A Dark Night (Book One of The Grandor Descendant series) (28 page)

Sandra stopped
laughing quickly and reached over to steady Ari, a weak smile on her face as she said, “Sorry hun.”

“Ok, so I am going to go after
three,” said Ari, suddenly talking faster and faster, “you know like one, two, three… and then I will jump,” she explained, moving over to the edge of the branch and looking down at the ground for the first time. A moment of hesitation saw her moving back towards the centre of the tree, and added, “I am not going to go on three; I am going to after three, so not one, two-”

But before she could finish her
ramblings, Sandra had pushed her, and Ari relinquished her grip of the branch and fell, the wind wishing past her ears as her stomach dropped, and her arms and legs flailed in mid-air. Trying desperately to force herself to concentrate, she shot her eyes open, just long enough to see that down below Ragon was waiting with his arms held out. Her eyes widened in horror however, when Clyde blurred towards him, knocking Ragon hard in the chest, so that it was Clyde who waited below with outstretched hands. When Clyde caught her, she had been expecting the impact to hurt, but as his arms wrapped around her, his body seemed to mould to hers and support her.

“You’re such an arse,”
she screamed, jumping from Clyde’s arms and moving to where Ragon had fallen.

“You’re welcome,”
he called out, smiling politely after her.

Ragon was brushing off bark and dirt from his clothes, while scowling at Clyde.

“What?” Clyde asked, shrugging as the rest of the coven glared at him, “I told her if Ragon wasn’t there, that I would catch her.”

Before Ari could reach Ragon, he had stormed towards
Clyde, wound his fist back, and struck Clyde hard in the jaw.

“What if you didn’t catch her,” screamed Ragon.

From above on the veranda, Patrick cocked his head over the side and yelled, “I don’t think she stopped herself. I kept my eyes on all of you the whole time, and it all looked normal to me-”

He broke off when he realised that no one was listening to him.

“Nice shot, too bad you hit like a girl,” snarled Clyde, pulling himself onto his feet, as he moved closer to Ragon.

“Well, then you must be a girl, because it knocked you off your feet,” said Sandra, jumping elegantly from the tree and landing lightly next to Ari.

When Ragon’s eyes darted over to Sandra, Clyde took advantage and charged. His fists wrapped around Ragon’s collar and he slammed him into the trunk of a Tipuana tree, causing the tree to sway under the combined weight of the immortals, before groaning and exposing many large roots. A moment later the tree fell to the ground, shaking the earth.

“Stop!” screamed Ari, and both Ragon and Clyde looked up, apparently surprised by her outburst
, before continuing to pummel each other.

“
Cambridge, Thomas, do something!” Larissa squealed.

Both boys grimaced and were just about to advance, when all the immortals froze, suddenly looking over to the large fence that boarded the edge of Ragon’s estate.

“Oi,” someone yelled, and Ari spun around to see two heads poking over the top of the fence. “We heard something crashing.”

Ari’s mouth fell open when she realised that it was the next door neighbours, craning their heads over
the top of the fence. In an instant Clyde and Ragon dropped each other, but not before the neighbours had seen the exposed roots of the enormous Tipuana tree. The suspicious neighbours looked back and forth from Clyde and Ragon, and then over to the fallen tree.

“We just thought we
’d check everything…” the woman began to say, but before she could finish, Clyde had raced over to the fence, jumped over it and pulled both neighbours with him into the opposite yard.

Ari watched them fall and heard their screams
. She couldn’t see anything past the thick wooden fence that separated Ragon’s yard from theirs.

“No,” Ari screamed, but Ragon raced for her and hugged her
hard.

Ari felt but didn’t entirely register, Ragon jumping up and landing with her on the veranda. He kept hold of her, even when she tried to turn around and see what had become of the neighbours.

“What’s he doing to them?” she trembled, but b
efore Ragon could answer, Cambridge spoke. 

“Well
that didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“It was worth a shot,”
said Larissa.

“Any other bright ideas?”
asked Sameth.

“We could try going higher?”
suggested Cambridge.

“What are you talking about?” said Ari, and her face was white. “What just happened? What happened to those people?”

Everyone in the room stopped to stare at her; Ragon gritted his teeth.

“They saw us,” he said finally.

“But… but Clyde just commanded them to forget right?” she asked, her voice trembling.

There was a knowing look that passed through the different coven members, and Ari raced to the front door. In an instant Ragon was in front of her, his hand pressed firmly against the door.

“Don’t,” he said, and Ari heard the authority in his voice but ignored it.

“Move,” she said, now trying to pull the door open.

“Let her go,” Sandra said, moving over to the entrance of the house. “She is going to find out about it sooner or later. It’s better that she knows what Clyde is, better that she sees with her own eyes.”

“But-” said Ragon, searching Sandra’s eyes.

The moment Ragon stepped aside, Ari was out the door. She raced down the driveway, vaguely aware that Ragon was following her and pushed past the neighbour’s fence. She had just heard a long howl when she skidded into the neighbour’s back yard; then her face went white. 

“What did you do?” she screamed, staring at Clyde in horror.

He was standing in a crouched position, his ears pricked up when he had seen them arrive. Large splashes of blood soaked his shirt, and Ari winced when she saw two large puddles on the brick path.

“They saw us,” Clyde said dismissively.

“You bastard,” said Ari, thinking of the kind neighbours who she had met. Then her heart lurched in her chest; the howl, the howl that she had heard as she raced over here. “Crystal; what did you… if you…”

“Who
is Crystal?” Ragon asked.

But Ari wasn’t listening, already she had started searching the backyard, calling out the puppies name as her eyes darted everywhere.

“What did you do to them?” she spat, “What did you do to Crystal?”

Clyde didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be thinking hard, his eyes darting to the large forest that lined both properties and back at Ari. 

“Tell her,” said Ragon, now moving threateningly to Clyde.

“I killed them,” said Clyde, shrugging dismissively.
“I’m not like the rest of these warm and fuzzy vamps. I don’t mind having sources, and-”

“And the dog?” asked Ari, cutting him off before he could go on.

She was desperate, even panicky; Crystal couldn’t be dead, she was just a puppy. For a moment she tried to whistle but found she couldn’t. Then she heard another howl and raced into the darkness, where the large fence met the forest.

“You shouldn’t
have done it. I know what happened to you, I know that you… you think differently about humans,” said Ragon; Ari heard his voice distantly but ignored it. “Well, I hope you cleaned up after yourself properly? How do you think it will look if-”

“-I took care of it,” interjected Clyde. “No one will find them, and no one will know it was us.”

“Crystal!” said Ari, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the puppy emerging from the edge of the forest.

Crystal bounded to Ari, and soon a bundle of white fur barrelled her over. Immediately Ari checked her for any damage, afraid that Clyde had injured her too, but she was fine. Without so much as looking at Clyde, Ari scooped Crystal into her arms and carried her back to Ragon’s house.

When she was at the door she turned to face Clyde and said, “You’re a monster.”

A
s Ari carried Crystal back to the house, she relished in the comfort that the warm bundle of fur bought her. Inside she was a raging mess; she felt sick to her stomach at what Clyde had done. How could he kill those two people so easily, as if their lives meant nothing at all? When she walked through the house, no one made mention of the dog in her arms, but watched her carefully as she moved to the couch and sat down with Crystal in her lap. A moment later Ragon and Clyde walked through the door.

“Well?” said Thomas, when it appeared that no one was going to talk.

“Well what?” asked Clyde.

Ari glared at him.

“We had a problem and I took care of it,” said Clyde.

“We still have a problem,” said Sandra, and Ari looked up curiously at her. “Before yours and Ragon little tirade in the backyard, we were trying to see if Ari was able to stop time. We still don’t know if-”

Ari had been listening to Sandra and cut her off; she thought she knew why their plan hadn’t worked.

“It’s different,” said
Ari, patting Crystal softly, “when I was with Kiara, I thought I was going to die. But when I was up in the tree, I knew that…” she paused, she had been going to say, ‘that Ragon would catch me,’ but instead said, “someone would catch me.”

“So what do we do now?”
asked Patrick.

“Well I am not jumping off anything else,”
Ari replied, her eyes now dark as they fixed on Clyde.

“Actually I have an
other idea,” said Clyde, before blurring over to Ragon.

In an instant Ragon stood his ground, turning to face Clyde with two raised fists, one held out defensively, the other ready to fight.
Secretly Ari hoped Ragon would hit him, but he didn’t.

“Easy tiger,” said Clyde, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace as he inched closer and whispered something that Ari could
n’t hear.

Almost as soon as Clyde had finished whispering, Sandra grabbed Ari’s hand and said, “Come on, let’s have a drink. I am sure that you need one after that.”

Ari looked from Ragon to Clyde and then back over to Sandra. She was just about to argue and ask what the hell was going on, when Larissa joined her, and together the two girls pulled Ari into the kitchen, singing, “You put the lime in the coconut…”

Less th
an five minutes later and the rest of the group joined the girls inside. Ari already had three shots of bourbon when Ragon came and sat down beside her. Crystal was asleep on the couch and Ari kept glancing over to check on her, afraid that she might start crying, afraid that somehow the dog might know what had happened to its owners.

“So what brilliant plan did you come up with?” she asked, holding up her
fourth shot and eyeing the dark liquid grimly. “Though it may not be necessary; apparently Sandra and Larissa think that they will be able to drown the power out of me.”

Ragon hesitated for a moment,
but then Clyde moved over to them, took the undrunk shot from Ari and downed it, saying, “It wasn’t going to work. Falling out of an aeroplane without a parachute just has too many logistical problems.”

Ari gulped loudly, and quickly poured herself a replacement drink
, all the while eyeing Clyde evilly.

“Don’t worry,”
Ragon said, leaning close and whispering into Ari’s ear, “I won’t let Clyde throw you out of an aeroplane.”

“Yea,” Clyde muttered
sarcastically, “he’s a real keeper. You can’t find shivery like that anymore.”

Another three or four shots later and Ari’s eyes had become a little lazy, allowing the room to slide in and out of focus. Sandra had turned the radio on, so that triple J’s finest selection played in the background. Moving out onto the veranda, Ari hoped that the still night air might refresh her. Instead her eyes raked the forest at the edge of Ragon’s property and she shivered.  

“So you’re sure it’s not too much
for me to hang out with you?” asked Ryder, a puppy dog look taking over in his face, as he moved outside to join Ari.

“It’s not too much, I just… I just don’t want you getting hurt
.”

“We’re all grownup now Ari, and I know how to take care of myself,” he replied, “besides, how do you know that it isn’t Patrick who needs to be careful of me?”

Ari smiled weakly
; she hadn’t been thinking of Patrick, she had been thinking of Clyde.

“Do I?”
Patrick asked loudly from inside the house.

His voice was casual, even suggestive, as if he were hoping that there was something dangerous about his new
human interest. She was just beginning to feel awkward when Ragon blurred outside and took her by the hand.

“I have been d
ying to dance with you since the Halloween party.”

Ari
beamed at him, listening to the song that was playing- ‘Endless summer’ by the Jezabels. She had just taken Ragon’s hand and he had directed her back inside, when the music suddenly changed.