Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (16 page)

“Conrad,” I said hesitantly, “Are you
sure
it was me?”

“Positive.”

“That’s… freaky,” I said. “I really wasn’t out last night. Ask my flatmates. We were watching a film.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Guys!” I called to Alex and Sarah. They ignored me.

I sighed and got out my phone. “I sent this text last night,” I said, holding it up. The message asked some of the Lit Soc people to join us for the film night.

“I don’t understand,” said Conrad. “Can I―?”

I reluctantly handed my iPhone over. His fingers raced over the touch screen. In the end, I had to practically prise it out of his hands. I had a bad feeling he’d been memorising my number.
Brilliant.

“Look,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re a nice guy, I’m just
really
not interested in dating anyone right now.”

“It doesn’t have to be a date. The ball sounds like fun!”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I already have plans with my friends, anyway.”

“Oh. How about…”

I tuned him out, trying to think of a way to ask him about the Vampire’s Curse, and the cure. Maybe he’d only respond to a direct approach.

“Conrad,” I said, interrupting his babbling. “Can I ask you something? About the―about being a vampire? I hope I’m not being rude.” I cringed inwardly at how overly-polite I sounded.

Conrad turned earnest eyes on me. “You can ask me anything!”

Well, that was easy.
“Um, I just wanted to know if you’d thought about getting the cure.”

“There’s a cure?”

He doesn’t know?

“Um, that’s what Mr Melmoth was working on, right?”

“I haven’t heard about it.” He blinked those owl-like eyes at me. “Maybe it’s because I’m not in the Venantium?”

“Maybe.”

But it gave me an uneasy feeling, all the same. I remained lost in thought, ignoring his yapping, all the way to the lecture theatre.

He started up again the instant the lecturer stopped talking and everyone started to leave.

“Maybe I could take you out tonight?”

“Seriously!” I said. “I
don’t have time for this.
”

“Okay. Well, if you do…”

Unbelievable.
I finally extricated myself from the conversation by pretending I had another seminar, then skirting around the quadrangle and re-joining my friends after making sure he’d gone the other way.

Alex raised her eyebrows. “Okay, I take it back. You should report that guy for harassment.”

“I don’t think he realises how annoying he’s being,” I said.

“Tell him,” said Alex. ‘Seriously.”

“I turned him down ten times in as many minutes, what more do you want?” I said.

“You’re too nice. Both of you.”

Nice
wasn’t a word I usually used in conjunction with myself, but maybe she was right; maybe being mean was the only way to get rid of him. And it would help if girls who apparently looked exactly like me didn’t come onto him. If that had really happened.

“Anyway, you’ll never guess what Pete’s done,” said Alex.

“What?” I said.

“He’s covered the library with Lonely Hearts posters, asking for a date for Valentine’s Day. Rex told me.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“It’s sickening. He’s described himself as a handsome bachelor.” She snorted.

“Has he mentioned he showers once a month?” I said.

“I pity whoever responds,” said Alex. “He photo-shopped his picture, trying to make himself look like a cover photo guy.”

I laughed.

“He looks more like a miniature troll. He said he was going to put an ad in the paper, too; they’re running a Valentine’s Day special.”

She pulled a rather sodden copy of the local paper out of her bag.

“I haven’t looked yet…”

She flipped the page over, but not before I’d seen the headline. It read,
Body of Local Man Found in Lake.

For some reason, this made my heart jolt unpleasantly. Was it another vampire death?

I waited impatiently for Alex and Sarah to finish laughing at Pete’s inept advertisement, before taking the paper myself when we got back to the flat and settled down in the kitchen. The ink had run so the words blurred together, but I could still make out phrases. “Mysterious death… throat cut… suspected drug abuse…”

Just then, my phone buzzed.

I pulled it out of my bag and stared at the screen.
Stay indoors.
I blinked at the strange message. There was no name or number.
Weird.

It gave me the creeps. Who had my number? Was it a warning, or just a prank? Was it the same person who’d sent me that other message a few weeks ago? Who else wanted to screw with my head?

“Who’re you texting?” said Alex, peering at my screen. I quickly stowed it back in my bag.

“No one.”

“Conrad?” she smirked. “Or have you got another admirer?”

Alex really was too curious for her own good.

“No. It’s just Cara.”

“Your imaginary friend?”

I blinked. “No, my real friend. From home?”

“Uh-huh. What about all those GameSoc people? Rex says he’s never met that Claudia girl, and he hasn’t seen you in meetings the last couple of weeks either.”

Oh, hell.

“Yeah,” said Sarah. “Come to think of it, you were with us when the last meeting was on, weren’t you?”

Busted. “I haven’t felt like going lately,” I said.

“…because?” Alex prompted.

Damn. Quick thinking wasn’t my specialty. “There may be an admirer,” I admitted.

“Aha!” Alex exclaimed, loud enough to draw a few curious stares in our direction.

“Will you drop it now?” I said, my face heating up.

“Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easily. Who is it?”

“Not telling,” I said, with a childish tone to match her own. “Seriously. It’s probably nothing. And I’m not getting my hopes up after what happened…last term.”

“Oh.” Alex nodded, understanding. “Sure. I get it. But if anything changes, you have to tell us!”

“Yeah,” said Sarah. “Give us an update. Someone has to have some good news!”

“You,” said Alex, “need to cheer up. Disney night?”

“Hell, yeah,” I said, jumping on the distraction. “But I’ve gotta catch up with my reading first.”

I dug back into my bag and pulled out the hefty door-stopper of an anthology, as another buzz from my phone made me jump.

It was from Leo, asking if I was okay.

“Someone’s smiling,” said Alex, rocking forwards on her chair in an attempt to peer over my phone screen. “I’m guessing it’s from Mr Mysterious Guy?”

“Perhaps.”

“Ash, getting answers out of you is like hammering at a brick wall.”

“Drop it,” I said.

“Well, for all we know, you’re secretly a ninja or something.”

“Yeah, you found me out,” I said. “I just returned from an undercover mission. Those strange noises during the night are me running over the rooftops.”

“Well, you do sneak out a lot,” said Alex.

“And wear that black coat,” added Sarah.

“What’s wrong with my coat?”

So, instead of writing notes on poetry, we ended up concocting undercover ninja names. A typical productive evening in Flat One. And more than welcome, considering all the drama and craziness in my other life. Sometimes I wished things were simpler. I wouldn’t need to lie, sneak around, put on a front, pretend there weren’t murders being committed under my feet. Yet it was difficult to imagine things being different when both lives were a part of me. Sorceress and student.

I felt more and more uneasy about going out Saturday night, but I’d promised Alex, and I didn’t want to lose that part of my life. I deserved a night out. And more to the point, I owed it to my friends. I reasoned that nothing strange had happened recently in Redthorne…
yet
, a voice in my head told me.
It’s not like it’s Tombstone Hill.

Typically for a student town, the streets blazed with light on Saturday night. Students crowded the streets, waiting for buses, queuing outside take-aways, and waiting to get into night-clubs. The thud of club-house music throbbed through the air, and even the pavements seemed to vibrate with it.

Volcano Bar was packed. It took several minutes of determined pushing to get near the bar. Alex grabbed Sarah and me by the arms and steamrollered her way through the crowd, paying no heed to anyone she accidentally knocked over. It was pretty impressive since she was a head shorter than a good three-quarters of the people here.

She shouted for three vodka and cokes over the clamour of drunken voices and the deafening music.

I took my drink and got away from the bar sharpish, before any of the leering guys who had been eyeing us up had a chance to come over.

“I have to say I prefer Satan’s Pit,” remarked Alex. “This place seems to have the same song stuck on repeat, and I don’t think it actually has words. It sounds like an alien language.”

“It’s giving me a headache,” said Sarah, who hated clubbing.

“We’re heading to Franklin’s soon for the karaoke night. Where the hell are the LitSoc people?”

I couldn’t see anyone I recognised, although the rotating strobe lights made everything look distorted. It was incredibly disorienting, like that tunnel I’d once run through at Edinburgh World of Illusions where it seemed as though the floor was tipping up as you ran through circles of rotating lights.

I sipped my drink, knowing it wouldn’t help the dizziness, as I scanned the crowd.

“I think Jake and Rex are over there,” I said.

We made our way over to the other side of the room, skirting round the staircase in the centre. Sure enough, our other friends from Lit Soc sat crowded around a table. Becky, Louie, and Christine were crammed onto one of the sofa-seats; Jake and Rex were on the other side.

“Hey guys,” said Rex. “We were thinking of making a move in a bit. It’s way too crowded in here.”

“Good idea,” said Alex, attempting unsuccessfully to squeeze onto the seat beside him. Rex tried to make room and succeeded only in knocking his drink over.

“Way to go, Rex,” said one of the other guys, as everyone jumped up to avoid getting splashed with neon-blue WKD.

“I think that’s our cue to move on,” said Sarah. “Why’s that girl staring at you?”

I looked where she was pointing. “I don’t see anyone,” I said.

“Just there…”

But the lights were so dazzling I could barely make out any people more than a few feet away; everything else was a hazy blur.

I turned back to my friends to see Alex apologising to a red-faced Rex, who was drenched in WKD.

“Don’t worry about it!” he said. “Really, it’s totally cool!”

Sarah and I rolled our eyes. Ever since they’d discovered a mutual love for
Lord of the Rings
, it had been obvious that they liked each other, but neither seemed aware of the other’s affections
.
Sarah and I were still waiting for realisation to sink in.

My phone buzzed in my purse. I pulled it out. An unknown number. Not again.

R u out tonite?

I frowned, and texted back,
Who is this?

Conrad. I’m in the Volcano Bar. Where r u?

Oh, crap.
Whether it was really him or just a prank, I didn’t want to stay here.

“Can we head somewhere else?” I said.

“What’s up, Ash?” said Becky.

“It’s way too crowded in here.”

“I agree. And there’s WKD everywhere now,” added Jake, gesturing at what remained of Rex’s drink.

“Shall we make a move?” said Alex.

Everyone started downing the rest of their drinks and getting up. Shaking my head to try and clear another bout of dizziness, I followed my friends back outside, thankfully not running into Conrad on the way out.

We made it to Franklin’s Bar unscathed, though every shadow made me jump and my thoughts kept turning back to that night a shadow-beast had attacked Claudia and me, right here.

But once we were inside, the sounds of drunken singing drowned out my thoughts. The karaoke was in full swing, and the neon-lit dance floor was packed out. I offered to buy drinks to avoid the microphone―singing was not one of my talents. Alex dragged Sarah over there instead.

I ordered three more vodka and cokes, having to shout over the cat-strangling sound of someone butchering a Lady Gaga song. Glancing back at my friends, I saw that Alex and Sarah were next in line.
Anything’ll be better than this.

Their turn came. Alex actually had a nice singing voice, but Sarah totally took me by surprise. She was so quiet, she faded into the background half the time, but now her voice was more powerful than Alex’s, and she hit the high notes dead-on.

“Way to go, Sarah!” I said afterwards, handing her a drink. The guy running the karaoke gave her a free shot, which she downed in one, surprising both Alex and me.

“You’ve been holding out on us,” said Alex. “Where’d you learn to sing like that?”

“Um, I was in a choir at school.”

“Not good enough. You, missy, are joining the Singing Club.”

“I don’t really have the time…”

“No excuses. Come on, you’re freaking amazing.” She turned to me. “Isn’t she?”