Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3)

by A. D. Koboah

  “Just kiss me,” I whispered.

  He obliged and I lost myself in his sweet kiss.

  “Oh, Avery,” I said, when he finally pulled away.

  There were tears in his eyes and he pulled me to him, his arms tight around my waist, and I wished I never had to let him go. I eventually pulled out of his embrace, my voice breathless when I spoke.

  “Let’s go and banish this chapel thing and come back home. Then we have to have a talk about Mallory. You cannot let her keep bullying you like that, Avery!”

  He laughed. “That, my dear, is something much easier said than done.”

  We entered the mansion hand in hand as the night came in as tender as a lover in all its dark beauty.

  ***

  The sky was pitch black by the time we reached the Holbert plantation, the moon a welcoming beacon of hope above us. Rather than materialising in the clearing, I asked Avery if we could walk through the woods instead. He didn’t object, perhaps knowing that these moments together would be our last. With the heavy bag of items he had brought with him to perform the exorcism slung over his shoulder, and his other hand tightly holding onto mine, we walked through the trees toward the clearing. He brought my hand to his lips often during the walk and placed a soft kiss against it. At one point he came to a stop and just gazed at me, his expression grave in the cool, shimmering moonlight filtering through the trees. He pulled me into a long tender kiss, one that ended far too soon and which left me trembling in his arms. We moved on, the arm he had around my waist tightening.

  As we got nearer to the clearing, it was difficult not to remember many frightening days running through these woods, trying to escape Master Henry, or of those days I simply ran to the chapel to seek solitude. I also remembered that exhilarating moment when I found Julia waiting here for me and knew I would be able to save Avery from certain death. Now I had to find a way to banish the chapel entity even if it meant sacrificing my life and Avery’s.

  We were almost at the clearing when I became aware of him.

  “Shadrach?” Avery said, catching it from my thoughts.

  “Yes. He’s waiting for us in case he can help in any way.”

  He smiled. “I really underestimated him.”

  “So did I.”

  We came out into the moonlit clearing to find him sitting cross-legged on the sea green grass. He smiled and rose to his feet.

  A cold chill smashed into me as I stepped into the clearing, my hand in Avery’s. The Other, rather than being on the peripheries looking for a way in, was now a silent colossus of dark energy and it was so strong. There was no warning this time. It was just upon me and I sank as if I had plunged into black, icy water.

  “Shadrach.” Avery said.

  He moved toward Shadrach whilst I came to a standstill, my hand slipping out of his.

  Shadrach’s gaze was on me, his face tightening in alarm, and I saw myself through his eyes. My face had become unreadable and my eyes had hardened to black pearls so I appeared to be a completely different woman from the one he knew.

  Avery faced me, his brow furrowing. “Dallas—?”

  I cut him off with a spike of telekinetic energy. He went rigid as I ensnared him, keeping him from moving. From the corner of my eye, I saw Shadrach make a move toward me. I sent a blast of telekinetic energy out at him sending him hurtling through the air to crash into the chapel with devastating force. Then I wrenched him away from the chapel and slammed him onto the ground. One of his legs lay at an odd angle—I was sure that was not the only bone he had broken—and blood poured from his head. Shadrach tried to get to his feet only to collapse to the ground, his face twisted in pain.

  The force of the collision should have caused considerable damage to the chapel, but the evil that had resided here for centuries, and now had control of me, kept it standing.

  I tried to fight against the Other to regain control, but it surged through me, a cold, cruel mass that invaded my consciousness and I was utterly helpless, my essence torn out of my body to sit in darkness as a mere observer.

  I turned my gaze onto Avery and my lips curved into a smile. The colour had completely leeched from his face, his eyes wide, twin pools framed by dark lashes in a landscape of pale flesh. His mouth worked fruitlessly, but he couldn’t speak or even communicate with me mentally for I was preventing him from doing so. He closed his eyes as pain twisted his features. He began to scream.

  I laughed, the laughter bursting into the silent clearing whilst the light seeped from it, darkness creeping in to take its place, as I crushed Avery’s internal organs.

  At the sound of Avery’s screams, Shadrach once more tried to get to his feet, his broken bones almost completely healed. With a mere thought I kept him frozen to where he had fallen, his dark eyes flaming with horror as he listened to Avery scream.

  Trapped whilst the entity used my powers to slowly kill Avery, I fought to reassert control. Misery washed over me when I realised that no matter how hard I fought I would not be able to seize control before it killed Avery and that I may never be able to overcome it.

  It seemed the death I had dreamt of on my first day at the mansion was here and it was the worst kind of death.

  Then a sharp shock of understanding lit the darkness I had been shunted to and I recalled Mama Akosua sitting in the clearing in what I thought had been a dream. In that “dream” I had not been as I now was. With that memory came the awakening I had experienced in the “dream” and joy further brightened the darkness.

  Death was with me, but it was symbolic of something else.

  Rebirth.

  The chapel entity was not strong enough to defeat me. It never had been.

  With that realisation I was in control of my body once more, the chapel entity wrenched from me and cast into the world of unending shadow it had tried to escape from.

  Avery’s screams faded away and he opened his eyes. But instead of releasing him, I grasped hold of him by the front of his T-shirt and sank my teeth into his neck.

  I drank his blood and strength soon flowed into my body, the weakness which had been a long, slow road to death fleeing before it. It was a long moment before I drew my fangs from Avery’s neck and released him. He fell to the ground, anguish and confusion in his gaze as he tried to focus on me. Hating to see that confusion, I seized his mind once more and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He passed out.

  I released the hold I had on Shadrach. His wounds had healed but he didn’t try and run away. He remained where he was, trying to listen for Avery’s heartbeat, or some other sign he was still alive. But he couldn’t hear much above his own thundering heart, and his terror was making it difficult for him to focus. He knew he should get the hell away from the clearing, but didn’t want to leave Avery. So he remained there staring at me.

  I knelt beside Avery and stroked his cheek. Then I faced Shadrach.

  “It’s under control now, Shadrach. I won’t hurt you.”

  He remained where he was in silence, even his thoughts had quietened.

  “Blood never lies, Shadrach. You know I won’t hurt you.”

  It was a long moment before he vanished and reappeared at my side, relief having replaced the terror and uncertainty.

  “He’s—”

  “Alive, yes. I’m going into the chapel. To bring an end to this.”

  He nodded, peering at me, fascination alight in his eyes.

  I glanced up at the moon, which was a perfect pearl against the charcoal sky, feathery white clouds reaching ghostly fingers towards it. It was difficult, but I pulled my gaze away from it to Shadrach. I smiled.

  “Blood doesn’t lie. Avery is the key, the reason I chose this existence. Drinking his blood not only gave me strength for what lies ahead. It helped me remember some of it, of why I came.”

  He didn’t understand and I didn’t expect him to, as I didn’t fully understand it all yet. I stared down at Avery, his face almost completely devoid of colour. Distress flared within
when I remembered that nightmarish day he had been captured by Master John and I fought to save him although I already thought he was lost to me.

  “Take care of him, Shadrach. Promise me you’ll do that.”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t mean just for tonight. If...if I don’t come out of that chapel. Promise me you’ll take care of him, always.”

  He stared at me for the longest moment before he smiled. “You’ll be back. We’ll wait for you...always.”

  I moved to the chapel. I hesitated at its entrance and turned to glance at Avery lying prone on the ground, Shadrach like a dark, silent statue beside him.

  I entered the cool, shadowy chapel.

  PART III

  That day of tears and mourning,

  when from the ashes shall arise,

  all humanity to be judged.

  Spare us by your mercy, Lord,

  gentle Lord Jesus,

  grant them eternal rest. Amen.

  –Mozart, Requiem

  Chapter 28

  It was nearly one hundred Fahrenheit outside, but the chapel was cold, the air thick and cloying like a million cold, clammy fingers pressing against me.

  I moved down the aisle, feeling the presence of the thousands of souls who had perished here. I felt their grief, the terror of their last moments, and most of all, the endless sorrow of their entrapment within this abyss.

  I came to a stop, overwhelmed by the bottomless sorrow all around me. I focused on it and saw something move, a deepening within the shadows. Then I saw one. It was the spirit of a Negro woman who appeared to be in her late forties. She wore a shift dress that looked as if it was made out of an old sack. She was tall and thin and her face was worn with hard work and misery. At first she merely stood staring around her, then her slender face creased in anguish. Her gaze fell on me.

  “Has you see'd him?” Her words were little more than a vibration and would have sounded like the wind whistling through the deserted chapel if it had been heard by another. “Has you see'd my baby? She took him and now I don’t know where he be.”

  “He’s gone to a better place,” I said, speaking from that place of knowing. “You don’t need to stay here. Come with me and I’ll take you to him.”

  I reached out a hand to her. She stared at it in confusion for a few seconds and then moved to me and placed her hand in mine. Surprisingly, I felt her touch. It was not completely solid, but felt like the air around my hand had grown cold and heavy like a cloud filled with rain.

  Another one appeared to my right. A Negro male. He was over six feet tall, had a lean build and a noble, thoughtful face. More appeared: Negroes that had either been bought or stolen and whites, mainly Europeans, who had come to America to seek a new life. There were even some American Indians who had not been able to defend themselves against Auria, Onyx and Emory. But the majority of the trapped spirits were Negroes. Before long I could barely see the charred, decayed inside of the chapel, just the press of their translucent bodies.

  “Is you the one we’s been waiting for?” said the tall, noble looking Negro.

  I nodded, again answering from that place of knowing. I continued to move down the aisle, the ghostly hand in mine tightening, the spirits closing in around me so it felt as though I walked through thick cloud.

  Below in the underground chamber, the sconces were lit and a fiery light clawed at the walls, my shadow dipping and diving wildly against them. More of the dead awaited me in the chamber, their faces a uniform mask of anguish along with a weary, long-held hope. They made a way for me as I moved past the concrete slabs turned a diseased black by time and the fire that had almost destroyed the chapel. The gold staff Avery had used to wound Auria so long ago lay discarded a few feet away. It was filthy and still stained with her blood. I came to a stop a few metres from the gold altar.

  The chapel entity was awake, its malevolence like a blast of heat, its rage palpable like that of a trapped animal baring its teeth, its hackles raised.

  I moved to the altar and called the entity forth as I had done centuries ago in order to use it as a conduit to channel the power I’d had no real inkling of until now.

  As if moving out of soiled water, it emerged, its form flowing into being before me in the wretched copy of my body, the body it had coveted for so long. It crouched in a corner, its face a mask of hatred, its gaze taking in the dead, the many men and women who had been slaughtered so it could be brought from the netherworld to eventually live again in the body of another.

  It hissed at us. I moved toward it. It cowered farther away, but although it was trapped, it was not without its tricks.

  I felt it tap into my telekinetic power, as if someone had just inserted an icy needle in my brain. I saw its plan before it had even decided to put it into motion.

  I did not try to stop it, but let the gold staff that had lain by the charred remains of the coffins fly through the air toward my exposed back. It struck with a shock of pain that tore through me, taking my breath away as it pierced my back.

  The chapel entity began to laugh, a rasping, guttural sound that sounded as if it came from some large, diseased animal. I sank to my knees and then fell forward as its laughter rang through my ears.

  Pain overwhelmed me and darkness sucked me out of the world of the living and into the abyss.

  But like the darkness of the womb, it was not the end that welcomed me, but the beginning. Weightless, formless, I shed the confines of my mortal cage. I remembered the beginning and understood who I was for the first time, remembering a time and place I had only ever had a sense of in half-glimpsed dreams. It flowered into being all around me and in memory, I was there once more.

  Chapter 29

  The moon.

  I remembered standing on dust the colour of ancient pearl that shimmered beneath my bare feet. It rolled on all around, at times dimpled, then sloping into deep valleys only to rise up before plunging into unfathomable darkness. It was stark and bleak to the eye, but a benediction in all its adamantine lonesomeness. Above me darkness sat like an overturned bowl and a million stars hovered like a host of angels. To my right was Earth—a topaz marble against the velvet darkness of space.

  In a time when humanity was at its infancy, I lived and my kind existed alongside men. We were known to mankind as the Timeless Ones, and although we looked like humans, we were powerful beings with supernatural gifts. We were in essence gods among men. Our exact origins were not known, but some believed our forefathers were beings from another galaxy who settled on Earth long before human beings were thought into existence. But the majority of us believed we were the descendants of celestial beings. Angels who either chose not to fight in the war Satan waged on God, or the watchers who sinned by lying with human women and so were forever cast from the presence of the Almighty.

  Although some of our kind mingled with the human race, usually in the form of a benevolent yet capricious maternal or paternal figure, the majority—like myself—had no interest in those primitive beings.

  I led a solitary existence and over what would be earthly centuries, I gradually lost interest in the politics and strife running through the history of our existence like a geyser, frequently erupting in battles, little squabbles which were put down quickly. I rarely ventured down to Earth, preferring the cold, dark solitude of the moon. Now a war was on the horizon that would change the future of the Timeless Ones and see a split amongst our ranks that would eventually lead to most of us fleeing to another realm, leaving our enemies stranded on Earth. It was one of the possible outcomes I foresaw, for that was my special gift: the power not only of foresight, but to bend time to my will, making me a very valuable asset to our leader. The war itself did not interest me, but of the many possible futures I foresaw, none of those futures showed me amongst my kind in the realm we had created. This signified a threat I had so far not foreseen.

  I could sense this hidden threat in my soul now like a pull, or an ache, that disconcerted. It was like lis
tening to a symphony and being able to discern only the weeping of a violin as it rose to an excruciating pitch, only to dip again and caress my heart with a sound as smooth as water. It sang, it called to my soul, and I could not continue to ignore it. And as the coming war gathered momentum, the call grew louder.

  I knew now I would not be able to fight the first phase of the battle, for I had to begin a search for this threat. I had to find and destroy it.

  From my sacred space on the moon, where silence and darkness were a caress, I dipped into other dimensions and realities, searching both benign realms and those that would have been seen as hell dimensions, in order to find the source of this call. I found nothing. Only Earth remained and the humans which existed on a limited sphere of consciousness and spiritual evolution. Searching Earth meant not only searching space, I would have to search through its past and future, a time-consuming and demanding enterprise. Hovering above the surface of the moon, I began my search through the centuries—a journey that was not a linear one, but which saw me inhabit different times and places simultaneously. Whenever I returned to my time, only days or weeks had passed. During that time war burst forth and devoured the fragile peace amongst the Timeless Ones on Earth.

  I was indeed far from the source of the threat when a cry, not unlike the wail of a violin, broke through the annals of time spinning around me in a billion pinpricks of glittering light. I was thrown out of the stream by the cry, plummeting through space to land on the ground. Disbelief, along with chagrin, billowed within me.

  I had not been able to find it. Instead it had found me. How could this be?

  Knowing exactly where I must now go, I rose above the surface of the moon once more and drew time and space to me. It curled forth and I moved into it, stepping thousands of years into mankind’s future to a little island surrounded by dark, choppy waters. I entered what was little more than a box of stone, invisible to the humans present. To me, the large bed and solid wood furniture looked cumbersome and archaic, although it was a comfortable room belonging to people who had accumulated the things that were considered of value in this time. The air in the room was warm and close, and three women hovered over another: a pale, slender woman with dark hair and refined features. She looked earnestly toward something one of the females in the room held out of view. Wrinkling my nose at the primitive nature of their existence, especially in this period of their evolution, I stared at the woman, anger flaring within.