Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (8 page)

“If it’s deserved.” The boy’s smirk grew more pronounced. I wanted to hit him.

The passage we took was even narrower than the one we’d come down through, so we had to walk in single file. My breath fogged the air in front of me as I walked on and on, feeling as though we were travelling down into the depths of the earth. But finally the tunnel widened, and a bright light hit my eyes, making me cringe away into the shadows. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw it came from behind a door that stood ajar at the end of the room we were in.

The room was more like an underground chamber than anything, except the walls and floor were a dark, shiny metal rather than stone. It had an odd, clinical smell, mixed with the scent of earth from the tunnels, and the faint, but unmistakeable aroma of burning.

Someone was waiting for us, in front of the oblong of light. A tall, spindly man whose face was completely expressionless stepped forwards.

“Are you Claudia Delaney and Ashlyn Temple?” His voice was as empty of life as his face. I couldn’t tell how old he was - he might have been any age between thirty and sixty.

“Yes,” said Claudia. I merely nodded. I felt as though I’d left my voice behind in the tunnels.

“Leave, Jude,” he said, and the boy departed. “Miss Delaney, go into that room.” He pointed to one of the identical metal doors inset in the walls. She nodded and turned away. She was shaking, too.

“Miss Temple, come with me.”

A shiver of dread danced across the back of my neck, as he led me into the room with that alien light. The glow turned out to come from a human-sized glass case that stood in the centre of the room. If it hadn’t been for the door which lay ajar, I wouldn’t have said a person could stand in there without suffocating.

“Have you ever been here before, Miss Temple?” said the man.

“N-no,” I said, my legs weakening.

“Then you will be unfamiliar with the Angel Box. This is a device used as a magic scanner. I’ll need you to step inside it. You will not be harmed.”

The last thing I wanted to do was step inside that box, but what choice did I have? It muted all sound the instant I entered, and I felt the mad urge to scream in terror. I clenched my fists instead, willing myself to stay calm. The eerie light was all around me, and if I was Leo, I might have made jokes about alien abduction. As it was, I shut my eyes and tried to pretend I was somewhere else. It didn’t work.

I must have stood there for at least ten minutes whilst he walked around me, examining me from every angle. A gap above the door meant I could still breathe normally, but panic made my chest tight. I kept my eyes on my feet to avoid looking at my examiner’s blank face, stealing the occasional glance at the rest of the room. Apart from the glass case and metal walls, it was furnished like a regular office. A desk sat in the corner, topped with piles of paper and two computers. How on earth did they still work, this deep underground?

Finally he gestured, and the glass door sprang open.

“Please come and sit here.” His voice was emotionless. I couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad.

The chair looked uncomfortably reminiscent of pictures I’d seen of electric chairs, but I was so relieved to be out of that box, I collapsed into it. The man peered at me. His eyes were a dull shade of dark grey, but with an odd intensity to them.

“You’re a magic-user.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“But unregistered.”

“Yes,” I said. “My parents aren’t magic-users. I didn’t know about it before.”

“How long have you known?”

“About…” I swallowed. “Four months, I think.”

“There is something unusual there, but your reluctance to approach us is understandable.” I blinked in surprise. “It’s very rare for the connection to develop independently. Do you know of any history of magic-users in your family?”

He doesn’t know,
I thought.

“No,” I said. “I don’t have a copy of my family tree, and I’d never heard about anything until it happened.”

He nodded.
He believes me,
I thought, the tiniest spark of relief beginning to glow within me.

“But there is something that concerns me. How have you used magic? In what capacity?”

“I―” I stumbled. He had a surprisingly intense stare for someone with such a plain face. “I don’t remember―I’ve made lights appear, you know, to see in the dark…” It was my Oxford interview all over again. My mind blanked itself completely.

“You have never harmed anyone?”

Did turning someone to ice constitute harm? I didn’t want to mention that, in case it made him suspect what I really was. The Venantium had to be aware of human-demons, right? Either way, I couldn’t risk it.

“No,” I said. “Honestly. I’ve never hurt a single person.”

Unless I counted Terrence, but as he was possessed by a demon at the time, I wasn’t sure he qualified as a person. I did my best to meet that level stare. I wasn’t lying, was I?

He nodded, and I breathed again. “All the same, we feel it is prudent to set a watch on you. If you see any harpies―you know what harpies are?”

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“They will report back to us. If we suspect any illicit activity, we will send for you again.”

Great. As if one stalker wasn’t bad enough. Now the evil crone-birds would be on my tail.

“But there is another important matter which needs to be addressed. Do you know who murdered Mr Melmoth?” The directness of the question disarmed me.

“No,” I said.

“You saw him last night?”

“I―yeah. He attacked me and my friends when we were walking back to our flat.”

“You defended yourselves?”

“Yes.” There was no point lying. “I didn’t hurt him. He―Leo―” My thoughts were all jumbled together. “None of us harmed him,” I said. “Honestly.”

“I have spoken to Mr Blake. He was the last person to see Mr Melmoth alive. I merely wanted to know if you saw anything. I know from the scan that you have not performed any harmful magic of late, nor have you physically harmed anyone in any way. You’re clear.”

A rush of relief made my legs turn to jelly again. “And Claudia?”

“I’m sure your friend is clear, too. As you may be aware, Mr Melmoth’s is only the latest in a series of murders we are currently investigating, and we have to question all witnesses. Had you lied, I would have known.”

I nodded, suppressing a shiver at his last words. They implied a hidden threat, not quite masked by his blank, robot-like face.

“However, there is one thing that concerns me about this particular case. Were you acquainted with the man beforehand?”

“No. I’d never met him before. I don’t know why he attacked me.”

“Well, I have knowledge that his condition was worsening. It could have been random, of course, but we will keep an eye on the case nonetheless.”

This sounded ominous to me.

“Tell me, Miss Temple, are you acquainted with the story of the Blackstone family?”

I hesitated. “The whole family died in a fire… that’s what I heard.”

“That’s the common story. The untold part is that around a century and a half ago, a stranger knocked on the door of the Blackstone family’s manor. He was a sorcerer, a traveller, and they were happy to let him into their home. He seduced their daughter, Melivia. When her father found out, he unleashed his wrath upon the man. But he was too late. The man had already tricked Melivia into summoning a demon.

“In the Demon Wars that followed, the entire clan was wiped out. As it was such a momentous event people tend to forget the origins. But here in Blackstone we do not forget. The family’s grave stands as a monument to those who met their fate at the hands of a demon. For such a contract inevitably leads to death. Although the stories of the events are uncertain, mainly based on eyewitness accounts from the time, the one thing we know is that no one left that house alive. And the demon escaped, leading to a conflict that spanned the entire country, even the world. All the Venantium fought the demon invasion and killed Lucifer, the sorcerer, after years of conflict.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say. I’d completely forgotten about the Blackstone family and the weird way everything in the village seemed to be connected to them. It made sense that they’d been magic-users―but had one person really caused a war?

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“Melivia? She died in the fire, too. Set herself alight, it’s said, in order to exorcise the demon that possessed her. The poor child.”

I remembered the paintings at the Art Gallery in Blackstone: David had said they were Melivia’s work. Scenes of the dead rising to drag the damned into hell.
She burned alive?

“I just wanted to stress upon you the consequences of contacting the Darkworld. Here, we have no choice. It is our job to keep the world safe. But the reason we keep an eye on independent sorcerers like yourself is precisely because of incidents like this one. We never forget.”

He paused. The intense light flickered in his eyes.

“If you wish to register and join us, our doors are always open to you.”

His tone was welcoming now, inviting, but something about it set me on edge.
Like I’m going to say yes.
But he clearly expected an answer
.

“Um, okay.”

He bowed his head. “That is all, Miss Temple. You may leave.”

It seemed too good to be true, but I nodded and left the room as fast as I could. I found Claudia waiting for me outside. She looked pale, but composed.

“Clear?” she said in a tremulous voice.

“Yeah.”

“I thought so,” she said, not quite masking the relief in her voice. “Let’s get outta here. I don’t suppose that prick Jude will be back to show us out.”

The tunnel didn’t seem as long or threatening this time, but we hurried regardless. The memory of that blood-curdling scream came back, and I couldn’t help but imagine what could have happened had we not been so lucky.

Claudia seemed to think the same. She muttered, “It’ll wipe that smirk off Jude’s face to see us unharmed. He’d love to think we were suffering some awful punishment.”

“He and Berenice should get together,” I said.

“I think they dated once, actually. Before Howard came into the picture. And before he tried to get my parents arrested for not registering me with the Venantium.”

“What?”

“I know. He told the Inner Circle they were traitors. Thankfully they took no notice. He’s always trying stuff like that, to get himself into the higher-ups. But they’re not interested. He’s just their front boy. He’s at our uni, too. Studying politics. God help the world if he becomes a politician.”

Jude wasn’t even there when we came out of the tunnel. The entrance hall was deserted.

“Damn,” said Claudia. “I can’t remember which door leads to the exit.”

As if in response to her words, one of the doors sprang open, although there was no one behind it.

“I’m guessing it’s that one,” I said.

“They have all the magic of the Darkworld at their fingertips, and all they can do is mess with technology and make underground automatic doors,” Claudia said, shaking her head. “Let’s go, anyway.”

Another passageway awaited us, this one sloping upwards. We raced up it, feet barely skimming the stone floor, striking out a path for light and freedom.

It was dark when we emerged from the ground, although I instantly recognised where we were. The large black slab of the Blackstone memorial loomed over us; we were now behind it, rather than in front.

Claudia turned to me, and gave a shaky laugh. “No harpies this time, right?”

“Ash!” Leo pushed off from the stone wall.

“Leo? You’re still here? You must be freezing!”

“Little bit,” he said, holding up his hands, which had gone an interesting shade of blue. “Never mind that. How did it go?”

“Considering we’re here and not still down there, it went pretty well,” said Claudia. “We’re both clear.”

“Thank God,” said Leo. “I planned to go down there myself if you hadn’t come out by midnight.”

“Can you even get down there?” I said. “I thought the way only opened for us because they wanted to see us. I mean, that’s what it looked like.”

“There are other ways,” said Leo. “The tunnels.”

“Ah.” I thought of the winding passageways. Not my favourite place. Even now, it was such a relief to breathe the fresh, cool night air.

“Don’t the locals know about all those tunnels?” I said. “I’m surprised they can exist right under our feet without anyone knowing.”

“The Venantium protect them. The entrances are concealed, generally near old mine tunnels, and marked as hazardous. Of course, they use Influence, too. Like the fortune-teller’s tent.”

“Ah.”

“And those harpies make sure no one gets near them who’s not supposed to. Specifically, unregistered magic-users.”

“Yeah, I got that much,” I said. “I’m surprised they didn’t go for me again.”

“You had permission to be there this time,” said Leo. “They’re brainless, they can only obey orders. Otherwise, I’d be screwed. They’d know I’m the one who keeps attacking them.”

“Aren’t you and Howard worried you’ll get caught?”

“Daft question,” Claudia broke in. “The words ‘Leo’ and ‘worried’ rarely work in the same sentence. He has no concept of it.”

“Well, it’s pretty low-risk,” said Leo. “If you hit a harpy, it just disappears back to the Darkworld. It can’t tell anyone about it. It’s not like I’m leaving evidence.”

“It’s the overt use of magic that worries me,” said Claudia. “But I’ve given up arguing.”

Were the harpies watching us right now? I looked up and saw a flock swoop past, casting dark shadows in the moonlight. Leo was right: they were everywhere these days.

I
really
didn’t like the thought of them spying on me. I thought of David, how he’d spied on me last term. He’d clearly told the Venantium about me after all, the lying bastard. That, or they’d gotten hold of my number some other way―a thought that didn’t sit well with me, either.

Claudia and Leo talked about the interrogations all the way back to campus. I told them about mine, too, but I had half my gaze on the sky above, on the dark, wheeling shapes. They’d carried messages to David, I remembered. How many other students led double lives? That Jude was a student, too…