Fear's Touch: A Darkworld Novella (The Darkworld Series) (11 page)

“Will you come with us?” said Cyrus. “Help us find that…dark space?”

“If this young lady wishes,” she said, with a nod to Berenice.

“All right,” she said, sullenly. “Seeing as I’m never gonna get rid of you lot, otherwise.”

“That’s nice,” I said, “seeing as I almost got arrested on your account.”

She looked away, flushing. “I didn’t mean…”

“Never mind,” I said. Hey, there was no reason to start a fight now. Besides, I knew her snappishness was just an act. Like all the crazy personality changes I used to do.

Speaking of which, since when had I started actually acting like
me?
None of the old Claudias would have stood up to a bully on account of anyone else. Apart from Bethany, I’d always drifted between friendship groups, never really getting close to anyone. This whole group thing was…different.

I think I like it.

Even if the best name Cyrus could come up with was “The Kickass Monkeys”.

hat way,” the fortune-teller whispered, indicating a shadowy trail leading into a side street. We were in the back streets of Redthorne, cloaked in Influence, visible only to each other. And being led by the most damned cryptic woman I’d ever met.

The entire bus journey, I’d questioned her. Hell, I’d still be questioning her now if we weren’t
this
close to tracking down the shadow-beasts’ lair. Her name was Madame Persephone. She ran a fortune-telling stall in Blackstone Square, but spent most of her time helping out magic-users—usually unregistered—and travelling, killing any demons she came across. That was about the extent of the information I could get from her. Real name? Nope. Age? She looked twenty-five and spoke like a cultured old lady. No clue. Where was she from? Well, she had a slight northern accent, so I’d guess somewhere around here. Had she ever worked for the Venantium? Apparently not. But as to where she’d learned magic, I was met with stony silence.

She kind of scared me a bit, but after everything else, that didn’t bother me so much anymore. It was the half-truths that made me suspicious. She knew about the inner workings of the Venantium. Jude’s supervisors had believed her without question. Who
was
she?

None of us could get any answers. But she showed us how to track down a shadow-beast, following the places where the Darkworld was strongest. She let Berenice lead the way, guiding her occasionally. We’d followed the ice-cold trail all the way through Redthorne. Now, we came to a deserted side street from which I could sense a concentration of magical energy which made the hairs on my arms stand up. Fighting the shivers, I pulled out the Japanese fan and prepared to call on fire.

I was ready for a fight.

Berenice held her head high, heels clacking on the pavement as she walked toward the turning. Cyrus, Howard, and the fortune-teller walked alongside me, and we followed Berenice toward the dark space.

The vast black shadow covered the entire width of the street, reaching high enough to blot out the sky and obscure the buildings on either side of us. The Darkworld’s chill doused us like an icy rainfall, and I saw flickers of movement in the shadows.

A piece of darkness detached itself, unfolding and stretching into the form of a colossal monster, a nightmare creature of slavering fangs and sharp claws. Rearing up, it towered above Berenice, and despite the others’ presence, my feet locked in place and my heart thudded.

Berenice stood so still, I thought she’d frozen, too. I flashed a glance at the fortune-teller, wondering if she’d step in if needed, but Berenice moved without warning. Fire arced into the air, bright and vivid against the shadows, and the shadow-beast staggered back, roaring. Berenice stepped forward again, and two more shadowy monsters appeared on either side of it.

I didn’t hesitate. At a gesture from the fortune-teller, the three of us moved forward into position to stand in a line facing the shadow-beasts.
Fire,
I thought, and flames flickered into life, dancing down my arms.

“Come and get me,” I muttered.

The shadows exploded. Beast Number Three, the one directly in front of me, lashed out with a clawed hand, but I pulled on the shadow under my feet and threw up a shield. Fire danced in my other hand, and I launched it at the shadow-beast’s face. It ducked, but put itself right in Berenice’s path. A fiery whip traced a line down its huge head, and it cried out.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fortune-teller standing back, letting the others fight—Cyrus and Howard were busy with Beast Number One, while the middle creature was being forced back by Berenice’s attacks.

Fire in hand, I pulled the shield with me as I dodged around Beast Number Three. Claws slashed out and missed wildly, and I laughed, the thrill of the fight singing through me.
This is what having magical powers is really about
, I thought, sending the fire to the end of my foot and kicking out at the shadows.

Oh, crap.
The beast had moved without warning, and instead of hitting it in the face, I’d accidentally set my own shoe on fire.

“Okay,” I muttered, “bad idea.” Still, I now had a projectile to throw at the shadow-beast, and as I’d summoned the fire myself, it couldn’t burn me. Confidence returning, I picked up my ruined shoe and hurled it into the shadow-beast’s face.

It roared, barrelling into one of the other monsters, and there was such a confusion of shadows and fur and people running about that I couldn’t tell what was happening.

Then the fortune-teller raised her hands, and the shadows rushed toward her. The patch of darkness began to shrink, and the two remaining shadow-beasts—I hadn’t seen what had happened to Beast Number One—turned tail and fled. I watched, mouth open, as the beasts folded themselves away into the shrinking darkness, disappearing along with the dark space.

The fortune-teller’s hands dropped. “That will do.”

Shadows returned to where they’d been before, but no more monsters remained. Berenice and Howard stood in the middle of the street, kissing.

I gawped. Seriously?

Cyrus came over to me, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“What the hell?” I said, gesturing toward the other two.

“Don’t ask,” he said. “I haven’t a clue.”

I shook my head. “Wow.”

“That was very unorthodox, Miss Delaney,” said the fortune-teller, handing me my shoe, which was no longer on fire but smoked slightly when it touched my hands. Not even a single burn mark. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shadow-beast dispatched with a shoe before.”

“It worked,” I said, sliding my foot back into the heel.

Cyrus laughed. “Now, I’ve seen it all. I get the feeling you guys are going to be a riot to work with.”

Berenice and Howard broke apart to look in our direction.

Cyrus waved. “Care to join us?”

They walked over to us, Berenice glancing back at the spot where the dark space had been.

“You closed it?” she asked the fortune-teller.

“Yes. No one but a sorcerer can open another.”

That reminded me…I still had a question I wanted to ask. But not with the others there.

One bus journey later, we were back in Blackstone, and I was more than ready to face some kind of normality. Even catching up on a missed lecture. Howard and Cyrus lived in town, so we got off the bus there to say goodbye to them – strange, how we’d started acting like a group already. Stranger still was the way Howard and Berenice acted around each other. Neither would look the other in the eye now, but I suspected I’d never understand Berenice.

While the others made plans for the next meeting, I managed to catch the fortune-teller before she left. She’d started to move away so swiftly, it was as though she’d hoped to avoid questions. Well, tough. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling us.

“Wait,” I whispered, as I caught up alongside her. “You never said. Who opened the gateway in the first place? Do you think Jude did it?”

“I do not know,” said the fortune-teller. “We can prove nothing.”

“But that’s why they went after Berenice, right?”

She bowed her head. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“That’s no answer,” I said. “Berenice said they’d been after her ever since she came here.”

But something had happened before that, surely. She’d been using magic for two years, at least.

“That may be, but beasts of the Darkworld rarely pick their targets at random. If one is marked…if she’s encountered a demon before, then it may have marked her. An unseeable mark that would make one a target to other creatures of the Darkworld.”

“Wait, a
demon?”
I said.

“I do not know her story. Perhaps she will share it with you in time. In any case, I no longer feel the anger from the Darkworld I did previously.”

“Anger?” I said. “Wait—I never asked. When I attacked Jude—that wasn’t me, was it?”

“From what you told me, it sounds like one of the spirits in the Darkworld acted upon you.”

Goose bumps sprang to my arms, and a feeling of dread sank down my spine. “You mean…possession? I thought the barriers here…I thought they stopped that.”

“Not possession, Miss Delaney. But it’s possible for some level of influence to seep through. The spirit in question must have been angry with Jude. Why, I do not know. But I do not think it wished to harm you.”

Still sounded freaky to me. “It’s not going to do it again, is it? Because as much as I’d like to kick the crap out of Jude, I don’t want to get arrested again.”

“You won’t,” she said. “If anything happens, contact me. I will always be here.”

Oddly enough, I believed her. That time, at least.

I turned my gaze back toward the cathedral and the graveyard beyond, home of the Venantium. I didn’t intend to set foot in there if I could help it.

But then again, I’d never intended to join a group of magic-users. Hell, I’d never intended to even come here. The crazy had caught up with me, like it or not.

But I wouldn’t let it beat me down.

I’m Claudia, and I’m not going to be the demons’ prey.