Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (6 page)

A good thing for me, considering how many things I’d kept from them.

“A year,” said Sarah.

“Okay. Definitely tell him it’s not cool.” Alex perched on the edge of her seat, as though tempted to take Sarah’s phone and text him herself.

“Alex,” said Sarah. “It’s really fine. Besides, if I get this job, I won’t be free Sunday anyway.”

“Oh yeah, forgot about that,” said Alex. Yet another new development that had slipped my mind. “When’s the interview again?”

“Tomorrow at three.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Alex. “You’ll nail it.”

“Ugh.” Sarah shuddered. “I hate interviews. They’ll think I’m the least eloquent English student ever.”

“You should’ve seen me at my Oxford interview!” I said. “I talked about a book I hadn’t even read. Beat that for embarrassing.”

“Wait, there’s a book you
haven’t
read?” said Alex, raising an eyebrow.

“Ha ha,” I said.

I was well-practiced in feigning levity when I was around my friends, but the mention of that interview stirred other, equally unwelcome memories. Like what had happened after the interview, when I’d run through a dark space and everyone had thought I was crazy. The memory raised goose bumps on my arms and gave me the creeping feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. Habitually, I looked around, even though I knew it was in my own head.

Most students in the library were final-years, like Cyrus, finishing dissertations and projects, so the noise was at a low level. But I also detected the undercurrent of gossip that had pervaded campus since we’d returned a couple of weeks ago, concerning the two murders. Everyone who didn’t know the people in question whispered about whether it was a coincidence that they’d died within days of each other. No one, however, seemed to find it odd that only the local news had reported it. Copies of the paper were everywhere, even though within a week, speculation had slipped off the radar again, at least as far as the papers were concerned. The latest headline concerned another grave robbery in a nearby town called Filburn. Three bodies removed, graffiti left everywhere. A copy lay open on the table, and I couldn’t stop my gaze drifting onto it. An image of several graves dominated the cover, with words sprayed in neon across each stone,
The Ghouls were here!

Ghouls. I remembered a certain night in Redthorne in which Claudia and I had dragged a giant, shaggy shadow-beast out of Satan’s Pit, the student night club, and were then ambushed by a group of shadow-foxes and a couple of ghouls. Hideous as harpies, their heads looked like sunken human skulls and their bodies like deformed apes. I pushed the thought away. It was unlikely that these grave robberies had anything to do with the Darkworld.
Probably.

I returned to my Wordsworth notes, but before I could write a word, someone called my name. I looked up to see Claudia making frantic motions towards me from across the room. I went over to her, heedless of Alex and Sarah’s curious glances.

Claudia looked like she hadn’t slept either, and her usually glossy dark red hair was in disarray and her face bare of makeup.

“What’s up?” I asked. “What’s happened?”

“It’s…” She shook her head. “It’s awful. Have you seen a newspaper today?”

“I saw one on the table back there. There was something about grave robberies on the cover.”

“That was yesterday’s. Check this out,” she said grimly, and held up a crumpled copy of the
Blackstone Herald
. I glimpsed the headline,
Businessman Murdered in Blackstone
. Then my eyes focused on the photograph beneath it.

It was Mr Melmoth.

ow―?” As I spoke, I scanned the text, horror rising in my chest.

“This one’s more accurate. When I saw that headline I panicked and swiped this one from a couple of
venators.
” Claudia handed me another paper, a smaller one, printed on thick, stiff paper. I took it. This one was headlined,
FORMER INNER CIRCLE HEAD FOUND WITH THROAT TORN OUT.

My stomach turned over. It was a horrible enough image without associating it with someone I’d met only yesterday.

I read on:
“William Edward Melmoth, former leader of the Venantium’s Inner Circle, has been found murdered in Blackstone.

Mr Melmoth was discovered in the early hours of the morning of the 28
^th
January, in a field just outside the village. A known recluse, he has lived in the area for most of his life, and even after his retirement has been a trusted helper to the Venators’ cause despite his suffering from a debilitating condition. His brutal murder, almost a parody of the method of killing favoured by the creatures from which his condition takes its name, has shocked locals and Venators alike.

Having retired early, Mr Melmoth raised siblings Cyrus and Leo Blake, children of the current Inner Circle member―”

I stopped reading. “Leo,” I gasped. “Is he okay? I mean, he was
with
―”

Claudia shushed me. I’d forgotten we were in the library, and people were beginning to stare at us.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me after her.

Once we were on the front steps, she said, “Leo’s fine. Shaken up, of course, but he’s okay. Apparently he couldn’t reason with Melmoth, and once your spell wore off, he legged it. Leo went after him, but he’d disappeared into the village by then. He walked around all night looking for him, but he ran into a couple of
venators
and they told him… they told him they’d found the body. Then they took him in for questioning.”

“They what?” I said, my heart somersaulting. “They can’t think Leo killed him!”

“I don’t know what they think. But it’s bad for us, too.”

“Why?”

Claudia took a deep breath. “Don’t ask me how, but they know we were there last night, too. You and me. They want to question us.”

My chest tightened, as though a vice squeezed the air from my lungs.
It’s finally happening.

Ever since I’d learnt that I was one of the few people to have developed a connection to the Darkworld even though I had no relations within the Venantium, I’d come to regard them as an enemy, based mostly on my impressions from the others in the group. I’d even let Leo and Claudia put a shield over me so that if any
venator
cast a spell to find out whether I was a magic-user or not, it’d come up blank. Apart from that one trip into the library, in which I’d been attacked by the Venantium’s own harpies, I’d done everything I could to stay out of their way.

Now I was implicated in a murder case.

“Relax, Ash,” said Claudia, seeing the fear in my eyes. “We can get out of this. Honestly. We’ll bring in Madame Persephone. She’ll help us.”

“Fine.” My voice came out in a croak.

“But we’ll have to go now. They want to see us
today.
Five o’clock this evening.”

“You’re
joking
,” I said.

“I got a message from them this morning. Check your phone, you might have one, too.”

“They don’t have my number, do they?”

“Did David have it? They will if he did.
Venators
can’t hide anything from their superiors.”

“Shit.” There was indeed a message waiting for me. “Miss Temple. We request that you present yourself to us at 5 p.m. this evening for questioning. Your friend Miss Delaney will help you find our Headquarters. Good day.”

“Oh God.” I slid down the wall to the ground. “Oh God.” I was going to kill David. I’d known he was thinking of selling me out as a rogue magic-user, but I’d never have thought he’d give my number to his bosses.
Bastard.

“Panicking will only make it worse. If anything, Leo’s in deeper shit than either of us.”

“True.” I said, willing my heart to stop beating like it was trying to leap out of my chest.
Don’t panic.

But returning to my friends and getting on with my work was impossible, not now. I went to retrieve my books, muttered an excuse, and fled with Alex’s curious stare behind me.

I needed to speak to the fortune-teller. Maybe she could get me out of this.

I kept questioning Claudia all the way into town, more to stop my imagination from taking over than anything. Knowing what the Venantium thought of independent magic-users, I couldn’t help but envision interrogation chambers full of harpies and worse. The Venantium didn’t like to let magic-users out of their sight. Claudia’s parents had stopped working for them, but their daughter’s name had automatically been put on the register. The only reason mine hadn’t was because no one else in my family had ever had anything to do with them. In theory, a magic-user could go their whole life without ever coming into contact with the Venantium. If I hadn’t come to Blackstone, they wouldn’t have known about me unless I’d done something stupid like using magic in public.

Making a secret society of magic-users at university, even an ironic one, was a step against them in their book. The Venantium liked to think they ran the universe. In a way, I was more afraid of them than I was of demons, because I had no idea what they could do to me. That message was so impersonal, I could get no meaning out of it. The sender didn’t even leave a name.

I thought of the other message I’d got yesterday. Had that been from someone else David had given my number to?
A shadow has your face
read more like a prank sent to freak me out, but this…

We found the fortune-teller’s tent in its usual corner in the town square, hidden from anyone but us. “Madame Persephone,” as she called herself, opened her services to the public during the weekly market, but she wasn’t a real fortune-teller, merely one of the most perceptive people I’d ever met. It was a cover-up for her true identity as a freelance magic-user, dedicated to helping magic-users who were in trouble and didn’t necessarily want to have anything to do with the Venantium.

I just didn’t appreciate the way she’d pretended to be my aunt for years. Whenever I’d been in town, I’d stayed well away from the fortune-teller’s tent in case she ambushed me with some other unwelcome revelation. I couldn’t evade the problem forever, but right now life was complicated enough. It was typical that she was the only person who could help us now.

On the inside, the tent was set out like a standard fortune-teller’s, complete with charms, crystals, and incense candles. The woman behind the black-draped table was beautiful enough to spark envy in most women. Her silver-fair hair glowed faintly in the gloom, and her eyes were a startling blue-grey, somehow older-looking than the rest of her. There was something unearthly about her, like she wasn’t totally of this world. I had no idea how old she really was, but as she could change her own appearance, it was understandable she’d opt for a face that would make any other female hate her by default.

“Well, it’s been a while, Miss Temple.”

I shrugged, happy to let Claudia do the talking. My heart still beat erratically, and my hands shook.

“We need your help,” said Claudia.

“I thought as much. I saw Master Blake earlier, too.”

“Is he okay?” I said, forgetting that I wasn’t speaking to her. “Do the Venantium have him?”

“He’s been to identify the body, but they’ve scanned him and he came up clean. They know he’s innocent.”