Dark Season: The Complete Box Set (45 page)

Sophie

Flames roar up the tunnel and out into the open air of the forest. As smoke rises into the sky, I can't help but worry that we're drawing attention to ourselves unnecessarily. However, Dexter says that the first step to tracking down Patrick is to make sure that he can never go back to his old home. So this is important: we had set fire to the house, and so now we're watching the flames and smoke roar up the tunnel and out into the forest air. It's shocking to see the place go up like this, but also kind of fitting: there's no going back now, and down there, somewhere in the flames, Vincent's body is burning to dust.

“
Fucking arsonist,” Shelley whispers to me.

“
I didn't light the match,” I whisper back.

We both turn to Dexter, whose gaze is fixed on the flames.

“So how are you going to do it?” Shelley asks him. “How do you kill a vampire? Stake through the heart? Silver bullets? Sunlight?”

Dexter shakes his head. “I don't want to kill him. I want him alive, to see how the blood flows through his body, to understand how his mind works”. He turns to us. “The question isn't how to kill a vampire. It's how to restrain one”.

Shelley turns to me, with a look on her face that clearly indicates that she thinks Dexter is a little insane.

“
This won't help us find him,” I say. “Burning his house doesn't mean anything if he's long gone. He could be anywhere”.

“
He's close by,” Dexter says. “In the mountains. Don't you remember?”

“
I don't remember anything,” I reply. “Where did he take the baby?”

“
Nowhere,” Dexter says. “The baby is right where it's always been, where it was born. All that's changed is that
you're
not there anymore. But we're gonna make him come down and face us”.

“
Why don't we just go up there?” I ask. “Can't we go to where they are?”

Dexter shakes his head. “We can't go anywhere near that place. There are too many creatures guarding it. No, we have to trick him into coming down to us, and we can do that. It just takes a little intelligence”.

“We're fucked,” says Shelley.

“
There's another chamber under the forest,” Dexter says. “The vampire used it to torture his prisoners. If we go there, we can be ready for him”.

“
Like a trap?” I ask.

“
If you want to call it that,” he replies.

“
Okay,” I say. “But we -”

“
I need to talk to you,” Shelley says, grabbing me. She looks at Dexter. “Moment, please”.

Shelley and I head over to the other side of the clearing.

“Are you sure about this?” she whispers. There's a kind of intensity in the way she talks to me, something I've never seen with Shelley before. She's usually so laid back.

I look over at Dexter. He's far enough away to not be able to hear us. “I'm sure he's lying,” I say. “Totally sure. And I'm sure he's double-crossing us, and I'm sure I can't trust him. But he can help us find Patrick, so I'll go along with it for now”.

“And then what?” she asks.

“
Patrick'll probably kill Dexter,” I say. “Or Dexter might kill Patrick. Either way, I have a chance to find this baby." I pause for a moment. "You know what Patrick did to me. Is he really that much worse than Dexter? I can't trust either of them right now”.

Shelley gives me a look that tells me she doesn't quite agree with me. “Okay,” she says finally. “But this guy -” She indicates Dexter. “Don't turn your back on him, not even for a second”.

“Don't worry,” I say. “We're just using Dexter to help us find Patrick. Once he's done that, we won't need to worry about him. I've got this under control”.

“
Funny,” Shelley says. “I'm pretty sure that's what he thinks about you.

I turn to Dexter. “What do we do now?” I call out to him.

“We go to the chamber and wait,” he says. “There's only one way to trap a vampire, and we have to be careful so that he doesn't turn the trap inside out and use it against us”.

“
Before we go,” I say, “I need to know something. What's your real plan with Patrick? Are you going to kill him?”

“
I'm going to cut him up,” Dexter replies. “To see how he works. So killing him will be something of a side-effect, but yes, that's the end-game. It'll take a long time, though. Benjamin will want to examine every inch of his body first”.

I glance at Shelley for a moment. “Okay,” I say finally, feeling a sense of unease. People keep mentioning someone named Benjamin, but I have no idea who he is. Still, I guess I can ask questions later. “Let's get this trap set up," I say, turning to Dexter. "Lead the way."

Patrick

The child stares up at me, her eyes searching my face, trying to understand. Does she know what I am? Does she know
who
I am? Or am I just a face, albeit the only face she has really seen? For a moment, I feel there might be some connection between us, but then the child turns and smiles at the woman standing next to me, and it becomes clear that it is for her that the child saves its affection. Perhaps the child senses my cold heart, perhaps she senses the truth about my destiny. Either way, it is clear that the child feels nothing in particular for me. I turn away.

A father who looks after his child, who raises the child and teaches it how to live, who shows it care and love, is a rare thing. As this child's father, I know I will be little more than a memory. She will never know her father or her mother, and in this regard at least she will be very much like most of us. It will be many years before she understands what has happened, and why, but when she turns sixteen, she will become a vampire and she will cease to ask these questions. And it will be at that moment that the child will take my burden and I will finally be able to sleep for eternity.

I look down at the child, then I reach into the crib and touch her shoulder for a moment. Then, finally, I turn and walk away, out of the cave and into the snow. The child will be fine with the woman, and she will learn to live with the name that I have given her. She might even learn to forgive me. For now, however, my role is done. I will not see the child again for a very long time. Instead, I must go to find Sophie, and I must ensure that the prophecy comes true. I walk into the snow, knowing that the woman and the child are watching my back as I disappear into the white haze.

Sophie

“
How many prisoners did he keep down here?” Shelley asks, poking the manacles that hang from the stone wall of the underground chamber.

“
A dozen or so,” says Dexter, who is busy using chalk to write strange letters onto the wall by the door. “He brought some of the most important vampires here and he tortured them for decades before he finally slaughtered them”.

"Why?" Shelley asks.

"Who knows? I doubt he wanted anything from them. Maybe he was just bored?"

“
And the Lock,” I say. “He was here, but he wasn't a vampire, was he?”

“
No,” says Dexter, peering intently at the little white letters he has written out. He seems to be focused very intently on them, as if it's vital that he gets them exactly right. “Not at the end, anyway. He was one of a small number of vampires who chose to become human instead of dying. Patrick viewed such creatures as cowards, and he went around systematically killing most of them."

“
He's dead now,” I say. “He died at Gothos”.

“
No-one really dies at Gothos,” Dexter says. “No-one really dies, and no-one really lives. And very few people ever get to leave. You were lucky”.

I pause for a moment, remembering how Patrick and I walked away from the crumbling mansion. Suddenly an image flashes into my mind: I see myself walking through the forest with Patrick, but something's different: I'm heavily pregnant, with a large bulge in my belly, and Patrick is helping me. It looks as if we're happy, as if we're walking somewhere important. Patrick seems more tender, and more caring, than I can ever imagine him being. It's an unreal memory, but also one that – in my bones and in my heart – I instantly know is real. It's as if I'm starting to remember the missing year.

“You okay?” Shelley asks, having apparently noticed something in my expression.

I nod. “Yeah,” I say, but the truth is: I'm not sure if I'm okay at all. For a second – just a second – I had a sense of what it was like to be carrying Patrick's child, and a sense of a very different side to Patrick. I reach down and touch my belly now, which is back to normal. “It's all true,” I say quietly to myself.

“You're starting to remember, aren't you?” Dexter says, smiling as he turns to look at me. “Strong connections from the depths of your memory are forcing their way through to your conscious mind. You should be prepared for more”.

“
What's the writing?” Shelley asks, interrupting him. She indicates the chalk writing that Dexter has written on the walls. “What language is that?”

“
The ancient language of the vampires,” Dexter replies.

“
Where'd you learn that?” Shelley asks.

Dexter grins. “I didn't. I memorized a few lines. I'm not even sure if I've got it right”.

She walks over and stares at what he's written. “What does it say?”

“
It's part of a prophecy,” Dexter says, glancing briefly at me. “It's from the Book of Gothos. An old prophecy that vampires have been passing down for years, kind of like a bedtime story. A reminder of things to come”.

“
What does the prophecy say?” Shelley asks.

Dexter smiles at me. “That Patrick will kill Sophie. That she will anger him so much that he rips her apart”.

I turn to him. All this talk of prophecies is crazy, and it makes me uncomfortable. I need to change the subject. “What really happened to you?” I ask. “I saw Patrick pretty much kill you, and now look at you, you're...”

“
Hideous,” Shelley says, completing my sentence. She looks at me. “He is!” she hisses, before turning back to Dexter. “You are! And you smell awful!”

“
The vampire showed me mercy,” he says. “He tortured me for days, ripping at my flesh and burning me. There was rage in his eyes, but it was old rage from long before I was born. I was prepared for death, but at the last moment he hesitated and he let me live. If you can call this living. I'm in agony every second, but I've learned to live with it”.

“
Why did he let you live?” I ask.

He smiles. “I have you to thank for that, don't I? You begged him not to kill me. Why was that? Did you want to see his human side? Did you want to believe he wasn't just some kind of animal, killing without a soul? Well, you were right”.

“He saved you for me?” I say quietly, realizing finally that even from the very beginning Patrick was listening to me. At the time, I assumed his silence was just a sign that he didn't care what I had to say. But now I'm starting to realize that I had a much greater impact on Patrick than I ever realized His instinct was to kill Dexter, but I asked him to spare him. Now it turns out that he listened to me after all.

“
Are you sure you didn't make some kind of deal with him?” Shelley asks, clearly suspicious.

“
How could I make a deal with him?” Dexter replies. “I'm not the one who has what he wants. Or...
had
what he
wanted
”.

Another flashback hits me: I remember being somewhere wild, up in the mountains, with snow falling all around us as Patrick leads me to a cave. I'm still heavily pregnant, and he helps me settle into a bed of straw. I seem to be happy, and I seem to be with him willingly. This is obviously what I was doing during the year that I was missing. I spent that whole year with Patrick, not as a prisoner but as his... what? His girlfriend? His lover? He was looking after me, caring for me as I prepared to give birth to our child. How did I forget all this? Why did Patrick want to make sure that I wouldn't remember such a happy time, the only time he and I really had together?

“Are you sure he's coming?” Shelley says, distracting me from the memory.

“
Of course he's coming,” Dexter says. “There are things here that he can never leave for too long. Things he has hidden here in preparation for this moment. And he knows we'll be here”. He looks at me. “He knows
you'll
be here. Remember the prophecy?”

“
He's not coming to kill me,” I say.

“
Oh, he is,” says Dexter. “He's on his way right now to find you and end your life. Fortunately, you have a little help from good old Dexter. Well, and this -” He pulls a gun from his pocket, some kind of antique pistol. “You know how to drop a vampire to his knees? Silver bullet, straight to the heart. Works on werewolves, too, but with vampires it's particularly effective. It won't kill him quickly, it might just slow him down, but it'll stop him from killing you and it'll allow me to cut him up”.

“
You don't want that,” Shelley says to me. “You don't want Patrick dead”.

“
You want the child,” Dexter says. “If that means Patrick has to die, then so be it. You'll have the child in your arms, and you won't even look back to see what I'm doing to Patrick”.

Finally, I remember it all: the agony of childbirth late one night in that snowy cave, as the baby came. I remember the fear, and the pain, and finally I remember hearing the child's cries. I remember looking down to see Patrick holding it, and then... I remember Patrick taking the child away, and refusing to let me see it. I remember being too weak to move, but begging him to let me see my baby. And he refused. No matter what I tried, he refused. It was as if a wall went up between us, and he no longer looked at me as if he cared about me at all. I remember the anger that I felt, and then...

I remember one night I pretended to be asleep and finally I crept over to the baby. I remember looking down and realizing that it was a girl, and I remember picking her up and holding her for the first time, her little eyes staring at me with hope. There was no sign of Patrick, so I wrapped the baby up as warm as I could and I ran from the cave. Although it was snowing and the wind was howling all around us, I could see the lights of Dedston in the distance, in the valley below the mountains. And although I knew we might not survive, I set out to get my baby away from Patrick. I remember knowing in my heart that he would never allow me to be with my child unless I got us both far, far away.

Inevitably, Patrick followed us. As we struggled through the snow, he appeared in front of us. I tried to get away, but it was no use: he blocked our path, moving quickly and effortlessly through the snowdrifts. I began to realize that even if we
did
somehow escape from Patrick, we'd never survive the journey down the mountain. I remember being unsure of what to do, and I remember Patrick trying to grab the baby from me, and she fell into the snow, and as I tried to save her I fell. I remember tumbling down a snowy slope, bouncing off rocks that jutted out. I remember coming to a stop and looking back, and Patrick was holding the baby as he stood watching me. I remember him walking away, and I remember calling after him, telling him that I'd chosen the baby's name.

"Abigail!" I screamed at him as he carried her away. "Her name's Abigail!"

I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember was when I opened my eyes in a small dark room, with doctors examining me. No sign of Patrick. No sign of the baby. Patrick must have carried me and abandoned me somewhere safe. At least he didn't leave me to die. I guess I should be grateful for that.

“
He betrayed you,” says Dexter, as if he can read my mind. “He used your body to get his child, and then he tossed you away like garbage. He's coming to kill you now, because in his twisted mind killing you is a sign that he loves you. He believes he had a duty to protect the child, and he believes you're a danger. You saw what he did to me. He'll do the same to you, except he'll be sure to finish the job. With Patrick, it always comes down to violence in the end”.

“
He used me,” I say, realizing what happened. Suddenly I hear a noise nearby, and I turn.

He's here. Standing in the entrance to the tunnel, staring at me with those deep, dark eyes, Patrick has finally arrived to finish what he started. He steps toward me, and I steel myself for an attack. Finally however, at the last moment, he turns to Dexter and kneels, as if he's surrendering.

Dexter laughs.