Adam Slater - Hunted

All the air was knocked out of Callum’s lungs and he couldn’t breathe. But blind instinct, his own reliable chime child Luck, made Callum roll aside as the Fetch’s talons thrust at his face. A blade-like claw missed his eye by millimetres and scythed open a bloody gash in his skin from his cheekbone to his hairline. Callum gasped, clapping one hand to his torn face, and saw that behind the Fetch’s back, Melissa had again taken advantage of being ignored long enough to seize the poker from the fireplace.

Callum shook his head desperately. He knew the Fetch was too strong for him – probably too strong for both of them together. Melissa’s only hope was to avoid attracting attention.

Iron. Melissa mouthed. It’s iron.

Of course – Callum remembered now that Gran’s iron horseshoe and the rails that reinforced the brick wall were wards against the Netherworld.

The iron poker was not a sharpened lance, but it did have a hooked point for raking coals. As the Fetch loomed over Callum, ready for the kill, Melissa stepped up behind it and stabbed the hooked end into the back of the demon’s neck with all the force she could muster.

The Fetch roared in fury, and whirled to meet Melissa, jerking the poker out of her hands. Reaching behind itself, it wrenched the poker free, sending a jet of clear fluid spurting from the wound in its neck. With one clawed hand, the monster seized Melissa by the throat, hauling her off her feet, raising the other to gouge at her eyes.

Still on the floor, gasping for breath and half-blinded by the stinging wound across his face, Callum’s mind raced.

Didn’t this creature have any weakness, even with a hole in its neck spurting whatever strange liquid ran in its veins instead of blood?

And then the answer struck him. Melissa had known it – that was what had impressed Jacob, the thing that had changed his mind about her and made him decide she might be a useful ally. She had known the Fetch’s weakness – its own reflection.

Desperately, Callum scrambled towards the full-length curtains at the other side of the room.

‘Hey!’ Callum yelled. ‘Hey! I’m the one you want to fight! I’m the last chime child! Let her go!’

The Fetch’s dagger-like nails froze in front of Melissa’s face. She clawed at the other taloned hand, the one that held her by the throat in its crushing grip, choking and sobbing for air, trying to twist her face away.

Callum could only count on having the Fetch’s attention for one second. He didn’t have time to open the curtains. Instead, he swung round and ripped them off the wall.

All the lights that Gran had turned on to guide Callum home were burning brightly – the fire, the lamps and the overhead ceiling light. With so much light focused against them, the full-length glass doors reflected the entire room. Their bright surface doubled the cottage as clearly as a mirror.

The Fetch, still holding Melissa by the throat, found itself face to face with its own reflection.

It stared, frozen, its eyes bulging.

Then its talons went lax and Melissa fell in a gasping heap on the floor at its feet.

Outside the cottage, Doom howled. The noise rose around the little house like a storm of screaming wind. Melissa cowered. The Fetch stumbled forwards, shaking its ghastly head, like a dreamer waking from a nightmare.

But it was too late. Callum was already behind it, hurling himself into a rugby tackle. His body slammed into the Fetch’s knees, sending the monster flying. Almost in slow motion, Callum saw it reeling across the room towards the door. The glass shattered in a cascade of crystal shards, like an icy waterfall, as the Fetch fell through the door and out into the night.

Still barred from entering the house, Jacob stood in the garden, illuminated in the light flooding from the broken window. In his echoing voice, he rapped out a command that rang through the besieged cottage.

‘Doom – destroy!’

*

The howling Grim wakes the Hunter from its trance.

It feels pain – the first time it has known the sensation for countless years. It does not remember staring at its reflection, but it knows it has been tricked. It has been thrust outside the cottage walls against its will. It spins with teeth bared – it can see the treacherous boy. It reaches, snarling, towards the broken threshold of the shattered glass door.

But the Grim hound is as fast as the Hunter. Unleashed, with eager and violent delight, the black dog leaps.

The Hunter goes down beneath the shadowy body like a bundle of sticks. It raises its claws to fight, but the Grim has it in its jaws, fangs sparkling in the silver moonlight, savaging and tearing as the Hunter struggles beneath it.

The Hunter makes no sound, but it knows it has met its match at last.

Despite the shining redness of its skinless face, its blood is clear as water. There is no gruesome gore to paint the ground, nor are the Grim’s white teeth marred by any stain as it lowers its jaws to the Hunter’s neck, and . . .

Darkness.

Cold invaded the room.

Callum reached his unconscious grandmother first. Melissa was right behind him, hovering over his shoulder.

‘Is she all right? Oh please tell me she’s all right!’

There was a huge lump on the side of the old woman’s head where she’d hit the wall, but to Callum’s unspeakable relief, she was breathing steadily, and though her face was pale there was colour in her lips. Her skin was warm. Nothing seemed broken. Her pulse was steady.

‘Help me,’ Callum said. ‘Move these chairs, get this glass out of the way . . .’

Melissa grabbed the shawls and cushions from the armchairs and spread them over the floor. Callum gently arranged his grandmother on her side in the recovery position. He was surprised at how light and fragile her body was when she was lying still – normally she seemed so strong and energetic.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked Melissa, turning his head to look at her.

‘Yeah, just half strangled and scared brainless! But, Callum, your face!’ Melissa pulled off one of her glittering scarves and began to mop blood from his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, this scarf only cost ninety pence at Shaman’s . . .’

Callum laughed.

He looked at his grandmother’s pale face, and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Then he glanced up at Melissa, bent over him in concern. Her face was also pale, her big eyes wide with their now-familiar anxious look. Gran and Melissa had both been hurt, but they were all right. They’d survived.

And so have I.

‘Callum.’

Jacob was standing in the shattered doorway, still barred from entering the house. Callum smiled.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in, Jacob. You are welcome here.’

The pale boy bowed politely. Then he stepped easily across the cottage threshold. He picked his way cautiously around the scattered rowan berries and came to stand by the fire, near Melissa and Callum.

‘It is nice to be welcome,’ he said.

‘Should we call an ambulance?’ asked Melissa.

Jacob knelt down beside Gran and held his hand over her head for a moment. His eyes closed, as if he was concentrating on a distant voice that only he could hear. Then, after a moment, they opened again.

‘The old lady is not seriously hurt,’ he declared.

‘Thank God,’ breathed Callum, his shoulders sagging with relief.

‘But shouldn’t she see a doctor, just in case?’ asked Melissa.

‘If I were you, I would leave things be,’ replied Jacob. ‘Doctors will have too many questions that you cannot answer. She is strong and proud, this one. She will not thank you if she wakes to find strangers fussing over her.’