Dark Diary

by Anastasia,P.

  He paced in front of me, boiling over with anger. He shouldn’t have judged her so quickly.

  “Say something!” His face was barely an inch from mine and the heated breath grazed my cheek. “What have you two been doing behind my back?”

  “Nothing.” I crossed my arms.

  He switched his focus back to Kathera. “That’s the real reason you held back from me, wasn’t it?” He stepped closer to her. “Because of him?”

  “No.” Kathera backed away.

  “How could you do this to me? I would have risked my life for you, Kathera.” He pointed at me. “Would he?”

  “Derek, stop!” I raised my voice.

  He froze in his tracks, each stressed huff of breath audible. His jaw tightened and he squeezed his fists. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he muttered.

  I took a single step closer. “Derek? Please.” My fingers stretched toward his quaking shoulder and his heart thumped against his ribs.

  He twitched, spun around, and hurled a fist at my face. It made contact and sent me reeling.

  In a split-second, I swerved toward him again, a thunderous growl seething from my gritted teeth. My eyes sparked with luminescence and the shapes and sounds around me came into vivid focus.

  “Matthaya!?” Kathera shrieked at the sight of my full-blown rage.

  “Stay back!” I hissed, baring my fangs at her.

  “Wh-what the hell are you?” Derek stammered, stumbling backward. “Kathera, what is he?” He glanced at her and she whimpered.

  Jagged lines of red and yellow light fringed the edges of their silhouettes, highlighting their actions so I could predict their next moves. The heightened senses also distorted my reasoning, blurring the line between friend and foe. I had to remain vigilant to keep it under control.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Derek,” I snarled, trying to shake off the itch to lunge at him.

  The clinking of metal drew my attention.

  “No!” Her essence rushed through my veins with the force of a tidal wave.

  She was there. Why hadn’t I sensed her sooner?

  “Matthaya?” Kathera had quickly dodged past Derek to get close to me. “Are you okay? What’s happening?” Her fingers brushed against the back of my hand as I searched the air.

  Damn. It was her.

  “Couldn’t keep this to yourself now, could you?” The thickly accented voice was undeniably Ve’tani’s.

  The jingling of her bangles sounded several paces behind Derek as she leapt down from the roof of his house. He turned to confront her, hearing the sound of her bodyweight landing on the ground nearby.

  “You’re causing quite a scene, Matthaya,” she crooned. “Really? Is all this drama necessary?”

  “Who is she?” Derek asked, the faint scent of his growing fear teased my nostrils. No doubt Ve’tani smelled it, too.

  Kathera latched tightly onto my arm, her eyes glittered with the same question. I caught a glimpse of Derek creeping a hand down into his side jacket pocket in search of something. He was a fool to think he stood a chance against her.

  “It could have been simple, Matthaya. All you had to do was kill her.” Ve’tani gained ground, coming closer to Derek, and flashed a wicked, tawny gaze his way. “Now you’re doing exactly what I thought you would. You’re involving me in your little mess and now I am going to have to clean it up.”

  “Did you have to involve your mom in this, too?” Derek flicked open a long, black butterfly knife and planted his feet, steadying himself. “Don’t screw around with me, you two. I won’t stand for it.”

  Ve’tani grinned callously. The amber fire in her eyes brightened excitedly. “Oh, he wants to play,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Foolish boy, human toys pose no threat to our kind.”

  I had to stop her before she said anything more. If she told him what we were, he was as good as dead.

  I offered a comforting glance at Kathera and touched her hand in a fleeting act of reassurance, nudging her to let go of my arm. She did as I had hoped and stepped away from the three of us. She backed herself against the fence and watched.

  “Surely they should know the truth… before they die.” Ve’tani tilted her head at Derek as if she were a bird sizing up its prey. Then she smiled an exaggerated, toothy grin that showcased her sharp, elongated incisors. She always enjoyed playing cat and mouse. It was disgusting to watch her savor others’ fears, as I had outgrown her twisted ways.

  The knife cut the air back and forth as Derek waved his hand from side to side. He was brave, but I sensed the panic overwhelming his body. His temperature had dropped and the color of his face was pale with his uncertainty.

  “We are vampires!” Ve’tani bit the air, snapping her teeth down with a click. “It’s been a while since I’ve had prey fight back, but, now that we’re here… do humor me.”

  In a rustle of leather, Derek lunged toward her with his knife. She dodged, but his timing was good. He managed to split a trail down her velvet cloak at her shoulder.

  “Ah!” she yelped like a little girl and parted the slice in her robe to reveal a splash of blood hidden beneath it. “This is my favorite robe. You little bastard!” She took fast steps toward him.

  “I told you not to mess with me.” Derek narrowed his eyes.

  “Leave him alone!” I yelled. He was no match for her.

  “Oh?” She turned mechanically and jerked her head, locking onto a new target. “Would you rather I kill her first then?” Ve’tani’s eyes flashed with golden light and she rushed the porch staircase, covering the short distance in an instant.

  She leapt and took hold of the wooden archway of the porch, scurrying up and over it like a wild animal. Her nails dug into the wood rafters and she slid down a foot or two, shredding a set of claw marks down the sides before thrusting herself off in Kathera’s direction.

  I threw myself between them, blocking the attack with a thrust of my arms. Ve’tani hit the ground and rolled back onto her feet. Her neck bent back and a piercing screech had the two mortals covering their ears in pain.

  With Kathera now trapped against the fence line, I had to move fast. I had to gain the advantage.

  I peeled off my coat and shrugged my shoulders back. There was a powerful snap at the joints as a pair of gray wings burst free from the back of my shirt. They unfolded from the deep indentions beneath my shoulder blades and cracked as they spread out to the sides. Blood flushed through the membranes, smoothing and stretching the dry, leathery skin, allowing them to return to their full size.

  The hook-like claws crowning the top of each wing were as sharp as knives, and despite their compact structure against my spine, my wings were massive and strong when fully opened. Their double-jointed nature made them as dexterous as human hands.

  “What kind of demon are you?” Derek shouted, drawing the attention of Ve’tani once more.

  “We’re not demonsss,” Ve’tani hissed. “But, if that is what you want me to be…” Her voice trailed into silence and her fingers curled and stretched restlessly. She flared her lips and roared.

  I couldn’t protect them both, so I stayed in front of Kathera.

  Ve’tani came behind Derek and snatched him up by the thin scruff of his neck. He let out a painful yowl and I extended a wing to keep Kathera behind me as she struggled to go to his aid.

  “You can’t fight her,” I warned, pushing her back.

  “Then help him!” She shoved me hard in the back.

  “You insolent boy!” Ve’tani scolded and shook Derek like a rag doll. Agony creased his face.

  With Kathera pushed back, I lunged into the fight. My wings propelled me forward. I leapt up to gain the advantage and then came down on top of Ve’tani with a brutal thrust, slamming her to the ground. Derek fell from her grasp and hit the dirt hard. The smell of blood saturated the air and my senses spun into overdrive.

  He managed to scramble to his feet, though not witho
ut a struggle. There was blood running from the back of his neck where she had held him, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.

  “He will die, Matthaya!” Ve’tani’s eyes swore her determination. “And so will she,” she added, knowing very well that I could not protect them both at the same time.

  Her hatred toward Kathera saturated every crevice of her brain, but I couldn’t detect which target she would choose first. She masked her thoughts well.

  Again, Ve’tani rushed toward Derek, and this time pounced on him full force, sending him tumbling to the ground beneath her weight.

  I flinched. There was a brief break in the mind link between Ve’tani and me when Derek’s knife pierced her flesh. She screamed in pain and brought a rain of sharp claws down across Derek’s chest. In a rage, she tore through the flesh of his ribs and I watched in horror.

  “No!” Kathera cried out from behind me. She lunged toward him again and I flapped a wing back to keep her where she was.

  Shreds of Derek’s shirt curled at his sides and his cries for help were swiftly dampened by blood loss. Ve’tani rose from the ground and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of his knife—still sticking out of her chest. She jerked it stiffly from her ribcage and twitched, clenching her teeth and firing her gaze at me.

  Kathera ran in the other direction and then came shooting past me. I snatched at her shoulders and pulled her back against my chest, bringing in a wing to secure her there. I was stronger than her, but she flailed and twisted her body in an attempt to break free.

  “Kathera, no.” I used everything I could to hold her back without harming her, but she risked dislocating her shoulders with her blind adrenaline-driven struggle.

  “Derek’s dying!” she screamed, oblivious to the severity of his wounds.

  Yes. He was. And it was too late for him. The growing pool of blood surrounding him affirmed it.

  “Let her take her revenge,” Ve’tani taunted, bending a finger inwards. “I’m enjoying this game.”

  Kathera kicked free, ducked under my wing, and darted after her. Ve’tani grabbed one of Kathera’s thrashing wrists and then the other and flung her onto the ground, forcing the breath right out of her. She jerked Kathera’s hands up over her head and knelt down, pinning them beneath her knee.

  “Ve’tani!” I charged forward but stopped at the sight of Derek’s knife glimmering in Ve’tani’s grasp.

  “No! Please, Ve’tani!”

  The thrill of the battle gleamed in her wild-eyed grin. She drew the blade across Kathera’s wrists and split flesh open. Kathera released a bloodcurdling cry, writhing frantically in pain. Even I felt a sting of the horrible ache that was her blood spitting from the wounds.

  “I’m finished playing with your little toys!” Ve’tani stood and tossed the knife into the grass.

  I dropped down at Kathera’s side.

  Ve’tani straightened her cloak down along her arms and flattened her hair against her neck. “Someday you’ll learn to obey,” she snarled. Then she shook her head with disappointment, pulled up her hood, and fled from the scene without another word, leaving me to watch Kathera die.

  I lifted her up into my arms and felt the heat of her body rushing violently from her. She trembled, growing colder by the second. The short, choking gasps from her lips made me cringe.

  “Help me.” She coughed weakly, turning to look at one of her wrists as it poured blood onto the grass. “Please.”

  I couldn’t.

  Her eyelids fluttered as she drifted in and out of consciousness and she tried to reach for my face, but she was too weak and the tendons in her wrists had been severed.

  I’d witnessed true mortality many times over in my lifetime, but Kathera’s young death was all my fault. Blood collected on both sides of me as I held her up in my lap and pressed my fingers firmly against the deep lesions.

  Her skin grew paler and the soft locks of hair tumbled over her shoulders, its red color enhanced by the fresh blood. My thumb brushed across her quivering cheek, leaving a streak of crimson. She would die soon.

  Beautiful Kathera would die in my arms.

  I traced the scar-like smudge on her cheek and closed my eyes, raising my face to the sky in hopes of an answer.

  The sweet scent of her innocent blood teased me; I had smelled it once before. Though it had been old and dried at the time. It was back when Aldréa had struck her and… I had been able to heal it.

  No. This was far more complicated than that. I couldn’t simply lick the wounds closed. Still, I couldn’t let her drift away in my arms. I had to try something.

  Saliva can heal an external wound. Could blood heal an internal one?

  I carefully laid her body down. She was quaking violently, even in her weakened state. Her head fell back against the wet grass and her arms twitched as a fever of chills swept over her, shaking her like a seizure.

  I straddled her waist with my legs and took her hands into mine, lifting them and laying them back down against the ground parallel to her shoulders, palms facing up. My wing stretched out to the side and dragged Derek’s knife from the dirt beside us, bringing it to my hand. Tightening my grasp around the hilt, I raised my other palm, spread open the fingers of my empty hand, and pressed the blade into my skin, swiping it swiftly and deeply across the indention of soft flesh. I switched hands and quickly did the same to my other before too much blood squeezed out. It stung, but the sensation couldn’t be described as pain.

  Blood oozed out of the wound and hit the grass in splashes of deep burgundy, a color much darker than her mortal red. I leaned over Kathera, whose breath was hardly audible anymore, and could barely hear her soft heartbeat.

  I extended all of my fingers and flattened the palms of my hands down against her wrists.

  Her eyes widened and she howled in pain, her back arching and her body coming up from the grass a few inches. My blood surged from my body into hers. I pressed harder and harder until the blood from her wrists stopped seeping from between us and her squirming ceased.

  The exchange of blood made my own body ache and churn with an unnerving sensation. The colored fringe faded from around her body, as I grew hazy and disoriented.

  Some of her color was returning to her skin and the wounds were shrinking beneath my palms. Kathera gasped and pushed against me, then her eyes rolled back into the whiteness and she blacked out, her body going limp and falling back into the grass. I shifted my weight and took a seat beside her, sitting back against my heels. A sweep of my tongue across my bloody palms accelerated the healing of my wounds and I watched as the flesh regenerated itself from the outside in, sizzling before fading into fresh skin.

  She would live. I could feel it.

  Saving her life, however, would come with a cost. Ve’tani wouldn’t tolerate Kathera not being dead.

  I’d seen horrible things in my many years, but I had forgotten what it was like to watch people you know suffer. My clothes were soaked with red, the ground was covered in blood, and Kathera had nearly died.

  And Derek…

  I felt weak. I felt sick. My veins pulsed with hunger and my head spun with a million impossible-to-answer questions. What would become of Kathera now? How could she ever forget this? How could she forget what she saw? How could I tear myself from her world, now that she and I shared the same blood?

  There was so much more to it than that. I stretched my fingers down into my shirt collar and slipped the golden cross pendant out, holding it between my bloody fingers. I’d never believed in fate before, but Kathera and I had far too many things in common for them all to be coincidences. When I had kissed her, I saw Kathryn. When I left her with Derek, she cursed me with the very same words I had heard as a mortal trying to dismiss Kathryn’s love. And then… the dream of us in the meadow together. It wasn’t a dream at all.

  She was remembering things.

  Her life.

  Her death.

  Me.

  P
erhaps she wasn’t just a girl in love with a curious stranger. Perhaps she was Kathryn.

  CLACK…

  CLACK…

  CLACK…

  The window shutters flapped back and forth in the wind and the banging sounds woke me abruptly from my sleep.

  Who left the window open?

  I wiped the back of my hand across my warm, sweaty forehead. My stomach grumbled, but I felt very sick and even lightheaded.

  I couldn’t remember what had happened before I had gone to sleep—how I had gotten to bed, why I was back in my old room in my dad’s house, or where Derek had gone. I felt stupid that I couldn’t recall anything, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough to remember. Every inch of my skin ached as I moved and my face radiated feverish warmth. I tossed the covers off to the side and put my feet onto the floor.

  “Ugh.” I cupped my face in my palms. “My head.” It was pounding. My eyes burned. My inner ears hurt.

  I pushed the feeling aside, made the short walk into my bathroom, picked up my brush from the sink, and started to comb my hair. It was thick and matted, but I assumed it was from the sweat.

  Why was I feeling so sick?

  The hair on my arms and neck perked up and I sucked in a sharp breath. I could have sworn that I wasn’t alone in the room. It felt like Matthaya was there with me. I veered around to check, but there was no one there.

  I turned back toward the sink and took a deep breath. It had been months since I had seen him last. I missed him so much.

  I set my brush down on the bathroom sink, opened my eyes, and screamed.

  My hair was caked with a dark, rusty-colored substance—blood!

  I shrieked and jolted backward from the sink, slamming my body into the bathroom wall. My head throbbed twice as violently.

  I looked down. My clothes were soaked with red.

  What the hell had happened to me?

  A violent stabbing pain struck deep inside my stomach and I doubled over, crying out to deaf ears. It felt like my intestines were being coiled into a tight knot. My spine ached and I wrenched back and forth, moaning uncontrollably as invisible nails were driven into me from every angle.