The Chase Page 0,55

said at last. "We've got to find him."

"He told me to keep you here-"

"Nothing will keep me here. I'm going, Michael. The only question is whether you're going with me."

Michael gulped, then said, "I'm going."

"Then let's get out of here. We may already be too late."

Chapter 14

Tom had never shot a gun before. He'd taken this rifle from a case in Zach's father's den. Zach's father wasn't going to be happy when he found it missing, or when he found the back door jimmied open, either.

But Tom wasn't going to be around to hear about it.

He had no illusions on that. If he was right, this was strictly a one-way trip.

Of course, Julian's base might not be up here after all. There weren't any doors on this mountain slope, and Julian had told Jenny the others were behind a door. But this was definitely a place where the wolf and the snake hung out-and Tom didn't expect them to pass up the chance to attack him.

If he even got one of them, Jenny's chances would be better. If he got both, maybe she could actually make it.

The idea had first come to him the night Audrey had disappeared, when they'd all been talking in Michael's living room. Michael and Dee had been saying that the only way to win Julian's game was to find the base, and Tom had said, "There might be another way"-and then stopped. The other way that he'd thought of was too dangerous. Too dangerous for Jenny, anyway. It wasn't a trip he wanted her making.

He'd thought about his idea during the next two days, going over it, debating about whether to tell Dee. She'd want to be in on it, he knew. But that would mean leaving Jenny practically unprotected. That was the basic problem with the idea-if Tom left Jenny, he left her vulnerable.

Then Dee had disappeared-and suddenly the choice had become critical. Soon Jenny wouldn't have anyone to protect her... and Julian could creep in through her dreams.

That was what had decided Tom in the end. He couldn't keep Julian out of the apartment-which meant he was no good to Jenny there. What he could do-maybe-was to give her one less enemy to fight.

I'll bet it took both of them-the wolf and the snake-to get Dee, he thought, trudging through the damp and puddling creek bed. Dee could've stood up to either one of them alone-but not both.

Maybe Jenny would have a chance against one or the other of them alone. Or maybe-if Tom's luck really held-he could get both before Julian killed him.

No one else had even suggested going after the animals. It simply hadn't occurred to them. They all thought of the creatures as phantoms-and, God, no wonder. The Shadow Wolf Tom had seen on the beach had looked like a moving nightmare, a luminous specter. But it had been flesh and blood.

That was what Tom's first trip out here had shown. The black and tarry stuff he'd scraped off that rock was blood. Gordie must have wounded one of the animals before it got him. The creatures could bleed -as Tom had proved for himself on the beach. He'd cut the wolf, and his knife had come away dark.

They could bleed, and they left physical marks behind, like the scratches on Audrey's car. They had some sort of material existence. Maybe they could die.

Tom was going to find out.

Rain was splattering his face. Cold rain, stinging drops-not like a spring shower. The cattails in the creek bed were swaying and dripping. Everything was gray.

He was getting near the place. Not far now. Tom was coming from the south, downwind of the three sycamores. Maybe he could surprise them.

In the gray cold he comforted himself with a picture of Jenny. Jenny-all warmth and sunlight. Golden-glowing, her hair streaming back in the wind. Jenny in the summertime, safe and happy and laughing. That was what Tom wanted-for Jenny to see another summer. In this world instead of the world of ice and shadows.

Even if he wasn't there to see it with her.

Movement ahead. Tom squinted into the rain, then smiled grimly. Yes, it was there. Black against the gray background, impossibly big, glowing with its own blue light like a rotten log full of foxfire. A creature that looked like a wolf painted with luminous paint on darkness. The sight of it alone was enough to send a human running and screaming, mind broken.

Because it wasn't real-it was super-real. It was