Manifest (The Darkening Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

then Val signs some documents on a clip board.  I throw my head back down on the pillow angrily and try to go back to sleep.
    When I wake again, I dress, and exit my room, heading for the kitchen.  I look towards the couch to see the back of Val’s head.  One hand is in a bag of potato chips while the other waves at me.  The grandfather clock strikes seven just as I sit at the center island, breakfast-makings in hand.  Val joins me, walking over to the marble counter top and sliding onto a bar stool.  “I fixed your door,” he says as I shake a box of cereal into a bowl.  “Yeah, I know.  Thanks,” I reply, adding milk.
    “Didn’t wake you, did we?”
    “I’m a light sleeper.”
    “You’ll be happy to know that it’s one-of-a-kind.  Best damned security door money can buy.”
    “Shall I await the bill?”
    “It’s your door.”
    I tip the bowl to my lips to get the last bit of pink milk.  “Officially nighttime,” I say.  “It’s safe for Sabetha to get up.”
    “How can you always tell?” Val asks for the eleventh time.
    I tap my temple with my index finger.  “I’m an almanac.” 
    He smiles.  “Will you need me tomorrow?”
    “What, you don’t like hanging out with me?”
    He shakes his head, defeatedly.
    “Eating my food?  Buying me doors?” I continue.
    Val walks to the inner door, grabbing his coat on the way.  “Goodbye, Delano.”
     
    I jump in the shower and let the steaming water drape itself over my neck and shoulders like a warm blanket.  As I emerge dripping from the tub, I quickly snatch a towel from the rack and wrap it about my waist.  I wipe a streak through the mirror with my hand and run my fingers softly over my chest and stomach.  Scars paint my pale physique like tiger stripes and leopard spots.  I got them when I was still young, the only reason they didn’t heal, and even after this long, they still feel foreign.  
    As steam rises off my body in wisps I am reminded to be grateful for my body heat.  Sabetha, in all her beauty and grace, cannot warm the sheets she sleeps in, nor the lover she may lie next to.  I’ve studied chyldrin long enough to know that I can’t possibly understand the suffering they endure on a constant basis, however cursed my own existence is.  It’s the reason they have an insatiable need to consume.  And not just blood.  Chyldrin who possess the funds – fifty-four percent are middle class or higher – tend to fill the space where their souls used to be with material goods.  Those without the means simply feed on the life force of those around them literally and figuratively.  They are pools of empty where happiness goes to drown. 
    Sadly, their decadence and cruelty are inevitable.  Since none of them were born as vampires and all were once ilk, they all lost something in the darkening.  Some less than others since many were predisposed to become vampires anyway.  Water seeks its own level and misery loves company, so the mixed-metaphor goes.  In order to survive as chyldrin, they have to rely on society for sustenance and at the same time tear at its seams to subsist.  I call it the cannibal’s dilemma. 
    Though we immortals vehemently deny it, we were all once young, stupid humans, and with that bit of humanity come two things, be you a chyld, a gazer, or a sentiner: the range to do extraordinary things, both truly selfless and unspeakably vile, and the ability to adapt to any circumstance.  No matter how bizarre, painful, or seemingly impossible, humanity in all its forms, adapts.
    If Sabetha has taught me one thing only, it is just this.  Darkened can resist the darkening.  They can resist the immense pressures that would force them to choose between what they were and what they have become.  As bipolar as Sabetha can be at times, it is her refusal to submit to herself or to society, and the strength it takes to continue that struggle for a millennium that I admire most about her.  Few other