Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (10 page)

Avery entered the kitchen
then, disrupting me from my thoughts. He came to an abrupt stop,
his gaze on what I was wearing. He frowned. Then he caught the
drift of my thoughts, most probably just vague impressions of the
self-loathing that had made me drown myself in large, ill-fitting
clothing. His eyes became as wide and dark as the windows
separating us from the night. He paled. He stared at me intently,
his eyes narrowing as if he were peering at thick fog, trying to
see what lay beyond it. Before that fog could clear, I
spoke.

“
What, Avery?” I snapped.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you start anything with
me now!”

Mallory entered the
kitchen.

“
What’s going on?” she
asked, looking from me to Avery.

I burst into tears.
Mallory came to my side and put her arm around me. She glanced at
Avery in bewilderment. He merely shrugged, trying to look
disinterested. He was still pale although he was no longer staring
at me, his attention taken away from what he had almost glimpsed
beyond the fog.

“
It’s all right, Dallas,”
Mallory said.

With a disapproving glance
in Avery’s direction, she pulled me toward the kitchen
door.

“
He hates me,” I sobbed
with my head in my hands as she led me out of the kitchen. “I love
him but he hates me.”

I heard Avery sigh over
the sound of my noisy sobs.

Mallory led me to the
drawing room and we sat on the sofa. She retrieved a box of tissues
and handed it to me. I took them gratefully and dabbed at my
tears.

“
It’s okay. I’m all
right,” I was able to say after a few moments.

“
You’re not okay, Dallas.
What is it?” Although there was a reassuring smile on her lips, her
eyes had narrowed. “Has Uncle Avery said anything to make
you—?”

“
No,” I said, tears
springing to my eyes again. I raised my voice although I knew Avery
could hear us. “He’s just mean to me. He doesn’t need to even say
anything, he’s just mean!”

I heard him sigh and then
felt a puckering of energy as he entered the void. I knew he hadn’t
gone far from the mansion, just far enough so he didn’t have to
hear my voice.

“
It’s all right, Dallas,”
Mallory said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“
I-it’s nothing, Mallory.
Do you mind if I borrow some of your clothes until I can go out and
buy some new ones?”

“
Well, yes of course. But
you always look so glamorous. It’s like living with a movie star.
Why would you want to start dressing like an old lady?”

That self-loathing seized
me in its clammy grasp once more. I again felt that fear mingled
with horror as I stood over the corpse, certain its eyes would open
and I would be assailed by that hungry gaze once more.

“
It’s hard to say,” I
said. “I just—”

I came to an abrupt
stop.

It was as if all sound,
all air had been sucked out of the room. I felt a sudden warning,
but like no other I had felt before. It was like I was standing in
the middle of the road whilst a truck came hurtling out of the dark
toward me with only a few seconds before it hit. And then I felt
it, that cruel menace forever on the periphery. It flowered like a
dark, putrid mushroom as it tip-toed along the negative emotion
elicited by the waking dream, using it as a doorway through which
it would be able to swallow me whole.

I tried to warn Mallory.
She was looking at me in consternation, no doubt wondering why I
was struggling to speak. I could only utter a single
word.

“
Go.”

Unimaginable fear coursed
through me when instead of fleeing the room she closed the space
between us, concern ingrained in her features.

“
Dallas? Are you
okay?”

No
.

That word was a moan in my
mind. I searched for help, but Avery was too far away.

Shadrach.

I could feel Shadrach’s
presence nearby, my sixth sense telling me he was on his way to the
mansion, hoping to see me for a few moments. He was closer to the
mansion than Avery, perhaps close enough to...

Shadrach,
help...

Then it hit with the force
of a speeding train and I was ripped out of the drawing room and
thrown into inky darkness...

...I was wrenched out of
the darkness and through the air. I hit something solid and pain
bit deep. Shattering, eviscerating pain as if I were being torn in
half. This pain had nothing to do with my physical body, but was a
psychic pain that made me feel as if all strength had bled from my
limbs. I sank to the ground and moaned, unable to think, speak or
even register where I was and what had just happened. I expected to
feel carpet against my fingers, but soft, moist grass was what I
lay against. I opened my eyes.

Avery stood over me,
silhouetted against a half-moon. For a split second, the sight of
him brought comfort amidst the confusion until I saw his expression
and the way his eyes and face had hardened with rage.

Fear shot through me and
for a brief moment everything around me changed. I not only saw
rain and emerald fields before me, I was soaked through to the
skin. Avery stood before me, dressed in a brown three piece suit, a
sword held aloft in his hands, its long sleek blade turned
alabaster in the moonlight. His fangs were bared, his face a knot
of rage and hatred.

A scream almost escaped
me, but then it was gone and I was on the grounds of the mansion by
the garages, warm and dry once more. Avery was still standing over
me dressed in jeans, his hands empty. He shot forward and grasped
me by the shoulders. I froze, shock and fear, but most of all the
pitiful pinch of a bruised ego, making me cry out. I tried to bury
myself into the garage wall I had fallen against, but there was
nowhere for me to go.

“
Avery,” I
gasped.

For a moment I didn’t
think he would respond, but he hesitated.

“
What are you doing,
Avery?”

The hands on my shoulders
loosened and the rage I could see began to subside.

“
Dallas?”

For some reason the
confusion in his voice was worse than the blistering rage I had
witnessed only moments ago. He seemed utterly powerless for a few
moments.

“
What are you
doing
? Let me go,
please
.”

He straightened and then
took a step back, but something in his stance was still alert. Then
I became angry and tears sprung to my eyes.

“
What the fuck did you do
that for? What the hell...?”

The words trailed away. I
could hear Mallory calling Avery from the drawing room, her voice
sounding small and shaky.

“
Avery, don’t hurt her.
Avery, you don’t understand...”

I didn’t need to hear any
more, it all came back to me. I felt total and paralysing horror
and my stomach clenched painfully.

“
Mallory. Oh my God.
Mallory!”

I rose to my feet, a long
wail escaping from my throat. I tried to run toward the mansion,
but Avery caught hold of me and wouldn’t let me go.

“
What did I do? Mallory!
Oh my God!
Mallory
!”

***

The drawing
room.

Shadrach.
Help...

Fear prickled along my
skin as instead of trying to get away, Mallory placed a hand on my
shoulder, her brow creased in concern.

I had only one hope left.
I didn’t know if Shadrach had been close enough to hear me, but he
would not be able to get inside the mansion without being invited
in. I had only been at the mansion a few days. I didn’t know if my
invitation would allow him to enter.

I spoke into Mallory’s
mind.

Invite him inside. Invite
him into the mansion.

She jumped, clearly shaken
and confused.

“
Who? What are you talking
about, Dallas? Who should I invite inside?”

It was as if I were a
prisoner within my own body watching it operate of its own free
will from a long way away. I reached for Mallory’s wrist and pulled
it away from my shoulder. She let out a sharp gasp and my heart
clenched in misery even as I squeezed her wrist, hearing small
cracking sounds. Gasp was all she could do for I had seized hold of
her mind, preventing her from uttering a word. She could only stare
at me, her eyes wide with shock as tears of pain sprung to them.
Her mouth hung open and her bottom lip trembled.

Dallas, Dallas,
her thoughts beseeched me.

I released her wrist and
for a moment her eyes brightened with relief. I grabbed her neck
and dug my nails into the delicate flesh. Her face twisted with
pain and a tear fell onto her cheek. I smiled and increased the
pressure, breaking the skin.

“
I have wanted you dead
for decades,” I said, my voice sounding slightly higher, almost
childlike. “You who gave him a reason to live. I have you now.
Although I want you to die slowly and painfully, only a broken neck
will wreak the kind of pain I want him to feel.”

At those words anger
burned a molten trail through me and I seethed, not only at the
words, but at the fear mingling with the tears that were shining
out of Mallory’s eyes.

I brought my other hand
toward her head, meaning to take hold of her hair and snap her head
from her neck. At that moment the memory of my Aunt’s funeral came
to me along with that aching helplessness I had felt at her death.
My anger burned brighter until I was sure it would consume me from
the inside out.

I was not going to let
anything use me to hurt Mallory.

My hand froze inches from
her as I fought against whatever was controlling me and had forced
me to say those words. Mallory looked to the hand that hovered near
her head, watching the tension in it as it struggled to move toward
her.

Hope filled her eyes as
yet more tears slid from them and onto her cheek. Then she seemed
to remember the words I had spoken into her mind, and although she
did not know who I was referring to, or if it could even save her,
she heeded them.

Come inside.

From then on she continued
to repeat my name, as if it were a prayer that would deliver her
from the evil that had control over me.

I had managed to seize a
vestige of control over the hand that sought to snap Mallory’s neck
so perhaps I could gain further control. I searched frantically
around the room until my gaze fell on two swords hanging above the
fireplace to my left. The blades were engraved with silver. The
mere sight of the swords made a queer, shrinking desolation tighten
my stomach, but my anger, along with the sight of my renegade hand
inching closer to Mallory’s head, made me throw my telekinetic
energy toward one of the swords.

The sword was snatched
away from the wall and came to hover in the middle of the room
directly before me and Mallory. At the sight of the sword hovering
mere yards from us, her face grew ashen and her eyes became
unfocussed. I feared she was about to pass out. Although I
continued to battle whatever had a hold of me, I could not make the
sword slice through the air and into my heart.

My head snapped to the
left when I felt a puckering of energy. My attention was torn away
from the sword and it fell to the floor.

Shadrach materialised in
the room.

For a seasoned killer like
Shadrach, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the scene
that met his eyes. His lips were curled in a sardonic smile and it
appeared he was about to speak when his gaze fell on Mallory’s tear
streaked face, her mouth quivering with the effort to speak
although she couldn’t utter a word. Shadrach’s smile grew smaller
and when he tore his gaze away from Mallory and to me, it fled
altogether.

I don’t know what he saw
as he peered at me, but it made his eyes grow shadowy with
fear.

He took a step back, and
perhaps he meant to flee, but his gaze was once more drawn to
Mallory. It seemed he couldn’t look away and I saw something
flicker within those dark windows.

He vanished.

He re-appeared moments
later inches from me, reaching for the hand around Mallory’s neck.
Before he could touch me, I released Mallory and hit him, my
movements as fast as light flashing across molten silver. He went
hurtling across the room as Mallory sank to the ground, her hands
to her neck. Shadrach vanished before he could smash into the wall.
A moment later he was by Mallory’s side, his arms around her. The
air around them wavered. I wrenched him away from her before they
could disappear. I punched him in the chest, feeling his chest
bones cave in. He sank to the ground and a low moan escaped him. I
reached for him.

“
Shadrach
!”

I turned toward the sound
and found Maryse standing a few yards away from me, her eyes wide
with terror as she stared at Shadrach. She tore her gaze away from
him and to me. The air around her wavered as she backed
away.