Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (24 page)

“I just want to play.” I winced as the girl spoke in a mock-childlike way. It was creepy beyond belief to hear that voice coming out of my own mouth.

It’s not me,
I told myself.

“Oh, but I am,”
said the demon’s voice in my head.

The girl threw back her head and laughed. It was a horrible sound, like hearing my own voice distorted almost out of recognition, but enough that I could still recognise it as mine. That made it even worse.

“I’ve heard about
you
,” she said to the fortune-teller. “You think you know everything about us. You think you know our inmost secrets. But you don’t have a clue what we can do.”

She looked at me. “Your friend’s a bit dim, isn’t he? Fancy not noticing my eyes.”

For a second I stared back, nonplussed. Then it hit me.
Conrad.

“Why’d you do that?” I said.

“It was fun.” She giggled again.

“Why are you pretending to be me?” I said. “You’re the Death Child, aren’t you?”

“Is that what they call me?” Another giggle.

“Why do you hate the Venantium?” Leo demanded.

The girl’s face twisted. “They
stole my life,
” she snarled.

“You’re a demon. You don’t
have
a life. Did you kill Mr Melmoth?”

“You know nothing about me!” shrieked the girl.

Holy crap, she’s mad,
I thought. “Okay,” I said. “Why are you pretending to be me?”

“Because you’re interesting to me,” she said, her voice a petulant child’s once again. “It’s so
boring,
being stuck in this half-life. I can’t even come and pay you a visit thanks to those pesky barriers. I had to send my Skele-Ghouls instead, and they’re far less friendly.”

“You killed that harpy? The Skele-Ghouls were yours?”

“They’re disgusting, aren’t they?” she said. “Horrible things. But they’re trained to answer to any demon. Even me.” She laughed. “He has no idea I took them. He won’t be pleased. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll be next. I’ll make him pay. I’ll make them
all
pay.”

“For what?” I said. “Who summoned you? Are they killing vampires?”

“Vampires?” She let out a brittle laugh. “You think I wanted to kill that sad loser who keeps following you? I admit it was tempting, but I won’t waste my power on him.”

The fortune-teller stepped forwards. “I have seen enough of your kind to know that original thinking isn’t your forte,” she said. “I don’t suppose you want to reveal who your creator is?”

The girl laughed again. “That would spoil the game, wouldn’t it?”

The fortune-teller raised a hand, and shadows gathered around her in a smoky cloud. Even I felt the temperature drop; the frost already coating the trees hardened, turning to ice. My breath fogged the air in front of me.

The girl’s face stretched in a twisted smile. I wanted to hit her, do anything to break that awful parody of myself―but the fortune-teller gestured at me to fall back.

The shadows struck the doppelganger and she staggered backwards. She laughed, high and delighted, then her face twisted again. She let out a snarl and sprung at me like a wild animal. Caught off guard, I barely managed to fling out my arms to shield myself, ice forming.

A burning sensation ripped through the skin of my arms. It wasn’t hot―it was deathly cold. But the ice was cracking; my skin felt like it was on fire. I screamed, but at the same time I could hear my own laughter, underlain by the hissing laugh of a demon.

My vision went black. The doppelganger’s laughter still echoed in my ears. The pendant burned against my chest.

“Don’t fade away on us just yet, Ashlyn.”

The pain was gone, but so was all other sensation. The world began to flicker back into being, tinted slightly purple.

Get out of my head,
I told the demon.

“I am not in your head, human-demon.”

You’re lying.
I blinked repeatedly, willing the world to go back to its normal spectrum of colour. It was like I was seeing through a purple glass lens. I knew I was lying on the ground, but I couldn’t feel anything, only the pulsing energy of the Darkworld.

Is this how demons feel?

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
said the demon.

Stop reading my mind!
I thought, and tried to will feeling back into my body, like throwing off sleep paralysis.

And slowly, it came back. The purple faded, and the pain hit me again like a tidal wave. It was pain beyond tears. All other senses were dulled. I couldn’t see, could barely hear the muffled voices of people around me.

I blacked out again, and this time the darkness stayed constant.

he first thing I saw when I awoke was the fortune-teller, bending over me.

“Ash? Can you speak?”

I started to say I didn’t know, but the words came out as a slurred incoherent jumble. I tried again. “What happened?”

Claudia stepped into view. “You’re damn lucky, girl, that’s what happened.”

I realised that we were in the fortune-teller’s tent. The charms on the ceiling dazzled my eyes. I lay on my back on the bench, and I had a rush of déjà vu as I remembered being in this exact situation after the harpy had attacked me. I could smell something earthy, faintly herbal.

“The ghoul nearly killed you,” said the fortune-teller. “I underestimated it. I had no idea that it had the sorcery skills of a human.”

“What happened to it?” I said.

“The Death Child escaped. It’s my fault―she attacked you so fast, and fled into the forest. I feared I might be too late to save you…”

“If it was so easy for her to kill me, why didn’t she finish the job?” I said, sitting up. I felt dizzy, but I was no longer in pain.

“I don’t think she meant to kill you,” said the fortune-teller. “That would have… spoiled her game.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what game that was. Whoever was in control of the demon, they knew how I used magic―the ghoul had hit me with the same ice-fire I used myself. Unless it
was
some kind of doppelganger, and we really were connected in some way.

You can’t love. You can never be loved.

I shook my head. I’d thought demons knew nothing about me, but that ghoul had stolen every detail of my life, even to the extent that she could fool someone into thinking she was really me. How many people would tell the difference? Could you ever truly know anyone? Only demons could…

“What is it, Ashlyn?”

“Can demons read anyone’s mind?” I said. “At any time?

“Yes. That is why it is pointless to lie to a demon.”

Her words hung in the air like they were weighted. I shuddered, feeling more vulnerable than ever before. Every single time I’d been in the presence of a demon, all my thoughts had been laid bare. Every private thought, every whim, every contemplation…

“They wouldn’t necessarily be concentrating on
your
mind all the time, Ash,” said Claudia, as if
she’d
read my mind. Neither she nor Leo looked perturbed by the idea. But then again, neither of them had reason to expect contact from demons―certainly not as much as I did, at any rate.

“They read you through the Darkworld,” said Leo. “They’re tuned in to everyone in the immediate area, constantly. If you were totally alone with a demon, yeah, they’d be focused on you, but otherwise they wouldn’t have any reason to be.”

They would,
I thought.
They speak to me.

“Demons can use mind-communication,” I said. “The one… last term, it spoke to me, in my head.” No need to let on just how frequently this was occurring now.

“As spirits, it’s how they communicate, yes,” said the fortune-teller. “I learnt how to do it myself through deep study into the Darkworld, but few people are aware of the technique. It’s a matter of contacting the surface thoughts, like using Influence, but on a more intimate scale. But meddling with the mind is something strongly condemned by the Venantium.”

“Yeah, when they aren’t using it themselves,” I said, remembering the Angel Box. “Could the ghoul be reading my mind? Like, right now?”

“I doubt it. Mind-reading requires one to be strongly tuned into the Darkworld, and the ghoul cannot be so if she wishes to remain hidden from me. Strong she may be, but she is not stronger than I. She relies on her master―whoever that is.”

I sighed and sank back onto the bench. No one said anything for a moment. I watched the tendrils of smoke from the burning incense sticks drift through the air like pale snakes.

“You need to stop nearly dying on us, Ash,” said Leo.

“I’ll try,” I said. “Why is it always me?”

“Because you’re a bad-luck magnet?” said Claudia. “Honestly, no one can figure out demons. Wish we could read
their
minds.”

“That would deprive you of your humanity,” said the fortune-teller. “Only beings which are a part of the Darkworld entirely can use the connection to read others’ thoughts. Even I don’t have that power.”

I had a feeling that that was an indirect way of saying that
I
wouldn’t be able to read people’s minds. Thinking about it, it was probably for the best. Anyone would be happier not knowing what people really thought of them.

“Well, anyway, demons tend to target the weak link,” said Claudia. “They used to go for Berenice, mostly, before you came here. Till she learnt how to fight them off.”

“It isn’t like I can’t fight them,” I said, ashamed at how pathetic I must seem. I’d never seen any of the others suffer injury at the hands of a shadow-creature.

But then again, none of them are like me,
I thought. Besides, that creature had taken a
venator
apart. It could have killed any of us. So why hadn’t it? I supposed it must have a particular grudge against them.

“I know,” said Leo. “Hell, that ice-trick of yours is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. Talk about taking cold-shouldering literally.”

“Do you know the limits of your power, Ash?” said Claudia.

“No, but I’ve never tried to freeze a lake or anything bigger. It only really happens when I’m angry, or protecting someone…”

“I can test you,” said the fortune-teller. “Not now… you’re still recovering. But another time.”

“Right,” I said. To my own surprise I felt hot anger rising in me. “I don’t suppose you could have done that before I started accidentally freezing people? What if I’d done worse?”

The image of Terrence’s face, sliced deeply by my own fingernails, crept to the forefront of my mind, like something wanted to nudge it into view.

The fortune-teller said nothing. Again, she looked deeply sad, almost pitying.

I couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t care how childish or irrational it was; right then I blamed her for everything that had happened recently. It was stupid, like I was a child expecting the adults to set the world to rights. But then, she was the all-powerful sorceress. I was just… an eighteen-year-old human-demon with no idea how much of a danger I posed to the world.

I held the anger in check, even as I felt ice start to form on my fingertips. I thought the fortune-teller was avoiding my eye, but then I followed her gaze and realised it was on the pendant around my neck. The amethyst glowed, faintly, and my skin tingled as the stone brushed against my collarbone.