Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That was something else.”

We ended up staying until the karaoke finished, at which point the usual club music took over. Time passed strangely, as it always did when I went clubbing; an hour could pass in the space of a minute and I’d barely be able to recollect it afterward. It simply disappeared in a haze of dubstep and hands waving and trying to avoid walking into people.

All that I could recall afterwards was narrowly avoiding the path of a girl who was projectile-vomiting, Sarah being hit on twice by guys who’d heard her singing, and having to get out of the way of a lip-locked couple who turned out to be Alex and Rex. Their arms were entwined around each other, and neither seemed to notice that they were creating a pile-up on the dance floor where people couldn’t get around them.

A bit later, Sarah and I realised we’d been separated from the others. We circled the room, trying to find them, and out of nowhere someone grabbed my hand. Before I knew it, Alex was dragging me towards the stairs, saying we had to leave if we wanted to get the 2 a.m. bus back.

“I think you’re drunk,” she added, as I stumbled through the crowd.

“Maybe,” I said, swaying. It didn’t make any logical sense that several hours dancing in a sweaty cellar made you feel revitalised, but it seemed to have happened to me.

Then I stumbled over my heels and almost walked into Conrad.

Shit.

“Ash!” he said, and, to my utter consternation, tried to
kiss
me. I backed away sharpish and he almost face-planted on the drink-soaked floor.

“Go away,” said Alex, before I could so much as say a word.

Conrad didn’t seem to hear her. “Ash, d’you wanna dance?” he slurred.

Good grief, he was even worse than I was.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“C’mon.”

I slapped his hand away as he made to rest it on my arm. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I’d just about had it.

“Ash,” he somehow managed to stretch my name out to several syllables. “I really, really like you. I think you’re stunning. You want to dance?”

“Can you leave me alone?” I snapped.

He looked at me like a kicked puppy. “Ash…”

But before I could apologise for snapping, I heard myself saying, as if it was someone else speaking: “I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t even like you. That clear?”

He sank down to the floor, like his legs had collapsed beneath him. “It’s not fair,” he wailed.

“Get a clue,” said Alex. “Girl doesn’t like you. Stay the hell away. Got it?”

“Alex, that’s enough,” I said. “Sorry, Conrad.”

I walked away before I could make the situation worse―if that were even possible. And then there was a dark space right in front of me, a small patch of blackness. Not unusual in itself, but the girl standing next to it… she had dark brown hair of around shoulder-length, and was so pale she seemed to gleam under the strobe lights. Her black dress looked identical to mine, but it wasn’t that which made me stop and stare.

A violet crystal hung around her neck, and it glowed softly.

I glanced down at my own pendant. The amethyst gleamed bright. I looked up at the girl again, and―it could have been a trick of the light, but she appeared to catch my eye and smile.

Then she melted back into the crowd.

ist surrounded me, wrapping around my body like a cocoon. Even the ground beneath my feet was masked. I moved forwards, feet crunching like I was walking through snow, but I couldn’t see where I was going. Shapes appeared behind the mist, hazy and unclear. They could have easily been shadow-beasts, or harmless objects like trees.

The demon heart around my neck burned against my skin.

“Ashlyn.”

I shuddered at the death-cold voice. It seemed to cut through the mist, making the shapes take on a sinister familiarity. I saw figures, appearing for a second before being swallowed up by the mist again. Cara, Alex, Sarah. My parents. Aunt Eve. Leo, Claudia, Cyrus, Berenice, Howard… all appeared, yet as soon as I drew closer, vanished like shadows.

“You think you aren’t like us. You think you’re above us. But you don’t know what you are capable of, Ashlyn. You’ve barely tapped into your power. We can help you.”

“What does that even mean?” I said, aloud. The mist seemed to catch my voice and smother it. “You’ve done nothing but try to ruin my life. And I told you. I’m not like you.”

“You think that because you haven’t used your power, it doesn’t exist?”

“You think you’ve never done anyone harm?” Another voice joined the first, and this was familiar, human. My heart turned to ice.

Terrence stepped out of the fog. He glared at me, grey eyes narrowed. Scratches marked his face, four of them from forehead to chin, deep red cuts.

I looked down in shame, remembering how my own nails, strengthened with ice, had ripped open his skin like paper.

The mist began to swirl around me, violently, changing from white to thundercloud-grey, then to black as shadows. Horrible, hissing laughter echoed in my ears, and another demon’s voice spoke. I couldn’t pinpoint what was different about it; only that it wasn’t the same. It was lower, more menacing-sounding, if that was possible.

“You set so much by the so-called virtue of your humanity? You don’t even have a heart. You can’t love. You can’t be loved.”

The black smoke cleared slightly, just enough to reveal Terrence. His grinning face, forehead pierced with a demon’s heart, violet light shining from his eyes.

“I
am
you, Ashlyn. You are a part of us now.”

I shook my head. “No.”

But the form of Terrence was changing before my eyes―next second, I looked at my own reflection. The girl resembled me in every way, from her tangled dark hair and pale features down to the black trench coat, jeans, and Converse I wore myself.

The girl grinned at me. I put a hand up to my own face, convinced I’d feel my own expression mirrored.
It’s a trick
, I thought.

The demon laughed again, and so did the girl.

“Ash,” she said, softly. “Poor Ash.”

“What?” I said, staring right into her eyes. I saw the tell-tale violet light appear, briefly.

“You have no idea what you’re up against.”

“Care to tell me?” I said. “I’m dreaming, anyway.”

The girl and demon laughed again, their voices becoming one.

“You’re fascinating to me, human-demon. You think you’re safe in your little university house? I can find you, Ashlyn. Or you’ll come to me. You think that you’re safe because you can’t see us in the waking world? We can get into your head in all kinds of ways, Ashlyn. The Barrier might contain us, but we’re here. We’re always here.”

The girl threw back her head and laughed, and her outline blurred, the demon beneath grinning at me.

“You’re in an interesting position. Not many people get to pick sides.”

“So you and your little friends had better choose wisely.”

And the smoke cleared completely. I recognised my surroundings: the cemetery in Blackstone. I stood right next to the Blackstone memorial.

“The Blackstones thought they could escape their calling. Now it’s up to you to decide whether you want to face the same fate. Otherwise…”

The Ash-demon pointed to the tombstone and names appeared, etched against the black stone:
Ashlyn Temple. Claudia Delaney. Leo Blake…

“No!” I shouted, and awoke in a cold sweat, tangled in my bedcovers.

My alarm blared, far too early for a Sunday. I groaned, glad I’d had the presence of mind to drink a litre of water when I came in last night to stave off a hangover. It had totally slipped my mind that I’d promised Leo I’d accompany him into the tunnels again today.

I switched off my alarm, catching sight of my own reflection in the wardrobe mirror. My eyes were bright, but their hazel colour was clear. There was no violet demon light there.

I’m not a demon,
I thought. Right then, I wished I was fully human.

How could the demons ever think I would side with them, knowing what cold-hearted killers they were? True enough, humans could be equally selfish, but given powers like the demons had, I didn’t know anyone who would enter a person’s mind and cut off their life in an instant.

I didn’t like to lament about how I wished things were different―God knows I’d wasted enough time on that in sixth form. Back then, I’d woken every day wishing that on that cold December day in assembly I’d tilted back and seen nothing watching me from the shadows, that no cold eyes haunted me everywhere I walked, that I faced an ordinary future, free from the darkness I didn’t yet have a name for. In another life I might never have come to Blackstone and never met Claudia, never spoken to the fortune-teller. I might have…

But that was wrong, I thought. There was no possible future in which this didn’t exist, because it was a part of who I was, whether I liked it or not. I wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t tied to those creatures and the Darkworld.

You don’t even have a heart. You can’t love. You cannot be loved.

“Bullshit,” I whispered. I loved my family and friends, and that was more than any demon could claim.

This was just my lot in life. I’d always wanted something more than the ordinary. I wanted to
live
, to learn, to love, to travel the world. Losing everything had made me all the more determined to fight for what I could get.

And there were some advantages. For fun, I conjured a small light and watched it fly around the room like a butterfly, changing colour as it went. Small amusements. I’d
never
use magic to harm another person. With David, I hadn’t known what I was doing, and with Terrence it had been self-defence…

Sure you’re not just making excuses?

Quiet,
I told the voice in my head.
I was just dreaming.

But what if it was true? What if the demons could somehow get into my head, even from behind the Barrier? It would explain the vividness, not to mention the recurring nature, of my dreams…

I shook my head. Even if it was true, they couldn’t hurt me from that side of the Barrier. Could they?

We caught the train to Crowley at ten in the morning, to avoid ending up stuck there after dark. The little village cowered under heavy rainclouds, promising a storm later. I hoped we wouldn’t get caught in it, but I supposed we could always take the underground path back to Blackstone if need be.