Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (12 page)

“You felt that?” said Leo, suddenly alert.

I nodded. I looked up at the old grade-digger’s cottage, and for a second, I could have sworn an indistinct shape moved behind one of the boarded-up windows.

“If this was a horror film, we’d go into that house right now,” said Leo, taking a step in that direction.

“But we’re
not
in a horror film,” I said. “And I think we should leave it. We don’t want to get blamed for that graffiti. And what if Jude’s still around?”

“Fair point,” said Leo, turning back to me, away from the dilapidated cottage.

So we walked back towards the village. After the creepy graveyard, the last thing I felt like doing was going into Mr Melmoth’s cellar, but I knew it was important to Leo to find what he’d left in the hidden room. After all, it was why we’d come in the first place. So we made our way back to the old manor house.

I was so on edge by this point, I half-expected to run into Mr Melmoth’s ghost, but the house seemed as deserted as ever. Leo did a quick magic scan to make sure Jude or anyone else wasn’t nearby, before we made our way once more through the overgrown garden.

“Go time,” said Leo, holding up the key.

The cellar didn’t show any signs of concealed doorways. I scrutinised every brick in the stone walls, but none looked like they might trigger any kind of mechanism.

“Melmoth was too smart to go for something so obvious,” said Leo.

At that moment I tripped, stumbling into Leo. “Oops.”

Glancing down, I saw part of the floor was slightly raised; that was what tripped me. An idea stole into my head. Could it be―?

Leo figured it out in an instant. “A cellar within a cellar. Kudos to Melmoth, I knew he wouldn’t let me down.”

The uneven bit of floor was a trapdoor, leading down to another staircase. Leo conjured a light, and I did likewise, as we descended into blackness.

The room below wasn’t so much a room as a cave, with stone walls and a low ceiling. It resembled a study, in that it contained a desk, chair, and a large quantity of books and papers stacked all around us. There were several candles mounted on the walls, and Leo lit them with conjured flames whilst I looked around for anything remarkable.

Leo started opening the desk drawers and sifting through papers.

“This is where we’ll find what he was up to,” he said, pulling out a drawer and emptying it onto the desk. It contained a stack of newspaper clippings, some scraps of paper, and a leather-bound notebook that looked like a journal.

“I’ve had a look in this before; he used to carry it everywhere. He was really mad when he found me reading it.”

“Is it his diary?”

“Yeah, it’s a record of his experiments. I used to have this theory he was a mad scientist. Turns out I wasn’t far wrong, if he was making cures for vampirism.”

“This place doesn’t look much like a laboratory,” I said, looking around. It was more like a hermit’s cave than anything.

“Now this is weird,” said Leo, holding up a newspaper clipping. I came closer, squinting in the dim candle light.

The clipping showed a picture of a house, which, although faded and small, was unmistakeably the one we’d just been at, the gravedigger’s cottage. The heading was,
Tombstone Hill: Haunted or Not Haunted?

“Something about sightings of a ghost,” said Leo. “I think I remember this one, actually. It was only a few months ago. Hmm…”

There were a number of other clippings dating back a few years―all centring on that old house and graveyard.

“That’s weird,” said Leo. “I’ve never heard Melmoth mention it before. Except to call the locals idiots for believing in rumours and superstitions.”

“It mentions a gang called… the Ghouls,” I said.

Leo looked at me. “Really?”

“Yeah. Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to be behind all this grave-robbing?”

“Yeah. Melmoth was fascinated with them. I just wish I knew why.”

He began flicking through the journal. “This looks like a record of meetings. And he’s using codenames. I guess he thought someone might find this.”

I put down the newspaper clippings and picked up a stack of what looked like newsletters.

“These are from the Venantium,” I said. The top one read,
Former Inner Circle Head Resigns.

“Born in Hull, Mr Melmoth joined the Venantium after graduating from Blackstone University at the age of twenty-one. He worked for ten years as a demon-tracker before applying successfully for a position on the Inner Circle. He became Chairman two years ago.”

“Ah, that must be from when he resigned,” said Leo, taking it. “This looks like a record of his achievements. I know about most of them… Before they knew his secret, he was pretty well-respected. He took down this sorcerer, Lucifer, twenty years ago. Yeah, the guy called himself
Lucifer.
People get up to some seriously weird shit. Oh, and he exposed a traitor within the Venantium itself. That stirred everyone up.”

“Really?” I said.

“You’d be surprised how many crazies are ex-members, driven mad with power. I know for a fact some practice necromancy, and that’s technically illegal.”

“Creepy,” I said. “What―raising the dead? What if…” I trailed off, staring at the clipping in my hand. “Wait a minute. The cults he took down. Look at that one. The name.”

“The Ghouls?” said Leo, glancing over. “Interesting…”

I went through more of the collected leaflets, finding scraps of information here and there, but nothing concrete. Mr Melmoth seemed to have compiled a complete record of the Venantium’s activity for the last thirty years. The stories of foiled attempts to summon demons and cults disbanded began to blur together in my mind. Leo continued to read the journal, until he looked up from the final page with a perplexed expression on his face.

“The journal just… ends,” he said. “It’s a record of his experiments with magical energy, though he doesn’t really go into any details. From what I gather, the Venantium wouldn’t approve of his methods. But this last bit’s just plain weird. ‘I have felt eyes watching my footsteps for some times. I have the knowledge he desires, but I am confident that the protection will endure even beyond my death. But he is not the only one. I cannot stop the others, but I must find the Death Child. I have to stop her…’’’

He looked at me. “That’s it. Man, I knew Melmoth could be pretty dramatic, but that takes cryptic to a whole new level. For God’s sake.”

He suddenly punched the desk, hard. The resulting
thunk
echoed around the room.

“Leo…” I said, hesitantly.

“Why did he do it? Why didn’t he leave anything helpful? If he was doing something so important, why not leave even a record of his experiments? That Vampire’s Curse cure could save lives!” He shook his head. “And as for that other crap, I’ve no idea. Let’s get out of here. We’ve been down here for hours; it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“True,” I said. I didn’t much fancy walking past that graveyard at night.

“I’ll take some of this,” he said, taking off his rucksack. “Knew I brought this for a reason.” He began shoving papers haphazardly into the bag. I helped, looking around in case there was anything we’d overlooked. Then I stopped dead.

“Look at that,” I said.

There was a portion of the stone wall which seemed to jut out marginally farther than anywhere else. I ran my fingers over it. It felt strange―not like stone at all.

Like metal.

Leo was at my side in an instant. “No way,” he said. “Melmoth, you sly bastard.”

My suspicions were right. There was a door concealed in the wall, although I could only see it if I tilted my head slightly. That struck me as odd, given that, being metal, it ought to stand out.

“Magical concealment at its finest,” said Leo. “C’mon, let’s check it out.”

“Isn’t it locked?” I said.

“Maybe, but if I know Melmoth, he won’t have wanted his work to go to waste. Who knows, maybe he fixed it so that one trustworthy person could enter. You can be incredibly selective with that kind of magical protection if you know your stuff, and Melmoth sure did.”

He braced his shoulder against the door, but it didn’t give.

“Might be a handle somewhere?”

He ran his hands over the stone, then jumped back with a curse as a light flared out of nowhere, brief and bright.

“Shit,” he said, holding up his hand. “I think that was the anti-demon defence.”

There was a large burn blister already forming on his palm. My heart flipped unpleasantly as I realised it would have been a lot worse if it had been me who’d tried to open the door. I was pretty sure anti-demon defences extended to human-demons.

But the stones were moving aside, to reveal yet another passageway which sloped downward.

“Seriously?” I said. “We’re deep enough underground already!”

“Best place to hide things,” said Leo, holding up his conjured light. “Like the Venantium. Let’s go.”

At some point my own light had gone out, so I quickly summoned another one. I felt a momentary rush of claustrophobia as we descended, and the stuffy air filled my throat. My lungs screamed for fresh air, my eyes for natural light. But even as I forced myself to follow Leo, I couldn’t restrain myself from groaning in frustration as we reached a point where several tunnels branched off in different directions.

“You’re kidding me!” I said. “This is a bloody maze!”

Even Leo didn’t look too pleased. “Really, Melmoth,” he muttered. “Right… let’s try this one.”

We walked for an hour or more, along the flat ground, looking around in case another tunnel entrance presented itself. But the passageway was unbroken, unrelenting. I felt like crying. We were never going to get out of there.

“Ash?” said Leo.

I tried to say I was fine, but could only manage a faint, “Yeah.”

“Ash, relax!” Someone took hold of my hand, which made me jump before I realised it was him. “It’ll be okay. There’s bound to be something soon.”

“And if there isn’t? It’ll take hours to walk back, and it’s dark outside…”

And I couldn’t help thinking of the Venantium’s harpies, how they’d attacked me in the dark, the last time we’d gotten lost in a tunnel.

“I can see something,” said Leo, and I wanted to believe him, although I knew he was probably trying to reassure me.

But then I saw it, too―a light. A blue light. The tunnel rounded a corner and suddenly I realised where we were. We must be underneath Blackstone, because on either side were the blue, flickering candles of the Venantium.

“Well, what d’you know,” said Leo, in a whisper. I looked uneasily at the crone-shaped candle holders. I never could figure out if they were all harpies, or if only some of them were. Even so, I wanted the hell out of there.

Soon the tunnel branched, and we took the one that looked as though it sloped upwards.

“I know where we are. It’s cool. We’re out of here soon.”

And he was right. Within ten minutes we were climbing stone steps and emerging into the fresh, cold night air.

I leant against him, dizzy with relief. “I never knew how much I hated tunnels,” I said. “Sorry I freaked out so much.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Lots of people would be worse. At least you’re not scared of the dark. And you have good reason to be afraid of monsters.”

“True,” I said. “I was more worried about a cave-in, really. Or those harpies coming back.”

“Sensible thinking,” said Leo. “I’m told I’m too reckless for my own good. Man, I didn’t know the tunnels went all the way to Crowley!”

We stood behind a patch of trees, on dew-wet grass. For an instant, I was confused as to where we were, then I realised the roaring in my ears wasn’t the wind, but the sound of the sea crashing onto rocks. We were right next to the cliffs above the beach outside Blackstone.

“I guess we never found the secret lab,” I said.

“No,” said Leo. “Still, plenty of time to explore. You don’t have to come,” he added. “You’ll get into more trouble than me if they find you down there, anyway.”

“True,” I said. “Should we head back to campus now?”

“Might as well go for a drink first,” said Leo.

Sitting in the Coach and Horses, I felt as far removed from those tunnels as possible. I’d never appreciated
noise
quite as much as I did then. The chatter of the other people in the pub, even the yells of the football supporters crowded around the widescreen televisions, were a blessing to my ears, which had heard only the sound of footsteps on stone for too long. And even though I usually hated the smell of beer and sweat, it was a relief to no longer have to inhale the musty scent of the tunnels. It still astounded me that they were right beneath our feet, yet most people were oblivious to them.

“They have all sorts down there,” said Leo. “Most of the main offices are underneath Blackstone, but I have a feeling they keep all the
real
secrets deeper underground. The machinery that runs the Barrier.”

“What, they actually have a machine?” I pictured a huge hunk of metal, weaving a protective net. It was difficult to imagine something like that keeping the Darkworld out. The Darkworld was an ancient force, everlasting even.

“No, they won’t have. Those Barriers have been there for five hundred years, and they were put up on the surface. From what I gather, sorcerers from all over came here and made some kind of shield. Don’t ask me how.”

“Who exactly runs it?” I said. “Who are their leaders?”

“The Venantium’s leaders are known as the Inner Circle,” said Leo. “There are seven members, but only they know who the Chairman is. It’s a precautionary measure.”

“So they do what, make all the decisions?”

“Yeah. Like politicians, and they’re just as big a group of liars, too.”

“So what do the other members do?” I asked.

“Maintain the Barrier,” said Leo. “And hunt down rogue sorcerers and demons. There are also members in the government, working undercover to protect everyone in case there’s a mass demon outbreak. It hasn’t happened since the Demon Wars, but it’s always a possibility.”

“Wow.”

“Most of them want to get into the Inner Circle,” said Leo. “It changes every five years, and everyone goes power-mad around that time. It’s happening again next year, I think.”