Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (23 page)

Another howl ripped through the night. Closer. I shuddered violently. It felt like it came from right next to me, not miles away. I put my hands over my ears and was alarmed when frost cracked on my knuckles. I hadn’t even known I was that cold.

“The fortune-teller,” I said. “She—dammit, we can’t just let them keep her prisoner while this is going on. Whatever it is.”

“She
must
know,” said Leo. “Even if she’s underground.”

“We have to get her out,” I said. “Guys, you don’t have to come with me, but this is
wrong.
I don’t know what’s happening, but it feels like…”

“Like something’s past the defences,” Leo finished. “I think so, too. And I’m in.”

Claudia nodded. “Me, too.”

“Oh, for
heaven’s
sake!” said Berenice. “Fine. If we get caught—”

“There might not be anyone left to catch us,” Cyrus pointed out. “They’ve been leaving headquarters in droves. If we get in through the tunnel, then we might be able to get to her.”

“Safer down there than in that blasted forest,” said Howard. “All right.”

Still, we moved as fast as possible, through the hidden entrance and into the tunnels. Down the winding path that seemed ever-longer in the urgency. Nobody was about, but who knew what could be happening on the surface?

“She must be somewhere in the cells,” I whispered to the others as we reached the barred doors. “David said he was guarding her.”

“That doesn’t give us much of a clue, though,” said Claudia. “She could be anywhere in here.”

“Well,” I said, “we already know she’s not near the Angel Box room. Unless they moved her.”

“This way, then,” said Leo, indicating a path we hadn’t taken before. I wished I’d thought to memorise the way. For all we knew, time could be running out.
How
could the Venantium have just left her here, knowing that she could save their lives?

The tunnel ended at a metal door, like the one to the Angel Box room. I hesitated to try the handle, knowing they sometimes put demon-proof protection on their doors, which would also affect me. Leo pushed on the door, and it opened.

A glass case filled most of the room, and inside was the fortune-teller. She sat on the floor, somehow still managing to look graceful and composed, and her eyes met mine.

“Ashlyn,” she said.

“Oh my God.” I turned to Leo. “Any idea how to get this thing open?”

He shook his head. Of course, if even the fortune-teller couldn’t get out, then there was nothing
we
could do.

Unless… the demon stirred at the back of my head. I studied the glass door, found the hinges.

“Can you guys back me up?” I asked. “I don’t know if this’ll set off an alarm, or…”

“Of course,” said Leo. To the fortune-teller, he said, “I don’t suppose you know how exactly they sealed you in?”

She shook her head. “It can’t be opened from this side, but perhaps… I will try, but they put a partial block on my connection to the Darkworld.”

Of course.
A wave of anger went through me, and the demon’s presence turned sharply cold. I moved to the side of the cage and pushed at the door’s hinges, letting icy fire flow from my fingertips. I’d melted the bars off a prison cell this way before.
Burn.

The glass wall sizzled under my touch.
It’s working!
The fortune-teller approached the door and pressed her hands to the other side of the glass, pushing. The door came clean off its hinges, and I quickly moved to stop it shattering on the floor. Leo and Cyrus took hold of one side, and the fortune-teller helped them carefully slot it back into place. Then she looked at me and nodded.

“They’re gone,” I said quickly. “There are shadow-beasts in Redthorne. But there’s something happening up there, too.”

“Yeah, we need to get out,” said Leo, turning back.

The demon heart burned against my chest, so sharply and suddenly I cried out in pain. The others blurred around me, faces frozen in alarm, or maybe I was the one who was frozen.

Then pain tore through me again, and I could feel nothing else. The closest I’d felt to this was when Jude had set my demon heart on fire―purple flashed across my vision and along with my human voice, I felt another scream somewhere deeper. I couldn’t even hear Leo calling my name.

When I returned to full awareness, a fresh wave of terror swept over me. Somehow I wasn’t in Blackstone anymore. I stood on the cliff behind the forest, my feet half-over the edge. The waves writhed beneath me like a nest of serpents waiting to swallow me whole.

How did I get here?

I looked up and saw something that almost startled me into falling into the devouring ocean. Jude grinned up at me from above the raging sea.

“I thought you’d like to see your own demise, Ashlyn,” he said.

He stood
on top of the water,
like on a solid surface, several metres from the shore. His violet eyes were alight with malice.

“Like my new skill?” he said. “Your annoying Barrier ends here, so this is as far as I can go. Still, the irony amuses me. They say Jesus walked on water, don’t they? It’s hardly a singular talent.”

“Where are my friends?” I said. “How did I get here?”

I backed up from the cliff’s edge and the swirling waves, keeping my eyes on him in case he tried anything else.

“You don’t remember? What a shame. I might have gone overboard on the pain, but it’s been too long since I had a body to play with. This one had some interesting abilities. Together we make a great team―but he’s starting to smell a bit, being dead.”

He lifted an arm and surveyed it critically. “Not much left under there…”

My stomach turned. The skin was peeling away from his arm, revealing pinkish muscle and purple veins beneath.

Jude smiled, and the skin on his face cracked. “As for your friends, I’m sure they’ll be along shortly. I wouldn’t want them to miss the fun. The expression on that young man’s face when you revealed your demon eyes!”

An icy fist gripped my heart. “No,” I whispered. “You bastard.”

“You’re the one who lied. Better hope they get a move on―you don’t want that to be his last memory of you, do you? His girlfriend as a monster?”

God. No. Leo…

“There they are,” Jude whispered, veins standing out around his cracked mouth as he stared at a spot somewhere behind me.

I turned in time to see Leo, Claudia, Berenice, Howard, and Cyrus emerge from the forest. They stopped short when they saw Jude.

“I knew you were behind this!” Leo shouted. “Bastard. Let her go!”

“She’s in her own mind,” said Jude. “Ask her yourself.”

I backed away towards the others, not taking my eyes off Jude for fear that he’d attack.

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I just blacked out.”

“As I said,” said Jude. “This young man has some interesting abilities… although this one was my own. Anyone can control a demon if they are in possession of its heart. But it turns out that this body remembers handling a
particular
demon heart very clearly. So I took that magic for myself. It’s handy.” He laughed.

He’d―Jude had―held my demon heart. That meant he could control me even now?

Anger surged inside me and almost before my thoughts caught up with me, I’d raised my hand and thrown a handful of ice-fire at him. Jude dodged aside, still grinning.

“What the hell’s he doing?” said Howard. “How’s he on the water?”

“He can’t get past the barrier,” said Claudia. “Am I right?”

“Perceptive,” said Jude. “Now―this is an interesting situation, isn’t it? I have you all as bait. I’m sure the
venators
will not hesitate to sacrifice your lives to maintain their defences, but I wonder…” His gaze travelled over the others, one at a time. “Interesting choice of friends, Ashlyn,” he said softly. “Very interesting. None of you have any ties to the Venantium, but you are all blind to what’s in front of you all the same.” He looked directly at Berenice, who’d convulsively grabbed hold of Claudia, gaping at Mephistopheles in sheer horror. “Except one of you, perhaps. One of you knows the darkness that is coming, do you not?” He smiled widely. “I have to admire your resistance, but your time will come shortly. After I deal with Ashlyn, that is.”

My demon heart seared again, and I winced. This time I felt and saw my own feet move closer to the edge of the cliff.

“Ash!” Leo shouted.

“Let’s make this a little more dramatic,” said Jude, raising both his arms.

The sea surged upwards, waves rising higher, higher, then crashing back down with an ear-splitting repeat. Then again. Higher they rose every time, and each jarring crash sent a wave of icy water arching over me. I trembled as the water drenched my skin, but I couldn’t move. My feet in my sodden shoes had locked in position, curled over the edge of the cliff.

I could hear the others yelling at him to stop, but their voices were muted beneath the roar of the waves.

“Shall I drown everyone in the village?” shouted Jude over the noise. “Shall I bury it beneath the sea?”

“
Stop
!” I screamed―and my vision flashed purple again.

“There she is,” said Jude. “There’s the little demon. You’re strong for a fledgling, but too conflicted with your mortal body. You need time to practice.” He held out a hand. “Come with me.”

“No!” I shouted, at the same time as another voice inside me, both mine and not mine, cried,
“No!”

“I’m offering to spare you, human-demon,” said Jude. “Your choice.”

The waves rose again in a roaring tide. It seemed as though the very sea itself stood upright, a mass that blocked out the darkening sky.

I stared, my mind a blank space of horror.
No…

Then, everything froze.

Another voice spoke. “This ends here.”

Someone took my hand and pulled me away from the cliff. I stumbled backwards, hardly daring to breathe.

“You always have to spoil everything,” Jude snarled, and I turned to look at my saviour.

The fortune-teller’s eyes raged like the ocean, her slightly ragged black coat billowing around her.

“You do not belong here, demon,” she said.

“Rather hypocritical, don’t you think?” said Jude.

In answer, the fortune-teller moved closer to the cliff’s edge, into the same position I had been in a minute before. Her eyes never left Jude’s, and it was clear from her dragging steps that it took all her effort to keep the waves back.

Then she stepped over the edge. My breath caught in my chest. But she didn’t fall. She walked towards Jude, as though on an invisible platform only they could touch.

Jude looked disappointed. “Lucifer taught you a few tricks, did he?”

The fortune-teller raised a hand.

Jude sighed theatrically. “Pity. I’d grown fond of this vessel, but they say parting is such sweet sorrow.”

He grinned and the skin fell away from his face, in layers, from tissue to muscle to bone; bile rose in my throat. “I’ll see you in the Darkworld, Ashlyn.”

Fire shot from the fortune-teller’s palm, directly at Jude’s forehead. The demon screamed, and Jude’s body dropped like a stone. The waves shifted, and the fortune-teller made a series of complicated motions―I could almost see her physically holding the waves back, calming them. Slowly, the sea returned to its former level, taking Jude with it. His body drifted, briefly, then sank as the waves climbed again.

Silence fell.

“Is he dead?” Berenice sounded faintly nauseated. I glanced at her; she’d sunk to the ground, heedless of the mud, as though her legs had simply folded beneath her.

The fortune-teller turned to face me, nodding. She looked exhausted, and before the black mass of the ocean, almost insignificant. She stepped back towards the cliff, staggering as her feet touched solid ground.

“He is dead. Blackstone is safe tonight.”

The relief was so intense it made me weak-kneed. But other thoughts clamoured for attention, such a conflict of emotions that I couldn’t speak. Joy battled terror and dread, and in the end, I asked the first question that came to mind, “How did you get out of the Headquarters?”

The fortune-teller sighed. “I was driven to play my final hand. As of tonight, I’ll be wanted as a dangerous fugitive. But I’ve always known this is the way things must be.”

“They can’t arrest you,” I said.

“They already did,” said the fortune-teller simply. “I have places to hide―the Venantium’s influence does not cover the entire community of magic-users, thankfully. I will continue to help where I am needed.”

“So… Mephistopheles is gone? For good?”

“You have nothing to fear from Mephistopheles anymore. But it’s only a matter of time before the
venators
come back. I have to leave.”

“Wait,” I said. “There’s something I have to ask you. They wouldn’t let any of us come and talk to you.”

“I was afraid of that. Come. We should not linger here.” She looked at the others. “I must speak to Ashlyn alone.”

“Why?” Berenice demanded. “We have as much right to the truth as she does. If it’s about how she’s not really human, we all know that now. Thanks to Jude.”

I flinched, not so much at the venom in her words but at the fact that no one contradicted her. I sneaked a look at Leo. He was staring at his feet. I felt sick, and a deep pain built in my chest.
Leo…