Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (53 page)

When Vanessa came back downstairs she
was shaking. She immediately went to her chair and put her head in
her hands. I placed a fresh glass of whisky, filled to the brim,
before her. She didn’t even look at me. She grasped the glass in
both hands and drank half the whisky. She took a few gulps of air
and then sniffed. Tears sprung to her eyes.

“
Please, you’ve got to do
something. I can’t cope. She’s going to drive me insane.” I rolled
my eyes, but feeling a little bit sympathetic now I’d seen Dallas
in action, I patted Vanessa on the shoulder. “You have to talk to
my mother. You have to make her bind Dallas’s powers so she can’t
do things like that anymore. She scares me. Can you believe I’m
scared of my own daughter?”

“
Yes, yes, all right. I
will talk to Ella and insist she bind Dallas’s powers. And I think
I’ll keep an eye on her from now on.” I moved away and paused at
the door. “Go and get some sleep, Vanessa, you look dreadful. And
another thing, your little boy toy has to go. He’s only interested
in your money, anyway.”

The last thing I saw before I
disappeared was her tear-streaked face, round eyes looking up at me
in surprise. Then I was outside looking up at Dallas’s bedroom
window. Yes. Something definitely had to be done. She was far too
young to wield such a deadly power. I would have to go and see Ella
immediately. It wasn’t a good idea to pay a visit to Ella during
the day when I was at my weakest. Especially since trying to insist
on anything was as difficult with her descendants as it had been
with Luna, particularly Ella. It seemed as if I would have to rely
on charm to get her to bind Dallas’s powers. But charm didn’t work
too well on Luna, and I doubted it would work on Ella.

I let out a low sigh. Dealing with
these powerful, headstrong women was becoming tiring and it was
always so painful since they all looked like Luna in some way. And
they seemed to get stronger with each generation. God only knew
what Dallas would be like once she was older.

I walked out into the streets of New
York which were just beginning to come alive as morning fully came
into being. My suit was totally ruined. It seemed like a nice day
for a trip to London. Yes, seeing Ella could wait until after dusk
when I was stronger. I could get to London before the shops closed
for business to replace my suit and purchase a pretty blue and
yellow dress for a very special little girl. I almost wished I
could be there to see her face when she found it the following
morning.

A few months after that episode, I met
Dallas in the flesh for the first time. I’d had a warning from Mama
that morning and only knew I was to be at Central Park in New York
at a set time.

I arrived at the park, anxious and
tense, having no idea what kind of trouble to expect. I became
aware of Dallas almost immediately and my heart melted in an
instant, my anxiety departing from me as I gazed at her, letting
her thoughts drift toward me. She was nearly six now and standing
about thirty metres away, alone as people—mainly families—moved
gaily past her in the bright sunshine. Her face was a picture of
complete alarm as she looked around her, breathing
heavily.

She was lost. The events of that
morning floated through the noise and the crowds to where I stood.
She had been with her nanny, a new one who had only been with her
for a week. She had thrown a tantrum and slipped away when the
woman’s attention was turned and walked through the busy streets to
get to her favourite ice cream stand in Central Park. Now she was
here, fear had set in and she stood on her own, completely
overwhelmed, not sure how to get to the ice cream stand or how to
get home. I wanted to go over to her and pick her up, letting her
know she was safe and always would be so long as I lived. But I
stayed where I was, tormented by the fact that I hadn’t been able
to save any of the others before her, and when the entity finally
came for her, I would be powerless to protect her.

So I turned my back on the pitiful
sight of the lost little girl and delved into the minds of two
teenagers nearby, prompting them to approach her and stay with her.
I took out my cell phone and made a short phone call to the bank,
where Dallas had last been with her nanny.

As I hung up, I became aware of the
fact that Dallas had moved away from the two teenagers, her gaze
focussed completely on me. I groaned inwardly as she began to head
straight for me. I started to move away, keeping sight of her
through the eyes of those around her. That was when she came to a
halt. Her thoughts reached me. She intended to run out of the park
into the busy road because she knew I would have to come and save
her.

I came to an abrupt stop. She broke
into a run, heading straight for me.

A few moments later, she appeared at
my side, breathing heavily from the short run. I kept my gaze ahead
as she stared up at me. Then she grasped my hand.

I looked down at her anxious little
face and sighed.

“
I should have known I
wouldn’t be able to hide from you, Dallas,” I said. “Come on. Let’s
get you that ice cream.”

She beamed up at me and I smiled in
return, letting that simple smile take me away from my
troubles.

I bought her an ice cream and we sat
by the side of a fountain. She was absolutely endearing and so
well-behaved, and it was hard not to think of Luna and how much she
would have adored Dallas.

“
Luna? What’s Luna?” she
asked.

“
You can read my mind,
Dallas?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just
came into my head.”

“
I think you can. Luna was
one of your ancestors. I was thinking that she would have adored
you.”

My torment flowed over me again at
this next demonstration of her power and I lapsed into silence. My
thoughts were on Luna and of her death, an ever-present wound that
would never heal. I was wrenched out of my thoughts by Dallas’s
next words.

“
She’s not dead.” She was
still focusing on her ice cream.

“
What...what did you
say?”

She looked up at me, and worry creased
her brow when she observed my reaction to her words. She was trying
to remember why she had said what she said, but was confused now.
Like all intuition that lived in shadow, those words had come
unbidden to her, but now she was trying to chase it, it remained
slippery, darting back into the shadows where it could not be drawn
back.

“
Um...I...she’s not dead.
She changed, that’s all.”

I found myself in the grip
of emotions too thick for words. It felt as if the entire world had
fallen away, save for the child before me and the three precious
words she had spoken:
She’s not
dead
.

I immediately began searching her
thoughts, looking for whatever prompted her to say that.

A giggle escaped her and she reached
up to rub her head.

“
Stop that. It
tickles.”

I let a smile touch my lips. She
continued to talk about her new nanny. I only half-listened, my
soul set ablaze.

When she finished her ice cream, she
clambered off the side of the fountain and placed her rucksack on
her back.

“
Thank you for buying me
ice cream, Mr Avery.”

“
It was a pleasure,
Dallas.”

Vanessa really was such an idiot. The
child was adorable and so well-behaved. Clearly all she needed was
some attention. The reason for that exemplary behaviour soon became
clear.

“
I just need you to take
me home so I can get my teddy and then I can come and live with
you.”

I froze and my throat went dry. Acute
anxiety touched me, the same kind of anxiety Vanessa displayed when
she ran out of the room at the sound of Dallas’s call.

“
Dallas, I...you... I’m
afraid that’s not possible.”

Her little face fell into a picture of
misery.

“
But...but...I promise
I’ll be good.”

“
It’s not because of that,
Dallas. I would if I could, but you belong at home with your
parents.”

There were tears in her eyes now. “But
I don’t want to be with them. I want to be with you. I’ve been
w—”

“
Hush, Dallas.” I pulled
out a handkerchief and gently wiped away the tears that fell down
her cheeks. “You belong at home with your mother and your nanny.
She’ll be here any moment now to take you home.”

Her misery deepened as she, too,
became aware of her nanny moving through the crowds searching for
her.

“
I...I’ll be sad if you
don’t take me with you.”

“
You won’t remember me,
Dallas.”

I kissed her on the forehead and then
moved away, clearing her memory of the last twenty minutes. She
stood alone crying when her nanny found her.

I watched from a distance as the
frantic woman ran toward Dallas and pulled her into her arms. She
held her for a few long minutes.

I moved away, my thoughts on Luna,
Dallas’s words stirring up long-abandoned hope.

She’s not dead.

***

Ella was in her study with a plate of
food thinking about a business trip to Japan.

“
Is Luna still
alive?”

I had surprised her for once, for she
dropped the plate as she spun around to face me. An impenetrable
wall went up around her thoughts. But before her mind became
completely closed to me, I caught a glimpse of something, something
about Dallas she didn’t want anyone to know. Something that
exhilarated and terrified in equal measure. I could have caught
whatever it was before the wall was fully up, but I didn’t care to
know what it was. As always when it came to Luna I was sucked into
a black hole and nothing, and no one, existed outside of it.
Dallas’s words had made me face the devastation in my soul Luna’s
death had wrought. If there was even the smallest chance she was
alive, I had to know.

Ella smoothed her hands down her skirt
and smiled, an icy smile that was as false as the syrupy genial
tone in her voice.

“
Mr Wentworth? It seems as
if you’ve forgotten your manners already.”

She remained unperturbed when I
vanished and re-appeared a few feet from her. She merely gazed up
at me, shrewd and calculating as always as she searched my face,
and no doubt, my mind.

“
You’ve spent some time
with Dallas. A surprisingly well-behaved Dallas from what I can
see,” she said.

“
Is Luna still
alive?”

“
You’re asking me?
I
wasn’t there twenty
years ago.
You
were.”

I grew angry. She no doubt sensed the
change because she relented and her smile lost its coolness. It
became almost sympathetic.

“
Dallas is already an
extremely gifted witch. But she is still only a child. An adorable
but spoilt, attention-seeking child. She no doubt picked up your
thoughts and emotions and said what she thought would please you.
Luna is dead, as you well know.”

I moved away from her to the portrait
of Luna above the fireplace and gazed up at it longingly. When I
faced Ella again, I saw she hadn’t moved and was watching me
carefully, the smile gone now, only those cold, calculating eyes
which revealed nothing.

“
If she was alive. Would
you tell me?”

“
No,” she said simply with
a sheepish smile. “Because it wouldn’t serve either of us. But
she
is
dead. So
close the door on Luna, along with the past, and open your heart to
something new. You have many, many more years ahead of you. The
only way you’ll be able to recover some of what you’ve lost is to
look to the future.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of her
words, or the sympathetic tone. She was so tricky, mercurial, and
at times totally ruthless.

The last thing I saw before I
disappeared to claim the night air were those shrewd eyes carefully
appraising me.

I stayed outside the mansion for a few
minutes. In my hand was a hair band with bright blue baubles.
Dallas had given it to me. I stared intently at it, thinking about
what Dallas had said, her open, simple thoughts, and Ella’s
words.

Long ago, when I had been captured by
Master John and Luna fought to keep me alive, she told them that
vampires could resurrect unless their ashes were
scattered.

I also did not see Luna’s dead body,
only Simon’s memory of it.

Could Luna still be alive?

When I turned around to look back up
at the mansion, I saw Ella at the window watching me. The only
thing I could be sure of was that I couldn’t trust anything she
told me. She had no reason to lie to me about whether or not Luna
was alive, and perhaps I was deceiving myself, but I didn’t want to
believe her. I carefully placed the bright blue hair band in my
pocket.

I drew the darkness to me and delved
into the nothingness, spiriting myself away from her
home.