Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (32 page)

“I’m not going down there again,” I said, firmly.

Leo checked his watch. “It’s four a.m. First train’s in an hour. D’you want to―” He paused. “Aren’t your friends still in that haunted house?”

I met his eyes, which glittered with amusement.

“So they are.”

“I happen to know a way in.”

The Venantium had cleared the damage in the tunnels, leaving them more or less exactly as they were. I guessed they did sometimes use magic for a useful cause after all. All the same, we hurried through them as fast as we could, and it was a relief to find the stone steps leading into the cellar of the old house.

I couldn’t hear voices as we climbed the stairs. I wondered if the Literature Society had had a restful night.

“C’mon.” Leo pushed the trapdoor upwards and peered out into the hall. He swiftly dropped it again. “They’re camped out in the hallway, would you believe it?” he said in a whisper.

“This is perfect,” I said.

I ran my fingers over the underside of the trapdoor, enough to make a distinct scratching sound. It took a couple of minutes, but I heard someone whisper, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” That was definitely Alex.

“That sound.”

“Probably a bat,” said Alex.

“It sounded like scratching,” said a guy’s voice. Rex.

Leo did a pretty convincing ghoul interpretation, accompanied by more scratching. I felt the hairs rise on my arms even though I knew it was only Leo.

Someone upstairs shrieked.

“There’s someone else in here!”

I shook all over with silent laughter as I whispered, in my best death-rattle voice, “Alex.”

Alex let out an ear-splitting scream. “Holy shit! It said my name!”

More scratching from Leo, who raked his fingernails over the trapdoor. I could hear people moving around above us.

“Where’s it coming from?”

“I think it’s in the walls,” Alex whimpered. “Shit.”

There were more noises, people running about. I held my breath, lifted the trapdoor, then slammed it, hard.

“It’s upstairs!” someone yelled, and there was a thunder of footsteps, the sound of several people falling over each other.

I looked at Leo, scarcely able to believe it. We had the perfect opening.

Once we were sure there was no one in the hall, we crept out of the cellar and made for the door. A tangle of sleeping bags lay sprawled in the hallway. Leo stepped over them and pushed open the front door.

“Leo, what are you doing?” I said, as he shut the door behind us. There was a click. “You locked them in?”

There was another crescendo of screams. Leo pulled me into the shadow of a tombstone.

“When’re you going to let them out?” I said. “This is taking it a bit far, isn’t it?”

“Idiots shouldn’t have come to a haunted house,” he said, and laughed.

“Seriously, though, let them out.” I gave him a stern look, even though I was still laughing.

“I will in a minute. Wouldn’t want you to turn your icy powers on
me
next.”

“You make me sound like the witch-queen from
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
.”

“Is that your secret identity?”

“Nah. I’m actually the Grim Reaper.”

“That explains the scythe. So, what d’you want to do for our first date?”

I flushed, a pleased shiver running through me.

“Something normal,” I said.

We stood hand in hand, watching the sun rise over Crowley, leaving a golden trail across the horizon. Blackstone was safe again now, and the dark tunnels beneath were as harmless as the memory of a nightmare.

It was only then that I realised: my hand, the one that held Leo’s, was
warm.
Not ice-cold, as it had been for over a year. When had that happened? Was it when the doppelganger died?

I’d worry about that later. For now, I smiled as I snuggled against Leo, taking comfort from warmth I could finally feel again.

Emma Adams
spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy and paranormal for young adults.

She was born in Birmingham, UK, which she fled at the first opportunity to study English Literature at Lancaster University. In her three years at Lancaster, she hiked up mountains, skydived in Australia, and endured a traumatic episode involving a swarm of bees in the Costa Rican jungle. She also wrote various novels and short stories. These included her first publication, a rather bleak dystopian piece, and a disturbing story about a homicidal duck (which she hopes will never see the light of day).

Now a reluctant graduate, she can usually be found in front of her writing desk, creating weird and wonderful alternative worlds. Her debut novel
The Puppet Spell
, published in January 2013 by Rowanvale Books, is a fantasy tale for young adults and the young at heart, featuring disappearing uncles, invisibility potions and chimeras.

Emma also writes dark and creepy supernatural novels for older teens and adults. Her next book,
Darkness Watching
, is the first in the upper-YA/New Adult
Darkworld
series, and was published in October 2013 by Curiosity Quills Press.

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