The Hunter Page 0,17

Jenny thought. I've had enough, now. Please, I'm sorry; let it be a dream.

She was clutching the carpet so tensely that her fingernails were bending back. It hurt, and the pain didn't wake her up. Nothing changed. Her friends were still gone.

The boy in black was still there.

"Where did they go? What did you do with them?" she said. She was so dazed that it came out as a sort of insane calm.

Julian smiled whimsically. "They're upstairs, scattered around the house, waiting to face their nightmares. Waiting for you. You'll find them as you go through the Game."

"As I go?" Jenny said stupidly. "Look, you don't understand. I don't know what's-"

"You're the main player here, you know," he interrupted, gently chiding. "The door back to your world is at the top of the house, and it's open. If you can get to it, you can go. Bring your friends and they can leave, too."

Jenny's mind was still stuck on one thing. "Where's Tom? I want-"

"Your-Tom-is at the top." He pronounced the name as if it were something not mentioned in polite society. "I'll be giving him my special attention. You'll see him when you get there-if you get there."

"Look, please. I don't want to play any game." Jenny was still speaking as if this was all a mistake that would be cleared up somehow, as long as she stayed rational. As long as she avoided his eyes. "I don't know what you're thinking, but-"

He interrupted again. "And if you don't get there, then I win. And you stay here, with me."

"What do you mean-with you?" Jenny said sharply, jerked out of her courtesy.

He smiled. "I mean that you stay in this place, in my world. With me-as mine."

Jenny stared at him-and then she was on her feet, her composure shattering. "You're out of your mind!" she said. She would have lunged at him, herself, if she'd ever had any practice at violence.

"Careful, Jenny."

She stopped, frightened by what she sensed in him. Looking into his eyes, she saw something so alien, so terrifying, that she couldn't move. It was then, at last, that she believed what was happening. Full realization of what this boy had done, of everything that had happened tonight, crashed in on her. The young man standing before her, looking almost human, could do magic.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

All her violence had drained away, replaced by a fear older and deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. An old, old recognition. Something inside her knew him from a time when girls took skin bags to the river to get water, a time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. From a time before electric lights, before candles, when darkness was fended off with stone lamps. When darkness was the greatest danger of all.

Jenny looked at the boy standing beside her with his hair shining like moonlight. If Darkness had taken on a face and a voice, if the powers of night had gathered themselves together and formed themselves into a human being, they would have made something like this.

"Who are you?" whispered Jenny.

"Don't you know yet?"

Jenny shook her head.

"Never mind. You will, before the Game is over."

Jenny tried to regain her calm. "Look-let's just ... You were at the game store."

"I was waiting for you."

"So this was all-set up? But why me? Why are you doing this to me?" Jenny could feel hysteria tugging at her again.

Then he said it. He was looking at her with eyes like the sky on a November morning, one corner of his mouth turned up. He spoke gravely and a little formally.

"Because," he said, "I've fallen in love with you."

Jenny stared at him.

"Surprised? You shouldn't be. I first saw you a long time ago-you were such a pretty little girl. As if there was sunshine all around you. Do you know the story of Hades?"

"What?" She didn't like this mercurial jumping from subject to subject.

"Hades," he said encouragingly, like someone helping her cram for a final. "Greek god of the Underworld. Ruler there. He lived in the world of shadows-and he was lonely. And then one day he looked up to the earth's surface and saw Persephone. Picking wildflowers, I think. Laughing. He fell in love with her on the spot. He wanted to make her his queen, but he knew perfectly well she wouldn't go with him willingly. So ..."

"So?" Jenny got out.

"So he hitched his black horses to his chariot. And the earth split open in front of Persephone's feet.