Jasmyn

by Alex Bell

  We sprinted from the room and down the corridor, knowing that Jaxon could only be seconds behind us.

  25

  The Edge of Faeryland

  The Ice Hotel looked different with nobody in it. It seemed colder and larger and - of course - it was silent, so that every sound echoed unnaturally loudly beneath the high vaulted ceilings as Ben and I ran towards the staircase. I expected us to run down to the foyer and head straight for the front doors as fast as we could but, instead, Ben pulled me to the staircase leading up to the third floor.

  ‘There’s not enough cover outside,’ he explained under his breath. ‘It would be too easy for him to pick us off with his gun. He’s a good shot.’

  At the top of the stairs on the third floor we ducked down behind the banisters.

  ‘He’ll be expecting us to go down to the first floor,’ Ben said quietly. Even as he spoke Jaxon raced into view and rushed down the stairs, through the sparkling turquoise foyer and out of sight. ‘Help me with this,’ Ben muttered, reaching out to wrap his uninjured hand around one of the banisters. I saw what he intended to do and wrapped my own hands around it at the weakest point. Together we were able to snap it off. A thick stick of ice with a sharp, jagged edge may not have been as effective a weapon as a gun but it was better than nothing.

  ‘People will be coming soon,’ Ben said, putting the ice club carefully down by his feet and then turning his head to look at me. ‘Architects or owners or whoever. If they think there’s a structural fault with the hotel then someone will be coming to check it out. We just have to stay hidden from Jaxon until then, that’s all. He’ll have to run when other people start turning up. Don’t worry - we can do it. The hotel’s big enough and we’ll see him coming from here before he sees us.’

  I nodded and tried to feel as confident as Ben sounded. But the sound of the knife coming down and the image of his finger sliding across the table kept replaying itself in my mind, making me shiver.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ben said sharply. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, it’s just ... Ben, your finger!’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ he said, as if it was nothing. ‘The stump is probably healing up already.’

  ‘But why did you do it when you knew he didn’t have the swansong?’

  ‘It was irrelevant, Jaz. He might not have had the swansong but he did have a gun. I couldn’t trick him over the ring so, one way or another, that finger was coming off.’

  In another few seconds, we saw Jaxon stride back into the foyer below, stop in the middle and shout in a voice that rang off the ice, ‘I know you’re in here somewhere, Ben! It’s no use trying to hide! If you don’t show yourself right now I’m going to use the swansong to force you out!’

  Ben gave a quiet snort of disdain. ‘That simpleton!’ he muttered in my ear. ‘He doesn’t even realise he hasn’t got the swansong yet. It must be incredibly difficult to go through life with such a tiny brain.’

  Despite the circumstances, I felt a giggle rise up in my throat and had to hastily thrust it back down. There was nothing in our present situation that was in any way funny and - for all Ben’s flippant words - I could feel how tense he was as he kept his eyes very carefully fixed on Jaxon through the ice banisters we were crouched behind.

  After a few minutes of muttering over the tiny black button Ben had given him, Jaxon finally realised that he was not holding something that was in any way magical and he threw it down with a bellow of anger that made me flinch. The next moment he was stamping up the stairs and Ben said softly in my ear, ‘Time to go.’

  We crept away from the banisters and then got up onto our feet.

  ‘Pray he keeps shouting like that,’ Ben whispered, ‘and it will be painfully easy for us to avoid him.’

  Unfortunately, Jaxon obviously realised the truth of this himself and he soon shut up. His angry shouting had made my skin crawl but the sudden silence was worse. It was his long shadow falling across the wall of the corridor that gave him away rather than any sound he made and Ben and I quickly ducked into the nearest room - which happened to be the wedding chapel.

  Dozens of ice doves sparkled around the altar and the rows of pews were covered in blue velvet rather than the usual reindeer skins. Strings of crystals hung about the windows making the whole room glitter with splashes of rainbow colours.

  Ben pressed his back to the wall on the right-hand side of the doorway and I stood back on the left. My heart was hammering in my chest and I had to force myself to breathe quietly. It was only because it was so silent that we were able to hear the soft crunch of Jaxon’s footsteps in the snow. When he got to the chapel doorway he paused in the corridor. My heart leapt up into my mouth. He must be standing just outside, looking right into the room. I glanced at Ben and he held one hand up, warning me to stay where I was. I nodded and dug my fingers into my palms as I watched him slowly raise the thick stick of ice above his head.

  But, after another moment, Jaxon walked on, his footsteps becoming more muffled as he continued down the corridor. Ben slowly lowered the ice club back down to his side and then hurried past the doorway to where I stood. ‘Make sure you stay behind me,’ he whispered. ‘It doesn’t matter if I’m shot, it won’t kill me.’ He paused, then muttered under his breath, ‘I don’t think.’

  I was about to ask how much protection being a knight would give him - after all, I knew that they were difficult to kill but I had also seen for myself that it wasn’t impossible - but then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall and I stared in astonishment. For although it was me, it was also not me. It was a large mirror, set into the ice, with silver flowers encrusted all over the frame.

  My reflection was wearing the same silver snowsuit that I was. But the hair trailing over her shoulders was a rich caramel colour rather than white. Her skin was pink and her eyes were a dark, chocolate brown rather than pale blue.

  I stared, transfixed. It was quite clearly me - all my features were the same - only my albinism was gone. I didn’t consciously realise I was walking towards the image until Ben’s hand clamped down hard on my shoulder and he pulled me back to whisper sharply in my ear, ‘Stay away from the mirrors!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said, glancing at him briefly before my eyes were tugged back. ‘Do you see that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ben replied, meeting my gaze in the mirror. ‘Something’s happening to the hotel, it’s—’ He broke off to twist me around to face him. ‘I’d rather see your real eyes,’ he said, before going on, ‘I told you that the Ice Hotel is always built on the boundary of faeryland? Well, it’s creeping over the edge now that it’s not being held back by a human presence any more. I can see the magic in the walls. This could be a real problem, Jaz. Just make sure you stay close to me and - for God’s sake - keep away from the mirrors. I’m not sure that there’s anything much more dangerous when it comes to faeryland than a magic mirror.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, forcing myself not to look back at the mirror and the mesmerising image of myself standing there as a normal person - ordinary like everybody else. ‘But what are we going to—’

  I broke off then for - at that moment - the sun disappeared from the sky, and the ice around us that had been sparkling almost turquoise in the bright midday light now gleamed silver in the soft glow of twilight.

  ‘Shit,’ Ben muttered. ‘They’re trying to drag the hotel into their own realm.’

  Some distance away we heard Jaxon bellow, ‘It won’t work, Ben! You can’t scare me with this Godforsaken hocus-pocus!’

  ‘He’ll be the least of our worries if things carry on like this,’ Ben said darkly. ‘We can’t stay here now. We’re going to have to try to get out. If the hotel is pulled into faeryland we could be trapped there. And the knights could be waiting outside. Christ, I wish Lukas was still with us!’

  The starlight was everywhere. Tiny pinpricks of light even glowed within the ice bricks
themselves, not just in the dusky indigo sky outside. I kept close to Ben’s side as we slipped back out into the corridor - which suddenly seemed to have many more mirrors lining the walls than I remembered - and I quickly became aware of whispering voices, although it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. It sounded like they were inside my own head and I had to resist the urge to scratch at my scalp to try to get them out.

  ‘Can you hear them?’ I whispered to Ben as we reached the staircase.

  ‘The voices?’ Ben replied, glancing over his shoulder to check Jaxon was still nowhere in sight.

  ‘Yes. I can’t make out what they’re saying, can you?’

  ‘They want you and Jaxon out of here.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘They don’t mind me. Technically I’m one of them now.’ He saw my face and added quietly, ‘Don’t worry. I don’t intend to stay.’

  Still holding the stick of ice in his left hand, Ben tried to take my hand with his injured right one but I jerked out of reach instinctively, for I was afraid of hurting him. I could tell from his expression that he’d misinterpreted the action but before I had time to say anything he’d grabbed my wrist and we were hurrying down the great sweeping staircase.

  The starlight and the voices were not the only things that had changed. As we came down the curve of the stairs I saw a sleek white cat with blue eyes sitting on the banister playing in what could only be described as a cloud of starflakes which fell twinkling around it. In another moment we had passed it and were on the second-floor landing, but before we could go any further there was a shout and the sharp, ringing report of a gunshot. I was already dropping instinctively to the floor, my hands over my head, when Ben crushed me to the ground, squeezing the breath from my body. But whoever Jaxon was shooting at, it wasn’t us and in another moment Ben was hauling me to my feet and we were slipping and sliding down the last staircase.

  When we got down to the large central foyer, I knew at once that something was different but it took me a moment to realise what it was - the ice sculptures that had stood there before had all gone. And there were some very strange-looking footprints mingled with the human ones in the snow ... We started to cross the twilit foyer when there was the sudden clip-clop of hooves on ice. I looked around, my heart swelling with hope for I was fully expecting it to be Kini.

  But it was a centaur made of pale-blue ice that cantered out of the bar, hooves sparking and kicking up frosty shards as he raced past us. The floor shook and, at first, I thought it was because of the weight of the centaur. But then there was a strange low moaning sound that seemed to be coming from just outside the front doors.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I said.

  Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t know but we need to find another door. There’s something out there. Come on - the bar leads out to the Winter Garden.’

  We went into the Absolut Ice Bar where I had drunk vodka with Lukas the day before. But when we were only halfway across the room, Jaxon rushed in from the door behind the bar and instantly the gun was pointed at us once again and he was glaring at Ben with a face like thunder.

  ‘It’s going to take more than twinkly lights and a few walking ice people to scare me into leaving without the swansong!’ he snapped. ‘Make it stop or I’ll put a bullet between your eyes and we’ll see if you can survive that!’

  ‘It’s not me, you fool, it’s the hotel! If you want to live you’ll get out now while you still can!’

  ‘No one’s going anywhere until I say so!’

  Suddenly, the whispers started up again all around us and Jaxon jerked his head around, looking for the unseen speakers.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded, his voice rising. ‘There were faces in the ice back there! I know you’re doing this somehow!’

  ‘I am not! They want the hotel! You shouldn’t have sent all the people away!’

  Jaxon lifted the gun. ‘Give me the swansong,’ he said quietly, ‘or I will shoot you!’

  He was threatening Ben directly this time rather than me. Indeed, he hardly seemed aware that I was there. This wasn’t fun for him any more. I wracked my mind desperately for a way out. At any moment Jaxon might shoot Ben anyway and then search his body for the swansong himself. Whatever he had said before, he was obviously unnerved by what was happening in the Ice Palace and wanted to be out of here as soon as possible, even at the cost of his sadistic and malicious games ...

  My eye was suddenly caught by a movement to my right. We were standing beside a wide pillar which - like so many other spots in the hotel - now had a mirror fixed to it. It had an embellished golden frame with silver faeries at the corners. This time, my reflection looked just like me - but she was not mimicking my movements. Instead she was beckoning me frantically. I stared at her.

  Stay away from the mirrors, Ben had said ...

  And yet it was Ben my reflection was pointing at. In her mirror I saw him lift the real swansong over his neck and throw the black chain to Jaxon - even though I could see, from the corner of my eye, that the real Ben hadn’t moved. And then, a second later, although I could hear no sound from the mirror, I saw the bullet hit him between the eyes and pass out through the back of his head, splattering blood and bone behind him. Crumpled in the snow, Ben looked very, very dead. It seemed that shooting a swan knight in the head, whilst perhaps lacking the melodramatic flair of decapitation, still got the job done.

  ‘All right, Jaxon,’ the real Ben at my side said quietly. ‘Just calm down. I’ll give it to you.’

  I didn’t hesitate any longer but put out my hand and touched the mirror. I didn’t know if what I’d just seen was a true premonition or not. But once Jaxon had the swansong he’d be free to do whatever he liked to us and I couldn’t just stand there watching and hoping that Ben might find a way to get us out of it. So I touched the glass where my reflection still beckoned to me frantically. I didn’t know what - if anything - would happen or whether it would make any difference but I had nothing to lose by trying.

  As soon as my fingertips touched it, I was pulled inside, dimly aware of a shattering sound behind me as Jaxon fired at the mirror in panic at my sudden disappearance. A split second later I found myself stumbling out of another mirror on the wall behind the bar, a foot away from Jaxon, looking back at Ben and the broken pieces of glass on the floor at his feet.

  Jaxon started to whirl around but I grabbed a nearby bottle and brought it down hard over his head before he could raise his gun. He staggered and fell back against the bar, blood running down his face, and in the next moment Ben had crossed the room, had his hands round Jaxon’s throat and was dragging him over the top of the bar and onto the floor, ice glasses and bottles falling to the ground, cracking and breaking in the process.

  As I scrambled over the bar after them, Jaxon lifted his elbow and caught Ben’s chin, making his head jerk back and loosening his grip momentarily, allowing Jaxon to twist himself free. He began to raise the gun and I shouted a warning but Ben had already seen it and grabbed Jaxon by the wrist, slamming his hand against a nearby ice pillar so hard that he dropped the gun in the snow at their feet. I automatically started forwards to try to retrieve it but then stopped. It was too near them. If I got that close, one of them would surely hit me - by accident if not on purpose. I realised dimly that - in twenty-seven years - I had never seen a real fight before. I had only ever seen staged ones on TV where, half the time, there wasn’t a drop of blood or even a hint of bruising. This was different - this was two large men trying to do real harm to each other - and I found myself shrinking back. I would never have described myself as particularly squeamish or faint-hearted - I could enjoy a gory horror film along with everybody else - but it was different when it was happening right in front of me like this and one of the people involved was someone I cared about. It seemed more vicious, less controlled ... and it made me horribly, painfully aware of how small and vulnerable I was beside them.

  As I watched with
my heart in my mouth, I was relieved to see that Ben had the upper hand. He was taller and broader than Jaxon. His eyes had turned that unnerving shade of scarlet once again - although I couldn’t tell if he’d done it on purpose or not - and it wasn’t as if Jaxon would be able to do him any real damage with his bare hands now that Ben was a knight anyway.

  A couple of times I saw Jaxon try to grab the gun but Ben would always stop him and when they finally staggered away from the pillar and crashed into an ice table, I ran forwards and picked the gun up off the snow. I had no earthly idea how to use it, whether there was a safety catch or whether it was even still loaded.

  I looked back up at Jaxon and Ben and saw, to my horror, that Jaxon now had a penknife in his hand - the same one he had made Ben cut his finger off with earlier. He raised the knife to slash viciously at Ben’s face. Ben saw it coming and jerked his head back but not quickly enough to avoid the blade altogether and it cut into his skin a bare inch below his right eye, all the way across to his ear. He fell back into another table, one hand clamped to his bleeding face, and Jaxon turned on the spot, his eyes finding mine at once.

  Panic-stricken, I realised that in picking up the gun I had effectively painted a large bull’s eye right on my forehead. My finger squeezed around the trigger out of sheer panic but nothing happened - either the safety catch was on or it had run out of bullets. So I drew back my arm and threw it with all my force as far away as I could. I barely had time to wince before Jaxon crashed into me and we hit an ice pillar so hard that a great crack ran up it and frosty dust floated down from the ceiling.

  I lost my balance and fell down on my back in the snow with Jaxon right on top of me, so close that I could see the blood staining his bared teeth, the vein bulging in his forehead and the pure hatred and rage glittering in his eyes, and I knew that he meant to kill me if he possibly could. My heart hammered painfully in my chest and I was so afraid for my life as I struggled to fend him off that I could hardly breathe.