To Vanquish Darkness (Le Sombre #1)

Chapter 6

6

1836 COUNTRYSIDE BEYOND MORDELLES, FRANCE

A malie's eyes rolled back in her head as the sharp sting against her neck stole her breath. How was she not writhing in pain? Her thoughts scattered. Perhaps there was venom vampires injected that ended life swiftly and prevented suffering. Though the legends she read as a child did not leave much room for compassion.

It was said that vampires and other creatures of the night were created by Le Sombre, a god cursed to dwell in shadows, asleep in the underworld. Le Sombre was awoken by the evil and selfishness of mankind. He prowled the earth in search of men like him—men who were cruel, men who could not be saved—and gifted what he could offer. An eternity dwelling in shadow with him.

No one knew how many vampires and other shadow walkers he’d created, but there was no shortage of their appearances in legend. Demons who feasted on the young and old. Men transformed into creatures by moonlight. Spirits and the walking dead sent to curse men and women, a manifestation of the evil buried in their own hearts.

These shadow walkers sought their own pleasure, terrorized, and murdered, utilizing their eroded divinity with reckless abandon. Though the details of the stories changed with the telling, the result was always the same.

Humans suffered. Having no defense against the damned, they feared and cowered until the god of light took pity on them. They?—

She was falling. Her knees struck the floor. Was that it? Was she so weak and pathetic that a few seconds was all it took?

Her lungs burned, her hands clutching at her chest. Amalie whimpered. Who would protect Bethany? Who would protect all the other girls and boys growing up believing the Shadow only existed in stories?

She needed to tell Marcel about her mistake. She needed to convince her family to run, to move farther than they had after her mother's death—convince them that there was no safety here. She needed to board a ship and cross the ocean and hope the Shadow didn't follow there. She needed to do so much. To say so much.

Amalie would never get that chance.

A wave of nausea threaded itself through her consciousness. Dying felt much like consumption. At least it was familiar.

A sound reminiscent of a sigh dragged her up from the depths where she drowned. Just enough that she almost seemed to know her body again. Like if she reached, she could wiggle her toes or flex her fingers.

Another slip of breath and she was pulled as if from the bottom of a lake, her face suddenly breaking the surface. Amalie gasped, her hands gripping tight.

Amalie’s eyes flashed open. The sounds she'd heard were from her own lips.

Boots. Why was she staring at boots?

She lifted her head and shoved hard, but her fingers slipped. Her chest hit the floor with a crack. She scrambled back, her knees weak and her face throbbing as a hand reached for her.

"Don't touch me!” Amalie hissed. Theo loomed above her in a crouch, his chest heaving, a drip of what had to be her blood pooled on his lips. His tongue flicked out and swept it away. "I'm alive." Amalie didn't realize she'd said the words out loud until energy snapped between them.

Theo stood there, his face still trained on hers, contorted in pain or ecstasy she couldn't tell. She flattened her palms against the wood floors and crushed her fingers against the grooves.

She was alive.

She couldn't stop running those words through her head. It was impossible. More than that, she felt like herself. Terrified. Shaking. But her strength was returning faster than it should’ve been if he’d taken her blood.

What if he hadn’t taken her blood? Was there another option?

Amalie paled. “What did you do to me?”

Theo opened his mouth just as heavy steps sounded on the stairs outside her room. Theo tensed for such a brief moment that Amalie wondered if she was hallucinating. Even his slightest movement was graceful and dreamlike, as if he moved on a different plane, obeying different cosmic rules.

Perhaps this was death. Maybe she was lying on the floor, her lifeblood depleted, and she existed only now in memory, in spirit. She was seeing apparitions and?—

Another heavy footfall. This time, so close that Amalie felt the vibration through the floor. Theo spun and, without a sound, launched himself through the still-open window and into the night.

Amalie's heart jumped into her throat. She was alive. She was dead? She still couldn't make up her mind, but if she had somehow survived his attack, there was only one explanation.

She lifted a hand to the side of her neck where her skin still burned, then scrambled up from the floor. She braced herself on the vanity and searched for her looking glass with unsteady hands.

Gripping the handle, she leaned toward the flickering candle and positioned it so she could view her flesh. Two tiny marks of deep crimson against her skin.

She inspected the rest of her features to find herself pale, but her cheeks were flushed. Dried blood on her upper lip, her nose swollen where she’d been hit. All of it was proof that her heart still beat deep in her chest.

No. Her thoughts buzzed around the only other possibility like a hornet.

There was a sharp rap of knuckles against wood. “Amalie?” Her uncle's voice called through the door.

Her head was so loud, she couldn’t remember how to speak. What did she know of this curse?

The histories claimed that vampires could create like Le Sombre. Create. She hated that word. “Infect” was more appropriate. In olden times, after their turning, they’d wreaked havoc on humanity, injecting them with venom that turned them to shadow.

They soon learned that their creative powers came at a heavy cost. Their own strength and power were used to form every new vampire they created. They were weakened with each bite.

Nobody knew what powers they could have possessed if they hadn't diluted them by turning others. Vampires had found the curse of Le Sombre in their own desperate search for companionship. Or in their blood lust.

It was just punishment. The gods of legend were selfish, flawed and imperfect, but it did not please them to witness unfair battles. Though their magic was split at the point of infection, humans still had no recourse.

Amalie choked out a sob. No historian had record of a turned human being in ages. Shame and disgust wracked her body. Perhaps that was why. Once someone was changed, they’d rather fling themselves off the roof than admit they were becoming a creature of the dark.

“Amalie.” Another knock.

She ignored it, her mind spinning. If people ran—if they left after being bitten—there could be an entire vampire army growing under their noses. But if the legends were true and his power would be split by turning her, why would Theo Vallon sacrifice any of his power to turn her?

Her brain poked and prodded but couldn’t find any explanation.

Amalie began to shake.

Theo’s motivation wasn’t the most troubling piece of this disaster. The more pressing concern was how this curse would manifest in her. If she stayed, would she keep her own mind? Her own heart? Would she turn into something—some animal or creature—unrecognizable?

Was her family safe? Would she become the threat?

That thought stopped her cold.

Another knock. This time, it made the door rattle.

She wouldn’t be able to avoid this. Amalie scrubbed the blood from her upper lip, then snatched the knitted blanket that lay over the end of her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders to stop her shaking.

She couldn’t let them in. It was too dangerous. “Yes, Uncle?”

“May I come in?”

“I’m not decent.” Amalie swallowed hard, clutching the blanket and forcing oxygen into her lungs to calm her frantic heart. Her body felt wrong. Like there was something foreign racing under her skin.

Aunt Maurielle murmured something, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“We need to talk to you?—”

“Through the door is fine.” Amalie stared at the open window. Was he waiting in the shadows? Would he come back?

“Amalie, I know you’re angry, but this is important.” Her uncle’s voice was ragged.

She needed to leave. Immediately. If vampire venom was coursing through her veins, she could turn at any moment. What had the history books said about that? There had been conflicting stories. Some said it was a matter of hours before one turned, other accounts listed the process as taking days, possibly a full week. She’d glazed over the details, not thinking them important. Now, she was kicking herself.

“Fine. Through the door.” The floorboards creaked as Oren let out a frustrated sigh. “You are right.”

Amalie blinked, her mind screeching to a halt. “What?”

Oren’s voice was muffled through the wood. “You were always right about the vampires, but we have rules?—”

“You told me never to say that word in this house,” Amalie hissed, stalking to the door. A hot ache burned down her throat.

“I know.”

“You told me what I saw that day in the woods was only my imagination.”

“I know.”

“You're telling me that you knew they existed?”

Her uncle shuffled his feet, and a slow heat began to crackle. Like dead coals fed with a fresh gust of air.

She clenched her jaw. “You told me I was crazy.”

“I never said that.”

“You made me feel like I was crazy.”

“I—“

Amalie’s voice built in strength. “You told me we had nothing to fear. You told me that Marcel was spreading hate, that he was deluded by old myths. You told me my mother's death was an accident. You told me that we were safe .”

“Amalie, Bethany is sleeping.” Maurielle’s voice was gentle. She was right. Her little sister was sleeping in the room next door, and yet she still wanted to throw herself against the door. To lash out. Was that the monster inside her talking?

Amalie paled, stumbling back from the door.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Uncle Oren’s voice was ragged. “We've always had protections in place. For hundreds of years, our family has been kept safe. I planned to tell you everything on your eighteenth birthday, but you left.“

Amalie dropped to her mattress. What? Her aunt and uncle had never mentioned anything about this. She’d come back to visit twice, hadn’t she? Why hadn’t they told her then? “I don’t believe you.”

“Amalie—”

“You could’ve told me any time in the past four-and-a-half years, Uncle. What was keeping you from telling me when I came back at Christmas? Or during my treatments?”

Since she was a child, she'd been warned that her blood didn't clot and heal the way it should. Uncle Oren told stories of her mother refusing to take the needle and then nearly bleeding out from a scrape on her knee. So even though she had run away, she came back for her infusions. Always arriving during the day when she knew Oren was away. Maurielle had given them to her. Why hadn’t she said something?

“You know very well what was keeping us.” His voice was low.

Amalie clenched her jaw. “You’re blaming this on the Pourfendeurs?”

“I couldn’t trust you. As long as you were working with them?—”

“Couldn’t trust me? With what? I already knew the truth. I’ve been learning the history and training to fight! Who else would be better to hold your secrets?”

Her uncle was silent. There was another murmur from Maurielle. Amalie blinked back tears from her eyes. What good was this now? What could her uncle possibly say that could help now that she was turning into one of them?

“Amalie, your mother?—”

“What about my mother?” Amalie snapped. Her lungs refused to expand.

“I know you disagree with my methods, but our rules were there for a reason. Your mother went out after dark. She spoke to a man she did not know.”

Amalie's stomach twisted. What man? She'd never heard anything about this. She'd never seen her mother with anyone other than her brother and Maurielle, and of course, herself and Bethany. The three of them were always together.

Not after dark. Amalie and Bethany had been in bed after dark.

“She kept him a secret,” her uncle continued. “She met with him, she?—“

His voice broke, and Amalie's eyes burned. Theo Vallon. Her mother had known him. Was it true? She’d met with him, spent time with him, and then he had killed her? That low burn flared and threatened to consume her whole.

“That's why we moved north. He was still out there. He and who knows how many others. I left my estate. I left my job. We took you, and we moved to the opposite side of the region. We changed our name, we did everything we could to keep the two of you safe. I was going to tell you everything when you were old enough?—”

"You lied to me." Amalie wrapped her arms around herself to keep her guts from spilling out. How would this have been different? Had her aunt and uncle told her the whole story, would she have sought out Marcel? Would she have rebelled against Oren's rules and left if she'd known they were there because of a threat?

It wasn’t even a question. Yes. She would have. Because even though her own family had worked to keep the truth from her, she'd known it all along.

But would she have been more cautious?

Would she have had to do it alone?

"There’s so much more, Amalie. More I need to show you—to tell you. We were trying to keep you safe?—”

"It’s not possible. As long as those creatures are out there, nobody is safe, Uncle." Amalie’s fingers were numb, and ice seemed to flow through her veins. She hadn't heard Theo—hadn't known he'd even opened the window before he was standing there in her bedroom, his hand over her nose and mouth.

She would be that deadly. And her family was on the other side of the door.

"It's late." Oren cleared his throat. "You're safe. You’re home. That's all that matters for now. We can talk more in the morning." Her uncle took a step away from the door. “You’ll be here in the morning?”

Amalie's jaw worked. She scanned her body, hunting for any abnormalities. Did her stomach hurt? Did her head ache? Was that an indicator that the venom was working? She needed to get out of this house.

Amalie forced her voice to steady. “Of course.” She couldn’t unclench her back molars.

"You can hate us for now, but don't let it last too long,” Maurielle whispered through the door.

As their footsteps retreated, Amalie collapsed onto the bed and gasped for breath, then heaved silent sobs into her rumpled quilt.