunks of bloodied flesh littering the area. Then her gaze came to rest on what was left of Auria.

  “What the fuck!”

  My eyes fluttered shut and darkness overwhelmed me.

  Chapter 16

  Akan

  Hours after the ceremony ended, Akan exited his home. Rutia was asleep on the large mat on the floor of their sleeping quarters, Tanu tucked into the crook of her arm as always. Akan sprinted toward the temple, keeping to the wall surrounding the village to avoid the streets lit with burning torches where the celebrations would continue long into the night.

  Akan entered the temple through one of two hidden tunnels known only to a few, thereby avoiding the guards stationed at the entrances. It would, however, be impossible to enter the main temple chamber without being detected by the attendants.

  There were as many as twenty of them in total and at least two of them remained with the child at all times. Many of them were old women with no families of their own. They cooked, cleaned, and did every conceivable thing for the child. They were the only ones allowed to touch her, but only when necessary, as their touch was seen to contaminate the earthly vessel that was home to the divine being. So although they were with the goddess at all times, they remained distant from her whenever they were not needed.

  Akan imagined it was a lonely and isolated existence for a child.

  He entered the main chamber of the temple to screams. The temple was cloaked in darkness and only the torches surrounding the altar were lit. The child lay squirming in agony before the altar in the yellow, choleric light. Her robes and the area around her were soiled with vomit.

  Four attendants were sitting at the farthest corners of the temple when he entered. They rose immediately, moving out of the shadows like wraiths and to the altar, identical expressions of confusion on their faces.

  “Don’t be afraid. I’m here for the goddess,” Akan said.

  “You’re here for the goddess? You desecrate this sacred time with your very presence.”

  This was said by Jow, the oldest of the attendants. A thin, bent woman, the harsh lines on her face made her appear to be much older than she actually was. She was a perfect candidate for the role, a widow who had seen all her children dead, most to sacrifices before they could reach walking age.

  “Jow, you know a man would not survive the ekniwa, much less a child. You have to let me break her fast at least, or she will die.”

  “We cannot interfere, Akan. You know what Mutata would do if—”

  “Yes, but don’t you want the sacrifices to end? She is the only one keeping us from more sacrifices. You have to let me help her.”

  Jow turned to the youngest of the attendants, Topa, a girl of sixteen with a large, red birthmark across one side of her face.

  “Topa, go and summon the guards.” Jow faced Akan again. “You should go now before they come.”

  Topa didn’t move.

  “I told you to go and get the guards,” Jow snapped at her.

  “She’s the goddess,” Topa said. “Mutata has done this to her because she refused to allow more sacrifices. We should help her.”

  Jow glared at her and then looked around at the other two attendants. They did not meet her gaze. Akan moved past Jow to the child.

  She was delirious, her eyes glazed over. Oblivious to the vomit on her robes and the platform she lay on. Glistening beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, but when he touched her face, her skin was ice cold. The child’s cries quietened at the sound of Akan’s voice and she spoke then, speaking an unknown tongue, her eyes focused on a point past him with a vivid intensity that made him go cold. He reached inside his robe for the gourd of water he had brought with him and held it to her lips. Then he forced her to eat some food in the hopes it would absorb some of the potent herbs she had ingested.

  He stayed with her for the next few hours. Although it was forbidden, he held her as he had sometimes held Tanu when Tanu was a baby and cried long into the night. She remained delirious, her eyes wide and blank; staring past him into the shadows huddled within the temple as if she could see things moving within their depths. Throughout the night her tiny frame would seize with tremors and then she would vomit. Mostly the temple was rent with the child’s terrified screams at whatever it was she saw in the netherworld, the vacoma whose hideous visages were enough to drive grown men insane.

  A few hours before dawn, the child slipped into a fitful, agonised sleep. Akan’s heart was almost torn in two when he laid her down before the altar and departed, not failing to notice that through it all, she had been clutching the little wooden toy.

  He was in the tunnel leading out of the temple when he heard her scream again, the cry so much more agonising than before. His heart seemed to come to a stop, so intense was the pain the sound wrought in him.

  He forced himself to go on.

  He returned home and lay beside his wife and son. Although fatigue pulled on him with ghostly fingers, sleep would not bless him with its presence, the child’s screams still alive in his mind.

  Chapter 17

  It was a few days before I regained consciousness and the first thing I saw was Avery sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped beneath his chin. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes sad but gentle as he gazed at me.

  I was lying on his bed and the windows were open to the night whi
ch remained a reassuring hum trying to entice me to it.

  I smiled and the tension melted from him. He beamed at me, making my heart lurch at the sight of his beautiful smile although his eyes were still sad.

  He moved to sit on the bed and reached for my wrist. Some emotion I could not decipher flooded his face when he saw I still had the hairband with the blue baubles tied around it. He removed it and clasped a bracelet around my wrist. It was made of white gold and blue sapphires.

  “What’s this?” I asked as I stared at it, touched at the gift and also reminded of Jessica’s bracelet.

  “I’m sorry, Dallas. I wanted to say it at the time, but...well... I’m sorry for what I said after what happened in the woods.”

  I smiled as my eyes filled with tears, tracing my fingers along the bracelet.

  “Thank you. It’s beautiful, Avery.”

  He made to stand, but I grasped his hand. I held onto it even when he tried to ease out of my grip. In the end he relented and just stared at my hand around his, his eyebrows drawn together hooding his piercing blue eyes and intensifying the anguish and yearning within them. He eventually tore his gaze away from my hand, but held it tenderly in both of his.

  My wound healed in a matter of days, but I remained weak. A despondency had settled over me and my thoughts remained on Jessica. I kept seeing her body, lifeless and discarded beneath the trees. I thought of the darkness that had descended on my world in the wake of my aunt’s death and I could not stop thinking of Jessica’s family and what they were going through.

  Did they know she was dead or had she just disappeared? Plucked out of their lives whilst they still held onto a fragile hope, waking to meet each day believing she would re-enter their world and banish the darkness that had been left by her absence.

  I was so anguished by the thought of their pain I could not bear the thought of drinking human blood. Blood was now inextricably linked with death for me. Even a drop of it lit the hunger within for the kill at the end of that crimson tunnel. It was a slippery slope that would see me hunting human beings as if they were mere cattle. So Avery insisted I drink small amounts of his blood. But now my preternatural body had been given a taste of human blood, it seemed to rebel against vampiric blood and I remained incredibly weak although Avery assured me I would soon regain my strength. But as the weeks wore on I continued to weaken. I was still stronger than most vampires, but became fatigued easily, at times feeling that the rope keeping me tethered to this body had grown slack and it would take very little to sever it.