Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (32 page)

I was aware that I played for time, but I’d never felt so helpless as I did right then, knowing that the slightest whim on the part of the demon would mean Leo’s instant death. I remembered Terrence, dying without as much as a whisper, his life snatched away by the creature that possessed him. I remembered Jude, sinking into the ocean. I remembered the anonymous woman, falling from the sky.

I couldn’t let that happen to Leo.

I wouldn’t let it happen.

“Pathetic, human-demon,” said Mephistopheles. “You assume I would fall for such a feeble deception? Immune to possession you may be, but your human ties are your weakness. Let them go.”

I shook my head. “No…”

“Lucifer is impatient. So am I, come to that. Your stubbornness does you no credit, and certainly will not help you when he returns. Give me your heart, demon, or he dies.”

Slowly, watching Mephistopheles’s flickering eyes, I reached to the pendant around my neck. It seared my skin, as if guessing what I planned to do.

I didn’t care what happened to me. Leo was the one person I couldn’t afford to lose. The fortune-teller might have broken my life from the inside out, but the truth was, she hadn’t taken everything from me. My friends were still there. And so was Leo. If I lost him…

“Predictable,” Mephistopheles crooned, and I hated him for using Leo’s mouth to speak. I hated him for invading my boyfriend’s mind. The hatred felt like something living inside me, a beast lurking under the surface.

When my hand moved to lift the pendant over my head, the anger froze my arm.

You’ll never take me,
said a voice. My voice, but not mine.
Not again.

I tried to move my arm, but it was locked in place.

“Feeling a little conflicted?” said Mephistopheles. “I meant what I said. Demons don’t lie.”

Move!
I told my arm, like I battled sleep paralysis again.

Don’t be an idiot, Ashlyn. I’m trying to save your life.

And my body moved by itself, ice fire spinning into life in my palm.

No!

Leo moved out the way of the fire just in time―like Mephistopheles wanted to see how far he could push me. I stared, horrified, at my own hand. The demon inside me wanted to kill Mephistopheles―even at the cost of Leo’s life.

Stop that!

You don’t know anything, Ashlyn. This demon must die.

I know that! But Leo has nothing to do with it.

He’s as good as dead.

I shook my head fiercely.
Shut up.

“I’m getting bored, Ashlyn,” said Mephistopheles. “How about I give you an incentive?”

Fire flared from his hands.

“Interesting. This one has particular skills with pyromancy. Even I don’t burn! Imagine, a demon impervious to fire. This has to be a first. Perhaps I won’t let him go so easily, after all.”

He took a step closer to me. “Hmm.”

The Darkworld moved around me, tendrils locking around my body from behind like a straitjacket. I couldn’t move―could only look into Leo’s empty eyes as he summoned fire and touched my forehead.

I screamed. The pain tore me in two; I was simultaneously there, writhing in the grip of the Darkworld, and above, floating in a haze of pain. My vision flashed purple, then black. I flickered in and out of consciousness as the pain branded me like a searing-hot iron.

Then it stopped. The Darkworld let me go, and I fell to the ground, limp and shaking.

“Wasn’t that fun, Ashlyn? Do you want to go through that again?”

“Never.”
Something moved my legs to stand up. “
You won’t kill me, demon.”

Coldness seeped through me, and I felt ice form on my hands, by itself. It became liquid, still clinging to my palms, and coalesced into the form of two daggers.

“I’ll kill
you
, Ashlyn, you and your demon both.”

No!
I shouted at the voice, but my body was moving by itself, raising the twin daggers.

“Rather showy,” Mephistopheles remarked, and summoned fire again. This time it danced around him, forming a sword of flickering flame. He smiled, and fear gripped my heart to see Leo’s face distorted with malice. “You want to do battle, human-demon?”

“Stop!” I shouted, as my hands moved and ice met fire in a clash that jarred the Darkworld itself.

y hands burned. I screamed at the demon inside me to stop, not to attack―I couldn’t risk hurting Leo. But the rational side of me told me I had to kill Mephistopheles, and this was the only way.

The voices warred within my head, but as the flaming sword forced me to step back, again and again, I realised that I’d be lucky to escape with my own life.

My feet hit something solid, and I stumbled back. I’d almost forgotten that we stood on the bridge over the canal, and I’d narrowly avoided stepping into empty air. The demon seemed to realise the same thing.

“Reached your limit, Ashlyn?” said Mephistopheles.

The demon took control again, and the Darkworld responded. The two daggers melded, forming a long sword equal to the one Leo held. Icy flames danced along it.

It was all I could do to keep out of reach of the other flames. I felt them burning my hands, and if it hadn’t been for the magic of the Darkworld binding my palms to the sword, I’d probably have dropped it.

This has to end.

I couldn’t even tell whose thought I heard, mine or the demon’s. But I felt my connection to the Darkworld surge upright like a torrent of pure coldness, engulfing me inside and out. I could no longer feel the pain in my arm, the exhaustion, even the heat from the fire. Desperation pushed me forwards.

Leo moved without warning, and the ice-sword flew out of my hand. I jumped back as the fire grazed my skin―and suddenly there was no ground beneath my feet, and I was falling.

Too stunned even to scream, I fell toward the abyss. I felt everything move in slow motion and reached out to the Darkworld just in time to reconnect with the ice-sword. Coldness pierced me, and ice solidified on my skin, cocooning me, as the water rushed at me like a black tunnel.

But I never slammed into the water. My outstretched hands brushed the surface, and it froze at my touch; I barely had the chance to feel a modicum of surprise before I was skidding across the canal, which had turned into a sheet of ice, smooth as polished glass.

Holy shit.

Even as I watched, the ice continued to spread across the surface.

“Wow, Ashlyn,” Mephistopheles called from the bridge. “I’d never have expected the human part of you to show such resourcefulness.”

He moved in a blur, and then Leo stood on the ice, a couple of metres away. His violet eyes shone against the dark backdrop of the city.

“A very nice idea, Ashlyn. It’s too bad that I’m the man on fire.”

My heart twisted at Leo’s own words spoken in the monotone of a demon.

And a spark shot down his outstretched hand, curled into a flame. The canal beneath his feet hissed as the ice melted, leaving two foot-shaped holes.

“Isn’t this fun?”

Leo ran at me, outlined in flame. I snapped back to my senses and backed away, feet skidding on the ice, but I couldn’t outrun a demon, let alone on a frozen canal. He tackled me and threw me to the ground, and I screamed as I landed on my injured arm.

“Does it hurt, Ashlyn?”

He pulled my head forward, then slammed it into the ice. Stars winked before my eyes.

“Leo,” I choked, desperate. “Fight him… please…”

“No human can fight a demon, little fledgling. You should know that.”

He slammed my head again, and this time, my vision flashed to violet.

“There you are.”

Through the haze I saw his hands blazing. His face was twisted in an expression of cruelty.

He really does mean to kill me.

“Only one way out, demon,” he whispered. “Will you give up?”

My demon side already had its answer, and this time, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop it. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if to deny there was something else controlling me.

“Ash!” yelled a voice.

I turned my head, still fighting for control over my own body.

Claudia stood on the bridge, looking down at us. “Leo! What’re you doing!”

Leo turned to face her, and she gasped.

“No!”

While he had his face turned away, I scrambled to my feet. The back of my head throbbed and my ears rang, but I slid away across the ice. I half skidded, half fell onto the bank, and pushing the pain to a dark corner of my mind, struck out for the bridge where Claudia stood.

Of course, I should have known I wouldn’t get away that easily. Leo appeared in front of me before I could take a step onto the bridge.

“Going to run like a coward? How about I stop your boyfriend’s heart?”

“Get away from him, you bastard,” I said.

“I’m having rather too much fun to leave now,” said Mephistopheles. “Your human entanglements amuse me. I wonder…”

He paused. I tensed as he reached out a hand and gently stroked my face. I cringed, expecting pain―but it didn’t come.

“How did that feel?”

“What?”

“You get the same physical response as you would if he were himself, do you not? He’s still
here.
Even if he were dead, your emotions would still be there. You’d still feel… attraction, wouldn’t you?”

I realised what he meant, and the implication sank into me like a stone. “I’d never be attracted to you,” I said. “Never.”

“Does your heartbeat speed up when I do this?”

He reached out to stroke my face again, and I punched him on the jaw.

It
hurt.
I’d never hit anyone before, and the
snap
as my fist connected with his face jolted through my entire body. Even though I’d used my uninjured hand, it throbbed at the impact, and even the demon looked momentarily startled.

Mephistopheles laughed. “Well, now, I didn’t expect that.”

“Get away from him, demon!” Claudia had crossed the bridge to stand beside me. She regarded him with a mixture of pity and revulsion.

“I have no interest in you,” said Mephistopheles. “I want the human-demon.”

“You can’t have me.”

“You’re willing to risk his life?”

No.
I wasn’t, and I knew he could read it on my face. There wasn’t any way I could win this.

The Darkworld shifted around us, and a strong breeze swept past me. Leo’s expression turned to one of surprise.

“You again?” he said.

The fortune-teller stood behind him as if she’d dropped down from the sky, and she held two threads of darkness in each hand.

“What―” Claudia gaped at her.

The fortune-teller moved so fast she appeared blurred―one second Mephistopheles stared at her, horror etched on Leo’s face―

And the next, she’d seized his demon heart.

The demon screamed, a horrible, piercing cry that turned my blood to water. I swayed on the spot, my eyes fixed on Leo’s face, which was distorted in pain―then went blank. The violet lights winked out, and he fell backwards.

I dropped to my knees.

He was dead.

I clutched the ground, as if compelled to grab on to something solid.
No…