Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2)

by A. D. Koboah

  Her mind seemed to quiver and I do not know how to describe this, but it was as if something hidden deep within her awoke, like an eye in the dark opening slowly. That eye appeared to be staring straight at me.

  That was when I realised she had heard my thoughts. But even as she heard it, she became confused. But the eye in the dark continued to peer at me and I knew that on some level, she was aware of my presence.

  I was so shocked I almost lost the hold I had on her, because she was still struggling to bring the rock back down to her forehead. I used my telekinetic power to rip the rock out of her hand and throw it across to the other side of the clearing.

  Her raven eyes flew open. She seemed confused but alert as she searched for the rock. The eye in the dark continued to peer at me as she got to her feet and looked around her. She knew she was not alone and she was afraid now. I entered her mind again and tried to take away the fear, but again, she resisted and I had to apply more force so everything around her began to sway and she was lulled into a waking sleep.

  I stepped into moonlit clearing. She stood swaying with her eyes open, trembling even though it was a hot, humid evening.

  I closed the space between us until she was inches away from me and simply stared at her, overwhelmed by her extraordinary beauty which left my heart racing and words beyond my grasp.

  I reached out a trembling hand and touched her face, her skin as smooth and soft as I had imagined it would be. But uncertainty clung to me. I searched her mind but could get no clear answers. But there was one I saw in her memories who could perhaps give me some of the answers I sought regarding this extraordinarily beautiful slave: her mother, an African who had given Luna herbs to end an unwanted pregnancy.

  I wrapped an arm around Luna gingerly and transported her to the main house. Then I made my way to a neighbouring plantation. My thoughts remained on Luna and the darkness I had walked through for so long could no longer overwhelm me.

  ***

  Mama Akosua was a small, lithe woman whose face showed hints of Luna’s delicate feline features. Her head was shaved clean and her cheeks and forehead marked with tribal scars. She was in her cabin when I arrived at the Marshall plantation. It stood slightly apart from the others, a blur of white that sat hunched beneath the menacing trees. She appeared to be ill at ease and was pacing the small space when I arrived, keeping to the trees. She stopped pacing and moved to sit at the small table in her cabin, her gaze taking in nothing in particular. She appeared to be waiting for something and I searched her thoughts, fascinated with what I found.

  She was an actual witch who had psychic abilities and could commune with spirits. Her world had been shattered when she had been torn out of Luna’s life when Luna was three and she had never fully recovered from the loss. She thought of her daughter every day, a grown woman she saw infrequently and who was little more than a stranger. There was another she thought of constantly although the time she had spent with her had been fleeting. She still revisited the memory daily and I saw it now.

  I saw the witch making her way through a fierce storm, stopping occasionally to peer at the little brown face that was all but covered in rags. I also saw, and felt, the pain that tore through the witch when she reached a cave where a small family of runaways had been hiding. She had given them the child, knowing it was unlikely she would ever see her again.

  The more I saw, the more impressed and fascinated I became with the witch. I tried to delve deeper into her mind, to try and find out more about Luna. But I found I could not go any further. She stood up abruptly then and moved to the window. She appeared extremely stern and formidable as she stared at her reflection.

  Then to my shock, she spoke. But the words she uttered were not meant for her reflection and I not only heard the words through her senses, I heard her voice, heavy with a Ghanaian accent, in my own head sharp and clear like a snake rustling in the undergrowth.

  Asanbosam. You dare to enter my mind?

  I found myself flung out of her mind with a force that left my head tingling. But she wasn’t finished. She spoke again and this time, I not only heard her voice in my mind, she reasserted the image I had seen of her speaking to her reflection, placing it firmly in my mind in a show of strength that astounded. Her eyes burned with a dark fury as she spoke once more.

  Foolish creature! Did you think you could come here and enter my mind and think I would not know? I know what you are, Asanbosam. I sensed your presence long before you reached here. Leave here and forget you ever laid eyes on my daughter or I will tear out your heart with my bare hands!

  I mean you and your daughter no harm, I remonstrated. I will lay my life down before I let any harm come to her.

  Leave here and never come back!

  I started to back away, disturbed not only at her power, but at the hatred emanating from her. But before I turned and disappeared into the trees, I shot one last parting remark at her.

  Hers is a face I cannot forget, for it has haunted me for many years.

  I ducked into the ether before she could say more. But the encounter had left me deeply shaken and all I wanted to do was return to Luna.

  I stayed close to Luna for the rest of the evening until she retired to her cabin.

  Hiding in the woods, I observed through her eyes as she took the potion Mama Akosua had given her, the image of the little brown face all but covered in rags, prominent in my mind as she drank the potion in one quick swallow.

  The pain, which she was all too familiar with, came swiftly, causing her to inhale sharply and stagger to her pallet where she quickly lay down. I exerted my influence then and rocked her to sleep, already feeling the desperate loneliness that had been my shadow before I came across her at dusk.

  She was almost completely under sleep’s thrall.

  Goodnight, Luna, I thought, knowing I would have to leave the plantation that very night because I was already entranced with her.

  Then I received yet another surprise. She was almost completely submerged in sleep but she mumbled something.

  “Good...”

  The rest of her words trailed away but her thoughts continued to churn and she tried to finish the sentence in her mind.

  ...Night...Av...

  It was all I heard because she was now fast asleep and her mind was like the bottom of a dark ocean where nothing stirred.

  I, on the other hand, had never been more awake in my life and my whole body hummed with excitement. The fact that she had responded to my unspoken words was surprising enough, but she had almost uttered my name. And I had felt something, a warmth that had suffused her, reaching out to me as she had grasped for the half-spoken name before succumbing to sleep. And for the first time since I had been cast into the wilderness, it felt as if I was no longer a part of the shadows.

  I would not, and could not, leave her now.

  It was silent at the slave quarters, as silent as it ever is for a vampire. The slaves were all fast asleep, a bone weary dead kind of sleep that only a hard day's work could bring. I left the woods and materialised outside Luna’s cabin door and listened to her breathing and her heartbeat. I could also hear the second heartbeat which had started to quicken. Seeming to chase it was a churning, shredding noise as the herbs began to do their work. That second heartbeat began to slow, gradually getting weaker. I listened, tormented, as it got quieter and quieter.

  Perhaps my emotional response to the abortion had more to do with that night of long ago and of Onyx’s taunt, but I was aghast when it finally ceased.

  The heartbeat had ceased, but the herbs continued their rampage on Luna’s female organs and the churning and shredding seemed to get louder. Luna would be infertile after this. The witch was sure of it.

  I was desperate to enter Luna’s cabin and I even reached for the door knob, expecting the resistance, the gathering power that would repel me. But it was absent and it seemed as if rather than being repelled, I was being drawn into the cabin.

  I turned the do
orknob and pushed the door open.

  I placed one foot inside the cabin and then the other.

  I was so shocked I merely stood there, staring at her inert form. Then I moved inside and stood over her. Again it was hard not to be enchanted by her exceptional beauty, but I knew I could not spend the rest of the night staring at her. So I reached into her mind again to make sure she remained asleep. The churning and shredding seemed to quicken.

  My blood could stop the damage. I drew a fingernail against my wrist and brought it to her lips. She stirred when the first drop of blood touched her lips, but did not wake. She drank and almost immediately, the churning halted but I let her drink a little bit more as I wanted to be sure the damage caused by the herbs would be reversed.

  She slept on, and when it was done, I stared at her for a few moments, letting a finger graze the smooth skin on her forehead, the small cut where the rock had pierced the skin, gone now. I left the cabin.

  I stood outside in the dark for a while, listening to the sleeping slaves all around me. Hope thrilled within me although I could not make sense of what had just happened, why I had been able to enter Luna’s cabin without an invitation.

  I needed to speak to the witch, but I had much to do before I called on her again.

  ***

  I spent the rest of the night searching for gifts for Luna. Having violated the sixth commandment countless times over the years, I had no qualms about violating the eighth. I stole gifts from some of the most lavish homes across Mississippi. I stole two gowns from the spoilt, pampered daughter of a wealthy planter along with diamond earrings and a gold necklace from which a large, glittering ruby hung like a stone heart. Remembering Luna's prayer and how deeply she had yearned to be able to read the words of her Bible, I stole books.

  Luna’s years of want and suffering were at an end. Now I had found her, I would see to it that she had everything she wanted, and so much more.

  By the time I returned to the plantation and left the gifts at the chapel, I remembered I had forsaken my nightly kill in my haste to find and return with the gifts. But there was no time to search for prey. I had one last visit to make before dawn broke over the horizon.

  The witch was awake and I do not believe I was wrong in thinking she had been waiting for me to return. She sensed my presence immediately but did not go to the window this time.

  Her manner was very different when she spoke into my mind.

  Poor creature. Your loneliness has disturbed your mind. My daughter is not the one you seek. Your desire has made you alter the memory. Look and see. The real memory is there.

  She thrust forward the image of the vision I’d had of Luna and I realised that whilst I had been searching her mind during my first visit, she had been searching mine. She showed me a completely different woman kneeling at the altar, one with a much larger bosom and a lascivious gleam in her eyes and smile.

  Be careful, witch, I hissed. That image means more to me than life itself. Yours included.

  She openly scoffed and I tried to calm my anger. I was not here to fight with her. So I showed her what had occurred earlier on that night: me at Luna’s door, and instead of being repelled, my hand on the door and the door opening as I was drawn inside and toward Luna.

  “She let you in?” Mama Akosua hissed aloud.

  No.

  I showed it to her again, being careful to try and keep the rest of my thoughts hidden, no easy task against a mind as powerful as hers, especially since it was not something I had ever had to do. The witch would be pleased to know Luna was not infertile, but the image of Luna drinking my blood was not one that would sit well with her.

  She remained silent for a few minutes and the tight control she had on her mind broke for a few seconds and I felt her confusion and a deep, deep fear.

  It means nothing! Leave my daughter, Asanbosam! Her pretence had completely disappeared and she was like a snarling dog snapping at me.

  She was silent for a few seconds and when she spoke again, she had regained some of her composure.

  She is not the one you have searched for. That one is not human. My daughter is human.

  You lie. She is more than human. She has your blood running through her veins. Witch blood. I do not know for sure if she is the one I seek, but I cannot walk away from her now.

  I left before she could respond. I had already been apart from Luna for far too long.

  I was there before the sun rose to observe her when she awoke from her peaceful, dreamless slumber. For some reason she awoke in a clamour of confusion and anxiety and the eye in the dark was wide open, searching for me. I soothed her thoughts, forcing a calm on her. She would not suffer this day. I stayed long enough to be sure she was calm enough to begin the day and left her a command to return to the chapel at dusk. Then I went into the woodlands near the cotton field.

  The sun was coming up by this time and for the first time since darkness descended on my world, I felt exhilaration and excitement when I went to ground. I had not fed that night but I almost felt...alive.

  Sleep did not find me that day. I could not stop thinking of Luna, and the pull she exerted was so powerful she drifted into my thoughts through the eyes of others. Most notably was that of her master, John Holbert. Being in his mind was like being in a sewer and I saw similar perversities of the kind I had observed being practised by Onyx and Emory. I decided then that the most precious gift I would give Luna would be to watch him die, painfully, at her feet. Tonight.

  Chapter 12

  With dusk came the brightening and quickening of the body and senses as the effects of the sun were bridled by the coming of the moon. I left the earth and made my way to the chapel to await her coming.

  I waited whilst dusk softened everything around me and I came alive, the preternatural awakening made all the more glorious when I heard Luna making her way through the trees toward the chapel.

  When I heard her footsteps, the urgency and excitement I felt at her presence, and the anticipation of her reaction to my gifts, were unintentionally conveyed to her because her footsteps quickened when she reached the clearing and she all but ran into the chapel to the altar. That was when I released the hold I had kept on her throughout that day.

  Her emotions rose in a clamour, almost drowning out her thoughts and it was hard for me to decipher her reactions to the gifts, especially since I could not see her face. But I had the strong sense she was confused and anxious, especially since she was now remembering the things I made her forget the evening before.

  I was about to join her in the chapel when a voice broke through to Luna’s mind, instantly dissolving my euphoria.

  I told you to stay away from that place.

  It was the witch. The next thing she said was like acid running through my veins.

  Run.

  To my dismay Luna turned away from the gifts, and although she did not run, she hurried away from the altar, down the aisle and out of the chapel.

  Desperation surged along with blind panic, tightening my chest, as I listened to her footsteps receding as she made for the trees. I dove out of my hiding place and materialised in the clearing outside the chapel door, watching her slender form moving swiftly toward the trees, with increasing alarm.

  I was about to call to her when she came to an abrupt stop. Her back was ramrod straight and the muscles of her neck tight with tension. She turned around and stared directly at me, fear alive in her beautiful face, the eye in the dark wide open.

  “What you want?” she asked.

  I vanished. She jumped in fright and only managed to prevent a scream from escaping her lips through sheer determination when I appeared before her seemingly out of thin air.

  Now she was before me once more, I searched her face as anxiety churned within. Was this really her? The woman in my vision hadn't been human, yet this one was. How could this be her? Is it possible, after all these years, that I was mistaken and she—the real she—was still out there somewhere?

&nbs
p; My fears were briefly allayed when instead of trying to move away and toward the trees, she stood and stared at me, her fear gone, her thoughts that of awe. She even took a step forward and peered at me.

  I was, as always, overwhelmed by her beauty, by that direct, mysterious gaze and I found I could not speak. Without thinking about what I was doing, I reached out to touch her, stopping inches away from her face when sounds reached me from the woods, two males, one whose thoughts appeared to be on Luna. I glanced toward the woods, and delved into his mind, trying to ascertain who this male was and whether he was a threat to her. He was an African male she knew and his thoughts were only of concern.

  When I returned my gaze to Luna, I saw with dismay that she was slowly edging away from me, her face contorted in fear.

  Heart-wrenching sorrow and panic seized me again as she backed away to the trees. She stared at me for a long moment. Then she turned and fled.

  I was left alone in the clearing beneath the bronze light of the dying sun. The light that had briefly illuminated my world when I saw her for the first time disappeared along with her fleeing form, and I was left shrouded in darkness.

  Chapter 13

  The loss I felt was the death of all my hopes and dreams and my very reason for existing. I could not move, I could only listen to her footsteps, which appeared to keep time with my thundering heart as she ran away from me.

  I was startled out of my grief when I heard her scream, the noise like a sharp crack against my head. But she had nothing to fear for she had only run into the African, Jupiter. The only thing she had to fear was...me.

  How could this be? How could she not know me, and, even worse, reject me?

  They started to walk away, making their way to the slave quarters.