Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (29 page)

e jumped on the first bus to Redthorne. I frantically redialled Cara’s number, but my phone still refused to acknowledge a signal. The bus flew downhill, lurching over speed bumps, and I held on to Leo for support; he was the only solid thing left in the world.

We got off the bus and ran through the town centre. The security guards at the train station eyed us suspiciously as we sprinted into the station, down the corridor, and onto the platform. Leo bought all our tickets whilst I checked for the next train. Ten minutes to go.

Those ten minutes stretched out agonisingly. I kept checking my phone, but Cara hadn’t tried ringing me back, and I still couldn’t get through to her. If something had happened to her, I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d sworn never to get her involved in this…

“Ash, relax,” said Leo, who seemed as usual to know exactly what was on my mind. “Odds are the demon will have been caught by the Venantium before we even get there. They have a head start on us, and from what David said, it doesn’t look like the demon’s taking any great pains to stay hidden. If you ask me, it’s just an arrogant sorcerer who’s bitten off more than he can chew. He’ll get caught soon if he hasn’t been already.”

“I know,” I said. “But still. Cara doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. I’m such an idiot.”

“You’ll meet her in town, right? Just get the train home together. She’ll understand you need to find your parents.”

I didn’t say anything. I’d gone ice-cold all over, as though someone had turned down the temperature to freezing. Dark shapes clustered on the outskirts of my vision. With every heartbeat I felt like I walked towards the cliff’s edge again. I wrapped my arms around myself in a futile attempt to keep the Darkworld at bay.

Leo put his arm around me, which worked a thousand times better. “It’s okay, Ash.”

I shook my head. “Can’t you feel that?”

“The Darkworld? You’re shivering. That means the connection’s getting stronger, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s like it’s
inside
me. It’s been getting worse. I can see shadows everywhere.”

“I’ll bet it’s Mephistopheles’s doing,” said Leo. “It’s the demons manipulating you.”

I tried to cling to this idea. It wouldn’t do any good to get all panicky.

But even as we boarded the train, fear gripped me as I saw dark spaces open up everywhere, holes forming in the universe.

“Shit,” said Leo, looking into a carriage. The other passengers carried on with their business, utterly oblivious to the gaping darkness around them. “Okay. This looks… a little more serious than I thought. Let’s sit out here.”

We sat precariously on a pipe that ran along the corridor, opposite the door―a prime position to make a run for it. Not that it made much difference. We couldn’t jump off a moving train.

I jumped to my feet at every stop, but started to feel like an idiot. The dark spaces weren’t doing anyone harm. I hadn’t even seen any demons. I made myself relax, leaning against Leo. He made an effort to talk of other things on the journey, like the first time we’d spoken, when he’d made fun of me for admitting to accidentally stopping a clock’s hands during an exam using magic.

“I kind of wanted to punch you then,” I admitted. “You were being really annoying.”

“It is a specialty of mine. But you were interesting, Ash. I’d never met anyone quite like you before.”

“Guess I’m probably one of a kind now,” I said. “Not that I really want to meet another human-demon like him.”

“That’s how I know you’re more human than demon,” said Leo. “That guy was on the demons’ team from the start, but it’s a choice.”

“I know,” I said. “I just wish other choices were easier. Should I really be going home right now?”

“I think you need to figure stuff out,” said Leo. “Do you think someone’s messing with your mind?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. I feel really weird when I think about home at all. Like something’s missing. It’s been happening a lot lately. Like I’ve been missing small details. The same thing happened when Terrence messed with my head.” I sighed. “I’m an idiot―I should have realised sooner.”

“Don’t blame yourself. The whole reason people use mind-magic is because it’s hard to see through, especially for the person it’s being used on. An expert can fix it so you pass things off as coincidences, or gloss over things you’d normally think were strange. Melmoth had to deal with that kind of shit all the time. It’s what the Venantium do to people who witness demon attacks.”

“It can’t be someone from the Venantium,” I said. “They don’t know what I am. But how can I take it off? It’s driving me mental.”

Now I knew it was there, the truth lurking at the edge of my mind kept bothering me like an itch. Every time I tried to get close, I got the mental equivalent of a Taser.

“It depends who put it on you,” said Leo.

I sighed, again, then jumped about a foot in the air when the robotic overhead voice announced that we’d soon be pulling into Manchester Piccadilly Station.

“Want to get off here? Or Oxford Road. That’s closer, right? It’s been a while since I’ve been here.”

“Either. Cara’s more likely to be at Oxford Road. Her train will have got in ages ago, though.”

It was only five more minutes, but watching the city centre flicker past stirred new depths of fear within me. The corridor filled with people waiting to get off: commuters, people coming into town for a shopping trip, businessmen, families with small children. I wished I could do something to warn them.

I hoped to God the Venantium were there―and I never thought I’d ever hope that.

We legged it through the station and out into the open. I’d thought it was unusually sunny in Blackstone; here, it felt like an early heat wave had struck. The sun blazed above the high-rise buildings, dazzling light reflecting in the rows of windows. I’d forgotten how
big
everything was―even the smallest shops were two stories high. I saw the giant Starbucks where Cara and I had spent many a weekend, and the walkway to the shopping centre where I’d been so many times over the years…

I looked around, trying to spot Cara―or any signs of a disturbance. The town centre was heaving; we couldn’t stand still without colliding with people. Of course, Saturdays in the school holidays were the worst time to come to town. Every child’s scream of delight set my teeth on edge. I couldn’t see any
venators
, but there were so many people in suits about that I might have overlooked them.

“Shit,” said Leo. “Ash―look!”

A large number of people stood clustered near the shopping centre, looking up at something. A figure stood on the roof.

“God, no,” I whispered, starting to push my way towards them. A roaring rose in my ears.
Where the hell are the Venantium?

Unless we’d wandered into some ordinary person’s suicide attempt?

No. Not an ordinary person. Normal people didn’t float.

The woman stood on the air, on a level with the shopping centre roof. A familiar coldness gripped me, and the pendant burned against my chest.

“It’s her,” said Leo. “She’s possessed.”

“What’s she doing?”

“God knows. There are so many people…”

The crowd had become too dense for us to see any more than the backs of people’s heads. No
venators
appeared to be nearby.

My phone buzzed, startling me. I fumbled over the keypad.

“Ash!” Cara screamed down the phone. “Finally, dammit. Where are you?”

“I’m in town!” I turned my back on the floating figure. We had to get out of there, before Cara saw something I couldn’t lie my way out of. And I needed to find out what had happened at home.

“Me too, but I can’t find you!”

My heart plummeted. “Whereabouts are you? I’ve… I’ve just come out the station.”

And I started running in that very direction.

“Not so fast, Ashlyn.”

The connection cut out, and coldness shot through me. The floating woman appeared in front of me, eyes aglow with violet light. How had she moved so fast?

“You thought I wouldn’t notice you?”

She looked to be in her midtwenties, and wore a pencil skirt and a long black coat. Maybe she worked in the town centre. Maybe she was on her way to an interview. I couldn’t infer that much from her appearance. She could be anyone. She had family, maybe even children. And she was dead. Worse than dead―possessed. The third eye in the centre of her forehead was proof enough of that.

Anger surged inside me. She was an innocent victim. She didn’t deserve this.

“What’s your game here?” I said, my voice shaking with rage. “Why do you want to draw attention to yourself? Why kill that woman?”

“It is no business of yours, human-demon.”

Mephistopheles used his own voice rather than the woman’s, which sounded chilling coming from her mouth. She stood like an automaton, simultaneously lifeless and animated, limbs hanging like dead weights.

“I want
you,
Ashlyn. Join me and you won’t have to die when Lucifer brings in the new order.”

“You can’t have her,” said Leo, stepping forward. The woman turned her demon eyes on him, and renewed fear shot through me. He wasn’t immune to possession. Only I could face the demon.

The Darkworld closed in around me, shadows clinging to me like a living cloak. Coldness pierced my skin, and the demon smiled at me.

“
This vessel is weak, but I can still break you. Your choice, Ashlyn. However invulnerable you might think yourself, breaking humans is what I do best.”

She lifted off the ground, head bobbing like a puppet, hands outstretched. In one whiplike movement, she’d seized me and we were flying through the air, high above the town centre. I screamed as the ground dropped away. My head spun with vertigo.

“I can use subliminal magic, too. No one sees us. It’s just you and me.”

“Ash!” Leo shouted from the ground, a tiny figure amongst thousands. But he couldn’t do anything; if he hit the demon, I’d fall, too.

“Let go of me!” I shouted, but her hands gripped me with strength only a demon could give.

“Agree to join me, Ashlyn. Agree and I might spare your friends.”

“No! Never!”

“Then you leave me no choice.”

The woman’s grip loosened and I slipped, seconds from falling to the ground. I shifted, tried to connect to the Darkworld.

“Come out and play, little demon!”

And she let go.

I should have fallen. A scream jammed in my throat as I dropped a foot, then rose, supported by a cloud of darkness.

The Darkworld held me up. Through the shadows, the world below looked unreal, like a dream landscape. My vision flickered to purple.

“
Ash
!”

I tried to call Leo’s name, but my voice choked in my throat, and instead, another, alien voice spoke through me.
You won’t defeat me, demon. I’ll never join you.

“You want to play, Ashlyn? It’s been a while since I had a human body to break. Jude’s was too important to damage, but this one…”

Blood leaked from the corners of the woman’s eyes, beneath the violet. Streaks of red appeared in her skin, like something had dug sharp nails into her face.

“Stop,” I whispered.

There was a jarring
snap
, and a shudder of revulsion went through me. The woman’s arm had broken, seemingly by itself. It hung at a right angle, a dead weight. The hand spun on itself with another horrible
crack.

“I could do worse to you, demon
. Your human vessel is vulnerable. I told you I could break her.”

And she grabbed my left arm, squeezed hard. I screamed, a wrenching scream that tore at my lungs. The demon pulled my hand upwards and placed it on the demon heart on the woman’s forehead.

“You can feel it, can you not?”

I felt it. The power pulsing in the crystal was fathomless, far beyond my own. It was almost a living essence itself, and it seemed to laugh at me, with Mephistopheles’s voice.

The strength of a true demon resided in the crystal. I’d become attuned to the feel of my own amethyst; when I touched it, I felt protection and security emanating from the core. This felt like a store of pure fear. Faces flashed before my eyes, people Mephistopheles had tortured and killed. Thousands of lives ruined over centuries. The sheer weight of it threatened to knock me out.

“You feel it, Ashlyn. I am the oldest of demons. I am Mephistopheles. And this world is ours for the taking.”

“Never!” The shock turned my vision back to normal, but it brought a new vulnerability. I felt horribly, nakedly human, like a fly next to a god.

A sudden burst of fire ignited the air around us. The woman turned her head with a surprised sound. Her feet had caught fire.

“How
―
”

Leo. He’d somehow managed to reach us with magic, and the demon cried out as the flames crept up the woman’s body. I pulled my hand out of the weakening grasp, wincing at the pain. I could still move my arm; even though it hurt like a bitch, it wasn’t broken.

“Ash!” Leo’s voice rose through the darkness. “Can you get down? I’ll catch you!”