The Hunter; The Chase; The Kill

by L. J. Smith

  Weakly Jenny patted one of Dee’s hightops. “I’m terrific, thanks.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you be last. I forgot.”

  Jenny sat up and wiped her forehead. “I did fine by myself.”

  “Yeah, you did. You seem to be doing a lot of that these days.”

  Jenny was very happy.

  Then it hit her. They were across. They’d made it.

  Tom.

  She looked up so fast her vision swam.

  After the alien grandeur of the place between the worlds, it was something of a comedown. They were on the central island in the artificial lake at Joyland Park. The lighthouse looked the same as it had all night, white and shining. The park around them was a riot of lights—but ordinary lights, illuminating ordinary rides like the SuperLooper and the Tumble-bug. Everything looked very ordinary.

  Behind her, the bridge arched gracefully over the lake water, and the water reflected a wavering arch back. There was no mist, and no sign of any other worlds. The top of the arch wasn’t more than forty feet high.

  “A hallucination, I guess,” Audrey said slowly. “One of Julian’s things. And I suppose it must have been from me, since I’m the only one who knew about those other worlds.”

  Jenny opened her mouth, then shut it again. She thought Audrey must be right—but she wasn’t sure. And the truth was that they would probably never be sure.

  She looked back at the lighthouse. “Come on, people. This is it.”

  When she got up her legs were shaky, but she took the lead and Dee let her.

  The lighthouse looked bigger as they got closer. It was life-size, with a widow’s walk around the top and a weathercock. And it was attached to some broad dark building that Jenny hadn’t seen before because it wasn’t lit up. A restaurant, maybe, she thought.

  There was a wooden door in the lighthouse’s side, with a large iron handle.

  “Monster positions,” Dee reminded Jenny as she reached for the handle. Then Dee stood ready to kick the door shut if anything unfriendly was behind it.

  “Tom and Zach will be at the top, of course,” Michael said, resting with his hands on his thighs in anticipation.

  But they weren’t.

  It was funny, how the end began. Jenny had been waiting for so long, working and fighting, and all the time waiting for the moment that she would see Tom. She was so used to waiting she wasn’t really ready for it to end. She wasn’t—prepared.

  She almost couldn’t deal with it.

  But when it started happening, it happened fast, and prepared or not, she was thrown into it.

  She pulled on the iron handle, and the wooden door swung open. There was no need for Dee to kick it shut. Everything inside was illuminated, and nothing came rushing toward them.

  Black metal stairs curved up on Jenny’s left, circling upward toward the top of the lighthouse. But straight in front of her she could see the interior of the broad building. The lighthouse had no back wall, and opened right into it.

  It was a wonderful place, with a huge diorama two stories high as a backdrop. It looked like a movie set of a wharf scene, but the numbered flags on poles betrayed its real purpose. It was an indoor miniature golf course.

  “Treasure Island,” Michael said, peering around her shoulder. “Pirates, see?”

  It was pirates. The diorama featured a mural painted on the far wall of the broad building, a marvelously realistic mural with a volcano in the background. Painted smoke and little neon lights for sparks showed that it was erupting. There was also a mammoth storm in the painted sky, and forked lightning that really flashed.

  At the bottom of the mural, just behind the golf course itself, two dinghies were landing on some fiberglass rocks. One boat was painted, with a pirate in an eye patch and hat, a lace cravat, and boots.

  The other boat was real, with Tom and Zach.

  Jenny touched her mouth. Then she was running.

  There weren’t any words for what she felt next. When she’d been separated from Tom in the paper house, it had been for hours. This time it had been days. She was exhausted, overstressed, starving, on the verge of collapse—and she’d never been so happy in her life.

  Just the sight of him brought back everything that was good and homelike to her mind. It was like coming back to her own room after being away a long time with strangers.

  It was where she belonged.

  She threw her arms around him. And then she just held on, her heart pounding and pounding.

  “Watch out, Jenny. He was here just a minute ago.”

  And Jenny, who had for so long associated Tom with protection, with safety and security and coziness, found herself feeling passionately protective of Tom. As if he were Summer. Looking into his dear face, handsome and rather brooding just now, and his wonderful green-flecked eyes, she said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Just let me out, please,” Tom said sharply, and then gave up and kissed her back. Jenny’s solicitous feelings had thrown her into a perfect spasm of love for him, and it felt so good to kiss him again.

  “If you two could tear yourself apart for just a minute . . .” Zach’s voice said.

  Jenny looked up. Her cousin was in the back of the dinghy, yes, the same cousin she’d lost, she thought a little deliriously. Exactly the same, with his wonderful beaky nose and his ash-blond hair pulled back in a casual ponytail and his keen gray eyes.

  “I missed you, too,” she said and scrambled back to hug him.

  “We’re tied up,” Tom said briskly.

  Jenny saw that his brown wrists were tied behind his back with some kind of thick cord. “No problem,” she said, just as briskly, and pulled out the Swiss Army knife. I’ll never go anywhere without one again, she thought, and, crouching by Zach’s feet, she began carefully sawing at the cord.

  “Hi, Dee,” Tom said, calm as if he were meeting her Saturday at the ball game. “Hey, Audrey, Mi—” He broke off and bolted upright, and Jenny cut his hand.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “Summer?”

  “Hi, Tom,” Summer said shyly.

  “Summer?”

  “She wasn’t dead, just asleep,” Audrey said.

  Jenny said, “Sit down, will you? We’ll explain later.”

  “Yeah—sure,” Tom said weakly. He sat down. Jenny finished cutting the cord enough so that he could pull out of it. Then, while he was rubbing his hands, she turned to Zach.

  “Are you both okay?” she added. “I mean—not hurt or anything?”

  “We’re fine,” Tom said absently. “He just put us here a little while ago. We were in the lighthouse, before, and it wasn’t too bad—except I was afraid you’d come.”

  “You knew I’d come. I hope.”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t. I was afraid you would.”

  “Tom”—a strand on Zach’s cord sprang apart—“you don’t have to worry about me.” She looked up to find him looking down at her, in that new way, the way he had since the end of Julian’s first Game. As if she were something infinitely precious, something that bewildered him, but amazed him—something he didn’t deserve, but trusted.

  “Sure I have to worry about you, Thorny,” he said simply. “Just like you worry about me.”

  Jenny smiled.

  “Nobody needs to worry right now. We’ve won the Game, Tom. We went on the treasure hunt and now we’ve found you. It’s all over.”

  “I’ll still be happier out of here,” he said, and Zach said, “That goes for me doubled, tripled, and quadrupled.”

  Jenny glanced around. She supposed it was a spooky place in a way—if you were sitting and anticipating trouble. There were real cave entrances below the mural, leading to other parts of the miniature golf range. There were mock buildings holding the same thing—golf holes—with names like Lafitte’s Black Powder Works. It was dark inside all these places.

  “Don’t tell me. You guys were afraid of the parrot,” Michael said. Jenn
y followed his gaze to a section of the building beside the golf course, apparently an area for eating, because there were orange plastic tables and stools bolted to the ground. There was also a small stage with a sign that read: CAP’N BILL AND SEBASTIAN, THE WONDER PARROT. Also a mounted TV showing Woody Woodpecker cartoons, mercifully silent.

  “No, we were afraid of the eyes,” Tom said, stepping out of the dinghy and over a length of thick rope that sagged between two wharf pillars.

  Jenny’s head snapped up. “The eyes?”

  “The ones that sit in the shadows and look at you. And the whispering.”

  Jaw squared, Jenny sawed through the last of Zach’s cord and rubbed his wrists. So the other Shadow Men were around.

  Tom was staring at Audrey’s arm. “What happened to you?”

  “Believe me, you’re happier not knowing.”

  “You guys all look like you’ve been playing with the Raiders—and losing,” Tom said.

  It was true, Jenny thought, following Zach over the rope. The prisoners they’d come to rescue looked fine, just as they had when they’d disappeared behind Julian’s wall of fire. A little crumpled and stained about the clothes, but otherwise fine. Zach still had his 35 millimeter camera around his neck.

  It was the rescuers who were bloody and battered. Even Summer looked wounded, like a broken-stemmed flower. Audrey, usually the picture of elegance, looked more like a young hiker who’d been in a bad accident. Dee’s jeans were stained dark at the thigh. Michael looked as if he’d been dunked in swamp water and then tumble-dried.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Zach said, and for once his gray eyes weren’t cool or unreadable. “Thanks, Jenny.”

  Jenny waved dismissively, but she felt a glow inside. “What happened back there in the fire, anyway? One minute I was holding your hand, the next . . .”

  “I fell,” Zach said. “Pure dumb luck. I tripped, and when I got up, I didn’t know which way to go. I stumbled around and ended up back in Julian’s base.”

  “Out of the fire, into the frying pan,” Michael said.

  “And then Tom came back for me.” Zach looked at Tom, and something passed between them without words. The introverted photographer and the star athlete had never been particularly close before, but Jenny had the feeling that that had changed now. She was pleased.

  “Aww,” Michael said.

  Audrey said, “Shut up—mon cher.”

  Dee interrupted. “Here’s a map of the park.” The map was wood, painted to look like parchment, with iron chains around it.

  “It is an amusement park, then. We could see some of it out the lighthouse window,” Tom said. “Okay, look, here’s my plan. . . .”

  His voice trailed off. Audrey, Michael, Dee, and Summer weren’t looking at him. Instead, they were looking at Jenny expectantly.

  Tom looked at Zach, who was standing with his arms folded, something like amusement in his sharp-featured face.

  “Okay, uh—why don’t you tell us your plan?” Tom said to Jenny.

  Jenny was fighting amusement, too. “I don’t have one. We don’t need one. We’ve won, and we ought to be able to just walk out of here. The only thing I don’t understand is why Julian hasn’t shown up.”

  They all looked at the various dark doorways and crevices.

  “Do you think maybe—he’s watching us?” Summer said.

  “Of course I’m watching; that’s what I do,” a weary voice said.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jenny spun. Julian was standing beside a ticket booth with a brass telescope on top. He was surrounded by ferns and fake palms. And he looked—tired?

  He was wearing the duster jacket again, and he had his hands in his pockets. His hair was as white as a winter moon.

  It was up to her to face him, Jenny knew. She was the only one who could do this.

  She stepped forward. She tried to look him directly in the eyes, but it was hard. His gaze seemed curiously veiled—as if he wasn’t exactly looking at her, but through her.

  “We’ve won,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “Finally. It’s the last Game, and this time there’s no way you can bend the rules. You have to let us go.”

  What was the look in those eyes? They were midnight-colored and full of shadows—but there was something else, something Jenny only recognized when she felt a presence beside her. Tom was there, looking devilishly handsome and full of cold, protective fury. He wasn’t going to let her face Julian alone. His hand rested on her shoulder, lightly, not possessively. As if to say he was there to back her up, whatever happened.

  “I ought to try to kill you,” he said to Julian. “I can’t, but I sure ought to try. I will, if you pull anything this time.”

  Julian ignored him completely.

  Wistfulness, Jenny thought. That was it. Julian wasn’t exactly looking at Tom, but for a moment he’d glanced at Tom’s hand on her shoulder—and there was wistfulness in his eyes.

  The Shadow Man seeing the one thing he could never have, she thought. Human love.

  “Are you going to pull anything?” Tom asked tightly.

  It was a good question. Jenny was braced for some kind of a trick, too—ready to fight Julian, to argue him out of it. Every other time they’d won a Game, Julian had unveiled some weird twist at the last minute, had found some way to crush them and laugh at them.

  Jenny had fully expected him to try it again this time—so why hadn’t he? Why hadn’t he appeared before they got Tom and Zach untied? Why wasn’t he dressed as a pirate, fending them off with a cutlass, smiling and pointing out that they had to get to Tom and Zach to rescue them? Why wasn’t he playing the Game?

  Probably because he has something worse up his sleeve, she told herself. That painted volcano will erupt. Real lightning will strike. Or maybe—

  —or maybe he was just tired of playing.

  “We have won, haven’t we?” she said, suddenly uncertain. She would have thought she would enjoy announcing her victory more than this.

  “You’ve won,” Julian said, and there was no emotion in his voice. He still wasn’t really looking at her. And he did seem tired—his whole body looked tired.

  He looked—defeated.

  “So—I can leave.”

  “Yes.”

  Jenny was still looking for the catch. “And take everyone with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even Tom. I can take Tom with me.”

  “Let’s go,” Tom said abruptly, his fingers closing around her upper arm. Jenny almost—not quite—shook him off. This wasn’t like Julian at all.

  “I can go and I can take Tom,” she persisted. “And everyone. It’s the last Game, and it’s over now.”

  For the first time Julian looked at her. His eyes were fully dilated, with the look Jenny had seen in the cave. An inward look, as if nothing mattered. It was too brittle to be bitter. A look like blue ice about to break up and fall into dark water.

  A—shattering.

  “It’s the last Game,” he said. “It’s over now. I won’t bother you again.”

  The corner of his mouth jerked as if he were about to say something more—or maybe it was involuntary. Then, without speaking, he whirled around.

  “Get out. Get her out.” Without looking at Tom, he spoke in a distorted voice, thick with restraint. “Get her out of here! Before I do—something—”

  “Julian—” Jenny said.

  “—we’ll all be sorry for—”

  He gave a shudder of suppressed emotion.

  Tom grabbed Jenny’s other arm and wheeled her in the opposite direction.

  There was a rough wooden door standing on the far side of the building. It was set between two enormous stones, like a gate. But there was no fence or wall, just the door standing in space and looking tremendously solid, as if it had always been there.

  It was partly open, and inside Jenny could see her grandfather’s hallway, including the small telephone table with the white doily on it. The phone was l
ying on the floor where it had fallen, receiver off the hook.

  “Home,” Audrey said, in a voice of such startled longing that Jenny almost yielded to Tom’s steering hands. But then she twisted away.

  Insanely, inexplicably, she wanted to stay and talk to Julian.

  Julian didn’t want to talk to her.

  “Leave. Just go—now!”

  Even without seeing his face, she could tell that his control was breaking. She tried to turn him around.

  “Jenny, are you crazy ?” Dee said. Dee and Tom were both pulling at Jenny now, trying to get her away from Julian.

  “Just give me one minute!”

  “Will you get her out of here!” Julian snarled.

  Everyone was shouting. Summer was crying. And Jenny was having to fight off the two people she loved best—Tom and Dee—for a reason she couldn’t even explain clearly to herself.

  She knew the risk; she understood why Summer was crying. She could feel the storm building in Julian. The air was hot and electric, as if heat lightning were about to explode. He could do anything to them.

  But she couldn’t let it go.

  “Julian, please listen—”

  He turned, then, whirling so fast that Jenny stepped back. She was frightened by what she saw in his face.

  “You cannot save me from myself,” he hissed, saying each word distinctly, biting it off. Then he looked Tom straight in the face. “Get her out of here. I am trying to play this Game by the rules. But if you don’t have her out in thirty seconds, all bets are off.”

  “I’m sorry, Thorny,” Tom said and picked her up.

  “No!” Jenny was furious at the indignity, at being made to go where she didn’t want to go, like a child. And she was furious because she had just discovered the reason that she wanted to stay. Julian had said it for her. She wanted to save him.

  It was like the sign on Aba’s mirror. Do no harm. Help when you can. Return good for evil. That was what she wanted, to help if she could. To return good for evil where it had the chance of making a difference.

  But Tom wasn’t the only one she’d have to fight. Dee was marching along beside him, eyes fixed grimly on Jenny. And Michael and Audrey, Zach and Summer were surrounding them, forming a tight little knot to escort Jenny home.