Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (23 page)

I look back up at her face. She still has her eyes fixed on me.

I step back. I can't be in this room. I turn and run out, straight down the stairs and out the front door of the house, into the cavern. I run to the tunnel that leads out of here, and it's only now that I stop and turn to look back at the house. There's no sign of the woman. She didn't follow me out. That's good, but my heart is racing and I don't know what to do, because when I looked under the veil, I recognized the woman.

It was me.

Patrick

I can tell that my father is concerned about the task ahead. He says very little as we walk, focusing all his thoughts on where we are going. And as we start our descent down the stone steps, he seems hesitant, as if he's starting to have second thoughts about the whole thing, but he can't back out now. This is the final act of a game that he himself set in motion many years ago. He always knew this day was coming.

There is so much I could say to him. For the first time in many years, I'm forced to contemplate the possibility of life without him. It's by no means certain that he will be able to leave the chamber once he has entered. The price he is willing to pay to discover the solution to Sophie's problem is beyond all imagination. I know he thinks this is a foolish move, and I know that he is only doing it for me, and for Sophie. I am grateful. This is not part of the prophecy. This is his choice.

I don't know how far I should go with him, but when we get to the entrance to the final chamber, he turns to me and I realize that he has to go on ahead. I wait as he enters, and immediately I hear the taunts start. My father has met his only enemy, the enemy he thought he had vanquished many years ago. These two men were never meant to see one another again, and yet here we are, and although this enemy is chained, he can still cause terrible damage simply by virtue of the words he chooses. He has known my father for many years, and he understands how to inflict maximum damage.

I listen. My father stays silent as the taunts continue. Although the Lock says the harshest, most evil things, my father does not rise to the bait. Instead, he says nothing.

The Lock starts by talking about me. He says that I'm a failure, that I am responsible for the deaths of all the other vampires. He says I committed genocide. And he's right. I did. He should know. He was there. In fact, this wretched, pitiful prisoner was the one who put Cassandra's heart into my hands and told me what to do. So he isn't entirely blameless in all of this, even if it's true that ultimately I was the one who carried the heart to the dungeons of Gothos and showed it to the children. As the Lock warms to his theme, he taunts my father about the moment when Cassandra, Bowie and the others became human. He talks about how Diana was abandoned at Gothos with the wretched children, and he warns that Benjamin and the Watchers are still out there, waiting for their moment to strike.

Next, the Lock starts taunting my father about his own mother, about how she was a whore who was butchered in an alley. Again, this is true. The Lock is not saying anything that is false. But my father knows that his mother, although she might have been a whore, was a good woman. And he knows that it was not her fault that she was attacked and killed. He knows these things because I told him. I lied, but he has no way of knowing that.

The Lock starts talking about Sophie. He asks whether my father can truly condone what's going to happen to her. She is, after all, an innocent girl. We could let her walk away, and she could live a full life, never knowing the true horrors of Gothos. But he knows, as we know, that the prophecy will find a way to reassert itself. Sophie has a role to play, and there's no way to spare her from the horrors ahead. The prophecy is a living, breathing thing. If it is crossed, it will become angry. It will lash out. It will release the spiders, and it will take its revenge.

And now the Lock is on to other subjects. He's trying every possible subject, trying desperately to make my father angry. He talks about Cassandra, and how she let the Alpha Wolf rip out her heart before their wedding. He talks about the night that the Castle of Eyes fell apart, and about the moment that I opened my hand to show the children how The Promise could set us all free from the chains of war. Finally, he warns my father that Benjamin's spies are everywhere, and that soon one of them will come to seek vengeance.

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.