The Hunter Page 0,31

parts of them were. They were deformed.

The elf who had spoken had one normal hand and one hand like a cow's split hoof. It was black and shiny like patent leather. Jenny was afraid she was going to be sick.

Another of them had a tail hanging out of his breeches-a long, pink naked tail like a rat's. It swished. A third had two little horn-buds swelling on his forehead. A fourth had glossy dark hair growing on his neck.

Every one of them had some deformity. And they were real. Not like the pasted-together monstrosities Jenny had seen in the Ripley's Believe It or Not! exhibit.

"Audrey, you've got to get up," she whispered, swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat. "Audrey, if you don't I think they'll make you." Then, with desperate inspiration: "Do you want them to see you lying here like this? I bet your mascara's smeared halfway down your face."

The appeal to Audrey's pride worked where nothing else might have. She slowly sat up, brushing at her cheeks.

"It's waterproof," she said defiantly. Her fingers went automatically to adjust the combs in her French twist, and then she saw the elves.

Her chestnut eyes widened until they showed white all around. She was staring at the cow's-hoof hand. Jenny gripped her arm tightly.

"Are they what you thought they were?"

Audrey pressed her lips together and nodded.

The elf spoke again, sharply, stepping forward. Audrey cringed back. Slowly and carefully Jenny urged her to stand.

"Audrey, we've got to go with them," she whispered. She was afraid that if Audrey balked, the elves were going to touch them. The thought of that-of being touched by that shiny hoof or by the flipper she saw one of the others had-was more than Jenny could bear. "Please, Audrey," she whispered.

It was easy for the elves to lead them. All they had to do was close in from one direction, and the girls would move in the other.

They walked like that, surrounded by a circle of lanterns, down a passage that sloped on and on. Other passages branched away. Clearly the place was big-and they were going deeper and deeper into it.

Walking calmed Jenny a little. The rocks around

them took every imaginable shape-some like twisting antlers, others like windblown grass. There were lacy falls of angel hair, and huge columns covered with formations like exquisite flowers or the gills of mushrooms.

The air smelled like rain-damp earth. It was surprisingly warm.

Jenny tightened her supporting grip on Audrey's arm.

"Say something to them," she suggested. "Ask them where we're going."

In her own way Audrey was as brave as Dee. Her spiky eyelashes were starred together from crying, and she didn't look at the elf beside her. But she spoke to him in level tones.

"He says they're taking us to the Erlking," she said after a moment. Now Jenny could hear taut, shaking control in her voice. "That means-elf king, I think. I remember the story about the Erlking now. He's a kind of evil spirit who haunts the Black Forest. He's supposed to-take people. Especially young girls and children."

Dee pounced. "Why girls?"

Audrey spoke between clenched teeth. "You guess. But all the dark elves are that way. Well, look at them. They're all men. It's a male race."

With a shock, Jenny realized that it was true. The delicacy of their features had fooled her. Every one of their captors was beautiful-and male.

Dee's grin was bloodthirsty. "Time to fight."

"No," Jenny said tensely. Her heart was pounding, but she tried to quiet it. "There are too many of them; we wouldn't have a chance. And anyway, we're supposed to face our nightmares, remember? If the

Erlking is what Audrey's most afraid of, he must be what we have to face."

"It's a stupid nightmare anyway," Dee hissed, her supple shoulders hunching as if an ice cube were going down her back.

"Believe me," Audrey said bitingly, "I wish you weren't in it with me."

The two girls ignored each other as they walked on through subterranean caverns of cathedral spaciousness. Glittering white gypsum crystals powdered everything, catching the lantern light. Coarse rock dust crunched underneath Jenny's feet.

"I don't understand," Audrey whispered. "This can't have come out of my mind. I've never seen anything like it."

"I have," Dee said, and even her voice was subdued. "Spelunking in New Mexico. But it wasn't so-much."

At last they reached the biggest cavern of all.

They passed giant red pillars like coral reefs which gave Jenny the disconcerting feeling of being underwater.

They were heading straight for an enormous wall of flame-colored