Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (12 page)

“
I wouldn’t be so sure of
that,” I hissed.

He merely regarded me coolly, that
arrogance even in the face of death bringing a fresh wave of anger,
especially since I remembered him bowing to Julia, that mocking
smile on his lips.

It was my guilt that saved his life.
His thoughts were laid bare before me and they were of Minny. He
had been the one who informed Alden that she had tried to warn us.
It was not something he had wanted to do, but he had known that
Auria would have seen it the moment Julia and I were in her
presence and it would have ensured an extremely torturous death for
him and her. So he had told Alden in the hopes that her punishment,
or death, would be swift. He hadn’t counted on me putting a stop to
the whipping, an act that had instead led to a much worse fate for
the girl. Even then he had taken a risk and left the relative
safety of the slave quarters that night to go and leave food for
her, but he was already sure she was dead by then.

So, no, I wouldn’t kill him. He didn’t
even flinch when I reached for him, grasping him by the lapels. I
moved into the ether and we became weightless.

We arrived at the dried out well where
I let Kato go. He fell to the ground and promptly got to his knees,
irritation marking his face. Then he saw where I had brought him.
He quickly got to his feet and raced to the well, anxiety working
his features.

He began pulling up the barrel Minny
had been shut in, seeming to have completely forgotten about me. I
dipped into the ether and returned to the cotton field. Julia’s
corpse lay exactly as I had left it. I felt tears fill my eyes as I
stared at her. It seemed I still could not rid myself of the
irrational hope she would miraculously come back to
life.

I picked her up and took her with me
into the ether. When I returned Kato had managed to bring the
barrel out of the well and opened it. He said nothing when he saw
me move out of the ether with Julia in my arms. I lay her on the
grass a short distance from him and stroked her face. When I faced
Kato, he was staring at me with something akin to pity. He quickly
returned to his task and lifted the half-naked girl out of the
barrel and laid her on the grass.

The wounds she had sustained from the
whipping had been left unattended. Some had crusted over, but blood
still seeped from her back. She did not stir, although she was
still alive—barely. I took a step back as the scent of her blood
filled my nostrils, calling to the demon within. How could I want
more after all I had drunk?

“
She ain’t gonna make it,”
Kato said, looking deeply shaken, the arrogance gone before the
weight of the possible death of the young girl.

“
Bring her to
me—slowly.”

At first he glared at me in defiance.
But after another glance at Minny, he did as I
commanded.

I drew my nail across my wrist and
blood gathered along the cut, but unlike human blood, it stubbornly
refused to drip from the wound.

“
What you gonna do?” Kato
demanded as I knelt by her side.

I gently took her by the back of the
head and brought her lips to my wrist. He made to push my wrist
away. I shoved him aside, much harder than I had meant to, and he
lost his balance and fell on his side. He scrambled to his knees
and glared at me, although anxiety was alight in his green eyes as
he glanced at Minny who had begun to stir. She started to struggle
feebly when she saw the cut on my wrist, perhaps knowing what it
was I meant to do.

“
Naw,” she
moaned.

I ignored her protest and forced her
lips to my wrist, commanding her mentally to drink. When I released
her, she merely stared up at me, bewilderment in her eyes as she
wiped at her mouth. But she was already alert, strength and colour
flowing into her eyes and face.

“
You should be completely
healed in a short while,” I said and took a step away from her, the
scent of blood still stirring the frenzied lust for death that had
seen me slay hundreds of people in less than an hour.

Kato was immediately at her side. He
took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders, covering her
nakedness. He helped her to her feet, and although he was still
glaring at me, the anxiety was gone and his thoughts revealed no
arrogance, only a relief and gratitude that he never would have
uttered.

Minny faced me. She stared hard at me
in confusion, her thoughts lingering on the blood staining my face
and clothes. Before the confusion could clear and be replaced with
horror at what the blood on my face and clothing signified, I
entered her mind and altered what she saw so the blood on my person
disappeared.

“
You’s one of them now,”
she said eventually.

I nodded.

“
What ‘bout...”

She did not need to finish the
question, for the answer could be found lying a short distance from
her. She pulled away from Kato and moved to Julia’s corpse. Kato
followed close behind. It was a few moments before I could join
them. I looked on in silence as she knelt before the
corpse.

“
Oh Lawd!” she
breathed.

It was all she said, but her thoughts
and emotions came to me, making me wish I was far, far away from
them. She was focusing on that singular moment when Julia grasped
her hand. She had observed none of the disdain other whites showed
at a Negroes touch, just that of one human being to another, and
the kindness and concern she had shown at Minny’s apparent
distress. She was genuinely aggrieved by Julia’s death—something
that surprised me, especially since we were probably the only two
people on this Earth who would truly mourn her passing, for there
were very few people in Julia’s short life that had ever known her
true worth. This slave had seen it immediately.

I again marvelled at how wrong I had
been about these Negroes. I did not need these supernatural
abilities to see what everyone else chose not to see, that they
were just like us whites, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Yet they were viewed as no more than cattle.

“
When is you gonna bury
her?” Minny asked when she got to her feet. She looked alarmed when
I didn’t answer. “You is gonna bury her, ain’t you? You gots to
bury her, you can’t let her—”

“
Minny!” Kato murmured in
warning.

She glanced at him and was silent for
a few moments before she met my gaze again.

“
You ain’t never gonna be
at peace now,” she said gently. “But your wife can. You gots to
bury her.”

I stared down at Julia. I had lost so
much in just a matter of days and soon I wouldn’t even have this
corpse.

I met Minny’s gaze and nodded,
surprised yet again when she breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t
really understand why she seemed to care so much, not only about
Julia, but about me.

“
I can take you away from
here. If you tell me—”

“
That’s mighty kind of
you,” Kato began, the condescension back in his tone. “But we be
just fine by ourselves.”

I stared at him, leafing through his
thoughts and memories as if I were flicking through the pages of a
book.

“
The river,” I said after
a few moments. “You stay here,” I directed at Minny. “I will take
Kato back so he can retrieve whatever possessions you wish to take
with you and anything else of value you come across.”

I looked directly at
Kato.
I will take you as far as the river.
Then you’ll take Minny and get as far away as you can. Only then
may you tell her what I’ve done and that they are all
dead.

His face hardened.
I ain’t never gonna tells her. Like she says, you
and I ain’t never gonna have no peace. But at least she can if I
tells her they’s all got away like we has.

I knew then that I could leave her
with him and he would care for her and never leave her side. As I
moved toward him, I noticed something glinting in the grass. I
moved to it and picked it up. It was a gold chain with a
cross.

“
This must be yours.” I
held it out to Minny.

Instead of reaching for the cross, she
merely stared at me in awe whilst Kato looked on in
fear.

“
What is it?” I
asked.

When Minny spoke, she sounded
breathless.

“
You can touch the
crucifix. The others weren’t able to touch no crucifix. They could
control us and make us take it off, but they couldn’t touch it nor
bear to look at it, neither.”

She moved closer to me, showing
absolutely no fear. I took a step back from her.

“
It was the onliest thing
that they couldn’t touch. A crucifix,” she said.

I didn’t understand why a small smile
had lit up her face, or why Kato looked anything but happy about
this latest development. I held the chain out to her again. She
shook her head, again closing the space between us.

“
Don’t you see?” she said,
placing her hand against my arm. “Them creatures never could touch
no crucifix ‘cause they’s evil. But you can, so there’s hope for
you. There’s hope.”

I stared at the crucifix, something
that had been a dear part of my life for as long as I could
remember.

“
I want you to keep it,”
she said. “Hold on to it and keep remembering that you ain’t lost
to the Lawd.”

Her thoughts, and the sincerity they
revealed, made me place the chain around my neck.

With an anguished last glance at
Julia’s corpse, I took Kato by the arm and we
disappeared.

When we returned with clothing and
money he found at the mansion, Minny was kneeling by Julia’s
corpse, apparently praying. It was a sight that tore at my soul and
I was eager to get them away from the plantation, knowing I would
never have to lay eyes on them again.

When I returned to the plantation, it
had stopped raining and the place was completely deserted. Everyone
who could escape had left long ago and only the dead and the
darkness remained. I returned to the mansion and took off the
clothing Emory had given me. Then I put on my old clothes,
carefully arranging the white necktie against my coat. The very act
of putting on the clothing soothed my tortured soul even though I
knew that wearing them was sacrilege.

I spent the rest of the night burning
everything: the cotton field with its countless dead, the mansion,
and the slave quarters. I watched it all burn, wishing I could burn
away the memories of the last few days along with the pain that was
now a permanent resident in my soul. I returned to
Julia.

I took her into the woods, finding a
beautiful spot that did not have too many distinguishing landmarks
because, like Minny had said to me, Julia could be at peace now and
I did not intend to blight her last resting place by returning to
it.

It seemed as if it had been an
incredibly long night that had no hope of ever ending. Surprising
as it was, the sun began to rise, calling an end to the blood and
terror I had unleashed during those long dark hours. The soft peach
light it cast through the dense canopy of trees threatened instead
of welcomed now I was no longer a man. I held tight to Julia,
desperately eager to hold on to her even as the pain began to tear
into my bones, urging me to get out of the way of the coming dawn.
But in the end I could not bear to part with her, so I pushed
through into the nothingness and re-materialised upright beneath
the soil with Julia pressed tight to my chest, the two of us
enclosed in earth.

I gave a heavy sigh, letting the earth
close tighter around us as the pain began to lessen. I felt almost
safe beneath the earth with my wife in our makeshift grave, the
horror and despair lessening somewhat.

I allowed myself to sleep, wishing I
could remain in this grave with her for all eternity.

But the sun could not continue to keep
watch over the Earth indefinitely, and when it was chased away by
the moon, I awoke, as did the demon within and the abhorrent hunger
for blood that made me its captive.

Feeling as though my soul was being
rent into two, I called the nothing to me. Julia and our grave
disappeared and I burst into the woodland.

She was gone. I accepted that properly
for the first time. The sun had not completely left the Earth to
the moon, but the night was already alive as night creatures came
out of their hiding places to scour the woodland and other
predators took to the gloom to search for prey. As I, too, would do
this night and every other night for all eternity. But first I bade
goodbye to the sweet and gentle soul who had been in my mortal life
for far too short a time.

I stood in the waxing twilight, which
was bright before my unnatural gaze, and recited words I had said
many a time before, but with none of the angst and grief I felt
now.

“
Julia. My darling Julia.
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May the Lord bless
you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious
unto you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you
peace. Amen
.
”