The Hunter; The Chase; The Kill

by L. J. Smith

  That was good, she thought and a little wave of serenity came back. She was glad she could be as brave as the others. She was going to do this well, and that was all that counted now.

  The Shadow Men seemed to know it was over, too. The red-eyed one held out a hand to her almost gently. It had fingers like a gorilla’s—black, padded, thick as sausages and coming to a point at the ends.

  Jenny put her hand in his.

  The Shadow Man lifted his lips to show long, blunt teeth like tusks.

  Something knocked them apart.

  Jenny was knocked breathless, too, startled and confused. She thought it was some sort of attack.

  It was Julian.

  His hair was shining like lightning, like quicksilver. His whole being seemed full of elemental energy—of frightening intensity. And his eyes were the unbelievable, luminous blue of the precise moment before dawn.

  He looked at Jenny for just one second, and then he turned and she could only see the clean purity of his profile.

  “Go through the door!” he said. “That’s your way home. They won’t come after you.”

  He was between her and the Shadow Men. And apparently, unlike Dee, he could interact with them physically. At any rate, they were keeping back.

  “Go on!” he shouted.

  “We must have blood,” the crocodile-eyed Shadow Man said. “We will have blood.”

  “Hurry!” Julian shouted.

  Through the open door Jenny could see her grandfather’s hallway.

  “We have a right to a kill,” the crocodile-eyed Shadow Man said. From the air he snatched up something long and flat and incredibly ancient-looking. His fingers were covered in scaly skin like a dinosaur’s, Jenny saw. Then she realized what the long, flat branch must be.

  A runestave. Like the picture in her grandfather’s journal, except that this one was real—was more real than any object Jenny had ever seen. It was like some of the island worlds—the ones that were brighter and more substantial-looking than Earth. This stave was so real that it looked alive, throbbing with raw power.

  There were not just single runes carved on it, but lines and lines of them, tall and needle-thin. Even though they were delicately inscribed, each stroke stood out clearly. It was as if the cuts were filled with liquid diamond that shone against the background of wood.

  Jenny couldn’t keep looking at the runes. It was like trying to read in a dream—first the details were sharp, and then the whole stave seemed to be swarming with changes. The runes seemed to move before she could identify them.

  That’s the stave of life. If anything ever was, that’s the stave of life, she thought.

  The voice like faraway ice bells said, “Give her to us.”

  “No,” Julian said.

  Jenny felt movement behind her. Tom. And Dee, and Zach supporting Summer, and Audrey and Michael together. They were all gathering near her, and their way was clear to the door. But nobody started for it.

  “What’s happening?” Audrey whispered.

  “You know what we can do,” the tall Shadow Man with the crocodile eyes said to Julian, and he held the runestave higher.

  “Go through the door,” Julian said, without turning.

  “We can unmake you!” the tall one shrieked, and in that moment his voice wasn’t beautiful. It was like an ice floe breaking, a cracking, smashing sound of destruction.

  “What are they talking about?” Tom said.

  His quiet, level voice helped Jenny. “They can cut out his name. If they cut out his name, he dies.” Then she said, “Julian—”

  “Go on!” he said.

  The Shadow Men were very, very angry.

  “We have a right to a kill!”

  “Then take it!” Julian shouted. “But you won’t get past me!”

  The thin, scaly fingers of the Shadow Man’s other hand were holding a knife. It looked like bone. It glittered like frost.

  “Come on, Jenny,” Tom said, not moving.

  “Julian—”

  “Go on!” Julian said.

  The knife rose and fell.

  Jenny heard herself scream. She saw the slash of the blade, the way the liquid diamond spilled like blood. There was a terrible gash in the stave now, a hideous blank space. A wound. They had carved out Julian’s name.

  Julian staggered.

  Jenny wrenched herself away from something that was trying to hold her and fell on her knees beside him. Her thoughts were wheeling and spinning, with no order to them. There must be something to do, some way to help. . . .

  Really, she knew by his face that it was too late.

  The other Shadow Men were coming in a rush of darkness and freezing wind. Jenny looked up into the maelstrom and tried to lift Julian to his feet.

  Then hands pulled at her. Human hands, helping her get Julian up. And then Jenny was running, they were all running, half carrying Julian with them, and the door was right in front of them.

  Ice lashed at Jenny’s back. A freezing tendril grabbed her ankle. But Michael was pushing the door open and Summer and Zach were falling through it—and then Audrey was through, and then she and Tom and Dee were, with Julian. She felt the resistance as she crossed the threshold, the g-force that threw her off balance and made her stumble and land on her knees.

  The hallway was too small. There wasn’t room for all of them, especially with Julian a dead weight. The telephone table went crashing sideways. People were falling on one another. Jenny was kneeling on somebody’s leg.

  “Get out of the way! We need to close the door!” Dee was shouting.

  Everything was confusion. The leg under Jenny moved and she saw Audrey crawling away. She tried to crawl, too, dragging Julian. Tom picked up the telephone table and threw it over her head toward the living room.

  Dee kicked the door shut just as the storm reached it.

  “What about the circle?” Michael screamed. “Where’s a knife? Where’s a knife?”

  Jenny knew she had a knife, but she couldn’t move fast enough. Michael grabbed up something from the floor. It was a felt pen, the pen Jenny had used to sketch the rune circle. With a slashing motion, he crossed the circle out. The cross looked like a slanting X, like the rune Nauthiz. The rune of restraint.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Julian said, and his voice was very distant. Powerless. “They won’t come after you. They don’t have a claim anymore.”

  He was lying on his back, eyes looking at the ceiling. He was holding his chest, as if the Shadow Men had cut out his heart instead of his name.

  Jenny took his cold hands in hers.

  So cold. As if he were a figure carved out of ice. His face was that pale, too, and his beauty was like a distant fire reflected in an icicle.

  And it was strange, but at that moment Jenny seemed to see in him all the different ways he had looked before. All his many guises.

  The boy in the More Games shop playing acid house music too loud. The Erlking, in white leather tunic and breeches. The Cyber-Hunter, in sleek body armor, with a blue triangle tattooed on his cheek. The masked dancer at the prom, in a black tuxedo and shirt.

  It was as if each were a facet of a crystal reflecting back at her—and only now could she see the entire crystal for what it was.

  Julian stepping out of the shadows, soft as a shadow himself. Julian wearing Zach’s clothing, threatening her with the bees. Julian slipping the gold ring on her finger, sealing the bargain with a kiss. Julian leaning over her as she slept. Julian in the mining cave, his eyes dilated, his gaze shattering.

  And she had never really found the right description for the color of those eyes. At times it had seemed close to this color or that color, but when you got down to it, words really failed. It wasn’t like anything except itself.

  Right now she thought she could see something flickering far back in his eyes, like a twisting blue flame in their depths.

  “You can’t die,” she said, and she was surprised by how calm and matter-of-fact her voice
was.

  And Julian, although his eyes were looking somewhere past her, and his voice was weak, was equally calm. He almost seemed to be smiling.

  “The law can’t be changed,” he said.

  “You can’t die,” Jenny said. Her fingers were very tight on his, but they only seemed to be getting colder.

  Everyone else had moved away. Jenny wanted to tell them that they didn’t need to, that everything was going to be all right. But somehow she knew better.

  “Did you know that Gebo isn’t just the rune of sacrifice?” Julian said.

  “I don’t care.”

  “It means a gift, too. You gave me a gift, you know.”

  “I don’t care,” Jenny said and began to cry.

  “You showed me what it was like to love. What the universe could be like, if. ”

  Jenny put her free hand to her mouth. She was sobbing without a sound.

  “This is my gift to you now, and you can’t help but take it. You’re free, Jenny. They won’t come after you again.”

  “You can’t die,” Jenny whispered raggedly around the tears. “There must be something to do. You can’t just go out—”

  Julian was smiling.

  “No, I’ll dream another dream,” he said. “I’ve made up so many things, now I’ll just go into one. I’ll be part of it.”

  “All right,” Jenny whispered. She suddenly knew that there was nothing to be done, nothing except to help him all she could. There was something in his face that told her—a peace that was already gathering. She wouldn’t disturb that peace now. “You go into the dream, Julian.”

  “You don’t blame me?”

  “I don’t blame you for anything.”

  “Whatever else I did, I loved you,” he said. He stirred, and then added, “Maybe you’ll dream about me sometime, and that will help get me there.”

  “I will. I’ll dream you into a place without any shadows, only light.”

  He looked at her then, and she could see he wasn’t afraid.

  “Nothing really dies as long as it’s not forgotten,” he said.

  And then blue mist seemed to gather in his eyes and obscure the flame.

  “Go to the dream,” Jenny whispered. “Go quick, now.”

  His chest was still, and she didn’t think he heard her. But she caught the faintest breath of sound—not with her ears, but with her mind.

  “Your ring . . .”

  The hand that had been on his chest slipped, and Jenny saw the gold ring there. Jenny picked it up.

  The inscription on the inside had changed. The words were no longer a spell to bind Jenny.

  Before, it had said: All I refuse & thee I chuse.

  Now it said simply: I am my only master.

  CHAPTER 16

  The elemental energy, the quicksilver brightness, was gone from Julian’s figure. Jenny was still holding his hand, but it suddenly seemed less substantial. She held tighter—and her fingers met.

  Julian’s body was dissolving into mist and shadows. In a moment even those had disappeared.

  Just like that. Like smoke up a chimney.

  Jenny sat back on her heels.

  Then, slowly at first, but more quickly with each step, her friends gathered around her. Jenny felt Tom’s arms, and felt that he was shaking.

  She buried her head in his shoulder and held him as he held her.

  * * *

  It was Audrey and Michael who were the most helpful in what had to be done next. There were a lot of practical things to be handled.

  Here in Pennsylvania the sun was just rising, and home in California it was 3:00 in the morning. Audrey and Michael went next door and woke the neighbors up and asked if they could use a phone.

  Then Audrey called her parents and woke them up, and asked if they could please wire some money. And Michael called his father and woke him up, and asked him to explain to everybody else’s parents that all the kids were safe.

  That was something for Jenny to hang on to, once Audrey and Michael had reported back. The thought that Michael’s father would be calling Mr. and Mrs. Parker-Pearson and telling them Summer was coming home. Michael’s father was a writer and slightly odd, but an adult, and therefore somewhat credible. Maybe they would even believe him.

  Jenny really couldn’t wait to see Summer’s little brother’s face.

  And she wanted to see her parents, too, and her own little brother.

  There were other things. Angela, P.C.’s almost-girlfriend, who would have to be told that P.C. was really and truly dead. And there would be the police to deal with again, and impossible questions to answer.

  But she couldn’t think about all that now. She was still thinking about Julian.

  Nothing died if it wasn’t forgotten—and she would never forget him. There would always be some part of him in her mind. Because of him, all her life she’d be more sensitive to the beauty of the world. To its—sensuality and immediacy. Julian had been a very immediate person.

  The most extraordinary person she would ever meet, Jenny thought. Whimsical, quixotic, wild—impossible.

  He had been so many things. Seductive as silver and deadly as a cobra. And vulnerable like a hurt child underneath it all.

  Like a hurt child who could strike out with lethal accuracy, Jenny thought as she watched Audrey moving slowly around the living room, tidying things. He’d hurt Audrey badly, and if he hadn’t quite killed Summer, it had been close. He’d let his Shadow Animals kill Gordie Wilson, who’d only been guilty of skipping school and killing rabbits.

  The truth was that Julian had probably been too dangerous to live. The universe would be a much safer place without him.

  But poorer. And more boring, definitely more boring.

  It was Summer who said the astonishing thing.

  “You know,” she said, after twisting around on the living room couch to see if the cab was coming, “Julian said the world was evil and horrible—remember? But then he proved himself that it wasn’t.”

  Jenny came out of her own thoughts and looked at Summer, amazed. That was it, exactly, of course. And that was why she could go on living, and even look forward to things. In a universe where that could happen, you had to go on living and hoping and doing your best. In a universe where that could happen, anything was possible.

  That was Julian’s real gift, she thought.

  But there was another one, too, and she saw it as she looked at the others. They had all changed—Julian had changed them. Like the rune Dagaz, the catalyst, he’d transformed everyone who met him.

  Audrey and Michael—look at them. They were walking around holding hands. Audrey hadn’t even bothered to put her hair up. Michael was patting her shoulder protectively.

  And Dee and Audrey had been enemies a month ago. After tonight, Jenny didn’t think they could ever be that way again.

  Zach, now—Zach was looking at Summer with puzzled interest in his keen gray eyes. Like a scientist who finds himself unexpectedly fascinated by a new form of flower.

  Won’t last a week, Jenny thought. But it was good for Zach to notice girls, just the same. To have a human interest, something besides his own imagination and his photographs.

  Julian had taught Zach that imagination wasn’t always better than reality.

  Summer is different, too, Jenny thought. She’s not half as muddled as she used to be. That’s why Zach’s staring.

  Now, Dee . . .

  Jenny turned to look at her friend.

  Dee was sitting instead of pacing, with one long leg stretched in front of her. She was looking very thoughtful, her head bent, her thickly lashed eyes narrowed.

  Well, Dee was Dee, and would never change, Jenny thought lovingly.

  But she was wrong. As she watched, Dee looked up at her and smiled.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking. And I was thinking—it would mean a major change of plans, you see. It would mean a lot of studying, and I hate studying.”

  She stopped, and Jenny blinked, then l
eaned forward.

  “Dee?”

  “I’m thinking of maybe going to college after all. Maybe. I’m just barely entertaining the idea.”

  Dee had changed, too.

  “Aba would be happy,” Jenny said, and then she dropped it, because she was afraid that Dee would turn balky. Dee really hated being pushed.

  “It’s your own choice,” was all she added.

  “Yes, it is. Everything really is, isn’t it? Our own choice.”

  Jenny looked down at the gold ring on her finger, then clasped her other hand over it. “A lot is.”

  And Tom was different—the fact that Jenny was wearing that ring showed how different. He hadn’t said a word about it; she didn’t even think he minded.

  He understood.

  If he hadn’t, Jenny could never have been happy. As it was, she knew he wouldn’t hate her if she tried to dream Julian into a wonderful dream. He might not want to hear about it, but he wouldn’t be upset.

  He didn’t take her for granted anymore, and he didn’t need to be possessive, either. Jenny thought that maybe he had changed the most of all.

  Or maybe she had.

  “The cab’s here,” Michael said. “Okay, so first we have to go to the doctor. . . .” He stared at a scribbled list.

  “No, first we go to the Western Union office, then the doctor,” Audrey said, taking the list from him. “Then—”

  “Then we eat,” Michael said.

  “Après vous,” Dee said, gesturing them through the door. When Audrey hiked a copper eyebrow at her, she grinned. “I can throw those fancy words around, too. Bonjour. O solo mìo. Gesundheit.”

  “D’accord,” Audrey said and grinned back at her.

  Zach and Summer went out. Jenny stopped for just an instant on the threshold, long enough to look back.

  The hallway was empty, the door to the basement was shut. That was good. If any adults would listen to Jenny, she would have them make sure that door was never opened again.

  She turned and went outside.

  As they headed for the cab, Michael said the kind of thing that only Michael could say. The kind of thing that came from having a science fiction author as a dad.