Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (94 page)

Sophie

Today.

Patrick gently places Abigail in a large, ornate crib in one of the side rooms. It looks like he's been preparing for her arrival, or maybe the room is just left over from the other times Patrick has tried to have a child and raise it to take his place. Either way, at this precise moment, things don't seem so bad. I feel as if I've got Patrick under control. He used to have Vincent to calm him, and now
I'm
finding a way to do it. Things started to go wrong with Patrick when Vincent died, and maybe it's taken me this long to work out how to steady things again. If that's the case, then it's better late than never.

As Patrick carefully pulls the door shut, leaving Abigail to sleep, I look over at the piles of bones in the corner of the large room. Something seems strange about them, but I can't quite work out what it is. Then, suddenly, I realize: quite a lot of them are small, as if they're the bones of children. I turn to Patrick, feeling a sense of shock rising through me. Are these the bodies of all the failed children he's tried to have? Are Abigail and I just the latest in a long line of attempts by Patrick to get what he wants?

Patrick starts walking over toward a door on the other side of the room. Not really sure what to do, I follow him. We go into another room, which turns out to be a bedroom with a large four-posted bed in the middle. The walls are red, and the room is illuminated only by a few candles.

"So what do you think of my plan?" I ask as Patrick turns to me. "The prophecy says you have to kill me, right? So why don't you turn me into a vampire instead? Surely that involves killing me so I can be reborn like you? And you have the power to do it, so..." I pause, suddenly realizing what I'm asking him. If he agrees, I'll become... like him. I'll live forever. I'll have different abilities, different feelings, different emotions. I'll still be me, but I'll be a different version of me. "It's the only way," I say quietly, as much to myself as to him.

He steps toward me, getting so close that we're almost touching. Then, without warning, he leans down and kisses me. It's a long, slow kiss; it's the kind of kiss I haven't felt for a long, long time. As our tongues meet, I feel something sharp against my mouth and I pull back, realizing that one of Patrick's fangs has cut my lip slightly. I check with my finger, and find I'm bleeding slightly.

"Sorry," I say, though I don't know what I'm apologizing for. We start to kiss again, and this time there's more passion. It's as if all the fear and hatred is being washed away, replaced by the kind of feeling that we should have had from the start. I put my arms around him, running my fingers across his back, feeling his body pressed against mine. My whole body is trembling, and I have no idea whether I'm making the right decision. Finally, I can't wait any longer and I start to lift up his shirt, revealing his tight, toned chest. Part of me expects him to pull away, but he doesn't. He lets me remove the shirt entirely so that he's topless, and then we continue to kiss. I run my hands over the muscles of his back. This feels so different to the last time we made love. Back then, at the House of Gothos, he was just trying to get me pregnant. This time, it feels like something more.

As we continue to kiss, I unbutton my own shirt and drop it to the ground, and then I unhook my bra and let that fall too. I press my breasts against him, feeling his skin against mine, and it feels like the most perfect moment. Despite everything that has happened, and despite all the pain and lies, I feel as if I understand him, and I want him.

He suddenly picks me up and carries me over to the bed, placing me on the sheets and climbing on top of me. Soon we're both naked, and although he's not inside me yet, his body is pressed against me. As I run my hands down his back, I feel his hardness pressing against me, and finally I reach down and guide him inside. He fills me completely, and I gasp as he starts kissing my neck. There's a kind of passion and tenderness this time that I've never felt with Patrick before, that I've never felt with
anyone
before. It's as if he's really focused on me, as if he wants to give me pleasure.

Slowly, he starts to make love to me. I wrap my legs around him and push my hands down on his ass to help him get even deeper. He moves slowly and steadily, as if there's no rush. I feel each thrust pulsing through my body, as he leans down and starts to kiss my breasts. He takes a nipple between his teeth and bites gently, and I let out another gasp. I've never felt so much sexual energy pulsating through my body before. It's as if every other time I've made love has just been practice for this one, perfect moment.

He gets faster and I start to grip him tighter between my thighs. I place my hands firmly on his rock-hard ass, feeling it rise and fall as he makes love to me. We're locked into a rhythm now, building up to an inevitable moment of excitement. I can't wait to feel him finish inside me, to feel his love throughout my body. He starts to kiss my neck again, while running his hands over my breasts and slightly squeezing my hard nipples between his fingers. It's as if he's consumed by his desire for me, and we're locked together, moving as one.

"I..." I start to whisper, but I can't finish the sentence.

He speeds up a little more. I can feel the first stirrings of an orgasm, and I can also feel him getting even bigger and harder inside me. He's going so fast now, pounding into me, building my excitement. I clutch at his ass, and finally I feel the orgasm begin to explode inside me. As the first wave of pleasure hits, I feel Patrick exploding inside me as I let out a series of high-pitched gasps. It's never been like this before. I've never been so completely aware of every inch of my body, and I've never had an orgasm take me over so completely. Our bodies tense and we hold each other. It's as if my whole body is trembling with pleasure.

And then he bites me.

With no warning, he sinks his fangs into my neck. I gasp as I feel them slice through the skin, their sharp ends driving into my meat. I'm so shocked, I have no idea what to do. At first it doesn't hurt much, but slowly the pain builds. I squeeze my eyes tight shut, trying to block it out and shut it in at the same time, but eventually I open my eyes and scream.

The Book of Gothos

1991.

Screaming until he can't scream any longer, Charles Nimrod finally drops to the floor. He pants breathlessly, trying to recover his composure, but the pain is intense and his head feels like it's going to explode.

"You want more?" asks a calm voice from behind him.

"No," Nimrod says. "No, please..."

There's a pause. "Do you remember what you told me?" the calm voice asks.

Nimrod nods.

"You told me that if you asked me to stop, I should carry on, and I should do it even harder."

Nimrod continues to nod until suddenly there's a sharp kick in the back of his head, sending him spinning across the room and into the hard metal wall.

There are rumors, unsubstantiated but believable, that suggest the Book of Gothos causes those around it to lose their minds. Those who are human, anyway. It's perfectly safe to hold the book for a brief period of time, but linger in its presence and eventually you will become insane. The book, according to legend, reaches out and unpicks the knots of sanity from your brain one by one, unleashing the madness that was already there from the moment of birth. Again, this is just a rumor No-one is entirely sure whether it's true.

As he gets to his feet, Charles Nimrod wipes blood from his chin. He's training for the moment when, one day, he'll have to fight Patrick. He knows he needs to be stronger and tougher than ever. He also knows that he has no chance of ever winning such a fight, but he wants to be able to withstand immense levels of pain. For that reason, he has enlisted the help of the only other person he's ever met who shares his hatred of the last vampire.

"You're getting better," says Martin Keller, a former US Marine who lost his mind years ago. After encountering Patrick, Keller became completely obsessed with him; obsessed to the point of suffering severe delusions. Keller believes, for example, that he has met and killed thousands of vampires. This is not true. Keller has killed hundreds of civilians in Vietnam, Iraq and other theaters of war, but he has never killed a vampire. Still, it suits his ego to believe that he has killed vampires, and his sanity has slipped so far that he now believes this to be true.

Keller is helping Nimrod for one reason, and one reason only: money. Keller knows that Nimrod stands no chance in a battle with Patrick. In Keller's mind, the only way to win such a battle is to grow so strong that it becomes possible to crush Patrick. Whereas Nimrod seeks to become less like Patrick, to come up with a plan that will destroy the last vampire, Keller aims to collect money so that he can have the surgery that he thinks will make him strong enough. He has already found a doctor who will perform the surgery, a man named Dr. Graves who is easily manipulated. Keller just needs the money, so he has agreed to help train Nimrod in exchange for a significant cash donation.

"I need to call Benjamin," Nimrod gasps, as the pain reverberates throughout his body. "I need to tell him that we'll soon be ready."

Sophie

Today.

When it's over, I'm left alone on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The pain from Patrick's fangs was intense and sharp, and I can still feel its echo. There was a moment where I felt like something was starting to change, as if I was actually starting to undergo a transformation, but then Patrick seemed to change his mind. As quickly as he pushed his fangs into my neck, he withdrew and there was a strange expression on his face. He seemed to lose interest in me at that point, as if something else had distracted him, and within a couple of minutes he'd climbed off me and got dressed. He looked troubled, as if something had just occurred to him. I don't want to start worrying again, but there's something in the back of my mind that's telling me something's wrong.

I stand up and walk over to my clothes, reaching down and pulling my phone from the pocket. It's been a few days since I tried to call Shelley, and while I was down in the tunnels I couldn't get any signal. But here, surprisingly, I've got a single bar showing, so I decide to give it a try. To my surprise, the phone rings a couple of times and suddenly she picks up.

"Sophie?!?" she shouts, sounding shocked. It's weird hearing her voice again after all this time. I've missed her.

"Hey," I say. "Where have you been?"

"Where have
I
been?" she shouts. "Where the fuck have
you
been?"

"Long story," I say, not wanting to get into all the details right now.

"I thought you were dead!" she shouts.

"I'm not!" I say. "And stop shouting."

"Fuck you," she replies, lowering her voice just a little. "You could have at least sent me a message to let me know you were okay. I thought you were dead. I really fucking thought you were dead."

"Well I'm not," I say, smiling. I want to tell her everything, to have her here with me. "Where are you?" I ask.

"New York," she says.

"What?" I reply. "Seriously?"

"I thought you were dead!" she says again. "And I kinda got hold of some money, and I figured there was nothing keeping me in Dedston, and that if I didn't make a move now, I never would. So... fuck it, I just jumped on a bus and the next thing you know, I'm in fucking New York. But I never would have moved if I'd known you were still about."

"No," I say. "It's good that you did. You needed to get out of here. This town was sucking you down."

"Where are you?" Shelley asks. "I tried to call you like a zillion times."

"I tried to call you too," I say. "I'm with Patrick."

There's a pause on the other end of the line. "Seriously?" she asks.

"It's okay," I reply. "He's... I'm trying to work out what he wants. We've got Abigail. He..." I pause. Do I really want to tell Shelley all about it over the phone? I reach up and touch the two little marks on my neck where Patrick's fangs went in. "It's complicated," I say. "I don't know what's happening."

"Are you safe?" she asks, with an obvious note of concern in her voice.

"Yeah," I say. "I think so. For now. I don't really know. Everything's weird. I just... Stuff's weird, you know?"

"You want to come to New York?" Shelley asks. "I've got an apartment. It's shitty and it stinks, I think the previous tenant was like flatulent or something. But it's cheap. And I've got a job. It's crappy and low-paid, but it pays just about enough, plus I do some modeling on the side. Nude modeling, and sometimes films. Nude films. Not the kind of thing you write home to your Grandma about. And I've met this guy. His name's Stephen, he's a bit of a bum, but -"

"I get the idea," I say. It sounds like Shelley's hitting New York in all the right ways. "Maybe I'll come see you soon. I just need some time here first. I thought..." I pause again. Something seems wrong. The way Patrick suddenly withdrew from me, it seemed like something happened. I felt for a moment that he was going to finally turn me into a vampire, but then he just seemed to stop. "Shelley," I say, "this might sound weird, but just tell me something, okay?" I take a deep breath. "If you'd been turned into a vampire, how would you know?"

"Are you serious?" she asks.

"Just answer the question."

She sighs. "You'd have fangs."

"No," I say.

"You'd be allergic to sunlight."

"Doesn't work like that."

"You'd be all moody and you'd never speak."

"That's just Patrick."

"I don't know," she says, "but I guess you'd have to ask the person who changed you." She pauses. "Did Patrick bite you?"

"Yeah," I say, "but I don't think..." I touch the wound on my neck again. "He put his fangs in me, and then just when I thought something was going to happen, he pulled out."

"Typical guy," Shelley replies.

"I'll talk to you later," I say.

"You'd better," she says. "And hey... don't go doing anything stupid, okay? I really thought you were dead. I don't want to have to think it again, or worse."

"I promise," I reply, cutting off the call. I get dressed, but I can't shake this feeling that as soon as I find Patrick, I'm going to discover that something's wrong. Stepping out into the main room, I find that he's not here. Suddenly it occurs to me that he might have stolen Abigail. I hurry across the room, pausing in the middle as a couple of spiders drop onto me. Brushing them off, I look up and see that there are loads more on the chandelier now, and on the ceiling as well.

"Patrick?" I call out, rushing to the room where we left Abigail. To my relief, I see that both Patrick and Abigail are still here, but the relief is short-lived as I see a dark look on Patrick's face again. As he holds Abigail, he turns to me and in his eyes there's a look of unforgiving rage.