Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (33 page)

The fortune-teller was at my side. “Ashlyn. He’s alive.”

I raised my tear-streaked face and met Leo’s ordinary, grey-blue eyes. A sob choked me. I couldn’t speak, but flung myself at him.

He held me by instinct, staring as though seeing the world for the first time.

“I’ll take the demon heart,” said the fortune-teller. “He won’t dare try to possess
me
… I should have foreseen this. He must have manipulated someone into retrieving the heart from the ocean―that, or he had another helper. It doesn’t bode well.” She sighed. “The Venantium will doubtless be here shortly, but the ghouls will bother you no more. You should go.”

I heard her speak, but cared for nothing other than the certainty that Leo was really here, that he was alive, that he’d survived possession.

I saw her nod at Claudia, then disappear into the night.

“Ash, your arm’s really swollen,” said Claudia. “I think you need to get it looked at.”

All the injuries of the past few hours seemed to crash down on me then. My head throbbed from where it had struck the ice, and my wrist looked twice its normal size.

“Good idea,” I said vaguely, and more or less passed out there and then. Good job Leo was there to catch me.

I came to a moment later. He held me, but his face was still blank. Maybe he was in shock.

“Leo?” I said, tilting my head to look at him.

“Ash,” he said. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t you, Leo,” I said. “It was the demon.”

“I saw myself hurt you.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t control my own body―it was like being trapped behind a wall.”

“I hurt you, too,” I said, and then I was crying again. “The demon inside me wanted to kill you. It didn’t care if you got hurt. It just wanted to kill Mephistopheles. I could hardly fight it―if the fortune-teller hadn’t come―”

Why had she saved us again? It was always her. I couldn’t hate her, not now that she’d saved one of the few good things left in my life.

“Can you walk?” said Leo in that same flat tone.

“Huh? Sure.”

“We should get you to a hospital.”

“Okay. Right.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes and barely spoke as we walked towards Redthorne town centre. If I hadn’t felt on the verge of passing out again, I’d have attempted to reassure him that it
wasn’t
his fault. But it was all I could do to keep my feet moving, and when we finally reached the hospital, my legs gave way altogether. Leo carried me, and his face was the last thing I saw before I blacked out again.

hey made me stay overnight, to my annoyance. I just wanted to fall asleep in Leo’s arms, but I had to be checked over to make sure I didn’t have a concussion. My arm wasn’t actually broken, just badly bruised, but I still had to have a cast fitted.

I didn’t expect to sleep very well on the uncomfortable hospital bed, but in the end exhaustion won out. There was no one there when I woke up. Claudia had gone back to campus; I vaguely remembered that from the night before; and I guessed Leo had left whilst I was asleep. For some reason, this made me uneasy, but I tried to quell this feeling as I was discharged and left the hospital to catch the first bus back to campus.

I went back to my flat first, to shower and change. The hospital had leant me pyjamas for the night but my own clothes were soaked and filthy. I changed into a clean outfit, but my skin still felt ice-cold.

My room felt like a cage. Things I didn’t want to think about kept coming back to me. This was my only home now. I no longer had anywhere else to go. Everything I owned was here.

And I had no family.

That was the hardest part. I assumed the fortune-teller had erased every trace of evidence for my existence from my parents’ lives, but she’d forgotten that I had all my photo albums, all my old diaries with me. I felt tainted, like I was holding pieces of someone else’s life. But I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out.

In the end, I decided to check on Leo. Luckily, I didn’t run into my flatmates on the way out; I hadn’t yet thought of a cover story for my injuries.

Rachel answered the door again.

“Hi, Ash. Congratulations!” She gave me one of her creepy, knowing looks, and I shuddered. Whatever Leo said, she plainly knew
something
about what had happened.

Leo’s door was open, and a number of bags leaned against it. I saw a half-open suitcase inside, and Leo threw objects into it haphazardly.

“Leo? What’re you doing?”

“Leaving,” he said brusquely.

I’d forgotten it was the end of term. Without a home to go to, it had completely slipped my mind that most people would be leaving campus behind for four weeks. I hadn’t even thought about my own plans. I wanted to see Cara again, but could I face going back to familiar places, knowing I had no real ties to them anymore?

“Now?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not just going home. I’m going out of the country.” He didn’t meet my eyes.

“You what?”

He still didn’t look at me as I skirted the pile of bags and stepped into his room, closing the door behind me.

“I can’t―I can’t stay here. I’m going travelling with Cy.”

“For Easter break?” My own voice sounded dull, now, as dread curled around my heart.

“For longer. I’m leaving uni.”

“What?”

“I can’t stay,” he said simply.

“I don’t understand. Is it about…” I swallowed. “No one blames you for what the demon made you do.”

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, but he didn’t respond. It was like hugging a statue.

“I mean it!” The hurt choked me; after everything, I needed him to understand. I had no blame left. Mephistopheles had manipulated both of us.

“You should blame me. I let the demon in.”

“You…” I didn’t know what to say. Deep down I’d known this conversation was coming, but I’d thought we’d at least be able to forget about it for a while. “It wasn’t your fault,” I settled for saying.

“I made a pact with a demon. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault, that’s for damn sure.”

“How? What did Mephistopheles tell you?”

“The demon told me that it was the only way to save you from them. That… the half-demon part of you was going to join them no matter what.”

“What? You believed that?”

“It’s not whether I believed it or not. The demon was
in my head.
You don’t know what that’s like―you only get a split second, and you’d say anything, do anything to spare your own life. That’s all I was thinking about.”

Leo.
Shivers raced up my arms, like the Darkworld crept up on me, even though bright sunshine shone through a gap in the curtains.

“I don’t know what it’s like?” I repeated. “I’m half demon. There’s a demon in my head
all the time
. Did you forget?”

“That’s different.” He looked past me, as though I wasn’t even there, and halfheartedly picked up a book and threw it into his suitcase.

“Maybe, but it wanted to attack you. It didn’t care if you died as long as it killed Mephistopheles. That wasn’t me.”

“I remember seeing your eyes,” said Leo. “I thought… I thought you were trying to kill me. And I thought… well, I’m just glad the fortune-teller stepped in when she did.”

“Me too,” I said. “I wanted to hate her after she ruined my life, but now…”

“So how does it feel for you, having the demon inside you?”

“Terrifying,” I said honestly. I didn’t want to talk about it right now. “I couldn’t fight it―I was helpless.”

“Me too,” he said. “I never really understood what you meant until now. There was no way you could fight it?”

I shook my head, wondering what he was getting at.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m going away.”

I looked at him blankly. “What d’you mean?”

“We nearly killed each other, Ash.”

“So? We’re both still alive. The demon’s gone.”

“Your demon isn’t.”

“It’s not
my
demon. It’s… like a part of my personality, I think.”
Except it can
control
me.
I’d never trust her again. Never.

“That’s kind of the problem. If I got possessed again, it’d attack me, wouldn’t it?”

“I…” This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. “I don’t have any control over the demon. I don’t know what would happen.”

“Yeah… I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die.” He threw a video game box into his suitcase.

I gaped at him. “What the hell kind of logic is that? You’re not… seriously dropping out of uni, are you?”

“I don’t belong here. Hell, I only came here because Cy did and I didn’t want to spend forever stuck with Melmoth. But he’s dead now. I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

“That makes two of us. I don’t have a home, either, remember? Well, except here. Don’t you consider this your home?”

For the first time I really understood what it meant to be rootless. Tears pricked at my eyes as the dam threatened to burst.

“No. Not really. I don’t think I’ve ever had a home since Mum died. And there’s no way I want to be anywhere near the Venantium ever again.”

“Look,” I said. “At least think about this first. It’s Easter break. You have four whole weeks to consider. Next term, they’ll have forgotten about it.”

“They don’t forget,” he said.

“You’d leave me to face them alone?”

“You’re strong. You can face anything.” But he still spoke in that awful monotone, so it didn’t sound convincing.

“Bullshit. I nearly lost you. I couldn’t face that again, not for the world.” I was properly crying now, tears running down my face. “So you’re just going to run away?”

“I’ll see you again. Just not for a while. I need to get over this.”

“Over what?” I choked. “I thought you were dead! I nearly lost you already―more than once. Talk to
me
about it. Don’t just…”

“Sorry, Ash.”

I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. “Leo,” I croaked. “Don’t do this.”

“Goodbye, Ash.” He still refused to look at me.

“You’re messed up in the head!” I sobbed. “You aren’t yourself. Please just think about―”

“What if another demon came along? Face it, you’re more equipped to deal with that kind of shit than I am. If we’re both here, it has leverage over both of us. It’s pretty damned obvious the Darkworld itself is working against us, and if we carry on like this, we’ll have all the demons on our tail. They watch you, Ash. They’ll be watching us now.”

A sour taste filled my mouth. “So freaking what?” I said. “It’s a necessary risk of being connected to the Darkworld. It hasn’t stopped Berenice and Howard―”

Bad example.

Leo winced. “Um, Ash, I don’t know what happened to Berenice any more than you do, but I’m willing to hazard a guess that the Darkworld had something to do with it. Those two are both messed up.”

“What’s wrong with messed up? This whole situation’s ridiculous,” I said. “So the demon tried to kill you… I won’t let it. Never again.”

“Jude―Mephistopheles―controlled you, Ash. How do you explain that?”

I stared. “That was… that was because Jude had touched my demon heart… Don’t ask me how demons work.”

“You have one living in your head,” he pointed out. “Look, I know you’re, well, human, but the part of you that isn’t is unpredictable. I’m not saying you’d do anything on purpose…”