A Dark Night (Book One of The Grandor Descendant series) (25 page)

For a moment the serenity en
gulfed her, until a large banging noise at the front of the house made her twitch in Clyde’s hands. The two front doors had been forced open, crashing hard against the stone walls and rebounding bulkily together again. A tall man with a long black trench coat was standing in the entrance. He was large, with a thick neck and even thicker hands. Though he wore no obvious Halloween costume, he looked as though he was dressed as an axe-man. His small grey eyes scanned the crowds, and Ari let a shiver run down her back as she avoided his gaze.

“Shok,”
said William, racing over to the man and bowing ever so slightly.

“We had no idea you were in Australia,” Nikolas said
hurriedly.

“I have business here,” the vampire called Shok replied, not looking at either of the Elders.

“For the Ancients?” asked William, his voice low and scared.

Though the music continued to play in the background, the moment that William had spoken the entire room fell silent. Next to her, Ari felt Clyde go stiff and though she knew only a little of the Ancients, she couldn’t help but also feel afraid.
    

“That is not your concern,”
replied Shok, moving further into the house and stealing a goblet from one of the waiters.

“Of course not,”
said Nikolas, looking at William incredulously. “William only meant… if there is anything we can do to assists, please don’t hesitate.”

Shok did not answer but drunk deeply and greedily from his glass, so that thin trails of red liquid spilt from his mouth, down his chin and fell onto his trench coat.  

It took a few more minutes before the mood in the house had returned to its previously bubbly affai
r.

When finally Ari thought it was safe, she leaned in close to Clyde and whispered, “Who the hell was that?”

Clyde’s eyes widened and he looked around, apparently unsure if he should answer but then leaned in close to Ari, so close that she felt his whispered words on the side of her cheek, “Shok is the Ancient’s assassin.”

“Assassin?”

Glancing up at the large mahogany banister, she looked for Shok. He was hidden behind the shadows of one of the caged dancers and appeared to be speaking intently to someone- Kiara and Kiara was staring straight back at Ari. After a moment Shok moved away, though Kiara’s dark eyes remained fixed on Ari. Slowly her expression changed. Kiara cocked her head to one side and opened her mouth in surprise, as if she had just realised something. At the exact same time, the music ended, and Clyde lowered Ari into a dip; when he had pulled her back up, Kiara was nowhere to be seen.

“Ari honey, you were wonderful,”
said Sandra, “no accounting for taste though,” she added, after looking at Clyde repulsed.

Ari looked at Sandra blankly. Her mind was still very much stuck on Kiara and the victorious expression that had sprawled across her face;
anything that made Kiara so obviously happy could not be good. 

“Do you k
now where the bathroom is?” asked Ari, moving awkwardly away from Clyde.

“Just up the stairs and to the right,”
replied Larissa.

“You’re n
ot going by yourself, said Ragon, appearing suddenly besides her.

“Come on sweety,” said Larissa,
“I’ll show you.”

Ari moved up the stairs, her mind swimming with thoughts of Ragon, Shok and Kiara, but these were punctuated when she heard loud laughter coming from the dance floor. Glancing back down, she saw two men standing in the entrance, pointing excitedly up at one of the cages that were hanging from the ceiling. The pair was dressed as clowns, with large black tears painted below their eyes, making them look as if they had just walked off the set of a horror film. But it wasn’t just their overt costumes; there was something strange about the way they moved, as if they were drunk or deranged.

“Mine!” said
the nearest clown, and without warning he jumped into the air and swung the cage off its latch so that it landed hard on the floor below.

The noise from the irons bars hitting the floor boards was deafening
, and everyone in the room stopped to watch it spiral around the room before coming to rest in the centre of the dance floor. The girl inside the cage was dazed, pressing her hand against a large bleeding cut on her head.

“Damaged good
s,” said the second clown, blurring over to the cage and tearing the bars away.

For a moment the gir
l looked up hopefully but her face quickly fell when fangs delved into the side of her throat. Bright red blood splashed across the floor and the girl fell down dead.

Ari stood a few feet away, her mouth
frozen open in horror. A few of the people in the crowd had begun laughing and the sound of their shrill enjoyment of this horrible scene, made Ari’s head spin. She felt as if she were sinking, and still thinking of the bathroom, moved eagerly towards it, not bothering to wait for Larissa, who like the rest of the coven was surveying the scene still.

“Everyone does it,”
Ari heard a woman dressed as the grim rapier say.

“But no one talks about,” another woman agreed.

The moment Ari pushed the bathroom door open she saw that she was not alone
; two girls were admiring their reflection in the mirror.

“Kiara got it for-
,” said one of the girls, who fell silent when Ari entered the room and hastily pushed a small glass vial into her bag.

At the mention of Kiara’s name, Ari stiffened.
She waited until the girls left before staring down at the basin in front of her and splashing cool water on her cheeks, hoping to relieve the burning sensation.

The
water felt amazing against her scorching cheeks, but the moment her eyes closed she couldn’t help but flash back to the poor girl in the cage. There was laughter ringing in her ears, cruel and eerie, and she felt sick knowing that there hadn’t been anyone there who cared. If Ragon hadn’t saved her; that could just as easily have been Ari. A long shiver traced down Ari’s back but she shook it away, before inspecting her reflection in the giant gold leaf mirror. Her eyes widened in horror as she stared back, not at her own reflection, but at Kiara, who had appeared behind her. 

“Haven’t you ju
st been the bell of the ball?” Kiara said in a cold voice.

Ari did not reply
but spun around quickly. Kiara’s black conical hat was held in her hand and she moved over to Ari, reaching for something from a small drawstring bag.

“Great party,”
Kiara added, “shame Matthew had to miss out.”

“What do you want?”
asked Ari, moving slowly away while eying Kiara’s hand reproachfully.

Kiara smiled a
nd retrieved a lipstick from her bag, applying a thick layer of the bright red gloss to her lips.

“If you want to find out about your parents, meet me outside near the large jacaranda in
ten minutes,” said Kiara, smacking her lips before adding, “oh, and come alone, otherwise don’t bother; I will know if one of your protectors is close by.”

Half a second later and Sameth burst through the doors. His eyes were wide, until they fell on Ari. Before he could do or say anything however, Sandra and Larissa appeared behind him. Ari jumped at the sight of them and smiled weakly. Her face was still dripping with water, which nicely hid the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead from her encounter with Kiara.

“Honey, are you alr
ight?” asked Sandra, her thick southern accent bringing only a small amount of relieve, rather than the usual wave of it.

“Oh don’t worry,”
said Kiara, smiling sweetly as she made to leave, “I wouldn’t dare touch a hair on her pretty head… not here anyway.”

Sandra, who had ignored Kiara entirely, was still looking at Ari. She
nodded dumbly, desperate for a few minutes of solitude to work out her thoughts. What the hell was going on? Did Kiara really know what had happened to her parents? How could she? But why would she have said that? Glancing over at a thick glass window, Ari’s eyes met with a large tree, whose normally dark green leaves had fallen away, replaced instead by many tiny purple flowers- the jacaranda tree. Without looking Sandra or Larissa in the eye, Ari made up her mind; in 10 minutes she would be waiting for Kiara underneath it. 

After moving out of the bathroom, Ari ran straight into Ragon.

He seemed to have been looking for her, because he grabbed her by the hand and said, “Where the hell did you go?”

Before Ari could answer, Sandra had replied, “We found her in the bathroom; a bathroom Kiara was just leaving.”

“
What? What did she say to you?” asked Ragon. “Did she touch you? Are you hurt?”

Ari forced her face into a smile. If she wanted to find out what had happened to her parents, then she needed t
o convince Ragon that she was not in danger. Ragon would not leave her alone for a moment, if he thought that Kiara had done something to threaten her.

“She just said that I was the bell of the ball, and that tonight I didn’t nee
d to worry about her,” said Ari, looking anywhere but at Ragon’s eyes.

“I told you
; she would be crazy to do anything at one of the Elder’s parties,” said Sameth.

“You don’t think she is crazy?”
Sandra asked incredulously.

“What were you doing in the ladies room?”
asked Clyde, ignoring Sandra as his narrowed eyes fell on Sameth.

“Checking on Ari,”
said Sameth.

Ari pretended to listen to the group’s discussion, but not a single word they spoke registered with her
. Only one thought occupied her mind. It wasn’t whether or not Kiara was telling the truth, or if she was about to walk into a trap. No. Ari was consumed by the thought of how exactly she might be able to get away from the coven that was trying to protect her, long enough to find out exactly what had happened to her parents. 

Chapter 1
5- Trick or Treat

Ten minutes later and Ari was pacing around the Jacaranda tree at the very back of the Elder’s estate. Her plan to get away from the others had worked a treat. The group had split in two when William had offered to show them the house, and Ari had managed to make each group think that she was with the other. She’d had to pass a large olive vineyard and two small stables, until she found the characteristic purple flowers of the Jacaranda tree that she had seen from the bathroom window.

“I almost didn’t recognise you,”
said Kiara, moving out from behind the tree to face Ari. “But I had a recent reminder of our past meeting.”

Once again Ari was
forcibly reminded of how beautiful Kiara was; beautiful and terrible- like a storm at sea.

“You
said you knew how my parents died,” Ari said flatly.

“But of course;
now I can see how much alike you are to your mother,” said Kiara, continuing with her sentence as if Ari had not spoken at all.

“You knew my mother?”

“Knew is such a relative term; does one really need to know someone to rip their throat out?” asked Kiara.

Ari felt her knees shake. Kiara was lying
; she had to be.

“You liar,”
hissed Ari.

Suddenly Kiara was laughing,
but then she spoke and all traces of humour were lost from her voice.

“It is rather dramatic I admit. When I saw you with Ragon all those months ago
, I wanted you gone out of jealously. It was only tonight that I realised who you were; I never dreamed that you were the child I tried to kill all those years ago. Time has a way of slipping past us immortals,” she said sadly.

“Wh… What?”

This time when Kiara laughed, it was high pitched and cruel.

“Don’t
tell me Ragon never told you,” she said. “Well, let me set the record straight. Twenty-four years ago I killed your parents and tried to kill you.”

Ari swayed on the spot. It couldn’t be true. Her mind groped at a memory, and she recalled Ragon telling her a story of why he had left Kiara: ‘I though
t perhaps she had killed the parents because she had remembered how I craved humanity and wanted to keep the child. I think she thought that somehow it could make us whole once more, like a family.’

“No,” said Ari, more to herself th
an Kiara. “Ragon told me that you took a child to try and make him go back to you. But… but he would have told me-”

“-h
e would have told you if you were that child?” asked Kiara, her voice ringing with laughter as she mocked Ari. “Ragon is a romantic fool. I was surprised when he found me that night. I thought perhaps he had wanted to re-join me. I guess he thought I meant to keep you? Men can be foolish. But before I could stop him and kill you, he had taken you.”

Instantly Ari’s knuckles were tense and one of her eyes went green, while the other stayed blue. A wind rolled down the valley from the mountains that lined the estate, and swept over the fields, settling in the Jacaranda tree and causing masses of the purple flowers to begin to fall from it.

“But why?” asked Ari, desperate for answers.

“It was a favour,” Kiara replied indifferently.

“A favour?” repeated Ari. “You killed my family as a favour?”

“Yes, and now I am keeping that promise
; I get rid of you and kill two birds with one stone. Thank you for making it so easy for me. Tracking you down would have been a nightmare,” said Kiara, advancing on Ariana just as more purple flower fell from the sky, like lavender coloured snowflakes.

Ari wanted to scream but couldn’t; her body was paralysed in fear. Knowing that there was no chance for escape, she squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands out instinctively, ready for the blow. A moment passed and Ari kept her eyes closed, waiting. For a while she remained like this, until enough seconds had lapsed without anything happening, for her to become curious. Slowly Ari opened her eyes. Tears slipped down her face and when she had blinked them away, she saw Kiara, standing about a foot away, fangs poised as if about to strike. But something was wrong; Kiara was not moving. It was as if the moment she had gone to attack, she had frozen. Her dark brown hair stood on ends, as if suspended underwater, while her witches’ hat was half way off her head. Her pupils were wide, giving her unblinking eyes a ruthless yet unfocused appearance.

Ari inched forward but Kiara did not respond. When Ari was so close so as to see
a small freckle on Kiara’s right cheek, she waved her hand in front of Kiara’s face- nothing. Looking up at the tree she gasped. All around her were suspended purple flowers. It was as if someone had taken a photo of a snow globe after shaking it. Everything was quiet, a little too quiet, as if the crickets and frogs had all been silenced also. Hesitantly, Ari moved over to the flower nearest her and watched it. Reaching out to push it, the flower moved sluggishly in response, as if it were stuck in something viscous, like honey.

What the hell was going on? She took one more glance at Kiara and ran
, not wasting any more time for explanations. Whatever was going on, time had slowed down just long enough to let Ari escape, and she wasn’t going to stand there wondering why.   

When Ari had finally reached Ragon and the other coven members, she was white, whiter than most of the vampires at the party. The Elders were talking comically to a group of foreign-looking guests behind Ragon’s coven, and Ari eyed them warily. 

“What’s wrong?”
asked Sandra, when she saw Ari running towards them.

“And where have you been?
I thought you were with Ragon,” said Larissa, who along with Cambridge and Clyde, glided over to Ari and the rest of the coven, having just realised that Ari had not been with either group. “The Elders are furious; apparently the two boys who attacked one of their dancers were on blood candy.”

But Ari didn’t hear a single word Sandra
or Larissa said. Her eyes were wild, and she began spluttering out incoherent phrases, trying desperately to keep her voice low so that the Elders did not hear her.

“Kiara… attack me… killed
… she killed… my parents…” she said, clutching at her side where a large stich was stealing most of her energy.

At these words Ragon moved over to her protectively. He made to take her hand in his, so as to calm her down, but as soon as he reached for her, she pulled away. She was glaring at him. How could he not have told her? Why would he think that it wa
s ok for him to keep it a secret? Clyde’s eyes had widened when he saw this, but he remained where he stood.

“But how did you get away?” Sameth asked in confusion, looking around
, for what Ari could only guess was Kiara.

“She… froze?”
said Ari; her voice was segmented and confused.

“
Kiara hesitated? Long enough for you to get away?” asked Larissa, but Ari shook her head.

“No she stopped, and everything around her stopped,” Ari replied, trying to explain what had happened.

“But, I don’t understand,” said Sameth.

Ari made to answer but Ragon stopped her, taking a long meaningful look a
t a fat vampire who had just come into sight as he said, “No. Not here.”