by A. D. Koboah
I moved my hands away from her face and frowned down at the dagger.
“Luna, what...what are you doing with that?”
She faced me at last, her thoughts shielded. But a dark and stormy rage tumbled in her raven eyes. She held the dagger up and pressed its cool, sharp tip to my neck.
“It’s a beautiful dagger, isn’t it? The rubies you see along the hilt are from the necklace you gave me. I couldn’t have just any weapon to kill you with, so I had it made especially.”
A gasp escaped Henriette and she jumped up from the chair. “No, please! You cannot kill him!”
“Quiet!” Luna hissed.
Henriette would have ignored her if I hadn’t sent a quick command that froze her to the spot. She looked frantically from me to Luna whilst I gently coaxed her back into the chair.
Please, Henriette, keep still and don’t move until I tell you to, I thought at her, all the while my gaze on Luna.
“Luna, I—”
Her head snapped back to me and she didn’t allow me to finish. A film of tears shimmered in her eyes but the rest of her, especially her expression, was hard as she pressed the dagger against my throat.
“Am I so easily replaced? You couldn’t have chosen a worse insult by making that weak little thing your bride.”
“You were gone for over thirty years, Luna. I thought you were dead.” I couldn’t hide my own hurt and my voice gave at the last five words. “You have no idea how your disappearance almost destroyed me.”
“Oh, I know, Avery. I wanted you to suffer. And did you really think I could ever leave you? I made a promise to you a long time ago that I would always come back to you. I made you a promise! I’ve been here the entire time following as you ran around the world searching for me.”
“You’ve been nearby? The whole time? How could you do that to me?”
She released the wedding dress and made a stabbing movement in Henriette’s direction. “How could you do that to me?”
“Do what? Try and ease the lonely bitterness of the tragedy my life had become? Why did you stay away for so long?”
She looked away at the ground, seemingly wrestling with her emotions, the dagger at my neck wavering.
“Why, Luna?”
“I don’t know!” she snapped, but then her hard veneer crumbled. “I don’t know. I wanted to come back, but I couldn’t. I needed the space to try and change—for you. I wanted to try and be whole—for you.” She looked up, the tears flowing freely now and I saw anger, but clear confusion, her lip quivering as she looked at me. “But even then, I didn’t know how I could walk back into your life after everything I had done, and if I really could go back to being the woman you fell in love with. And now...now you’ve replaced me. With that!”
I was only too aware of Henriette sitting in the corner watching all of this in agony, especially as I wanted nothing more than to wipe away the tears trailing down Luna’s face, hold her to me and tell her she was irreplaceable.
“This isn’t the time or the place, Luna,” I said. Please, be reasonable.
She looked completely crushed and those beautiful dark eyes became windows of bleak despair.
“Maybe that’s the problem, Avery. I can’t be reasonable when it comes to loving you.” The hand holding the dagger became firm once more. “You may be reasonable enough to walk away, but I never will. You’re mine. If I can’t have your love, than no one else will.”
“That doesn’t sound like love, that sounds like possession,” I said, growing angry now. “Put the dagger down, Luna. We both know you won’t kill me.”
She gazed at me for a long moment, and then slowly drew the dagger away from my throat.
“No, I won’t kill you. Not yet.” She brought the dagger up again, but this time she was pointing it at Henriette. “You can watch her die first.”
I disappeared, and in the next instant, I was standing between her and Henriette. “You will have to kill me first!”
Pain flared in her eyes, and for a split second, the hand holding the dagger wavered and I thought she was going to let it drop. And then she smiled through her tears. A smile that was as dazzling as it was lethal.
“As…you…wish!”
She lunged at me, jumping in the air to give her the height to bring the dagger down in a fell swoop on my neck, a movement far too quick for human eyes to see. I caught her with a hand to the neck and the other to her wrist. I only had a moment to turn to Henriette.
“Run!” I threw Luna away from me. She went crashing into the wardrobe and the dagger flew out of her hand. “Get to the church. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold her off.”
Luna was on her feet before I could even finish the sentence, her eyes wild with fury and hurt. Henriette looked frantically at the two of us for a second or two before she bolted out of the room.
The air around Luna began to shimmer but she was torn, looking from me to the door, not sure of which of us to go after. That hesitation gave me the time I needed, and as her form began to waver, I dove into the ether and was before her. I took hold of her arm and wrenched her out of the ether to keep her from disappearing after Henriette, whose footsteps could be heard running furiously down the corridor.
A blow to the jaw sent me stumbling back. Luna darted toward the dagger on the floor. I materialised by the window and reached for a silver tray. Luna was in front of me before I could touch it. The dagger came slashing down toward me. I leapt back but it slashed against the jacket of my brown three-piece suit. I slapped her. She went sprawling across the floor.
Despite the bloodletting over thirty years ago, she was still stronger than me. As we fought, I realised Henriette’s footsteps were not heading toward the front door and out to safety. They were headed deeper into the house, her breath ragged, blood surging through her veins. Her footsteps stopped, and I heard her desperate movements and a click as she fumbled with something. Then, to my dismay, she began running again, but not toward the front door. Her frantic steps were beating a path back to the bedroom. I’m sure Luna heard it too.
Henriette was soon at the door.
“Avery!” she screamed.
I rushed at Luna and knocked her to the ground. I was able to glance at Henriette long enough to see her throw something toward me, one of my father’s swords, the silver along the blade’s edge glinting in the moonlight streaming through the window. Luna was still on the floor, shocked into inaction for a few seconds as she stared at Henriette with a mixture of rage and intense agony.
“Go now, Henriette!”
I looked away for only a second, but in that time, Luna had leapt to her feet and kicked me in the chest.
I went down on my knees. Before I could enter the ether and get to Henriette, Luna disappeared.
A scream pierced the air and the blood turned to ice in my veins.
Luna had Henriette in her arms, the dagger at her neck.
Henriette’s eyes were locked on me in terror and she was shaking.
“Luna, don’t kill her! Please, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t kill her!”
She smiled a cold, cruel smile.
They vanished.
“Luna!”
For what seemed like an eternity, I heard nothing, and then footsteps. On the roof.
The room contracted, and then I was standing on the roof in the sweeping night air.
Luna was standing at the edge of the roof holding Henriette by the neck before her. Henriette was as white as the string of pearls around her neck.
“Luna, I beg you, please don’t hurt her.”
She gazed at me, her eyes clear and the only trace of her previous anguish the tracks of her tears. Then she smiled, pulled Henriette back by the neck and tossed her over the edge of the roof.
Henriette didn’t scream. All was silence as I gathered the ether to me. If I couldn’t catch her, at least I could be there to break her fall.
Before I could shimmer away, Luna was there. She drove the dagger into m
y shoulder and kicked me to my knees. She was lightning-quick.
Pain erupted high in my shoulder, and the shock of it made me dizzy and weak. If Luna had always been this quick, I realised she could have killed me at any time.
But she had held back.
Precious seconds were wasted as I reeled in pain, but I made myself focus. The windy rooftop disappeared as the ether took me.
But it was too late.
I was just in time to see Henriette’s body shudder from the impact. Her mouth was open, blood oozing from the back of her head. One of her legs lay twisted beneath her, and an arm lay at an impossible angle. I could have stood there and counted all of her hideous injuries, but only one sent rivers of rage pouring over me.
Her broken neck.
She hadn’t screamed because she was already dead when Luna flung her off the roof. All to heighten my agony when I realised just how futile my attempts to save her had been.
I looked up.
Luna was standing on the roof watching me, no doubt revelling in her little victory. She was holding the twin to the sword I had in my hand. I glanced down at Henriette, who had brought me joy for such a short time. I placed my fingers on her eyelids and closed them. When I looked up again, Luna was gone. The world around me contracted and I landed on the roof of the cathedral in a crouch. I searched the night before me.
At last I found what I was searching for. She stood with her back to me, looking down on the street below her with an air of tense expectation, the sword dangling casually from her right hand.
She turned and regarded me for a brief moment. Then she fled, disappearing in midstride as she leapt from one rooftop to the next. She soon melted into the night.
I straightened, the sword in my hand glinting in the moonlight.
Visualising myself on a roof a few streets away, I drew the dark energy to me until I was weightless and everything around me dissolved. Seconds later, I burst out of the nothingness, my feet striking the roof I had envisioned in my mind. I was there for less than a second before I disappeared into the ether again.
I was soon close enough to see her ahead of me, leaping, sometimes somersaulting in mid-air before she landed on one of the rooftops.
She disappeared once more and I followed.
“Run, Luna,” I hissed, knowing she could hear me over the distance, the wind and the clamour of life from the streets below. “Run. I will follow, and when I catch you, one of us will not live to see another sunrise.”
I sped on, slowly closing the distance between us and death.
It seemed I chased Luna for millennia across London’s labyrinthine rooftops, but in reality, only minutes passed before the rooftops began to separate themselves from one another until they disappeared altogether. Then I was chasing her across fields turned a deep sea green by the night-time shadows. It had started to rain by then and the rain beat down on me in thin, silvery trails as I sped through it. We came to an abandoned field and all at once, she sped up and I lost sight of her. Panicked, I spurred myself onward and materialised at the edge of the field, fearing I had lost her.
Miniscule sounds of raindrops against metal alerted me to her presence. I ducked. The sword swept through the air above my head. She kicked me. I stumbled back. The sword came down toward me again. I parried the strike. I hit her. She went hurtling across the wet grass. She leapt to her feet, fangs bared. I lunged at her. She disappeared. She threw herself at me from behind. We went hurtling to the ground.
We fought, our deathly dance conducted in silence with only the rain and the moon to stand witness to our anger and mutual hatred. Time lost all meaning and only my rage spurred me on.
But I was no match for her, we both knew this, and after what must have been hours, she landed a blow on my arm. My sword was knocked out of my hand. I leapt back. She threw her sword at me like a javelin. I ducked. It flew high over my head. I made a dash for my sword and grabbed it. I dove into the ether and materialised a few feet from her.
She made no move as I brought my sword up. Clearly she thought I would not have the heart to inflict the mortal blow.
I hesitated with the sword held above my head as her gaze held mine, defiance and a slightly mocking air in the curve of her lip.
I brought the sword down with all the strength and speed I possessed.
She was gone before it could connect and I found myself being whirled around from behind, the sword wrested out of my hand as I was thrown to the ground.
I landed on my back and she was upon me. My own blade was against my neck, and her face hovered over mine, wounded anger darkening her eyes.
And then she was away, standing about ten metres from me, her face impassive as she gazed at me.
She threw the sword to the ground and let the ether take her.
It was no use trying to follow her because she would not let me catch her this time.
I sat in the grass in silence. The rain eventually stopped and the night limped toward a cold, dreary dawn. Then I did what I was dreading and went back to the house on Germen Street. The corpse was waiting for me, most of the blood washed away by the rain. She was completely cold and still, a lifeless mannequin. I called the authorities and lied, using my mental powers to control them so they believed she had accidentally fallen from one of the windows upstairs.
They took her away. There was no reason for me to stay at the house on Germen Street and I left that day, taking only my father’s swords with me, knowing it was unlikely I would ever return to it.
There wasn’t much for me to do but return to France to Henriette’s mother. Of course, I was not going to tell her she had outlived her daughter. Instead I sat with her every night, spinning lie after lie, sculpting her mind to make her believe she saw her daughter everyday and that she was radiant and happy. I did not allow myself to think of Luna until it was over and I was able to lay the woman’s body beside that of the daughter she believed had been at her bedside smiling softly at her, holding her hand as she quietly, and painlessly, slipped out of the net of life.
I left France then, knowing I would never set foot on those shores for the rest of my eternal life. I returned to Louisiana, to loneliness and a mind-numbing hatred for the woman I had spent fifty years waiting for in a wilderness of despair. Hatred that had become the sum of the unconditional love I had once felt for her.
Chapter 37
The years rolled on and I remained young, my wealth increased, and bitter hatred consumed me. I retreated to the mansion and had a wall erected around my little haven, metal black gates at the edge of the field of flowers keeping the world at bay. But life went on and the world outside the mansion continued to change.
Automobiles soon replaced carriages. I swore I would never own one of those vile contraptions, cold, soulless metal crawling the streets like sinister intruders belching out sooty fumes. But I eventually fell in love with automobiles, and soon many sleek, expensive cars filled the garage I’d had built on the grounds of my home in Louisiana. Telephones, televisions, electricity, and indoor plumbing brought ease and convenience to the masses. But life was empty and nothing held any joy for me.
I became an observer of life once more. When I wasn’t keeping track of Luna’s descendants and my own family, I spent a great deal of time watching the young, admiring and despising their arrogance and boldness in equal measure. But it was the elderly that fascinated me and I could spend hours at a time watching them, the way they moved, their thoughts, the things they regretted or the memories they cherished. I envied them and the aches and pains they complained of as their bodies slowly broke down and gave up on them. Most of them missed youth. They missed being young, but not necessarily all of them wanted to live indefinitely. There had to be a limit to the length of years one spent on this Earth, a season to live, a season to die. You could appreciate summer because it would end and make way for autumn.
The fact that Mama still came to me over the years to warn and guide me, told me death wasn’t the end.
But it was unlikely I would ever know, and so I watched those old, feeble men and women around me and envied them. I envied their fear and wished for the aches and pains of those broken old bodies and to be able to give up on life as my body broke down and gave up on me.
But my body was strong and powerful. Time had no dominion over me. That knowledge tormented me so along with those endless pages of a never-ending book that stretched before me for all eternity.
We moved through the decades. I did not know where Luna was or what she did. But every once in a while, I would be walking along a crowded street, lost in my thoughts, when an image would enter my mind: a view of myself as I walked along the crowded streets.
The first few times this happened, I came to an abrupt stop, the anger and hatred I felt for Luna rising like acid. She was always gone by the time I turned around. After a while, I simply ignored it whenever it happened. But I knew she was there, watching me, echoes of her tumultuous emotions riding along the image she sent like a dark swarm of bees.
One evening, I returned to the mansion and stopped short at the edge of the field of flowers. To human eyes, it would appear as if nothing was amiss. But the scent of vampires was swirling in the sweet scent of the Queen Anne’s lace. That and the scent of death. I moved into the field of flowers and saw scorch marks, the remains of a belt buckle and a hank of hair. Once more an image of myself standing with my back to the viewer, the heavy iron gate between us, entered my mind. Again, her emotions flooded my mind, a soul-searing anger, along with fear, and flashes of the battle that had taken place.
I ignored her and entered the mansion. I didn’t care who wanted me dead or why. I also had the sense it had been some kind of revenge attack against her. She remained nearby that day, watching over the mansion. It was, of course, a pointless exercise as her psychic sense would have alerted her to danger much faster than it would take the assailants to reach the mansion. But she stayed nearby anyway, her fear reaching me in icy waves. She left a few hours after the sun set, but remained close by in the weeks that followed, her anger at the attack seeming to swell like a dam rather than diminishing. I pretended not to be aware of her and she eventually went away.