Ali thought for a moment.
“Patrick, I'm Alanis, Jonathan Elliot’s daughter. I need to talk to you, my father has disappeared and his life is in great danger. I need you to tell me everything you know. Only then will I be able to find him on time. Please”.
“And ready!” Kalo said. “He must already be receiving it. The rules of the physical plane are very strict but in the World of the Dead there is no need for so much protocol”.
“Of the dead?” Ali was shocked.
“Yes... Your Patrick, in which you thought, who lived in France and had a son named Lucien and who wrote a letter to your father, has passed away very recently. I thought you knew”.
A deep fear gripped Ali like an acid running through her veins. The chances of her father ending the same increased.
“Oh, I'm sorry... Well, as soon as he gets ready to answer you, I'll let his message reach you. For practical purposes I prefer to use letters in this world. Don’t worry: you will recognize my original touch when you receive it”. Kalo turned around contemplating the new landscape. “Bored? Look at this...”
With a snap of his fingers, they were in the Great Wall of China. There was only one direction to go to. The door remained the same, only that it was embedded in one of the watchtowers. On both sides, the road zigzagged through the forested mountains. However, Ali was too lost in her thoughts to feel amazed at that moment. She thought that if Kalo could communicate with the dead, then maybe she could talk to her mother sometime. She had the sudden certainty that this wouldn’t be the last time she would visit Kalo.
“Come back whenever you want!” Kalo dismissed them with a bow. “With company this place can be really fun. Sorry about your clothes” he said to Kaliel.
Kaliel gave him one last frivolous glance and then turned his back on him, clutching Ali's arm. Sabrina passed first through the gelatinous wall of the entrance and they followed her. Ali turned to see Kalo once more and smile at him. Once on the other side, they hit something. Quickly, Kaliel hid her behind him. She watched the way his knees bent, crouching. She could see that they had collided with Sabrina, who was also petrified in front of Kaliel. When Ali stuck her head out, she saw a thick shadow that darkened the path even more. She had believed that the torches had been extinguished until she saw the shadows move and open their red eyes. They were not shadows: they were vampires. Hundreds of them, ready to attack.
20
Sleep and dream
They were too many. Like a swarm of dark and lethal insects, vampires blocked their way. Ali began to recognize some of them so many times that she had seen their defiant looks. Darry's servants seemed very relaxed with the security of having them cornered. Look where you look there was no way out. Crossing the killing alley was the only option. And she only had that stupid Crane vase; only one, to defend against about thirty vampires.
Kaliel remained motionless except for his left hand that slipped surreptitiously to Ali's. She grabbed it. It felt warm. The strange delicacy with which he modulated his strength as he wrapped her fragile fingers with his made her skin prickle in a way that ripped vampires from her thoughts for a moment. However, Kaliel wasn’t being warm.
“Run and don’t stop” he warned sternly. But Ali thought she heard a tremor in his voice.
Then Kaliel shot out to the vampires, to death itself, like an arrow, dragging her with him. She’d have wanted to scream but she couldn’t get enough air. The vampires closed in on them like an avalanche of darkness and swallowed them. Without letting go of his hand, Kaliel drew what looked like a cross with a long end and began to beat and cut the vampires, who roared as soon as they were touched. And so, going round and round, like a bloody tornado, Ali noticed that they kept going forward looking for a way out. It was like breaking through to come out of a recital, although of course, not pushing people, but killing them.
By the time they finally stopped on the other side of the group, Ali felt her lungs burning painfully. She only noticed how dizzy she was when Kaliel let go of her hand and she rushed to the ground with the world around her spinning. In an attempt to focus her eyesight, she managed to catch a glimpse of Sabrina's blond hair furrowing the air as she kicked a scarcely dressed vampire in the face. Then, she jumped to Ali and helped her up and keep running. With Kaliel in the rearguard it wasn’t that difficult to gain an advantage and, after a few seconds, Ali felt recovered.
“We have to reach the tunnels of the cathedral as soon as possible but I’m afraid they are waiting for us...” commented Sabrina.
She was right. However, with all her cunning, she’d never have imagined what they had prepared for them. Five vampires waited stiffly in a most proud posture, feet spread at shoulder-length apart, hands clasped in front and chin held high. Their outfits, different from the rest of the vampires Ali knew, were like long layers of red velvet that they wore open to the front. They looked like a kind of vampire royalty. That was when Ali noticed that they were hiding something behind them.
“Poor, poor sweet innocent thing...” Darry crooned with that gloomy voice of his that made the hair of the nape of the neck stand on end.
Two elegant vampires, a girl with mahogany hair and a boy with a moon-shaped scar on his cheek, opened to reveal the sumptuous armchair Darry was waiting from. He caressed a sort of bag he had in his lap while he ran it with a sadistic look. As soon as Ali's eyes adjusted to a new level of darkness, she realized that it was a girl of no more than seven years old who was trembling in terror. At that moment Ali understood that it was his victim of the day, as he had promised.
“Ah! But you can save it!” The vampire chief exclaimed with feigned joy.
He stood still with the girl in his arms.
“Mommy...” the girl sobbed looking sideways.
Ali noticed that she was wearing pajamas of teddy bears and deduced that she had been abducted while she slept. Judging by how she observed everything disoriented, she had just awakened in that place. Ali wished she could tell her that it was only a nightmare but it wasn’t true.
Darry walked halfway into the space between them and stopped. He placed the girl on the ground and told her to be silent in a cynical fatherly tone.
“Close your eyes and you will wake up in your bed...”
The girl obeyed, perhaps out of fear, maybe because she believed him. She lay there on the cold stone, her limbs stretched and trembling.
“Surrender and let's finish with all this” Darry offered standing up. His gray eyes were directed at Ali.
“Tell Samael if he wants me he can come for me himself”, Ali spat.
For a moment, Darry looked surprised and then, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“It can’t be denied, you have it in your blood...” Darry commented, scrutinizing her up and down. “Lucien is the same”.
Ali didn’t move. She didn’t want to leave even more evidence of her weakness.
“Well, what else… Let's see how much you've inherited from your stupid mother!”
With a snap of his fingers, the vampire with the moon-shaped scar appeared next to the girl and fell on top of her, brandishing a dagger that he bashed on her chest.
“No!” Ali yelled immediately, throwing herself forward.
The vampire stopped the dagger inches from the girl. There was no expression on his face but in Darry's there was a huge smile.
“Blood never disappoints me...” he murmured. “Your insignificant life for that of this girl and everyone in this miserable city. What do you say? Last chance”.
Ali looked at the girl who squeezed her eyes hard not to look. Tears ran in torrents through her rosy cheeks. She had a future and surely, she thought, observing again her colorful pajamas, parents who loved her and would be destroyed from that morning if they didn’t find her. Ali didn’t have any of that anymore. No one would regret her death, except for her father if he still lived, and her friends had already cried since the fire that burned down her house. Trying to contain her own tears, Ali t
ook a first step forward.
“Good choice”.
Darry extended a hand while she walked towards him with her head held high. Then something stopped her. Kaliel took her arm and made her turn sharply. His wide-open eyes shouted "what the hell do you think you're doing?". Joining forces, Ali broke free and kept walking towards Darry but he insisted.
“Don’t stop me!” Ali was taking off from his hands with increasing difficulty as she walked. “It’s the best…”
“Don’t be silly, he’ll kill the girl anyway” he told her. “React!”
“My patience is over!” Darry warned in a snarl.
Kaliel pulled on her harder then and Ali struggled as she saw the knife approaching the girl's throat. She couldn’t allow it. She pushed Kaliel and saved the last stretch that separated her from the hand Darry offered her.
“No!”
Kaliel caught her from behind and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her away from Darry. At last Ali couldn’t contain the tears any longer. She writhed frantically in his embrace but couldn’t free herself. Kaliel whispered something she didn’t understand. She could feel his heart pounding wildly on her back as he refused to let her go.
“No! No!” Ali yelled.
Darry closed his hand in a fist and lowered it violently. Then the vampire with the scar slid the edge of his dagger by the neck of the little girl who screamed until the blood drowned her cry. While she was convulsing on the floor, unable to breathe, another vampire approached and poured the contents of a small bottle into her mouth, tilting her head so she wouldn’t spit it out. After that, the girl began to convulse with more violence in the middle of a pool of blood.
Tears welled up in Ali's eyes and she couldn’t see anymore. She felt her body go slack. Kaliel turned her toward him and turned her head so that she no longer looked. Ali no longer struggled to free herself but buried her face in his chest and moaned bitterly. For a few seconds, he stroked her hair, whispering "enough... enough..." and then the vampires were on top of them.
With a single blow, one of the vampires knocked Kaliel away from Ali, who was instantly dragged by the mahogany-haired vampire. Struggling with her was even more fruitless. In the distance, she saw Sabrina fighting two guys. Kaliel had taken out his dagger and was fighting with all the rest. The girl was still lying on the floor, waving without anyone helping her. Suddenly, some hands took Ali from behind and lifted her into the air like a trophy. Kaliel cut two heads with one blow and fought to reach her as more and more vampires came and fell on him, blocking his way. He seemed to see nothing else, but Ali did see the vampire with the moon-shaped scar coming towards him from behind. Almost instinctively, Ali brought her hands to her belt. She only had one chance. Still suspended in the air, she threw Crane's vase like a dart that went straight into the vampire's neck. Warned, Kaliel turned and completed the enchantment in less than a second.
Then she fell to the ground with a loud blow. She turned around and saw that the person holding her was Darry, now pierced by a metal leaf. The rest of the vampires stopped dead. Darry turned away to see his attacker and discovered Annabeth on the edge of the ocher tunnels of the cathedral.
“How fast you have forgotten what immortality is like...” Darry mumbled. Then he took the sheet and finished passing it to the other side of his body as if it didn’t harm him and threw it to the ground with a metallic clatter.
A light was coming towards them down the corridor and Darry's smile twitched. He crouched down to Ali and tried to speak so low that only she heard him.
“You have the same stupid weakness of your mother...”
Darry stood up and narrowed his eyes, shying away from the blinding light that was approaching. However, he managed to reach Annabeth and slapped her with such force that her head bounced against the wall and fell unconscious. Then, he and all his henchmen disappeared before Mikah came out of the tunnel, glowing like a star.
Mikah passed by Annabeth and even Ali as if he didn’t see them and went straight to the girl. He took her in his arms and stroked her hair darkly. With a stern expression, he carried her like a baby and took her through the tunnel, saying nothing to anyone, with that alarming calmness that made Ali hold her breath until she lost sight of him.
Ali climbed the last flight of stairs and lay on her stomach on her new bed crying for everything she had endured minutes ago.
“Hey! Hey!”
Kaliel closed the door behind her and knelt beside the bed. Ali covered her face with her hands and convulsed in sobs.
“Everything’s gonna be ok...” he tried to comfort her poorly. “It's not your fault…”
“No! It's your fault!” She yelled. “You should have left me!”
“I couldn’t do that”.
“Why not? It's my life! If I wanted to do it, it was my problem!” Ali cried. She uncovered her face to give him a furious look but only found anguish. “What the hell do you care if they kill me!? Oh, sure! I forgot you had me reserved for that demon...”
“Oh, again you're going to start with that... I don’t know why I told you that. Ali, enough!” He pleaded tiredly.
“Get out, Kaliel! Everyone here hates me. Nobody would have regretted it!” Ali cried with more virulence. “I lost everything! All! I have no one! What do I live for?”
Kaliel leaned back as if he had been slapped and squeezed his lips, doubting what he meant.
“Well... You have me. I know that I don’t count but I could help you if you let me...”
Ali stopped short and looked at him sadly.
“I know, I'm sorry...” she blushed. She never considered the annoyances he had to endure for her. “I wish you hated me like Max!” she added and buried her face in the mattress again. “So you would leave me alone!”
“Yes. You're right” Kaliel mumbled. He stood up with the intention of going to the window but instead sat on the bed, lifted Ali by the shoulders and put his arms around her. “But I'm not Max”.
For a few seconds, she seemed to cry harder with her face buried in his chest. Then she calmed down.
“Forgive me for being so stupid...” she whispered still against his chest. He didn’t push her away and she didn’t feel like doing it either. Maybe it would never happen again and then she would miss that sweet feeling that ran through her skin. She remembered then that supposed memory she had seen in Kalo's abode and discovered that it was strangely the same as what was happening to her. Would it have been a premonition? “And thanks for putting up with me, I never told you. Well, it's your fault for always being such an idiot”.
“Oh, well, thanks for getting me rid of telling you that you were not a fool but enough with that thing about I keep you as my bait...”
Ali smiled silently and remained thoughtful as she allowed her breathing to normalize.
“Why do you hate that demon?” She finally asked while wiping the tears with her sweater.
As much as Kaliel thought, the answer was the same he had given himself for so long.
“I don’t know”.
“How do you not know?” Ali surprised and leaned to face him. She regretted it but it was too late and there was no excuse to return to his arms.
Kaliel settled himself on the bed with his back against the wall and Ali imitated him.
“The truth is that... I don’t remember what happened that day. Two years ago...” Kaliel had no choice but to tell her the truth, much to his regret, but after doing so he had the feeling that sharing it with someone lightened the weight of his soul a little. “And at that time I already hated it. In fact, that's the only thing I remember: that I hated him”.
“And that's just why you want to kill him?” Ali was even more shocked. “What if everything you think was wrong?”
“I don’t think so. I already told you: that's the only thing I can remember. I remember him, his detestable mocking smile in front of me. I fell on him feeling a hate, a fury that burned inside me like fire and then...” Kaliel hesitated with his eyes fixe
d on nothing, trying to find the words. “And then nothing. All black. And when I opened my eyes again, there was Mikah. I was hurt and confused, or rather, lost. I didn’t know where I was, why I was there, what I was doing before I appeared lying on the floor. I saw in my mind that smile, which for some reason I knew was from Baaltazhar... and a voice that whispered my name. Can you imagine how exasperating that is?” He released as he gasped. “I had never told anyone that before”.
“You mean you don’t remember who you were?”
Kaliel avoided her gaze, partly regretting telling her so much.
“I remember everything, except why I was fighting Baaltazhar...”
That confession disturbed her in a way that couldn’t be explained. Ali felt a chill running through her back until it got stuck incisively on the nape of her neck. Kaliel didn’t remember.
“Then you think that revenge of Baaltazhar will make you remember?”
“No, I think God will forgive me”.
“Do you think that killing someone who had nothing to do will make God forgive you?”
Kaliel turned to her sharply.
“Why do you suppose he had nothing to do with it?”
Confused, Ali didn’t know what to answer. Did he not know his sin? Would he have forgotten it too?
“No... I don’t know” she babbled then. “Why were you punished?”
“I was defeated” Kaliel answered and his lips tensed in a thin line as he remembered it. “Failed in my mission... I failed God”.
No. It couldn’t be that. There was something that didn’t fit well enough in his story. It was evident that Kaliel didn’t remember and that, for some reason, Mikah had decided to hide it from him. Then, suddenly, everything made sense to her: Charlotte was the mortal from whom Kaliel had fallen in love; yes, he did correspond to her but he didn’t remember it. What didn’t have in any sense was that sudden anguish that broke her heart.
21
The missing piece
Dark Temptation Page 16