Demon Shade (The Demons of Oxford Book 2)

by Kara Silver

  They’d practiced this, so Kennedy knew what was coming, but it felt so real when Tristano plucked at her fingers by mistake as she indicated a rose for him to pick, lifting her hand to his face instead. Kennedy had thought the audience might laugh at that, but again there was hush, an expectant silence as Tristano brought her hand not to his nose, as he’d done with the flowers, but to his lips. There he paused, looking hard at her and reacting to some signal before he stripped her glove from her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. When Beatrice didn’t pull free, Tristano stepped nearer and kissed the back of her hand.

  Cheers sprang up from the crowd and Kennedy risked another peep at where Chris sat, feeling awkward at the sensual display she was putting on. She stood stiffly. Some of the audience rose as Tristano slipped to his knees in front of her, and groans of disappointment sounded when his grandfather, il Dottore, mirrored his action, falling to his knees and clutching his throat, choking on the poorly made snack he was eating. Her cue to flee the stage as Tristano crossed to help his relative, casting anguished looks at her in his wake.

  “Listen!” Giacobbo, behind her at the play’s finish, drew her attention to the crowd’s shouts and whistles when gli Innamorati stepped forward to take their bow and curtsey. They had to make two more before the audience’s applause died down. On the second, Tristan retrieved a rose tossed on the stage. On the third, reacting to the audience’s calls and instructions, he took the long-stemmed flower and slotted it between his lips, turning to her. The crowd erupted and, laughing, Kennedy had no choice but to touch her lips to Tris’s and take the rose for herself. The heat between them seared her. She stumbled and would have fallen had he not reached for her and her for him.

  The spotlight wasn’t on them, but she felt as though they were standing in their own private pool of light, removed from the troupe and the public, a space just for them. It felt similar to the remote, out-of-time atmosphere of the fairground as a whole, but even more secluded, even more private. The whoops and whistles the audience gave in response to the almost-kiss should have been enough to induce a headache, but Kennedy barely heard.

  Her ears rang and her head buzzed with the audience’s applause, but all her senses narrowed to the feel of Tristan’s hand in hers and the tingle in her lips from where they’d touched his. She could barely breathe and, with Tristan staring as deeply into her eyes as she did was his, she couldn’t wait to do it all over again.

  12

  “Shit!” Kennedy gave a half-leap, half-twist, grabbing her knife from under her pillow. Her heart thudded and she swiped her sweat-soaked hair from her face. It took her a few seconds to realise pillow meant bed, which had probably meant sleep and dreaming. Even so, the images hung heavy, seeming to hover at the corner of her eye and flicker as she sought them. Wow. She usually had bad dreams, but that? Nightmare and a half. She awarded the extra half because it had been in colour. And the colour? Bright red.

  “Yeah, that’d be the blood.” She tried to shake off the visuals like a dog coming out of water. The claret of blood, the purple-grey of twilight and the ink-black of night. Oh, and demons. Of course. No point trying to sleep. With a groan, she crawled out from under the blankets to start her day, groaning more twenty minutes later as she entered the library.

  Proud of her organisation, Kennedy put the finishing touch to her prep by setting the chocolate bar wrapper on top of the biggest pile of books and papers like a talisman. It was only the wrapper—she’d scoffed the chocolate itself for supper, ravenous after her performance. Good job the tables in Heylel library are so long and so wide, she mused, sharpening her pencils. Her stuff took up nearly the whole of this one, and she set up a couple of chairs down the long side of the table to hop from one pile to another down the row. She blew on her pencil points and placed the pencils in readiness, one near each pile of books and papers, just so.

  Procrastinating by finally reading the roster, she saw students up in the vac were only assigned duties every other day, leaving alternate days free for their make-up work. Huh, except Emma with her fifteen-minute stints, Kennedy reflected sourly. Not that Little Miss Strawberry Short-Stuff—genius nickname for the girl—had any overdue or missed work to catch up on.

  Not that I have, really… Wouldn’t Drew have thought me weird if I’d revealed that! But she’d needed to be here outside term time, and so Dr Berkley had taken her at her word, leaving her an outline of what she should do to improve her grades, to ‘raise them to acceptable’. “I’ll ‘perspectives on human evolution’ him,” she vowed, whatever that meant, her highlighter squeaking a protest at her dragging it through the titles of the two weakest of the tutorial essays she’d handed in to him. Oh, and one she’d handed in to her other tutor, Dr Crane. She had to resubmit them all, taking the tutors’ comments into account.

  Fair enough, but to rework them by also bringing in more elements from the lectures and the practicals and self-directed theoretical and practical study? That meant more reading—and not just the chapters assigned during the term—and more museum visits. It was only then she turned the page and saw another item she had to do: short written critiques of other students’ tutorial presentations, strengthening contributions to the arguments presented. They were Berkley’s tutorials. Of course. Sadist. And where would she get copies of other students’ presentations?

  Kennedy had already planned to re-read all her lecture notes and go over the assigned reading again, asking for any guidance she might find she needed in extra material to support that. At the rate stuff had piled up, she’d just about be finished with term one by the time two rolled around. Well, she’d better make a start. Her work wasn’t that poor. It was more a matter of getting into the way of expectations and standards here. Which she’d have been able to do if she’d had more time, probably, and been able to work with her fellow students, almost certainly. Instead she’d been…extra-curricular, as Drew had phrased it. Maybe next term would be different. Oh look, better saddle up. Because if wishes were horses, she’d be able to ride.

  “Better late than never, one supposes.”

  Deep in applying ethics to the core concepts of cultural anthropology, Kennedy jumped and broke a pencil point. No need to turn around to see who the speaker was.

  “Dr Berkley. Fancy meeting you here.” She doubted he’d get that she was imitating the rough purr to his voice when he was feeling particularly smug and self-satisfied. So, like, every day with a Y in it.

  He stalked to her side and stopped, his stillness and strangled moan theatrical. “Please tell me you are not eating candy in a library!”

  “Calm down. It’s an empty wrapper I keep.”

  “Because…?”

  “I take it you don’t understand Japanese.” Oh, the lovely smugness she wrapped herself in in saying that. It felt as rich as a velvet cloak. She handed him the package, scooting her chair away a smidge. He loomed close.

  “I do, a little. Oh.” That…was never a note of surprise in his tone? She hid a grin.

  “My amulet. Totem, if you like.” He’d get that, being a professor of cultural anthropology. She doubted he’d crack a smile though. “I guess it was trolls, back in your day.” Nope, not a twitch. “I need it to get through this.” Kennedy tapped her pencil on her list.

  “Students coming up in the vac are supposed to submit their study plan to their tutor beforehand, in point of fact.” He sighed.

  “Dr Berkley.” Kennedy kicked a chair towards him. She didn’t like him standing over her, close enough to peer down her top. “Take a load off. Can I help you with something?” Or is this just a general badmouth session? Feeling a bit frustrated and need someone to take it out on? Wow. Oxford had tempered her—she was thinking all of that and not saying it, as she would have even a month or so ago. “Is everything okay?” He did look flustered.

  “Help me with something? Yes, actually.” He blew a huge sigh down his nostrils. Oh, he was hating it! “Miss Newman-Smythe is not at her post. Has not turned u
p for her duties.”

  “Her fifteen minutes of pain.” She didn’t think he’d catch that, but one side of his mouth hitched up. “And you can’t call her, of course.” Kennedy heaved a sigh in imitation of his.

  “I have. To no avail.”

  Okay, so that surprised her. “Have you tried her room?” Kennedy asked, to be informed Emma was staying in college over the holidays but out in a farmhouse—no doubt huge and with all mod-cons—in a village in the surrounding countryside that was doubtless fit to grace the lid of a chocolate box. An expensive brand of chocolates.

  “Right. Well…bummer.” Kennedy uncapped her pen, turned a page in her book. “Have you tried Dr Crane, see if her prized pupil is with her, going over their travel plans?”

  “Oh. You’ve heard. Well, this is—”

  “Don’t.” Kennedy thunked her forehead down onto the table. If she heard that phrase once more… “Hang a CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE sign on the museum door?”

  “The principal would prefer not to rearrange any planned and scheduled events that visitors are expecting, indeed, may have come expressly for.”

  “Uh-huh.” Meaning the college had perhaps been leaking that one of its members, a first year to boot, was involved in such an amazing project. Good selling point. Kennedy wondered if Emma was even getting paid to be available to prospective students or their parents or teachers, this vacation. No—she didn’t need the money. Maybe she was getting special concessions in return. She also wondered how Berkley felt about it. Talking of… “So, can’t you—”

  “Arrange a replacement? Exactly.” He sat back with a ta-da flourish

  “Slick,” she commented. Credit where it was due. “I would offer to help, of course, I would.”

  “Yes. Even though Emma isn’t, shall we say, your favourite person…”

  “Jeez. Does everyone gossip in this place? Like I say, I would, only with all this work to do…”

  Two minutes later, she was walking from the library with a huge smile on her face, her negotiations having whittled down her workload a little. Plus, she’d done Berkley a favour, meaning he owed her one. And what was so awful about giving a guided tour of the museum? Presumably, he could have done it in his sleep. Imagining him in an old-fashioned striped nightshirt, matching cap on his head, candle in his hand, made her snort. But, bloody snob. Too good to mingle with non-students, non-academics, she supposed. Whereas she didn’t mind mixing with the hoi-polloi—her people—and was quite glad of something that wasn’t work to fill in the time until the commedia performance later. She kept trying not to think about it, because it was like an itch in her blood. She’d only given one performance and she craved the buzz again. Those vibes…they’d been something else.

  The tour didn’t take that long, but longer than Emma’s allotted fifteen minutes. She must have it down to a fine art—five minutes per floor then show them the door. Kennedy hoped she gave better service and that she conveyed the place’s richness and potential, the way it showed anyone who cared to investigate how people and peoples throughout time and throughout the globe had understood the same thing: life in all its myriad strands—including death.

  Alone, Kennedy tried to see the cavernous, dimly lit space, its three floors, its spiral staircases, its walls, its ceiling, but most of all its displays, its artefacts, as a new visitor might. She recalled how she’d reacted on first seeing it, on first entering it, and on first using its space. The feelings she’d experienced. Her alarm and fear at discovering information about herself, about what she was, here.

  The museum was familiar to her now, but she didn’t think that familiarity would ever dull the place’s edges, make it fade into the background. Had she gotten the collection’s mysteries and power across to the potential Heylel students? Its place in the fields of ethnography and world archaeology? It might be interesting to follow up with the groups who’d toured the college, see how many came to study here and what. If they’d been intrigued enough to want to pursue the disciplines the museum and its spoils was dedicated to. Talking of, she had a load of work to do in those disciplines.

  She retrieved her bag from the cupboard and decided to work in the kitchen. Closer to the tea and coffee and all the passive-aggressive notes stuck to everything that she’d kind of missed, while she was away. How pathetic was that? “Oh, no!” Kennedy blinked. Gone were the Post-It notes bearing sarcastic comments in neat lettering and tacked up were would-be motivational posters designed to promote healthy communal-space behaviour.

  “Every time a mug is left in the sink, it makes a kitten sad, so please wash up after yourself?” and “Follow these rules for happy coffee-time?” Kennedy felt as sad as the fluffy white kitten. Oh, well, maybe it was just a holiday thing and the real notes would be back again next term. She settled down to work and had got some reading done by the time she had to pack up to go. She washed her cup and made the sure the fridge door was firmly closed. Couldn’t risk upsetting the passive-aggressive eco-balance of the—

  The sound of a throat being cleared made her squeal, drop to a crouch and whirl around, all in one.

  “Jee-sus! How long have you been there?” She glared up at Aeth.

  “Here? A minute.” He indicated the museum as a whole. “Here?” His ducked his head and his voice was heavy when he spoke again. “Too long.”

  True enough, she supposed, not feeling pity. Not feeling sorry. “Are you here because it’s my turn?”

  “To do what?”

  “Apologise.” Kennedy hung up the tea towel. “I mean, you did it last time, so…”

  “Apologise. Are you, in fact, sorry?”

  “For what?” she scoffed, brushing past him where he stood folded-armed in the doorway.

  “For disregarding my wishes. My advice. My—”

  “Oh. I thought you meant for making you jealous.” Cheap shot, but she couldn’t resist. Thinking back to their last encounter, she sighed. “Because you make me mad. Angry,” she clarified. “Frustrated.”

  “Frustrated?” Aeth took a step back as though this were a heinous accusation. He gave her an up-and-down look that, oddly, made her blush.

  “Your damn meddling! I didn’t mean you were envious of Tristan or…” She walked on a pace and took a deep breath to calm herself before spinning back. “And I meant jealous of what my kinfolk can offer me that you can’t. Seeing as they’re my family.”

  “Your folk. Clan. Blood. Race.”

  “You can stop there. I know all the synonyms. Hard not to, here.” Kennedy indicated the displays.

  “And you want them. Want to be with them.”

  Aeth stood in the shadows and Kennedy couldn’t see his face clearly, only his eyes. They had a kind of sheen to them she didn’t recall ever having seen before. “Well, yes.”

  “I don’t think you have—no; I know you haven’t—thought through what that implies. What it involves.”

  That confused her and she had an inkling it was an important question. Her silence, while she considered what he could mean, seemed to knock him up a gear.

  “Fine. Let me ask you this. Where were they, before? Not here with you. For you. Not like I—”

  “Aeth.” Kennedy looked away. “Don’t do this. Please. Don’t make me…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, too hurt, too wounded.

  “Very well, Kennedy Smith. I won’t. I simply…won’t.”

  She expected him to vanish. God knew there was enough stone about. Instead, he walked past her, chilling her as he did so. Literally: the cold emanating from him made her shiver. He walked to the door, opened it, and went through, closing it quietly behind him. All without looking at her.

  She stood, waiting, staring, hoping, expecting until the silence and emptiness grew too heavy. Guilt clawed at her, burning her up as tried to get free from the inside out. She put the backs of her hands to her cheeks to see if they felt hot. They didn’t seem to. So, this was manageable. She’d deal with it later. Right now, she had to get to the fair. She had
a performance to give, obligations to honour, family to spend time with—and in none of that did Aeth play a part.

  13

  And she couldn’t go looking like something the 1970s had kicked up the ass. Kennedy rushed to dump her books and papers in her room and change into her own clothes and, when she was crossing the quad on her way to the exit, her phone rang. Chandy’s ring tone. The ever-present, low-level guilt wreathing Kennedy’s feet swirled up to her knees. She’d been meaning to speak to her friend, had a strong feeling Chandy needed to talk about Karl.

  “Didi?”

  No one had used that nickname for about ten years. Kennedy’s heart stopped at the catch in Chandy’s voice.

  “Karl’s in trouble.” Chandy hiccupped. “Him and Lee.”

  Kennedy wrinkled her forehead. Oh, yeah, Lee worked with Karl at the garage. He’d been at Chandy’s flat a couple of times, with Karl. Was he also attending the college, on the same course as Karl? She couldn’t recall, and doubted it mattered.

  “What’s happened?” Mindful of the patchy phone reception in Oxford and especially its old colleges, Kennedy made for the middle of the quad where she’d been told it was better. “What? What’s that about a car?”

  Cars, she learned. As in, more than one. That Karl, Lee, and Callum routinely helped themselves to when they fancied joy riding, choosing from those brought into the garage for repair or servicing.

  “Damn, Chandy!”

  But that was all right, she was told. That the boss was okay with it, letting them do it, because they clocked for him anyway.

  “Clocked?”