Adam Slater - Hunted

‘She can see me now.’

‘Is the Grim yours?’ Melissa asked softly, and it took Callum a stunned moment to realise that she was addressing the question directly to Jacob without showing any further surprise or fear. The great black dog stared back at Melissa, its eyes glowing like redhot coals in the darkness.

‘Doom goes with me where I go,’ Jacob answered briefly. ‘I do not own him. Come with me into the church and we can talk. You are not safe, walking abroad in this wood, either by daylight or in moonlight. Come inside.’

Doom suddenly loped forward. Callum couldn’t help but flinch as the gigantic hound passed them in a rush of icy wind. Melissa took a firm grip on Callum’s elbow, and they passed through the doorway of the ruined church together, Jacob following behind.

The floor of the roofless building was a tangle of weeds and nettles. A narrow path wound towards the gaping black hole of a doorway that led to the tower stairs. Doom stopped halfway along this path and turned around. Jacob joined him.

‘This is no longer a true sanctuary,’ Jacob said, ‘but as long as the moonlight falls on the altar steps, it holds a memory of its sacred past, and evil spirits will think twice before they enter here.’

Jacob’s depthless eyes pinned Callum with a piercing stare. ‘I know you think I am likely evil too. When last we met, you banished me from your home and accused me of murder. So tell me – what has brought you back to us so fearlessly now?’

Callum threw open his hands in frustration. Wasn’t it obvious?

‘The dark reflection.’

Doom growled, low in his throat, like the distant rumble of thunder. Jacob laid a gleaming white hand on the huge dog’s black head.

‘You have seen it?’ Jacob asked seriously.

‘It killed a boy at our school.’

‘Have you seen it?’ Jacob insisted.

‘It came into the garden last night,’ Callum said in a hushed voice. ‘It had no face, but then it took my face. What is it?’

‘It is a Fetch,’ said Jacob. ‘A demon from the Netherworld. And it has crossed into the world of daylight with bold impudence. It is a fearsome hunter, a tracker without parallel.’

‘A Fetch!’ Melissa cried. ‘Of course – how stupid of me! “The dark reflection”!’

‘You know it?’ Jacob asked in surprise.

‘I know of it,’ Melissa answered. ‘I should have recognised it when Callum talked about it at my house earlier. But I was still so shocked about Ed, and worried about Callum being accused of murder, I just didn’t make the connection. Some translator I am! I know exactly what you’re talking about. They call a Fetch “the dark reflection” because it doesn’t have a face of its own, so if it wants to pass for a human it has to take on someone else’s face and form. It can’t even make up its own idea of a face – it has to use the face of someone it’s seen before. And . . .’

She turned to Callum in excited triumph.

‘It has a weakness!’ she exclaimed. ‘You can catch a Fetch off guard by showing it its own true reflection: it hates to look at its unmasked skin.’ Melissa shivered, and hopped from foot to foot a couple of times. It was growing colder. ‘It’s in my book, that dictionary I showed you.’

Jacob nodded, his hand still buried in Doom’s dark fur. ‘You are quite some translator,’ he said. ‘A human girl who can tell the Fetch’s weakness? A rare thing indeed.’

‘The Fetch ate . . .’ Callum swallowed and tried again. ‘The boy it killed, it ate his eyes. Why does it do that?’

Jacob’s mouth narrowed with distaste.

‘The eyes of its victims give the Fetch its power,’ he explained. ‘But there is another reason too. Some people believe that, after death, the eyes of a murder victim hold an image of the true face of their killer, seeing them for what they really are. It is an old myth, but I think there is some truth to it. The Fetch blinds its victims so that it does not have to look at its own reflection in their dead eyes.’

Callum couldn’t repress a shudder.

‘But why is it here?’

Jacob bowed his head. ‘It is hunting the chime children. There have never been many of our kind. Now there are fewer still. You may be the last chime child, Callum – the last living.’

Callum shook his head.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that now the Fetch is hunting you alone. You are its final victim. It will not rest until it has tracked you down and satisfied its hunger with your eyes.’

The easy catch outside the school has whetted the Hunter’s appetite. It has never felt more alert: its senses at their peak, its awareness of the real quarry electrifying. It knows where the boy is, knows exactly where to find him.

The Hunter tracks silently through the trees towards the abandoned church. The trail is clear and sharp. The Hunter does not need moonlight to find the way, but it enjoys the blue glow that will illuminate the terror on the boy’s face when he is finally caught. The game has gone on long enough.

The Hunter arrives at the church. But the quarry is not alone. There is a mortal girl there too. She is no matter, but there are other, more potent, beings as well: creatures of the Netherworld, an unusual ghost and a spirit hound. The ghost is speaking to the mortal children as if they share the same world.

The Hunter would rather not let these others watch it feed – a ghost will not scream and flee in terror of the Hunter as a living being will, and a Churchyard Grim is a formidable opponent. The Hunter does not fear such things; it does not understand fear, though it is amusing to see it in mortals. Still, for now the Hunter is outnumbered. Very likely it will not be able to take its prey by surprise here. The boy must be lured to his own, carefully guarded dwelling place, where the ghosts cannot enter.

The Hunter knows how it can cross that charmed threshold. It only needs an invitation. And it is already masked with the boy’s own face.

The Hunter smiles with its borrowed mouth. It passes by the church without any further hesitation.

It heads towards the lighted cottage.

Doom growled.

It was the same sound the great dog had made when Jacob first mentioned the Fetch, beginning low in the hound’s deep chest and rising to a dull roar. Then Doom spun round and snapped his long, white fangs. He took a few steps towards the western end of the church, where the dark tower squatted, and stopped, sniffing the air. The growl rose again in the beast’s throat as he gazed piercingly at the church wall, as though he could see or sense something beyond it.

‘Doom,’ Jacob said in his echoing voice, and the dog turned a querying head to look at his master. ‘Let. Sit. These mortal beings are safe enough here for the moment.’

Doom whined. It, too, was a fearful sound, like the wail of a man being tortured. Melissa covered her ears.

‘Quiet, Doom,’ Jacob ordered. ‘Guard the door, if you must. I have urgent business with the chime child.’

Doom slunk to the door in a rush of shadows and spread his enormous body at full length across the ruined threshold of the church. Callum felt increasingly trapped; not only was he surrounded by the church’s stone walls, but the entry was blocked by the waiting Grim.

Jacob’s bloodless lips quirked suddenly into his faint, wry smile.

‘You still fear we mean you harm.’ It wasn’t a question.

Callum took a deep breath. ‘You’ve agreed to trust Melissa. I’ve agreed to trust you. We’re even.’

Jacob nodded. ‘Good. Let me tell you what I am.’

‘We’re listening.’

The pale ghost looked away. He stood casually, with his gleaming white hands hidden in the invisible pockets of his trousers. His unwillingness to face Callum and Melissa as he spoke gave Jacob an air of embarrassment, as if he was sharing a shameful secret.