Walk Into The Light - Shadows of the Night 6

Chapter 29

Hey,

I don't know exactly why, but I really enjoyed writing this chapter  - perhaps more than any other in this book. It has what some readers might call an "AA moment". I hope you like it :-)

Enjoy the read, vote if you like and have a great week :-)

Lara

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Chapter 29

The world raced towards me with lightning speed, my feet flying over concrete as if carried by a very peculiar, new kind of magic. I hadn't fed for too long and it made me feel even more weightless, my hearing crackling with sounds that seemed slightly off and out of tune.

My eyesight was clear enough, though. My target was in motion, drifting into vamp speed with the effortlessness of a seasoned expert, making its way through a wondrous shadowland.

The target I was hunting? Head vampire of New York – enemy, fiend, lover and now my maker.

Alexander.

Chasing the night, wind in my hair, I let myself sink into the hunt. My motions seemed natural, limbs carried forward by the rhythm of the endless singsong of blood rushing in my ears.

Colors, sight and sound – all was unfamiliar, vast and too damn intense. In this moment I didn't care.

Alexander moved forward, slipping into a pocket of shadows at the entrance to the lonely factory. I followed, crashing into the half open door he'd occupied milliseconds before I reached him.

He was gone. I turned and slipped into high speed again, following his shadow and that unnamed new sense I must have gained when becoming a vampire.

The air displacement I would have felt as a witch of the air was no longer there. Still it haunted me like a ghost limb I'd lost – phantom pains I yet had to get used to. Every limb I used, every move I made felt like one big rollercoaster ride with my skin turned inside out.

When I became a vampire, I lost my equilibrium. There was no familiar magic I could turn to. No air, earth, water or fire. Only that distant, heavy rhythm of the night that seemed so much vaster than its sunny counterpart.

I stopped and turned, taking in my surroundings.

The long entrance petered out into a great factory hall. Eight kilns sat in the factory's interior like silent, sleeping giants. Two big pipes stretched above me across the second floor, connecting one end of the building with the other. Beneath a crisscross of tubes, stairs and shafts of giant proportions.

Not a living soul in here. No trace of Alexander. Nothing but the silence that seemed to haunt the building like a curse.

"I knew you never desired to be a vampire. Yet you escaped death as a child and survived. Had someone asked you, if you wanted to live after your parents died, would you have approved? You thrived as a witch, here in New York City of all places. You can thrive anywhere and anyhow you please."

Alexander's voice drifted through the maze of shadows, coming from somewhere to my left.

There.

He was leaning against the railing of a staircase above the first floor. Suddenly more than just a shadow in a silent lunar landscape of concrete and darkness.

The half-light accentuated his cheekbones and showed more of his face than I liked. Half cast in shadow, his profile looked like the one of a Greek god on a vengeful military campaign.

It was infuriating. The way his lips were set into that semi-smile offended to the bone.

"There is only one question that remains, Anna. Now that you are a vampire, what will you do? Will you give up or will you fight?"

Damn you, Alexander.

I launched myself at him, driving through space and owning it with single minded purpose. I crashed into him, punching his chest.

"Why did you have to turn me? Talk to me, dammit!"

He grabbed my arms, forcing me to look at him. I thrashed in his arms, trying to get away and find another way to attack, but he wouldn't let me. He was breathing hard, blue eyes alit with a quality I had only glimpsed once, when he was in my mind.

"Yes, I turned you. And yes, I am not a good man. I am selfish," he snarled.

My fist shot out and landed on his chin, connecting with a deafening smack that echoed through the deadly quiet.

For a moment, the world came to a halt, the quiet pulse of the night dying away.

He stared at me in silence as I stepped away from him.

"You think that's it, Alexander? I'll have to bow, forgive and forget because you're the freaking head vampire of New York and that's just how things are?"

Did he even know what I was willing to do when I fought Bathoryn to the death? Why I did what I did?

"But that's how it's always been, isn't it? You already dragged me into your power games by making me your human servant. I'm not doing this again. Admitting that you're selfish isn't enough."

Something in his eyes quieted, like a stormy sea calming at the sound of my voice.

"That is not what I said, Anna. I am not looking for forgiveness. Not tonight."

"Of course you're not." I laughed softly. "Not even a single 'I'm sorry'. No, not from the head vamp of New York because, yeah, you're always in the right. And if you're not, you coerce, force or mind-fuck everyone into thinking you are. Isn't that how it works in your world?"

My feet seemingly started to move on their own, catapulted forward by a rage I yet had to understand. I was angry at Alexander, Vladislav and the world and I had no idea how to deal with the tidal wave of emotions or what I had become.

He sidestepped before I could land another blow, evading both my arm and round-house kick with unnatural grace. Before I comprehended what his next move was, he came at me from behind.

I twisted, turning around.

His fingers closed around my upper arms and drew me close to him. He shook me, fingers digging into my arms.

"You are angry with me. Fine. Rage at me, scream and yell. Do whatever you want. Vent all your anger and your rage. I will take it."

He leaned closer so that I could feel his breath on my face. Mesmerized by his overwhelming presence, I was caught up between fury, rage and hesitation. Even now that I was a vampire, Alexander's mere existence seemed to take me prisoner.

"Even if you hate me for all eternity, Anna, I will take it," he said.

I shoved against him. "Damn you, Alexander!"

He slipped back into that eerie way of moving, as if he himself was a shadow of the night – alive and in motion. Circling the cylindric towers, he sped towards the top of the factory until he was out of sight.

I took a deep breath, feeling the air-burn all the way down to my lungs. Whatever game Alexander was playing, he wanted me to follow – which was the reason why I wanted to do the opposite, even if it was just to piss him off.

Thing was, he still hadn't answered a single question. And I was hungry for answers.