Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (4 page)

Tears spilled onto my
cheeks at the memories.

I had seen him for brief
moments throughout my entire life, and he had always been
unreachable, his thoughts caught by something far, far away from
me. That last encounter with him was the first time I felt I had
his entire attention. And it was as if he couldn’t tear his gaze
away from me, his dizzying blue eyes focussed on me with an
intensity that made me feel weak.

I knew I loved Avery—that
all-consuming, brutal love I’d had a taste of the first time I held
Luna’s journal. I placed my hand against my aching stomach—an ache
like a wound which had been with me for as long as I could
remember. My grandma and my aunt had been band aids keeping the
wound from sight, but it had always been there—that loneliness and
the sense there was something very important missing in my life.
Something as fundamental as the moon on a pitch-black, starless
night.

I had to go to
him.

Wiping away tears, I
glanced at the clock opposite my bed which was just visible in the
gloom shrouding my room. It was five-thirty a.m.

I forced myself to my
feet. The first thing I had to do was book a flight out of New
York. My final destination was the mansion in Louisiana, but first
I had to get to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Once I had done what I
needed to do in Mississippi, I could go to Louisiana and
Avery.

I glanced around my room,
searching for my phone amongst the clothes littering the bed and
floor. I caught sight of something just as I saw my handbag at the
foot of the bed.

I gasped and a chill ran
through me.

My hair.

I stared at my reflection
in the mirror opposite the bed. It was a ragged mess. I couldn’t go
and find Avery again with my hair looking like this.

I retrieved my phone and
called my hairdresser’s private cell number.

When she picked up I
didn’t let her speak.

“
Toni, I need you to be at
my apartment to weave my hair in the next hour.”

“
Dallas?
What—?”

“
One hour,
Toni.”

I hung up. After another
glance in the mirror, I searched through my contact list for my
mother’s make-up artist.

My thoughts were on the
moment I walked away from Avery, leaving him alone in the clearing
whilst dusk crouched all around him.

I had forgotten
him.

Tears filled my eyes once
more.

***

It was almost eight p.m.
and my cab had just driven away, leaving me some distance from a
single storey house deep in Hattiesburg, Mississippi under an ochre
sky marbled with yellow threads of light. Knee-high grass devoured
the property. Three more oaks cast a fugitive gloom about me and at
first obscured the filth caking the windows of the house. Greying
wood peeked between strips of curling white paint, weathered and
bristling with splinters. A forlorn breeze whistled between the
floorboards.

Anxiety sat cold and
clammy in the pit of my stomach.

What if this didn’t
work?

I pictured Avery as I had
seen him last and my resolve strengthened.

It had to work. Too much
depended on it. I didn’t remember much of the dream that led me
here, only the brown mare and the chapel, but I knew this was where
I needed to be.

The shack appeared to be
empty, but I could feel his presence, a dull ebb of hostile energy,
emanating from inside. It was only a matter of time before he awoke
and sensed my presence. Next to me was a pink Louis Vuitton luggage
set. My freshly done hair hung down my back in dark, glistening
waves. My make-up was flawless. The cute burnt orange Versace dress
I wore clung to my body as if it had been made especially for me,
revealing long, sleek, dark legs that would make even Naomi
Campbell jealous.

I looked damned
good.

When I finally got to
Louisiana there was no way Avery would be able to resist me. Dolce
& Gabbana sun glasses and orange Jimmy Choo’s completed the
look.

I tapped my foot
impatiently, wondering when the hell the being in the shack was
going to wake up.

I smoothed my hand down
the front of my dress, admiring my perfectly manicured
nails.

Damn, I actually couldn’t
believe how good I looked.

I glanced up at the shack,
thinking I might have to actually wade through the grass—and God
only knows what else—to go and knock on the door, when I felt a
tightening of the energy from within.

He was coming.

I could feel him honing in
on me and gathering his power to draw near. He would soon be here
and standing behind me any second...

...Now!

I spun around. “Hold it
right there!”

A black male dressed in
jeans, a grey T-shirt and brown leather jacket stood before me. His
deep set, piercing, dark eyes widened with surprise and then
narrowed. There was no mistaking the menace in his eyes or in the
slight sneer around his generous mouth when he spoke.

“
You must be Dallas
Marshall. Maryse’s little psychic friend.”

I appraised him for a few
moments, admiring his cool, ebony complexion, clean shaven head and
high cheekbones that made him look like a statue of an ancient
pharaoh.
Were all vampires good
looking?

“
No.”

He stepped forward,
something which made me extremely nervous because I could feel
anger pulsing behind that sneer.

“
But I suppose one must be
able to stand out in a crowd, so to speak, to be noticed by a
vampire. Normally it’s an exceptionally handsome face, such as my
own.” He gave a little self-deprecating chuckle. “But it can be
intellect or some other unique quality that will capture a
vampire’s interest and make them turn you into what they
are.”

He took another step
closer.

“
I don’t suppose you came
in search of us to listen to me talk about such things, did you, my
dear?”

“
No.” I cleared my throat,
jutting my chin out.
I can’t let him see
how scared I am.

He smiled almost
derisively and arched an eyebrow. “Ah, but I can see and
hear—you're scared—and you should be.”

The last few words were
uttered so low I almost didn’t hear them. He took a few steps
closer, and when he was at arm’s length, I placed my hand on his
chest.

“
Stop right
there!”

I brought an image of
Avery standing in the clearing under the trees, suppressed anger
darkening his vivid, blue eyes to a slate blue. I held it in my
mind for him to see.

“
Don’t get any funny
ideas. He knows I’m here and if you do anything to me he’ll kill
you.”

He rolled his eyes.
Placing his hands behind his back, he walked slowly in a circle
around me.

“
Ah, yes.
Him
. Of all the people
Maryse could have chosen to try and feed on that night, she had to
make the mistake of choosing you. Your friend gave her quite a
scare. Do you know he stalked her for nearly a week after that
little encounter by your car? I suppose he wanted to let us, and
every other vampire we came across, know that the Marshalls are,
and always will be, off the menu. And it worked. It worked so well
we were too scared to continue staying at the home of a wealthy new
acquaintance of ours. So here we are in this hovel you
see.”

He came to stand before me
again.

“
He is the oldest vampire
either of us has come across so far. And he is far stronger than
us. But that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you.”

In a flash he closed the
space between us. I could only peer up at him, frightened by that
small demonstration of his preternatural speed, but I wasn’t about
to back down. Too much depended on this.

“
I have a proposition for
you,” I blurted out. “I want you to turn me into a
vampire.”

It was as if he hadn’t
heard me. He took my sunglasses off my face and hooked them on the
front of my dress. Then he lightly brushed the hair away from my
face and grinned.

“
You have such pretty
brown eyes,” he said.

Curiously, his gaze had
been nowhere near my eyes when he said that, but was lingering on
my cleavage as he trailed his fingers down my arm to my wrist. One
of the rings he was wearing scratched my left wrist when he wrapped
his hand around it, but I ignored it.

“
My
eyes
are up here,” I said, and
reached out with my free hand to lift his chin up so I could look
into his eyes.

Before I could even touch
him, he caught my hand and pinned it behind my back. His smile
vanished and throbbing anger was clearly visible in his
eyes.

“
I wouldn’t do that, my
dear. You don’t seem to understand you’re way out of your depth
here. Seeking out a vampire and offering yourself to him in this
way is a stupid thing to do. And it may just cost you your
life.”

He smiled again and
abruptly released the hand he had pinned behind my back. He
continued to hold on to my wrist.

“
Yes, you have such
beautiful brown eyes. They say the eyes are the windows of the
soul.” He pulled my hand up to his face and I could not take my
eyes away from his. “But I find that blood is the window to the
soul. Blood never lies.”

That was when I saw a
small cut on my wrist and blood running down my forearm as he
brought my wrist to his mouth. His cool lips closed around the cut,
his eyes never leaving mine.

“
St-stop that!” I cried
and tried to pull my wrist out of his grasp.

For a moment he held on
and then abruptly released me, letting me take a few steps back. He
seemed shocked. His brow was puckered, his gaze intense as he
stared at me, clearly unsettled for some reason. He soon regained
his composure.

“
Interesting.” He peered
at me with shrewd interest. “Very interesting.”

“
Th-that was
just...rude.”

“
Rude?”

“
Yes, rude. Cutting and
sucking on someone’s arm without even bothering to ask them if they
mind first is just rude!”

He chuckled
softly.

“
So did you have a good
look into my soul,
Shadrach?”

The laughter abruptly cut
away at the fact that I knew his name. He stared at me for a few
moments before his lips spread into a smile, though his eyes were
hard and mean.

“
I did, as a matter of
fact, and it seems you’re a lot more than you appear to
be.”

“
Maryse would be appalled
at your behaviour,” I said with a calculated smile.

He laughed. The sound was
surprisingly rich and melodic.

“
I doubt Maryse would mind
at all considering the trouble your little friend caused us—thanks
to you. Who would have known you had such a powerful bodyguard? But
I suppose the Marshalls do have everything. Why not their very own
vampire?”

“
I wasn’t talking
about
that
Maryse.”

His eyes narrowed, growing
dark with uncertainty.

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I was talking about your
mama.” My lips curled into a smug smile. “Her spirit is here with
us right now. She’s the reason you turned Maryse into a vampire,
isn’t she? You just couldn’t bring yourself to kill someone with
your mama’s name. That really is so sweet.” There was no denying
the mocking edge in my tone.

He was completely silent.
I pressed ahead, trying to capitalise on the vulnerability I saw in
his eyes.

“
I told you I have a
proposition for you, Shadrach. I want you to turn me into a vampire
and in return I’ll give you part of my inheritance and tell you
what your mama’s lingering spirit has been trying to say to you all
these years. Do we have a deal?”

He stared at me and it
felt like there were millions of icy little fingers grazing my mind
as he tried to probe my thoughts and discover what I really knew
about his mother. I was prepared this time. I threw up an image of
myself when I came out of the shower that morning and briefly
caught my reflection in the mirror. Then I threw up another one of
the red lacy underwear I had chosen to wear and pictured myself
slowly putting it on.

I immediately felt the
pressure of those fingers increase as he tried to ignore the image.
So I threw up another one of me with an ex-boyfriend. I pictured us
in a room in his Malibu apartment with mirrors on the walls and
ceiling. And so the image Shadrach saw was of my reflection in all
those mirrors doing things with my casual lover at the time that
only a porn star would be proud of.

Shadrach became completely
distracted and I felt the icy fingers loosen their hold until they
fell away all together.

“
Do we have a deal?” I
asked, offering up the wrist crisscrossed with lines of drying
blood up to his face, whilst keeping the image of me and my ex in
my mind.