Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) (18 page)

I found myself thinking almost wistfully about our conversations last week, before I’d found myself suspecting everyone. This was university, for crying out loud. Some people were open; others put on a front. Could I really judge people based on a few misleading observations? I tried to put it out of mind.

Before long the ascent steepened, almost vertically, and it was all I could do to keep on climbing, feet slipping on pebbles, muscles screaming. For several minutes, we walked through clouds so thick we could barely make out the path, having to wedge our feet into gaps between rocks we couldn’t see. I kept my eyes on the ground to make sure I didn’t slip, knowing the slightest mistake could send me plunging to my untimely death. Then the clouds thinned out, revealing an unrecognisable world.

Snow coated everything, snow deeper than any I’d ever seen, at least two feet, judging by the depth of the footprints in it. The scene was a winter wasteland, paper-white with stones jutting out like tombstones. It was strangely beautiful―and colder than cold. Even I began to shiver, forcing my numbing feet to keep walking. For the first time, I could understand how people died out here. The cold made me feel like giving up, lying down in the snow, and letting myself drift away.

But I heard our leader’s voice from above, muffled by the wind, shouting something about reaching the summit.

“Victory!” Alex crowed, leaping on top of a rock triumphantly. God only knew where her energy came from. My limbs pleaded with me to let them collapse. It was a struggle even to drag myself up the final stretch and collapse next to my friends.

We rested for a bit, watching the clouds drift around us. I’d wanted to get a photograph of the view but couldn’t see anything below the thick, white clouds. It was like we were suspended in an alien, rocky landscape in the sky. Sooner than I’d have liked, the leaders called for us to stand.

It got dark as we descended. This made it even harder to see the path downhill. I fell behind, not knowing who was behind or in front of me, not even knowing if I was still on the path, or if I’d unknowingly wandered away. I was totally alone.

And there was a dark space in front of me, gaping like an open wound.

I froze as I saw
something
crawl out of it. Something large.

The wind snatched away my scream as I half-fell down an incline, stumbling away from the colossal, black shape that fast approached, bearing down on me. Slavering jaws snapped inches from my head. I rolled over through the snow, sliding downhill, toward the jagged piece of Darkworld that someone had torn open right here, on the mountain.

How?
I thought, dazedly. My legs felt like dead weights, sinking deeper into the snowdrift. I remembered the dream where ice covered me all over, locking me in place. The creature towered over me, its slitted, red eyes and pointed, yellow teeth patches of colour on its dark form. A guttural voice echoed through my head.
Kill.

There was no time to question, not even to ask why. Where could I run? The darkening, white wilderness seemed to go on forever, and one wrong step could send me plummeting over the edge. I had no weapons of any kind, no way to defend myself. I couldn’t even conjure fire, the only way to kill a demon.

No. It’s not a dream this time.
I could still move. And I could fight it.

The idea filled me with a fierce will to survive, and, as the creature lunged at me, I reached out to the Darkworld with everything I had.

As I held out my hands to shield my face, the cold burned me like fire.
Fire.

The Darkworld answered my call, and I felt icy numbness pierce even deeper into my skin. I gasped as ice flowed from my fingertips like water, spreading across my palms. The beast crashed into my outstretched hands―and simply glanced off, as if encountering an invisible barrier.

My hands wore gloves of ice, rock hard, impenetrable ice. As I watched, astonished, the ice became something else, something fluid and transparent, like blue fire, burning cold and hot. Streams of icy fire flared from my palms, striking the creature squarely between the eyes.

The beast roared, shaking its head as if trying to dislodge something. Cracks began to appear in its shadowy form, spiderwebbing across its face. Its roar turned to a piteous whine, then it turned away from me and ran, back through the gap in the universe, leaving shards of darkness behind like flaking skin.

The world blurred before my eyes, and I drifted into a blackness as profound as the Darkworld itself.

“Ash! Ash!”

The world swam back into focus. I could see concerned faces peering down at me. The hiking leaders. Sarah and Alex.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I tried to open my mouth to reply, then let out an involuntary moan as my lips cracked.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, tasting blood.

Numbly, I managed to pull myself into a sitting position. I stared at my hands. My knuckles had split open, blood seeping through the cracks.

“Can you get up?”

I was so tired, my legs felt like dead weights, but I was unhurt. By sheer force of will, I managed to pull myself out of the snowdrift.

“You must be freezing.”

“Can you walk? There’s a blizzard forecast. We have to get down as fast as possible.”

I nodded mechanically, forcing my legs into motion. I barely heard the voices around me as I walked, stumbling on rocks. My brain seemed to have frozen along with my body.

It wasn’t until I was back in the minibus, absently clutching a blanket someone had given me, that I allowed the most pressing thought to enter my mind.
I won.

I’d beaten the shadow-beast. How, I wouldn’t think about. I’d save that for next week’s meeting. For now, I was just going to concentrate on the victory. After all, how many people could say they’d climbed the highest peak in England and defeated a giant shadow-creature in their first few weeks of university?

However, I couldn’t help noticing David was avoiding my eye. When the others had come back to me, David had been nowhere in sight. Had he known about the monster? Or was I overthinking things again?

Was I afraid to think he might have been involved?

The creature being there could hardly be coincidence. Who had summoned it?

eedless to say, I was less than attentive in lectures the two days before the next meeting. I was so distracted in Dr Payne’s droning lecture on Milton that it was fifteen minutes before I realised I hadn’t actually written any notes. David leaned over to ask me if I was all right.

“I’m fine,” I said, writing a quotation down at random.

“You seem a bit restless.”

“Just worrying about how much work I have to do!”

“Don’t stress yourself out too much; it’s only the second week.”

“Yeah, I’ll try not to.” I forced a smile.

I’d said pretty much the same to Cara when I’d last Skyped her―once she’d finished telling me about all the cute guys she’d met at uni. I already wished I hadn’t mentioned David to her; she insisted on coming up to visit and meet him on her next free weekend. Knowing Cara, she’d frighten him off with her overwhelming personality.

But, right now, David was the last thing on my mind, whatever Alex and Sarah seemed to think. They were convinced there was something going on between us, and nothing I said would deter them.At least they were none the wiser about where I’d spent Wednesday afternoon. How long I could keep them in the dark, I didn’t know, but I had no intention of alienating myself from my friends―or worse, putting them in danger.

I arrived at Wednesday’s meeting ten minutes early. When I pushed open the door to the Games Room, at first I thought there was no one there. Then I saw someone sitting on the sofa reading a book, a guy I didn’t recognise.

I stood there awkwardly, not knowing whether he was part of the group or not.

He looked up and saw me. “Hi, are you Ashlyn?”

“Yeah, I’m Ash.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cyrus, Leo’s brother.”

I saw the resemblance, even though Cyrus was sandy-haired and freckled, and at least a head taller than Leo.

“The others should be here soon,” he said.

At that moment the door opened and Howard barrelled in, followed by Leo and Berenice. Leo gave his brother an affectionate punch on the shoulder, which Cyrus returned in kind.

Howard switched on the Xbox without so much as acknowledging me. Berenice joined him, draping her arm around the back of his head and playing with a lock of his fair hair.

“Hey, Ash,” said Leo, who’d commandeered the sofa, sprawling across it. His T-shirt today depicted an ice cream in the shape of a human head with brains oozing out.

“Hi,” I said. “Nice shirt.”

“Cheers,” he said. “What’s the latest? You still being stalked by demons?”

Berenice snorted. Seeing that Leo was sprawled across the sofa, she perched on the edge of an armchair and began filing her nails.

“I got attacked by a shadow-creature on Saturday, actually,” I said.

“Seriously?” said Leo, sitting up.

“Seriously what?” said Claudia. She closed the door with a snap, which made me aware of the silence in the room. Everyone looked at me.

“Ash got attacked,” said Cyrus.

“How?”