by Zandria West
‘Lana? I’m in a meeting,’ he says, his tone all business. ‘Can you make it quick?’
As much as I try not to let it affect me, the way he talks to me stings. ‘Sorry J.J., it’s just… I think I need your help.’
‘Give me a moment.’ I hear a door opening and closing and the voices in the background fade away. ‘Okay. What is it?’
I feel suddenly ridiculous. My twin brother is so practical – a pragmatist. A realist. Not like me at all.
‘Jamie, I think something’s wrong with me. Seriously wrong. Something happened at the bar last night…’
‘Jesus, Lana, I don’t have time for this…’ I can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s rolling his eyes in frustration.
I swallow my tears. I miss the old Jamie, from back when we used to be best friends. From back when we swore we’d always be best friends. But since Dad died, the old Jamie is gone. Now my twin brother has become hard. Cold. Unreachable.
‘Alright,’ he says, with a resigned tone. ‘Tell me what happened.’
So I tell him. At the end of my explanation, there’s a long silence. I wait for him to give me his usual talk about what do I expect when I work in a demon bar and why don’t I just get a proper job in the city and stay away from all that stuff.
But when Jamie finally speaks, he sounds unusually tentative.
‘Don’t be angry, but I think I know somebody who can help you.’
My heart races. ‘Why would I be angry?’
‘It’s Clarissa.’
My jaw drops. ‘What?’
Our father’s ex-girlfriend was a nightmare of the kind you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Vain, deceitful, greedy. Beautiful and brilliant too, of course. They met on an archaeological dig – he was the esteemed professor and she was the bright young student. His reputation suffered as a result of their relationship, but for a little while he was happy, and we tried to be happy for him.
And then Clarissa showed her true colours, which to my mind were never far from the surface to begin with.
‘What makes you think Clarissa could help me? And why the fuck are you even in contact with her, anyway?’
‘She had some of Dad’s things. She dropped them back to me after the funeral. She seemed… different, you know, like she’d maybe had a bit of time to think about everything…’
There’s something in my brother’s voice. Oh no. He wouldn’t, would he?
Of course he fucking would, this is Jamie we’re talking about. His weakness for beautiful women is the chink in his pristine, shining armour – and by ‘chink’ I mean gaping hole.
‘You’re sleeping with her,’ I say, my voice a flat statement of fact.
The silence on the other end of the line tells me I’m right.
‘The point is, her research focuses on the occult. And the kind of symbols that you described, I’m sure I saw something like that on a photo that she showed me the other day from a temple excavation she worked on last summer. She might know what it means. Would you see her, Lana, if she agreed to help?’
I laugh, a dry, hard laugh. I’ve always believed, though I’ve never said it to Jamie, that our father would still be alive if it hadn’t been for the way Clarissa ruined him professionally and personally. He was a shrivelled shell of a man after she was done with him. And now she’s got her hooks into my brother?
‘Thanks for the offer Jamie, but I think I’ll manage without Clarissa’s help.’ As I say it I feel a twinge of pain and the colour of the images on my arms darkens. It almost looks as though there’s something there, below the skin, trying to push its way out.
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll find the guy who did this to me. If anyone can tell me what’s happening, he can.’
I can almost hear Jamie frowning. He’s at work so he’ll be dressed in a suit: clean-shaven, neat, professional. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My vivid blue hair flows in tangles over my shoulders. My eyes are dark-ringed from lack of sleep and from the smudges of make-up I didn’t properly remove, and the shapes on my forearms have darkened to almost black now. Signs of just how messed up my life is.
Jamie is like my alter-ego, the light to my shadow. I find it hard to believe we’re even related.
Then he sighs. ‘Stay safe, Lana. I’m pretty tied up here with work at the moment, so if you change your mind, you know where I am.’
‘Thanks,’ I whisper, tears pricking my eyes. Sometimes we feel a million miles apart, and a lot of the time I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a lost cause, but Jamie’s still my brother – my only living family – and I love him.
I hang up the phone and once I do, the terror starts to sink in.
Finding the guy who did this to me seemed like the only sensible thing to do, but now I realise there’s one minor problem. It will require me going into Darktown for non-work purposes. Which means: unprotected.
3
LANA
I dress in dark jeans, a long leather jacket, and boots. I pull the sleeves up and check my arms again – hoping that the images might have faded and I might be able to just forget the whole thing.
No such luck.
They’re not moving anymore – thank god because that freaked me right out. But they’re clearer and darker, the lines clean and defined like a tattoo but deeper, somehow. A crow on my right arm, a snake curled on my left. I pull the sleeves back down again.
I tell myself I’ll be inconspicuous dressed like this in Darktown, but the truth is it won’t make any difference what I wear. They’ll smell me – nothing draws demons like human blood, a human soul, human fear. And right now, I’m brimming with all three. I’m exhausted from lack of sleep and running on pure adrenalin.
I take the amulet from the hook where I hang it each morning when I sleep. I slip it over my head and tuck it under my clothes. It’s beautiful – a sky-blue stone, flecked with silvery-grey, set in a golden clasp of leaves. Dad found it on a dig in Bolivia and gave it to me for my birthday when I turned thirteen. It should probably be in a museum. I have no idea how old it is. But I’m glad it’s not in a museum; it’s mine. I remember the first time he looped it around my neck. Dad looked at me, his usually laughing eyes serious and sad for a moment. ‘Wear it please Lana, everywhere you go. Especially at night. It’s very important.’
I say goodbye to the Dad-Jar like I do every time I leave the apartment. I check that Meow-Meow has water in his bowl and give him a handful of cat biscuits. ‘Sorry to go out again so soon,’ I say. He’s skittish as hell today. Could it be something to do with the marks? I’ve always thought he had a sixth sense for when things aren’t right. I pull the door closed and head back down the stairs and out into the city.
There’s no way you can accidentally cross the Barrier into Darktown. I can promise you those stories about people just wandering across without realising it are urban myths, plain and simple. I cross almost every day, so I’m fairly used to it now, but I still remember the first time. It’s the strangest feeling. It’s almost like you have to push your way through.
The magic thrums in the air, you start to feel it about a block before you even reach the boundary zone: a protective spell wrought a thousand years ago following the signing of the Accord, the deal the witches brokered between humans and demons. This is the magic that keeps us safe. It separates our world from theirs. Humans can cross into Darktown if they choose, though they don’t necessarily return. The residents of Darktown, however, cannot travel in the other direction. The demons, fae and vampires, the succubi, werewolves, and all the other nightmare creatures that I don’t even know the names of, are trapped within the bounds that the magic sets. Kind of like a prison, I guess.
I stop at the point where the shadows darken. My skin starts to rise in goosebumps. Everything in me tells me to turn around and walk away. All my senses tingle with wrongness. I hold the amulet as though it might protect me. I close my eyes. How am I going to find him? Where will I start?
; If I’m right, and the man who took my arm in the bar last night has wrought this magic on me, I have a feeling that it will find him. We’re connected, somehow. I can sense it. I take a breath, open my eyes, and step through.
There’s a moment when everything shifts. The sensation is nauseating, like the whole world is twisting around me and inside me, and my mind can’t keep up. For a second I feel like I’m going to throw up, which is how I always feel when I cross over. It passes soon enough. I look around. I know how to get to Hell on Earth from here, but I’ve never explored the neighbourhood – you know, given as how I don’t actually have a death wish.
The street appears quiet. The strangeness of it strikes me more strongly than ever. The buildings are all constructed of old grey stone, they tower imposing and bleak. Stone gargoyles peek out grotesquely above me – at least I hope they’re made of stone. The street itself is a narrow cobblestone laneway. It’s like something from a fairytale: an ancient town, hidden, silent and brooding, right in the centre of the shiny-new human city.
I start to walk. It’s the middle of the day, so with any luck most of the inhabitants of Darktown will be sleeping. I try not to think too hard about what I’m doing, and head towards the centre of town. Even the light is different here – it’s as though a veil is pulled across the sun. A fine cloud of mist or smoke hangs in the air, making the daytime dim and hazy.
Since I’ve crossed the threshold, the patterns on my arm feel different. I’m acutely aware of them. And as I walk, they begin to throb, at first a gentle pulsing sensation that quickly becomes intense and then painful.
I’m working on the principle that heat equals closeness. When he touched me, I burned. When he let me go, I felt frozen. The more heat, the closer I must be. I admit it’s an inexact theory, but it’s the best I’ve got. And as well as the pain, there’s a kind of a pull – a sensation of being drawn in a particular direction.
Suddenly, I hear noise – footsteps and voices approaching. Without thinking, I duck into what I hope is an empty doorway and press myself back against the wall in the shadows. Please don’t let them see me, please don’t let them see me. When they come around the corner, I bite my lip so hard I draw blood.
They’re walking two by two in an orderly row, wearing orange jumpsuits, chained together at the wrist and tethered waist to waist from front to back. Behind them, a huge, horned demon marches, towering over them and brandishing a long whip. As I watch, one of the figures stumbles and cries out. The whip curls in the air then lashes him with a blow that sounds like a gunshot.
‘Get up, worm!’ the demon cries. ‘We don’t want to be late to the party…’ And then he laughs.
I feel a lurching in my chest as I see the one who stumbled crawl a little way before staggering up to standing again. For a moment I can make out his face. He’s human, I’m sure of it. But why are a dozen humans being chained and whipped in the streets of Darktown in the middle of the day? They don’t look like they’re here willingly. Even from my hiding spot, I can tell that they are terrified. Surely this is against the terms of the Accord? I don’t understand.
I press myself back harder as the group passes, the demon last of all. He seems even bigger than he did when I first saw him. He walks only a few paces from where I’m hiding. I feel certain he’s going to hear the thudding of my heart, scent my adrenalin-laced sweat on the air, but I guess the things that would give me away are lost in the chaos of the beating hearts and fear of his prisoners. He passes me without blinking, and soon the whole group has turned another corner and is out of sight.
I wait a few more minutes just to be certain that they’re really gone, then shakily step back out into the street and start walking again. The sensations on my arms are becoming so intense as to be almost unbearable. I pull the sleeve up on my right arm: the crow. And I notice, the direction the crow is facing has changed. I watch it as I walk, a hunch starting to form in my gut. To test the idea, I turn a corner and feel a sudden, sharp pain, and as I watch, the image shifts, rearranging itself on my skin, so the beak of the crow faces to the left now. It’s like a compass, pointing me to its maker, or that’s my best guess. I retrace my steps and follow the direction it’s pointing in as best I can.
It leads me down a narrow alley, with tall buildings towering on either side. Blank windows look down on me. I can’t get rid of the feeling that I’m being watched. I think I see a movement in one of the windows, but I can’t be sure. I walk a bit faster, and then I hear a sound – a harsh cawing. On the roofline above me, a dark figure waits. An actual, living crow, perched above the gargoyles, following my progress intently with unblinking golden eyes. Okay. That can’t be a coincidence. Feeling kind of silly I raise my arm so it can see the mark.
The bird gives a loud cry and hops a few more steps, head tilted as though considering me.
Could the man be a shifter – might this be his other form? I’ve only ever encountered werewolves since I’ve been working at the bar, but I’ve heard that there are other breeds of shifter, though they’re much rarer.
I decide to take a chance. ‘Hello,’ I call up to it. ‘I need to speak with you.’ I’m looking up at the bird above me as I step out of the alley and back onto the street and walk into something solid. Terror freezes in the very centre of my bones.
Somehow, I know even before I see his face. It’s him. The demon who threatened me in the club the night before. The one who’s been hunting human girls for weeks, who finds them when they’re alone and unprotected. Like me. Like now. Like, fuck.
‘I thought I recognised your scent,’ he says. ‘I was having the most interesting dream. But you… you are worth waking for…’ I’m frozen, I can’t move a muscle. He raises one hand and runs a claw across my cheek. He’s much too close.
‘Oh, but you are interesting. Not like the others at all. I sense your fear but there is so much more to you than fear. Why are you here? Do you wish to die? The grief you carry is great. If you wish to die, then I can happily accommodate…’
‘I –’ I begin, but no more words come out. The images on my arms are throbbing, the pain so great that it overwhelms even my terror. It is excruciating, as though the flesh were being burned from me. I feel dizzy; a deep, empty blackness threatens on the edge of my sight. I need to run, to scream, to do something but I can’t. I can’t move.
‘I can’t wait to taste you…’ the demon says, his blank, dark gaze holding mine. He steps closer, takes hold of my shoulders, his mouth opening slowly, wider than it should, revealing a double-row of razor-sharp teeth.
With a final, desperate burst of effort, I manage to clasp the amulet that rests around my neck. It’s searing hot. I lift it up as he leans in, and for a moment the stone makes contact with the skin of his throat. He cries out, a shocked, high-pitched scream, more animal than human, and staggers back a step or two. The air is filled with the smell of burning flesh. The haze leaves my mind; his thrall is broken. I can move.
I turn and run.
4
LANA
I run blindly, veering randomly down streets and alleyways, panic narrowing my field of vision so I’m soon completely lost. I’m sure he’s following me. He can’t be far behind. My head pounds, and the pain in my arms is intense, but adrenalin overwhelms all other sensations. I have to escape.
I take another turn. On one side of the street is a park – I glimpse ancient trees, neatly trimmed grass. Who the hell mows grass in Darktown? On an instinct, I cut through. I’m dimly aware of the sound of footsteps. He’s coming after me. There’s no way I can hide. Even if he can’t see me, he’ll track me by my scent quickly enough. My only hope is to find the boundary of Darktown, cross the Barrier and escape back into the human city where he won’t be able to follow. I keep running. My heart is hammering so hard my chest hurts. I’m starting to tire. I can’t afford to slow down. I don’t want to die. I really don’t want to die.
There’s a walled area ahead of me, with an elegant wrought-iron g
ateway. It’s not until after I pass through the gateway that I realise that the wall surrounds a graveyard. This doesn’t seem like a great place to be, I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that, but I can’t turn back now. Tombstones tower either side of me, tall as trees. It’s silent and empty except for the sound of my feet on the gravel and my desperate breathing. I weave between the tombstones only to find – another wall. Easily eight-foot high and topped with what look like razor-sharp steel points.
Fuck.
I’m trapped.
I can hear my pursuer now, he’s getting closer. His pace is slowing. I guess he knows he’s got me cornered. I press my back against one of the stones, which strangely has a huge statue of an angel on top of it. I’m glad for something solid behind me. My whole body has started to shake. Maybe if I’m quiet enough… But it’s no use. There’s no way he won’t find me. And now he knows about my amulet I’ve lost the element of surprise. I know in my heart that I was lucky to even make it this far. By rights I should have died back in the street where he first grabbed me. It’s no consolation though. Gold star for effort, Lana. Fuck that.
I close my eyes and clasp my amulet as hard as I can. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, tears filling my eyes. I don’t know who I’m apologising to – my father for letting him down, my brother for leaving him all alone, myself…?
I wait for the inevitable, but for a moment there’s only silence. And then, a wave of heat hits me. I hear a strange, crackling noise – I don’t just hear it, I feel it in my chest, tingling like electricity – and the air seems to fill with static. The demon cries out, a desperate cry that fades away almost instantly into nothing. And then I see it: the crow perches on the tombstone directly above me. Its feathers are black and shining, its eyes so vivid yellow. It gives a caw as if in greeting.