Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (38 page)

It seems like I’m rambling
a bit but I just want you all to know I appreciate and read every
review (good and bad) and that they help motivate and inspire me in
different ways.

So thank you for being my
muses.

Thank you all so much for
your reviews, emails telling me you enjoyed my novels and for
tweeting and leaving comments on my Facebook page. It really
brightens my day.

And in case you were
wondering...Luna and Avery do live happily ever after and if you
want to see how things turn out for them—along with a glimpse of an
idea I have for a future novel—keep reading for my bonus
chapter.

Dome BC-LN 9014

The night sky was a bland,
charcoal-coloured blanket flecked with fake diamonds. I moved down
hollow, silent streets through thick, warm air that felt like
thousands of cobwebs against my skin. Soulless recreations of
grand, Victorian houses crowded in on either side of the
street.

I came to an abrupt stop
when a woman tottered out of the dark some distance from me,
appearing out of thin air. My heart lurched and the blood turned to
ice in my veins when I saw she was dressed in a red gown with a
bell shaped skirt and ruffles. Thick, dark, curls cascaded down her
back. At the sight of her I was taken away to a lonely church
beneath a youthful night, a graveyard to my left almost completely
devoured by darkness.

When the woman turned in
my direction, I almost expected to see porcelain skin, a slash of
ruby red lips and the icy beauty of my maker, Auria.

Auria had been dead for
centuries and the woman before me, with her dull amber complexion
and large, vacant ash-coloured eyes, could not have looked more
alien in comparison to my maker. Yet it was still a moment or two
before I was able to regain my equilibrium and move on.

As I neared, the air a few
feet behind the woman flashed a limpid blue. Two males appeared out
of the lambent air and at her side. They too were dressed in period
clothing. One of the males wore green trousers, a matching
waistcoat and black jacket. The other was dressed in beige
trousers, a black waist coat and jacket. They both wore top hats.
They too had large, vacant, ash-coloured eyes and that dull amber
complexion. When I moved past all three of them turned to
me.

If the eyes were windows
to the soul, then what I saw in their eyes should have sent a chill
through me for they were little more than hollow, greedy pits. At
the sight of me those pits lit with fascination even as they
narrowed with envy, turning their faces into identical puckered,
masks of hatred.

Once upon a time I drew
attention from others because of my beauty. Now my appearance
attracted attention because it marked me out clearly for what I
was.

Using a flat, pebble-like
handheld device, I activated the hidden doorway the trio had just
stepped through. There were thousands of these doorways which were
used for transportation throughout the city. They were mini
wormholes which undulated between normal space and subspace,
appearing whenever activated by either a handheld device or by an
implant beneath a fingernail, which the inhabitants of this city
seemed to prefer. The air in front of me flashed blue and I moved
into a shimmering corridor, leaving the trio staring after
me.

I exited onto the lower
section of the city. It lay before me, endless ivory-coloured
buildings like broken bones thrown in a loose heap. Darkness lay
damp and heavy above it, but the maze-like streets and the
ivory-coloured buildings could clearly be seen even without my
preternatural vision as the air itself provided luminosity, like
clouds of chalky light settled around the buildings and
streets.

When I looked up I saw
what appeared to be an endless, starlit night sky. It was merely an
illusion of a night sky and concealed another level directly above
this one. There were three in total.

I was actually in a city
enclosed by a giant dome, much like thousands that existed around
the planet and which kept out a toxic atmosphere no longer able to
sustain human life.

The result of numerous
world wars that all but destroyed the Earth I had known.

The streets were empty
aside from groups of people gathered in eerie clusters, looking up
into the night sky. They were dressed in period clothing like the
three I had just left. I saw one or two other inhabitants of the
city dressed in dark, formless clothes, fear tightening their
facial features, dart surreptitiously from their homes to one of
the hidden doorways, not wanting to be out on the streets for too
long. It wasn’t surprising, for this domed city was a dangerous
place to be, mainly because of those I saw gathered in silent
clusters, staring into the air above them with a chilling
intensity. Every once in a while one of them would break into
laughter, jumping up and down in mindless glee. It was usually one
of the males. These males were so very different to the men of old.
The men of the past, and those in other domes, protected, led, and
built up their community. These males I saw before me were weak,
giggling little school girls in comparison.

In a move to rid the human
race of the differences between race and gender that led to
inequalities and prejudices the world over, all human beings had
been genetically altered so their skin was a dull amber, which
appeared a watery grey to a vampire. Their features and physiques
had been altered so they were uniform and androgynous. The ones I
saw gathered in silence differed slightly to most of those humans.
They were a new breed of humans and they stood out from the other
inhabitants of this city, not just because they all wore period
clothing, but because their heads were slightly small in proportion
to their bodies. This was a result of implants which were
originally inserted to increase brain function. They had instead
ended up taking over all their brain functions, meaning this new
breed rarely thought for themselves and their actual brains—which
were rarely used, if at all—had become smaller. It wouldn’t have
surprised me to discover their eyes, and especially their mouths,
were larger than their brains.

The very sight of them
elicited a heavy smattering of contempt. Contempt felt the world
over. This new generation of human were little more than vermin.
And the very people I saw ducking in and out of their homes,
terrified of being seen, were the ones responsible for their
creation.

Long ago this community
had allowed an abomination to flourish in their midst which led the
future generation to believe behaviour shunned by other
communities—such as lying, stealing, stalking and voyeurism—were
things to be admired. They had also been taught serious crimes such
as sexual violence against women and paedophilia had a place within
civilised society.

I took a moment to survey
the crowds gathered, staring into thin air. In actuality they were
viewing broadcasts through an implant in their brains. I could
glean enough of the broadcasts to know they were all of different
men and women, huge, vivid, visually alluring, images of their
faces hovering in the air above so that whichever angle you viewed
them from, they appeared to be looking at and addressing
you.

All these men and women
were vampires.

From being forced to live
in the shadows, vampires were now the false gods of this world,
especially of the new breed of mindless humans before me. The
period dress they wore had nothing to do with a love of history,
but was merely in order to pay homage to the vampires they
worshipped.

I felt sadness touch my
heart along with despair over what had become of the human
race.

The world had changed
beyond recognition. The only thing that remained the same was my
immortal beloved.

My thoughts on the past, I
moved down into the bowels of the domed city.

***

When my beloved returned
to me that warm summer night of long ago, I suppose a part of me
had known she had kept her promise to me the night I turned her
into a vampire. Still, it took some time before the guilt, the
sense of betrayal at finding love again with another, finally left
me. It took even longer for me to realise the woman I had found
love with was the one I had spent decades pining for.

The realisation had crept
up on me gradually, like a rose quietly coming into bloom, on that
long road trip we took which saw us spend years travelling the
world. On some nights we found ourselves bathing beneath a gushing
waterfall. Other nights saw us lounging on the bonnet of the car
talking long past the witching hour, until the threat of the coming
dawn urged us onward to seek shelter from its punishing
rays.

For decades sorrow had
been a chaste and jealous lover. When my beloved returned to me and
I allowed myself to love again, I soon forgot what the bite of
sorrow felt like or that its bitter caress had once been all the
world had to offer me. Love had filled my heart and life with its
heat. My beloved’s laughter, the sound of her uttering my name, her
touch, blocked out the sound of sorrow's whimper. Her raven eyes
held me captive so I saw nothing beyond them. Her love for me was
an ocean separating me from those years of misery, but although
sorrow no longer had the power to reach me, it could send another
in its stead: Guilt. Guilt Luna had been replaced so easily by
another, especially one who looked exactly like her.

I loved Dallas. I loved
her lively, frivolous personality. I loved the fearlessness with
which she lived her life. Yet at times I heard Luna in her words,
saw Luna in her actions and even some of her mannerisms. And that
made guilt draw ever nearer to me, for it made me wonder if my love
for the woman who led me back into the land of love and joy was as
pure as I believed it to be.

I don’t know when,
exactly, I realised she had kept her promise and returned to me. It
just seemed to be there, at first peering at me through a window
until one night it walked in through an open door. We were in a
hotel in Argentina and I awoke to find the room awash with the
sacred bronze light of the setting sun. The pain wrought by the sun
was kissed away by the coming night and my flesh came alive in
response to twilight’s song. I automatically reached for Dallas to
find her already awake and gazing at me. Her raven eyes were
magical in this light, her skin liquid chocolate, her lips spread
in a gentle smile that spoke of such sweet, deep love. The sight of
her awakened every nerve, every fibre of my being, like the coming
night never could, and I was a little bit saddened she was already
dressed.

Her smile widened and she
kissed me—oh, too briefly—on the lips.

“
We’re supposed to pick
Mallory up from the airport in about half an hour,” she
said.

I sat up on the edge of
the bed, my back to her.

“
Why did you let me sleep
for so long, Luna? I don’t—”

I came to an abrupt halt
when I realised I had just called her Luna.

I turned to her,
guilt—along with an awful sickening feeling—in my chest, a tremor
running through me as tears came to my eyes. I expected to see
unease, if not downright anger. Instead I saw only the soft, gentle
smile I saw every time I awoke.

I searched her thoughts
and found no anger there, only a quiet exasperation at the fact
that it had taken so long for me to see it.

I frowned at her as tears
spilled onto my cheeks.

“
Luna.”

She moved to me and placed
a soft kiss on my cheek.

“
Yes, Avery.”

“
What about
Dallas...what—?”

“
No, it wasn’t what you
were so scared of. I haven’t possessed Dallas. I am Dallas. What I
mean is that I just came back like I promised I would, but I’m
different now. I remember who I am—those years as a slave, our time
together, what drove us apart—but I’m still silly and irritating
and noisy and everything else you complain about.”

“
Why didn’t you tell
me?”

“
I didn’t know how. And I
didn’t think you’d accept me as I am now. I thought I’d have to be
the woman you knew. But I couldn’t be that person and live with so
much pain and rage. It’s kinda like my grandma told you all those
years ago. You had to let go of the old me so you could be open to
me as I am now. I probably wouldn’t have even told you, but I know
you still feel so guilty about falling in love again and I had to
tell you so you’d know you’ve got nothing to be guilty about,
Avery.”

I had known deep down from
the moment I found her waiting for me in the field of flowers. I
didn’t know how long it would take for me to reconcile the woman I
had known to the woman she was now. I just knew I loved her and
always would.

“
Now go and get dressed.
You know how Mallory gets when she’s kept waiting,” she
said.

I took her hand and kissed
it, reluctant to let it go. It was smooth and silky, unlike the
tough, calloused flesh of her palms when I had first fallen in love
with her. But it was still the same hand. I let it go and moved to
the bathroom, pausing at the door.