Dark Season: The Complete Box Set

by Amy Cross

  I turn and walk away. I know that my father will not want me to hear what happens in that chamber. It's going to be a long night for him. He'll have to put up with the taunts of the prisoner until dawn. But if he survives that long, he will emerge from the chamber with the answer to the problem that I face. And that's when I will be able to go and defeat the Tenderling, and save Sophie.

  I wait at the entrance to the tunnel. During the night, the forest becomes pitch black and I cannot see any ghosts, although I can hear them from time to time. They are out there, haunting the spaces between the trees. They dare not come close to the tunnel, because they are terrified of what they would hear if they were exposed to the mad ramblings of the prisoner. Nevertheless, they are curious, and they shuffle through the forest, watching me. This is all that they can do, and they must surely know that there is no point to their efforts.

  When the first light of morning arrives, there's still no sign of my father. I consider going to check on him, but I know that this will not help. I simply have to wait until he has finished with the Lock.

  Or until the Lock has finished with him...

  All around me, the ghosts are now visible in the morning light. They seem to be ignoring me, but I know that they're here to see what happens. They long to go down and see the prisoner for themselves, to be sure that he is chained up and will never be set free. If they could see this with their own eyes, they might finally be free to leave this world, but they are too timid, too scared, and so they are doomed to wander forever.

  There is movement behind me in the tunnel. I turn to see my father emerging. He looks older and more tired than I have ever seen him, yet the mere fact that he has emerged at all is a sign that he has been able to withstand a night spent in the Lock's company.

  Slowly, he tells me what I need to know. He tells me that I can never force the Tenderling to leave Sophie alone, that the creature will kill her unless it can be persuaded to give her up out of choice. I tell my father that there's no way to do this, that there's no way to communicate with the Tenderling. I tell him that I can't possibly persuade the Tenderling to voluntarily leave Sophie alone, not unless...

  I pause for a moment. Finally, I understand. There is a way.

  Sophie

  I open my eyes and find I'm on the cold, hard rocky floor of the cavern, close to Vincent and Patrick's house. At first, I'm completely confused, unable to remember how I ended up down here at all, but then I remember the whole experience in the house with the woman. Still, I have no idea how I ended up asleep. The last thing I remember is coming away from the house and planning to leave the cavern altogether. It seems pretty odd that I apparently decided to take a nap along the way, so... what happened? Am I narcoleptic now?

  I try to get up, but a feeling of complete tiredness washes over me. I've been feeling tired for weeks now, but this is worse than ever. I feel completely exhausted. It takes all my strength to just sit up. This is getting really strange.

  I feel something sore on the base of my back. Rubbing my hand across the skin, I feel a lump. It's bigger than the lump I had before, and it feels harder. As I feel it, I realize there's another one close to it. I reach both my hands around and soon I've found five or six of these lumps, all over my back. And then, just as I'm trying to work out what they are, I realize there's something on my shoulder, something painful, like I'm being bitten. I look at it and to my horror I see a thin red thing, like a straw, sticking out. And it's now that I realize I can hear a kind of gurgling, sucking sound from behind. I turn to see where the straw goes.

  Sitting behind me, there's a creature. It's human-shaped but completely naked, and its skin is red. The 'straw' in my shoulder seems to go straight into its face, or what I assume is its face. Instead of eyes, it has what look like two dark red stab wounds, staring straight at me.

  I instinctively pull the 'straw' out of my shoulder, and the creature starts to hiss. It starts to crawl closer to me, and I crawl away, barely able to summon the energy to move. I feel as if I'm still half asleep. The creature keeps hissing as it reaches out to grab me, so I get up and run toward the house, stopping to glance over my shoulder. The creature is following, but it seems to have having difficulty climbing over the rocks that litter the cavern floor. The long straw coming from its face is flailing around like a snake, trying to find me.

  I run inside the house and push the door shut. Exhausted, I can barely keep awake, but adrenalin is coursing through my system. Vincent and Patrick have to turn up soon, don't they? I look out the window and see that the creature has almost reached the house. Yeah, Vincent and Patrick would definitely be pretty useful right now.

  The creature bangs against the door, but I manage to keep it pushed shut. For a moment, I feel as if I'm going to fall asleep again, but I fight the urge. The creature is banging against the door again, trying to force its way in, but there's no way I'm letting this door open. I don't know what that thing is, but it doesn't strike me as being particularly friendly. I look at the hole on my shoulder where the straw was inside me and it looks red and sore.

  I have a funny feeling that if I survive this, I'm going to freak out later.

  The banging on the door stops. For a moment I feel relieved. Has it given up? After a moment, I realize it's probably just gone to try to find another way in. I make sure the door is properly closed, and then I back away and go to look in the other rooms. So far, so good: there's no sign of the creature. Just as I'm starting to think about relaxing, however, I hear the sound of breaking glass upstairs, and the sound of the creature hissing as it enters the house.

  I push the door of Vincent's study shut and ram a chair under the door handle in an attempt to stop the thing getting in. Then I go to Vincent's desk and start looking about for anything I can use as a weapon. I hear hissing and, as I look across the room, something bangs on the door. I don't think it can get in, at least not for a while, but I don't think it's going to give up any time soon. I turn to look at the windows, expecting it to appear at any moment, but for now I can still hear the hissing at the door so at least I think there's a chance that it's still trying to find a way in. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can find to use as a weapon. Damn Vincent, couldn't he keep a knife or a pair of scissors in his study? Or perhaps even a machine gun? Or couldn't he just be here? He'd know what to do. With all these books, he'd have to know what to do.

  Suddenly the hissing and banging stop. I stare at the door. Now I'm worried. The creature's obviously trying something else. I grab a candlestick, figuring it's better to have something rather than nothing. As I wait, I slowly start to hear a new noise. Somewhere in the house, there's the sound of scratching.

  Patrick

  I have to be careful here. The Tenderling is downstairs, trying to find a way in to the study where Sophie has holed up. For now, the Tenderling's goal is to keep her alive so it can finish consuming her energy, but if it realizes I'm here, the creature will undoubtedly decide to kill her, so I really have to make sure it doesn't know I'm here, which is going to be difficult considering I need to get into that room with Sophie.

  From the top of the stairs, I peer around the corner. The Tenderling is scratching at the wall, trying to create a hole it can use to enter the study. With its hard, sharp claws, it's starting to make real inroads, and in a few minutes it'll be through. I go through to one of the upstairs rooms and quietly slide open a window before lowering myself out and jumping down. I look in through the window of the study and I can see Sophie in there. I want to get her attention, to make her realize that I have a plan, but I have to wait a moment longer. I have to time this perfectly, or she won't have a chance.

  Sophie

  The window smashes behind me. I turn, ready to face the creature, but instead I'm confronted by Patrick. I'm instantly overcome with a feeling of relief, as if it's all going to be okay now, but then I see the look in his eyes and I realize he's concerned. He doesn't look like someone who has arrived with all the answers. Instead
, he looks like someone who thinks everyone's about to die.

  "What is that thing?" I ask.

  He grabs me by the arm and takes me to the far corner of the study, where he turns me around and starts examining my back. I figure there's no point asking any more questions; it's not like he's going to sit down and have a long chat with me, so I wait. I can feel his hand touching the sore lumps on my back, running his fingers over them one by one. And then, suddenly, I feel a sharp pain. After a moment, Patrick reaches his hand out to me and shows me what looks like a small black pebble. Is that what was in my back?

  A moment later, there's another sharp pain, and then another. I realize what's happening: Patrick's taking the lumps out, one by one. I can't do anything except sit and wait, steeling myself against each little stab of agony as I feel his fingers reach inside me to pull out another pebble. I can feel blood dripping down my back, but I don't dare to reach around and wipe it away. All the while, the scratching sound outside the room is getting louder, as if it's getting nearer.

  After a couple of minutes, I realize Patrick has stopped. I turn and find that he has a hand full of these little pebbles. He reaches out a hand and runs them over my shoulders, and I realize he's searching for more of them. I sit there as his hand moves all over my back, then along my neck, where his hand stops. There's a sharp pain and he pulls away another pebble.

  Fuck, how many of these things are inside me?

  Patrick runs his hand through my hair, feeling my scalp. Apparently finding nothing, he runs his hand over my face, then back down onto my shoulders, his fingers constantly searching for any sign of another pebble, as if he has to get them all out as quickly as possible. After a moment, and with a little hesitation, he reaches his hands under my bar and checks my breasts, before quickly moving down and feeling the skin of my waist. Keeping his skin on the outside of my trousers, he runs his hands down my legs, and finally he pulls my shoes off and checks my feet.

  Finally, holding a handful of more than a dozen little black pebbles, he steps back.

  There's a cracking sound from the other side of the room. I look over and see that the wall is starting to break. That's what the scratching sound was. The creature is trying to break through. By the looks of things, he's almost managed to do it.

  "What is it?" I ask. "What -"

  I turn to Patrick and to my shock I see that he's made a little cut on his arm. He takes one of the pebbles and slips it under his skin. He glances at me, and then he continues, making little cuts all up and down his arm and slipping the pebbles inside. I have no idea why he's doing this, but he seems determined, so I just sit and watch. After a minute or so, he's placed all the pebbles in his own body.

  There's a loud cracking sound as the wall finally splits and the creature climbs through the hole. Racing toward us, it lets out a hissed scream.

  Patrick

  For weeks now, this Tenderling has been feeding off Sophie. It has been placing the pebbles under her skin, using them to absorb all her energy and all her negative emotions. As soon as it enters the room, it sees me and it realizes the endgame has arrived. I can see from the way it stares at me that it initially sees me as a threat, and it starts moving toward Sophie with the intention of killing her. But I know it won't kill her, not now, because it has a better prize in sight.

  Tenderlings are like emotional vampires. They suck out all feeling from their victim, both positive and negative. When there isn't enough emotion, they have certain tricks they can use to create new, stronger feelings. That's why people who are the victim of a Tenderling often find their lives going seriously wrong. The Tenderling has the ability to take on other forms and to influence a person's life, all with the aim of creating stronger emotions that it can then absorb. It can appear as any image that it believes will cause the victim emotional distress.

  It was this Tenderling that appeared to Sophie as her father, and it was this Tenderling that attacked the idiot boy who shared Sophie's bed, and it's this Tenderling that is now torn between killing Sophie and investigating me. It knows that the pebbles should be in Sophie, but it can tell that they're in me now. Although it understands that I'm not quite like its usual victims, it can't help but be curious about me. Rather than killing Sophie, it starts sniffing at me, investigating me, trying to work out whether I can become its next victim. It circles me, and I feel its long, thin probe running over my body, checking the location of the pebbles. It doesn't know what I am. It thinks it can hurt me.

  Finally, it sticks the end of the probe into my arm. Poor, pitiful creature. It can't resist. It has to have its fix.

  The problem for the Tenderling is that it's used to humans. Human emotions are strong, they're powerful, but they're never enough for a Tenderling, so the creature is used to feasting on them, leaving the human feeling weak and exhausted. This Tenderling has probably only ever feasted on humans, because humans are easy targets, so it doesn't know to be careful sometimes.

  It doesn't realize that I'm not human.

  It doesn't realize that it should be careful.

  Because no matter how strong Sophie's emotions are, she's still a human, and she's still young.

  Me? I'm a thousand-year-old vampire who's been having a really bad century.

  I grab the Tenderling's head and force it against me, preventing it from pulling out its probe. While it's used to the emotions of humans, it's now feeling my emotions flood into its body, and it's already starting to struggle, trying to get free. When it was feeding off Sophie, the Tenderling was sucking up the emotions of a girl who had just lost her father, and who was confused about her life. Now that it's feeding off me, it's sucking up the emotions of a vampire who lives every day with the enormous guilt of having destroyed his entire species. That's the kind of emotion that it takes time to come to terms with, yet the Tenderling is absorbing it all at once, and its brain is frying.

  The creature starts to scream. It can't handle all the power it's absorbing from me. It's feeling my guilt over the genocide of the vampires. It's feeling my fear over the fact that I will one day have to return to Gothos. It's feeling my desire to keep Sophie safe and protect her. It's feeling my sorrow at the knowledge that one day I will have to watch her die. It's feeling my concern that I might never see my father again, and it's feeling my anger, the huge anger that I keep hidden away every day, the anger that I'm terrified I will one day have to use against the people I care about.

  Some people mistake my silence for a lack of feeling. They think I don't have any emotions at all. But this Tenderling is finding out the hard way that I have more than enough. I have too much. I can spare some.

  I look down at the creature. It's still screaming as my emotions rush through its mind, overcoming its defenses. I actually feel sorry for it, because it's being killed by over-eating, and I can feel its head getting hotter and hotter as it struggles to remove its probe from my skin. With its probe still stuck in my body, it tilts its head up to look at me, as if it's begging for mercy, but I can't let it live. It's too dangerous. It's done too much damage to Sophie. Even though it was only doing what came naturally to it, and it was only trying to survive, I have to make sure it dies. That doesn't mean, however, that I have to make it die in sorrow. So I look down at its face and I make sure that, as its brain overloads and switches off, the poor pathetic creature's last sensation is my overwhelming sympathy for its plight.

  It burns. It can't handle my emotions and its whole body starts to ignite, flames erupting from within. It screams and screams, but I won't let it live. Eventually I let go of its head and the Tenderling falls to the ground, but within seconds the fire has taken over its entire body and within seconds it's just a smoldering pile of burnt flesh and bones.

  It tasted the emotions of a vampire and it couldn't handle the overload. It was like a junkie who always uses low-grade heroin, then one day accidentally takes an overdose of the pure stuff. Its body couldn't handle the experience, and it died.

  I hold out
my arm and slowly I start taking out the pebbles from under my skin. I'll have to bury them somewhere, otherwise they'll attract more Tenderlings, and I certainly don't want to ever have to do all of this again.

  When all the pebbles are out, I turn to Sophie. She's standing in the corner of the room, watching me with a shocked look in her eyes. She doesn't understand what happened, of course. Perhaps she never will. She probably thinks, like the rest of them, that I have no emotions. Perhaps it would be easier if she had her own probe she could stick into my body. Perhaps she'd be shocked to find out how I feel. Or perhaps she knows. That's the interesting thing about Sophie: sometimes I feel as if deep down, she knows these things that others miss. She understands me, or she will soon.

  I step toward her. I know I shouldn't do this. It's too soon. Perhaps it's something to do with the Tenderling, or perhaps it's something to do with the way Sophie's looking at me, but I can't help myself. I move close to her, then I lean down and kiss her, just once, just briefly, on the lips, and then I turn and walk back to the Tenderling, scooping up its burnt body and the pebbles and carrying the creature's corpse out of the house. As I go, I pass my father, who has finally returned. I'll leave it to him to explain things to Sophie.

  Sophie

  My father lived in Los Angeles, but he was born in Dedston so his funeral is taking place here. I wanted to go to Los Angeles so I could fly back with his body, but we didn't have the money for that. Nevertheless, there's a good crowd of people who have traveled to Dedston to pay their last respects. Despite his rampant unreliability, my father was a popular guy.