Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (30 page)

he torrent of darkness stopped, dispersing at the fortune-teller’s touch. Jude snarled.

“You dare to interfere? You’re nothing compared to me.”

“You don’t know what I am.” The fortune-teller swayed, as though staying upright cost her a huge effort. “You don’t know what I’ve done. Don’t make me add to the burden. I don’t want to kill you.”

“You, kill me?” Jude narrowed his eyes. “You speak of burdens, but you have no idea what it is like to carry the weight of this task. I must poison myself with the Darkworld in order to rid the world of evil. I must consort with demons in order to destroy monsters like you.”

“Monster?” said the fortune-teller, taking a long trail of darkness in hand, twisting it as though it was a rope. “I never claimed to be guiltless, but you are the only monster here.”

She lashed at Jude without warning, speaking in a language I didn’t recognise. It sounded like Latin. The Darkworld responded, wrapping around Jude like a cloak. He yelled something back, and it loosened, becoming a shield instead.

“You still use the old language?” he said. “Living in the past, even now?”

The fortune-teller ignored his taunts, standing up fully for the first time. The haggardness faded from her face as the shadows whirled around her, and when they cleared, she was her imposing self once more, her silver-fair hair fanning out and her posture formidable and devastating.

“The past has power,” she said quietly. “We may not forgive ourselves, but the memory gives us strength. And damn me a thousand times more if I allow you to try to take what you have no right to.”

“No right?”

“You have no understanding,” said the fortune-teller. “You are not superior, either to humans or to demons.”

I had been so transfixed on the power-play between the two sorcerers that it I jumped when someone put their hand on my shoulder.

“Let’s leave them to their games, Ashlyn.”
She smiled at me; it never failed to chill me that other than the eyes, she was my exact double, down to the muddy Converse on her feet.

“It should be an easy choice. The sorceress will die, as will your friends. You alone have the power we need to fight Lucifer. Your heart.”

She held out her hand. I felt the crystal sear the skin of my leg through my pocket and winced. I instinctively reached for it.

“It can sense your will,” she said, aloud. “It knows you want to be with us. In the Darkworld. It’s your anchor. It will try to hold you back, like these mortals.”

What was the Darkworld like as a place? Incorporeal, limitless. If we were all going to die… maybe it was my only option. I’d go there once I was dead, anyway…

Another voice shot through my head, louder.
Idiot. She’s using subliminal magic on you.

Her smirk told me I was right. “It’s for the best, Ash. You’re a human-demon, the only child in a generation to have this privilege. Don’t you want to know who fathered you? Which higher demon gave you their power?”

My hand clenched around the demon heart in my pocket. The sounds of the fortune-teller and Jude’s battle were strangely muted. It was as though the doppelganger and I were trapped in a bubble, isolated.

You’re falling under her spell again,
whispered the voice in my head, and I shook it to clear it. I let go of the demon heart and instead tried to contact the Darkworld.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, trying to stall for time. “I don’t think I want to give up on being human.”

“But this way is so much more fun!” She gave her horrible, childlike laugh. “You were never truly human, were you? I told you, you can’t love…”

Distract her…

But if she was reading my mind…

Shadows flickered at the edges of my vision again, and this time, the Darkworld answered, its cold embrace like an old friend. One blink and the world was tinted, violet, leeched of all other colour.

I watched her through the demon’s eyes and felt my mouth curl into a smile. “You’re nothing,” I said, ice flowing to my fingertips. “Stay away from me.”

Another voice in the back of my head yelled at me to stop, but my hand was moving by itself. The doppelganger watched me, her violet eyes reflecting my own.

The attack was fast, sudden. Pain shot up both my arms, and I gasped. I would have fallen back, but my feet locked in place, and I couldn’t control them.

The doppelganger smiled. “I can break you, Ashlyn.”

“No!”

Fighting the pain, I summoned ice-fire. The coldness numbed me, and I let go, sending a blur of blue flame spiralling towards the doppelganger. She ducked, forced to throw herself flat on the ground to avoid it, and looked up at me, not smiling any longer.

The world was still violet. It hit me―she couldn’t attack me mentally with the demon in control. But I could attack her. I summoned another icy flame. This time, I’d win.

She shrieked, as though stricken by a sudden pain. “Stop it!”

For a second I thought I was the one doing it, somehow, but then it registered that the fighting behind me had stopped. Jude stood triumphant, the fortune-teller at his feet again. And Conrad was there, too. Darkness flowed from the giant demon heart Jude held in his hands, wrapping around Conrad like ropes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cyrus yelled. “You’re going to rip the Darkworld apart!”

Is that what’s happening?
The Darkworld hissed, shadows moving along the walls and floor, whirling in the air as though they possessed a mind of their own.

“A vampire is a conduit of energy,” said Jude, breathing heavily. “I can channel it into him―without a limit. A living vampire is even better than a dead one. Thank you for bringing him to me.”

Guilt rushed through me, thick and unforgiving, pushing the demon’s presence from my mind. My vision returned to normal, but the Darkworld remained, shadows writhing on the walls.

Conrad had followed me―or he’d thought he had. If he died…

“You―foolish boy.” The fortune-teller managed to raise her head. “You can’t handle that level of power. There’s no way of telling what will come through the hole you’ve made in the Barrier.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not channelling the energy through a dead man.”

Conrad let out a shrill scream as the ropes tightened. His face began to twist uncontrollably.

“Come on, vampire, access the power of the Darkworld. As a defender of humanity, I claim the power that should be mine. Lucifer, come!”

Darkness crackled through the room like black lightning, and the fortune-teller’s body stiffened, cocooned in the shadows spilling from the demon heart.

Then she looked up. A scream rose in my throat. There was something wrong with her eyes. They glowed, but not with the violet light of a demon, but a somehow luminous blackness. Like the Darkworld itself was looking through her.

Jude saw, too. “What… what in seven hells are you?”

“You should know.
” It was a demon’s voice, undoubtedly, but colder, more deadly, than any demon I had ever heard. At the mere sound of its voice I became aware of coldness as profound as Dante’s ninth circle of Hell, a place where no life could survive. It was the voice of the Darkworld.

“Lucifer?” Jude’s own voice sounded weak, uncertain, pitifully human by comparison. The presence that spoke through the fortune-teller laughed, and it was like a shower of icy rain.

“You should know that when you augment the power of the Darkworld, it attracts unwelcome attention. I am known as Belphegor, and I am a higher demon. And one of my progeny is where it doesn’t belong.”

The doppelganger screamed again.

“You have caused damage here, damage the others of the Seven may well take advantage of. You need not thank me for repairing it.”

There was a shudder, all around us, and the shreds of Darkworld began to move. I could see them knotting together.

“And now, the price.”

The air shuddered again. At the same time, the doppelganger froze on the spot, eyes wide open, and her body seemed to stiffen. A cry tore from her mouth, and she trembled. All around, the Skele-Ghouls dropped to the ground like stones. The presence lifted, and the Darkworld faded to nothing. Still screaming, the doppelganger fell to the ground. It didn’t look remotely human any more―a formless mass, like a clot of blackness, which faded to nothing.

Someone took my hand. Leo. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself into his arms right then. I was bone-tired and my head whirled, overwhelmed with it all. My vision blurred. The doppelganger was dead, gone, and nothing remained around us but bones and ashes.

The fortune-teller shouted out a warning. I turned to see someone run past, and the door slammed behind them.

“Hey!” Howard shouted. “Murdering bastard―”

“He’s gone, Howard,” said the fortune-teller. I realised she meant Jude.
The higher demon let him live?
He’d killed the doppelganger, but left the real monster alive. A dull pain tore at my heart. She’d been angry and alone. Part of a human-demon. Like me. I didn’t even know how to process that.

“Where’s…” Leo ran over to Mr Melmoth. “Gods… he’s still intact. We’ve got to re-bury him.”

“Yeah.” Cyrus looked pale. “I can’t believe Jude did that. I can’t believe he would… how anyone could…” He shook his head, and turned to the fortune-teller. “Are you okay? That demon didn’t harm you?”

The fortune-teller gave him a weak smile. “No. The higher demon merely used me to speak to him.”

“Yeah, man, how are you still alive?” said Howard, as polite as ever.

“The higher demons rarely interfere with humans,” said the fortune-teller. “This one intervened because of the damage Jude caused.”

“But why did he kill the doppelganger and not Jude?” I said.

“Aren’t you grateful?” Berenice gave me a shrewd look. “Unless you and the demon child were buddies?”

No. But she’d been drawn into this by accident.
That’s demonic justice for you.

I shook my head, too weary to argue. “Jude got away, is all.”

“He won’t come back,” said the fortune-teller. “We’re going to tell the Venantium exactly what he did.”

“And they’ll believe us?” I said, unable to keep the scepticism out of my voice. “They locked me up just because they thought I was the doppelganger.”

“I’ll deal with them, Ashlyn.”

And, absurdly, I trusted her. Despite everything I knew she hadn’t told us, I trusted her to get us out of this mess.

First, she had to re-bury Mr Melmoth. We were more or less directly beneath Crowley, so it was just a matter of finding the right room. I felt bad for the others who’d been dug up and used for Jude’s games, but we didn’t have the time to deal with that now.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Leo, as he stared at the headstone.
William Melmoth
.

Leo’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. “Don’t be. I’m glad you’re here.” I turned to face him. He gave me a smile, and despite my still-shaking limbs, despite the still-present cold pit of terror inside me, I smiled back.

“I second that,” I said.

lackstone looked so pristine, I had a hard time believing that the dead had walked the streets not an hour beforehand. That much could be said for the
venators’
skill in cleaning up after themselves. Only the occasional blackened bone kicked into a gutter gave away the unnatural nature of the attack. As for the people―well, judging by the sound of singing echoing from the Coach and Horses, things were well and truly back to normal.