Fear's Touch: A Darkworld Novella (The Darkworld Series) (7 page)

“That better? Please don’t hit me again.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought…my friend’s in trouble. She ran down here.”

With the lights, we could now see to the end of the alley where it turned off, presumably into another passage. No one was there.

“Berenice?”

“She’s your friend from before, right?”

I nodded, moving forward. “She was convinced something was after her.”

Damn, those shadows were persistent. Worse, I swore I could see other…
things
there, snarling, clawed things. Shuddering, I drew my arms tight to my body and gritted my teeth. The light formed a kind of tunnel. When a bony arm shot out of the shadows and grabbed at the air, I stepped back into Biker Guy, heart in my mouth.

“Something bad’s going on,” he said.

“You think?” My voice trembled.

Finally, we turned a corner and found Berenice crouching in the middle of another alley, hands over her head. Shadowy creatures surrounded her—at least three, but I couldn’t be sure. Shadow-beasts the size of dogs with slavering jaws and snatching claws.

My heart pounded, ice flooding my body.
No…no!

But I couldn’t move. I felt pinned in place, helpless. The shadow-beasts stalked around Berenice, claws and teeth getting close enough to snap inches from her but never actually making contact.

Biker Guy swore and walked past me, light held high over his head. “Get away!” he called to the shadow-beasts. They took no notice.

Berenice whimpered.

Feeling came back into my body, and I grabbed the fan before the fear caught up with me again. Reaching into the Darkworld, I concentrated, not on the piercing coldness but on
warmth.

I’m human. I’m warm-blooded. Fire.

My fan caught alight, and I advanced on the shadow-beasts. The effect was instantaneous; they cringed away from the flames, snarling at me. Now, their attention was away from Berenice, at least. I flashed a glance at her; she seemed unhurt, but still didn’t look up from the ground.

Biker Guy flung a handful of fire at one of them. With a roar, it reared up on its hind legs, falling into one of the other shadow-beasts. The third jumped at me, but I was ready with a handful of fire. I swiped at its face and hit dead-on. Score one for me.

The shadows around us had begun to recede, gathering into a single point, a dark space. One after another, the shadow-beasts dived into it, and a second later, it vanished.

Breathing heavily, I let the flames drop. Damn, I rocked. I hadn’t even set anything on fire this time.

“What on
earth
do you think you’re doing?” a voice demanded.

I swung around. Jude stalked down the alleyway, his body tensed, face taut with rage. “How
dare
you make such a public spectacle of…”

“Public?” I demanded, hardly able to believe what he’d just said. “Did you not see the three freaking giant shadow-beasts?”

“I will not allow it!”

“Jude,” said Biker Guy. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s excusable. These girls were being attacked.”

“Rules,” snarled Jude, stalking over to his partner, “are rules. Regardless of time or place or circumstance.”

Berenice whimpered.

“You okay?” I said, kneeling down next to her.

She nodded, frightened eyes looking up at Jude.

He glared back. “I saw those creatures follow you,” he hissed. “Why else would they, if you hadn’t summoned them yourself?”

“That’s bullcrap!” I said. “They were attacking her.”

“You’re in trouble, too,” he said, turning that laser stare onto me. “You’re
unregistered,
and you were using magic.”

“Yeah, to defend ourselves,” I said, irate. What in hell was his problem?

“I think you need to learn some manners. Come with me and meet the Inner Circle.”

“Jude,” said Biker Guy. “I
really
don’t think they want to be bothered with something like this.”

“It’s my duty to inform them.”

“It’s
our
duty not to make things unnecessarily complicated,” he said. “They have more urgent matters to deal with. We should be focusing on who exactly summoned those shadow-beasts. They were set upon the girl by something.”

Berenice trembled. She pushed herself to her feet, staggering slightly in her heeled sandals.

The two
venators
stared each other out.

Biker Guy said, “Look, it’s late, and Mr Priestley wants our reports in by morning. Can you just let it go for once?”

Jude folded his arms. “Yes, I’ll do that. I’m sure he’ll be
very
interested to read our reports of tonight’s…activity.”

I didn’t like the look in his eyes. He wasn’t seriously going to report us to his boss, was he?

“Yeah,” said Berenice, her words slightly slurred. “I’m sure they’ll want to know what you were doing in Satan’s Pit.”

“He was?” I said, astonished.

Jude’s flat-eyed stare met mine. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s intoxicated.”

Berenice staggered against the wall. “Like hell. I saw you…” Her mumble trailed off into something unintelligible.

Alarm shot through me. Had someone spiked her drink? How had she even known the shadow-beasts were here, anyway?

“Saw you,” she insisted.

“Well, there’s nothing left here,” said Jude with a glance at the other end of the alley. “No traces left. The shadow-beasts are gone.”

Well, he’d changed the subject fast. I threw him a suspicious look. Had he had something to do with Berenice’s behaviour? No, surely not. He worked for the Venantium. He might wear a flashing sign saying “Bad News”, but no
venator
would go as far as to summon
shadow-beasts
to get someone arrested. Right?

“So, we can let the girls go now, right?” said Biker Guy.

“Sure, whatever.”

Man, he’d switched from intense to indifferent quicker than a chameleon changed colors. Not that there was anything I could say to challenge him without digging my own grave.

With one last cursory glance around the alleyway, Jude strode out of sight.

Biker Guy turned to me. “Sorry about him,” he said. “Are you okay? Your friend doesn’t look too good.”

Berenice had slumped to the ground again. Alarm flickered.

“Did someone put something in your drink?” I asked her, crouching down next to her.

No response, apart from a faint groan.

Did Jude?
I wondered. Or was I just paranoid?

“Want me to help get her home? You live on campus, right?”

Well, what d’you know—a
venator
was actually a decent person.

“Yeah.” I nodded gratefully.

“I’ll be going back to Headquarters in Blackstone, but I can help her get to the bus.”

“Cheers,” I said. “What about Jude?”

“Him? Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of it.”

My suspicions still buzzed around me like flies, but we had more important things to deal with. Like getting Berenice back to campus, or—

“She doesn’t need to go to the hospital, does she?” I asked.

He crouched down next to her and tilted her head up. She groaned.

“I don’t think so. Come on, we’ll get to the free bus.”

Thankfully, one had just pulled up next to Satan’s Pit, and we joined the throng of people waiting without anyone so much as looking our way. Given Biker Guy’s outlandish uniform, this puzzled me for a minute—at least, until I saw the faint, flickering transparent shield surrounding us. Influence. That explained it.

Berenice leaned on me the whole bumpy ride back, but thankfully, there was no projectile-vomiting involved this time. Her head dropped to my shoulder and she began to snore faintly. Hopefully, she could sleep it off. I knew it was damned irresponsible for us not to tell someone, but strange as it sounded, I kind of trusted Biker Guy, even if he did work for
them.
He was a student, too, after all.

“Final year,” he told me. “It’s not much fun balancing studying physics with these killer late-night shifts, but someone’s gotta do it. Redthorne’s just outside the barrier areas, so shadow-beasts and other Darkworld creatures often get out there.

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “I thought someone had to summon them.”

“Yeah, they do. But they have minds of their own, and they want to target magic-users. I’ve known sorcerers to summon one miles away, yet, once it runs off, it’s a bitch to find it again. Amazing how often they show up here.”

“So, you don’t think someone sent them after us deliberately? I mean…” I glanced at Berenice, who slept on, apparently oblivious to the bumpy country road. “She said something weird when she came out of the club, said it was after her and she had to kill it.”

“That so?” He frowned, moving as though to shake Berenice awake and then seemingly thinking better of it. “Are you
sure
she hasn’t been involved in anything shady? I know Jude’s desperate for a promotion, but I’d never arrest someone unless I was absolutely sure they’d done something illegal.”

“I…” Honestly? I couldn’t be sure. She’d been so evasive and reluctant to share anything about herself, but as prickly as she was, I couldn’t believe she was a bad person. Not the sort to use illegal magic.

The shadow-beasts were after her for
something,
but that didn’t mean she’d done anything wrong. Right?

My head spun. The late night, and the fight, had caught up with me, and I just wanted to dive into bed and forget about it all. If I had to choose who to trust out of Berenice and Jude, it was a freaking no-brainer. But in the land of crazy, was anyone really trustworthy?

Ugh. Sleep first. Questions later.

ext morning—well, afternoon, really; I’d slept through my lecture—I sent Cyrus a text with the gist of what had happened. Hell, if anyone could help, it was him. For bonus points, he was on campus and had nothing to do with the Venantium.

Cyrus replied immediately, asking if I wanted an emergency meeting. That day. He’d picked the Games Room as our future bolt-hole—a small room inside the common room, tucked away in a place everyone forgot about apart from members of GameSoc. I said yes and then went to find Berenice.

I knocked on her door for five minutes, my worry increasing by the second, before I heard a groan. Then footsteps and the sound of the bolts unlocking before the door opened a fraction. Her sleepy face appeared.

“What?”

Relief shot through me. “Just checking you were okay.”

“No, I’m not okay. This hangover’s a bitch.”

“Still. Could be worse. Do you remember last night?”

A shadow seemed to fall over her face. “Yes.”

“Specifics?” I pushed. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but, well, Cyrus and I are meeting up later. I told him. He can help us.”

“No one can help me,” she said, flatly.

I felt a pang. Without her make-up on and her hair ruffled from sleeping, she looked younger than she really was. A kid, being hunted by monsters.

“He can,” I said. “After you left, we talked about how to use Influence. He can teach us. If you learn that, you can hide from them. The shadow-beasts won’t be able to see you.”

Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”