Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (19 page)

“Classics are cool,” I said. “Don’t call me a nerd.”

“Wasn’t planning to. I’m studying English too. I can’t talk. Okay.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
is good.”

And he actually started reading it. Even doing the voices. I shook with laughter that sounded half like sobbing, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except sending the terror away to a place where it couldn’t touch me. Leo gave me that. Reading Shakespeare in his dead guardian’s living room.

He glanced outside. “It’s gonna get dark soon. Train?”

“Definitely,” I said.

He held my hand all the way to the station. I no longer felt like I might pass out, but the world retained an odd, surreal quality.

“You’re okay, Ash,” said Leo. “You can come back to mine, if you want?”

I shook my head. “I’ll have to get to my flat. My friends will be wondering where I am.”

Hopefully, I wouldn’t run into them. I couldn’t act normal, not after what I’d seen.

“You sure you’re okay?”

I nodded. “Thanks for reading to me.”

“Any time.”

Words came back to me then, from when we’d discussed Mr Melmoth’s journals.
The Death Child… it took the form of a young girl.

The Death Child looked just like me. That was why Mr Melmoth had tried to kill me. And it was still out there.

Like anything was going to be okay now.

noise woke me from a fitful sleep. If Leo hadn’t sent me a link to some calming meditation music via Facebook, there was no way I could have slept. Blinking awake, I winced as the first image to hit me was Mr Priestley’s death. It felt like
that
had been the dream. Things like that didn’t happen. Not even in my crazy world. I’d never seen someone murdered in cold blood before.

It took a while for me to realise the sobbing I thought I heard wasn’t coming from me, but from outside my room. I jumped out of bed, moving swiftly towards the door. Pulling back at the last moment, I pressed my ear to the wood. The noise didn’t come from the corridor, but from the room next to mine. Sarah’s.

It’s okay. It’ll be something ordinary.
But my heart beat fast all the same, my pulse racing, my throat threatening to close.
Calm. Now.

I opened the door. The fluorescent hall lights snapped on automatically as I stepped into the corridor, but no human presence was evident. Terrence’s empty door stared at me; it still had the faded white-tack marks where he’d pinned up his poster. Abandon all hope.

I turned away and knocked on Sarah’s door.

“Sarah,” I called, my voice echoing in the deserted corridor. “Are you okay?”

Silence answered, and a shiver danced up my arms.
Stop jumping at shadows,
I told myself.

“Sarah?”

The door at the other end of the corridor opened, and Alex appeared, yawning. “What’s going on?”

“I thought I heard…”

The sobbing sound again.

Alex crossed the corridor and knocked on Sarah’s door, too. “Sarah!”

This time, the door opened. Sarah leant on the door frame, face streaked with tears. “Hey, guys,” she croaked.

“Hey―what’s up?” said Alex.

Alex hugged her so tight Sarah let out a squeak of surprise. I hovered awkwardly on the side, before turning it into a group hug.

“What’s this about?”

“I can’t breathe?” said Sarah.

Alex stepped back. “Don’t tell me. You broke up with Sir Dickwad?”

“Yeah.” Sarah nodded, and her eyes filled with tears again. “You were right, but I…” She sank down to the floor, sobbing.

Alex scooted down beside her. “Hey. It’s okay.”

“Doesn’t feel it.”

“It will. Honestly.”

Just as I sat down, my gaze fell on Sarah’s window, and my breath caught. Someone stared at me through the glass.

I stood, swiftly. “I’ll be back in a mo’,” I said.

Alex glanced at me. “Sure. But be quick. You’re needed.”

I nodded absently and rushed to my own room, letting the door swing shut behind me. I pressed my palms to the glass, peering at the field. No one there.

But I’d been positive for a moment that I’d seen my own reflection―even though I was nowhere near the window. Or another girl who looked like me, peering in.
No. It couldn’t be. Not here.

That girl in the bar, though… it could have been a trick of the light. Or she’d worn an ordinary pendant from the market, not a demon heart.

Not a demon heart… I still wore it now. It was ice-cold to touch. No burning. No danger. I’d just imagined it.

You think that you’re safe because you can’t see us in the waking world? We can get into your head in all kinds of ways, Ashlyn. The Barrier might contain us, but we’re here. We’re always here.

Shivers danced up and down my arms. My chest felt tight, like a corset squeezed the breath form my lungs.
No panic attacks,
I told myself.
Go out. Go back to your friends. If someone is trying to screw with your head, don’t give them the satisfaction.

I pulled on my hoody, even though the chill had nothing to do with the cold, and went back into the corridor to find Alex in full-flow.

“Alex,” I cut in, “Quit harassing the poor girl.”

Sarah gave me a grateful smile. Really, I appreciated Alex for being willing to stand up for people, but there was a limit. Some things were best left alone.

“Hey, just trying to help,” said Alex. “Well, Sarah, you handled it better than Ash did. Congratulations.”

“Um… what?” I said. “You mean Conrad? Was I really that harsh?”

“Er, yes,” said Alex. “But it was probably the best way to do it.”

I sighed. “I feel like a total bitch,” I said, and I did. I’d never spoken to anyone like that before―at least, not anyone who’d not done anything to deserve it other than being annoying.

“You had to say it. He’ll leave you be now.”

I hoped she was right.

“Anyway,” said Alex. “I know how to cheer you both up. A night in a haunted house.”

For God’s sake.
“Really?” I said. “How’s that meant to cheer us up?”

“You really have an issue with this Tombstone Hill thing,” said Alex. “You know what? I think you have a phobia.”

“Of catching pneumonia from spending a winter night in a house without heating? Yes.”

“That’s what sleeping bags and blankets are for. Come on. Say you’ll come.”

“You’d really rather spend Valentine’s Day doing that than going out with Rex?” I said.

“Did he ask you out?” said Sarah, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah!” said Alex.

“He finally did it?” said Sarah, brightening. “Where’s he taking you?”

“Just for a meal in Redthorne at an Italian restaurant. The night
before
Valentine’s Day. We don’t do tradition.”

“Not a movie night?” said Sarah. “Nice going.” Sarah and I had been joking that their first date should be a fourteen-hour movie marathon of the Extended Editions of
The Lord of the Rings.

“Pretty fancy, considering he’s a student,” I said. “I thought you were going to say he asked you to that Valentine’s Ball for a moment there.”

“Nah, he hates stuff like that. So do I, come to that. And the social’s the same night.”

“You’d really rather sleep on the floor of an old house in a cemetery?”

“Ah, so it’s the graveyard thing that’s bothering you?” Alex nudged Sarah. “I think Ash is scared of the Grim Reaper.”

Jesus. She really won’t quit it.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I think Sarah should join the singing club.”

My attempt to distract her worked; Alex launched into another plan for Sarah’s life. At least this one didn’t involve drop-kicking anyone.

“Come on, girl, you took control of your life when you told Liam to get stuffed. Just carry on!”

I needed to do the same, but it was difficult to take control of something that by definition was uncontrollable. A girl who looked just like me. Maybe I
had
seen her outside. Maybe she’d come to kill someone here.

I stood up so fast Alex and Sarah stared at me. “Anyway. We have a lecture in an hour. I’m going to get ready.”

“Sure,” said Sarah.

Back in my room, I pulled clothes on without really paying attention. I felt hot and cold both at once, and I recoiled as another strange sensation brushed against my chest, like a mild burn, but freezing cold. I looked down and sat that the amethyst crystal around my neck was vibrating, pulsing from one shade of purple to another. As I watched, it went jet-black.

“Ash! Ash!”

I pulled back my curtains to see Conrad waving from outside my window.

“What?” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I’m trying to work in here!”

“I think someone’s been hurt down here!”

I was out of the flat in a heartbeat. I caught up with Conrad at the foot of the hill. My stomach lurched as I saw that the frost-streaked grass was marked with dark red patches.

“What the―?”

I looked around wildly at the trees, the student flats. No one was around. But the blood was unmistakeable.
No. Not again. Not here.

“Do you think someone got attacked? Do you think it was like Mr Melmoth? Do you―?”

“I don’t
know,
Conrad!” I snapped.

I started back up the hill. “I’m going to get help. Why didn’t you speak to the college porter or someone instead of running to me?”

“Because I felt a demon!” Conrad wailed.

I paused. “You know anyone might have heard that, right?” I said.

“Sorry,” said Conrad, his gaze on his feet. He was trembling.

“I felt it too,” I said. “Sorry. I just… I’ve had to deal with enough crap lately… never mind. We have to do something about this.”

I looked up at the flat again. Claudia and Leo were better at dealing with a crisis than me. I sent Claudia a quick text, hoping that she was in and wasn’t at a lecture. Then I texted Leo.

A reply came instantly, “I’m coming.”

I knew Claudia lived on the first floor of the same block as me, but she took less than a minute to appear, breathless, at my side.

“What the hell?” she said.

“I know,” I said. “This looks bad.”

“Leo’s coming,” she added. “He’s on his way.”

She moved farther into the forest. I followed, keeping one eye on the thickening trails of red, even though they made me feel lightheaded. It was as though I walked through a dream. Hell, everything in the past twenty-four hours felt like a dream.

“Someone came through here from that way…”

Judging by the trails, the person had dragged themselves uphill through the woods―quite an achievement, considering all the blood.

A moan sounded behind me. Conrad had fallen to his knees. “Look,” he whimpered.

One of the Venantium’s harpies hung, limp, from a tree. Its head had been torn off completely, leaving a bloody mess of black feathers. The awful crone-bird head lay at the foot of the tree, beak gaping open, eyes gouged out. I gagged.

I’d thought those creatures were otherworldly, incapable of being injured in a physical sense, but here was one, dead, right in front of me.
What did this?

“Something seriously twisted is going on here.”

There was a rustling behind us, the sound of hurried footsteps. Leo came running down the hill. He stopped short at the sight of the dead harpy.