Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (28 page)

Jude said, “You’re awake.”

“Where am I?” I said.

“You’re in the tomb of my ancestors,” he said, gesturing around us. I couldn’t see much above the high walls of the grave, but the murmurs of voices in the background suggested that there were several other people there.

“Huh?”

“The Melmoth family were once respectable,” he muttered, half to himself. “Then my invalid uncle had to ruin everything. Well, you belong here with them, abomination that you are.”

“Huh?” I said again. Maybe it was because the back of my head still throbbed, but this didn’t make any sense to me. “You mean Mr Melmoth?”

“The very same.”

“He was… your uncle?”

“He was no relation of mine,” he spat out the words. “He rose to power despite being a monster. But I knew his secret. I knew he was a degenerate.”

It took a moment for my thoughts to catch up. “Leo said… he said you led the campaign to get him sacked.”

“He was right. My uncle was a demon sympathiser as well as a monster.”

“You betrayed your own family?”

“Family!” he spat. “My parents died when I was a child, and everyone tried to shield the truth from me. But when I came here four years ago, I found out my uncle’s little secret. I knew I alone could stop him from infecting the Venantium. He had to be removed. All of them have to die.”

“You killed the vampires that had the cure.”

“Cure!” He laughed. “That was a lie. What better way to draw them out? I was going to save Melmoth for last, but I couldn’t resist it when he came so close to campus. Chasing you. You’ve been puzzling me for months, Ashlyn. I knew you were no regular spirit or ghoul. You act of your own volition, and can do things no other demon can. Mr Priestley was a good man. You shouldn’t have killed him.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “That person wasn’t me. It was the doppelganger. It looks just like me.”

“A doppelganger. What a pity. It might have been convincing, were it not for the evidence before me.”

“What evidence?” I said. My heart was pounding. “I’m human!”

“You’re a demon,” said Jude. “I have your demon heart right here.”

He held out the pendant.

“I’ve tested it,” he said. “I know.”

And with a grim smile on his face, he extended his hand, flames engulfing it.

Pain.
Such pain ripped through me that every cell on my body seemed to scream. Laughter echoed around the chamber, but I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything beside the pain. My vision flashed purple and then black, and the demon inside me cried out in a voice devoid of humanity. Two screams became one as human and demon alike were consumed.

Then it stopped. A small, hard object hit my face, but the pain was still too strong to open my eyes. My skin seared as though every inch of me had been burned like the pendant.

The pendant.
I felt it burning at my side. He’d dropped it into the tomb, and somehow, I managed to move my hand to clasp it.

I floated, hearing voices, shouts, but in a disconnected way, as though I was hovering in another world entirely. Maybe the Darkworld.

Then I recognised a voice amongst the clamour.

“Ash!”

Someone took me in their arms. My eyes flicked open.

“Leo?” I said.

“Don’t you die on me!” he said. “I’ve spent too damn long walking down these tunnels for you to die.”

“Nice to know you care,” I coughed, but before the words were out of my mouth, he’d pulled me one-handedly out of the grave and was kissing me.

Someone made sick noises.

“Berenice, cut it out,” said Cyrus’s voice. “Seriously, though, bro, you really nailed the cliché romantic rescue scene.”

“Except with it being in a crypt,” said Claudia. “I’m not sure that counts as romantic.”

“Fair point,” said Leo. I was too dazed to do any more than stare at him, at his messy, dirt-specked dark hair and concerned grey-blue eyes.

Then I looked around me, thoroughly confused. Claudia, Cyrus, Berenice, and Howard were standing beside the rows of graves.

“What―what the hell…?” I said, standing. “What are you all doing here? Where’s Jude? And who else was in here?”

“The fortune-teller,” said Leo. “She clocked him one. It was amazing. She’s been chasing the Skele-Ghouls,” he added. “I’ve no idea how she knew, but she was on the scene as soon as you fell down the tunnel―I owe it to her that I didn’t fall, too. I think she put a shield on you to cushion your landing, but by then the ghoul had run off, so we went after her. And then we found… never mind. What happened to you? Why did Jude have you in a
grave
?”

“I was with the Venantium,” I said. “They blocked my magic. They were questioning me. But then something happened and they all left. I think it was the Skele-Ghouls. The doppelganger let me out of the Angel Box and I was going to leave. Jude said he was going to lead me outside, but he knocked me out and brought me here…”

The pendant was still clenched in my fist; I transferred it to my jeans pocket.

“He thought you were the doppelganger?” said Leo. I nodded.

“He killed Mr Melmoth,” I said. “And the other vampires. He said he was ashamed…” My voice shook, and I realised I was trembling all over. A delayed shock effect.

“It’s okay,” said Leo. “We’re all here now, and the fortune-teller, too.”

“
Why
are you guys all here?” I said. “How’s it possible?”

“I was talking to the
venators
about Melmoth,” said Cyrus. “Then they got an emergency call to the surface. So I went to find these guys.”

“We were at the pub,” said Claudia. “And the fortune-teller showed up with Leo, saying you’d been taken. She used some kind of magic to scour the tunnels and took off after you. Dragged us miles underground. I’ve got blisters like you wouldn’t believe.”

“So is Jude working for the ghouls?” said Leo. “The sly bastard legged it―we were on the other side of the chamber. We couldn’t catch him.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He didn’t mention the ghouls―he was just talking about how much he hates vampires. Melmoth was his uncle.”

“That’s the connection!” said Leo. “His own dad was the leader of the Righteous. He’ll have been raised to hate vampires. I guess he just decided to take matters into his own hands.”

“He pretended there was a cure. I should have guessed―Conrad didn’t know about it.”

“None of us guessed. He played us all, even the
venators
.”

“Where’s the fortune-teller?”

He pointed to the other side of the chamber.

“She went after Jude―that way. Told us to stay behind and help you. She chased him away, threw some kind of shadow-magic at him. The door’s blocked. I think they’re fighting.”

Fighting.
The fortune-teller was a formidable fighter, I had no doubt of that―but all the same, the thought of Jude’s maniacal expression filled me with unease. “Have any of you seen the doppelganger?”

Leo shook his head. “Did you say she
saved
you?”

“Don’t ask me why. She disappeared right away, leaving me to get taken down here by Jude. If you ask me, she was involved with this, too…”

But that couldn’t be right. She was a demon, and even Jude surely wouldn’t resort to teaming up with the enemy. Still, it made even littler sense for her to help me after trying to kill me so many times.

“I’d put nothing past him,” said Leo, who was clearly thinking along the same lines. “He sees murder as perfectly fine. But the fortune-teller says Jude used regular spirits to drain the vampires’ life energy, not demons.”

“How’d she know all that?”

“She caught him in the act, apparently,” said Cyrus. “He ran off. That’s when he must have gone back to headquarters, when the ghouls attacked. It would have looked suspicious for him not to be there.”

“But he led me down here,” I said. “Where are we, anyway?”

“In the catacombs under the cathedral in Crowley,” said Leo. “I don’t know why Jude would have brought you
here
to kill you―it gives me a bad feeling. Apart from all the Skele-Ghouls, that is.”

A shrill wail echoed around us.

“Please don’t tell me the dead are rising now,” said Claudia. “That would be just bloody perfect―”

But a figure
was
crawling out of the ground. A person, a live, solid person. Conrad.

“Ash!” he wailed.

Is this really happening?
He was covered in earth, having just climbed out of an open grave like the one I’d been in. The others looked at him like he was a ghost.

“What… the actual fuck,” said Berenice.

“What are you doing down here?” I said.

“You led me here,” he said, pointing at me. “What did I ever do to deserve this? You were going to leave me here, weren’t you?” He looked as though he was about to cry.

“That wasn’t me,” I said, beginning to grasp what happened. “There’s a ghoul, a shape-shifter who looks just like me. Did you follow her?”

“Don’t leave me!” he wailed.

“You’ll have to come with us,” I said. “I’m sorry, honestly. I didn’t know she’d do that.”

“I believe you, Ash,” said Conrad, coming towards me as if to hug me, but Leo took hold of my hand in a clear gesture. My heart kick-started in my chest. Funny how
this
had most surprised me today.

Another sound echoed, a crash, like a heavy object falling over. It came from behind the door the fortune-teller had gone through.

Cyrus and Leo exchanged a glance. “You don’t think…?”

“That little twat’s no match for her,” said Claudia, striding over to the door. It had opened slightly, and unease skittered down my spine. No sound came from the other side.

“Stay close together,” Cyrus said. “This gives me a bad feeling.”

We left the chamber through the metal door, where another earth tunnel wound into darkness. I stayed close to Leo, who still held my hand, like he had the first time we’d been down here.

The tunnel widened out into another circular chamber. Pillars supported a ceiling so high it was just a mass of shadows. More graves stood around us; clearly, we were in another sepulchre. But this time there were people in here.

The fortune-teller stood in the centre of the room, not moving, like she was frozen in place. Around her, dead bodies lay beside their graves. I gagged on the smell of death.

But one was living. Jude. He was in the middle of it all, standing amongst the dead. A corpse sat upright on a grave beside him. Even from here, I recognised the face.

Mr Melmoth.

“
You’re
the leader of the Ghouls?” said Howard, incredulous.

Jude looked up. “You again. Why don’t you stay out of this?”

“Why don’t you get the hell away from Mr Melmoth?” Leo countered. He let go of my hand and stepped forwards, body trembling in anger. “You’re attacking my friends. You tried to kill Ash. And you have my dead guardian’s body right there. Why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re doing?”

“I’m augmenting power,” he said calmly. “I alone remain of the Righteous. I alone can fight the Darkworld. I need the power only a vampire can give me. I would have preferred to resurrect my father, but this way is better. I know my father wouldn’t have wanted to be tainted by demons even after death.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Leo. “You made the Skele-Ghouls, right? What part of that is not
tainted with demons
?”

Jude turned cold eyes onto him. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. The Ghouls were a distraction. I need my fellow
venators
to focus elsewhere. They do not understand my purpose. I had to know if I could bring someone back from the Darkworld using the energy of a dead sorcerer. Magic lingers after death, and it seems to be such a waste.”

“You’re completely mental,” said Leo.

Jude stood, brushing grave-dirt off one hand whilst the other remained clenched in a fist.

“Why can only demons access the true power of the Darkworld? Why must humans die at their hands? I experimented with giving demonic power to dead humans, but something is missing. I need to speak to the one sorcerer who gained the power of the Darkworld. I need to speak to Lucifer.”

“Lucifer?” I said, blankly. “You mean, the Devil?”

“I mean the only human known to have survived the Darkworld,” said Jude. “I will resurrect him in my uncle’s body.”

The fortune-teller made a barely perceptible movement.

“What have you done to her?” I said. I’d never seen her subdued like this before, utterly powerless. It frightened me more than the crazed madman before me.

“She’s temporarily out of action.” Jude looked at me with those cold eyes, almost demon-like. “You should never have come in here. She wanted to save you, to distract me from killing you, but even the likes of her is no match for me.” He took a step towards me. “Ashlyn, you are going to be my other sacrifice, and give your power to Lucifer.”

“The hell I am,” I said.

“Bring her to me,” Jude said. “Rise, all of you. Kill the others.”

And all around us, the dead began to rise.