Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (25 page)

Sure enough, Berenice wore a self-satisfied smile on her face. “Well?”

I tried to speak, but no words came out. My throat felt like sandpaper. I swallowed.

“Look, guys, I… I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me right now. I never meant to lie to you.”

Cyrus was the first to speak. “How long have you known?”

I swallowed. “Since last December. It was how Terrence got to me. I didn’t know it at the time, but he stole my… my demon heart. This.”

I held up the amethyst crystal around my neck for all to see.
Leo. Please look at me.

“I don’t know how I’m part-demon,” I said. “Some ancestor of mine—I really don’t know, there’s no way to find out, and obviously, I’m not in the
Sorcerer’s Almanac.
There was literally no way I could know. I wasn’t lying when we met, when I said I didn’t know I could use magic or see demons before it happened. Then Terrence tried to get a demon to possess me, but I can’t be possessed.”

“I knew it!” said Berenice, whose triumphant expression grew even more pronounced. “You’re like a kind of superhuman. No wonder the demons all want you on their side. You’re like their superior, am I right?”

“I don’t
want
to be,” I said. I needed them to understand. “I never wanted this. I’ve been telling them to piss off for the last year and a half.”

“You never did tell us everything that happened that night,” said Howard suddenly. I backed away in case he swung a fist at me. “When that sorcerer died? Did you kill him?”

I had to think for a moment to figure out who he meant. “Who, Terrence? Of course not. The demon did.” I shivered at the memory. “I killed the demon before it could go for anyone else. I wanted to tell people when I got back, but I thought you’d see me as a monster, too. Like the doppelganger, she was part demon as well, and she was killed for it because people thought she was possessed. But she was human. She just had demon magic, like being able to freeze things, same as me. I mean… true demons are human-hating, heartless fiends. I
hate
that I’m connected to them like this. But it’s why they keep pestering me. They seem to think they can get me on their side.” I looked up, feeling as tired as though I’d just run a mile. “So now you know.”

This time, Claudia met my eyes. “Honestly?” she said. “I think… I think I’d kind of guessed.”

Leo nodded. My heart contracted. He studied the ground, making no other acknowledgment that I was there.

“Leo,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t say anything.

“We’ll leave you two alone,” Cyrus said.

I didn’t think my heart could sink any lower. I’d lied to him. Lied to everyone, but especially to him. And worse, I was partly the creature he hated, the creature that had killed his mother and driven his father away. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like.

I opened my mouth to speak, though I wasn’t sure if I would apologise, or just promise never to come near him again, never remind him of what I was. But he spoke first.

“Sorry, Ash.”

The last words I expected to hear.

“What?” I choked out. “What do you mean,
you’re
sorry? I’m the one who—Leo, I understand if you never want to speak to me again. I should have told you from–from when I found out. I should have…”

“Hang on,” said Leo. “I can’t pretend this isn’t—
when
did you find out?”

“Last term.” I closed my eyes, tears pricking. “Well, twice, because Terrence messed with my memory the first time. And I couldn’t–I already knew you guys by then. If I dropped that on you then, I didn’t know if you’d report me, or…”
I was too scared. Too scared of losing you.
My throat closed up again.

“We’d never have done that,” Leo said, and I jumped when his hand touched mine. It was warm, so warm compared to my own ice-cold skin. “
I
would never have done that. Ash, I was already falling for you by that point.”

Was.
My fingers clenched around his hand, almost like I couldn’t help it, like if I held on tight enough, he wouldn’t pull away from me.

He didn’t.

“Ash, I can’t pretend it’s not a shock, but it’s
not
your fault. Like you said, you couldn’t have known.”

Tears filled my eyes. “Seriously? You don’t mind that I’m―”

“Human,” he said. “You’re not possessed. You’re you.”

The knot in my chest loosened, and suddenly everything―Jude, the fortune-teller, the demon inside me―seemed like nothing. I genuinely felt lighter, like I could walk on air.

It seemed far too good to be true.

“Look, let’s just get back to campus. Everyone’s tired, and we’ve a hell of a lot to talk about, but we’ll do it tomorrow.”

There was so much I wanted to say, but my mind kept repeating over and over:
They don’t hate you. He doesn’t hate you. It doesn’t matter that you’re part demon. It never mattered. Everything’s okay.
I wanted to break down and cry with sheer relief and happiness, and hug Leo, but I was conscious that I was in dire need of a shower; my clothes were soaked in seawater, and I had mud up to my knees from the flight through the forest.

Shower first. Sleep on it, if I could. And then…

Early next morning found me dishevelled and tired as hell, waiting on Leo’s doorstep.
Really
early, actually. The little sleep I’d had had been interrupted with nightmares of Jude flooding the town, and when the text from Leo had come at 4:00 a.m., I wasn’t about to complain. For another thing, there was an ungodly racket coming from down the corridor. Sounded like Pete was throwing a party.

Oddly, another text from Claudia came through a few minutes later:
Help me. Berenice and Howard are REALLY LOUD next door. I don’t want to hear this!

I don’t want to know, either!
I texted back. But at least it meant she didn’t hate me.

“Hey, Ash,” said Leo, answering the door. He pulled me into a hug.

“Sorry. Again.”

“Ash, you really don’t need to apologise.”

But the guilt was still there. I’d lied to him and the others. There was no getting around that.

“Claudia’s texting me, too,” I said. “Guess she has questions.” I would, too, if one of the others had revealed something like that.

Would
I
have trusted them? If, say, Cara had suddenly told me that she was part-demon, before I knew I was one?

I didn’t have an answer to that. It wasn’t like I could read Leo’s mind. Maybe there
was
some doubt there. I wouldn’t blame him if there was.

We ended up gathering in the Games Room. Most of the others looked like they hadn’t slept, either, though Howard made a halfhearted attempt to set up the Xbox. Berenice sat at his side, leaning on his shoulder. Cyrus, who wore the manic expression of someone who was on a last-minute deadline, typed away at his essay, but one eye was on me. And Claudia and Leo watched me openly.

“Okay,” I said, as nobody seemed to want to break the silence. “I’m open for questions. Hit me. Uh, not literally.”

“Well,” said Claudia. “I always thought it was strange how the demons always seemed to go for you in particular. So… who was it?”

“Who was what?” I said.

“One of your ancestors must have been a demon, right?”

“I don’t know. The fortune-teller thinks it might have been Lucifer.”

“As in, the higher demon, not the crazy sorcerer?” said Howard.

“Yeah,” I said. “The higher demon. I don’t even know how it happened. I’ll probably never know.”

“Doesn’t explain why you in particular inherited the demon powers,” said Cyrus.

I shrugged. Something nagged at me, but I pushed it aside.

“Why did the fortune-teller want to speak to you alone?” said Howard. “Is she like you, too? Half-demon?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But it turns out I was right. She’s Melivia Blackstone.”

The others’ expressions ranged from incredulity―Howard―to grim acceptance―Leo.

“So she killed her family?” said Berenice. Even she was looking at me now.

“Not deliberately,” I said. “Lucifer tricked her. She was ignorant of everything to do with the Darkworld, and he manipulated her into summoning a demon. When it got loose and possessed her family, killing them one at a time, she still didn’t know what was going on. She couldn’t have known what would happen; no one taught her anything. It’s no wonder Lucifer was able to get to her.”

“What, she met the higher demon?” said Berenice.

“No… this was a different Lucifer. Human. Well, at least, she’s pretty sure he is.”

“How many Lucifers
are
there?” Howard demanded of no one in particular.

“Just two. It’s the same Lucifer who’s supposed to be threatening the Venantium now, and who attacked it twenty years ago. He’s like her―he lives in the Darkworld most of the time.”

“Wait,
in
the Darkworld?” said Claudia. “How
old
is she?”

“No clue. It isn’t her body,” I said, and explained what she’d told me about her return to this world after over a century in the Darkworld.

There was a long silence.

“It seems really improbable,” said Cyrus. “But you’re right, it does fit.”

Claudia nodded. “It explains her being so maddeningly cryptic, really. I mean, if you were taken out of your own time, of course you’d find it hard to trust people. Who would have believed her?”

“Did the Venantium know?” said Leo.

I shook my head. “No. She wanted to tell them, she wanted to teach people what she knew, but she said they haven’t changed in a century and a half.”

“Sounds about right,” said Howard. “So is she on our side, or Lucifer’s?”

“She’s against Lucifer,” I said. “That much I know. She didn’t realise until after she came back that he’d tricked her, and that the Demon Wars started because of the demon possessing her body. That’s what turned her against him. She helped Melmoth defeat him.”

“Of course,” said Leo. “I did have another look in his journals, but he’s pretty vague. I don’t think he knew who she was.”

“He was in love with her,” I said. “I think.”

“
What
?” said Cyrus.

“Is she the mysterious woman he kept mentioning?“ said Leo. “Ah. That’d explain it. Poor guy.”

“I kind of feel sorry for her,” said Claudia.

“Same,” I said. “I think that’s why she spends all her time trying to help out young magic-users. She doesn’t want anyone else to make the same mistake she did.”

“Why’d she tell
you
all this?” said Berenice.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She didn’t say. I guess she thought we had something in common. We’re both cursed, in a way.”

“Hers was a choice,” said Leo. “Yours wasn’t.”

Leo.
I could hardly believe I’d ever doubted him for a second. Of course he was on my side.

“Right,” said Claudia. “We’ve established that none of us hate you. But… the Venantium. They don’t know, do they?”

“They don’t know,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. I reckon they’d lock me up if they did. The reason they thought I was the doppelganger was because my eyes turned… into a demon’s.”

“Yeah, that was pretty freaky,” said Berenice. “So can you switch it on and off? Because if the world’s overrun by demons at least you’d be able to blend in.”

“Berenice!” said Cyrus.

“She has a point,” said Howard.

I’d never thought of it as something that could ever be useful, but come to think of it, in that situation, it might actually save my life. Hopefully it’d never come to that.

“What d’you want to do?” said Leo after we’d said goodbye to the others.

“Anything,” I said, and meant it.

“We can watch a film?”

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

It
was
perfect. I felt like I’d taken a shot of something that had melted away all my anxieties to nothing and left me buzzing with giddy relief. It didn’t even faze me when Rachel answered the door to Leo’s flat with her creepy wide-eyed smile and paint-splattered overalls and said, “Congratulations!”

We ended up watching a marathon of comedy films in Leo’s room. Half the time I barely even noticed what film it was. I just shut my eyes and enjoyed being there. All boundaries had completely fallen away. There was nothing to come between us now. Nothing.

The demons can keep their eternal life,
I thought.
It’s all about the moment.

“You could have told me any time, you know,” Leo said.

I tilted my head up at him. “I thought you’d freak out. Berenice did―I thought she was going to tell you.”

“Berenice freaks out if she breaks a fingernail. Seriously, Ash, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I know. I do. I just couldn’t find the words to tell you. It seems stupid now.”

I’d known all along, really, that Leo wasn’t one of those people who put on one face, then turned out to be judgemental dicks. Not like David.

“I understand. Believe me. I know some people like to talk crap about you if you’re different. My dad ditched Cyrus and me after Mum died, and we were stuck under a spotlight for at least a year. Cy actually changed schools to avoid it.”

“That’s awful,” I said. “Kids can be so mean.”