Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (16 page)

Foolish creature! Did you
think you could come here and enter my mind and think I would not
know? I know what you are,
Asanbosam
. I sensed your presence
long before you reached here. Leave here and forget you ever laid
eyes on my daughter or I will tear out your heart with my bare
hands!

I mean you and your
daughter no harm,
I
remonstrated
. I will lay my life down
before I let any harm come to her.

Leave here and never come
back!

I started to back away, disturbed not
only at her power, but at the hatred emanating from her. But before
I turned and disappeared into the trees, I shot one last parting
remark at her.

Hers is a face I cannot
forget, for it has haunted me for many years.

I ducked into the ether before she
could say more. But the encounter had left me deeply shaken and all
I wanted to do was return to Luna.

I stayed close to Luna for the rest of
the evening until she retired to her cabin.

Hiding in the woods, I observed
through her eyes as she took the potion Mama Akosua had given her,
the image of the little brown face all but covered in rags,
prominent in my mind as she drank the potion in one quick
swallow.

The pain, which she was all too
familiar with, came swiftly, causing her to inhale sharply and
stagger to her pallet where she quickly lay down. I exerted my
influence then and rocked her to sleep, already feeling the
desperate loneliness that had been my shadow before I came across
her at dusk.

She was almost completely under
sleep’s thrall.

Goodnight,
Luna
, I thought, knowing I would have to
leave the plantation that very night because I was already
entranced with her.

Then I received yet another surprise.
She was almost completely submerged in sleep but she mumbled
something.

“
Good...”

The rest of her words trailed away but
her thoughts continued to churn and she tried to finish the
sentence in her mind.

...Night...Av...

It was all I heard because she was now
fast asleep and her mind was like the bottom of a dark ocean where
nothing stirred.

I, on the other hand, had never been
more awake in my life and my whole body hummed with excitement. The
fact that she had responded to my unspoken words was surprising
enough, but she had almost uttered my name. And I had felt
something, a warmth that had suffused her, reaching out to me as
she had grasped for the half-spoken name before succumbing to
sleep. And for the first time since I had been cast into the
wilderness, it felt as if I was no longer a part of the
shadows.

I would not, and could not, leave her
now.

It was silent at the slave quarters,
as silent as it ever is for a vampire. The slaves were all fast
asleep, a bone weary dead kind of sleep that only a hard day's work
could bring. I left the woods and materialised outside Luna’s cabin
door and listened to her breathing and her heartbeat. I could also
hear the second heartbeat which had started to quicken. Seeming to
chase it was a churning, shredding noise as the herbs began to do
their work. That second heartbeat began to slow, gradually getting
weaker. I listened, tormented, as it got quieter and
quieter.

Perhaps my emotional response to the
abortion had more to do with that night of long ago and of Onyx’s
taunt, but I was aghast when it finally ceased.

The heartbeat had ceased, but the
herbs continued their rampage on Luna’s female organs and the
churning and shredding seemed to get louder. Luna would be
infertile after this. The witch was sure of it.

I was desperate to enter Luna’s cabin
and I even reached for the door knob, expecting the resistance, the
gathering power that would repel me. But it was absent and it
seemed as if rather than being repelled, I was being drawn into the
cabin.

I turned the doorknob and pushed the
door open.

I placed one foot inside the cabin and
then the other.

I was so shocked I merely stood there,
staring at her inert form. Then I moved inside and stood over her.
Again it was hard not to be enchanted by her exceptional beauty,
but I knew I could not spend the rest of the night staring at her.
So I reached into her mind again to make sure she remained asleep.
The churning and shredding seemed to quicken.

My blood could stop the damage. I drew
a fingernail against my wrist and brought it to her lips. She
stirred when the first drop of blood touched her lips, but did not
wake. She drank and almost immediately, the churning halted but I
let her drink a little bit more as I wanted to be sure the damage
caused by the herbs would be reversed.

She slept on, and when it was done, I
stared at her for a few moments, letting a finger graze the smooth
skin on her forehead, the small cut where the rock had pierced the
skin, gone now. I left the cabin.

I stood outside in the dark for a
while, listening to the sleeping slaves all around me. Hope
thrilled within me although I could not make sense of what had just
happened, why I had been able to enter Luna’s cabin without an
invitation.

I needed to speak to the witch, but I
had much to do before I called on her again.

***

I spent the rest of the night
searching for gifts for Luna. Having violated the sixth commandment
countless times over the years, I had no qualms about violating the
eighth. I stole gifts from some of the most lavish homes across
Mississippi. I stole two gowns from the spoilt, pampered daughter
of a wealthy planter along with diamond earrings and a gold
necklace from which a large, glittering ruby hung like a stone
heart. Remembering Luna's prayer and how deeply she had yearned to
be able to read the words of her Bible, I stole books.

Luna’s years of want and suffering
were at an end. Now I had found her, I would see to it that she had
everything she wanted, and so much more.

By the time I returned to the
plantation and left the gifts at the chapel, I remembered I had
forsaken my nightly kill in my haste to find and return with the
gifts. But there was no time to search for prey. I had one last
visit to make before dawn broke over the horizon.

The witch was awake and I do not
believe I was wrong in thinking she had been waiting for me to
return. She sensed my presence immediately but did not go to the
window this time.

Her manner was very different when she
spoke into my mind.

Poor creature. Your
loneliness has disturbed your mind. My daughter is not the one you
seek. Your desire has made you alter the memory. Look and see. The
real memory is there.

She thrust forward the image of the
vision I’d had of Luna and I realised that whilst I had been
searching her mind during my first visit, she had been searching
mine. She showed me a completely different woman kneeling at the
altar, one with a much larger bosom and a lascivious gleam in her
eyes and smile.

Be careful, witch,
I hissed.
That image
means more to me than life itself.
Yours
included.

She openly scoffed and I tried to calm
my anger. I was not here to fight with her. So I showed her what
had occurred earlier on that night: me at Luna’s door, and instead
of being repelled, my hand on the door and the door opening as I
was drawn inside and toward Luna.

“
She let you in?” Mama
Akosua hissed aloud.

No.

I showed it to her again, being
careful to try and keep the rest of my thoughts hidden, no easy
task against a mind as powerful as hers, especially since it was
not something I had ever had to do. The witch would be pleased to
know Luna was not infertile, but the image of Luna drinking my
blood was not one that would sit well with her.

She remained silent for a few minutes
and the tight control she had on her mind broke for a few seconds
and I felt her confusion and a deep, deep fear.

It means nothing! Leave my
daughter, Asanbosam!
Her pretence had
completely disappeared and she was like a snarling dog snapping at
me.

She was silent for a few seconds and
when she spoke again, she had regained some of her
composure.

She is not the one you
have searched for. That one is not human. My daughter is
human.

You lie. She is more than
human. She has your blood running through her veins. Witch blood. I
do not know for sure if she is the one I seek, but I cannot walk
away from her now.

I left before she could respond. I had
already been apart from Luna for far too long.

I was there before the sun rose to
observe her when she awoke from her peaceful, dreamless slumber.
For some reason she awoke in a clamour of confusion and anxiety and
the eye in the dark was wide open, searching for me. I soothed her
thoughts, forcing a calm on her. She would not suffer this day. I
stayed long enough to be sure she was calm enough to begin the day
and left her a command to return to the chapel at dusk. Then I went
into the woodlands near the cotton field.

The sun was coming up by
this time and for the first time since darkness descended on my
world, I felt exhilaration and excitement when I went to ground. I
had not fed that night but I almost felt...
alive
.

Sleep did not find me that day. I
could not stop thinking of Luna, and the pull she exerted was so
powerful she drifted into my thoughts through the eyes of others.
Most notably was that of her master, John Holbert. Being in his
mind was like being in a sewer and I saw similar perversities of
the kind I had observed being practised by Onyx and Emory. I
decided then that the most precious gift I would give Luna would be
to watch him die, painfully, at her feet. Tonight.

With dusk came the brightening and
quickening of the body and senses as the effects of the sun were
bridled by the coming of the moon. I left the earth and made my way
to the chapel to await her coming.

I waited whilst dusk softened
everything around me and I came alive, the preternatural awakening
made all the more glorious when I heard Luna making her way through
the trees toward the chapel.

When I heard her footsteps, the
urgency and excitement I felt at her presence, and the anticipation
of her reaction to my gifts, were unintentionally conveyed to her
because her footsteps quickened when she reached the clearing and
she all but ran into the chapel to the altar. That was when I
released the hold I had kept on her throughout that day.

Her emotions rose in a clamour, almost
drowning out her thoughts and it was hard for me to decipher her
reactions to the gifts, especially since I could not see her face.
But I had the strong sense she was confused and anxious, especially
since she was now remembering the things I made her forget the
evening before.

I was about to join her in the chapel
when a voice broke through to Luna’s mind, instantly dissolving my
euphoria.

I told you to stay away
from that place.

It was the witch. The next thing she
said was like acid running through my veins.

Run.

To my dismay Luna turned away from the
gifts, and although she did not run, she hurried away from the
altar, down the aisle and out of the chapel.

Desperation surged along with blind
panic, tightening my chest, as I listened to her footsteps receding
as she made for the trees. I dove out of my hiding place and
materialised in the clearing outside the chapel door, watching her
slender form moving swiftly toward the trees, with increasing
alarm.

I was about to call to her when she
came to an abrupt stop. Her back was ramrod straight and the
muscles of her neck tight with tension. She turned around and
stared directly at me, fear alive in her beautiful face, the eye in
the dark wide open.

“
What you want?” she
asked.

I vanished. She jumped in fright and
only managed to prevent a scream from escaping her lips through
sheer determination when I appeared before her seemingly out of
thin air.

Now she was before me once more, I
searched her face as anxiety churned within. Was this really her?
The woman in my vision hadn't been human, yet this one was. How
could this be her? Is it possible, after all these years, that I
was mistaken and she—the real she—was still out there
somewhere?

My fears were briefly allayed when
instead of trying to move away and toward the trees, she stood and
stared at me, her fear gone, her thoughts that of awe. She even
took a step forward and peered at me.

I was, as always, overwhelmed by her
beauty, by that direct, mysterious gaze and I found I could not
speak. Without thinking about what I was doing, I reached out to
touch her, stopping inches away from her face when sounds reached
me from the woods, two males, one whose thoughts appeared to be on
Luna. I glanced toward the woods, and delved into his mind, trying
to ascertain who this male was and whether he was a threat to her.
He was an African male she knew and his thoughts were only of
concern.