The Master (15 page)

“He wanted Hansel and Gretel?” Nick asked. He didn't want to believe her, because such talk was insane, but her fear was palpable now, and he had no choice but to acknowledge that whatever had happened at the mall had frightened Zee badly. He might not believe in hobgoblins, but she did.

“All the children, Nick.” Zee said again, “
All
the children. There were lots of them lined up to see him. He was pretending to be your good elf, Santa Claus. But he was eating up their thoughts, draining them.”

The ghost had warned him that he needed to ask questions about the creature at the mall. He should have listened.

This couldn't be real.

I'm afraid it can,
the ghost answered.

Nick met Zee's gaze, sure that his own was as horrified.

“If this is true, then we have to go to the police,” he said. “Right now. He has to be stopped.”

“They won't believe us. They're like you. Most of them don't believe in feys or hobgoblins. Anyway, I'm afraid that it's too late,” Zee said. “I think that he was going to take them yesterday. All we can do is go to the fey. They have hunters. They'll be able to get the children back. But we haven't a lot of time— and I know someone is chasing us.”

“Why don't we have time?” Nick whispered, fearing her answer. “What is he going to do with those children?”

Zee licked her lips, her eyes worried—perhaps for the children, perhaps because she feared she wouldn't be believed.

“I can't explain how I know this—it must be the part of me that is also fey—but he means to sacrifice them on New Year's Day. He's going to kill them and blame it on goblins.”

“What? Why?” Nick was barely able to get the questions past the sudden constriction of his throat. Visions of carnage swam in his brain. “Why kill innocent children?”

“I think he wants to start a war,” Zee answered. “He wants humans to get angry enough to kill the goblins.”

“But why?” Nick asked again. He had a second momentary vision of some creature—huge and dark—swinging a giant ax. The monster was covered in gore, but he kept swinging, grunting every time his blade encountered another head. Horror clogged Nick's brain, dimmed his eyesight. What Zee was suggesting was a nightmare, but he no longer doubted her—not in his gut.

“I don't know why he's doing this, or how he can even
be,
” Zee answered. “I don't understand it at all. Hobgoblins are like a myth to us, something to terrify naughty children. The legend says that they were created by the first great goblin king of France—they were the lutins' servants and the king's bodyguards before they trained trolls. But the king had to kill them all because they were too violent and tried to overthrow him. I thought they were all dead. That's what they taught us—that King Gofimbel and the Dark Faerie Queen executed them all.”

She swallowed, then continued. “But this one isn't dead. And he hates goblins. Humans, too. The rage in him was so terrible that I fainted in the parking lot. The children had to drag me away from the mall—away from his aura. It was as if I had breathed in his poison, his hate—and he
saw
me. Nick, he looked inside and he knew who and what I am. He knew about the children, too, and wanted them.”

“What can we do?” Nick whispered to himself. “Can we defend ourselves against him?”

You can take the girl to Cadalach,
the ghost said.
As soon as the snow melts enough for you to get away.

You are suggesting that we run away to see faeries about a killer hobgoblin.

You've got a better plan?

No, he didn't. Which was the problem. He believed Zee, and that she was right about going to the police. He couldn't imagine trying to make them believe his story.

Think of this as an adventure. It could be exciting.

Yeah? Exciting? So are sky-diving and Russian roulette. It doesn't mean I want to do either of those things.

Well, you have to do
some
thing.

Yeah, I know.

Nick reached for Zee's hands, folded them in his own and brought them up to his mouth, where he breathed over their chilled flesh. He rubbed her skin lightly, part of him marveling at its texture.

“Don't worry.” Nick looked into Zee's eyes. They were different; beautiful, but not human—he could see that now. And it didn't matter. “We'll find your Jack Frost and we'll stop this monster. Then I will take you and the children far away to someplace safe where no one bad will ever find you.”

“I don't know if anyplace is that far away,” Zee whispered.

“There has to be. We'll find it.”

As soon as he could, Nick slipped away from the others. He sat alone, listening to the car radio, waiting for the heater to drive back the cold. The reception was bad, but he heard enough to be assured that at least part of Zee's story was absolutely true; the man playing Santa at the Desert View Mall had been murdered and had his costume stolen. It was believed that the imposter Santa had gone back into the mall and carried on with the murdered man's job, seeing as many as two hundred children before closing time.

Nick shivered as he listened to the announcer's scratchy voice, thinking how close Hansel and Gretel had come to this killer. Zee, too.

So what now?
the ghost in the sideview mirror asked.

I guess we're going to see the faeries.

Nick shuddered at the strange thought, and switched off the car engine. He didn't like the plan, but the snow was melted enough to get back to the main road. Like it or not, it was time to leave. He took out his cell phone, hoping for a signal and that his battery wasn't dead. It was time to break the news to his sister that he wouldn't be coming this Christmas at all.

His family took it better than he expected. Afterward, not having much in the way of possessions, it didn't take long to load the children and Zee into the car. His Jag was overfilled with bodies and luggage even before Nick carried out his own duffel, but the clutter was strangely cheerful. The door of the cabin closed behind him with a clunk that sounded very final. He wasn't superstitious, but Nick had the sense that this small haven was now shut to them. They had no choice but to go on.

Looking at Zee, Nick suddenly felt that this was how it was supposed to be. They had crossed over into new territory sometime in the night. It was at odds with his usually cautious character, but Nick didn't look back at the bridges burning behind him. Instead, he looked at Zee, who smiled at him as if he were truly a knight in shining armor. And he felt a bit knightlike that morning. It was strange, but she was getting to know a part of him that Nick himself had never met, a part dredged up out of his psyche by a set of circumstances he could never have imagined.

Of course, while he liked this new man of broad thoughts and action, Nick wasn't sure whether he was elated or horrified by the suddenness of the change. He generally didn't like alteration to his life or schedule—especially not of the abrupt variety. In his experience there was almost always a downside to rushing into anything.

He just prayed that this time he was wrong.

 

The trip began slowly. Zee was grateful because she still wasn't used to automobiles, and she doubted the children had ever been in one. Nick was careful on the melting snow as they headed for the main road, making sure they didn't slide around. He turned east when they hit the paved road. They were heading back into Nevada and then south; they would travel toward the desert, moving along the base of the mountain's spine, looking for any fracture that might indicate an entrance to Cadalach.

A part of Zee was nervous and warned her to remain alert, but she was also very tired, and Nick seemed more than competent when it came to handling this machine. She hovered fitfully between sleep and wakefulness.

She was still conscious when they drove through the first town—though she thought that was a generous description of what was really just a wider stretch of road with a few buildings.

“I don't like this place,” Hansel muttered.

Zee didn't, either. It was an eerie spot, deserted, with one traffic light that went through its cycles even though there was no traffic to direct. The whole situation was creepy—the houses were strangely dark, the diner and gas station closed, though the string of lights in the window of the service station's mini-mart blinked on and off at regular intervals, and frost-fallen leaves still stiff with cold scratched loudly on one another as they skittered past the car, driven by a sudden gust of wind, their dry voices frightened as they fled down the deserted street.

Zee turned her gaze to Nick. He looked at her for a moment and then gazed upward at the chimneys. He had noticed, too. There were no fires in the fireplaces, no faces in the upstairs windows, nor even footprints in the melting snow of the walkways that wended up around the town's few houses. This was a ghost town. It reminded her of the forest when she was out hunting for Nick's tree: Every living thing had hidden itself or fled.

“Christmas,” Nick murmured mostly to himself. She knew what he was saying. Probably everyone had left for the holidays, and all that remained were the machines—the timers on the lights, the VCRs— giving a semblance of life.

“
Everyone
left?” she replied just as softly, not wanting to alarm the children. “What are the odds of that?”

Nick rubbed his temples. She sympathized. Between the voice of worry, their sudden attraction and the children's constant chatter, her head hurt, too.

“My brain's turning into a Tower of Babel,” he said, again as though he could hear her thoughts— and perhaps he could. She seemed to be growing steadily more attuned to his. “They must have left town. What else could it be?”

“Maybe you're right, but don't stop,” Zee said suddenly, laying a soft hand on his leg. The muscles jumped. “It isn't . . . nice.”

Nick nodded. He was apparently having a strong moment of intuition that agreed with her assessment of their situation. Ignoring its command to halt, he drove through the intersection against the red light.

“We need gas,” he said. “But there is another town some twenty miles on. We'll stop there.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Wake me when we get there.”

The town and its feeling of sticky uneasiness fell away as soon as it was out of sight, and suddenly feeling overwhelmingly tired, Zee closed her eyes. Sleep was not the refuge she hoped for, however. She came awake as soon as the highway widened and Nick picked up speed, returning to wakefulness with her nerves and frozen lungs screaming that she was trapped down in the ground, someplace darker than the hive, a place that was more like a grave. Even with her eyes open and testifying that she and the children were safe and above-ground, it took a long while for her to calm enough that she felt she could open her mouth without screaming.

It was the monster! He had come close again, that creature at the mall. She was certain that it was the hobgoblin who'd stalked her dreams, searching for her location. He had looked into her eyes and smiled and said, “I am only reasonably avaricious— less greedy than most CEOs you've ever heard of. And I work toward a worthy cause. Why not join me? Don't you want to be avenged?”

And a part of her had wanted to believe him, had responded to the voice that wormed its way inside her head, leaving a clammy trail of evil behind that was with her even now.

It was just a dream, she assured herself. But that assurance didn't help much when the nightmare images kept playing out before her eyes.

How do you know it's a dream? Is it a wish your heart made?
a rough voice asked. The monster?

“Do you hear anything?” she whispered to Nick.

“No. Just the engine.” he answered.

But it wasn't the engine she heard. The monster had begun to hum—again. She'd heard the sound before in some other nightmare. The sound grew louder . . . and then he was there! It was just a watery reflection in the glass, but she could see him, smell him.

There was other movement as well. She looked beyond his reflection, down a long corridor, and saw something terrible at its end. Unable to pull her gaze away, she watched tiny, foreign-looking goblins cavort to some unheard music. Irrelevantly, she marked that rhythm had overlooked this particular hive. Then she realized that they weren't dancing; they were writhing around in the green dust on the cave floor. She didn't know these strange goblin faces well enough to judge whether they were contorted in ecstasy or if these lutins were in pain, but either way, she knew they were dying from that green dust, and that somehow this creature in the glass had made it happen.

Isn't that just as it should be?
the rough voice asked, brushing her ears with its diseased breath. Still in her head, it refused to be banished even by the end of her dream, even by her waking. It was getting louder, clearer, closer, too.

Why do you run from me? I can almost see you.
The monster suddenly reached for her, his clawed hand emerging through the windshield of the car. It stopped just short of her chin, groping as though it knew she was there.

A scream began to build inside her, one that would escape, tearing out her throat and lungs! It would fill the car and shatter the glass of the windshield—

Then Nick reached over and squeezed her hands, and the monster recoiled and disappeared with a snarl of frustration. All Zee's pent-up fear dropped away, too, escaped like air from a balloon. A wall of white noise went up between her waking mind and her subconscious, and she couldn't hear the horrible voice anymore. She managed to pull herself the rest of the way into wakefulness.

“Bad dreams?” Nick asked, his voice low.

“Yes,” she whispered, tightening her grip on his hand. “But they're gone now.”