Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) (23 page)

Suddenly, something occurred to me. I was fairly sure she’d written in the letter she’d sent with the pendant that it had belonged to someone in the family. Maybe she knew of other heirlooms, gifts passed on through the generations? If anyone knew about magic, Aunt Eve did. She’d always loved old myths, and she used to read to me from books of fairy tales when we’d stayed with her at summer. She’d even looked a bit like a witch, albeit a kindly one, not a fairy-tale hag. I couldn’t clearly remember her face; my memory was hazy. I made a mental note to write back and ask her about the family tree.
I still haven’t thanked her for the present. Why did I forget?

Surely
someone
would be able to give me answers. None of my grandparents was still alive, and my dad’s brothers had never expressed an interest in family history. So that just left Aunt Eve.

After Mum and Dad left late afternoon, I started sorting through the jumble of letters and leaflets in my drawer, looking for the letter from Aunt Eve. I’d thrown everything in haphazardly, from bank statements to vouchers for Bargain Burgers. Eventually, after combing all my papers extensively and even emptying out my drawer, I admitted defeat. Maybe I’d left the letter at home. I texted Mum asking her to look for it, then joined my friends in getting ready for our first big night out since Freshers’ Week.

Since it was Halloween the next day, Alex insisted we go to Satan’s Pit’s Saturday Night Extravaganza, even though she wouldn’t be back until late from the hike. She’d also insisted the three of us dress up as the three witches from Macbeth. My black dress worked fine, so I didn’t have to buy a costume, and I also wore my amethyst pendant again.

As it turned out, Sarah had a gift for applying face paint, and we actually looked pretty cool when we finally set out. She drew elaborate cobweb patterns on our faces and shadowed our eyes so we looked like we hadn’t slept in weeks.
I look almost as bad as I did this time last year,
I thought wryly.

“Annnnnd… Satan arrives!” boomed the loudspeakers as we descended the spiral staircase into the nightclub. The customary guy in the devil costume descended via the rope from the ceiling to wild applause.

Since Satan’s Pit already looked the part for Halloween, there wasn’t a whole lot the decorators could do to make it creepier. They’d enhanced the cobwebs and eerie red lights with the addition of glowing skulls hanging from the ceiling and replaced the candle brackets with pumpkins. I absently readjusted the pendant around my neck as I looked around, wondering if David was here. I hadn’t seen him since he’d disappeared on me, and for some reason that made me anxious.
You’re being stupid
, I told myself, but I couldn’t help it. That night at the library had increased my paranoia tenfold, and coming back to the club was really the worst thing I could have done, considering what had happened last time.

As this thought crossed my mind, I caught sight of Claudia, dressed to kill in her off-the-shoulder shimmering black dress and a pair of unconvincing rabbit ears. Guys surrounded her as she danced wildly amongst the flame-like strobe lights.

Then I saw David, with a group of people I didn’t recognise, possibly the people he’d been with at the pub the other night. I tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking at me. I couldn’t decide whether I felt more disappointed or relieved I didn’t have to talk to him in front of all his friends. Which was a totally irrational thing to feel, but I was starting to think the rational part of my mind had long since departed.

The heat, the lights, and the pounding music made me feel slightly dizzy. I realised the scars on my arms were throbbing again. The flames on the walls and floor began to change colour, pulsing from green to red to blue. My pendant glowed, and it felt cold against my chest. I watched, almost hypnotised, as a monster stole across the dance floor, pushed through a troop of people dressed as Santa, knocked several people aside, and posed behind Claudia.

Even from here, my eyes filmed by dazzling lights, I knew it was no Halloween costume, but a similar creature to the one from the hike, only smaller―a shapeless mass around four feet high, with slavering jaws agape and madness in its red eyes.

My cry of warning was lost in the cacophony of music and laughter, but Claudia seemed to realise the danger a split second before the creature pounced.

In one fluid movement, Claudia caught hold of the monster’s shadowy fur. There was a flash that was indistinguishable from the strobe lights, a squeal of pain no one but the two of us could hear, and, a second later, Claudia held the creature in a headlock.

No one else seemed to notice anything. Ignoring the dizziness that made my feet unsteady, I pushed my way through the crowd.

“Claudia!” I shouted.

“Ash! Couldn’t give us a hand, could you?”

There really is nothing more difficult than trying to drag a great shaggy monster out of a packed nightclub,
I thought. True enough, no one gave us a second glance, but the creature kept trying to squirm out of our grasp. Every time it tried to escape, Claudia’s hand blazed with fire and it howled and went limp. But I knew she couldn’t do anything too overt for fear of drawing unwelcome attention.

“Wish―Howard―were―here!”Claudia panted.

Without warning, the creature lunged at me, fangs bared. I instinctively cringed, and that one movement was enough for it to break Claudia’s hold.

“No!” she shouted as the creature disappeared into the crowd of Halloween revellers on the stairs. They scattered, some of them looking around, baffled; plainly, none of them could see what had pushed them.

We ran, slipping on the floor now wet with spilled drinks.

“I’m sorry,” I panted.

“Don’t worry about it,” gasped Claudia. “If I ever find the idiot who summoned it―”

We emerged from the nightclub into a storm. Curtains of rain completely obscured the street, and in the darkness, it was impossible to see where the creature had gone.

“Shit,” said Claudia. “Shit.” She groaned. “Howard won’t be happy.”

“Howard?” I said. “Why?”

“He’s paranoid the Venantium are on the lookout for unregistered sorcerers,” said Claudia. “And, let’s face it, most of the time, they are. Every time something like this happens, the blame always lands on someone who isn’t registered. And he’s both unregistered and a troublemaker. Because of the mess he got into a couple years ago, some of them are convinced he’s a user of forbidden magic, and they’re determined to catch him at it.”

“Seriously?” I said. “Is he even out tonight?”

“Probably, if Berenice dragged him out. Shit, this is bad.”

“Should we try to find it?”

She shook her head. “There’s no chance now. The best we can hope for is that it went straight back to the Darkworld.”

“Why did it go for us?”

“God knows. This is getting ridiculous. Last year, the only time we saw shadow-beasts was when we went after them ourselves. Now, they’re targeting us. Or, more specifically, you.”

“You think the person who summoned them is after me?”

“Has to be. Of course, they could easily be after both of us, or any of the group, but you were the only one of us on that hike. Whoever they are, they clearly don’t expect much of your abilities, if they set just one creature on you. My guess is they don’t know what you’re capable of.”

“Neither do I,” I said, finally voicing one of the anxieties that had plagued me ever since the beginning of term. “I didn’t know I’d be able to fight that creature―I just reacted instinctively.”

“That’s all magic is, most of the time,” she said. “The one limit is your own strength, and the only way to find that is to test it.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, it would help if I had more of a clue what’s going on. And if I knew more about demons.”

“I’ll tell you more at the next meeting. Howard has some useful books; they’ll explain it better than I can. Look, your friends will be wondering where you are. Go back and find them. I’ll text you later, okay?” She turned back to face Satan’s Pit, sighing heavily.

“Uh, sure.” True, I needed to get back to the others. Would they swallow the helping-a-drunk-girl-to-the-bus-stop story twice? I hated lying to them. I didn’t
want
this. I didn’t want secrecy and paranoia. I wanted life to go back to normal―even though a part of mewanted to explore this hidden world further.

Was this the lure of the Darkworld? Would I be drawn in deeper and deeper, until it was impossible for me to escape?

A loud noise drew me back to the present―the roar of a motorcycle. A second later, it appeared on the road adjacent to us, leaving a trail of black oil that gleamed in the moonlight.

And a dark space.

“Claudia!” I called, and she turned back.

“Holy crap.” She looked at me, eyes wide, and whipped out her fan. “Stay back. I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m coming,” I said, following her across the road. The darkness blotted out the lamplights and seemed to grow wider as we approached. I shivered as coldness bit deeply into me.

Something crawled out of the dark space. Several small shapes. Shadow-foxes.

“Oh, hell.”

laudia summoned fire to her palm and threw out her other hand, urging me to stay back. I counted seven shadow-foxes, slinking toward us across the pavement. They seemed to carry the darkness with them, the square shape of the Darkworld extending as they moved until it was difficult to see each creature within it.

“Back off.” She threw a handful of fire, briefly illuminating the darkness. A pitiful screech indicated she’d hit her target. “I. Said. Back. Off.”

Fire blazed along the length of the fan, and she brought it down like a whip. Again. Again. But the darkness remained.

“That’s not right,” she said. “Come on, already.” She held up her other hand and summoned another flame. I hesitated, not wanting to get in the way of the flames.

Then something grabbed my ankle. I swung around, stumbling, and saw a dark shape clinging to my ankle. Not a shadow-fox; this was humanoid, albeit hideous and as wrong-looking as a harpy. Its limbs were overlong, hands ending in curved claws instead of fingers. Sunken, red eyes gleamed from holes in a face that was more like a skull and unnaturally large in proportion to its tiny, shrivelled body. I shuddered with revulsion.