Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (26 page)

Avery let out a deep sigh.
I stared at the boy, speechless, my heart filling with compassion
for him.

“
Arnaldo,” Avery said.
“I...she didn’t leave me with much of a choice.
She...I...”

He faltered to a stop,
desperately trying to gather his thoughts. When he spoke again,
there was a quiet plea in his voice.

“
Let Dallas go home. I am
responsible for what happened to Auria.”

The waitress arrived with
our meal at that moment.

“
Oh good, our food is
here,” Arnaldo said, behaving as if the topic of the mother I had
murdered had not arisen.

He winked at the waitress
as she placed the meal before him. Then he put out his cigarette,
staring longingly at the waitress’s behind as she moved away from
our table. He began to eat with relish, talking throughout,
completely ignoring the subject of his mother. Mine and Avery’s
plates of food lay untouched before us. I stared at my rare steak,
my thoughts automatically turning to that night in the woods and
Auria’s death. I battled to turn my thoughts to something else,
lest the boy see the gruesome details of his mother’s last
moments.

Seeing my expression,
Avery placed a hand beneath my chin and turned my face to his so he
could look into my eyes, his own gentle despite the unease I could
see in them. He kissed me on the forehead, still holding onto my
hand, and for a few moments some of my unease
diminished.

We both turned to Arnaldo
when we realised he had stopped talking. His gaze was on us,
amusement in his dark eyes and the curve of his lips.

“
Did you know the big oaf
is worried his immortal beloved is perhaps trying to possess you,
Dallas?” he said with a smile that was full of mirthful
malice.

I turned to Avery in
consternation. He was staring at the boy, anger making his eyes
burn with an unnatural blue fire. The boy’s smile
widened.

“
Oh, was I not supposed to
tell?” He said to Avery and laughed. “You’re wrong, of course, so
don’t you worry your pretty little head. Luna is not trying to
possess Dallas’s soul. You’ve got much worse things to worry about
than that.”

“
Is that what you think,
Avery?” I said, my stomach twisting at the dilemma this must have
put him in.

Avery shot Arnaldo a
hate-filled look before he faced me.

“
I couldn’t be sure of
what was happening, especially after what took place at the swamp.
But I realise it couldn’t be Luna because although Luna only met
Mallory once, she loved her. She would never hurt Mallory or steal
the life of one of her descendants.”

He faced the boy again.
“What exactly do you know, Arnaldo?”

“
Mainly what I just told
you. Luna is not trying to possess Dallas. Do you really think she
would be able to spend an eternity sharing a body with an airhead
like Dallas? But what Dallas told you all those years ago is true.
She is alive.” He laughed once more, a laugh laced with malice. He
turned to me and winked. “I wonder how long it will take him to
figure out what that means.”

Avery stared at him, a
small smile on his lips that did not reach his eyes which were
burning with rage. The smile widened, revealing his
fangs.

“
When this is all over, I
think I’ll be the one to come and seek you out. Then we’ll see if
your superior mental powers really will prevent me from killing
you.”

Arnaldo went completely
still.

I saw him staring at
Avery, his coal dark eyes wide with fright, his face almost
cherubic. Then I saw beyond what he had made me see to the truth.
His eyes were frozen with rage, his pink rosebud lips set in a
sneer, his face so hard it looked as if it had been carved out of
stone, making him look nothing at all like a child, but what he
really was: A heartless killer.

“
Avery,” I said in an
attempt to diffuse the tension. “He doesn’t mean what he
said.”

Avery merely leaned back
in his chair, his gaze never leaving Arnaldo’s.

“
Look,” I continued. “You
don’t have to be so mean to us. I’m sorry about your mother,
okay?”

“
Why? I’m not.” His gaze
flickered to my chest again. “In fact, I’ve wanted her dead for a
long time. I even tried to kill her myself a few centuries ago.”
His face twisted in pain. “It didn’t work, of course, as she was
much too strong for me. And what she did in retaliation, well,
let’s just say it was extremely unpleasant. But at last she’s dead.
Thanks to you, Dallas.”

“
Then why did you seek us
out like this?” Avery asked.

“
Curiosity. I’ve wanted to
meet you for a long time, Dallas. I have never come across a being
as powerful as you. And, perhaps, I wanted to help you with your
little dilemma regarding the entity that haunts the chapel in
Mississippi.”

He smiled in a way that
left us in no doubt he had no intention of helping us. He shoved a
piece of steak in his mouth and chewed violently, his long, hot
gaze resting on my chest again.

“
Would you stop staring at
my breasts? It’s creeping me out!” I snapped.

He merely smiled, his gaze
still on my chest.

“
Ahhh, desire. It is
something I have struggled with for so long. I have a child’s body
but the mind of a man. Women’s bodies of all shapes and sizes
delight and drive me wild with desire. But this body is that of a
child’s. It is sacred. To even contemplate slaying that desire—in
this body—is a perversion. And as for any such woman who so much as
looks at me with desire? It gives me great pleasure to kill them. I
am happy Auria is dead. To defile the sacred body of a child by
turning it into a vampire—to damn a man in this way—is beyond
forgiveness. So here I am. I cannot act on my desire or even commit
an act of violence against it by ending my life. You are beautiful,
Dallas. So much more than I expected you would be. So allow me the
small pleasure of gazing upon you, for I can do little
else.”

A pocket of silence fell
around us in the otherwise noisy restaurant and I felt sorry for
him once more. When his gaze returned to my chest, I pretended not
to notice.

We ate in silence. He
appeared to be absorbed with his meal, but he let his thoughts and
memories reach me. I was overwhelmed by the blistering emotions
suffusing my mind. His longing, the hunger in his body as he stared
at a female a few feet from him who may as well have been miles, if
not centuries, out of his reach. He was elated when she turned to
him, studying and admiring his unearthly beauty. The elation soured
and curdled into searing anger when he detected a hint of impurity
in her thoughts. The deaths were always painful, the torture
sometimes moving seamlessly from hours to days. At the end of it
was his pain, isolation and that ache, that yearning that would
never be assuaged.

I dropped my fork and sat
staring at him, tears filling my eyes as I watched him. He was
dwarfed by his chair, his legs dangling over the edge. He still had
his cigarette and occasionally dragged heavily on it, swigging back
large gulps of his bourbon. As he smoked, he drew in deeply and
opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, his eyes black coals of
want along with the snaking pain of denial. All I had seen of
Avery’s memories, his loneliness, I saw in this boy and I felt
nothing but sorrow for him and his plight. Arnaldo looked directly
at me then and his gaze hardened, those black coals seeming to
spark and burn with a black fury. I looked away.

He said nothing more of
his mother or why he had sought us out, but finished his meal in
silence. Avery also remained silent.

As we were leaving the
restaurant, I came to a stop and disentangled my hand from
Avery’s.

“
Can you let me have a
moment with Arnaldo alone, Avery?”

He stared at me, blinking
in surprise. Then he looked down at Arnaldo. Arnaldo smiled at him,
something which made Avery’s jaw tighten in anger.

“
Go on, Avery.”

I kissed Avery on the
cheek, something which tore the smile away from Arnaldo’s face and
made pain blaze fiercely before he turned his back to
us.

Reluctantly, Avery moved
away and out of the restaurant.

It was a few moments
before Arnaldo spoke into my mind.

I never thought the day
would come when I would have the honour of standing before a true
goddess.
He remained facing away from
me.
But here it is. I sense your confusion
at my words. You are a goddess and I should have fallen to my knees
and kissed your feet at the sight of such beauty.

He sighed, suddenly
looking smaller, more vulnerable. I wanted to put my arm around
him, but didn’t dare.

But it does not matter
whether you see yourself as a goddess, because I believe you are.
That is what really matters, the belief. You have always viewed the
chapel entity as an ancient evil but it was once flesh and
blood.

It used to be
human?

A child. You’ve been
dreaming of her.

I stood in complete shock
for a few moments.
The little
girl?

She was the chapel
entity?

Yes. I came to you today
because I am perhaps the cause of your problems. It was my
curiosity, my studies into the occult and that ancient civilisation
who believed a goddess had been born to them—a being who had the
power to undo what my mother did to me—that led Auria to
Mississippi to try and resurrect the evil now killing the women in
your family. There is no question of whether or not you can defeat
it. All you have to do is evoke and vanquish it back to where it
came from.

I need to know more. When
can—?

You’ll know what to do
when the time comes. Goodbye, Goddess.

He moved toward the exit
and was soon lost amongst the other patrons of the restaurant. I
wanted to follow, to question him, but I knew he had said all he
was willing to tell me.

Avery was at my side
moments later.

“
Is he gone?”

I nodded, miserable,
thinking of how alone and unhappy Arnaldo was.

“
Good.”

I let Avery lead me out of
the restaurant, but continued to look out for the boy vampire who
carried the weight of such endless yearning. I sighed, wishing he
really had found a goddess who could undo what Auria had done to
him.

Akan

From that night onward, a
routine was established. Akan went to the temple a few times each
week to spend a few hours with the saviour of the Enwa people. His
visits greatly cheered the little girl whose sorrow at her
confinement within the temple had long taken its toll. Topa,
although still fearful of the divine being, seemed to appreciate
his visits and the good it did her. Jow, on the other hand, bore
his visits in silence, her displeasure clear for all to see. But
like Topa, she too feared the divine one more so now she was in
regular communion with the spirits of the underworld, and so she
did not voice that disapproval.

One night Akan saw
something sticking out of the edge of the child goddess’s
robe.

“
What is that?” he
asked.

She pulled out the remains
of Tanu’s second gift, the flowers having long withered away,
leaving only the brown stalks of the posy of flowers.

He stared at the dead
gift, some emotion stirring within him.

“
It had been so...so dark
for so long,” she said. “And I thought it would always be so. When
you gave this to me, it was like a ray of sunlight and although I
knew I would never see the actual sun again, I knew things would
get better.”

She carefully tucked it
back into the folds of her robe.

Akan stared ahead for a
few moments, sorrow piercing his chest. He spoke without meaning
to.

“
The field of Heaven’s
Tears are still in bloom and will be for a few more weeks. It is a
beautiful sight, even by moonlight. I will take you there.
Tonight.”

She looked up, her eyes
wide, as if a bolt of lightning had just struck her. At first he
couldn’t be sure she had heard him.

“
Goddess?”

“
You will take me outside
the temple?”

“
Yes, Divine One. But only
for a short while.”

He got to his feet before
he could come to his senses. He gestured to Topa.

“
Topa, I need your
robe.”

She directed a furtive
glance at the goddess before lowering her eyes in fear. “My robe?
Why?”

“
Quickly.”

Topa got to her feet,
removed her robe and crossed the room to Akan. She handed it to him
before moving away again. Jow was on her feet now, her sharp gaze
on Akan as he wrapped the beaming goddess in Topa’s black robe so
only her eyes were visible. When he picked her up and moved to the
rear secret exit, Jow darted across the temple to bar their
path.

“
Where do you think you’re
taking her?” Jow demanded.