Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (26 page)

“I’m sorry.” I wished there was more I could say, but the words wouldn’t come. To lose his guardian again… I couldn’t even imagine what that must feel like.

“It’s okay, Ash. I’m glad you’re here.”

We hurried through the forest, as neither of us had the patience to wait for a bus. A voice in the back of my head told me that this was a bad idea, that we were tempting fate, but I took no notice. We had bigger problems.

“Shit,” said Leo, halting in the middle of the path. “Did you hear something?”

No. Not now!

Coldness stabbed me all over, like a thousand icy knives. The pendant around my neck burned.

“Do you feel that?”

Leo’s eyes were wide. “Shit. It’s them.”

A clawed hand grabbed my ankle.

I jumped backwards, right into the grip of one of them. I spun around out of reach. Silent, walking skeletons had crept up all around us, some walking, some half-crawling as though they couldn’t support their own weight. I looked down and saw that a skeletal hand gripped my foot. I could see every bone in the hand, some cracked, all covered in the mossy sheen of the long-dead, long-buried.

Violet eyes stared out of its skull, unnatural; and I saw the dark space behind the skeleton, the swirling mass of shadows.

Fear had stopped my heart in my chest, but now it started pounding. I kicked out and the brittle bones shattered. Heat and light flared next to me and I looked towards the source. Leo grappled with one of them, fire streaming down his arms. The ghoul screamed, a high-pitched keening that raised every hair on my body. The blackness vanished, the violet eyes winked out, and the charred bones dropped to the ground.

I flared ice-fire as a warning, but they continued to come at me. They were clumsy, flimsy as scarecrows, yet the demonic forces kept them upright. Bones splintered, scattering, falling to the ground like leaves.

Then I saw her, standing amongst the dead, wearing a positively gloating expression.

“When will you learn that you can’t escape me, Ash?”

Her skin glowed in the weak light, giving her―me―a ghostly appearance.

“Yes, it
was
a stupid decision to come out tonight. I always know where you are.”

Stop reading my mind!
I screamed, as ice fire flared from my hands.

“Don’t you mean
our
mind?”

She stepped forwards to face me, holding out her own palms, which flared with blue, just like mine.
She’s solid this time. No illusion.

“You’re going to regret this, Ash.”

But anger had taken over me by now. Anger―and humiliation at having my face stolen by a monster. I stepped forwards to face the demon. Hands clawed at my feet, but I kicked them aside. I wasn’t going to lose to her again. I couldn’t.

The pendant around the doppelganger’s neck glowed, and mine did likewise.

“Leave this world behind and become who you truly are, Ash.”

“Like hell I will!” I shouted, and shot a dagger of ice directly at her demon’s heart.

Laughing, the girl dodged. Then she fired back―but not at me. At Leo.

I reached out to the Darkworld and grabbed handfuls of shadows. Leo did likewise, wrapping them around us like a semi-transparent shield. The ice-fire simply glanced off it.

“Nice try, demon!” Leo shouted. The shadows had knocked the Skele-Ghouls out of the way, but they still stood around us, like limp, awkward puppets.

The doppelganger flew at me; before I could react, she passed right through the shield and grabbed me by the throat, lifting me off the ground. She was unnaturally strong, and I fought for breath, my hands clawing at hers, struggling to break free.

“If I push you to the brink of death, will you give in?”

No!
I cried silently, kicking out both physically and mentally. The Darkworld responded and as my vision flashed purple. A jolt ran through me like an electric current and the other girl screamed.

Her hands were ablaze with a blue fire, but it wasn’t her own. Somehow I’d broken through her shield. She cried out in pain; Tears ran down her face and a shudder of disbelief rolled through me. She was a demon. She couldn’t feel pain in the same way humans did―could she?

As this thought crossed my mind, the flames faded. She’d dropped to her knees, but as she looked up at me, her face etched with lines of pain, pure hatred shone from her violet eyes.

She croaked, in a voice part demon, part me, “You’ll pay for that, Ash. You and your friend here. In fact, I’ll kill him. In front of you.” A smile twisted her features again. “Yes, that should do it. It should help you see that you really don’t have a choice.”

“Leo!” I shouted, but too late. She raised her hands and shot a stream of pure darkness at us. Leo conjured a shield in response whilst directing a jet of fire at her, but she dodged. Darkness seemed to stream from her palms, weaving around us, trying to find a gap in the shield.

“Aren’t you going to help your friend, Ashlyn?”

I didn’t know what to do to defend us other than add my own strength to Leo’s shield and hope it wouldn’t break. The Darkworld shuddered as two parts of it were set against each other.

Without warning, a tremor ran through the shield like the first gust of a hurricane.

Leo looked at me. His forehead glistened with sweat.

“We can beat her, Ash,” he said.

The girl laughed, an unearthly squeal of pure delight.

Then the ground split beneath my feet, and I fell down into deeper darkness.

screamed and soil filled my mouth. Choking, I tried to spit it out. I was still falling, the earth giving way as I did so. I tried helplessly to grab hold of something solid, but encountered only crumbling dirt that broke into pieces at my touch.

I didn’t know how long I fell, but it seemed timeless. Wind rushed past me, roaring in my ears. It felt as though I was trapped in an earthy cocoon, dislodged soil and bone fragments hitting me all over. Every time I hoped there was a solid landing beneath my body, it gave way to nothing.

Hands grabbed me, skeletal hands; the Skele-Ghouls were falling, too. A grinning skull flashed past, and fingernails scratched at my face. I hit out, knocking the mass of bones off me. I kept smacking into rocks and other falling debris. Once, a chunk of rock crashed into the back of my head and stars winked before my eyes.

Light flared from my forehead, but it lit up only earth and swirling darkness. There was no one else, only a tunnel leading down, down, down.

“
Leo
!” I cried; even my scream had died to a whisper.

But the fall was slowing; I could hear again, strange echoing shrieks punctuating stretches of eerie silence. Without warning, my back hit the ground and I rolled over on a slightly spongy surface.
Damp soil
, I thought dazedly, barely able to comprehend that I’d survived the fall.

I lay still, drawing deep, shuddering breaths. Every part of me felt numb.

When I could finally bring myself to move, I conjured another light. I was in a small cave, barely a couple of metres either way, and alone. No sign of any Skele-Ghouls―or Leo. What if he―?

No
, I told myself. I wasn’t going down that road. I had to find a way out before I could begin to think about that.

There were tunnels on either side of me. I couldn’t take too long to choose or I’d really start to panic. I was shaking already, and when I stood up, I felt so lightheaded I nearly passed out. I dug my fingers into the wall, staying upright, trying to will away the fog at the edges of my vision.

Leo, I’ll find you
, I thought desperately. Someone would come to help… and even though I was God-knew-how many miles underground, the tunnels had to lead somewhere. I hadn’t even known they came this close to campus. Either some giant worm had dug them, or people had. I steered my thoughts away from giant worms, too.
Just walk. Don’t think.

I stopped as a chilling screech froze the blood in my veins.
Harpies.

Before I could run or duck, they flew at me, scratching at my arms. I yelled, contacting the Darkworld almost before I was aware of it. Ice fire consumed the birds, and they burst into black ashes before my eyes. I stared at my own hands, hardly able to believe I’d destroyed them so easily.

Then another sound started up, a wail like a grief-stricken cry. It seemed to come from all around me. Although it wasn’t as eerie as the sound of the harpies, it brought out the same flood of fear in me as a fire alarm accompanied by the smell of smoke would.

Had I triggered an alarm, or was there something even worse waiting for me ahead?

I couldn’t stay where I was, so I decided to carry on, hoping I wasn’t making a huge mistake.

The wailing continued to echo through the tunnel, like a siren, building to a crescendo. I threw my arms over my head to try and muffle the sound and ran flat out, panic taking over, my feet barely skimming the ground, even when I had to wade across a rushing underground river. I hoped it was just regular water.

Another harpy flew at me and I reacted without thinking, hitting out with a hand that was suddenly enclosed in solid ice―the harpy exploded into dust.

It frightened me how quick I’d reacted, but by now I was beyond terror. My feet stumbled over rocks and holes; at one point, I had to crawl under a sagging ceiling that threatened to collapse―and still the siren wailed, on and on.

Then rough hands grabbed me and pulled me out of the crevice. Human hands.

“So this is the little tunnel rat.” Sharp eyes glared from beneath a hard helmet which looked out of place, considering he wore a sharp navy blue suit. My heart sank. He was with the Venantium.

“Come with me,” he said. “You have some explaining to do, young miss.”

He pulled me after him, never once loosening his vice-grip on my arm, but I was in too much shock to put up a fight. He kept up a continual mutter that told me the Venantium wanted to question me not only about killing harpies, but about the Skele-Ghouls. The ghouls were walking the streets in Blackstone.

“That wasn’t me!” I protested. “There’s a ghoul―”

But he didn’t listen to a word. When the long, long walk was finally over, we came to a row of caves behind barred doors.
Cells,
I thought, as he threw me into one.

A second before I hit the stone floor, ice shot out of my palms, breaking my fall.

“Don’t try anything!” shouted my captor, as the door slammed.

I sat and stared at the door in disbelief, wondering how in hell I’d ended up in this situation. How could they blame
me
? And Leo… where was he? Had he fallen too? Was he lost somewhere down here? I contacted the Darkworld and tried to will the locks to break at my touch, but whatever I did, nothing worked. Of course they were magic-proof.

“What did you do?” said a voice. It came from the cell opposite me. Someone was leaning against the bars of his own cage; with the poor lighting down here, I couldn’t see any more than an outline. “They’re really stirred up.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I snapped. “A ghoul attacked me and there’s Skele-Ghouls in the tunnels, and now they’re blaming me for it.”