Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (54 page)

The end of the nineties and the
beginning of a new millennium saw me searching for Luna. I
travelled to every corner of the globe and stayed in each location
for months, scouring every city, searching the minds of those I
came across for a glimpse of her, the dead and undead alike. I only
broke away from the search whenever Luna’s descendants or my own
relations needed me.

I thought constantly about Dallas and
the extraordinary power I had seen her display so far, power that
would no doubt mean she would be preyed on by the chapel entity
before long. And whenever I broke off from my search, I immediately
went to New York to check on her and look for signs it had begun to
target her.

One night I arrived at their apartment
in New York to discover no one at home. I was able to discover from
one of the doormen that Dallas’s father was away on business, her
mother was probably with her lover and Dallas would likely come
stumbling back to the apartment drunk, or high, in the early hours
as had become the norm for her since her thirteenth birthday over a
year ago.

I made my way to the club she
frequented on a weekly basis.

I moved through the dark rooms of the
night club, moving past drunk scantily clad females draped over
glassy eyed males. They gyrated to the soulless music being pumped
through the air beneath dazzling strobe lights.

I found no sign of Dallas among the
sweaty bodies around me although I had been told she was definitely
here. I entered the deserted ladies toilets and came to an abrupt
stop in the doorway. The years since the first death, Ebony’s, had
seen me surf unending waves of hopelessness. But it did not come
close to what I felt when I entered the ladies toilet.

Dallas was in one of the cubicles, the
door wide open. She was sitting on the toilet, her slender dark
legs and arms sprawled, her head resting against one of the cubicle
walls, her mouth hanging open. She was unconscious, her black lace
knickers around her ankles.

It was a few moments before I was able
to move to her and lift her off the toilet seat. I pulled up her
underwear and straightened the short, tight dress she
wore.

She had begun to stir by the time I
picked her up and carried her out of the toilets and the garish,
soulless club.

Out in the bracing night air, she
seemed to come to enough for me to place her on her feet, although
her eyes were still closed and her arms draped heavily around my
neck, her head against my chest. She shivered against me in the
cool air. I took off my jacket and draped it around her. She had no
handbag. I can only assume it had been lost or stolen.

I could have taken her home in
seconds, but I did not want to leave her so soon and so I waited
for a taxi. Her thoughts came through to me of what had occurred
that night, events she probably would not recall the following day.
And anger heated my chest at the image in her mind of her
boyfriend, Omar, who had brought her here and then abandoned her,
leaving with another woman.

I felt her shift, the warm soft
pressure against my chest disappearing. I glanced down at her
distractedly to see her awake and staring up at me. I was
momentarily taken away from my troubled thoughts by the clarity of
her gaze, and the raven eyes that were so much like Luna’s. Again
swift pain and yearning clenched my chest. They all looked like her
in some way, but it never failed to bring the pain and a reminder
of all I had lost.

Her lips curved into a
smile.

“
You,” she murmured, her
brow furrowed in a sleepy frown. “Now where have you
been?”

I was completely speechless because
she remembered me. Vividly. Although I had made her forget our last
encounter. How could she already be this powerful?

I was saved from responding by a
brutish looking white male in a black suit who had a slab for a
face and small, mean looking eyes that hid a heart too easily
broken by trying to fix the world and everyone in it. His current
and equally fruitless project was Dallas, whose behaviour he had
watched steadily spiral out of control since she first started
coming to this club.

“
Is everything okay,
Dallas? Where’s Omar?” he asked.

His gaze was on me and there was only
the barest hint of civility to veil the menace in his
tone.

“
Hey, Justin. It’s okay.
He’s my vampire guardian angel,” she slurred drunkenly.

I tensed and could only stare down at
her in surprise. Her words brought an exasperated smile to Justin’s
lips although his stance was still hostile.

“
You worry too much about
me, Justin,” Dallas continued. “I’ll only end up breaking your
heart. That’s what my vampire angel thinks anyway. But I’ll never
hurt you. You’re my friend.”

“
It’s all right,” I said
to Justin before Dallas could say more. “I work for the
Marshalls.”

I entered his mind and calmed his
anger and unease, allowing him to see the truth of my intentions
toward her. A taxi had pulled up by then.

“
Here.” I handed him my
business card. “I’ll make sure she gets home and if she is ever in
any trouble, give me a call.”

He nodded, his concerned gaze on
Dallas as we got into the taxi. She waved at him and blew him a
kiss as we drove away.

In the cab she sank into my arms, her
sleepy mesmerising eyes on me as she only half-listened as I
lectured her on her behaviour. I ignored the less than wholesome
thoughts that were directed at me. She appeared to have passed out
again by the time we arrived at her apartment.

I placed her in bed and stood staring
at her for a few moments. Then I again erased all her memories of
me and placed a mental command that would stop her drinking and
partying. Then I left the apartment, the anger that had heated my
chest earlier now a ferocious blaze.

***

I rang the bell four times before it
was pulled open by a tall, handsome African American male. He was
completely naked. He glanced up at me, his eyes glazed, his face
creased in confusion.

“
What the fuck do you
want?” he asked.

He moved forward, out of the
apartment, in response to a mental command and I seized him by the
arm, dragging him into the ether with me. We materialised on the
roof of his apartment block where I released him. He stumbled back
a few steps and looked around him in confusion.

“
What the—”

His words were cut off by a blow to
the jaw that knocked him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, his
eyes rolling into the back of his head as he spat out
blood.

I beat him, only just managing to
control myself enough to not kill him. But it still saw him left
with multiple broken bones. When I was done, I left him at the door
of his apartment having placed a mental command in his mind that he
never make contact with Dallas ever again.

It was only then that the anger that
had blazed in my chest cooled to ash. But anxiety still plagued me
along with the memory of the shivering girl in my arms, the raven
eyes that had wrought so much pain and the helplessness I felt
regarding the threat she was not even aware of.

The following week, I returned to New
York to discover once again that Dallas was not at home. I sighed.
Clearly the mental command I had placed in her mind had had no
effect whatever. I waited until she returned. She stumbled into the
apartment block in the early hours with a half empty bottle of
champagne in her hand, her dress even shorter than on the previous
occasion.

I sighed, and when I was sure she was
fast asleep, I left New York. My destination? Switzerland, the next
stop in this never-ending quest for Auria and an answer to the
problem of the chapel entity.

***

Ella’s death—to old age,
thankfully—was a blow. She was the only one who knew of the danger
facing the family, and in her death, I lost my only living ally in
this battle against an intangible evil that continued to claim
lives of men and women that were like my own children.

I continued to keep a close eye on
Dallas and watched her grow up into a beautiful young woman. Of all
of Luna’s descendants, Dallas resembled her the most. But at times
I could not be sure my memory of Luna was true since it had been so
long since I had gazed upon her face. Dallas continued her
extremely reckless, wilful, and irresponsible behaviour, drinking
far too much and always finding herself in the most dangerous
situations. I worried constantly about her.

One night, I made my way to Atlanta
after another warning, in time to prevent Dallas from being preyed
on by a vampire. I had not needed to do much to warn the vampire
away from Dallas, but rage and fear had made me chase it across
Georgia until I eventually grew bored of following the exhausted,
terrified creature. I returned to Atlanta at dawn, where Dallas was
staying with her aunt Rose and learned, to my dismay, that Dallas
had come across Luna’s journal.

“
I’ve seen the chapel
before. I’ve been dreaming about it for years,” I heard her
say.

Alarm touched my heart. When I entered
her aunt’s mind and made her tell Dallas to stay away from the
chapel, I found myself thrown out of her mind, whether by Dallas or
Rose, I could not tell. Exhausted, I decided to head for home. I
would deal with Dallas when she came searching for me.

She came and I sent her away, as
always, making her forget the encounter.

Lonely and deeply yearning for Luna, I
resumed my search for her, but I had already given up by then and
was merely going through the motions, pretending there was hope
when all hope was lost.

So it was with a heavy heart that I
roamed the streets of Louisiana one night, deep in thought about
the ever-present dilemma of what to do about the evil that was
stalking Luna’s descendants. Then I received a frantic call from
Mallory, asking me to return to the mansion immediately as there
was something I needed to see. Mallory rarely called me during the
night hours unless it was of the utmost urgency, so I headed back
to the mansion.

I knew there was someone waiting for
me in the field of flowers even before I got within sight of the
mansion.

It felt as if my heart ground to a
stop and for a few moments I could not move, my hands shaking as I
stood alone in the Louisiana countryside, wondering if she had
finally kept her promise and returned to me.

I raced toward the mansion and
materialised in the field of flowers to a horrifying
sight.

There was a pink luggage set by the
door. Dallas was standing with her back to me and for a moment, her
silhouette against the Louisiana night was like Luna’s that night
on the windswept rooftops of London, that air of waiting. When she
turned around, I was in for a shock.

Beautiful, warm Dallas was no more. A
powerful vampire was what met my gaze.

“
What have you done?” I
whispered.

She smiled and came bounding toward me
in a jingle of jewellery and expensive perfume.

“
Avery,” she sang. “You
don’t have to turn me away. I’m like you now. I’ve come to
stay.”

I stood in complete shock.
That shock soon turned to consternation when I saw her thoughts.
She was thinking of a wedding in the field of flowers. Her
attention was only taken away from thoughts of wedding planners and
wedding dresses when she glanced at the shirt I was wearing. Her
brow creased and she made a mental note to search my wardrobe for
any other such
uncool
clothing and throw them away.

She went to throw herself in my arms.
I caught her by the neck and lifted her off the ground before she
could touch me.

“
Who did this?” I
hissed.

“
Avery.” She was coughing
and spluttering. “I can’t breathe.
I can’t
breathe
.”

She clearly had not worked out the
fact that she no longer needed air. This meant she had been made
into a vampire only recently.

Things were so much worse than I
thought.

In a rage, I threw her away from me,
despite the fact that, like Luna, she was no doubt much stronger
than I was.

She went flying through the air,
hitting one of the oaks at the side of the mansion.

This is where my story ends. All I
will say is that if I thought I had known torment and aggravation
during the long years of my life, they were nothing compared to
what I suffered when Dallas came to stay.

THE END

I would like to first of all thank you
for purchasing this novel and apologise to those of you who have
had to wait nearly two years to read the continuation of The
Darkling Trilogy.

I have included this afterword as I
wanted to take this opportunity to apologise for any historical
inaccuracies contained in this novel. I tend to do my research
after I have written the first draft of a novel as any research I
do always influences the story, and since I believe a writer should
always follow the muse when it comes to writing, it means I usually
end up tying myself in knots trying to figure out how to work the
facts into the fantasy I have created.