Demon Shade (The Demons of Oxford Book 2)

by Kara Silver

  “My…”

  “Alibi. Airtight. Checked out.”

  She’d reached the door that led into the public bit of the station, containing the counter to serve those needing something. “So that’s it? I’m free to go?” She didn’t trust any of them. It must be a trap.

  “Yes. Here.” The female officer handed Kennedy her backpack.

  “Well? Go on.” This was from the inspector, her interrogation officer. “He’s waiting.”

  Kennedy straightened her shoulders and pushed through the door, not knowing who she’d find. But the man sitting on a cheap plastic chair, who stood as soon as she came through the door, stood and scowled at her, narrowing his tawny eyes in warning, was the last man she’d have expected. Well, no. She wouldn’t have expected Idris Elba to be there to bail her out, say. But neither could she ever have dreamed that waiting for her, seemingly having provided her with a false alibi for the time a murder had been committed, was the man who was her Perspectives on Human Evolution tutor and her moral tutor at Heylel, Dr Berkley.

  She tried not to let her mouth clang open. “Erm, thanks, Doc?”

  His scowl deepened, darkening his eyes to brown. He shook back his waves of mane-like hair and reached to put his arm over her shoulders. “Lionel.”

  “Do what?”

  “You can use my given name outside college,” he clarified, through gritted teeth.

  “Look, Lion-Boy, I don’t—”

  “Not in here.” That was said without him moving his lips. He gave a little wave to any police watching, a wave Kennedy copied, her heart sinking because, from underneath Dr Berkley’s arm, she caught a glimpse of Chris.

  Dr Berkley route-marched her from the station and up the street, not stopping until they reached the High, where he led her into a fast-food sandwich place. “I could hear your stomach rumbling inside the station,” he commented, indicating a table and going to queue up. “On my return,” he called, a finger raised, cutting off her attempt to ask questions.

  “This the first time you’ve been in a place like this?” Kennedy queried, eyeing the tray he placed on the table when he did return a few minutes later.

  “Hardly. Why?”

  “You got the soup, sandwich and drink of the day.” She pointed from the tray to the blackboard behind the counter.

  “How could I know what you like?”

  “But that…” About to decry the lack of connection between whatever her preferences might be and today’s specials advertised, Kennedy gave up on being an Oxford scholar, bursting with logic and reason, in favour of tomato and basil soup and whatever the hell the melt was. Time and place.

  “Thanks,” she managed around the cup of soup. “Oh, and by the by, I’m innocent.”

  “We gathered that.” Dr Berkley tipped three sugars into his coffee, both his words and action surprising Kennedy.

  “We as in the royal we? The editorial we?”

  “We, as in your loco parentis. Your tutors.”

  “As in, you and Dr Crane?”

  “Also Dr Rudd and his office and the principal’s office.” He sipped his coffee. “Along with anyone else from the faculty who is abreast of the situation. You see, we all resent a member of our department being so obviously used by the police to get an easy collar.”

  “Oh.” Kennedy sat back, too stunned to eat. Then his use of slang caught up with her, making her grin. “Yeah, they figured me for a patsy. An easy mark.”

  He scoffed. “The last thing you are is easy.” A shadow crossed his face. “Although, turning to another meaning of the word, it might seem… If you follow.”

  She followed. “You owed me one, and so you got the short straw. Well, sorry. But thanks.” She broke the sandwich in half and pushed one section across to him. He grimaced and pursed his lips.

  “Your need is greater.”

  “Ummm.” She stuffed a huge lump of warm bread and cheese into her mouth. Then what he’d said hit her, that this wasn’t just him, repaying the favour she’d done him, but that the entire department, her department, had come through for her. Rallied to her cause. “Despite my poor grades and sub-standard performance,” she said, knowing he’d follow.

  “Which is fucking infuriating when you can do so much better!” He banged his hand down, making people at neighbouring tables look around. “Your work has been rushed and slipshod, but you are not unintelligent and not an unoriginal thinker.”

  “Thanks. And without the quadruple negatives?”

  “You bring unusual perspectives and insights to bear on your reading and study and so make not uninteresting leaps and connections, teasing out possible new strands.”

  “Wow. You’re slipping. There was at least one positive adjective in there.”

  “And I suppose it’s as Dr Crane says, that you perform to your own standards.” Was that a glimmer of amusement, in his eyes? “If we’ve pushed you, it’s to ensure you get ahead. After all, you’re here on a full scholarship. The Promising Person Scholarship. Aptly named.”

  “I, well, thanks.” Kennedy could hardly meet his eyes, half-understanding now why she’d been allowed up out of term time, why this man had drawn up a study plan for her. She willed back the tears wanting to form in her eyes at knowing her professors valued her intelligence and capabilities, and wanted her to succeed.

  She wished she could explain what had taken place last term, leaving her short on time, sleep, brain power and energy. “Thank you. And thanks to everyone involved in getting you to spring me.”

  “It was agreed I should. I have a certain reputation that makes it not entirely implausible that…”

  “We could have been doing whatever you said we were doing, when…you know. Whenever that was.”

  “Around midnight, two days ago. When I stayed behind after watching you perform with the i comessi troupe, to discuss the form and function of ritual theatre, specifically the commedia dell’arte. It was rather a long, involved talk, with various of your relatives describing and showing the evolution and change in their roles in response to temporal and cultural or religious mores.”

  “That sounds riveting.” Kennedy had no doubt her kinfolk would back that up. Had backed that up. Airtight.

  “After which, we walked back to college and I used my key to let us in the back gate.”

  “The one farthest from Parks, where the fair is?” Kennedy frowned, detecting a flaw.

  “The one with no CCTV.”

  “Hey, you’re good at this!”

  “Thank you. I read a lot.”

  Kennedy choked on her drink. “Well, thanks.” She set down her cup. “And is the bit where I ask what I have to do in exchange?”

  Berkley wasn’t married. Long divorced, people said, and she’d heard whispers about his serial monogamy with students. A fresh fresher every year, as the saying went. The guy had just made reference to his rep. Kennedy had no intention of being a notch on anything of this man’s, but would she mind people thinking she was? Even that was—

  He scoffed. “Get your mind out of the gutter. All I want you to do for me, well, for yourself, is work more and better. Oh, and believe me, you’re not my type. You haven’t got the…sort of figure I prefer.”

  She frowned at that, and Berkley rolled his eyes.

  “Ah.” She thought she got it.

  “See? Not entirely unintelligent. Come on. I’ll take you back to college. You probably need a rest. You have to make up for the time you lost today.”

  “Make up make-up work.” Kennedy shook her head. “Seems to me the only way I can do that is to be excused all visitor liaison duties over the holidays…”

  They were still bickering as he peeled off from her in Heylel to go to his rooms. Kennedy didn’t go to her staircase, even though she did need to rest. And work. No, she headed to the museum, and climbed straight onto the roof.

  It looks weird without Aeth. Unbalanced. And… Oh. Examining where he normally stood, she saw it looked undisturbed. She’d expected some s
ign of it being normally occupied, some indication it was his, well, home. But there was nothing, no broken-off stone, no scuff marks…it was as though nothing had ever stood there. As though he was never here. Had it always looked like that, when Aeth was un-stoned, de-stoned, whatever it was called? She tried to think, but couldn’t recall ever having examined it.

  She’d seen Aeth come to life, seen his statue form change from stone to non-stone and into his human-Aeth shape, and she’d seen him re-take his place here. But now a strange feeling hung around the roof, swirling like London fog, and it made her uneasy. Acting on instinct, she walked diagonally across the flat surface to the herma there, thinking to examine it. But before she could reach it, it was gone. From one second to the next. It sort of solidified, if that was possible for stone, before a darker grey haze, the same size and shape as the statue, enveloped it and then, pouf! the corner of the roof stood empty.

  “No!” Kennedy felt the significance, even if she didn’t understand it. “No!” she cried again as the statue on the same side of the roof as Aeth took on a shimmer, a glimmer, tiny speckles or sparkles gleaming in the early evening air before it too vanished.

  “Oh no, you damn well don’t!” Kennedy threw herself at the one remaining herma, as if her presence could stop it, could get answers from it. Of course it couldn’t, but she did slow it down. It shivered and quivered, even wriggled a little, but she threw her arms around it and held on tight. It shook hard, trying to dislodge her, but Kennedy had a good grip with both her arms and legs. It lowered its head, maybe to headbutt her, maybe to bite her. She didn’t care.

  “Take me to him,” she ordered. “To Rocky. Aeth, I mean. Aethelstan! You know who I’m talking about. I don’t know what’s going on or where he’s gone or where you’re all going, but he might need me, so you are going to take me along too, you hear?” She shouted the last two words right into its ear and with a shudder so fierce that it rattled and jolted all Kennedy’s bones, the grotesque dematerialised, taking her with it.

  18

  Falling. From where? To where? She knew it wasn’t a normal fall, like out of bed, say, or even off a roof. Off a roof? Why would she fall off a roof? People didn’t go about falling off roofs. Cold wind and dark black sped past her, or maybe she cut through them. Fell through them, she corrected herself. “Help!” she tried, just once, only for the effort to sear her, from her lungs to her throat. And with each second that passed, with each metre she dropped, more and more of her fell away, until she landed, hard, knocking herself out.

  She came to with every bone aching, every muscle strained, every nerve stripped raw. “Help?” she whispered, her throat raw. “No, it’s okay. I’ll just lie here for a bit. Get my strength back.” But where was here and why was she there? In fact, how had she gotten there? She had no clue, and, in trying to think back, met only deep, dark blackness.

  Kennedy’s first explanation was that she was in prison. She’d been…locked up, or something, lately, hadn’t she? So this was that? But prisons didn’t tend to be this dark, did they? Or small? Was it small? I must have hit my head, she reasoned, sitting up carefully, feeling all around her. Somehow. Somewhere. Am I in a cave? Why would I be in a cave? University? Field work? Oh. A memory. It must have been strong, or important, because she wasn’t in possession of many facts, but that was one. She was a student!

  So, field work. She wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but it had forced its way into her brain through whatever was blocking or muffling her thoughts. Okay then, Start there. She was exploring something like a cave. Had something gone wrong? In movies, in anything to do with excavations, the archaeologists unearthed something and fell into a trap. Or set off a curse. Kennedy chortled. But…she wasn’t studying that subject, right? She didn’t think so, because it didn’t feel quite right.

  There was so much just beyond her grasp. Oh, not literally—she touched the sides and roof of wherever she was. But mentally. She lay still, trying to collect her thoughts, attempting to piece things together, remember what she’d forgotten. “If I can remember, then it’s not forgotten, is it?” she said to no one. She frowned. She’d said something similar recently about something being lost and found. She clenched her hand into a fist and beat on the stone ground in frustration. Stone… She uncurled her fist and stretched out her index finger as if it were a pen and the rocky ground a sheet of paper, because she was accustomed to writing on stone. To reading messages on stone. Which wasn’t normal, right? But she did, because of—

  “Aeth!” She sat up, getting her hands to the top of her head just in time to cushion it, to not give herself another concussion. But, wait, she didn’t have a head injury. The mist or fog or whatever that had been muffling her was clearing. More with each passing second. She’d passed through something to come here. Wherever here was. Kennedy didn’t think it was anywhere underneath Heylel, or even Oxford. It didn’t have the same earth and rot and renewal stench she associated with being under the ground, with travelling through stone. It smelt airy. Ozone, she thought.

  And wherever it was, she hadn’t exactly come. She’d forced her way here, forced the statue into taking her. But why? Because of Aeth. He’d gone, gone because something had happened. She remembered the eerie feeling on the roof. Something had changed, was different. If it’s because of what I’ve done, how I’ve behaved…them it’s my fault. She’d add it to the guilt pile, apologise later.

  And because she’d gotten him into it, into being captured, or imprisoned or whatever, she’d get him out. Rescue, ransomed, whatever—it was up to her. “Riggghhtt. So, you put me in a stone cave to imprison me.” Kennedy focussed, drawing on the lessons Aeth had given her. She stood, taking the rocky cell with her, bursting through it. “Whoever you are, you’re idiots. And you haven’t been paying attention. This was the first thing I learned. First thing he taught me, I should say. And as I learned today, I’m a bloody good scholar. Even if I’m not a good student. Now, get serious?”

  Big mouth does it again, came her thought a moment later when she turned to see where she was, and a metal cage turned with her, circling her, Surrounding her. Imprisoning her. She laid her hands on it, searching for a seam, a join, and found none. Could she climb it? She doubted it. It was smooth with no footholds. She tried anyway, falling to the ground, also steel, each time. And it was high. And…shrinking. Getting closer to her.

  Steel, she’d said. She’d learned science. What did she know about that metal? Steel was strong and cheap, so tended to be used a lot in buildings or structures. Steel was a blend of iron and carbon. Elements! She ignored the circling metal closing in, almost touching her. Those elements were found in the earth, and she moved through the earth. Through its crust. Aeth had tried to explain it and she’d argued that she didn’t need to understand it, just be able to do it. Should she have listened? Taken notes? Probably.

  “But I’ll just do it,” she said, focusing. This was harder, but she forced her way through. It hurt, like pulling herself through lift or underground train doors closing on her, and she felt like she’d left half her skin behind, but she did it. I’m coming to find you, she promised Aeth. Hang on.

  She patted herself down and threw back her hair. “That all you got?” she called. The ground opened and Kennedy fell through into water. A stream or river, yet still inside, still in the semi-dark, the semi-nothingness. “I can swim, you fools!” she shouted, even as water washed over her, the strength of the wave taking her by surprise, dragging her along. “Why do I have to keep telling people I’m a good swimmer? Does no one believe me?” She hoped she believed it herself, as the undertow caught her and dragged her down.

  Good job I’ve been training swimming underwater, she thought. Then pity I’m not a fish, as her lungs threatened to burst. Her head hurt, too, the pressure caving it in. Just as she knew she couldn’t continue, the river ended and she burst, spluttering and gasping, into another cave. No, not a cave. And there hadn’t been a first one. Well, it was a sort of cav
ern, but then it wasn’t. Like the stone prison and the steel cage, it changed around her. Changed her. Kennedy grabbed at her clothes, at her hair, as they transformed. “No!” she shrieked. But it was no use.

  She was eased into a room she’d never been in before, in a house she’d never seen before and with a man she’d never met before. Until, with the merciless, ice-cold, diamond-sharp extraction of her memories, of herself, that she fought against in vain, she took her place in it and became of it and it her.

  The man at the desktop computer looked up as she paced the study. “On the march again? Here. Come and sit down a bit. You seem restless today.”

  “Do I? Sorry.” Kennedy stilled. Yes, she was always on the go. What had she just been doing? She couldn’t quite recall. No matter. Richard was right. She should slow down a little. She crossed to him and put her hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze as she peered at the screen to read what he’d written. “Oh yes! I like the title, how you’ve worked it in. Is that what you decided on?”

  He laughed, rubbing his cheek against her hand. “How could it not be when it was the first thing you ever said to me, in the first conversation we ever had, meeting out in the field? I’ve been planning for years how to use it! And it’s we. We did the research together, and we’re publishing together.”

  “Together.” Well, they worked together; had done since meeting, when Kennedy, fresh from her PhD, had started her post as an anthropology researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, where she’d been awarded a research grant and undertaken her first practical project in the field. When her work there was finished, Richard had given up everything and come back to the UK with her, switching to museum anthropology and collections management, a complement to her ethnographic research.