Demon Heart (The Darkworld Series Book 3) (7 page)

It proved to be as dry as the old pages themselves. As an English Literature student I was no stranger to dense prose, but this was singularly the dullest thing I’d ever tried to read. I concluded within the first few pages that the girl, Melivia, was incredibly shallow, self-absorbed, and just plain
boring.
Her only interest seemed to be her horse, which she spent long interludes gushing over, and each entry inevitably began with a meandering description of her morning ride over the hills. About the only interesting part was that she wrote about the same area I lived in now. She really had lived in that old house in Blackstone.

I usually loved all things Victorian; Dickens, Hardy, and the Brontë sisters were some of my favourite authors, and I’d happily read through a volume of Tennyson or Browning for fun. But I found myself falling asleep as I read this, and I was tempted to just skip ahead to see if there was anything worth reading.

I’m probably not cut out to be a historian.

Still, at least part of me was curious, so I laid the book aside with the page marked before I went to sleep.

Leo didn’t show up to lectures the next day, either. I texted him as I left the flat but received no response. I hurried to catch up with my friends.

“Does he ever come to lectures?” Alex enquired.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Is he like Pete? Only here for the lifestyle?” Alex wore her not-impressed face. “It’s not cool of him to stand you up like this.”

“I don’t think so.” I’d never asked why Leo had picked this particular university. I’d been drawn here unknowingly because of the Venantium’s presence, but Leo had already known about that. Maybe it was because his brother came here, and he lived in the area. Maybe he wanted meet people like him, magic-users. It was easier to meet sorcerers here than at a big university.

Alex gave me a hard look, as if scrutinising me for something. “Have you two done it yet?”

That
came out of nowhere. “Um, no.”

“Thought so. You don’t have the look.”

“There’s a look?” I said blankly.

Alex laughed at me and exchanged a glance with Sarah. “I’m joking. You can be so dense sometimes. So, why haven’t you?”

“Haven’t I what?”

“You’re not fooling anyone, Ash. Why haven’t you and Leo had sex?”

“Because we’ve been dating a fortnight?”

“Pfft.”

“What, you and Rex―”

“It’s not about me and Rex. It’s about you and Leo. Are you sure you’re actually attracted to him?”

“Of course I am! Don’t be ridiculous. Not everyone jumps into bed on the first date.”

“Are you sure he isn’t gay?”

“Positive.”

“Are you sure
you
aren’t?”

“Why is this ‘Let’s Interrogate Ash’ day?”

“Just curious.”

“No, I’m not! We haven’t done it because… because I guess we aren’t ready yet. That enough of an answer?”

“Chill out, Ash. I’m just… concerned about you.”

“Why?”

“You aren’t all lovey-dovey. You know? Where are the sparks? The chemistry? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of you together. You didn’t see him last night, did you?”

“What, you think we should be slobbering all over each other in the lecture theatre like you and Rex?” I said defensively. My face flushed like a beacon.

“We weren’t
slobbering
.”

“The poor people sitting behind you would probably disagree. There are other ways of showing affection.”

“Such as?” Alex demanded.

“Never mind. This conversation is over.”

But I was restless and distracted throughout the lecture. Not so much because of what Alex had said, but because I still hadn’t asked Leo if he was okay after the other night. Should I have gone to see him yesterday? I knew certain people who hated to be disturbed when recovering from a hangover, so that was why I’d decided to leave it alone―but maybe I should have at least checked…

I decided to go over to his flat after the lecture. I hadn’t met his flatmates yet, but he’d said they all got on pretty well, with the exception of a girl called Rachel who was reportedly a bit odd.

Naturally, she opened the door.

I could see instantly why she’d been labelled their flat’s resident nutcase. Her face looked as though it had been painted with finger paints, which would have been fine if she’d been in costume for a fancy-dress party, but she just wore an overall and jeans, also splattered with paint. Her pupils were oddly dilated.

“You’re Leo’s girlfriend? Come in.”

Apparently, she spent most of her time smoking weed and painting lurid pictures. There were rumours she was into harder drugs, too. She certainly seemed unsteady on her feet, and she kept staring at me with those warped eyes as I knocked on Leo’s door and waited. It started to creep me out.

Coldness suddenly gripped me, and a voice spoke in my head, “
He’s coming.”

I jumped backwards in shock―just as Leo opened the door.

“Ash!” he said. “Hi. Sorry, it’s a mess in here.”

“It’s fine,” I muttered, hardly knowing what I said. That voice had sounded so close, and so… like a demon.

Impossible.

Leo closed the door. I had a fleeting glimpse of Rachel, and I could have sworn she was grinning at me.

“Sorry you had to meet her,” he said. “She didn’t try and sell you any dodgy plants, did she? She grows them in her room.”

“Nope. I don’t go near drugs if I can help it.”

“Same here, but the flat always smells of pot. You can’t escape it. Anyway. You can sit here.”

He shoved a pile of clothes off the bed. His room wasn’t actually that messy, at least not compared to Alex’s, whose “floor-drobe” covered every inch of her carpet. He did have a lot of Playstation games and DVD cases scattered around, but it was pretty much in the same state as my own room.

I sat down. My heart still raced from that weird voice I’d heard.

“Did you hear that?” I said.

“What?”

“Just before you opened the door, I heard a voice. It said, ‘He’s coming’. It sounded like…”

I trailed off, bemused. He was laughing.

“What?” I asked.

“Rachel got you, did she? I admit she freaked all of us out on the first day. Threw her voice so it sounded like someone was outside. It scared everyone half to death.”

“Oh,” I said. “But… it really sounded like―like a demon.”

Leo still looked amused. “Don’t underestimate her. It’s kind of like living in a horror movie. Her zombie impression’s spot-on; she actually scared people on the Halloween bar crawl. And as for her Jigsaw impersonations… Well, you don’t want to know. But we’re used to it now.”

“Sounds fun.” I tried to will my heart to slow down, but it wasn’t quite convinced. After the week I’d had―the strange messages, the library… I’d almost forgotten the demons. But the doppelganger had made it clear they could get into my head at any time. I shivered at the thought, hands curling into fists. Sometimes my own imagination made a worse enemy.

“Hey,” said Leo. “Don’t worry about it. She’s harmless. No evil stuff. Honest.”

Then his lips were on mine. Taken off guard, I fell back onto the bed, our legs tangled together.

He stroked my hair with one hand as he held me with the other, and my heart quivered. He moved his hands down my spine, and then he was easing me out of my jacket. I shrugged it off and hugged him back, feeling his heart beat against me, almost as fast as mine.

Then he was stroking my face. It brought me out in goose bumps, in a good way. He kissed me again, slowly, and slipped his hands beneath my hoody, beneath my shirt―

A buzzing sounded. My heart jumped.

“Shit.” Leo pulled back, grabbing his phone from the desk with one hand.

Great timing,
I thought, but relief flooded me all the same. Not my phone. Not now.

“Shit,” Leo said again. “Shit. No―don’t move. I’m coming.”

He was already on his feet and pulling a jacket on.

“What’s happening?” I sat up, pulling my shirt down, the relief evaporating.

“Howard got taken down by a shadow-beast.”

“Taken down?” I echoed, grabbing my own jacket as he shoved his feet into shoes. My heart beat in my throat, this time not in a good way.

“He’s hurt, and Berenice can’t get out of there. I have to go to Redthorne.”

“I’m coming,” I said, and followed him out the door. Rachel stared at us as we ran past.

“Hurry, or you might be too late!” she called.

“She doesn’t know what’s going on,” Leo told me as we left the flat. “That’s just the drugs talking.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Now when’s the next goddamned bus?”

he buses to Redthorne ran fairly frequently, as it was the nearest town with a decent nightlife, and one arrived at the campus bus stop not long after we did. As usual, the driver steered the bus like a maniac, sending us flying off our seats at every hill. But for once I was glad of the breakneck pace. It had started to rain outside, and the raindrops peppered the windows like pellets as we hurtled downhill.

“What happened?” I asked Leo, gripping the top of the seat in front for support.

“Berenice and Howard got attacked by a bunch of shadow-beasts. Well, at least that’s what I think happened. Berenice was kind of hysterical.”

“Is it… serious?” My breath caught. I didn’t particularly
like
Howard, but he was one of us, after all.

“I don’t know.” Leo shook his head. “Sometimes Howard underestimates shadow-beasts, since they aren’t on a level with demons. But they can tear you to shreds if you make a mistake―even that idiot knows that.
Dammit
.”

I swallowed, tightening my grip on the headrest. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Shadow-beasts were vicious, but the reason the Venantium ranked demons higher was because of their ability to manipulate human minds, even though they didn’t represent a physical threat on their own. True demons specialised in possession and telepathy, and could read the thoughts of any human they chose. And, of course, they could kill in a painless, final heartbeat.

But unless it possessed someone, a demon’s ability to affect the physical world was limited to minor telekinesis, lowering the temperature, and sometimes the manipulation of electricity. Put them in control of a human mind and they could cause chaos. I’d never seen this because the only time I’d encountered a demon possession―Terrence―there had been only one. But on a mass scale, they could be far more deadly. They could move from one host to another, killing at will; and if the person they possessed was a sorcerer, they had access to the human magic as well as their own. The Venantium feared a demon invasion above everything else.