Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (31 page)

“You,” said Leo, from behind me. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

The fortune-teller looked at me with the same deep sadness on her face as she’d had when she’d been telling me about her past.

“Ashlyn. I am truly sorry.”

“Tell me what’s going on.” Anger made my voice raw. “Tell me.”

She gave a deep sigh and gestured. The Darkworld moved, closed in around us, cutting us off from the outside world.

“No one will hear us now.”

She sat on one of the platform benches and gestured for me to sit beside her. Leo and Cara did, too, the former eyeing her with anger, the latter with suspicion.

“You messed with my memories,” I said hollowly. “Why?”

“It was―”

“Let me guess. It was a ‘necessary deception’, am I right? Has anything you said not been a lie? Is my entire life a lie? Who the hell are you?
Who the hell am I
?”

And to my horror, I felt another voice ask the second question, an echo of my own. The demon inside me.

“Ashlyn. Believe me when I say that it was for your own safety that I deceived you. None have come to any harm from this, but your very life would have been in danger if I had taken care of you myself.”

Once again, I felt myself spinning in a black void. I shut my eyes.

“You’re my
mother
.”

She nodded. “I had to keep you from Lucifer. I did the only thing I could: I found a young couple whose child had been stillborn. The man was the brother of the woman whose body I had inadvertently taken on. They had no plans to have any other children. It was easy to get close to them, to use Influence to persuade them to take you, and they raised you, thinking their child had survived. Meanwhile, I posed as your aunt Eve. The spell was simple to maintain, and I never thought it would break. But when I was imprisoned, the majority of my powers were cut off. I didn’t realise what had happened until now, when the anti-demon defences around your house activated. I knew Mephistopheles was here.”

“Who was I in danger from? Lucifer?
Which
Lucifer? Who’s my father?” Horror gripped my heart. It couldn’t be…

“The true demon Lucifer is your father. It’s why you were in danger from the human sorcerer who also calls himself by that name. He would do anything to possess you. You’re half-demon―half-
higher
-demon. He would have used you as a weapon, or killed you, taking your magic to fuel his own. When he learned that I had betrayed him to the higher demons, I was lucky to escape with my own life.”

I shook my head. “Were you ever planning to tell me? What if Lucifer had come back?”

“He
is
coming back. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been doing everything in your power to ruin my life. I have
nothing
now.” I laughed humourlessly. “I have no family. I have no home. I
certainly don’t have a mother
.”

She flinched, and I felt a bizarre surge of gratification. She deserved as much pain as I could give her.

“You were too much of an unfeeling bitch to raise me. Did you ever wonder what I would grow up to be?”

“All the time, Ashlyn. I sent you the pendant. I talked to you as your aunt, and when forced to drop that disguise, I obtained your new phone number. I tried to warn you when you were in danger, but…”

“You sent me those cryptic messages?” I stood, shaking all over with rage. “What
are
you? I was totally alone. I thought I was mad when I found out I could see demons. You might have had a fucked-up life, but at least your memories are right. How the hell am I supposed to know if
anything
is true now?”

She didn’t have an answer. I knew I shouted at her like a child in a tantrum, but I didn’t care. This woman had destroyed me, broken me apart from the inside, and I’d never―
never
―look at anything the same way again.

Even Cara and Leo, who watched, lost for words.

“He’s looking for me,” the fortune-teller said. “Lucifer, the human. He wants me back.”

“He can have you,” I said coldly, and the demon’s presence bolstered my anger. “I hope he feeds
your
life force to the demons,
demon lover
.”

She winced.

I stood up. “I’m going home. Not that you’d know what that is.”

“I know I can’t force you to trust me, Ashlyn.”

“Fuck you,” I said. I walked out of the circle of darkness. She didn’t try to stop me.

The journey back was a blur. I said goodbye to Cara beforehand, and she hugged me. She was crying, too. “I’ll call you later, Ash. It’ll be okay. It’s fucked-up now, but it’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t, but it’d be easier to let her believe it.

Leo held my hand all the way back, but it still felt ice-cold.

jerked back to reality when the train stopped in Redthorne. The sun had set whilst we were on the train, giving way to a clear night. The stars shone, bright pinpricks in the inky sky. I stared up as we walked to the bus stop to catch a bus back to campus, as if hoping for some answers in the depths of space.

Leo had texted Claudia, and she met us at the station.

“Did something happen?” she said, eyes widening as she took in my appearance. Like I needed reminding of what a mess I looked. Like someone whose world had fallen apart.

I tuned out as Leo started to explain. I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to think about it.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. An anonymous number, but I knew who it was.

Ashlyn. You may never forgive me, but I’ll always be here if you need my help. I set up a bank account in your name, in which I deposited a substantial amount of money for any future expenditures
―
you know that my family is rich. If there is anything else you need, I can be reached at this number.

Like money could solve anything.

I barely paid attention to where we were walking. It didn’t even register that hardly anyone stood on the street, that eerie silence followed us, and I didn’t notice the gaps in the universe until something gripped my ankle.

A long, scaled hand reached out of the darkness, its fingernails digging into my leg. I jumped back with a cry, pulling my foot out of its grip.

There were
things
in the darkness, clawed things, scaled things, everywhere under my feet. I couldn’t see anything; the Darkworld had crept up like miasma, shadowing the buildings around me.

I heard Claudia shout, “Shit!”

“Ghouls!” Leo’s voice said. “Ash―get out of there!”

Where was I? I couldn’t see the real world beneath the darkness. I stumbled forwards, kicking clawed hands away as I did so. More ghouls, moaning, hunched creatures breathing darkness, clawed at me.

“Get out of it!” I yelled, kicking at them again. I tried to draw the Darkworld around myself like a cloak, but the creatures came with it; a thrill of horror went through me as I realised that the ghouls held on to the Darkworld itself, like they’d melded to it.

I ran, and that seemed to work; the Darkworld remained static, and although I couldn’t see where I was going, the ghouls were forced to let go. I jogged at random, feeling cobblestones strike my feet and hoping that I wouldn’t run into anything. I heard the ghouls behind me, their piteous moans echoing in my ears. I moved further into the fog. Deeper.

My phone buzzed again.
For God’s sake.

I hoped irrationally that the message would be some kind of explanation―but it was just from Cara, asking how I was. Not the fortune-teller.

Wait a minute.

I’d never replied to any of the anonymous messages… but now it was the only thing I could think of to do. I typed one-handedly,
We’re being attacked in Redthorne, help!

I pushed my phone back into my pocket. Then I summoned light.

My hands blazed and illuminated the area around me. Ghouls were sensitive to light, and this hit them directly in their weak half-demon eyes. Screeching, they retreated into the withdrawing shadows.

A voice cried out ahead.

“
Leo
!” I shouted, and ran.

I saw glittering demon eyes wherever I looked, unconcerned by the light blazing from my hands. I followed the sound of Leo’s voice down unfamiliar streets, panic rising.

A line of ghouls waited in front of me, hideous bodies woven into the darkness. Flickers of the real world appeared through the Darkworld. I’d thought I ran toward something familiar, but I’d headed in the opposite direction from the shopping district, near the canal. I saw a bridge up ahead, and my feet alternately hit stone and scabbed hands as I flew over it, and right over the ghouls clinging to the shadows. I wouldn’t let them stop me getting to Leo.

Below, the water surged, and the image of hanging over the edge of that cliff flashed through my mind. I ran faster, kicked another ghoul out of the way―

And nearly ran headlong into Leo. He stood at the end of the bridge, his back to me.

“Leo!” I all but threw myself at him. “Thank God you’re―”

The words stopped. Everything stopped. Leo had turned his head, and looked at me with violet demon eyes.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt frozen, and my head swam, my vision flickering like I looked through a distorted window.

Leo.
Leo.

“Looks like you were too late, Ashlyn.”

Even though he spoke with Leo’s voice, I had no doubt it was Mephistopheles. Leo’s forehead now bore the demon heart he’d been carrying, winking like a third eye.

I couldn’t take it in.

“Leo,” I whispered.

“I’m afraid not,” said the demon. “You thought you had me this time, didn’t you? It was all a trick, Ashlyn. A setup. I knew you’d come to your family’s aid―admittedly, I thought you’d be there earlier, but I enjoyed toying with the humans for a while. But it was staged to bring you to the demon heart. You and the one person you’d do anything to save.”

And for a minute, the violet eyes disappeared, and Leo’s grey-blue, human eyes looked into mine.

He was
alive.

“It didn’t take me long to persuade him, but the Blake family have quite a history with us. I knew it wouldn’t take much. Who in their right mind would turn down an offer of immortality? Of limitless power?”

“You’re lying,” I said. “Leo would
never
―”

“Would he? Do you humans ever truly know each other’s hearts?” He tilted his head.

It wasn’t possible. I’d imagined a contract with a demon as like a kind of Faustian pact, something formed over time, like with Terrence.
This isn’t real
, a desperate voice told me, but the evidence before me screamed otherwise.

Leo smiled, and my heart simultaneously flipped and twisted inside me.

“Is it possible to trust someone absolutely, without access to their every thought, every emotion, every dark secret? I know this boy better than you ever could, Ashlyn.”

Icy hatred surged through me. “Like hell you do,” I said.

He smiled. “I’ve read his mind.”

My insides twisted at the sight of Leo’s face distorted like that.

“Leave him alone,” I said. “If you want me so badly, why didn’t you try to possess me?”