Dark Descent: The Arondight Codex - Book One by R Nicole (best books to read all time TXT) 📗

“Why? I’m a nobody… I’m…” A messed up woman with a mental problem.

“It could be any number of reasons,” Wilder said. “I denied it, and this was its revenge, or its fixated on you, or—”

“Or?”

He shrugged and grasped Jackson’s wrist. Pulling my comatose best friend across the bed, he leaned forward and dragged him over his shoulder like he weighed nothing. Maybe it was another magic trick.

“C’mon, Purples. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

“We’re walking?” My feet were throbbing from a day pinging back and forth across the city and the midnight marathon around Moorgate. The thought of walking while trying to transport Jackson was too much.

“Fine. We can get a taxi, but you’ll have to hail one for us,” he said with a pout. “No one will stop for a guy with a body slung over his shoulder.”

Downstairs, Wilder hid in the bushes while I scouted oncoming traffic for a taxi. Dawn was on the rise as the sky was already lighting up. Glancing up at the flat, I grimaced as the curtains in Jackson’s room fluttered through the broken glass. Not only was I going crazy, but I’d dragged my best friend into it too. What a night.

In the distance, I spied the light of an available black cab and I raised my hand. The indicator flashed orange as the car pulled off the side of the road and stopped beside me. Too tired to care, I climbed in the back and the driver leaned around and peered at me through the Perspex partition.

“Where to, love?” he drawled, his Geordie accent harsh against my ears.

“Um…”

The taxi rocked as Wilder appeared, the weight of both him and Jackson making the car dip.

“Oi!” the driver exclaimed. “You can’t bring him in here!”

“It’ll be fine,” Wilder said, setting Jackson down on the seat between us.

“No, it won’t! Get ‘im out!”

“Listen.” The demon hunter leaned forward and tapped his finger against the partition. “Look here. That’s it…” The taxi driver’s expression slackened, and his gaze fixed on Wilder’s fingertip. “You can’t see us here and you definitely won’t be able to hear what we say.” The man nodded, his mouth gaping open. “You’re going to drive us directly to Battersea. Cringle Street. Got it?”

The man turned and began to drive, pulling out onto Kentish Town Road and almost sideswiping a bus.

“Bloody hell!” I exclaimed. “What did you do to him?”

“He’ll be fine, Purples. We’ve got places to go and he’ll get us there faster than our feet.”

This Light thing was getting out of hand. I didn’t know anything about it, but in books and movies people always said magic had consequences. Wilder seemed to use his abilities without any thought other than what it could get him. I found him more arrogant the longer I was in his presence.

Jackson was still out cold when I checked him, though when I pressed my fingers against his neck, his pulse was strong.

“You didn’t mention God,” I said.

“When?” Wilder asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Aren’t exorcisms meant to be performed by priests? How can you be sure it worked?”

“There’s no way in hell I’m a priest. I like sex too much.”

My cheeks heated and I glanced at Jackson.

Hastily changing the subject, I asked, “What was with the troll doll?”

“It was a failsafe,” he replied. “If my alteration didn’t hold for a third time, it’d lead you back to me.”

“You weren’t too pleased to see me, though.”

“I didn’t want to deal with it,” he stated. “And it did look like you.”

“You don’t know what to do with me, do you?” When he didn’t reply, I added, “That’s okay, neither do I.”

“It won’t be my decision,” he said after a moment.

“What do you mean?”

Wilder glanced out of the window, watching an early morning London flash past as we crossed the Chelsea Bridge.

“Wilder?”

“I’m just a soldier, Scarlett,” he murmured. “The Naturals will decide what to do with you, not me.”

In that moment, I knew I was nothing more than a problem to Wilder. A stupid woman with too many issues to count, a history of poor decision-making skills, and a possible immunity to his weird magic. Whoever the rest of these Naturals were, they sounded like a real riot, but if they could help Jackson…

I rolled my eyes and grasped his clammy hand. He needed help and this was the only was he could get it. I guess there was no two ways about it. Time to climb into the jaws of a lion.

6

There were a lot of things I would have changed if I could go back forty-eight hours. Like ignoring the troll doll, calling the police when I saw Wilder stab that guy, and believing Jackson when he’d said no one was there. Another was following a demon hunter, who called himself a Natural, through the dark city streets while he carried my best friend over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Glancing up at the towers of the Battersea power station, I shivered. My breath blew out in a plume of vapour in front of me.

“Where are we going exactly?” I asked. “We’re not going to recreate the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album, are we? Because I’m fresh out of inflatable pigs.”

“We are going to the Sanctum,” he replied. “The Naturals home turf.”

I glanced around the rundown street that sat in the shadow of multiple tower blocks. “Here?”

“We can’t exactly list our phone number, you know.”

We turned down a dark lane, the rising sun casting murky shadows over everything. Wilder stopped outside an old factory and pushed open the wire gate.

“Wait, this is your headquarters?” I stared up at the abandoned building and didn’t get it. Was it an underground facility or something? Who the hell were these people? “It’s a pile of shit.”

“You still don’t get it, do you, Purples?” He grasped Jackson as he lifted his free hand and pressed it against a door that had a no trespassing sign nailed to the wood.

It creaked