The end of the nineties and the beginning of a new millennium saw me searching for Luna. I travelled to every corner of the globe and stayed in each location for months, scouring every city, searching the minds of those I came across for a glimpse of her, the dead and undead alike. I only broke away from the search whenever Luna’s descendants or my own relations needed me.
I thought constantly about Dallas and the extraordinary power I had seen her display so far, power that would no doubt mean she would be preyed on by the chapel entity before long. And whenever I broke off from my search, I immediately went to New York to check on her and look for signs it had begun to target her.
One night I arrived at their apartment in New York to discover no one at home. I was able to discover from one of the doormen that Dallas’s father was away on business, her mother was probably with her lover and Dallas would likely come stumbling back to the apartment drunk, or high, in the early hours as had become the norm for her since her thirteenth birthday over a year ago.
I made my way to the club she frequented on a weekly basis.
I moved through the dark rooms of the night club, moving past drunk scantily clad females draped over glassy eyed males. They gyrated to the soulless music being pumped through the air beneath dazzling strobe lights.
I found no sign of Dallas among the sweaty bodies around me although I had been told she was definitely here. I entered the deserted ladies toilets and came to an abrupt stop in the doorway. The years since the first death, Ebony’s, had seen me surf unending waves of hopelessness. But it did not come close to what I felt when I entered the ladies toilet.
Dallas was in one of the cubicles, the door wide open. She was sitting on the toilet, her slender dark legs and arms sprawled, her head resting against one of the cubicle walls, her mouth hanging open. She was unconscious, her black lace knickers around her ankles.
It was a few moments before I was able to move to her and lift her off the toilet seat. I pulled up her underwear and straightened the short, tight dress she wore.
She had begun to stir by the time I picked her up and carried her out of the toilets and the garish, soulless club.
Out in the bracing night air, she seemed to come to enough for me to place her on her feet, although her eyes were still closed and her arms draped heavily around my neck, her head against my chest. She shivered against me in the cool air. I took off my jacket and draped it around her. She had no handbag. I can only assume it had been lost or stolen.
I could have taken her home in seconds, but I did not want to leave her so soon and so I waited for a taxi. Her thoughts came through to me of what had occurred that night, events she probably would not recall the following day. And anger heated my chest at the image in her mind of her boyfriend, Omar, who had brought her here and then abandoned her, leaving with another woman.
I felt her shift, the warm soft pressure against my chest disappearing. I glanced down at her distractedly to see her awake and staring up at me. I was momentarily taken away from my troubled thoughts by the clarity of her gaze, and the raven eyes that were so much like Luna’s. Again swift pain and yearning clenched my chest. They all looked like her in some way, but it never failed to bring the pain and a reminder of all I had lost.
Her lips curved into a smile.
“You,” she murmured, her brow furrowed in a sleepy frown. “Now where have you been?”
I was completely speechless because she remembered me. Vividly. Although I had made her forget our last encounter. How could she already be this powerful?
I was saved from responding by a brutish looking white male in a black suit who had a slab for a face and small, mean looking eyes that hid a heart too easily broken by trying to fix the world and everyone in it. His current and equally fruitless project was Dallas, whose behaviour he had watched steadily spiral out of control since she first started coming to this club.
“Is everything okay, Dallas? Where’s Omar?” he asked.
His gaze was on me and there was only the barest hint of civility to veil the menace in his tone.
“Hey, Justin. It’s okay. He’s my vampire guardian angel,” she slurred drunkenly.
I tensed and could only stare down at her in surprise. Her words brought an exasperated smile to Justin’s lips although his stance was still hostile.
“You worry too much about me, Justin,” Dallas continued. “I’ll only end up breaking your heart. That’s what my vampire angel thinks anyway. But I’ll never hurt you. You’re my friend.”
“It’s all right,” I said to Justin before Dallas could say more. “I work for the Marshalls.”
I entered his mind and calmed his anger and unease, allowing him to see the truth of my intentions toward her. A taxi had pulled up by then.
“Here.” I handed him my business card. “I’ll make sure she gets home and if she is ever in any trouble, give me a call.”
He nodded, his concerned gaze on Dallas as we got into the taxi. She waved at him and blew him a kiss as we drove away.
In the cab she sank into my arms, her sleepy mesmerising eyes on me as she only half-listened as I lectured her on her behaviour. I ignored the less than wholesome thoughts that were directed at me. She appeared to have passed out again by the time we arrived at her apartment.
I placed her in bed and stood staring at her for a few moments. Then I again erased all her memories of me and placed a mental command that would stop her drinking and partying. Then I left the apartment, the anger that had heated my chest earlier now a ferocious blaze.
***
I rang the bell four times before it was pulled open by a tall, handsome African American male. He was completely naked. He glanced up at me, his eyes glazed, his face creased in confusion.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asked.
He moved forward, out of the apartment, in response to a mental command and I seized him by the arm, dragging him into the ether with me. We materialised on the roof of his apartment block where I released him. He stumbled back a few steps and looked around him in confusion.
“What the—”
His words were cut off by a blow to the jaw that knocked him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he spat out blood.
I beat him, only just managing to control myself enough to not kill him. But it still saw him left with multiple broken bones. When I was done, I left him at the door of his apartment having placed a mental command in his mind that he never make contact with Dallas ever again.
It was only then that the anger that had blazed in my chest cooled to ash. But anxiety still plagued me along with the memory of the shivering girl in my arms, the raven eyes that had wrought so much pain and the helplessness I felt regarding the threat she was not even aware of.
The following week, I returned to New York to discover once again that Dallas was not at home. I sighed. Clearly the mental command I had placed in her mind had had no effect whatever. I waited until she returned. She stumbled into the apartment block in the early hours with a half empty bottle of champagne in her hand, her dress even shorter than on the previous occasion.
I sighed, and when I was sure she was fast asleep, I left New York. My destination? Switzerland, the next stop in this never-ending quest for Auria and an answer to the problem of the chapel entity.
***
Ella’s death—to old age, thankfully—was a blow. She was the only one who knew of the danger facing the family, and in her death, I lost my only living ally in this battle against an intangible evil that continued to claim lives of men and women that were like my own children.
I continued to keep a close eye on Dallas and watched her grow up into a beautiful young woman. Of all of Luna’s descendants, Dallas resembled her the most. But at times I could not be sure my memory of Luna was true since it had been so long since I had gazed upon her face. Dallas continued her extremely reckless, wilful, and irresponsible behaviour, drinking far too much and always finding herself in the most dangerous situations. I worried constantly about her.
One night, I made my way to Atlanta after another warning, in time to prevent Dallas from being preyed on by a vampire. I had not needed to do much to warn the vampire away from Dallas, but rage and fear had made me chase it across Georgia until I eventually grew bored of following the exhausted, terrified creature. I returned to Atlanta at dawn, where Dallas was staying with her aunt Rose and learned, to my dismay, that Dallas had come across Luna’s journal.
“I’ve seen the chapel before. I’ve been dreaming about it for years,” I heard her say.
Alarm touched my heart. When I entered her aunt’s mind and made her tell Dallas to stay away from the chapel, I found myself thrown out of her mind, whether by Dallas or Rose, I could not tell. Exhausted, I decided to head for home. I would deal with Dallas when she came searching for me.
She came and I sent her away, as always, making her forget the encounter.
Lonely and deeply yearning for Luna, I resumed my search for her, but I had already given up by then and was merely going through the motions, pretending there was hope when all hope was lost.
So it was with a heavy heart that I roamed the streets of Louisiana one night, deep in thought about the ever-present dilemma of what to do about the evil that was stalking Luna’s descendants. Then I received a frantic call from Mallory, asking me to return to the mansion immediately as there was something I needed to see. Mallory rarely called me during the night hours unless it was of the utmost urgency, so I headed back to the mansion.
I knew there was someone waiting for me in the field of flowers even before I got within sight of the mansion.
It felt as if my heart ground to a stop and for a few moments I could not move, my hands shaking as I stood alone in the Louisiana countryside, wondering if she had finally kept her promise and returned to me.
I raced toward the mansion and materialised in the field of flowers to a horrifying sight.
There was a pink luggage set by the door. Dallas was standing with her back to me and for a moment, her silhouette against the Louisiana night was like Luna’s that night on the windswept rooftops of London, that air of waiting. When she turned around, I was in for a shock.
Beautiful, warm Dallas was no more. A powerful vampire was what met my gaze.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
She smiled and came bounding toward me in a jingle of jewellery and expensive perfume.
“Avery,” she sang. “You don’t have to turn me away. I’m like you now. I’ve come to stay.”
I stood in complete shock. That shock soon turned to consternation when I saw her thoughts. She was thinking of a wedding in the field of flowers. Her attention was only taken away from thoughts of wedding planners and wedding dresses when she glanced at the shirt I was wearing. Her brow creased and she made a mental note to search my wardrobe for any other such uncool clothing and throw them away.
She went to throw herself in my arms. I caught her by the neck and lifted her off the ground before she could touch me.
“Who did this?” I hissed.
“Avery.” She was coughing and spluttering. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
She clearly had not worked out the fact that she no longer needed air. This meant she had been made into a vampire only recently.
Things were so much worse than I thought.
In a rage, I threw her away from me, despite the fact that, like Luna, she was no doubt much stronger than I was.
She went flying through the air, hitting one of the oaks at the side of the mansion.
This is where my story ends. All I will say is that if I thought I had known torment and aggravation during the long years of my life, they were nothing compared to what I suffered when Dallas came to stay.
THE END