Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (31 page)

For them, at least. I couldn’t say as much for us.

If the fortune-teller hadn’t been there, we’d have been in a world of trouble―especially me. But somehow she managed to convince them that I had been falsely accused. She subjected herself to testing so they could see if she was truthful, and it was impossible to deny the evidence. One of their own had betrayed them, and after that, it hardly mattered whether I was guilty of misusing magic or not. Once they had several witnesses’ testimony that there had indeed been a doppelganger wearing my face, that seemed good enough evidence to drop the accusations. It was obvious from the magic tests that I’d not done any of the things the doppelganger had been seen doing, and Mr Melmoth’s journal accounting his hunt of the Death Child was considered undeniable proof that there was indeed someone else.

So they let me go.

At least the Inner Circle didn’t get involved; they were too busy reinforcing the barriers and flushing every rogue spirit out of Blackstone. In the end, it was the fortune-teller who convinced them―through what means, I didn’t know―that I’d killed the doppelganger and helped defeat the necromancer. She was a miracle, that woman. I couldn’t thank her enough for saving us, even if she did scare me a little. More than a little.

But I wasn’t off the hook yet. Berenice took me aside whilst the others were still being questioned. Her own questioning had been over the quickest since she had the least history with the Venantium, and she hung about in the corridor when I came out of the interrogation room. She beckoned me into an alcove and I followed warily. After everything that happened, I doubted I’d ever feel comfortable in those tunnels again.

“I know,” she said.

“Huh?” I said, rubbing my eyes―the Angel Box’s glare was still imprinted on them.

“I’m not thick,
Ashlyn.
You’re part demon, like her, aren’t you?”

She would have seen the answer on my face even if I’d lied. “Yeah. I am.”

“I thought so.”

I waited for her to say she’d tell the others, even tell the Venantium―it hadn’t registered on the tests they’d done on me, in the end. The demon in me hid herself well. But the thought of the others―especially Leo―knowing still made me recoil.

However, to my surprise, she said, “I won’t tell them. The Venantium are suspicious enough without having something else to hold against us.”

I should have figured she’d have a selfish motive. But at this point, I was so relieved she didn’t intend to tell the others that I didn’t care.

“Is that why she went after you?”

I nodded. I felt slightly misguided; I don’t think we’d ever had a conversation before where she hadn’t made some uncalled-for sharp comment. She’d never given me the chance to be friendly.

“Honestly, it was all her doing,” I told her. “I never hurt anyone.”

“I know. You’re too much of a wimp. But if you turn on us, don’t expect any mercy from me.”

Figures.

I just nodded again. I wasn’t in the mood to argue the point. I felt battered all over, mentally and physically exhausted.

“So,” she said, giving me a piercing look.

“So what?” I said.

“You and Leo,” she said. “Like I never saw
that
coming.”

I didn’t say anything. This wasn’t exactly something I wanted to discuss with Berenice, of all people.

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. If he gets hurt, Howard will never forgive you.”

So that was it. Howard.

“Why aren’t you two going out?” I said. “You obviously like him. He likes you―”

“None of your business,” she said haughtily. That figured, too.
Some people never change.

We paused for a minute, listening to the bustle of people moving around the tunnels. I saw Dr Philips walk past and was glad that she hadn’t been involved in my interrogations this time around. Berenice fiddled with her hair; even her salon-perfect curls had acquired a light coating of dust from the time we’d spent down here.

“If you ask me, this is only the beginning,” she said. “The message to the Venantium was pretty clear. The demons want revenge. They want to break the Barrier.”

I’d never considered that before. “I thought the demons were acting on orders from Jude. And he only summoned them to use their power.”

“Yeah, but they
wanted
access to our world. I don’t think so many have gotten through since the Demon Wars. And now they know they can feed on the magic of
dead
sorcerers…”

“I don’t get that,” I said. “I thought magic was a part of the Darkworld.”

“Once you’re a magic-user, the connection never really fades away. It’s part of us, living or not. And the demons know it. This is who we are.”

She seemed to echo the sentiment of the fortune-teller.

Once we’d all been questioned and were finally on the surface again, I managed to corner the sorceress before she disappeared. I finally told her the full story of the doppelganger―how she’d been just like me once. I hadn’t even told Leo that. It seemed too personal, and it still numbed me to the core that the higher demon had taken the spirit’s life without a thought.

“Why?” I said. “Why did he do that? Is it because she’s dangerous? Doesn’t that make me the same? I don’t know what I can do. I could… hurt people…” Like the doppelganger. What would have happened if the higher demon hadn’t interrupted the fight at that exact moment? Would the demon inside me―who, I was starting to think, was a being apart from me―have killed her?

To my shock, the fortune-teller embraced me. Although she seemed to have let down her barriers considerably, she’d never used such an intimate gesture―even as Aunt Eve, as far as I remembered. I didn’t know how to react.

“It’s your own will that governs your actions. Remember that. The doppelganger was a creature of hatred; that is what sustained her, kept her demon side alive when she should have been dead. You aren’t like her. You will never be like her.”

“But… I kept dreaming,” I said. “I dreamt that I hurt people, that I was turning into a monster. And whenever the doppelganger, was around, my vision would turn into a demon’s. I had no control over it.”

“Didn’t you?”

I shook my head.

“It was her,” she said. “She had a hold over you. Even here, your mind was open to the Darkworld, and once she crept past the Barrier, she was able to beguile and confuse you.”

“Bad dreams,” I said. “Even the sleep paralysis… was that her, too?”

I felt like an idiot for not telling her from the start. Every dream last term, even the one that finally revealed what I really was… had she been the cause?

“They used to say nightmares were caused by evil spirits.
Nightmare
, or the German
alpdrucken,
originally referred to a creature which would sit on your chest when you slept, preventing you from moving.”

I shuddered. “Is it the demons?”

“I would say it is. Demons can read the deepest fears in our hearts, and your… position makes you especially vulnerable.”

“She told me that I couldn’t love, that I’d never be loved.”

“Ridiculous. You are far more human than that Jude, for one. Much more so than your flatmate, Terrence, even though he was biologically human through and through. Some people fail to grasp the essence of humanity. It means nothing that you have demonic lineage. In you, the human won out.”

‘‘Did you know?” I said. “Before? That she was like me?”

She shook her head. “No human-demons have been around for twenty years at least. I didn’t know about the girl. If I had, I could have saved her.” She sighed, that pensive expression crossing her face again. “So many I could have saved…”

“What was there… I mean, he said you… and Lucifer…” I couldn’t seem to string a coherent sentence together to ask what I wanted to. It sounded too personal, and judging by the fortune-teller’s reaction, too painful. As I expected, she shook her head.

“Lucifer and I… I am not the first, nor shall I be the last, to fall for the promises of a demon. When I learned what he was… it formed an irrecoverable bond between us. That’s how I managed to channel the Darkworld and speak to Belphegor. My gifts are quite exceptional, however much they might cost me.” Her eyes were dark.

I’d never seen her so vulnerable until recently. Her weakness before the necromancer had scared me more than he had, more even than the appearance of the higher demon. But of course, I should have expected her to have a limit. She was only human.

“Ash, that is how I came to possess your demon heart.”

“Huh?”

“Lucifer, chief of the higher demons, entrusted it to me. It was he who told me to watch over you.”

“But why would he do that?” I said. “Unless…”

“Yes.” She nodded, as if she’d read my thoughts. “I expect it must be so.”

Lucifer was my ancestor. The thought had little impact; I was too worn out with fear already.

“The others? Do they know?”

“You mean the Six? I do not know. They rarely interest themselves in the affairs of humans. Except Asmodeus. They call him the demon of lust, and his reputation is not without reason.”

I grimaced. I got that higher demons could take on human form, but the idea of doing
that
with one baffled me.

The fortune-teller’s next words turned my thoughts away from demon fornicating. “This isn’t over.”

“What isn’t?” Jude was gone, and the barriers around Blackstone restored, more securely than ever. It was once again a demon-free haven.

“The battle. Jude almost succeeded in contacting Lucifer―the false Lucifer. He styled himself as the greatest human sorcerer, and he alone managed to infiltrate the Darkworld. They say he haunts it like a ghost would haunt our world, never quite there, never quite here. The higher demons have long since done as they pleased, but if this sorcerer appears to tip the balance… I dread to think of the consequences.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “This Lucifer―he’s human? I thought that was one of the higher demons.”

“The sorcerer took the name of Lucifer when he cast his own aside, but he was human once. In a manner of speaking, he still is. There are dangers involved with abandoning oneself to the Darkworld. In the Darkworld, time has no meaning; one can spend a hundred years there and not die. But there’s a price, the loss of your human body. If you return you must possess another―very much like a demon would. Lucifer alone knows how to navigate the Darkworld, and I fear he may be coming back.”

“Don’t the Venantium know?”

“It is what they’ve been preparing for. And it isn’t something we’re ready to face.” She sighed. “In any case, we should not trouble ourselves with that tonight. We have stopped a great evil and prevented many deaths.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “The Vampire’s Curse. Is there really no cure? Because Mr Melmoth seemed to be working on something.”

The fortune-teller sighed. “He worked on the cure for years, but had no results. He fought against it, but succumbed again and again… until it was too late.”

That seemed enough of an explanation for Cyrus, at least, but Leo told me outright that he didn’t entirely buy into the fortune-teller’s explanation of events.

“That woman’s not telling us something,” he said, as we watched the fortune-teller leave, after thanking her, once again, for her help.

“That’s nothing new,” I said. “I think she likes being an enigma.”

“Well, yeah… still, I don’t completely trust her.”

I hadn’t trusted her since she’d admitted she’d disguised herself as my aunt for years, but the slight insight I’d had into what happened to make her the way she was made me feel a little sorry for her. She seemed to know of dark things the rest of us could only see the surface of, and I would have been more troubled by her words if I hadn’t long since worn out my worry quota for that day.

At that moment, a
venator
appeared to call Leo back down into the tunnels. I made to follow him, but someone grabbed my arm. Conrad.

“Hey, Ash,” he said.

“Conrad,” I said, tensing.

“Look, I’m sorry about everything,” he said. “You know the doppelganger actually told me to stay away? But I followed her anyway, and look what happened.” He hung his head.

“Sorry,” I said, awkwardly. “Sorry she toyed with you like that.”
She was lonely,
I thought. She might have killed Mr Priestley―and possibly other
venators
too, I hadn’t asked―but she was just a young girl, lost.

“Anyway, I hoped we could be friends, but you guys run into too much trouble. I think it’s probably best if I stay away.”

“Good call,” said Cyrus, before Berenice or one of the others could say something more cutting.

I sighed when he walked away.
Thank God that’s over with.
Running to catch up with Leo, I found myself face-to-face with Dr Philips.

“Ashlyn,” she said, face poker-straight as usual.

I said nothing. Surely she couldn’t find another excuse to lock me away?

“I wanted to apologise, Ashlyn, for the way you were treated earlier. Please understand that we do what we do for the good of everyone, sorcerer or otherwise. We must protect everyone from demons, or else our world will fall to darkness.”

Well, that’s intense.

She waited for me to speak. I swallowed. “Um, I understand,” I said.

She gave me a brief nod, then left.

Shaking all over, I hurried to the interrogation room to find Leo already leaving.

“They want to search the house again,” he explained. “I’m going with them.”

He’d stuck by me throughout the entire interrogation, even when it put him under even more suspicion, so I made up my mind. “I’ll come, too,” I said.

Even though it meant walking through the tunnels to Crowley once more, it was worth it to hold his hand and feel tingles up and down my arms. I marvelled at how swiftly fear could be replaced by hope, shadows by comfort.

The
venators
clearly wanted to go home as much as we did; they spent barely five minutes combing the house. After the search, we found ourselves faced with walking back from Crowley above or underground.