The Hunter Page 0,60
the turtle-eaten it right out of the shell.
I knew how upset that made him-how much he hated rats after that, Jenny thought. Why didn't I realize what they were in the parlor?
Because it hadn't seemed bad enough. Tom had been so afraid. But one thing Jenny had learned: Everybody's nightmare was scariest to them. You had to see it with them, get into their shoes, to understand just how scary.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "But, oh, Tom, your wrists-" They were torn, bleeding. He was wearing shackles like the kind his brother Bruce used in police work. The rest of him was wrapped up like Marley's ghost.
"I kept trying to get away," he said. "Not because of the rats. Because I saw you. He would come and hold up a mirror, and I could see you and what was happening to you. I saw you go through everything. When Summer died ..." He stopped to get control of himself, his face twisting.
Saw we? Jenny thought in horror. Pictures of what Tom might have seen when she and Julian were together flashed through her mind. Then she felt a backwash of relief. If Julian had been standing here holding a mirror, he must have been showing Tom the times when he-Julian-wasn't with Jenny. Still, she had to know.
"Did you ever see-him-in the mirror?"
"No. But he told me-he told me he was doing things to you. To all of you. He laughed about it."
Jenny gripped both his hands. "Don't you worry about him, Tom. He can't hurt us anymore. We're free, Tom-we've won. Now we just need to find the way out of here."
Tom looked at her, then nodded behind her. Jenny turned.
She'd missed it before, because Tom had so quickly captured her attention. There was a door, just like the door in the More Games store that led out onto Montevideo Street. But this door was partly open, showing darkness outside.
Standing before it, completely blocking the way, were a giant coiled snake and a large wolf.
"The Creeper and the Lurker. At last," Dee said.
"Just a slight problem," Michael said nervously.
They weren't real animals exactly-they looked more as if they'd been painted with luminous paint on the darkness. Like some special effect Zach might make for a photo. But the wolf breathed and the snake's fluorescent tongue flicked in and out. Jenny felt sure that they could move-and do harm.
She fingered Tom's chains. "He has to let us go. The rules were that if we got to the top of the house, we could go free."
"Not exactly," the liquid, elemental voice said from the back of the store.
He was dressed the way he had been in the More Games store, in that weird combination of cyberpunk and Byronic poet. The snake tattoo was back on his wrist.
He looked as laconic as he had in the store, and as beautiful. His hair was like moonstone, white with a shimmery blue glow inside. In this dim light his eyes were midnight blue.
He looked-charming, sinister, and slightly mad. A demon prince with the face of an angel.
Jenny was suddenly very frightened.
And much more alert. Seeing Julian cleared the cobwebs out of your brain instantly. She straightened her back, still kneeling.
The others were gathering themselves, too. What light there was caught Zach's light hair and the gold clasp of Audrey's Brunetti calfskin belt. Jenny could see by their faces that they knew Julian better now-not because they'd seen him in the Game but because they understood what he was.
Julian smiled his strange, sweet smile.
"You all wanted to know who I am. Well, I'll give you a final riddle," he said. "I'm a Visitor from the stars. I'm the Erlking. I'm Loki. I'm Puck. I'm the Hunter. I'm the Shadow Man. I'm your nightmares come true."
"We figured that out," Jenny said, quietly, steadily. "And we played your game and won. Now we want to go home."
"You didn't let me finish," Julian said, turning the smile on her. "Do you remember, when you first came in the game store, I showed you the ancient Tibetan game of goats and tigers?" He gestured, one of his easy, flowing motions, and Jenny saw the bronze board on a table. Tiny figures, also bronze, sat on it somewhat like chess pieces.
"Well, that's what you've really been playing," Julian said, and at the sound of his voice Jenny felt the walls closing in. He smiled at her particularly.
"You are all the innocent little goats ... and I'm the tiger."
Tom's hands were gripping Jenny's