Jasmyn

by Alex Bell

  ‘Would the two of you like a ride?’ the handler asked.

  I snatched my hand away despite myself and rushed to say that we did not in case Ben might think that was the reason I had gone up to them in the first place.

  We left the reindeer but - by some unspoken consensus - stayed well away from the Winter Garden. After last night I found that the beautiful place now elicited only feelings of heartache. So we went around the other side of the hotel to a quieter spot a little distance away where a few ice benches covered in reindeer skins were arranged to look back at the Ice Hotel.

  ‘You’d think they could find something more humane to cover the seats with,’ I said, wrinkling my nose in distaste. Having just seen the real thing pulling sleighs at the front door, the skins left a bad taste in my mouth.

  We sat down and looked back at the hotel in silence for a moment. We’d hardly spoken through breakfast and I had the horrible feeling that Ben was hesitating to speak for fear that I would make a scene and burst into tears again.

  ‘So what now?’ I asked, keeping my voice completely steady and trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact.

  Ben opened his mouth to reply but then froze for a moment before jumping up, knocking his coffee cup over to stain the snow at his feet.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ he muttered.

  A split second later Kini galloped out of the tree line behind us, hooves kicking up clumps of snow, mane and tail streaming out behind him. I thought he was going to fly right past us but he skidded to a stop beside the bench. Something had spooked him. His eyes were rolling, breath blasting out in agitated snorts and hooves stamping at the frozen ground. Ben reached his hands up to the horse’s head, talking to him quietly and stroking his neck until he calmed down. He always had been good with horses.

  ‘Where’s Lukas?’ I said uneasily, glancing back at the tree line, stupidly hoping he might walk out of it on foot.

  ‘Something must have happened,’ Ben replied, keeping his voice calm. ‘Talk to him for a moment while I look him over, would you?’

  I reached up to hook my fingers through Kini’s bridle then talked to him soothingly, running my hand down his nose while Ben walked around him, checking for injury. I didn’t like the look in the horse’s eyes: a traumatised, wretched, heartbroken look as if he had seen something that had frightened him half to death.

  ‘Here,’ Ben said. ‘He’s been attacked by someone.’

  Keeping my hands on Kini’s head, I moved around and clearly saw the gash across the horse’s left flank, although the blood hardly showed on his black coat.

  ‘It’s not serious,’ Ben said. ‘He’ll be all right.’ He moved back to Kini’s head, stroked his nose and muttered, ‘But God only knows what’s happened to Lukas.’

  ‘Maybe he can take us to him,’ I said.

  But Kini did not seem to want to go anywhere. He just stood, unmoving, beside us.

  ‘Something must have happened,’ Ben said. ‘I just hope Lukas got away—’ He broke off suddenly, eyes narrowed at the bridle Kini was wearing, and I realised that it was the first piece of tack I had ever seen the horse wear. After all, it wasn’t as if he needed it - he knew what to do well enough without it.

  ‘He wasn’t wearing a bridle when he left, was he?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not a bridle,’ Ben said. ‘It’s the swansong.’

  He reached up and undid the buckles. As soon as the bridle was off, Kini was gone, dashing away as if a spring had been released, fading into thin air before he reached the tree line.

  ‘I think we’d better go,’ Ben said.

  I turned back to look at him and saw that the bridle was gone and the black chain was around his neck once again.

  ‘Go where?’ I said.

  ‘Anywhere. We can’t stay here, it might not be safe. Come on. Lukas will have to catch up with us later.’

  The tone of his voice stopped me from asking questions. I kept up with him as we hurried back into the hotel. To my surprise there was some sort of disturbance going on in the foyer when we walked in, with a lot of guests gathered together with their suitcases, complaining loudly and demanding refunds as staff tried to usher them all out through the front doors. I frowned, wondering what was going on, as we slipped past them and went quickly up the sweeping staircase to our room to get our bags. But when Ben opened the door, someone was already there.

  Wearing the same silver snowsuit as everyone else in the ice hotel, the figure stood looking out of the window with his back to us. Ben froze in the doorway and, for a moment, I wondered if we might have the wrong room. But then the man turned around and my eyes were drawn irresistibly to the gun in his hand.

  ‘Come in, Ben,’ Jaxon said with a smile. ‘No need to be shy. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?’

  There was a moment of horrified surprise before Ben recovered himself and said coldly, ‘How did you get here so quickly?’

  Jaxon’s face broke into a smile. ‘I had a little help,’ he admitted. ‘Now come on, get inside, both of you.’ He gestured impatiently with the gun. ‘Jasmyn, my dear, would you be good enough as to shut the door?’

  I pushed the big slab of ice closed with a sick feeling in my stomach. We were trapped. And no one but Lukas even knew we were here. When the door was closed I turned back; Ben’s hand clamped around my wrist and he drew me closer to his side.

  ‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ Jaxon said pleasantly. ‘We’ll be here for a while. Half an hour or so, I should think, while they clear out the hotel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ben asked warily. ‘Why is the hotel being cleared out?’

  ‘I think it’s because the knights have tricked the humans into thinking there’s a structural fault,’ Jaxon said with a wide grin, clearly very much enjoying himself. ‘It’s all about to come crumbling down, you see.’ With a laugh he curled his free hand into a fist and thumped it against the thick, solid wall of ice behind him. ‘Oh look, the coaches are here already,’ he said, glancing out of the window to the front doors below. ‘Four of them. The place will be cleared out in no time.’

  ‘How long have you been working for the knights?’ Ben said stonily.

  Jaxon looked at his watch. ‘A few hours now,’ he said. ‘I’d barely broken out of the catacombs when one of them was galloping down on me in the street. I thought he was a policeman at first. Anyway, when he saw that the swansong was gone he offered me a new deal. And he gave me this.’

  He held up his hand and I saw the same black ring on his finger that Ben and Lukas wore.

  ‘So don’t think about trying to enchant me because it won’t work,’ Jaxon said with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Someone’s going to pay me for it and if not you, then the knights have offered a very handsome price. So, come on. Hand it over.’

  ‘I don’t have it any more,’ Ben replied. ‘Lukas left with it last night and that was the last I saw of it.’

  ‘Oh. Perhaps I’ve been misinformed, but it was my understanding that he sent his horse back to you with it,’ Jaxon said, an ugly glint in his eye. ‘Something went wrong, didn’t it?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Ben said. ‘I haven’t seen Lukas or his horse for hours. I expect he’s handed the swansong back to its rightful owner by now. We’re expecting him back at any moment, in fact.’

  The threat in that last sentence was only thinly veiled but Jaxon merely laughed. ‘What a filthy liar you are, Ben! Lukas ran into a spot of trouble before he could get to Neuschwanstein. He’s dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Nice try,’ Ben replied calmly. ‘But swan knights are extremely difficult to kill. I doubt that little gun you’ve got there would do it, for example.’

  I felt his grip on my wrist loosen a little and got the distinct impression that he was about to try something despite the threat of the gun. Jaxon obviously sensed it too for he took a step back and moved his hand so that the gun was aiming straight at me rather than Ben. ‘I know you became a knight,’ he sa
id. ‘But Snowflake over there is human - despite appearances, eh? Do you think you can get over here and disarm me before I shoot her between the eyes? Which one of us would be faster, do you think?’ He glanced at me and smiled. ‘It’s all rather exciting, isn’t it, my dear?’

  Ben took a deep breath and when he spoke his voice was like ice. ‘If you hurt her in any way whatsoever, Jaxon, then by Christ, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Naturally you will, Ben!’ Jaxon said sharply, his smile vanishing. ‘But it would be far better all round if I didn’t have to hurt her in the first place, wouldn’t it? So don’t give me a reason to! As for Lukas, it’s no use holding out for him to come to your aid because he’s already here and he doesn’t seem to have been much use so far, does he?’

  From outside there was the sound of the coaches pulling away, filled with all the Ice Hotel’s former guests and staff.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s already here?’ Ben asked suspiciously.

  ‘On the floor down there.’ Jaxon gave us his nastiest grin so far and - keeping the gun aimed at my head - bent slightly towards something that lay concealed behind the ice table.

  ‘I never saw him without his armour and helmet on so I suppose I can’t give you my personal assurances that it’s him,’ he said conversationally. ‘But the other knights seemed quite sure this was the rogue knight formerly known as Lukas.’

  He straightened up triumphantly. Sick horror rushed through me and I tried to scream but the sound stuck in my throat, coming out more like a strangled whimper. In Jaxon’s left hand, held up by the hair, was Lukas’s severed head. Ben’s fingers dug harder into my arm but that was his only reaction. He didn’t move or make a sound of any kind.

  Dried blood stained the torn skin around the edge of the neck - which looked as if it had been cut through with a sword - and Lukas’s brown eyes were open, which made it even worse, for they were blank and unseeing, making the head seem more like the gory prop from a play than the remnants of what had once been a very real person.

  ‘You were right, Ben,’ Jaxon laughed, ‘when you said that swan knights are difficult to kill. But not immortal, eh? Decapitation will do it every time. Works for vampires, werewolves and, yes, even swan knights. The others knew Lukas was going back to Neuschwanstein and they were waiting for him there.’ He dropped the head carelessly onto the ice table where it rolled onto its right side, then he glanced back up at us, blue eyes glittering malevolently. ‘Nothing to say, Ben? How unlike you. I’m almost disappointed. Well, never mind. Hand the swansong over to me right now and I won’t have to do anything horrible to your lovely white freak over there. I may not be fool enough to kill her and lose my advantage but you know there are plenty of other things I can do. I can certainly see to it that she never plays the violin again, which would be a great pity. Liam told me she plays it so beautifully. So come on. Hand it over.’

  Ben hesitated for a long moment before slowly reaching his hand into his right pocket and drawing out a small black button. He took a step forwards but Jaxon spoke at once.

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep my distance. You’re a shade too quick for my liking. Just throw it over.’

  Ben did so. Keeping the gun carefully aimed, Jaxon bent down, picked the useless thing up and slipped it into his own pocket. ‘Now the ring,’ he said calmly.

  ‘What ring?’ Ben said stonily.

  ‘The ring,’ Jaxon replied, rolling his eyes and holding up his own left hand to display the dark ring on his little finger. ‘The one that protects you from the swansong’s power.’

  ‘It’s not like that with knights,’ Ben said. ‘We can’t take them on and off at will. Once the ring is on, it stays on.’

  ‘Ahh!’ Jaxon said with a mock wince. ‘I very much hope for your sake that that isn’t true because - one way or another - that ring is coming off, if you catch my drift. So I’ll ask you one more time to hand it over.’

  I saw Ben close his eyes briefly. ‘I wasn’t lying,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t take it off.’

  ‘Right then!’ Jaxon said brightly. ‘Does anyone have an axe? How about you, Jasmyn? No? Never mind. Fortunately I never go anywhere without my penknife.’ He fumbled in his pocket for it then tossed it across the room to me. I caught it automatically, but what he said next made my blood run cold. ‘Do you think you can cut it off on your own or am I going to have to enchant you?’

  ‘What?’ I stared at him, horrified, hoping that I had somehow misunderstood what he wanted me to do.

  Jaxon rolled his eyes again. ‘Ben’s finger,’ he said with exaggerated patience. ‘I want you to chop it off, darling. Now, we can do this the hard way or we can do this—’

  He broke off then for Ben snatched the penknife from me and flipped it open, smacked his right hand down on the table beside Lukas’s head and spread out his fingers before bringing the knife down hard - once, twice, three times. His finger slid across the ice and onto the snow, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Ben tried to stifle an agonised yell of pain as he fell down onto his knees, nursing his bleeding hand. It was the most terrible sound I had ever heard in my life.

  ‘Very chivalrous.’ Jaxon sighed. ‘But nowhere near as much fun. Oh well, the job’s done just the same, I suppose.’

  Forgetting Jaxon and the gun for the moment, I whipped off the scarf I was wearing and fell down on my knees in the snow beside Ben to wrap it around his trembling hand, which was slippery with blood ...

  This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening ... The words ran over and over again through my head like a mantra and tears stung my eyes. All the guests and staff at the Ice Hotel were gone, Lukas was dead ... Whatever way I looked at it I couldn’t see Ben and I getting out of this situation alive. Jaxon had a gun and his ring made the swansong useless. We had nothing. Nothing but ...

  The knife! I saw it lying on the floor beside the table in a pool of blood and my mind raced as to how I could get my hands on it. I would have to reach right across Ben to grab it and Jaxon would surely notice. The only chance was to somehow make Ben realise it was there but I didn’t see how, for he was still kneeling with his head bent over his hand, breathing shallowly, sweat glistening on his skin, seemingly quite unaware of anything beyond his own pain. I looked at the knife again and hopeless frustration bubbled up inside me for I didn’t see any way of reaching it.

  ‘Lucky thing you’re not the violinist, eh, Ben?’ Jaxon laughed.

  Any minute now, I thought. He’s going to remember the knife any minute now and take it back and then our one chance will be gone forever ...

  ‘It’ll be good as new in no time,’ Jaxon said, a gleam of envy in his eye. ‘Now that you’re a knight and all that. Still hurts like hell though, I’ll bet. Consider it a little payback for the beating you gave me! But even with all your new powers I’m the one who got the swansong in the end!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jaxon!’ Ben muttered and I was startled to hear how thick and clumsy his words were. ‘We don’t ... want ... the swansong. We never ... have—’ His voice broke off mid-sentence as he suddenly crumpled over in the bloodstained snow. Jaxon made an impatient sound of annoyance but my initial dismay vanished when I realised that Ben had fallen right next to the knife, hiding it from Jaxon’s view for it was directly behind him, almost touching his lower back, mere inches away from where his fingers lay curled in the snow.

  ‘Get him back up on his feet before I come over there and do it myself with my boot!’ Jaxon snarled.

  I shuffled clumsily through the snow to his side, forcing myself not to grab too eagerly for the knife and thereby give myself away. Instead I put my hand down beside it as I leaned over Ben. And that was when I realised he was faking it, for although his eyes were closed, his fingers brushed mine as they reached slowly out towards the knife, dragging it through the snow to conceal it in the palm of his hand. I pretended I hadn’t noticed and shook him by the shoulders as I spoke his name. He opened his eyes after a moment and gazed
up at me.

  ‘Ben,’ I almost whispered. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said, but in a voice that sounded so far away that - even though I’d seen him take the knife with my own eyes - I almost wondered if perhaps he wasn’t putting on an act after all.

  ‘Help him up!’ Jaxon snapped. ‘We’re going outside.’

  I did as he said and felt relief flood through me. Ben was not as bad as he was making out. Although he made a good show of leaning on me, he was in fact hardly putting any of his weight on me at all. And when his face turned towards me I thought I saw - just for a moment - one corner of his mouth twitch up in the faintest possible smile when our eyes met.

  ‘You’ll stay here, Jasmyn,’ Jaxon said. ‘Ben and I are going out alone.’

  ‘Why?’ The question burst from my lips. Even though I knew he was armed now, I didn’t want Ben going anywhere without me.

  ‘I’m trying to be gentlemanly,’ Jaxon sneered, ‘and spare you from any more pain. You wouldn’t want her to see anything distressing, would you, Ben? So be a man, stand up on your own two feet, please, and follow me.’

  It happened very quickly. Ben gave my shoulders a brief squeeze and said quietly, ‘It’ll be okay, Jaz.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jaxon grinned from ear to ear. ‘It’ll be—’ But then he broke off, for when Ben released his hold on me he seemed to stumble. Jaxon was tensed for trouble and quickly stepped back, which was why the knife in Ben’s hand caught his arm rather than his chest.

  The ensuing shouting was drowned out by the gun going off in Jaxon’s hand as he tripped over, whether by accident or design I couldn’t tell, for he didn’t seem to be aiming at anybody and the bullet went right through the floor, shattering an ice chandelier hanging from the ceiling below.

  My eyes darted desperately around for the gun, assuming Jaxon had dropped it when he fell, but it was still in his hand and he was already propping himself up on his elbow and raising it desperately. Another shot went off as Ben ran towards me and grabbed my arm. The bullet missed him by a mile and went straight through the wall in a shower of shards and icy dust.