Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (27 page)

I thought the person who stole his guitar while he sat at the bar in a total stupor might have taken it a step too far, though.

“Better for the guitar’s sake,” said Alex. “Oh shit, he’s looking this way. Don’t come near us.”

“Poor guy,” Rex commented.

“This has been going on for ages,” said Alex. “Six months, at least. Hell, how have we been here that long? It feels like only yesterday when we moved into our flat.”

“Time flies,” Sarah commented.

“Hope the next two years don’t,” said Alex. “Crap. It’s only two weeks till Easter, and then exam season starts. I still gotta tell my parents when to pick me up.”

“Me too,” said Sarah. “We’re going to Paris over the holidays, so I’ll be going home a day early.”

“Paris? Nice. Yeah, I guess I’ll be getting picked up same day as you.”

I rubbed my forehead, frowning. That strange headache had sprung up again. I ought to be thinking about going home for the holidays, too, but something felt… off, every time I tried to think about it. I stared into my glass of cider, puzzled.

“Yo, Ash,” said a voice. Oh God. Pete.

“Yeah?” I said.

“You’re glowing.”

What?
“Um, okay? I’m taking that as a compliment.”

Sarah and Alex giggled uncontrollably.

“Seriously, man. You should get that checked out. You have two shadows.”

“Uh…” I turned to look at him. His eyes were way out of focus, but any mention of
shadows
always made me wary.

“Yeah, man.” He stepped forward but misjudged the distance and fell on his face. In the uproar, I twisted, trying to see my shadow, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Strange. Was
Pete
of all people sensitive to the Darkworld? What did it mean?

It doesn’t matter, anyway
. I turned my thoughts back to the present. And Leo.

The next morning, I woke far earlier than I’d have liked to my phone buzzing.

Next to me, Leo groaned. “What’s that?”

“The Venantium,” I said. “Crap.” I should have known. They were aware we’d been about that night, and although I didn’t think we’d been seen in the tunnels, I still worried. Surely if they knew we’d set the fortune-teller free, they’d have already contacted us. Unless they’d been busy cleaning up after Jude.

It turned out the Venantium wanted me to come for questioning that evening about the events on Saturday night. I should have known; of course they were aware we’d been in Blackstone when the fortune-teller broke out of Headquarters. Nothing escaped their notice.

“Should we just tell them she just appeared, killed Jude, and vanished?” I said to Claudia as we walked down the country road into town. “They’d get suspicious if we mentioned she’d stayed any longer and talked to us.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s the best way to go,” said Leo. “They’ll probably suspect we helped her escape anyway, but at least we’ll be telling the truth.”

The sun had begun to set, and golden light gilded the rooftops of Blackstone; even the cathedral appeared to wear a bright halo. Blossom littered the path, suggesting that spring was finally on the way. Crocuses peeked through the soil and buds had sprung up along the tree branches. The cemetery, however, looked as gloomy as ever, shadowed by the enormous cathedral.

Even Berenice agreed that we ought to keep the fortune-teller’s secret away from the Venantium’s ears.

“Duh,” she said, as we jumped over the fence to the graveyard. “I’m not getting locked up because of
her
lunatic theories.” She gave me a malicious glance. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t quite convinced her yet―but who gave a crap what Berenice thought?

Because the tunnels had been blocked off while the
venators
conducted an extensive search, Dr. Philips and another
venator
questioned us in a small room off the hallway. The Venantium seemed to have given up on using trickery and even the Angel Box. Even Dr. Philips looked unusually subdued, as though they’d lost more than an escaped prisoner, and had seen defeat rather than Jude’s death. Apparently they’d been combing the coastline to find his body, but with no luck.

It seemed natural for them to accept that the fortune-teller had just pulled another disappearing act; it was what she did, and no one had seen us in the tunnels. It didn’t take too long even though the two questioners insisted on talking to us one at a time. In less than an hour, we sat in the Coach and Horses.

Howard latched on to the idea that the Venantium had been trying to get us to contradict each other deliberately.

“It’s what investigators do, Howard,” said Claudia.

“Yeah, well, I don’t work for them. I shouldn’t be obliged to keep answering their questions.”

“I know, but it’s the best way to get them to leave us alone,” said Cyrus. “Personally, I can’t wait to get away from here. They can’t harass me if I’m in the middle of the jungle.”

“Aren’t there other branches of the Venantium abroad?” I said.

“Course,” said Leo, “but they don’t exactly keep tabs on travelling sorcerers. Ours are more paranoid than most because the Demon Wars started right on their doorstep.”

“When were the Venantium actually formed, anyway?” I said, realising I’d never asked this particular question before.

“Sixteenth century,” said Cyrus. “They were in London originally. There was a mass demon outbreak back then that they managed to pass off as part of the plague. A sorcerer tried a major experiment that went wrong, and some others banded together to prevent it from happening again. There have always been barriers ever since the first sorcerers, but the first
venators
collectively created one strong enough to completely block demons from our world indefinitely.”

“That’s why they don’t actually need to be there to maintain the Barrier,” said Leo. “It’s automatic.”

“Which is why it’s so obvious that they’re only there for the power and making trouble for the people who don’t follow their rules,” said Howard, to no one’s surprise.

“Yeah. And to claim all magical knowledge as their own,” said Leo. “Personally I’m in favour of a blatant raid on their library. The way they are now, they probably wouldn’t even try to stop us.”

“What for?” I said.

“I dunno. Books on magic? They like to make out that it’s all evil and demon-related, but I’ll bet there are things they just don’t want us to find because they’re scared we’ll use it against them.”

“You know what happened to Doctor Faustus when he went after forbidden knowledge,” I said, but he had a point. There must be more to magic than using it to fight against demons.

“I looked in a bunch of books last year,” said Howard. “Mostly boring theory crap.”

“Exactly,” said Berenice. She and Howard sat next to each other, as if they’d never argued. Perhaps she had finally talked to him. “It’s not worth it. You’d be stupid to break in again.”

“The
venators
are lost without Madame Persephone. They aren’t exactly at full power,” said Leo.

“Is now really the time to be taking unnecessary risks?” said Cyrus.

“They’ve gotten more lax recently about people using magic without their permission,” said Leo.

“Whatever,” said Berenice. “I’m not being a part of this. Just because you want to walk on water like Jude did.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind, but good idea,” said Leo. “What’s wrong with a bit of experimentation with the laws of physics?”

“I think that was the demon, though,” said Cyrus. “Any sorcerer could probably figure out how to do it if it was easy, and I don’t think the Venantium could cover up every minor use of magic.”

“I imagine they probably don’t,” said Leo. “Not if the user’s in Antarctica or something. Hmm.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” said Cyrus.

But underneath the joking, I detected an undercurrent of unease. Like it hadn’t quite sunk in for all of us that Jude was really dead, that the demon had gone. That tension still lingered.

Still, tonight belonged to us. We’d fended off the
venators’
questions, and with the demon gone, life had returned to the way it had been before all the trouble―well, before Jude, the doppelganger, and the Skele-Ghouls, anyway. Barring the fortune-teller’s absence, of course. But I no longer felt the burning need to question her. She’d told me more than I’d ever expected to know, and I still wasn’t totally sure what to think. I didn’t blame her for her mistakes, but at the same time, I was glad not to be in her position―whatever connection she seemed to think we had.

She might never be free of her guilt, but maybe talking to me had helped. I didn’t know. It was the one blot on the otherwise perfect days that followed the questioning. Without constant drama and nighttime excursions, I managed to get back on track with all my reading, even though Leo reminded me that I didn’t need to get so stressed at the prospect of exams coming in a couple of months’ time, because we only needed a passing grade to get into our second year.

If I hadn’t been a workaholic, I might have given in to the temptation to spend even more time playing on the Wii and watching films than I already did. But there were other things to keep me busy, from working on articles for the student newspaper, going out with my friends, and the weekly meeting in the Games Room. Not that anyone had anything to contribute other than tired arguments about the fortune-teller and whether she was telling the truth or not.

In hindsight I’d look back and berate myself for not seeing what was coming―even though even later on I couldn’t deny that this was the happiest I’d been at university, the happiest I’d been in years, even. The phrase “too good to be true” came to mind several times, along with the sense that there was something slightly off, something major I’d overlooked. It wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar feeling with me, but on occasion I’d have the overwhelming feeling that somehow, somewhere, there was something horribly, fundamentally wrong.

Later, I’d reflect that perhaps another person might try to salvage something from the situation and say they were lucky to get those few weeks of relative calmness before it all kicked off and everything fell to pieces. But in the end, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made a different choice, or been more observant, I could have done something to prevent it. The fortune-teller was dead right when she said that hindsight was a bitch.

lake spread out before me, a rippling carpet of pure blue. My reflection stared at me, clear as though I looked into a polished mirror. I wore an elegant black dress unlike any I owned in real life. It reminded me of the one Melivia Blackstone wore in the portrait that had hung on her wall. My demon heart amethyst pendant hung around my throat.