Walking Shadow (The Darkworld Series Book 2) (14 page)

“Stop!” I shouted, at the same time as Leo yelled, “Don’t be an idiot, Howard!”

Howard released Jude, breathing heavily, his face a mask of pure hatred. It scared me. My heart thrummed so fast I could feel it in my fingertips.

Passers-by gawped at him. Jude massaged his neck, his face tight.

“Mention my parents again and I’ll smash your holy balls in.”

“You need to learn to control your temper,” Jude said, in a hoarse voice. Then he turned on his heel and walked off.

Howard let out a pretty impressive string of curses, and stormed off in the opposite direction.

“Leo,” I warned, as he made to follow him, “I don’t think he’s going to listen to you right now.”

“Right,” said Leo. He looked troubled. “Man, and they call
me
reckless.” He suddenly grinned at me. ‘‘‘Holy balls,’ though.”

A second’s pause, then we were both laughing. The tension of the moment eased, like the air had been let out of a balloon.

We walked to the library, talking of other things, although the confrontation between Howard and Jude wasn’t far from my thoughts. Still, I had another distraction, as Leo and I found a free table and covered it with a bunch of newspapers and articles he’d pillaged from his late guardian’s study.

“Let’s see what he was up to,” said Leo, taking a bookmark out of Mr Melmoth’s diary.

It crossed my mind that this was a rather morbid pastime, but the fascination had gripped me as hard as it gripped Leo, like trying to solve a mystery in which no one explained anything properly. The cuttings constantly made references to the Ghouls and something called the “Death Child.”

“God knows what
that
means,” said Leo.

He paused at one particular newspaper article. A surprising number of the recent ones kept referring to the old abandoned house on Tombstone Hill.

“This is from December,” said Leo, frowning at it. “It doesn’t make any sense for people to suddenly be showing an interest in it now. I know it has some kind of history, but I wish I knew what
happened
there. Melmoth’s journals kind of skirt around it.”

Apparently lights appeared inexplicably in the windows at night, and when anyone tried to get in, the doors were sometimes locked tight, even though no one had ever been seen to enter.

“Well, we know one thing for sure. The Ghouls and that old house are somehow tied together. Still, that doesn’t explain why someone killed him. Or why he attacked you.”

I could tell the lack of conclusiveness bothered him. After all, it held the clues as to what Mr Melmoth had been doing during the last hours of his life. Other than attacking me, that is.

I still couldn’t puzzle that one out, either. I
knew
I’d never seen the man before. The only guess was that it had something to do with my being part-demon―but that was just paranoia. Who else could possibly know that, besides the fortune-teller? I decided not to mention thinking I’d seen a girl who looked just like me, too. Sometimes paranoia was just that, paranoia. Still, I wondered about it.

A shadow has your face.
A shiver danced down my spine.

Even after we left the library, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Did Jude―and the Venantium in general―really know something about Mr Melmoth that we didn’t? But they’d already refused to tell Leo a thing about their former leader, not even what his old job had been like. Everything about the inner workings of the Venantium was classified.

All the same, Leo risked another trip to their library to search the archives. Whilst they didn’t keep any employee information there, they did have a stash of all their old newspapers and leaflets.

“Some of it’s pretty dramatic,” Leo told me on Wednesday, when, once again, we were the first to arrive at the Games Room. “The ones from twenty years ago are all like, ‘Beware Lucifer and his temptations. Surrender your life before you surrender your soul!’ I gathered that it was when that sorcerer was causing trouble. The one Melmoth brought down.”

“Have you found out what he actually did?”

“Melmoth? Tracked this lunatic down and burnt him alive. Killed both the human and the demon. Horrible job, but y’know, the psycho killed like forty people with that demon. He’d done something to protect himself from possession. The Venantium had a nightmare with that one; they managed to convince the police that the deaths were a mass suicide, a cult thing.”

“Sounds pretty horrible all around,” I said, shuddering. “Was that the last time anything major like that happened?”

“Yeah, there have only been minor instances of possession since then. Most were kept quiet.”

Possession.
Now I’d seen it myself, I knew it was nothing like they showed in films claiming to be based on real events, although perhaps they did have some basis in reality after all.

“Well, it’s freaky to us. Imagine what it’s like to ordinary people,” said Leo, when I mentioned this. “In old times they used to blame evil spirits for pretty much everything, but in modern days it’s a bit trickier to explain. Usually it’s put down to psychosis.”

“What, the purple eyes, too?” I said.

“The Venantium use their mind-tricks, don’t forget. They make people think they saw something else.”

Mind-magic. Influence. I’d used it myself once, to make David forget he’d seen me using magic, not that it did any good in the end. It seemed like it could give someone permanent brain damage.

“Is that permanent?” I said. “I mean, could you make someone totally forget something, like, indefinitely?”

Leo looked at me. “I guess so. I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Terrence used it on me,” I said. “But it wore off as soon as he revealed himself.”

And, I thought, the fortune-teller had used it, to fool me and my parents into thinking she was a relation. That was bigger than removing individual memories. The very idea of fabricating a whole person’s existence like that creeped me out. It was so intrusive.

“Maybe he wanted you to remember then, and took it off himself. It’s a good question. I’ll ask Cyrus.”

On cue, the door to the Games Room opened. Cyrus came in, along with Howard, Berenice and Claudia.

“Ooh, are we interrupting something?” said Berenice. “You two look awfully close.”

A flush shot up my neck like a traffic light. Leo and I had unconsciously moved on the sofa so we almost leaned on each other. I shifted away, as the others came over and sat down in the empty chairs around the TV.

Berenice smirked as she shuffled her chair closer to Howard’s. “Don’t let me spoil your cuddling session.”

“We’re reading Mr Melmoth’s diaries,” I snapped, “trying to figure out why people are
dying.”

My harsh tone completely failed to hide my embarrassment, but Leo jumped in.

“I don’t suppose any of you know what a Death Child is?”

“A what?” everyone said at once.

“That’s what Melmoth’s calling it here. Apparently he was after a demon called the Death Child.”

“A demon?” said Claudia. “A real demon, or just a shadow-beast or ghoul?”

“Possibly a ghoul, but a shape-shifter. It took the form of a young girl.”

“What did it do?”

“Just scared a lot of people by appearing out of nowhere, but Melmoth seemed convinced it was some kind of dark spirit.”

“Death Child. Sounds lovely,” I said.

“So now we have a demon child as well as the vampire killers?” said Claudia. “Great.”

“It doesn’t say whether he caught her or not,” said Leo. “Just that he could tell she was a dark spirit, and she…”

He trailed off.

“What?” said Howard. Even he’d looked up from the Xbox to pay attention.

“She came here,” he said. “He was following her to Blackstone. And that’s where the journal ends.”

He looked at me, and I knew he was thinking the same as me. “So when we ran into him… that’s what he was doing.”

“But he was right near campus!” said Claudia. “Does that mean the Death Child―they’re somewhere around here?”

“Looks that way,” said Leo, frowning.

“I found something interesting,” said Claudia, waving a leaflet in the air. “Look at this. It’s the latest from the Venantium.”

“Where’d you get hold of that?” said Cyrus. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually been sneaking into Headquarters.”

“I may have a bit of influence over a certain young
venator.”

“You’re not dating one of them?” said Berenice, looking disgusted at the very thought.

“No, but someone has a bit of a crush on me. Or is possibly terrified of me. I never can tell the difference.” She laughed.

“Not David?” I said, incredulous.

“You’ve got it.” She laughed again. “Your face, Ash. You look like I just skinned a puppy.”

“I just can’t picture it. You and him.” Strange, it didn’t bother me at all, even though we’d used to be friends. Even though I’d thought I liked him.

“It’s not like that. The poor fool.” This time, her laugh bordered on evil. “What? We have to get our information somehow.”

“So you’re using an innocent young
venator?”
said Cyrus. “That isn’t very nice.”

“I’m not nice. Anyway, check this out.”

Ghoul Murder Site Feared as Next Target for Grave-Robbers
, the leaflet read―and underneath was a photograph of the house on Tombstone Hill.

“A graveyard in the village of Crowley, located in the vicinity of the Venantium Headquarters, is the latest victim of the graffiti used by the grave-robbing gang calling themselves the Ghouls,” Claudia read aloud. “Experts fear an ill omen, given that a house near this cemetery was the site of a brutal triple-murder twenty years ago, during the terror campaign of the sorcerer Lucifer. A small group of necromancers were targeted by the sorcerer during his quest for information on illicit demonic activities, and were tracked to the house of one of their members, who was a grave-digger in the local area. The three were murdered following the extraction of everything they knew. Their mutilated corpses were discovered in the hallway of the house, which has remained uninhabited ever since
.
”

An uneasy silence filled the room.

“Really,” said Claudia, finally, “If there’s a way to ensure that it
will
be the next target, it’s publishing this. Morons.
Experts?
”

Leo shook his head. “So… well, that explains a whole lot. It explains Melmoth’s interest, at least. He was after that sorcerer, Lucifer, too.”

“But what do the Ghouls have to do with it
now
?” said Claudia. “I mean, all that stuff happened twenty years ago. It’s not like there’s any reason to drag it up again now.”

“It’s probably nothing,” said Cyrus. “It’s a graveyard like any other. They rob graves. It’s an obvious target, right?”

“Still gives me a bad feeling,” said Claudia.

“Maybe we should check it out,” said Howard.

“Fat chance,” said Berenice. “No more graveyards.”

I looked at Leo. He seemed lost in thought. “Nah,” he said. “If the
venators
are watching it, we’d probably attract a bunch of attention. It’s not worth it. We’re not going to Tombstone Hill.”

“Agreed,” said Cyrus. “Now, it just happens Claudia isn’t the only one who’s been sneaking around. I decided to do some background research on the Vampire’s Curse.”

“You went to the library?” said Leo.

“Nah. I kind of hacked into the
venators’
computer system.”

“You did what?” said Claudia.

“I didn’t even know they
had
a computer system,” I said, thinking of the dark tunnels. But I supposed even they had to rely on twenty-first century technology for some things.

“Yeah, it’s a shocker. But they had Melmoth’s notes.”

He pulled out his laptop and switched it on.

“There wasn’t much. Just a detailed analysis of the symptoms. I reckon he kept paper records of what he was really doing.”

“Give me that,” said Leo, reaching for the laptop.

“You don’t know my password.”

“Sure I do. It’s ‘your mother.’”

“How mature,” said Berenice, snickering.

“Hey, we final-year students are a serious bunch. How long have you been using my account?”

“Since forever,” said Leo. “Melmoth put an age-block on my laptop so I couldn’t download X-rated films.”

“Or porn?” Berenice said.

Leo ignored her. “Okay. So you decided to just leave their private files open on your laptop? You’d better hope no one else knows your password.”

“No one else is as nosy as you, bro. I’ll have to think of something more inventive next time. You see anything interesting there?”

“Apart from some very dirty pictures? No. I knew all this already. He wouldn’t have told the
venators
anything important, just in case. He knew they were going to get rid of him in the end.”

“So it’s useless?”

“I guess so. It doesn’t say what the cure actually
is.
Or who was giving it to vampires.”

“I wonder why that Conrad guy didn’t get it?” said Claudia.

“He thought he was going to be killed, remember?” said Leo. “Maybe he was about to go and get it, but heard about the murders.”

“Any clue, Ash?” said Claudia. “You know the guy, right?”

“Wish I didn’t,” I said. “I’ve never thought to ask… I forgot he’s a vampire.”

That was stupid,
I thought. A testament to the level of weird in my life that I’d forgotten.

“What, all the time you two have spent together…” she trailed off suggestively. The others all watched me now.
For God’s sake, it’s Alex all over again.

“We’re not friends,” I said. “He’s just an annoying guy on my course who can’t take a hint. I’ve never been able to get a word in edgeways. He never shuts up.”

Claudia laughed. “I thought so. You could do way better than that.”

Berenice snorted.

“Hey.” I shot her a glare, then turned back to Claudia. “Kinda harsh?”

“Just being honest.”

Berenice laughed outright. “Yeah, Ash might rank five out of ten, but Conrad? No hope.”

I turned my glare on her again. “No hope that you have any brain underneath all that hair. Congratulations. You rank ten for shallowness and stupidity.”