Thorn Jack (36 page)

Her eyes otherworldly silver, Phouka let go of Christie's hand.

SYLVIE HAD LOST CHRISTIE AND
Finn. She kept calm as she threaded through the crowds, feeling naked beneath the gown of black gossamer and silk she'd chosen to wear because she felt she was becoming what those others kept calling her—
witch
. The weird coma, Reiko's promises . . . they had changed her.

Tonight, she didn't feel like a witch. Whenever she thought of someone—Jack—being murdered for Reiko's lot, she wanted to cut someone's head off.

Then Sylvie saw a boy who looked hauntingly familiar and her pulse jumped.
This is the night the dead walk.
She began to follow him as he moved through the masked students, into the trees.

“Thomas?” She halted when she stepped among the shadows and thought,
What the hell am I doing?
The music from the revel had grown faint. She stood alone in a scrimshaw of rustling shadows with the Queen's tree looming before her.

When the tiny dolls and ornaments hung in its branches began to twirl, Sylvie backed away. The air, tainted with fire and clover, had chilled. Someone stood beneath the tree, black hair framing his face, honey-brown skin radiant against a suit of sapphire velvet.

Thomas Luneht, who had committed suicide in the '70s, moved from the shadows. Black wings seemed to sweep from his shoulders. His eyes were a burning blue. He didn't speak, but a sound seemed to vibrate from him as he held out a hand—

She stumbled back and whirled—

—only to find her way blocked by the three Rooks. Trip, Hip Hop, and Bottle smiled at her, their pose exactly that of Malcolm Tirnagoth's three children from the antique photograph.

She heard a warning cry from behind her before the Rooks' shadows, swooping and tattered, fell over her.

“TRUFFLES?”

Finn jumped as an orange-haired girl in a top hat and black suit offered a tray of chocolates.

“No, thank you.”

“I suggest this one. It's Mayan chocolate.” In her other hand, the girl held an ivory wand shaped into some sort of long-stemmed toadstool. Her angelic face, mischief in the golden eyes, seemed familiar.

Finn knew she was a Fata. “Do you have a brother named Absalom?”

“My name's Salome, and no.” Salome pointed to a truffle. “You should take a chocolate. They'll help you see things as they really are. Tonight, you'll need to do that.”

Finn whispered, “Who are you?”

“Salome.” The golden eyes shone. “Take one.”

Finn leaned forward. “
Absalom?
”

Salome winked, and Finn selected a chocolate and bit into it, tasting only chocolate.

“Pssh.” Salome's mouth curved. “You shouldn't have done that. You're not supposed to eat our food.”

Finn choked and swallowed the bittersweet truffle as Salome glided away. When the dancing figures began to blur and shadows swirled over Drake's Chapel, she leaned against a tree as the fiddle music reeled through her and her body ached,
ached
to dance. Why had she eaten the damn truffle? Because she'd trusted someone who resembled trickster Absalom?

As a violin solo razored the air, the music suddenly slid into a threatening pulse of drums. The masked crowd parted, forming an aisle.

Two figures moved from Drake's Chapel.

Reiko Fata was raptor elegant in a ball gown of scarlet leather and red silk, its sleeves billowing, its ruffled collar framing her face, her corset revealing a fortune in rubies strewn across her collarbones. Her inky hair emphasized her inhuman green eyes, lined now with scarlet designs. Beside her, a savage bridegroom in ivory, Caliban Ariel'Pan carried a cane topped with a small skull. Platinum hair swept across his corpse-silver eyes.

A hand grasped Finn's and dragged her against a lithe body.

Jack, in a black fur coat and pin-striped trousers, smiled at her, his dark hair falling raggedly from beneath a top hat. The skin around his eyes was painted with black glyphs. She could see, on his chest, the inky curl of the serpent-biting-its-tail tattoo. He looked as wicked as Caliban and twice as deadly. The music slid into a slow reel as she said, “Are you high now?”

“Most likely.” The wavering light chiseled his face. “
Dance with me.
”

As a girl began a mournful song accompanied by gentle violins and drums, Jack placed one hand on Finn's hip. Still holding her other hand, he glided with her across the emerald moss. She ducked her head and braced herself against the feline muscularity of this young man who had come into her world like the hero in a Gothic romance or a spaghetti western. She closed her eyes and wished that this dark myth who bled for her would kiss her. She whispered, “I've figured it out, Jack. She took you in the 1800s. That gave you one hundred years with them, to live like a prince. And, at the end, you were sacrificed, but it didn't work and you lived another one hundred years as a Jack. What went wrong?”

The drowsy, dead look had returned to his eyes. “She stopped it.”

“She . . .” Finn stepped back. “
Reiko?
”

“Don't do it, Finn,” he whispered, and slid away. “Let me go.”

“
Jack!
” She pushed after him, desperate not to lose sight of him.

Phouka stepped in her way. “Your friends are looking for you.”

Finn halted and felt a sharp fear. “Where are they?”

Phouka pointed to Drake's Chapel, veiled in flickering firelight and shadows, its crimson interior glowing. “In there.”

CHRISTIE BARELY STRUGGLED AS HE
was hauled through the woods between the Fata with long red hair and the blond dead boy in scarlet. He'd fallen because Phouka, treacherous girl, had whispered in his ear until he'd had no will. He couldn't hear anything now except the sinister clatter of branches and the faint whistling of the wind in the dark. He'd attempted screaming, but the red-haired man had placed a finger against his lips and sealed them shut.

When they reached a looming gate of rusted metal, the red-haired man opened it and he and his companion dragged Christie toward the silhouette of the Tirnagoth Hotel, its windows lit as if for guests. Christie's hopelessness vanished, and he began to fight, but the two creatures on either side of him held him with preternatural strength. When he hunched over and threw up, the blond boy stepped disdainfully back. “This doesn't seem fair, Farouche.”

“Hush, Devon.”

Christie shuddered when he looked at the blond boy. The dancer who had slit his wrists in a bathtub decades ago gazed soberly back at him, his eyes silver. As for the other man . . . Christie saw the glint of gold hoops in ears that seemed to curve beneath the red hair.

This isn't real. This isn't . . .

They yanked him into the hotel courtyard, and Christie stared at the glamorous, manicured place that had been in ruins only a few days ago. His gut clenched again as he was pulled through art nouveau doors into a salon shining with lamps and polished mahogany.

This isn't happening . . .

He was dragged down a hall toward a pair of mahogany doors.

“No!” He could yell now. He tried to brake with his feet, but they lifted and hauled him.

The doors opened to reveal a swamp of decay that had once been a ballroom. The only light came from a lamp of red glass set on the floor. Velvet wallpaper peeled in swaths from scabbed walls. A broken chandelier glittered against the mold-stained ceiling. They hadn't bothered to disguise a killing place. He couldn't tell if there was anything in the shadows, which were heavy and unnatural.

Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he saw the girl seated in a chair.

“Sylvie!” He tried to break free, but Farouche and the dead boy held him tight.

Sylvie flashed him a brave, bruised smile as the three Rooks standing around her stirred. Inky-haired Trip, leaning against the chair, slid one black-nailed finger down her cheek. “Fox boy. You come to save the little crow girl from a fate worse than death?”

Christie tore from his captors and ran at the Rook. Neither Farouche nor Devon Valentine tried to stop him.

The Rooks moved forward, their antique finery rustling. Christie lunged—

Farouche strode forward then and grabbed him by one arm, murmuring to him as he twisted to fight, “Don't, boy. You can't win against this.”

“You.” Sylvie, who looked as though she'd been crying, pointed at Farouche. “You're the one who bewitched me in the churchyard that night.”

“A
nice
young lady wouldn't have been in the churchyard at night.” Hip Hop primly tucked her hair behind her ears.

Christie tried to free himself from Farouche's grip. “
Monsters.
”

Farouche flung him at Sylvie, spun on his heel, and strode out with Devon. The Rooks swept past, laughing, and the doors slammed shut behind them.

Sylvie rushed forward and pulled Christie up. “Christie . . . did they hurt you?”

“I'm fine. Are my hands shaking?
Who hit you?
”

“Stop roaring.” She whispered in his ear, “
Something's in here with us.
”

Averting his eyes from the breathing shadows, he pulled her to the doors. The scarred wood wouldn't give. When he heard a click from behind them, the sound made him shudder. Sylvie gripped his hand.

From the darkness came a rustling of fabric followed by a delicate, sinister hiss.

Sylvie and Christie, turning, kept their backs to the doors.

The things that evolved from the dark as Christie's and Sylvie's eyes adjusted to the gloom might have been human-size dolls or people in masks. The one veiled in gossamer stood very still. Crouched near her was a male, a pair of raven wings at his shoulders. A third figure, in a long coat, its face ominously hidden by blood-red hair, was the closest.

The terror/run/scream instinct paralyzed Christie, because the veiled bride doll—without his actually seeing it do so—had moved.

He blinked again and the black-winged doll was also now posed differently, head tilted, one arm outstretched.

“Sylvie,” Christie whispered, fumbling for the door handle. “Are they
moving
?”

He blinked again—the doll veiled in scarlet hair was now posed in a slinking crouch.

“
How come I don't see them moving?
” Christie whisper-shrieked.

Sylvie murmured, “
Between.
Christie, I saw something like this on
Doctor Who
—don't take your eyes off them.”

“
What?
Are you
kidding
?
Doctor—
”

“The Fatas inhabit between places, right? So those things—they must move between—no! I've got sweat in my eyes . . .
Christie
. . .”

The bride doll was alarmingly close now, head down, red lips parted to reveal delicate fangs.

Christie had heard about people dying from terror. He'd never believed it possible until the Fatas had erupted into his life like a bad infection. “Can we smash their heads in with someth—”

“Shh! They can hear you. They're playing with us. Just don't look away—”

Christie shouted as he found the black-winged doll gripping Sylvie's wrist. As she frantically tried to pull herself free, he struck at the doll, hitting a surface like porcelain.

Sweat stung
his
eyes as the creeping doll-thing in black rose before him, its clawed hand an inch from his face. One eye, its pupil like a goat's, glared from beneath the veil of red hair, and he felt his desperate courage dying. The doll-things smelled like blood, as if they
gorged
on it. Christie backed up against the door—and felt the mirror in his back pocket. What had that girl said?
The mirror is a third eye . . .

“Sylvie.” He pulled the compact mirror out, flipped it open. “You got one of these?”

The black-winged doll made a noise, a horrible, creaking hiss, and froze in place, releasing Sylvie, who fumbled in her little backpack and triumphantly raised a small mirror. A dot of reflected light slid over the faces of the bride and the angel. Sylvie stepped back—

She tripped, stumbled, and dropped the mirror. Christie lunged toward her, glimpsed the bride doll moving—

Behind him, the doors fell open. A strong hand yanked him back. Christie grabbed Sylvie from the bride doll's grasp and they tumbled backward. The doors slammed shut over the furious face of the bride doll as its jaw unhinged to reveal a cage of teeth.

Christie scrambled up and felt Sylvie breathless and fierce beside him. He said, “What . . .
what
—”

Phouka put a finger to her lips and pushed open a metal door with the word Exit in black scripted across the top. Sylvie sobbed once and swore. Christie grabbed Sylvie's hand as he shouted at Phouka, “Whose side are you
on
?”

The chauffeur carried a walking stick, its handle shaped like a fox's head. “If you'll stop bellowing, I'll tell you. Not all of us agree with her. Some of us can be good.” She moved away. “When we're not being bad.”

“Like goddamn Tinker Bell,” Sylvie whispered as she and Christie moved with Phouka among brambles and twisted, dark trees. “Your hearts are too small to hold both good and bad, but only one at a time. So now you're good?”

“I don't have a heart. And Ariel'Pan and I only lure away the
unhappy
children.” Phouka raised two masks of metal. “Wear these. Maybe you can blend in a little.”

As Christie and Sylvie accepted the masks, Christie looked back at the hotel. He didn't want to ask about the doll-things—they would return in his nightmares.

Phouka saw him looking. She said, “They're called Grindylow. Now come along. Things are about to get ver . . . ry exciting.” Phouka began walking through the dark, her gown slithering. She spoke in a singsong voice, “ ‘
And we fairies, that do run, by the triple Hecate's team, from the presence of the sun, following darkness like a dream . . .
' ”