THE NIGHT WITHIN US
Sylvie Grohne
© Sylvie Grohne
Gelderlandstr. 14
48429 Rheine
Germany
[email protected]
http://www.sylviegrohne.com
Cover: Alexander Kompainsky
Artwork © : elwynn, Sergey Nivens, BlueSkyImage – shutterstock.com
Graphics: © abeadev – shutterstock.com
Chapter embellishments: © Digiselector – shutterstock.com
eBook design: Thomas Knip
Translated by Tracy Phua
Edited by Bradley Hall
All rights reserved
S Y L V I E G R O H N E
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Dedication
For my two angels,
who are the only ones who know
how my heart sounds from the inside.
***
Prologue
I'll die soon. He will kill me. Somehow I'd always imagined it differently, if I ever did stare death in the eyes. Not so ocean-blue and not so intoxicating.
His gaze is wild and stormy like the sea, and his whispers creep beneath my skin, even though I can't understand the words. But his every touch tells me with absolute certainty what he feels for me. I want to say more, but I don't have any strength left, and my thoughts are gradually falling away. Death's uncompromising fingers have already reached out for me. A fine veil lays gray over my eyes, as the life I only just learned to treasure drains slowly out of me. I lose myself completely in the shimmering turquoise of his eyes, but I don't fight it. A soft smile plays at the corners of my mouth, and I listen to the gentle rustle that accompanies me into the darkness.
1
Amkaya
I stare in a daze at the open coffin and my little sister's hands, folded over her chest, covered with age spots. Wilted, dead flesh, the many furrows evidence of a life well lived. I tell myself to stay calm, but I find it indescribably difficult not to break down screaming on Cassie's dead body. As if to check one more time whether there really is no life left in her, I lay my hand on hers, although I can already smell that her body has started to decompose.
The pain strikes me, like it has done so many times in the past few days, with a violent blow right in the gut, gnawing through my skin and rampaging inside me. For a moment, I lose my balance and my body tilts sideways unchecked, yet in the next instant I feel the arms of my brother Airas which encircle my waist like a safety harness, holding me tight. I glance up at him. He nods at me with his lips pressed lightly together. I recognize my face in the dark sunglasses he's wearing, young and almost flawless. No-one would pick me for older than early twenties.
Grateful, I nod too and brush back the long, strawberry blonde strand of hair that has escaped from my updo. My gaze wanders back to Cassie. She may look like a very old lady, but she has been my little sister for 130 years.
I remember the day she was born, in the summer of the year 1885, like it was yesterday. I was three years old then and boundlessly excited about the new family member, even if I did feel a hint of jealousy at no longer being my parents' only little girl. It was, however, outweighed by the prospect of a playmate and an ally against Airas, who saw the light of day two years before me and could be quite annoying as a brother back then.
My throat feels parched and my limbs seem to be afflicted with the same heaviness as also lies on my soul. I lean down to Cassie and kiss her on the leathery, cool skin of her cheek.
“I miss you,” I whisper almost inaudibly in her ear and stroke the long, snow-white hair which clings to her delicate body, all the way down to her waist.
I want to cry. Never before was the desire to cry as great as in this moment. But even now my tear ducts seem to be as dried out as my throat. Only a soft, whimpering sound passes my lips as I exhale. I'm incapable of crying. I think I almost always have been.
Out of the corner of my eye I see the priest give Airas a meaningful nod.
“It's time, Kaya,” Airas whispers to me.
My brother's arm lies around my shoulder and pulls me gently away from the coffin, but I strain against him.
“Just a little while longer,” I whisper back without looking at him. I find it incredibly difficult to tear my gaze away from Cassie. This last glance, which I'm probably dragging out because I'm aware how final it is.
In spite of all the wrinkles and changes age has brought to her face, I still see her before me the way she looked as a child and also as a young woman. Even as an old lady she hardly lost any of the graceful, girlish aura that was peculiar to her. Gentle and almost fragile, with her big blue eyes which are now closed forever, and the long hair she mostly wore in a braid, along with colorful flowing dresses and skirts. Long before the hippy-style originated in the sixties she was wearing clothes that bespoke the origins of this fashion trend. Since then she always stayed faithful to this style, with only a few variations.
Cassandra was different from Airas and me. Whereas we didn't age anymore once we were fully grown, time left its traces on her body. At some stage the first little lines showed up around her eyes, and they multiplied and deepened with time. Nor did her injuries heal with the same incredible speed which, in us, made it possible to look on as wounds closed. At some point we realized she didn't have in her what distinguished us, and we knew this day would come.
“It is what it is,” she said once, without regret, and shrugged.
“I just take more after Ma,” was her commentary on the situation, which already caused me great fear back then. Cassie was mortal. Suspicion turned into surety, which tormented me night after night and at the same time filled me with great envy. And now she is dead.
As we leave the little mortuary to the right of the church, the sun is surprisingly fierce, blinding me. I pull my sunglasses out of my purse and put them on. Head hung, I press my fingers hard against my temples. The headache I always get at the drop of a hat when I'm in direct sunlight makes itself known. Airas, on the other hand, doesn't flinch, but I know the sun is also bothering him.
Why did today of all days have to prove to be the first day of spring this year, with the sun pushing through the dark clouds and shining mockingly as if it were a celebration? There is nothing to celebrate. Cassie is dead, and I can't imagine living on without her. Nothing will ever be as it was before. Nothing. All that is left for me is this endless damned eternity, which now more than ever seems like a sentence I must ser
ve.
The new cemetery on Amrum Island, a little way off from the church and the old graves, is substantially quieter than the old one next to the church, which is a well-loved tourist magnet thanks to the Cemetery of the Nameless. Here, on the way out of Nebel village heading north, it's much more peaceful.
I can't concentrate on the monotonous voice of the priest, who is holding a seemingly endless speech as I stare at the white coffin with the red roses.
My gaze wanders to the right, to the other side of the grave and onto the headstone there.
Emilia Álvarez 1861 – 1892
My mother's grave. Directly beside that lies a smaller stone in memory of my twin brother Aven.
Aven Álvarez 1882 – 1882
The spicy-sweet scent of heather, which the wind carries over to me, pushes open a gate through which memories blow into my mind.
In 1936, only a year after the opening of the new cemetery, Cassie had our mother moved here and made sure the grave site was maintained.
“If Pa comes back some day, he has to be able to find her,” she justified the decision, and we agreed with her. She was right. That was exactly what our father would have wanted, although to this day he hasn't returned.
After Ma's untimely and mysterious death, Airas, Cassandra and I were forced to join a travelling circus for over a decade to avoid being torn apart from one another, and we travelled throughout all of Europe. During that time, Cassandra was quite distressed at having to stay away from the island on the North Sea coast of Germany. Only in 1906, when Cassie turned twenty-one, did we return to Amrum, where we lived together for a time, before Airas and I began our nomadic lifestyle, starting in Hamburg and continuing on into Europe, wandering right across the continent. The closeness of the community on the island and the increasing number of unexplained deaths and missing persons presented too great a danger for us. But nothing could truly separate us three. When we didn't see each other, we wrote letters, which with the advances in technology were later replaced by texts, emails and video chats. Despite the fact that Cassie's life and mine were very different and we were separated by distance more and more frequently, and for longer and longer periods, my bond with her remained. But now she is dead. Gone. Maybe with our mother. My attempt to find something comforting in this thought fails, because her death breaks my heart. Only her name will be on the gravestone, not her birthdate, because that would arouse suspicion. Airas and I are agreed we won't use false dates. Gravestones shouldn't lie.
Cassie herself was always so artful with her age and identity that no one ever became wary. She was clever and humble, living a life of seclusion with her animals. She only left the island when it was unavoidable, while Airas and I change our quarters regularly, often having more than only one place of residence. We found out early on that money made our alternative lifestyle much more comfortable. We quickly learned how easy it is to come upon loads of money using manipulation and our sharpened instincts.
While we spent it left, right and center, Cassie lived modestly. She put much of the money she got from us into projects for the animals. The few moments I ever saw her really furious were when she was cursing about cruelty to animals. The house on the island was a constant refuge for stray cats, dogs and other beasts she gave a home to and cared for with dedication.
We, on the other hand, spent most of the past few years travelling back and forth between Hamburg and San Francisco. Hamburg always meant being able to spend time with Cassie on the island, hours that we loved and enjoyed together. But in spite of the many hours of sunlight it gets, the city on the west coast of the USA is our current main residence. It seems to work the same magic on us as Amrum on Cassie.
My brother and I change identities time and again. It inevitably becomes obvious in the end that we don't age a day, and at some point the argument about having good genes is no longer an explanation for our continued youthful appearance. It might be a dream for many mortals, who pursue youth, trying an unimaginable number of ways and means to stop the aging process. As an immortal among mortals it's more of a nightmare. At least it mostly is for me, because it means going without many things. Things that seem infinitely valuable to me.
Lasting friendship is one of the privileges we don't enjoy. We've made the painful discovery that the truth about what we are changes everything. In the eyes of the person we tell, we either turn into a lunatic or a monster. I can't blame them; I see the monster myself after all, each time I look in the mirror. I never could see a benefit to being immortal. For me it's much more a curse than a privilege. It's like the carousel horses at a fun-fair: They may always be in the running, but they never win. I wonder what I would feel like if my time were limited by death and if I didn't have to share my soul with a beast.
Finally the priest comes to the end of his speech and as the coffin sinks slowly into the grave, it starts to drizzle in spite of the sun, as if April hopes to show off its full repertoire.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a voice booms in my ears and Airas reaches for the little shovel of earth. He has taken off his sunglasses and stowed them in the breast pocket of his suit. His eyes are drawn into narrow slits, making him look very sinister. The slight twitch of the muscle in his cheek tells me he's exceedingly tense.
And then I see it. The tear that escapes from the corner of his eye, rolls slowly down his cheek and blends in with the drops of drizzle. A shimmering rainbow appears simultaneously behind him, over toward the sea, and with it a bizarre feeling grows inside me.
Suddenly I have to force myself not to laugh out loud to free myself from this unbearable pressure on my chest. Is this what it's like to go crazy? Is this the last straw that will break me? I feel dizzy, gasping for air like a fish on land.
Airas catches me as I fall and the priest rushes over to prop me up too. The pulsing of his carotid artery roars in my ears. The beast in me is awoken. It lies in wait, preparing to pounce.
My brother recognizes immediately what's wrong and pushes the servant of God gently but firmly aside. Startled sounds escape the four island residents present at the ceremony, none of whom are familiar to me. The sudden sharpening of my senses causes their soft murmurings to boom in my ears.
“It's okay,” soothes Airas. He helps me up and supports me. I press my head hard against his body as he leads me through the rain, right across the cemetery into the secluded cottage with the thatched roof, to which Cassie will never return.
2
Amkaya
The smell of wet, moldy wood and decay penetrates my nose, causing me intense nausea. Dog-like beings with wide faces and an incredible number of sharp teeth in their jaws leap around me. I really want to kick them away with my feet, but they're bare and so I just try to avoid them. The sounds they're making, the grunting and panting, disgust me. The stench of old, congealed blood coming from their mouths, mixed with the smell of decay makes me want to vomit. Only when one of these revolting creatures nears my face and I see a cunning sparkle in its slit-shaped eyes does my defensive stance instinctively turn into open combat. I bore my sharp fingernails into the creatures face with all my might.
They cut it open like a knife, and I feel the fluid from its eyeballs running over the back of my hand. With a scream I pull my fingernails out, edge back and tear my eyes open.
I'm panting heavily, and I need a moment to realize it was only a dream, one of these constantly recurring, confused and terrifying dreams that have been haunting me since my childhood.
Airas stands in the doorway.
“Another nightmare?” He looks concerned and tired. An unaccustomed fragility marks his masculine face.
“I'm fine,” I say quickly and shake the feathers off me, which came from my pillow. It looks a bit the worse for wear. Maybe I'll glue one of the feathers into my scrapbook diary later, next to the red rose petal I put in a few hours ago. The special diary was a gift from Cassie. “If you fill it with memories and souvenirs, you'll see that not one day is the same as an
y other,” she said encouragingly when I was in another one of my low points. And I did enjoy it more and more, writing little events and snippets from my inner world next to photos, drawings and mementos.
“Are you sure?” Airas asks.
“I'm okay,” I assure him and try to convince myself of the same.
His blue eyes still rest searchingly on me. He comes over to me and frowns.
“I have to go back to Hamburg tomorrow already. Phil needs me in San Francisco. I have a couple of things to take care of and phone calls to make, and then I'll take the next flight out. Do you want to come with me or are you going to stay a while longer?”
Phil. Weedy little Phil, who has been under my brother's spell for a few months, has really captured Airas's heart. Mostly he hooks up with women, but him starting a liaison with a man also isn't unheard of. But I can't understand what Airas finds so attractive about Phil of all people. With his five foot seven he's almost four inches shorter and looks like a young Woody Allen with his dark glasses. The two of them couldn't look more different, since Airas isn't only tall and muscular, but with the blue eyes and short blond curls he was born with, he looks simply stunning. As his sister I might not exactly have the most objective outlook, but with his strong yet at the same time infinitely gentle presence he always attracts women and men by the dozen.
Actually we had planned to stay here a few days more, but I sense it isn't only Phil that is pulling Airas away from the island. I too feel the need to flee our sorrow, to simply cover it up with banalities and suppress it.
“I'm not sure. Maybe I should stay. Then you'll be undisturbed for once and have the house to yourselves,” I say with hesitation, although now of all times I don't want to be alone.
The Night Within Us: Dark Vampire Romance Page 1
