Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) (25 page)

“Just
talk
to him!” Alex finally yelled at me.

I jumped, having been absently contemplating the patch of grass beneath our kitchen window for the past few minutes.

“Huh?”

“David! Stop your bloody moping, and just ask him whether he’s going to ask you out or not.”

“I’m not moping,” I insisted. “I’m just… tired. And I’d ask, if I ever actually saw him.”

“You live in the same
flat
. It’s not hard to knock on his door.”

“He’s never in.”

Alex rolled her eyes.

I said nothing. If letting them think me a love-struck moron would divert attention from the real cause of my problems, then, like it or not, I’d have to endure it. At least it’d stop them telling me off for ditching them the other night.

Not that I particularly wanted to discuss David at the moment.

“Speaking of people not being in, have either of you seen Terrence lately?” I said.

Sarah shook her head. “Not for a while.”

“I have,” said Alex. “He was sneaking off to the ‘lab’ again last night. If you ask me, he’s conducting Frankenstein-style experiments in there. If we get attacked by animated corpses, we’ll know who’s to blame.”

“Highly unlikely,” said Sarah, though she looked amused.

“You never know,” I said. “I saw a weird glow coming from his window the other day.”

“Maybe he’s an alien!” said Alex. “And when he’s ranting on Skype, he’s actually communicating with his mother ship. That’s why there are so many weird noises coming from his room.”

I laughed. It wasn’t hard to send Alex off on a complete tangent.

“As for Pete,” she said, “
He’s
going to end up with a restraining order on him if he’s not careful. He won’t leave Danielle alone. He keeps ambushing her as she leaves her flat. Oh, and he got hold of her mobile number and keeps sending her pictures of his cock.”

“Seriously?” I said. “Doesn’t she mind that he’s stalking her?”

“She seems to find it funny,” said Sarah. “She and her friends were laughing about it the last time I saw her.”

“Yeah,” said Alex. “To be honest, none of them seem that bright. They probably consider it an honour to have a stalker.”

We discussed Pete’s stalkerish tendencies and Terrence’s possible extra-terrestrial origins for a while, but of course I couldn’t expect them to forget about David entirely.

“Really, Ash,” said Alex. “It’d be better if David was stalking you. At least then you’d know.”

“I don’t want a stalker,” I said. “Hell, I don’t even want a boyfriend. I just want him to be straight with me.”

“I’ll ask, then,” said Alex. She stood up and made for the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Doing you a favour.” She knocked on David’s door with both hands. “Open up, David! We want to talk to you!”

“Stop doing that!”

But there was no reply, to my relief. “He must be out.”

“I’m going to pounce on him when he comes back.”

“
That’s
a bit stalkerish, to be honest,” I said.

“No, it isn’t!” She hesitated. “Actually, it kinda is.”

And we left the subject of David behind. But, even as we planned a film night for that evening, I couldn’t help but think Alex had a point; at least with a stalker, I would know where I was. And that was, generally, as far away as possible from the person in question.

Where I was now, God only knew. It felt like someone else controlled my life like a puppeteer, and I didn’t appreciate it at all.

Right now, I just wanted to know who was trying to kill me. I wasn’t the only one wondering, as it turned out.

“Maybe there’s a conspiracy,” said Howard, at the next meeting. “Maybe the Venantium are trying to provoke you into using magic, so they’ll have an excuse to arrest you.”

“The Venantium would never summon shadow-creatures, Howard,” said Claudia, who sounded weary of the topic by now. The others’ initial shock at our lucky escape had turned into another argument with Howard about the ethics of the Venantium, and, to be quite honest, I wanted out of there.

“They use harpies,” said Howard. “They’re shadow-creatures. Fucking hypocrites, the lot of them.”

“Be that as it may, there’s a limit. Harpies are easy to control. Shadow-beasts and ghouls, though? They just wouldn’t go so far against their own principles.”

“
You
would say that. Just ‘cos your parents used to work for them.”

“I have nothing to do with them, and you know it. You just want to blame them for everything.”

“Shut the fuck up,” snapped Howard.

“Chill out,” said Leo, who looked rather bored by the whole thing. He lounged on the sofa, more absorbed in the Xbox than in the conversation. Once again, he and Howard battled it out on some fighting game.

“I think the newbie’s attracting the demons’ attention,” said Berenice, glancing up from her copy of
Cosmopolitan
. “They’re drawn to her like mosquitoes.”

“Lovely image,” I said, though part of me feared she was right. “So what is it I’m doing to attract their attention?”

“Don’t ask me. Subliminally telling them to follow you?”

“You can’t use subliminal magic on a demon, Berenice,” said Cyrus. “You know that.”

Berenice shrugged. “Whatever. There’s something not right about the newbie, anyway.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “I’m right here, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I do have a name.”

“Fine.” Berenice rolled her eyes. “There’s something not right about
Ash
.”

“Stop being bitchy,” said Claudia, who’d started skimming through a large leather-bound book that looked suspiciously as if it had come from the Venantium’s library.

“I just don’t want any of us to get killed on
her
account!”

“I’m not trying to get you killed!”

“That’s not what Claudia tells me.”

I looked at Claudia, hurt and surprised.

“I didn’t say that,” said Claudia, calmly. “I just said it’s weird that you’re always there when the creatures appear. That seems to suggest whoever’s summoning them is after you―like I said.”

“But
is
it my fault?” I said. “What if I
am
doing something to draw their attention?”

“Demons are attracted to overt use of magic,” said Claudia. “And you haven’t used any, really, before now, have you?”

“No. The demons were always there anyway.”

At that moment, Howard and Leo’s heated game-related discussion reached its peak; I didn’t hear what Leo said, but it must have been rude because Howard backhanded him across the face and stormed out of the room.

Berenice sighed, looking at the door as it slammed. Then she put down her magazine, grabbed the Xbox controller, and took his place, as Leo threw his own controller down, shaking his head.

“Geez,” said Claudia.

“Why do you bother playing with him if you know he’s going to overreact?” I asked Leo. He looked up at me as if he’d only just noticed I was there.

“Hey, Ash. Didn’t see you there.”

“Well observed, considering I’ve been standing here for the last twenty minutes,” I said dryly.

“Sorry, I was―”

“Absorbed in your thrilling game, I know.”

“Hey, don’t trash WWE. It’s awesome. Want to play?”

“I’ll kick your ass, newbie,” said Berenice, and I actually felt tempted to rise to the challenge.

“All right,” I said, taking the controller from Leo. “Might as well. My flatmates think I’m at the Gaming Society meeting anyway.”

“Your flatmates? They’re not―”

“Like us? No. And I plan to keep them out of the loop on demons and shadow-beast attacks and harpies and whatever the hell this crazy universe throws at me next.”

“Good plan,” said Leo. “I forget how mental this must be for you. I’m used to balancing life with the weird shit, but I guess you must be going through some tough times now, right?”

“What, apart from being attacked?” I laughed. “Honestly, after seeing demons for a year and not knowing what they were, it’ll take a lot to beat that in the traumatising factor.”

“Told you she’s braver than me,” said Claudia to Leo.

“More like all talk,” said Berenice. “All right, newbie. Let’s do this.”

She beat me at the game in two minutes flat, but I didn’t particularly care. I was aware of Leo watching me, and Claudia’s comment on my so-called bravery made me feel strange, like I’d unintentionally stolen someone else’s position. Old Ash would never have fitted into this world.

“Ash?” said Claudia. “Would you say the creature that attacked you on the mountain looked like this?”

She held open her book on a picture of a ferocious-looking black shadowy mass. The picture alone brought me out in chills, conjuring an image of a desolate landscape, a snowdrift, a monster bearing down on me.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Like the one in Satan’s Pit, except bigger.”

“How big? Six feet or taller?”

“I don’t know, probably. I was up to my neck in snow at the time. Does it matter?”

“Not really,” said Claudia. “Just a standard shadow-beast; they’re equally dangerous whatever form they take. Even shadow-foxes can take a bite out of you.”

“I was wondering,” I said. “Can shadow-beasts possess you, like demons?”

Claudia shook his head. “No, they can’t. They might be able to cause physical damage, but they have none of the advantages a true demon has. They’re fairly stupid, whereas demons are at least as intelligent as people are―more so than most.”

“Not that shadow-beasts are harmless,” Cyrus added. I’d almost forgotten he was there; he’d taken a neutral position during our debate and refused to take sides with Howard or against him. “They take on different forms, but they all share the trait of being semi-corporeal. In other words, they can walk between this world and the Darkworld, taking on a partially physical shape in our world. They’re easy to summon and control, which is why so many rogue sorcerers summon them. It’s like having a troop of well-trained dogs.”

“Can they kill you? Is it different than an actual dog biting you?”

“It’s like being mauled to death by a lion,” said Leo.

“Lovely,” I said.

“It also makes them easier to kill, and not necessarily by using fire,” said Claudia. “That’s how you did it, right?”

“Actually,” I said, remembering the rush of icy flames from my hands. “It’s more like I used their own strength against them; on the mountain, it was freezing, but too cold even for them. I couldn’t even imagine fire, but I swear it was ice I hit it with. I did the same thing to those shadow-foxes, too.”

“Liar,” said Berenice. “That kind of magic is beyond you.”

“I’m not lying,” I said. I found it ever more difficult not to slap her smirking face. Even the bitchiest girls at my school hadn’t been that obnoxious.

“She’s not lying,” said Claudia. “I thought that fire didn’t look quite right when you stopped that shadow-fox. Ice-fire?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Stranger things have happened to me.”

“Whatever,” said Berenice, unimpressed. “You might have got all this lot under your little spell, but I’m not so naïve. And I’m damned if you’re going to put anyone else in danger.”

“That’s very noble of you,” said Leo, “but you’re damned anyway, so it makes no difference. Same as the rest of us.”

“What, you really think we’re going to Hell?” said Cyrus.

“No, I don’t believe in Hell. But you know what the original Venantium used to say about magic-users. They think we get our power from the Devil.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Claudia. “They used magic themselves; they couldn’t have created the Barrier without it.”

“They say using magic to defend humanity against the demons of the Darkworld doesn’t count,” said Cyrus. “I don’t agree with it either, it’s the most hypocritical attitude you can have. Thankfully, these days, the Venantium are more open-minded.”

“
You’d
say that,” said Berenice. “What about Howard?”

“I’m not saying I agree with their policies, but what they do is necessary,” said Cyrus. ‘If it wasn’t for them, we’d be screwed; the demons would use our world as their playground. That’s why they want every sorcerer on their side, to make sure they have maximum support.”

“Even if they break their own rules,” said Berenice. “Look at the harpies.”

“I have a question,” I interrupted her, addressing Cyrus. “How can a demon be killed with fire if they’re not physically here? Shouldn’t it go right through them?”

“Technically, it should,” said Cyrus. “But, when a demon enters this world, it can’t stay unless it has an anchor. Generally, this means they attach themselves to a person by means of possession, but if a sorcerer wants to maintain control over them, they need a talisman. Precious stones are a favourite amongst rogue sorcerers. Charge one with enough magic energy, and it becomes a stone of power. The demon can’t resist the lure of the magic and latches onto it, feeding on the energy, until the stone becomes one with itself. That’s how you can tell when someone’s possessed. The stone fixates here.” He tapped the centre of his forehead. “Like a third eye. They call it the demon’s heart.”

“And to send a demon back to the Darkworld,” said Leo, “you need to cut off the anchor. Demons are instinctively creatures of darkness. Light and fire are their enemies. But fire has more effect than that; magical fire burns away a demon’s energy supply.”

“But that doesn’t kill it?”

“You can’t kill a demon,” said Berenice, in the tones of one explaining to an incredibly slow person that the Earth was round.

“True,” said Claudia. ‘But you can send them back to the Darkworld powerless, and that’s all you really want. The Barrier stops them from getting back through.”

“Can I have a look at that?” I asked, indicating her book. Actually. it was the first one I’d picked at random from the library:
The Seven Princes of the Darkworld: A General Guide to Demons.

“Sure. I wouldn’t look too closely at the pictures, though.”

I could see why. Images of demons and shadow-beasts, so realistic they could have been painted from real life, sent a deep chill through me. The hideous ghouls sat side-by-side with harpies, their almost-human faces the creepiest to look at.