Darkling

Count to one hundred. Think of nothing but the numbers. If I can count to one hundred, it will be over.



And so I focused, counting under my breath, making every single number the sole sum of my existence. I counted to one hundred, five hundred, two thousand. Finally the world blissfully began to fade. Still deep within me, Dredge leaned back, shaking me out of my stupor. As I stared at him, glassy eyed, he lifted his hand and smacked me across my face.



"Don't you die on me yet," he said, growling as he slashed his left wrist with one of his dagger-sharp nails. I stared at the glistening blood as it dribbled down his arm. Without warning, he brought his wrist to my lips and forced the cut against my mouth. I gasped, trying to twist my head away, but the blood flowed into my mouth and I felt like I was drowning. There was nothing I could do but swallow.



"Good girl," he said. "Good girl. Drink deep. Satisfy your thirst."



And suddenly, I realized that my mouth and throat were parched from screaming. Without thinking, I sucked against his wrist, taking the precious liquid within, soothing the wracking pain.



"That's it, suck hard. Drink it down, little girl. Drink it down." Dredge cradled my head. He moved gently within me, his eyes triumphant. As the pain lifted, I struggled, soaring higher and higher. No. I didn't want to enjoy this. Don't let him make me come, I prayed, but then, before I could stop myself, I teetered on the edge and tumbled into an orgasm that shattered the stars.



As the whirl of energy fell away, I realized that I wasn't hurting anymore. I looked around and saw my body on the slab, Dredge standing next to me, looking victorious. What do you know, I thought. I'm dead, and I'm free. No matter what he does to my body now, he can't hurt me any longer.



I began to walk and found myself in a cavern of ice, the color of glacier water, glistening and pure and clean. It was time to meet my ancestors. A light beckoned at the end of the tunnel and I began to run toward it, feeling free and joyous and ready to enter the Land of the Silver Falls where my father's people went after they died. As I hurried forward, a figure began to form from mist and shadow. My mother, waiting for me on the other side.



"Mother!" I raced toward her. So she had been allowed to join my father's ancestors, even though she was human. Now we'd walk together in death.



"Menolly, come to me, baby!" The look on her face was so beautiful, so welcoming that tears began to course down my cheeks. She would protect me, cleanse me, soothe my soul.



But just then, I felt a tug at the back of my neck. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a silver cord connecting me to my body. Damn, what the hell? But I'm dead. What would it take to get away from this monster?



The cord slowly began to change color. It was turning bloodred, and the color was seeping from my body toward me. What the hell? Whatever it was, the energy felt tainted and I wanted no part of it. I tried to reach the end of the passage but the cord began to drag me back. As the trail of red hit my spirit, I felt myself being sucked back into my body.



No! "I don't want to go back!" To enter that scarred and pain-wracked body again? To face Dredge again? Never!



I tried to fight. As I struggled against the pull, Mother watched, frozen, a horrified look on her face. "Menolly! My baby… Let her go, damn you!" Tears ran down her face and she fell to her knees, holding out her arms. A warm and embracing cloud of sparkling light filtered toward me.



"Mother!" I screamed for real now, struggling. If I could just reach the safety of her light… but the force of the cord was growing stronger. "I won't go back. Mother—save me, please save me."



And then, the light began to fade. I heard her scream my name again, but she vanished into the darkness as I went tumbling out of the ice cavern, back into my stone-cold body. I fell through layer after layer of skin, feeling the lack of a pulse, the lack of breath as I stretched out in the still shell that had been my home all these years.



As I searched frantically for the beating of my heart, I began to panic. I was going to suffocate. I struggled, rocking right and left. Dredge's laughter filtered into my ears and I opened my eyes and reared up into a sitting position, ripping the chains out of the slab.



"She's a strong one, Master," one of the shadows from the corner of the room said.



"Yes," Dredge said. "She is. We'll be able to make good use of her." As he spoke, he held out his hand and I saw that a miniature figure stood in the palm of his hand. It was a shadow of me. He squeezed and my ribs constricted. I yelped. And then he let go and I could relax again.



"Dance, puppet," he said.



My legs swung over the edge of the slab and I couldn't stop myself. I stood and began to dance. "No—you can't control me. I won't let you."



Once again, he laughed. "Are you thirsty, newborn? Go home. Drink deep. Go home to your family and rip out their hearts, and then become a scourge on the world. Destroy all in your path."



With his words, the thirst hit me like a ton of bricks. Blood. I needed blood. I needed to drink. All I could see was a red haze of pain and desire, and I yanked the chains off my wrists and ankles. Dredge stood back, his laughter echoing against the ceiling of the cave as I raced into the wee hours of the night. I had to get home to feed. And then the world went black…



"Menolly, can you hear me?"



The man's voice penetrated the haze of pain buttressing the periphery of my thoughts. Where was I? Was I still in the cavern? And then I remembered—I was safe, in a temple, tied down but under the watchful eyes of someone who was helping me.



I licked my lips, expecting my voice to sound raspy from screaming, but it came out clear and calm. "Yes… yes, I can hear you."



"We witnessed what happened to you. Now that we know, we can work on breaking the cord that binds you to Dredge. Do you understand what I'm saying?"



The words drifted through my thoughts and I flashed back to dancing when Dredge said dance. A puppet. He'd called me a puppet. "What do I need to do?"



"You must return to that moment and find the thread of energy that connects the two of you. It's not just his blood that makes him your sire."



Go back? Did he say go back? The last thing I wanted to do was dive back into that mire of pain and anger. But then the thought of being free dangled, the carrot in front of the horse.



"What do I have to do? How do I do this?"



"It's simple. You go back and I'll be here, shoring you up. Focus on finding the cord that binds you to him. We need to know precisely where it connects in your aura so we can pinpoint and sever it. But before we make the break, we need to find out where he is. For that, you'll have to reach out from the present through the binding cord and touch his soul."



Jareth brushed a stray hair out of my forehead and that simple kindness made me sniffle. Reliving the past was exhausting, painful. But if reliving it is this bad, think what it's doing to you every day, every hour, every minute you carry the burden. The words echoed in my mind and I blinked behind the blindfold. All of my anger and sorrow couldn't be wiped away as if it had never happened, but perhaps I could lay it down? Quit carrying it and let it go?



"All right," I said. "Let's do it. How can I keep from being sucked under by the memories?"



"I'll be by your side, now that I know what you're facing," he said. "Lean on me. Call on my strength."



As the smell of blood came close once again, I said, "Dredge tried to do this, didn't he? You took him back to his time of turning?"



Jareth let out a long sigh. "I did. I had no idea he'd been a priest of Jakaris in life—the years of perversion that twisted his soul. And so the ritual went terribly wrong. Instead of being willing to let go of the anger, he was looking for a way to absorb his sire's power into himself. And it worked."



I thought about that for a moment. Dredge had sought to embrace the power, and to that end, tricked Jareth. He'd given in to the very soul of evil. I wouldn't follow in the footsteps of my sire, no matter what the cost. "I'm ready."



A pause, and then Jareth began the incantation again, sprinkling three more drops on my forehead.



Surrender your expectations. Surrender your doubts.



Surrender your fears. Surrender your strengths.



Surrender your anger. Surrender your control.



And then three drops on my lips and I reached out and sucked them in as I held on for the ride to come.



Creature of the night, demon of the blood,



Turn back the clock, turn back the minutes



and hours and years.



Return to the night you were born anew.



Return to the night of your siring.



Once again, I was back in the cavern, back in my now-dead body. But this time, I felt a golden glow cradling my head as I frantically tried to place myself. I was dead—I was dead and Dredge had turned me into a vampire. But wait, this was a dream, a vision I was walking through.



That's right, I thought, breaking through the fear. My name is Menolly and I've been a vampire for twelve Earthside years, and I'm really lying on a platform in the Temple of Reckoning. These are merely shades of the past.



I tried to focus, to find Jareth. Then, I realized he was the golden glow that was cushioning my head. He was here, watching over me. I instinctively tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs didn't want to work right.



Wait, I'm dead.



My thoughts began to sort themselves out, as memory kicked in. That's right, I thought. It had taken me over a year to learn how to take a breath. Meanwhile, I'd spent far too many days dreaming that I was suffocating.



Jareth's hands ran down my shoulders, reminding me that I wasn't trapped here with Dredge. I wouldn't have to go through the year of madness again, locked like an animal in a silver cage while the OIA tried to retrieve my soul from the shattered state Dredge left it in.



Now… time to find that cord. I forced myself to relax and sought out the tendrils of energy racing through my body. The blood and the rape and torture had created implings—parasitical creatures created from intense emotions. For the first time, I could see that they'd attached themselves to my aura and they were probably still with me after all these years. Shuddering, I tried to push them aside but Jareth patted me on the shoulder and I let it go for now.



I examined my body, searching for the cord that chained me to Dredge, seeking the ties that bind. My body was torn and scarred. When I'd died, the wounds were still fresh. As I woke to my new state, they would be faded, no longer raw, but the scars would be there forever, neck to ankle, branding me as one of his disciples.



Suddenly I stopped. There it was—emerging from the back of my neck. I blinked. Why hadn't I ever seen this before? Probably because I never bothered looking. But there it was, connecting me to Dredge, locked into his lowest chakra, the vortex of survival.



Resisting the urge to try something stupid like removing it myself, I did my best to let Jareth know I'd found what we were looking for.



The next moment, I found myself shooting out of the cavern, back into the present, and when I opened my eyes the blindfold was gone and the shackles had been removed from my wrists and ankles. Jareth helped me sit up and gave me a soft smile.



"It's connected from the back of my neck to the lowest chakra on Dredge," I said.



"Menolly!" Camille rushed over to my side, her face so wet it looked raw. Good thing she wore waterproof mascara, I thought. Morio stood back.



I looked at Jareth. "How much do they know?"



Camille spoke. "We saw it all. It was like watching a movie. We heard everything." She sank to her knees, her hands clutching the hem of her skirt as tears trickled down her face. "I didn't know it was that bad. I'm so sorry—I didn't know. I didn't know… forgive me, please…"



Sliding off the dais I discovered that I was a little seasick, but otherwise I felt normal. I knelt by her side and pulled her into my arms. "I didn't want you to know. Delilah, either. I still don't want her to know. She's not strong enough to handle it."



Camille pressed her lips against my face, kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my forehead. "My precious Menolly. Mother tried… she tried to help you."



"I know," I said, staring at the ground. "And I've always blamed her. I thought she wasn't strong enough and I blamed the fact that she was human for that. Now I understand. She wanted to help me but she couldn't fight Dredge's hold."



"You'd been turned into a vampire. Menolly, no mortal spirit can sever that transformation, not in the physical realm, not on the astral. But she tried—she loves you."



I wondered just how much Mother could love what I'd become but pushed the thought out of my head. "The important thing is that we have the location of my bondage to Dredge."



"And I know what you went through," Camille said. "Now… I can understand you a little better."



"That too," I said, softly. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe Camille would be able to help me when the rage and hunger threatened. I looked up at Morio, who was staring at me, a solemn expression on his face.



"Menolly, don't underestimate Delilah," he said. "Someday she may need to know, for her own safety. Don't write her off as a weakling."



I blinked. Trillian had said the same thing. Maybe I should pay attention. "I'll remember that." I allowed Jareth to help me up. "What do we do now? How much time before first light?"



He sucked in a deep breath. "I told you, we're working outside of time this night. You'll be home before sunrise. Follow me." He led us into a room to the left of the chamber we'd been in. There was a pentacle inscribed on the marble floor, carved into a deep trench and inlaid with hematite. Even I could feel the grounding pull of the polished metal as it settled the magic into the floor.