Darke Academy 2: Blood Ties Read online

  They rushed back into the lobby of the Academy, and Cassie jabbed furiously at the call button for the lift, which seemed to take forever to arrive. When the doors at last slid open on the third floor, the place was quiet. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Cassie edged into the corridor. ‘C’mon, there’s no one around.’

  Isabella followed her cautiously. ‘You think the knife will still be in there even? The police sealed off the room after he was taken away.’

  ‘Seals are for breaking.’ Cassie pushed aside the police tape strung across Jake’s door and tried the handle. ‘Gimme your hair clasp.’

  ‘How do you … all right.’ Shrugging, Isabella slipped a silver pin from her hair and watched as Cassie slid it into the lock.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon …’ Cassie jiggled her improvised lockpick impatiently.

  ‘Someone’s coming!’

  Cassie hissed a curse. She’d been so focused on the lock, she hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps. Now she realised she’d recognise the stealthy footfalls anywhere – Marat.

  There was nowhere to go. Cassie hesitated for a moment, then Isabella seized her hand and pulled her further down the corridor. Imperiously she rapped on another teak door.

  As Marat’s footsteps came closer, Isabella muttered something under her breath in Spanish, but her face lit in a huge smile as the door was flung open.

  ‘Perry! Angel!’ Before the startled American could slam it in her face, she had stepped neatly over the threshold, pulling Cassie with her. ‘Here we are!’

  Cassie started for a moment – Perry Hutton was Richard’s roommate. She glanced around but there was no sight of him. She instead smiled sweetly at the loathsome Perry.

  ‘What the— Now, look, Isabella …’

  ‘Did I get the wrong date?’

  ‘There isn’t a date! What the hell are you on about? You’re not my type, sweetie. And what’s she doing here?’

  Isabella maintained her smile, but her voice developed an edge as she pulled the door shut behind them. ‘Be quiet, Perry. We’ll be out of here in a second.’

  ‘You’ll be out of here now!’

  ‘Throwing out one of the Few? Oh Perry, darling, you are so brave!’

  That shut him up. Perry’s eyes flickered uneasily in Cassie’s direction. ‘Sure, Isabella. Whatever.’

  Cassie pressed her ear to the door. The footsteps had paused, for a little too long, but now they were shuffling away again towards the elevators at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Look, can you go? Please?’ Perry was turning fractious. ‘I’m expecting a friend.’

  Cassie leaned close to the door again, and she heard a faint but distinct ping, and then the muted hiss of the elevator doors. She took Isabella’s arm.

  ‘Let’s go. Good luck with your friend, Peregrine.’

  He went purple above the collar and opened his mouth, but the girls were already outside and Isabella had shut the door firmly in his bemused and angry face.

  Isabella giggled. ‘Pompous ass.’

  ‘You got that one right. Quick, Marat’s gone.’

  Cassie slid the hairpin back into the lock. One decisive twist and the door swung open.

  ‘Goodness. That was a piece of pie.’

  ‘Cake. Well, I’ve done it before.’ As Cassie ducked under the tape and closed the door, though, she found her heart was thrashing with fear. She couldn’t shake off the worry that Marat might come back and find them. That guy was like a fungus – he popped up everywhere you didn’t want him.

  Jake’s room was neat and tidy. If Vaughan and his FBI buddy had searched the place, they’d been pretty careful. But Cassie didn’t think they had – they had been more interested in getting Jake out of the Academy and into the Confine. Hastily, Cassie ran the flat of her hand between the mattress and the base of the bed, and then began to hunt behind the desk, the nightstand, the headboard.

  Isabella was searching frantically too, pulling books out of a shelf, rummaging in drawers. ‘I don’t know where to start. If it’s here, Jake must have hidden it really well. Horrible thing.’

  Too well. Find it, Cassandra! Find it!

  ‘I’m trying,’ she muttered. Yanking a drawer out of Jake’s desk, she upturned it, and pens and paperclips and notebooks scattered to the floor. No knife.

  FIND IT!

  Estelle was getting really agitated. Standing stock-still, Cassie clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She could feel the bubbling energy, the burning that rose from the base of her spine to her blazing eyes and out. No! No, she mustn’t …

  Where is it, Cassandra? WHERE IS IT?

  ‘Oh my God.’ Isabella was gaping at her, but Cassie’s attention was on the mirror on the wall beside the wardrobe. Something was drawing her to it . . .

  Through a red filter Cassie stared at the mirror, and the shimmering aura that was building around her reached out to touch it. The frame was heavy, solid steel, but it began to melt in front of her eyes. The frame warped and buckled, while the silvered glass ran like treacle, sliding down inside the frame until both girls were suddenly twisted versions of themselves in its reflection.

  Cassie clamped her hands to her face in horror, desperately blinking the red film away from her eyes. She took a breath, then ran to the mirror, running her hands across the melted frame, the distorted glass, her own warped reflection. Beneath her fingertips the glass surface seemed to tremble. Frowning, she tugged the mirror out from the wall and slid her fingers round the back of the frame. Something was resting precariously on the back ridge of the frame, and as her fingertips touched it, it clattered to the floor.

  ‘Here it is,’ she whispered. She lifted the knife, gazing at its elaborately carved hilt.

  ‘OK.’ Isabella’s mouth twisted with distaste as she eyed the brutal knife. ‘What just happened?’

  Cassie looked up momentarily from the blade. ‘Do … do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’ Gently, she stroked the twisted figures with her thumb: the mermaids, the caryatids, something half-cat, half-snake. She could have sworn they responded to her touch, stirred and stretched … It felt almost as if it belonged in her hand, against her skin, and somewhere in her head she heard Estelle give a shuddering sigh of pleasure.

  Isn’t it beautiful?

  Cassie shivered and tucked the knife inside her coat.

  ‘I don’t like that thing,’ said Isabella.

  Mildly irritated, Cassie avoided Isabella’s gaze. ‘We need it.’

  ‘But could you use it?’

  Cassie didn’t answer.

  The air outside was electric with an impending storm: Cassie could taste the charge in the air, feel the tips of her hair lifting. As they dodged the traffic and made their way to the 79th Street entrance of Central Park, she could feel the knife inside her coat, warm against her body. Isabella was right – was she really ready for this? Could she actually use the knife, if it came to it?

  ‘This way, Cassie!’ Isabella’s hushed voice was fraught with anxiety.

  Cassie shook her head free of doubts and ran on after her friend into the shadows and through pools of streetlight on the 79th Street Transverse. She knew this path: she’d walked it in the daylight, that time two weeks ago when she’d gone skating at the Wollman Rink with Ranj—

  Not now, she thought, shoving him out of her head.

  She convinced herself she wasn’t scared going into the darkness under the East Drive bridge – why should she be? she thought – and on the other side she saw a suggestion of water. A distant flash of lightning made the Turtle Pond gleam like a mirror for an instant, then darkness closed in again. She could feel cold rain on her face, but as the wind rose it didn’t slow her. Isabella was out of breath, lagging behind her now, but Cassie felt she could run for ever.

  ‘How much further?’ she barked.

  ‘Right there!’ Stumbling to a halt, Isabella grabbed her. ‘That’s it – the Swedish Cottage. It’s a puppet theatre.’

  An American flag and a Swedis
h one hung on the roof of the large wooden building, wet and whipped by gusts of wind.

  Cassie let out a mirthless laugh. She should have realised Brigitte wouldn’t have been taking Jake to one of her own properties. Besides, she couldn’t imagine Katerina’s family owning anything smaller than a mansion.

  Cassie felt her muscles tense as she prowled closer through the trees. ‘Looks quiet,’ she murmured.

  It was raining in earnest now, the drops stinging like ice on her skin. The building itself wasn’t lit, but she could make out a faint glow from behind it. She narrowed her eyes, silenced her breathing. Behind the rising wind and the roar of the rain, she could hear something.

  Voices. Movements. The scrape of a shovel blade on soil. Low laughter.

  Lightning exploded directly above them, turning the world white. In the fraction of a second before the thunder shook the earth, Cassie saw what was happening: saw the figures and what they were doing, frozen in the light like a tableau.

  The lightning bolt was followed instantly by a second flash. Cassie was aware of a distorted, inhuman form rising up before her. Flinching reflexively, she stumbled back.

  Then it was right in front of her, a hideous face screaming into hers, its eyes burning red with hate and power.

  There was no time to react. Lifted off her feet by a ringing blow, Cassie felt herself flung through the electric air, her skull thudding hard on to the solid earth as she landed. Struggling to right herself, another lightning bolt flashed through the night without warning and crashed into a nearby tree. Cassie had a moment of clarity as she saw the branch rip off like a disused limb and hurtle towards her. And then the night went truly black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Consciousness returned like a cold slap. Trying to get to her feet, Cassie felt the heavy tree branch pinning her to the ground. Mustering all her strength, she managed to heave it off, but felt a searing, piercing pain as she took a breath. At least one rib was broken. She coughed and gasped again as pain shot through her once more. Around her the rain howled; lightning, more distant now, crackled across the skyline.

  ‘Silly girl. Silly, stupid scholarship girl, to think you were a match for us, even with your freaky powers. And greedy old Mother Nature had to take her turn too. That lightning bolt nearly lit you up like a Christmas tree.’

  She didn’t recognise the expensive black boots, but she knew the voice.

  Katerina.

  Desperately, Cassie lashed out with a fist, but the feet in front of her skipped lightly back. The Swedish girl’s evasive manoeuvre revealed silhouettes behind her. They looked human and yet … not. There was something distorted about the figures: as distorted as Katerina’s grotesque form. Oh, Cassie recognised that, all right. She’d seen it before, at the Arc de Triomphe – Katerina, letting her true evil Few colours shine through. The peeled-back lips, the red eyes, the teeth that weren’t down to any all-American orthodontist …

  The girl was still stylish, though. Chic, despite the casual ease with which she held Isabella’s unconscious form, tucked under one sinewy arm.

  ‘Gods, you three have the luck of the devil,’ Katerina laughed. ‘I’ve tried and I’ve tried to get my revenge a little more elegantly, but it all comes down to fisticuffs and flying tree branches in the end.’

  ‘Isabella!’ Cassie reached for her friend. ‘Don’t hurt her!’

  ‘Don’t worry about your roomie, dear. I’ll take care of her.’ The grey lips stretched further. ‘Once and for all.’

  With a snarl of rage, Cassie tried to lunge up and snatch at Isabella, but Katerina dodged her with laughable ease. One of those expensively shod feet lashed out, catching Cassie’s temple and sending her reeling back.

  Damn it, if only she could focus, work through this pain … Cassie blinked hard, shaking her dizzy head. She was sure she knew those two figures behind Katerina; she’d seen them so recently. Lurching forwards again, still incapable of standing upright, she squinted into the driving rain and the dancing shadows. Contemptuously, Katerina turned her back on Cassie and stalked towards her comrades with Isabella hanging like a rag doll in her arms.

  As Cassie crawled desperately forward, digging her fingers into the muddy grass, blinking rain out of her eyes, she saw the figures in the distance more clearly. The taller one had pale platinum hair, trimmed shorter than Katerina’s but otherwise the same. The other was a broad, muscular figure, crop-haired and thick-lipped, his eyes pale and cruel. Those features were all that distinguished them from a nightmare. But she definitely knew them.

  Brigitte and Vaughan, her tormentors from the Council.

  Each bore a fiercely burning firebrand that didn’t so much as gutter, despite the howl of the wind and the lashing rain. Dizzy, able only to gape in horror, Cassie watched the flames flicker and leap. They looked alive: squirming, jumping with life. She saw eyes, tails, wings, fangs … wriggling creatures in the flames. Their blazing shapes swirled amidst the darkness, illuminating another form, barely moving, lying on the sodden ground.

  Jake!

  With an angry cry of despair Cassie dragged herself forward. She didn’t care about Brigitte and Vaughan; she didn’t even care about Katerina. She needed to get to her friends.

  Cassie opened her mouth to shout their names, but a whimper of pain was all that escaped her lips. She stared, helpless, as Brigitte lashed her foot into Jake’s side and he stifled a groan. Cassie tried again to move, but there was no strength in her limbs.

  Katerina dumped her burden beside Jake. Isabella was limp as death.

  ‘There’s a tear in my eye,’ the Swedish girl rasped. ‘Sweet of the lovely Sara to let me know you were coming, girls. And lucky too – Richard was supposed to be keeping an eye on you all for me, but he seems to have changed sides. I’ll have to deal with him later. Still, maybe it hasn’t worked out too badly. Now you Three Musketeers can be all for one.’ She threw a scornful glance over at Cassie and gave a merciless laugh.

  ‘Touching, ain’t it,’ growled the warped Vaughan, grinning like a skull. Cassie saw his white teeth flash in the lightning.

  ‘Yes, well we can’t separate these two lovebirds,’ cooed Katerina, gazing down at Isabella and Jake. ‘Don’t worry, darlings, you’ll be fed to the earth together. Unfortunately, your little half-breed friend will have to make do with a good old-fashioned killing. We can’t have whatever bit of her can claim to be Few corrupting the Living Soil now, can we?’

  With one foot, Katerina rolled Jake’s body another metre along the ground, and Brigitte and Vaughan lifted their flaming torches high. The leaping light caught the edge of a shadow that was deeper than any of the others.

  ‘Oh God,’ whispered Cassie.

  Jake lay on the lip of a black gouge in the earth. There was something strange about the pit, something evil. Cassie crawled closer. The damp earth inside it had a crimson shade, a glow. Blood red. She blinked the driving rain out of her eyes.

  Cassandra, what did I tell you?

  ‘What, Estelle?’ Cassie’s voice was no more than a croak, drowned by the clatter of the rain. ‘What did you tell me? Should I have listened, you old bitch?’

  Of course you should, dear girl. There was a strange sorrow in Estelle’s voice along with the irrepressible thrill. The Living Soil, my dear. The cruellest prison of all. Centuries of burials, feeding it, feeding those who dare to draw its power …

  Now she could see, but all she wanted to do was look away. Run away. The earth in the pit wasn’t just earth – there were bodies in there too, tangled together, moving and churning, too many to count. Limbs, torsos, straggling blood-soaked hair. As the twisted pile turned, a hand clawed hopelessly at the air. Then, with a muffled scream, it was dragged under once more.

  ‘They’re not dead,’ whispered Cassie, as pain thundered in her skull and her body shook. She felt sick. ‘They’re not dead!’

  Yes, my dear. Yes. Now you understand.

  And she did.

  Isabella and Jake were
going to be buried alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘An expensive schooling is all very well.’ There was cruel laughter in Brigitte’s voice as she raised her torch. ‘But there’s such a thing, dear Miss Caruso, as Too Much Information. And you have it.’ She spat on Isabella’s prostrate body.

  ‘And then of course there’s Jake,’ smiled Katerina. ‘Poor, nosy little Scooby. Don’t you know curiosity killed the cretin?’

  Jake ignored her, his arms encircling Isabella protectively.

  ‘He’ll soon have plenty of time to ponder all those precious files he worked so hard to dig up,’ snarled Vaughan. ‘Did you really think you managed to hack the FBI site on your own? We just needed an excuse to nab you, punk. Too easy. We fed you those files, just like we’re gonna feed you to the Soil. Wanna call your lawyer again, sonny?’ His lip curled into a mocking sneer.

  Jake’s voice was a low, determined growl. ‘You’re gonna get hell from your Council, you sick bastards. And when they find out what you’ve done, they’ll do my job for me.’ He stared up at Katrina, hatred burning in his eyes. ‘You will pay for killing my sister.’

  ‘We must begin,’ Brigitte growled with a feverish urgency. ‘Ignore the boy. What the Council doesn’t know can’t hurt their delicate sensibilities.’

  She seized Isabella’s hair, wrapping it round her gnarled, grey fingers and dragging her to the lip of the hole. Seizing him in a headlock, Vaughan hauled the choking Jake after her.

  With her free hand, Brigitte reached over the pit, moaning as the red glow caressed her skin.

  ‘The power! Oh gods, I feel it already!’

  Katerina and Vaughan looked on, their breath rasping with excitement.

  ‘The dead of centuries … Feel them, daughter! Feel their energy! Fed to the Soil, preserved forever, alive forever, for us!’ Her voice rose to a hysterical, throbbing cry. ‘We are the true Few! There is no weakness in us, no taint of mercy. We alone have the strength to feed the Living Soil, and feed from it. Feel its power! How could the Council have renounced it? HOW?’