Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1) (8 page)

I shifted my gaze back to the dark space—and I almost stopped breathing. Something
stepped out
of the darkness.

The
something
was a shadow, black as the gap itself, hunched and shapeless, but, as it moved, it seemed to solidify into an animalistic shape, crouched on all fours. Shadows blurred around it like a long shaggy coat.

This was no demon; it was something else. I could hear its soft footfalls on the pavement. This creature was
here,
physically, not hiding behind a dark space. Before, I’d always instinctively known the demons weren’t part of the world as I knew it. But this creature was as solidly here as I was.

I backed away, almost tripping over the front step of Satan’s Pit.

“Ash? You okay?”

“Fine,” I said, amazed at how steady my voice sounded, despite the tremors that made my heart rattle against my rib cage. “It’s really cold out here. I think we should go back inside.”

“You sure?” David looked at me doubtfully. “Okay, then.”

Coward.
A sharp voice in my head berated me for running away. But I didn’t want this, not now. Not now I’d almost regained a normal life.

But, before I could follow Alex, Sarah, and David back inside, someone grabbed my arm.

“It’s sensed you,” a voice hissed. ‘You can’t go back in there.”

I turned. It was the girl who’d knocked into me earlier, the red-haired girl from the car.

Swaying unsteadily on her three-inch heels, she pointed at the creature, which crept closer until its muzzle almost brushed my feet. It looked like a shadowy, oversized fox, but the eyes it fixed on me were crimson, like bloody gouges in its face.

I felt an icy claw grip my heart, rooting me to the spot.

“Shit,” I whispered. “What the hell is that?”

“A shadow-beast. It can’t see you, but it can sense you,” whispered the girl. “Move.”

But I couldn’t move. I was backed up against the door to Satan’s Pit.

The girl swore, stepping back to stand beside me. Dark tendrils rippled across the pavement like a creeping plant. The creature edged forward, raising its head to bare two rows of teeth.
Shit,
I thought.
It’s really going to kill me.

The girl cursed and moved in front of me, taking something out of her bag so fast her hands appeared blurred. A plain, black Japanese-style fan, patterned with flames. She held it out in her right hand, between us and the creature.

Confusion leaked through my terror.
What’s she doing?

For a second, I saw something flicker down her arms to her fingertips, then flames appeared out of nowhere, igniting the fan. She made a threatening motion toward the creature, which let out a high-pitched squeal. Faster than I could blink, it leapt at the dark space, vanishing into nothingness.

The girl flicked the fan, and the flames receded, becoming a simple pattern once again. She snapped the fan back into its case and stashed it in her bag. I couldn’t stop staring at her, speechless.

“That should scare it off, but there might be more. You’d better get back inside.”

Before I knew what was happening, she’d ushered me back into the club. I absentmindedly waved my stamped hand at the bouncer and stumbled into the corridor.

“What the hell just happened?” I said. “You―how did you―what
was
that?”

She didn’t seem to hear me. “I’m sobering up,” she said. “That’s a bad sign. I’m off to get another drink. Find your friends. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait!” I said. “At least tell me your name.”

“Claudia,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll see you later.”

And before I could say another word, she’d descended the stairs back into Satan’s Pit, tottering slightly.

I followed hesitantly, my mind whirling. It made no sense.
That was no demon.
Shadowy creatures had stalked me for nearly a year now, but. I knew from experience that, if I threw something at a regular demon, the object would simply pass right through it.

Now I didn’t know what to think. But it scared me shitless.

The club seemed twice as crowded, and I couldn’t see Alex or the others anywhere. I hovered at the bottom of the stairs, on the outskirts of the noisy, raving mass of human bodies, beginning to panic. What if something attacked my friends, too? There hadn’t been any more of those creatures, had there? In a weird way, I felt somehow responsible for the creature’s appearance. After all, no one else could see them…

“Ash! Where’ve you been?” Sarah yelled.

Thank God.

“Um, there was this girl, she was drunk and couldn’t find her way to the bus stop. I helped her get there.”

That sounded plausible enough to my own ears, and, to my relief, Sarah nodded.

“I did wonder. Alex and David are over by the bar. That creep tried to come onto Alex again, so she punched him in the face. It was pretty funny.”

“Damn it, I missed that?” I said, hoping I sounded convincingly annoyed. I still trembled all over, but I supposed I could always put it down to the effects of the alcohol.

We found Alex by the bar. “David met a friend and buggered off,” she said, raising her voice so we could hear her over the music. “I think we should get the bus back.”

“Good idea!” I said. Right now, I wanted out of Redthorne, as quickly as possible.

I couldn’t stop myself looking around anxiously as we shivered by the bus stop, but I couldn’t even the dark space anymore, only ordinary shadows between the brightly lit clubs and bars, between the blazing strobe lights spilling out onto the pavement. This looked like the least likely place for monsters to appear. But I’d learnt by now that fear walked out in the open, unseen.

The demons seemed to congregate in crowded places the most. I always saw more dark spaces when shopping in town than when I went out for walks alone in the park, when it was quiet. I imagined a large gathering would attract them in droves. But I was certain the creature I’d just seen had been different from the others. Now that I thought about it, although I’d been scared witless, it wasn’t like the cold, primal terror brought on by the sight of a true demon, even though the shadow-beast had presented a more direct threat.

A thousand questions chased each other around my head, and I felt an irrational surge of anger at the girl for not explaining anything. She’d just saved my life and vanished.

“You’re pretty quiet, Ash,” Alex commented, as we took the back row of seats on the bus again.

“I’m just tired,” I said, and didn’t have to fake a yawn.

I must have been more tired than I’d thought, because I actually fell asleep on the journey back, dreaming confused dreams of shadowy fox-like creatures climbing the sides of the bus. I awoke when Sarah prodded me, just in time to stop myself sliding out of my seat.

“Oops,” I said, shifting back into place.

“You enjoy your first clubbing experience?” Alex asked me.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

“It was okay,” said Sarah, “though I won’t be going out every night. I need my beauty sleep!”

“Same. I’m more of a morning person, really,” said Alex.

“I’m the opposite; I’m pretty much nocturnal,” I said. “But I guess all that dancing wore me out.”

“I’d rather be watching a movie,” said Sarah. “But I suppose it was fun.”

Fun, until the freakish monsters from my subconscious decided to make an appearance.

I’d just never expected it to happen in that way.

hat night, I dreamt I was encased in ice.

At first, I floated on the surface of a lake, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight that stroked my skin. The lake water washed across my face, deliciously cool, and I felt tears spring to my eyes. I could
feel
it, warmth and coolness, like before the demons. No more numbness. Normal.

Then something cold pierced my foot. I looked down and saw the water above my feet ripple as the surface froze. Ice flowed over the water, covering it in a glassy sheen. Before I could so much as move, it gripped me like a thousand icy pins, digging into my skin all over, making me cry out in pain. I struggled, but numbness paralysed my arms and legs; I could only watch in horror as the ice inched up my neck, spread over my face. A final cry escaped my mouth before ice flowed in, stapling my lips shut.

A voice whispered,
“Did you think you could escape it by coming here?”

I forced my eyes open to find myself lying on my bed with my covers strewn around me. When I tried to lift my head, nothing happened.

Shit. Not again.

I forced myself to stay calm.
This isn’t supernatural; it’s just sleep paralysis.

It still seemed to take forever for me to regain feeling in my limbs and sit up shakily. My watch told me it was almost six in the morning. I groaned. I’d been asleep only three hours.

But the memory of the dream hovered over me, making me reluctant to go back to sleep. I shuddered as I felt cold sweat along my back and neck and decided to take a quick shower.

Somewhat refreshed, I came out of my en suite bathroom and attempted to remake my bed. I pulled back the tangled sheets and noticed a handful of tiny, white shards scattered on my pillow. Like slivers of ice.

Brushing them away, I rearranged my covers and opened my curtains to see a thick, light mist pressing against my window. Today, I remembered, we had the morning free, presumably to allow everyone to recover from the first big night out, but we’d be picking course modules this afternoon.

I decided to go to the kitchen and get something to eat. There, to my surprise, I found a fully dressed David, eating cornflakes.

“Hey!” he said. “Another early bird.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. I shook Frosties into a bowl. “Did you have fun last night?”

“Yeah, it was a laugh. Where did you disappear to?”

“I was, uh, helping this girl find her way to the bus stop.” I sat down, noting David’s eyes were shadowed, like he hadn’t slept.

“Ah, good call.”

We munched cereal in silence for a bit. I felt oddly self-conscious that all I was wearing was a hoodie and a pair of pyjama bottoms, but I supposed this came with being a student. I’d get used to it, no doubt. At least I’d not walked into a drunken orgy, like Cara had.