Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (52 page)

She was sitting on the sofa. She had a
rosewood complexion, heart shaped face, high cheekbones and dark
straightened hair that hung to her shoulders. A large painting of
Luna hung above the fireplace, gazing at me as haughty and
formidable on canvas as she had been in life. Ella studied me
intently for a moment. Her thoughts were completely shielded from
me, her gaze like that of a cat’s, full of mystery and
cunning.

“
I painted that a few
years ago,” she said finally. “I only had my visions of her to go
on, so tell me. Is it a good likeness?”

“
What was the meaning of
that little trick upstairs?”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her
eyes, which were hard and cold.

“
I have been waiting to
meet you for a very long time, but you’ve been so elusive I thought
a demonstration was in order. A reminder, so to speak, of manners,
and what I expect of you whenever you enter my home. There is no
need for you to skulk around. Whenever you’re here, I would like at
least a hello.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand.
Not for the first time I cursed that journal and the enquiring
young men and women that came looking for me whenever they read it.
I should take the opportunity to burn that damned thing now I knew
where it was.

She laughed, a soft mirthless sound
that was as calculating as her gaze. She stood up and moved to
stand by the fireplace. “As if I would let you do that?”

I stared at her, trying not to let my
surprise show. “Only Luna’s mother was ever able to read my
thoughts.”

“
Not as well as you can
read people’s minds. But I see enough.”

“
And you can shield your
mind from me as well as Luna used to.”

Her smile was triumphant. “Thank you.
I have spent years preparing for our meeting.”

“
What do you
want?”

“
I want to talk about
Emily and the evil that has been haunting us.”

Emily had been murdered by the chapel
spirit five years ago. I sat down. It would come to this sooner or
later.

“
How much do you know?” I
said.

“
Enough. Why didn’t you
try to stop it?”

“
I
did
try. I’ve never been able to
stop it from killing them.”

“
I meant before that. Why
didn’t you kill her when you knew it was trying to be reborn
through her?”

“
I would never kill one of
Luna’s descendants.”

She smiled brightly, a smile that was
glorious as well as utterly ruthless.

“
But you did once
before.”

Silence hung in the room.

“
I’m ordering you that
from now on, you will kill them the moment you suspect it is trying
to possess them.”

I used my telekinetic power to spin
her away from the fireplace and slammed her back into the sofa. She
glared at me, her anger fierce but tightly reined. This was not a
woman who liked to lose control.

“
You should be careful,
Ella. Your powers may be impressive. But you’re not invincible and
you’re definitely no match for me. Remember that.”

She seemed to wither and abruptly
seemed smaller and softer. Tears glimmered in her eyes.

“
We come from a line of
powerful witches, but no, we’re not invincible, as Luna found out
to her detriment. We let our emotions stop us from doing what must
be done. If Luna had killed Simon back then, we would have been
spared from all of this. I won’t make the same mistake.”

Silence wreathed the room again. I got
to my feet.

“
Good night,
Ella.”

I was relieved when I got outside to
the frigid night air.

I left the city, my mind as always
weighed down by the problem of the evil entity taking away so much
from me. Every time it killed one of them, it was as if Luna had
died all over again. And what if it finally succeeded in possessing
one of them? Was Ella right in ordering me to kill them before it
achieved its goal?

There were many questions but no
answers, and time would soon run out for me and the family I had
come to see as my own.

A few months after my trip to New
York, I began to receive numerous messages from Vanessa, one of
Ella’s daughters. The calls had all been made to an unlisted
telephone number, which only a few people had. At first, I ignored
them. But when they persisted, I decided to pay her a
visit.

I kept a close watch on all the family
now and knew a great deal about most of them. Vanessa was Ella’s
eldest daughter. She had been a thin, sickly child, and incredibly
whiny. I thought it was something she would grow out of, but she
had carried it well into womanhood. Of all Luna’s descendants I had
come across over the years, I found her to be the most irritating.
She had a pinched face, large eyes and a high, grating voice. She
also had an unhealthy obsession with being a size zero, like most
of her fashion model friends, and her bones protruded painfully
from the black clothing she always wore.

She was in the family room when I
materialised in her home, a cavernous but soulless apartment on New
York’s Upper East Side. It was seven a.m. and she was standing by
the mini bar with her back to me, pouring herself a glass of
whisky.

“
Good morning,” I said
cheerfully.

She screamed and spun around, spilling
most of the whisky on her shirt.

I sat down as she put her hand to her
chest and tried to catch her breath.

“
Isn’t it a bit early for
that?” I asked, referring to the glass in her hand.

She refilled it. “Where have you been?
I’ve been calling you for four weeks now.”

She moved to the table and put the
glass down to snatch up some tissues. She dabbed at her blouse.
When she reached for the glass of whisky, her brow furrowed when
she saw it was not where she had placed it. She gasped when she
glanced up and saw it in my hand. She glared at me.

“
What do you want,
Vanessa?” I asked, as I took a sip.

She continued glaring at me then sat
down at her desk.

“
I want you to do
something about Dallas.”

“
Who?” I asked even though
I knew exactly who she was talking about.

“
Dallas, my
daughter!”

“
Your daughter? Really?
It’s hard to believe you have one, as you’re hardly ever here. And
I have to ask, Vanessa. Why on earth would you give a child such a
ridiculous name like Dallas?”

She looked taken aback for a few
seconds, then she scowled at me.

“
My mother said you would
be difficult, but she won’t do anything about Dallas so you have
to. She’s completely out of control. She has such scary temper
tantrums and she says things. Things a child couldn’t possibly
know. Mummy won’t do anything. All she says is that Dallas is
special and I should let her be. But she’s impossible. She’s been
sent home twice now from nursery, she’s...”

As she rambled on I wished, and not
for the first time, that alcohol had an effect on me. I became
increasingly irritated as her voice rose higher and higher and she
whinged and moaned. She was trying to shield her thoughts from me,
but was doing a very poor job and I found it infuriating that
thoughts of her lover, who was twenty-two, kept drifting into her
mind. She was annoyed she had to be here because Dallas had scared
the last nanny away. Along with the grating voice, there was also
loud banging which I had observed when I entered the house. It
appeared to be getting louder.

“
What...what is that
noise? That banging,” I asked, interrupting her in mid
flow.

“
That’s
her
.” She leaned
forward, her voice dipping into a whisper. “She’s been doing that
for two days now. She won’t come down from her room or change out
of her pyjamas. All because she can’t have a dress she wants. She’s
driving me insane!”

“
If she’s that upset then
get her the damn dress.”

“
Don’t you think I’ve
tried? She doesn’t even want the dress, she’s just trying to upset
me. She saw it in a magazine and has been like this ever since.
I’ve looked for it, the only place I can find it is in some
boutique in London. Do you expect me to go all the way to London
for a dress?”

That was the last thing she wanted to
do. She had already stayed away from her lover for long enough. Out
of sight was out of mind, and her husband would be back in a
week.

“
You have to do something.
She...she just...” Her voice trailed away.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when
I saw tears fall onto her cheeks and she became too choked with
emotion to speak.

“
For God’s sake, Vanessa.
Don’t be such a baby. She’s just a child. I’m sure even
you
are capable of
handling a five year old.”

“
You don’t understand. She
can move things just by thinking about it. And her rages, they’re
not normal. You have to do something. You can do mind control,
can’t you? That’s what I want you to do. Control her and make her
behave herself.”

I sighed inwardly. Now was the time I
would have to start the theatrics which always became necessary at
some point. Luna’s descendants seemed to get it in their heads that
I would be their vampire buddy or something. Which made me wonder
what on earth she had written about me in that damn
journal.

I materialised at Vanessa’s side. She
jumped, completely scared as I loomed over her. She stiffened as I
smiled, stroking her hair, letting my fangs lengthen. I also delved
into her mind, heightening her fear and made it seem to her as if
the room had suddenly become darker.

“
I don’t think you know
who you’re dealing with, Vanessa. Rent a vampire to deal with your
domestic issues? It doesn’t quite work like that. The only thing I
deal in is death, unless that is what you want when you ask me to
‘do something’ about Dallas?”

There was the longest pause as her
fear swelled like a balloon. I waited for it to burst in a show of
tears and hysterics.

“
Stop that!” she snapped.
“Just...just sit down and quit messing with my vision or I’ll call
my mother!”

I sighed. The really tedious thing
about these women is they don’t scare easily.

“
Sorry, Vanessa. I’m not a
nanny, so I can’t help you.” I moved away to sit on the chair at
the other side of the desk. You’ll just have to try being a mother.
You do know what that is, don’t you?” I paused at the sound of a
tiny voice coming from the other side of the apartment. “Well,
maybe now is the time to find out. She’s calling you.”

Vanessa jumped up. Ironically, she
appeared as terrified as she should have been a moment
ago.

“
Hurry, before she comes
down here looking for you,” I said. “I haven’t had my morning meal
yet.”

Dallas screamed her name once more and
it was pleasing to see Vanessa actually run out of the room as if
her life depended on it.

I sipped at the whisky. She really was
so silly acting that way over a child. Curious as to how she would
deal with Dallas, I sat back with a smile and watched through her
eyes as she entered her daughter’s bedroom.

A chuckle escaped me when I saw Dallas
for the first time. She was the colour of deep mahogany, had
beautiful eyes, long, dark sooty eyelashes and dimples. She wore a
pink Barbie pyjamas set and her hair was in two bunches. She really
was the cutest little thing, especially that adorable scowl on her
face. She pushed a tray of cereal that had been placed on a small
table toward Vanessa.

“
I don’t want this. I want
ice cream and chocolate for breakfast!”

“
D-Dallas, you’re not
having ice cream for breakfast. Now stop being silly
and—”

She jumped back when Dallas turned the
tray over, spilling the cereal all over Vanessa’s trousers. I
laughed louder.

“
Dallas! If you don’t stop
behaving like a—”

“
Where’s my dress? I want
my dress!”

“
Right, that’s it!
No...”

Vanessa’s voice trailed off when
Dallas abruptly stopped and stood deathly still, her eyes locked on
her mother. There was something very eerie about it and my laughter
faded away. I leaned forward in the chair, experiencing the moment
through Vanessa’s senses. The room she was in became charged and
goose bumps ran up her arms as she looked down at her
daughter.

“
Who’s downstairs?” Dallas
asked.

“
N-no one. Clean up this
mess before—”

“
Tell me who’s
downstairs!
” she screamed.

The room they were in became charged
with a dark energy. The knocked over bowl exploded at the same time
that the glass of whisky in my hand shattered, showering glass and
amber liquid over my grey suit. I stared at the glass fragments in
my hand in shock and immediately delved into Dallas’s mind and
soothed. Sleepy, she moved to her bed, climbed in and fell asleep
instantly.