Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (29 page)

I tried to fight against
the Other to regain control, but it surged through me, a cold,
cruel mass that invaded my consciousness and I was utterly
helpless, my essence torn out of my body to sit in darkness as a
mere observer.

I turned my gaze onto
Avery and my lips curved into a smile. The colour had completely
leeched from his face, his eyes wide, twin pools framed by dark
lashes in a landscape of pale flesh. His mouth worked fruitlessly,
but he couldn’t speak or even communicate with me mentally for I
was preventing him from doing so. He closed his eyes as pain
twisted his features. He began to scream.

I laughed, the laughter
bursting into the silent clearing whilst the light seeped from it,
darkness creeping in to take its place, as I crushed Avery’s
internal organs.

At the sound of Avery’s
screams, Shadrach once more tried to get to his feet, his broken
bones almost completely healed. With a mere thought I kept him
frozen to where he had fallen, his dark eyes flaming with horror as
he listened to Avery scream.

Trapped whilst the entity
used my powers to slowly kill Avery, I fought to reassert control.
Misery washed over me when I realised that no matter how hard I
fought I would not be able to seize control before it killed Avery
and that I may never be able to overcome it.

It seemed the death I had
dreamt of on my first day at the mansion was here and it was the
worst kind of death.

Then a sharp shock of
understanding lit the darkness I had been shunted to and I recalled
Mama Akosua sitting in the clearing in what I thought had been a
dream. In that “dream” I had not been as I now was. With that
memory came the awakening I had experienced in the “dream” and joy
further brightened the darkness.

Death was with me, but it
was symbolic of something else.

Rebirth.

The chapel entity was not
strong enough to defeat me. It never had been.

With that realisation I
was in control of my body once more, the chapel entity wrenched
from me and cast into the world of unending shadow it had tried to
escape from.

Avery’s screams faded away
and he opened his eyes. But instead of releasing him, I grasped
hold of him by the front of his T-shirt and sank my teeth into his
neck.

I drank his blood and
strength soon flowed into my body, the weakness which had been a
long, slow road to death fleeing before it. It was a long moment
before I drew my fangs from Avery’s neck and released him. He fell
to the ground, anguish and confusion in his gaze as he tried to
focus on me. Hating to see that confusion, I seized his mind once
more and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He passed
out.

I released the hold I had
on Shadrach. His wounds had healed but he didn’t try and run away.
He remained where he was, trying to listen for Avery’s heartbeat,
or some other sign he was still alive. But he couldn’t hear much
above his own thundering heart, and his terror was making it
difficult for him to focus. He knew he should get the hell away
from the clearing, but didn’t want to leave Avery. So he remained
there staring at me.

I knelt beside Avery and
stroked his cheek. Then I faced Shadrach.

“
It’s under control now,
Shadrach. I won’t hurt you.”

He remained where he was
in silence, even his thoughts had quietened.

“
Blood never lies,
Shadrach. You know I won’t hurt you.”

It was a long moment
before he vanished and reappeared at my side, relief having
replaced the terror and uncertainty.

“
He’s—”

“
Alive, yes. I’m going
into the chapel. To bring an end to this.”

He nodded, peering at me,
fascination alight in his eyes.

I glanced up at the moon,
which was a perfect pearl against the charcoal sky, feathery white
clouds reaching ghostly fingers towards it. It was difficult, but I
pulled my gaze away from it to Shadrach. I smiled.

“
Blood doesn’t lie. Avery
is the key, the reason I chose this existence. Drinking his blood
not only gave me strength for what lies ahead. It helped me
remember some of it, of why I came.”

He didn’t understand and I
didn’t expect him to, as I didn’t fully understand it all yet. I
stared down at Avery, his face almost completely devoid of colour.
Distress flared within when I remembered that nightmarish day he
had been captured by Master John and I fought to save him although
I already thought he was lost to me.

“
Take care of him,
Shadrach. Promise me you’ll do that.”

He nodded.

“
I don’t mean just for
tonight. If...if I don’t come out of that chapel. Promise me you’ll
take care of him, always.”

He stared at me for the
longest moment before he smiled. “You’ll be back. We’ll wait for
you...always.”

I moved to the chapel. I
hesitated at its entrance and turned to glance at Avery lying prone
on the ground, Shadrach like a dark, silent statue beside
him.

I entered the cool,
shadowy chapel.

That day of tears and
mourning,

when from the ashes shall
arise,

all humanity to be
judged.

Spare us by your mercy,
Lord,

gentle Lord
Jesus,

grant them eternal rest.
Amen.

–
Mozart,
Requiem

It was nearly one hundred
Fahrenheit outside, but the chapel was cold, the air thick and
cloying like a million cold, clammy fingers pressing against
me.

I moved down the aisle,
feeling the presence of the thousands of souls who had perished
here. I felt their grief, the terror of their last moments, and
most of all, the endless sorrow of their entrapment within this
abyss.

I came to a stop,
overwhelmed by the bottomless sorrow all around me. I focused on it
and saw something move, a deepening within the shadows. Then I saw
one. It was the spirit of a Negro woman who appeared to be in her
late forties. She wore a shift dress that looked as if it was made
out of an old sack. She was tall and thin and her face was worn
with hard work and misery. At first she merely stood staring around
her, then her slender face creased in anguish. Her gaze fell on
me.

“
Has you see'd him?” Her
words were little more than a vibration and would have sounded like
the wind whistling through the deserted chapel if it had been heard
by another. “Has you see'd my baby? She took him and now I don’t
know where he be.”

“
He’s gone to a better
place,” I said, speaking from that place of knowing. “You don’t
need to stay here. Come with me and I’ll take you to
him.”

I reached out a hand to
her. She stared at it in confusion for a few seconds and then moved
to me and placed her hand in mine. Surprisingly, I felt her touch.
It was not completely solid, but felt like the air around my hand
had grown cold and heavy like a cloud filled with rain.

Another one appeared to my
right. A Negro male. He was over six feet tall, had a lean build
and a noble, thoughtful face. More appeared: Negroes that had
either been bought or stolen and whites, mainly Europeans, who had
come to America to seek a new life. There were even some American
Indians who had not been able to defend themselves against Auria,
Onyx and Emory. But the majority of the trapped spirits were
Negroes. Before long I could barely see the charred, decayed inside
of the chapel, just the press of their translucent
bodies.

“
Is you the one we’s been
waiting for?” said the tall, noble looking Negro.

I nodded, again answering
from that place of knowing. I continued to move down the aisle, the
ghostly hand in mine tightening, the spirits closing in around me
so it felt as though I walked through thick cloud.

Below in the underground
chamber, the sconces were lit and a fiery light clawed at the
walls, my shadow dipping and diving wildly against them. More of
the dead awaited me in the chamber, their faces a uniform mask of
anguish along with a weary, long-held hope. They made a way for me
as I moved past the concrete slabs turned a diseased black by time
and the fire that had almost destroyed the chapel. The gold staff
Avery had used to wound Auria so long ago lay discarded a few feet
away. It was filthy and still stained with her blood. I came to a
stop a few metres from the gold altar.

The chapel entity was
awake, its malevolence like a blast of heat, its rage palpable like
that of a trapped animal baring its teeth, its hackles
raised.

I moved to the altar and
called the entity forth as I had done centuries ago in order to use
it as a conduit to channel the power I’d had no real inkling of
until now.

As if moving out of soiled
water, it emerged, its form flowing into being before me in the
wretched copy of my body, the body it had coveted for so long. It
crouched in a corner, its face a mask of hatred, its gaze taking in
the dead, the many men and women who had been slaughtered so it
could be brought from the netherworld to eventually live again in
the body of another.

It hissed at us. I moved
toward it. It cowered farther away, but although it was trapped, it
was not without its tricks.

I felt it tap into my
telekinetic power, as if someone had just inserted an icy needle in
my brain. I saw its plan before it had even decided to put it into
motion.

I did not try to stop it,
but let the gold staff that had lain by the charred remains of the
coffins fly through the air toward my exposed back. It struck with
a shock of pain that tore through me, taking my breath away as it
pierced my back.

The chapel entity began to
laugh, a rasping, guttural sound that sounded as if it came from
some large, diseased animal. I sank to my knees and then fell
forward as its laughter rang through my ears.

Pain overwhelmed me and
darkness sucked me out of the world of the living and into the
abyss.

But like the darkness of
the womb, it was not the end that welcomed me, but the beginning.
Weightless, formless, I shed the confines of my mortal cage. I
remembered the beginning and understood who I was for the first
time, remembering a time and place I had only ever had a sense of
in half-glimpsed dreams. It flowered into being all around me and
in memory, I was there once more.

The moon.

I remembered standing on
dust the colour of ancient pearl that shimmered beneath my bare
feet. It rolled on all around, at times dimpled, then sloping into
deep valleys only to rise up before plunging into unfathomable
darkness. It was stark and bleak to the eye, but a benediction in
all its adamantine lonesomeness. Above me darkness sat like an
overturned bowl and a million stars hovered like a host of angels.
To my right was Earth—a topaz marble against the velvet darkness of
space.

In a time when humanity
was at its infancy, I lived and my kind existed alongside men. We
were known to mankind as the Timeless Ones, and although we looked
like humans, we were powerful beings with supernatural gifts. We
were in essence gods among men. Our exact origins were not known,
but some believed our forefathers were beings from another galaxy
who settled on Earth long before human beings were thought into
existence. But the majority of us believed we were the descendants
of celestial beings. Angels who either chose not to fight in the
war Satan waged on God, or the watchers who sinned by lying with
human women and so were forever cast from the presence of the
Almighty.

Although some of our kind
mingled with the human race, usually in the form of a benevolent
yet capricious maternal or paternal figure, the majority—like
myself—had no interest in those primitive beings.

I led a solitary existence
and over what would be earthly centuries, I gradually lost interest
in the politics and strife running through the history of our
existence like a geyser, frequently erupting in battles, little
squabbles which were put down quickly. I rarely ventured down to
Earth, preferring the cold, dark solitude of the moon. Now a war
was on the horizon that would change the future of the Timeless
Ones and see a split amongst our ranks that would eventually lead
to most of us fleeing to another realm, leaving our enemies
stranded on Earth. It was one of the possible outcomes I foresaw,
for that was my special gift: the power not only of foresight, but
to bend time to my will, making me a very valuable asset to our
leader. The war itself did not interest me, but of the many
possible futures I foresaw, none of those futures showed me amongst
my kind in the realm we had created. This signified a threat I had
so far not foreseen.

I could sense this hidden
threat in my soul now like a pull, or an ache, that disconcerted.
It was like listening to a symphony and being able to discern only
the weeping of a violin as it rose to an excruciating pitch, only
to dip again and caress my heart with a sound as smooth as water.
It sang, it called to my soul, and I could not continue to ignore
it. And as the coming war gathered momentum, the call grew
louder.