Robin Jarvis-Jax 01 Dancing Jax (10 page)

“You… you can’t speak to me like that!” the woman spluttered.

“I’ll speak to you any way I want, you sow-brained fleck of crud. Don’t come here, boasting about your ignorance, and parade your prejudices about books with pictures in them to me, not to ME! And definitely not while you have this sacred text in your uncouth, porcine trotters. Tell me, do you always smell of sweaty ham or is it a special day today?”

The woman was so outraged by his verbal assault that she raised her hand to strike him. Suddenly two tall men with sooty faces were in his place and towered over her threateningly.

“You want to make some new friends in hospital?” Dave growled.

“Get gone,” Charlie spat. “No one touches the Ismus. The next time I see your fat pig face – it’ll have my fist in it.”

The woman shrank back. “I’ll have the law on you!” she cried. “You’re raving mad!”

“Oink away, Madam,” the Ismus laughed, reclining on the sill of the van and stretching his long legs. “You’ll learn.”

With an unhappy, frightened glance at Shiela, the woman escaped into the crowd.

“She’ll be back,” he predicted. “And by then she’ll be desperate to pay whatever I ask. Remember her, and her yellow flip-flops. If she’s back next week, don’t let her have a copy for less than seventy.”

“Seventy pounds?” Shiela asked in disbelief.

“And two grand the week after. Oh, she’ll pay it,” he assured her. “These works will be going for a lot more by the time we’re down to the last crate – a whole lot more.”

As the afternoon wore on, more people were drawn to the table. None of them were as objectionable as the first woman and so the amount of books finally began to dwindle.

Sandra Dixon had come to the boot fair to escape the suffocating attention of her mother. Since the attack on her, Mrs Dixon hadn’t let the girl out of her sight. Sandra had phoned her friend, Debbie Gaskill, about it and they had been messaging one another all weekend, but Mrs Dixon had always been hovering close by.

Sandra had felt strangely numb when she learned that two of her attackers had been killed in what was becoming known as the Felixstowe Disaster. Her mother had sniffed in marked disappointment and, behind tightly folded arms, stated, “Shame it wasn’t all three of them!”

Sandra wasn’t so malicious. She explained to Debbie how weird she felt, still bearing the bruises those dead girls had inflicted on her. It creeped her out completely. Her living skin displayed, in ugly purples and yellows, the last vivid impressions Ashleigh and Keeley had made in this world and, when those marks faded, what would be left to show for their brief lives?

It was a wonder Mrs Dixon had allowed Sandra out that Sunday afternoon, but the girl’s younger brothers needed attention too so she relented, with the proviso that Sandra return after three hours.

It was good for Sandra to feel the salt breeze on her face as she walked on the shingled beach, even though it made the cut on her lip zing and tingle. She had gazed out at the broad horizon for a full twenty minutes without moving. Then she continued on her lonely way down the shore until she saw the Martello tower in the distance and remembered the boot fair would be on today.

When she found the camper van with its stall of old books, she paused and examined them curiously.

“Lovely!” she exclaimed to the woman standing by the van. “I really like old books like this. Is it a story or a medieval history? Nice illustrations – very clean lines. They remind me of the ones in early Rupert Bear annuals. I’ve got four of those from before World War Two. My gran gave them to me. I love them.”

Shiela looked at the willowy girl with the swollen lip and bruised cheekbone and pitied her. She was too fragile to enter the world of the Dancing Jacks. It would overwhelm and crush her immediately.

“Move on,” Shiela said in an urgent whisper. “This isn’t for you.”

Sandra wasn’t certain she had heard her correctly. “Pardon?”

Shiela cast an anxious eye into the van where the Ismus and his bodyguards were reading intently.

“Go, now,” she told the girl. “For God’s sake, go!”

“I only want to buy it!” Sandra replied, bewildered. “What’s the matter with you?”

Shiela was scared the men would hear, so she shook her head and quickly took the girl’s money.

“Don’t read it,” she hissed at her as the girl walked off. “Throw it away!”

Sandra thought the woman must be a bit disturbed. Perhaps the van was from a day centre or a clinic. Then she glimpsed the blackened faces of two of its occupants and was certain of it. They were rocking backwards and forwards.

Turning discreetly away, she saw something that drove the strange woman and the VW van from her mind. It was quarter to three and Conor Westlake was still waiting for Emma to turn up. He was sitting on the sea wall and looking in Sandra’s direction. She hoped the lout had not seen her. Ducking behind a group of people, she dodged out of sight and pushed through the crowds to return home, clutching the book.

The afternoon wore on, Conor met with Emma and then he too bought a copy and the pile of books continued to diminish. The Ismus was pleased.

When four o’clock came and the vendors began packing their unwanted goods back into their cars, there were only three copies of Dancing Jacks left on the table.

Martin Baxter and Paul wound their way through the drifting people. Carol had done another night shift at the hospital and was now fast asleep at home. Martin greatly enjoyed coming to the boot fair. Sometimes he found treasures to add to his collection, or an annual he had owned as a child. The nostalgia of seeing those well-remembered pages after all those years made him both sad and happy at the same time. Carol told him he was in love with his own childhood and said he would never truly grow up. Martin couldn’t argue with her there.

To him the past was a safer, friendlier place than the world he inhabited as an adult. Life just seemed so much better back then, even though it was less luxurious and the best gadget ever was a pair of shoes with a built-in compass and animal paw prints on the soles to confuse your enemies. People knew who they were and where they fitted into the workings of society. Now nobody knew and everyone was dissatisfied, always scrabbling after more stuff, because that was the only way they could measure their success. No one understood the value of anything any more and things were chucked away simply because the latest version had come out, not because they were broken.

Before Carol and Paul had entered his life, Martin had felt pretty much obsolete himself. Perhaps that was why he had retreated so much into his fantasy world. Now it was such a major part of his life he could never break out of it, not that he wanted to.

That Sunday afternoon he was very pleased with himself at the boot fair. He had found in a box of odds and ends a Dinky Eagle Transporter from Space: 1999 and it was in almost mint condition. That evening it too would be suspended from the ceiling of his inner sanctum. He might even watch an episode. He had them all.

A momentary twinge of guilt troubled him. None of this was really appropriate on the day he had learned just how many of his pupils had perished in the disaster. Another pang of guilt twisted inside his conscience as he remembered the relief he had felt when he saw that none of his favourite students had died. It had mortified him that he could be so callous. And yet he wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to pretend he would miss Ashleigh or Keeley. Did that make him a wicked, heartless person – or merely an honest one? He had no idea, but he had kept those shameful thoughts to himself and didn’t mention them to Carol because he knew they would shock her.

Driving that confusion from his mind, he patted the spaceship in his coat pocket and went back to wondering which season to pick tonight’s episode from: po-faced series one – or the dafter series two? Then Paul nipped in front of him and picked up the very last copy of Dancing Jacks on sale that day.

“Cool,” the boy said, appreciating the quaint, period cover.

A strange-looking man in a funny leather jacket bowed to him. “You like the look of it, do you?” he asked.

“It looks like a magic book,” the boy said.

The Ismus laughed out loud. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “What if I were to tell you that it is – the most magickal book of wonders and secrets in the whole wide world?”

“Are there wizards in it?”

“No wizards, but there is a Holy Enchanter and Old Ramptana, the Court Magician. Between you and me – he is a bit useless. In fact, everyone knows it except him. Then there’s Malinda, the retired Fairy Godmother, who had her wings clipped off by the Bad Shepherd and now lives in a tumbledown cottage in the haunted forest.”

“Wicked!”

“No, she’s a good old sort is Malinda, not like Haxxentrot, the crabby witch in the Forbidden Tower. You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her: she’s an evil old hag and always trying to spoil the happy life of the Court. Malinda is much nicer. She gives away charms and enchanted trinkets to those brave enough to seek her out in that perilous place. Once she gave a pair of silent shoes to the Jack of Diamonds; no matter how heavy his tread, no matter what he stepped upon, he made no sound whatsoever. That is how he stole away the Lockpick’s keys when he lay sleeping in his chamber strewn with eggshells.”

Paul listened, entranced. The man spoke as if the place was real and he actually knew the characters that lived there. He really was convincing.

Martin stood a little distance away. He had decided to plump for a season two episode. He had always liked the shape-changer in it – with the lumpy eyebrows and iffy blusher sideburns.

He smiled at the spellbound boy. He was a great kid. Carol had done an amazing job raising him on her own.

“Mr Baxter?” a small, nervous voice asked close by.

Martin looked around and saw that a young, ashen-faced woman was addressing him. He was about to nod at her politely, when there was a flicker of recognition. That face…

“Shiela?” he said uncertainly. “Shiela Doyle?”

The woman smiled in confirmation. “You remember,” she said and realised she had not been so pleased to see anyone for such a long time.

“Course I do,” he told her. “You were one of my stars. Went to university, didn’t you? Physics, wasn’t it?”

She knew he was eyeing her shabby clothes and unwashed hair.

“I dropped out in the second year,” she explained.

“Oh, sorry to hear that. You were one of the smart ones, Shiela.”

“It wasn’t what I wanted,” she said. “Or so I thought at the time…”

“You all right? You look a bit on edge.”

The woman seemed wrung with indecision and concern. “Mr Baxter,” she began falteringly. “I wonder… do you think I could…?”

Her attention was suddenly diverted by the Ismus talking intently to the young boy.

“Is that kid with you?” she asked in surprise.

Martin chuckled. “He is indeedy.”

“You didn’t have any kids when I was at school, did you?”

“He’s my partner’s lad,” he informed her. “Might just as well be mine though, the way we get along.”

“I see…”

“What were you going to say?”

“Never mind that,” she said quickly. “Don’t let him buy that book. It’s not… healthy.”

Martin followed her glance. He observed the unshaven, pale features of the Ismus and thought he looked like a dealer.

“Shiela,” he whispered. “You sure you’re OK? Are you in trouble? Is it drugs?”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Please listen to me!” she said.

“Hey, Martin!” Paul cried out triumphantly, clasping the Dancing Jacks in both hands. “Look what I’ve got! This man’s just let me have it for nothing!”

“Oh, no,” Shiela breathed.

Chapter 11

H
ere dances Hearts’ fair daughter, see what the curse has brought her. Who can resist her rosebud lips? The bitterest soul they slaughter.

S
ANDRA
’
S BROTHERS WERE
rampaging around the house and yelling at one another as usual. She closed the door of her tidy, apple-white room and sat at her homework table with a fresh mug of tea. Switching on the lamp, she tried to read the poetry book she was currently enjoying, but the din of her brothers kept intruding on her concentration. She leafed through some schoolwork, but their shouts and screams made any study impossible.

The girl took her MP3 player from the drawer and tried to blot out their riot, but she could still hear them crashing around.

Sandra’s eyes fell on the old children’s book she had bought that afternoon. Taking it in her hands, she examined the illustrations again. Gradually the commotion in the house grew fainter until a deep silence filled her room. Outside the window the light of the afternoon grew dim. Only the lamp was shining, making the printed pages glow in her fingers.

Sandra could feel a buzzing in her head. As she began to read, she felt as though something was ebbing away, something vital was trickling out of her, but she could not tear her eyes from the words of Austerly Fellows. A shadow rose up behind and fell across her neck. Sandra Dixon began to sway backwards and forwards in the chair.

The Jill of Hearts pulled the plum-coloured velvet cloak around her shoulders and covered her head with the ermine-trimmed hood. She urged her horse forward. Wisps of vapour escaped her lips as she spoke.

It was a crisp winter’s night. The moon was high and a covering of deep, frost-glittering snow lay across the realm. Glancing back, the pale girl surveyed the high, solid towers of Mooncaster. The white stonework glimmered like frozen milk and only a handful of windows burned with lantern light. How beautiful the castle appeared against the dark, star-bejewelled sky. She hoped she would return there soon, before she was missed, and before the effects of the sleeping potion that she had fed to Mauger wore off. She hoped her mother, the Queen of Hearts, had brewed it good and strong. Shuddering, she drove all thoughts of that dread monster to the back of her mind. That night she must ride.

Spurring her horse on, she rode through the small village of Mooncot. The peasantry were abed, but threads of pleasant-smelling woodsmoke still climbed from the chimneys of their pretty cottages. The pond in the village green was a clouded ice mirror and the disc of the moon burned like white fire over its surface. The coal eyes of a jolly snowman were the only witness to her passing. Soon the village was left behind and the wintry countryside rolled by, past linen-like meadows and ice-locked streams, past frost-painted hedgerows sparkling with winter diamonds.

The Jill of Hearts’ face felt just as cold as that of the snowman, but when she saw the sprawling woodland of Hunter’s Chase in the distance, her cheeks burned with excitement.

The lane dwindled to a track and that into a footpath across a field that eventually pierced the outlying thickets of Hunter’s Chase. The desolate voice of a wolf cried out in the distance. The horse stamped and tossed its head, blowing steam from its nostrils.

“Peace,” the girl calmed it. “Hungry Mister Wolf is atop the hills, crying at the empty moon dish. He will not come down to trouble us. Be of stout heart.”

The beast shook its head once more.

“We must enter the woodland,” she commanded.

With hesitant steps, the horse passed into the trees.

Hunter’s Chase was a wild, perilous corner of the Kingdom. There were many dangers beneath its branches. In high summer the smothering leaves and tangled undergrowth kept the paths dark and secret, but in this stark chill, all was laid bare. The Jill of Hearts marvelled at the icicle curtains that spiked down from the branches and the crystal pillars the longer ones had formed when they reached the ground. The surrounding trees were silver and white, their naked nooks and crooks draped with hammocks and bolsters of snow. The cold, sharp air tingled with enchantment.

A wolf howled again. This time it was closer. Then another lonely howl joined it. The horse trembled.

“Fear not,” Jill said in a whisper. “They are still far off. We shall be safe and protected ere they reach us.”

“Your steed has better wits than you, my Lady,” a deep voice said suddenly. “You should heed it. This is no place for the likes of one so young and fair and brimming with blood.”

The Jill of Hearts started and looked around her in fear and astonishment.

A tall, wild-looking man stepped out from behind one of the frozen cascades ahead. The girl pulled on the reins and reached for the dagger at her side.

“Declare yourself!” she commanded.

The man was clad from head to toe in skins and furs. A large axe was strapped to his brawny back beneath a cloak made from many hides and a beaver-skin hat covered his bearded head.

“I am the Woodman,” he explained. “May I ask where you are bound on this bitter night when all folk should be huddled before their fires?”

Jill tried to remember what her governess had told her about the Woodman of Hunter’s Chase, but she could not. Only one personage had ever interested her in this dangerous place. She had not paid attention to the other stories.

“I do not see why it is any of your concern, Master Woodman,” she answered loftily.

The man chortled and stepped nearer. “Know you the terrors of this wood?” he asked. “Know you of the cave up that trail yonder, where the cinnamon bear dwells? Have you not heard of the gnomes who bide beneath ancient roots and reach up with twiggy hands to trip and catch the lost traveller then slit his throat and feed the blood and ground-up bones to the tree? Or the sounder of savage boars with tusks like scimitars that could cut the legs clean off your horse in a twinkling? Perhaps you’ve heard of the Bad Shepherd who roams here betimes? Or of the Mistletoe King who calls down curses to punish the rash and foolhardy? This wood stretches close to the border and many dark creatures steal in over that unguarded boundary. And what of the wolves, my Lady? Surely you have heard them a-howling?”

Even as he said it, the mournful howls began again. They were even closer now and there were more than two of them.

“I am not afraid,” Jill said defiantly. “I know where my path takes me. I shall be safe there.”

The Woodman chuckled with understanding. “Then it is Malinda’s cottage you seek!” he declared. “On such a frost-biting night as this, no other bolt-hole would offer protection. What can that old Fairy Godmother do for you, I’m wondering?”

“Again that is my business,” she told him.

He bowed in apology. “My manners are as rough and rude as my garments,” he said. “Let me atone by leading you to the one secure shelter in this wild edge of the Kingdom – the cottage of Malinda. No evil thing may enter her fences, though they prowl and skulk all around, throughout the hungry night – testing and trying.”

The girl wanted to refuse his offer, but the howling of the wolves frightened her. The man came closer. The horse shuddered and the girl could smell the animal skins he wore, mingled with his own grease and musk.

“Lead me then,” she instructed.

The Woodman bowed again and smiled. His teeth were white as the surrounding snow and sharp as the hanging ice.

“Love philtres are what most maidens go knocking on Malinda’s door for,” he said. “Or charms to enhance or restore their beauty. You have no need of either. Ha – you blush, my Lady!”

“You must not say such things,” she chided him. “Surely you are used to praise and tributes? Do youths and princelings not line up to court you? Is there no wooing done within the white walls of Mooncaster? Are the contents of their britches frozen also?”

“Enough, Sir!” she scolded. “Your talk is not seemly.”

“And yet I see it has kindled a rosy April in your cheeks!” he laughed. “We know naught of ‘seemly’ in my wood. The stags rut, the doves bill and coo, the rabbits… well, they do what rabbits do best.”

He flashed his smile again. It was wider than before.

“Then I am glad I do not live in this wood,” Jill replied. “Now tell me, Sir. What errand lures you from hearth and home this night?”

“I go to meet my brothers,” he told her. “When the moon is as white and round as this, we gather and go hunting.”

“What quarry can there be in the hollows of a winter night?”

The howling was nearer. The girl gripped the reins tightly to keep from shaking.

“There is always something to hunt down,” he said, his colourless eyes shining at her.

“And your brothers,” she continued. “Are they woodmen also?”

“They live in the woods,” he answered, stroking the horse’s neck with his hairy hands.

“Is it much further? Are you certain we follow the correct path? Should we not have turned left when it divided back there?”

“No, indeed,” he said. “We are almost at the end.”

“Listen to those horrors!” she gasped. “Let us hasten; they sound almost upon us.”

“They are famished,” he said, hearkening to the chilling wolf calls. “Your steed’s sweat has laced the air. Their snouts are tracking it. They want to feast on its steaming flesh. They smell it as strongly as I can scent the fear that flows from you, my Lady.”

“Take up your axe!” she urged. “We will have need. Look – over there! Through the trees! A shape. A wolf. There – another!”

The wolves were fast. They loped through the woodland swiftly, their pale eyes glaring at her with steady malevolence.

“Your axe, Sir!” she said again. “They are running us round and closing!”

The Woodman turned about, watching the circling wolves drawing nearer. The Jill of Hearts drew her dagger and brandished it in warning.

“Begone!” she shouted in as fierce a voice as she could manage.

Then, to her surprise, the man began to laugh. It was a warm, friendly sound and she stared at him incredulously. Had he gone mad?

“Welcome!” he called. “Well met, my brothers. See what I have trapped us. Fill your wagging bellies on the beast, but let the girl feed my appetite before her blood is drunk.”

The wolves came prowling from the trees. Loud, threatening growls rumbled deep within their throats. The Woodman shook his head and cast off the cloak of hides. With it went his clothes – and the very skin he stood in. A monstrous figure of fur, claw and muscle remained.

“Werewolf!” the girl shrieked.

The wolves pounced. The nightmare leaped at her. She threw her dagger at his throat and spurred the horse away. The steed galloped down the icy path. The wolves went rushing after.

A fiercer, much louder gargling howl shook the snow-laden trees. The werewolf tore the blade from his neck and licked it. Then, with a snarl, he bounded in pursuit.

Horse and rider fled deeper into the wood. The pack and its fearsome leader were close behind. The hunt was on.

The Jill of Hearts could hear the werewolf bellowing. The horse raced as fast as the winding path permitted. Low branches and fallen trees checked the pace. It leaped and veered, but the hunters were closing. Sharp teeth clamped about the horse’s tail. It kicked back with its hooves. The wolf went flying against a tree and broke its neck. Another wolf sprang into its place. Through their ranks the horrific werewolf came charging. One of his claws lashed out and ripped a gash through the velvet cloak.

The girl screamed and ducked as the other claw came swiping for her head.

Upon both sides of the galloping horse a wolf drew level. Jill knew they were preparing to jump up and bite. She saw another race on ahead then spin around and tense, ready to leap.

She pulled to the left. The ground rose steeply there and she could see no trees beyond a line of great oaks. Her only hope was to reach open ground. Then her mount could make a desperate dash and the wolves would never catch them.

Her horse whinnied as it swerved aside. It tore up the slope, trampling one of the wolves into the snow with a shrill yelp and a crunching of bones. The other fiends came darting up and the werewolf let out a blood-curdling roar.

“Almost there!” Jill cried. “Almost at the top, then you run – run like you never have before. Fly through the darkness, my love.”

A jaw came leaping at her arm. She smacked it away. Another bit at the hem of her cloak and almost dragged her from the saddle.

Then they reached the top. But the Jill of Heart’s hopes were shattered. It was only a ridge, encircling a wide, basin-shaped glade. They were doomed. The werewolf came storming up to her and threw back its hideous head to howl. But the chase was not over yet. The ridge was narrow and the horse slithered and slipped. Neighing wildly, it went tumbling down the other side. Jill screamed and was flung clear. She rolled and somersaulted, falling helplessly down into the snow-filled glade below, and plunged head first into a deep drift.

An instant later she exploded out of it, stumbling free and whirling around, ready to fight to her last breath.

Her horse was already staggering upright and shaking its mane. But where were their pursuers?

The girl looked upwards. The wolves were still on the ridge. They and the horror that stood amongst them were questing the air. She saw their eyes gleaming, but they were not staring at her. With her heart pounding, she realised that something was behind her – something that even they were wary of. Trembling, she turned.