Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (20 page)

“Shit,” he said.

“I know, right?” said Claudia, her voice rising an octave.

“I thought they couldn’t be killed,” I said. “I thought they were from the Darkworld.”

“Harpies are a special case. The Venantium have held them in this world for so long that they’re pretty much corporeal. Unless―well, unless you hit them with magic fire.”

“Oh.” Pity and revulsion seized me in equal measure as I looked at the hideous swinging form in front of us.

Claudia sighed. “I hate to say it, guys, but we’re gonna have to make a move.”

“She’s right,” said Leo. “I’ve never known anyone to attack one of the Venantium’s minions before. This could get nasty. We don’t want to be involved.”

“Why is it
here
?” I said, glancing back at the student village, still visible through the trees. “I mean, why leave it right next to the university?”

“God knows. Maybe there’s another Terrence,” said Claudia.

Leo and I looked at each other. “Or maybe it was her,” I said.

“Who?”

He hadn’t told Claudia yet. I took a deep breath. Did I really want to bring up the subject now, with a dead harpy hanging above us?

“What’ve you two been keeping from me?”

“It’s… yesterday,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired, almost faint. “We went into Mr Melmoth’s study again, and…”

I couldn’t say it. Leo took over and told her what had happened.

Claudia swore. “Hell. That thing took a
venator
apart? For real?”

“Yeah. It’s sick,” said Leo, shaking his head. “That thing has consciousness, a will of its own. But it wasn’t a true demon. It said something about finding some source of power. It seemed to want revenge on Priestley. But I’ve never heard of demons holding grudges before. They don’t have emotions.”

I shivered. The girl’s anger had been pretty apparent. “She did,” I said. “Whatever she is, she’s as close to human as I’ve ever seen a demon.”

“That sounds bad,” said Claudia. “And she looked just like you?”

“Identical.”

“Has to be a shape-shifter. But someone must have summoned her.”

“Yeah,” said Leo. “That’s the thing. She really sounded like she was acting alone.”

Claudia shrugged. “Well, I’ve never heard anything like it. So this is the Death Child Mr Melmoth was after?”

“Yeah,” said Leo. “She must be the one. But I’m guessing even she couldn’t come near campus. Mr Melmoth thought Ash was her, that’s why he followed her.”

“That doesn’t explain why she looks like me,” I said. What reason would a demon have to imitate me? To get me arrested by the Venantium, or killed? I didn’t have any enemies, demons aside.

“Do you reckon she did this?” Claudia gestured at the harpy.

I swallowed. “I could see her doing this, but I can’t see the point…”

Claudia’s expression changed as her gaze fixed on a spot just behind me.

“Oh, God,” she said softly.

At first the bush she pointed to looked innocuous, then I saw, in the shadows beneath it, the unmistakeable shape of a human hand.

My demon heart throbbed again, and I clapped a hand to it instinctively. It burned, but with coldness, not heat.

“I can’t touch it. Don’t make me touch it!” Conrad was rocking back and forth, a wild look on his face.

Claudia made an impatient noise and stepped forwards. I watched, transfixed, as she pulled the body out of the bushes by one leg. Letting it go, she came to stand beside me, gripping my arm so hard it hurt.

It was a skeleton. There was no flesh on its bones at all―those that were still held together. One arm was gone, and the left leg was missing a foot. It looked as though it had been pulled from a hundred-years-old grave. The smell of earth caught in my nostrils.

“Is it―?”

Claudia picked up a stick and poked it tentatively, flipping the skeleton over. The bones were cracked, covered in moss and dirt. The skull stared sightlessly at the canopy.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Me neither,” whispered Claudia.

Conrad let out another moan. He had his hands pressed over his face.

“There’s an evil shadow around it,” he said.

It just looked out of place to me. We stared at the skeleton a few moments more, as if expecting an explanation to present itself.

Then it moved.

he skeleton’s hand clenched. Its bones creaked against each other as it shifted to a kneeling position, flexing disjointed, earth-stained arms. Slowly, wobbling, as if lifted by unseen hands, it stood, facing us, limp as a puppet on strings.

Conrad was the first to scream, a high, keening wail of pure terror. My feet locked in position, frozen to the spot, as if caught in one of my sleep-paralysis dreams. This wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t be possible. I could hear every creak and pop as the fragmented bones unfolded. Last of all, its skull lowered to face us with empty eyes.

But the eye-sockets weren’t entirely empty. A violet, alien light gleamed within, and a familiar coldness swept through me like a sudden shower of icy water. The demon’s eyes stared at me through the living corpse with a malevolent intelligence. The skeleton raised its one trembling hand. The bones were stained dark red, and with a rush of horror, I knew what had killed the harpy.

Claudia reacted first, stepping forwards and whipping out the fan I’d seen her use against the shadow-beast we’d encountered outside Satan’s Pit the first time we’d met. Fire flared along its edges. Leo moved to stand beside her, his hands burning, although the skin was undamaged. It looked absurd, two fire-wielding teens staring down a skeleton.

“Ever taken down a Skele-Ghoul before?” Leo said. “I admit it’s a new one on me.”

Skele-Ghoul.
A hybrid, dark force and human corpse. I’d thought a person had to be living to be possessed…

But it wasn’t alone. Somehow several other walking corpses had gathered behind the trees, unseen. Their violet demon eyes gleamed.

“Oh,
shit
,” said Claudia.

We were surrounded.

Fleshless feet swept up decaying leaves as the skeletons advanced on us, arms held out as if to keep balance. I was reminded of the skeletons from the first
Pirates of the Caribbean
film and felt the displaced urge to laugh. A six-foot high, shadowy monster with teeth like daggers could inspire fear. A walking skeleton, not so much. They would have looked more comic than threatening, were it not for those deathless eyes.

Then one of them threw back its head, and a horrible, shrieking cry rent the air. It went right through me like a blade and I almost cried out myself as a pain pierced me somewhere behind my eyes.

“Come with us, Ashlyn,”
a voice whispered in my ear.

No,
I tried to say, whilst coldness wrapped around me, suffocating.

“Now you see what they can do to us. Side with us before you have no choice.”

I won’t
, I cried.

My thoughts, and the demon’s whisper, dissipated as a yell shocked me back to reality. Claudia was on fire―or at least she appeared to be. She lashed out at the nearest Skele-Ghoul, which withdrew. Like all demons, fire was clearly their weakness.

Flames also flared from Leo’s arms; like a human fireball, he threw himself into the fray. One by one the violet lights winked out, until the four of us were left surrounded by a mass of blackened bones.

“Well, that was hardly a challenge,” said Leo. He looked back at me. “You okay, Ash?”

“I’m fine,” I said. He hadn’t heard the demon speak to me. It must have connected directly to my mind.

Conrad was hunched over on the ground, moaning.

“Get up,” snapped Claudia. “Was this
you
? You led us here, you snivelling idiot.”

“Claudia!” I said, shocked at her sharpness. “He…” I trailed off as Conrad looked at me.

Something strange was happening to him. His face was oddly stretched, as if an invisible force pulled it in two different directions. He moaned, hands gripping his face as if trying to hold himself together.

Leo said, “Well, let’s add a vampire to the mix. Why not?”

Was this what it looked like to see a vampire’s true form revealed? Conrad’s face spasmed and twisted into unnatural expressions. Leo had said it was like being possessed…

Then Conrad lunged at me at a speed I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of. His teeth were bared in a snarl that bordered on painful. I had no time to get out of the way, but the Darkworld answered my call regardless, ice spreading over my arms. His teeth glanced off the smooth surface and he fell to the ground.

Roaring like a rabid animal, he leapt up again, hands reaching out. I let ice fan out from my palms, catching his outstretched hands and coating them in an instant. When his arms and legs were locked to his sides, I let go, panting.

“I really need to find a better way of dealing with problematic guys,” I said.

“Why, which other guys have you used it on?” said Leo.

“That David creep,” said Claudia. “Sorry I didn’t help. You just looked like you were handling it well enough on your own.” She nudged Conrad’s prone form with her foot. “Come on, Ash, take it off.”

“You sure he won’t attack me again?”

“We’ll be here if he does.”

Tentatively, I contacted the Darkworld and then withdrew it. The effect was like a fan-heater switched on without warning. The ice retracted; Conrad rocked back onto his heels, then collapsed face-first onto the ground.

“Conrad?” I said uncertainly.

“Oh, just leave him,” said Claudia. “We need to get the hell out of here. Dead harpies and now this. I need a drink.”

“I second that,” said Leo.

“It’s the middle of the
day
,” I said.

They both gave me a look. Oh, right. Walking skeletons, headless harpies, and frozen vampires kind of eliminated any chance at salvaging normality from this.

“Just saying,” I said. “Are they even serving at the Union Bar now?”

Claudia shrugged. “Let’s go anyway.”

“We can’t leave him here,” I said, indicating Conrad. “What if there are more of them?”

Claudia sighed. “Fine. We’ll leave him outside his flat. Let’s go, already!”

We dragged Conrad up to the student village and deposited him in the middle of the lawn. That would have to do.

“I hope nothing attacks him.”

“I personally don’t give a crap,” said Claudia.

We ended up in the common room, sitting on the sofa whilst some people played
Left for Dead
on the Nintendo Wii. Watching hordes of zombies was hardly what I’d had in mind, but no one felt like talking much. It was as though by not mentioning it, we could forget it even happened. Like yesterday. Leo lay in a stupor beside me. He kept dozing off on my shoulder, and I didn’t have the energy to move. On my other side, Claudia fiddled with her nails, occasionally getting out her phone and surfing the net. I had no idea what to say to either of them. The demon heart kept pulsing randomly, like it had a life of its own; I held my hand clenched over it in case anyone noticed.

This made no sense at all. Had that ghoul I’d seen yesterday―the one that had looked just like me―sent those walking skeletons after us, or had we just happened to be there? I’d seen
her,
too, that time in the woods. But no demons could come onto campus. It was impossible. The Barrier was extra-strong over Blackstone and the immediate area, so strong that no one could summon a demon―not even close.