Darke Academy 4: Lost Spirits Read online

  www.hodderchildrens.co.uk

  The Darke Academy series:

  1 Secret Lives

  2 Blood Ties

  3 Divided Souls

  4 Lost Spirits

  Copyright © 2012 Hothouse Fiction Ltd

  Produced by Hothouse Fiction – www.hothousefiction.com

  With special thanks to Gillian Philip

  First published in Great Britain in 2012

  by Hodder Children’s Books

  This ebook edition published in 2012

  The author’s moral rights are hereby asserted

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 91019 3

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  PROLOGUE

  The light was dim in the Chien Rouge, her favourite Brussels bar, but the glint off the bottles behind the bar was more than enough to make out the young man. Over the rim of her wine glass, she watched him appreciatively. Amber eyes, jet hair and golden skin; he didn’t look entirely real. He looked like a very richly ornamented statue, except that she could see his fingers twitch, and she could make out the rise and fall of his breathing. And of course, there was the frequent lifting of that whisky tumbler. She eyed him closely as he took another drink.

  Far too beautiful to look so sad. He needed a distraction. She allowed herself a little smirk of happy anticipation. Rising, she picked up her expensive bottle of wine and carried it to the bar.

  She lifted the handsome man’s backpack off the stool next to him and slid on to it, clinking her glass against his. Startled, he glanced up, nervously snatching for the backpack and placing it on his lap before slumping back again.

  ‘I’m sorry, do I … ?’ he began.

  ‘Know me? No.’ She smiled. ‘I hope you will, though.’

  The man frowned. ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Oh, forgive my forwardness. It’s just that you look a little … lonely?’ She ran a hand through her brown-blonde hair, letting it catch the light. ‘I wanted to cheer you up.’

  A light of interest kindled in his eyes, and she bit her lip as she smiled again.

  ‘What makes you think I want company?’

  ‘I’m not sure you do want it. You certainly need it. I hate to see someone so beautiful looking so unhappy.’

  He laughed, a low reluctant chuckle. ‘Very kind of you, but I’d rather be on my own, thanks.’ He took another swig of his drink. ‘Anyway, I’m bad news.’

  She tutted. ‘If you knew how often I’d heard that. Don’t you worry, I can handle it. Let me buy you another one of those. It’d be my pleasure.’

  He hesitated, and she knew she’d won. Catching the barman’s eye, she gestured at his tumbler. It needed refilling.

  Scooting her bar stool a little closer, she raised her glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to forgetting your troubles.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ But he raised his refilled glass, and the corner of his mouth quirked in an attempt at a smile.

  ‘I haven’t seen you in here before.’ She looked him up and down. ‘I’d have remembered.’

  ‘No. I … move around.’ His gaze had suddenly grown very intent and searching.

  Sensing a chance, she placed a hand on his arm. The muscles trembled a little; she could feel them. This was a good sign.

  ‘Where are you from, then? You’re new to Brussels? Or just new to the Chien Rouge?’

  ‘That’s a lot of questions.’ He turned a little more to face her, and she definitely saw the intense glint of attraction in his eyes.

  ‘Well, answer the first one first.’ She laughed, tossed her hair again. ‘Where are you from?’

  He shrugged. ‘Lots of places.’

  ‘And where are you headed?’

  ‘Anywhere but here.’

  ‘You are terrible at answering questions!’

  He leaned forward, reaching over to place his hand against her cheek, and she started slightly. Partly it was surprise – who was being forward now? – but partly it was the spark of desire that flickered across her skin at his touch. He looked young, but his eyes had that look of age and experience that made for an enticing combination. Leaning closer, she gazed into them. They were extraordinary eyes: full of emotion and life and passion. And something else, something she couldn’t quite make out. A light, but a turbulent one …

  Unable to resist, she closed the small distance between them and pressed her lips impulsively against his. For a moment he went completely still; then he was responding with a ferocity that almost shocked her. Desire raced through her body like a lick of flame, and she felt the strength drain from her muscles. His fingers raked through her hair, tightening on the back of her skull.

  It was incredible. Unbelievable. Helpless in the grip of frantic lust, she even thought for a wild moment that she was going to pass out with the excitement of it all. And then she realised: something was wrong. Her consciousness was actually beginning to drain away.

  Her eyes snapped open, panicked.

  His were wide already, hungrily fixed on hers. Struggling now, she managed to push him away. The light in his eyes was beyond extraordinary now. They were almost – entirely – red—

  She fell back, tearing her hair from his grasp, staggering from her bar stool and only just keeping on her feet. His hand snatched at her arm again, though whether to stop her falling or drag her back to him, she couldn’t tell. Staring at him, she gripped the bar stool with both hands, holding it between them like a shield.

  ‘I told you,’ he snarled, breathing hard and fast. ‘I’m bad news.’

  Stiffening, mustering her dignity and getting her breath back, she curled her lip, trying to stop shaking. ‘Y-you’re drunk!’

  ‘No kidding.’ He shut his eyes, wobbling on his stool.

  When he opened them again, they were normal; no longer that unnatural red, though perhaps a little bloodshot. She’d imagined the glowing. She must have.

  ‘Get away,’ he growled. ‘Get away from me.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ she told him haughtily, though her voice still shook. ‘You need help.’ She glanced at the barman as she stalked away.

  ‘I wouldn’t give him any more,’ she snapped, and slammed the door of the bar behind her as she hurried away.

  You need help.

  Oh God, that was truer than she knew. Flinging a few notes on to the bar, Ranjit seized his backpack and almost ran to the door. Outside, the Brussels rain stung his face and brought him to a halt. He took a breath and tried to orient himself, taking the opportunity to double-check yet again that the fastening on the backpack was secure, then hunched his shoulders and hurried on into the night.

  He’d come so close to losing control. He’d tried really hard la
tely and so far it had worked, but she’d come on so strong, and his spirit was so hungry. And what’s more, she’d been sweet, and gutsy, he couldn’t help being reminded of—

  No! Don’t think about her …

  He couldn’t let it happen again. When he’d … Ranjit hesitated even thinking about it. When he had killed Jake in Istanbul … and come so close to killing Richard, he didn’t know whether he’d betrayed his spirit, or his spirit had betrayed him. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to happen again. Regardless of the role the cursed Pendant had played in what he’d done, he had to have been responsible on some level. He’d blown it forever, he knew that. He would never see Cassie again, so the fact that he had no idea what the hell he was going to do now didn’t seem to matter anyway. Oh, God, why had he thought the Pendant would be the key to him and Cassie being together? How could he have been so stupid?

  Disgusted at himself, and filled with remorse, all Ranjit felt he could do after the horror at Hagia Sophia was run. Cities had proved a good place to hide: bustling, crowded, anonymous. His spirit needed to feed, as it always did, but he could keep its hunger at bay with vagrants and drunks and lost tourists. With longing he remembered the easy days at the Darke Academy, feeding from his cooperative roommate Torvald.

  He wouldn’t let himself remember what else, who else, he’d left behind.

  At the mouth of a dark and rain-soaked alleyway, Ranjit came to a halt. Something was in the air: a vague threat, an aura of harm. Slipping the backpack nervously from his shoulders, he clutched it tightly against his chest. Money be damned; but the thing in the backpack, the Urn that he’d stolen from Sir Alric Darke in his time of madness? That he must not lose.

  That, and his self-control.

  He wouldn’t even harm a mugger. Let them take everything, so long as they left him his soul, and the Urn. All the same, his muscles were tense as his bleary gaze searched the darkness, and he could hear his heart thrashing.

  And then he saw them. At first they were only vague shapes, and he realised he’d drunk more than he’d thought. And then they walked towards him.

  NO! It couldn’t be!

  He was dreaming, surely. A nightmare through the warped haze of alcohol. Shock immobilised him for just a second, and then the fear kicked in, colder than the rain. They stalked forward, one to his right and one to his left, and he saw their pale hair glitter in the streetlights. That confirmed his worst fears, even before he belatedly, blurrily focused his mind, and recognised the dark spirits glowing in their chests.

  Brigitte and Katerina Svensson. Renegade spirit-hosts, banished from the Few. But still alive. Clearly still very much alive – and deadly.

  He snarled, but his first instinct was to grip the backpack tighter rather than lash out, and he wasn’t ready when they lunged for him. Stumbling back, he tried to kick out at them, but in his desperation to hold on to the Urn, he lost his balance.

  Dammit, he thought. You are drunk.

  Katerina leaped, grabbing his head in a powerful underarm lock, dragging him backwards as Brigitte tore at the backpack and slammed a powerful punch into his midriff. Doubling over on the ground, Ranjit tried to curl himself protectively, but Katerina’s grip on his neck was too strong, and Brigitte’s blows were coming hard and fast.

  His right foot caught Brigitte in a fierce blow to the chest, and she staggered back, but it was a lucky fluke. As he tried to follow it up by striking out at Katerina with one arm, Brigitte recovered fast and grabbed the backpack. He gave a single howl as he felt it ripped from his weakened grip.

  He could fight them properly now, get it back. But as his view of the Few women reddened with his eyes, as the rage inside him began to boil, something inside caused Ranjit to freeze for a split second, and it wasn’t his spirit.

  What if he did kill them?

  No. I won’t kill again! Not even them. I can’t give in to it—

  But he knew he must—

  Too late.

  Brigitte and Katerina were raining kicks and blows on him now, claws raking at his eyes and skin. The world began to fade as blow after supernatural blow struck him. His skull hit the pavement hard, and the streetlights above him whirled and exploded in a dazzle of pain. Cruel hands gripped his arms and began to drag him away, scraping his skin against concrete and tarmac. His ears rang; there was a screaming in his head, but through it all he could hear their triumphant, disbelieving laughter, their cries of savage joy.

  ‘We have him! He’s ours! WE HAVE HIM!’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cassie Bell stared out of the small oval window. Below her the land seemed endless, a yellow expanse dotted with scrubby trees and threaded with rivers and the ancient tracks of animal migration. Kenya, from this height, was wildly beautiful. Her mind buzzed with anticipation, and not just of a new term in a stunning new location. This was going to be the term when she turned everything around. Everything.

  And yet, despite her determined positivity, Cassie’s heart was hardly brimming with happiness.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she murmured to her best friend at her side.

  Isabella Caruso only nodded, her eyes empty, and stared towards the cockpit. Cassie felt the familiar frisson of unease. Isabella hadn’t so much as glanced out at the landscape since they’d taken off from Nairobi airport. Far from the bouncy, excitable Isabella of previous terms, she seemed glazed, a walking automaton.

  ‘Hey, ladies,’ Richard Halton-Jones bawled from the cockpit. The flying conditions were tricky, and he was clearly enjoying the challenge of the strong winds against the Cessna jet. ‘Did I tell you about Yuri Tretschnikov and the Siberian gas heiress? Wait till you hear this …’

  Cassie was glad of Richard’s banter, even if he did have to yell his gossip over his shoulder above the noise of the plane. He must be used to this awkward form of conversation; after all, this was his very own small twin-engine plane. Presumably his parents had bought it to go with his string of polo ponies.

  That, Cassie thought, was an unworthily bitchy thought from her. She didn’t know where she’d have been without Richard last term, after the murders at the Darke Academy and all that had unravelled at the Hagia Sophia. And he’d made it more than clear that if she had to give up on Ranjit Singh, he would be there to catch her as she fell…

  Part of her really wished she could love him that way too. How much easier it would be to find solace in Richard’s secure embrace than to go on placing her faith in Ranjit? But even if she tried, she knew it would be a lie. Cassie knew that now better than ever. She’d made her decision last term, and she would stick with it: she would find Ranjit, get him back; it didn’t matter what he’d done under the Pendant’s influence, they could work it out together. She and Ranjit were meant to be together, and they would be.

  And that was more than would ever happen for Isabella and her boyfriend Jake Johnson. He was gone now. Cassie shut her eyes, feeling a renewed stab of grief. She’d be strong for her friend, she owed her that much. Isabella had lost so much more than she had.

  Opening her eyes again, Cassie placed a hand on Isabella’s arm. ‘Look,’ she said softly. ‘Did you hear Richard? We’re above the Tsavo national park.’

  ‘Are we?’ Isabella turned obediently to look out, but listlessly.

  ‘Not a lot of shopping down there, I’m afraid!’ shouted Richard cheerfully. ‘We’ll try Malindi one day.’

  ‘If you don’t take us on a game drive on day one, we’ll never speak to you again!’ Cassie shouted back. ‘I take it you have some kind of stretch-jeep with a cocktail bar and a chauffeur?’

  ‘Are you mocking me, Scholarship Girl?’

  ‘I certainly am.’ Cassie nudged Isabella and gave her a wink, but Isabella didn’t even attempt a laugh, and Cassie felt her mood sink again.

  Even Isabella’s usually glossy dark hair looked lifeless, and was pulled back in a rough ponytail. Cassie knew her friend had come back to the Darke Academy only after much persuasion and begging from her parents, and
then only because she hadn’t wanted to worry them any further by refusing. The Carusos had hoped – and Cassie still hoped – that a term in Kenya would begin some kind of a healing process in Isabella’s soul. It wasn’t looking good so far.

  And yet Cassie was actively looking forward to the new term, despite her sense of guilt. Kenya seemed the ideal choice: wildness and space and open air, after three consecutive terms in cities. It would be good for all the students, she thought, and especially for the Few – Richard, Ayeesha, Cormac and the others – after the calamitous events in Istanbul. They all needed some space to regroup. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Sir Alric Darke had made his choice on that basis. As far as she knew, the school’s changing location each term was his decision alone, however much he had to answer to the Council of Elders for the actions of his students.

  Cassie shivered, remembering her own confrontation with the terrifying Elders, two terms ago in New York. When she’d come so close to being sent to the Confine for life…

  For the first time, Isabella seemed to notice what was going on around her, and this time she squeezed Cassie’s arm.

  ‘What about you, Cassie? Are you all right?’ There was concern in her voice that only sharpened Cassie’s sense of responsibility. If it hadn’t been for Ranjit, Jake would still be alive. If it hadn’t been for Cassie, her insane boyfriend and his crazy plan for them to be together backfiring so spectacularly …

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Isabella, for heaven’s sake!’ Cassie laughed lightly, shaking off the memory. After all, what had she just been thinking? A new location, a chance to breathe and think, plenty of time and space to plan. Council of Elders be damned – indeed, Sir Alric Darke be damned – she would track down Ranjit all by herself. She would find him, bring him back, help put things right. Or as right as they could be after all that had occurred.

  ‘You’ve been so kind, Cassie. But last term—’ Isabella took a breath. ‘It was hard for you too.’

  ‘I told you, don’t worry about me,’ Cassie whispered. ‘I’ll be fine. And so will you. We’ll look after you.’