The Mortal Knife (14 page)

Adam wanted to ask more. Auntie Jo's tantalising hints had left him more confused, not less so. Unfortunately there was no way of pushing for more information without arousing Auntie Jo's suspicions – which would lead to the kind of grilling that made secret police look like nosey neighbours.

One thing was for sure. Adam had been right to be nervous on his last visit to the Realm of the Fates – and this time he'd be on his own.

The following morning Adam's thoughts were a whirl as he made his way to school. The bus ride passed in a blur of hazy scenarios where he fought his way through the Hinterland, dodging a monstrous enemy. He had spent most of Sunday evening lurking near his father's study, hoping to get in and get his hands on
The
Book of the Unknown Roads
but an exhausted Nathanial had spent the evening working while Aron did his first evening of solo call-outs. With no further information on the unseen menace in the Hinterland, Adam had considered a range of possible weapons, from rowan branches to ceremonial swords liberated from the vaults beneath the house. The problem was rowan branches were hard to fit in a schoolbag and Adam had never used a ceremonial sword for much more than dance practice. Without becoming an actual ninja in the next eight hours he would be more of a danger to himself than his unknown enemies.

He managed a brief chat with Melissa at the end of registration and promised to meet her in the art room at lunchtime for another posing session. If he was honest this was for the purely selfish reason that he hoped he'd be rewarded with a snog at the end. After all, knowing what lay ahead of him after school  …  it could well be the last kiss for the condemned man.

At break he had only just walked into the library when an excited Dan squawked his name and waved him over to their table. Archie and Spike were staring at the laptop screen intently. For a long, panic-stricken moment Adam wondered if his face had been successfully identified and whether he should leg it.

‘We did it! We finally got the Beast to take the bait!' Dan hissed, spraying the table and his friends with semi-chewed pumpkin seeds. His eyes were gleaming crazily with a mixture of excitement and terror. ‘He thinks the Wonderfish is for real!'

Adam moved behind Archie and Spike and studied the screen for confirmation. ‘So he finally logged in to his email?'

‘Yeah,' Spike murmured. ‘He got a text telling him that he'd won a prize and the claim link was in his email. Unfortunately it had expired but the Wonderfish was waiting by way of consolation.'

‘She's like the best thing I've ever drawn,' Archie said, his face reverent. ‘Seriously. She's the perfect woman, or as close as she can be without being a ninja. I thought even the Beast wouldn't believe that bit. I had to rub out the nunchucks.'

‘Probably wise,' Adam muttered studying the ‘photo'. Archie had managed to convert his modified drawing to what looked like a slightly blurred photograph. The picture still freaked him out, mainly because it looked a lot like Chloe. The thought of Archie dreaming about a girl who looked just like his little sister was a bit close to home for Adam's taste. ‘So did the Beast like the look of her?' (That idea was even worse.)

For the first time Spike grinned. ‘Oh yes. In fact, he decided to return the favour. Sent a few pictures of his own. I'm downloading them now.'

There was a ping from the laptop and a slide show of photos popped up. The first was innocuous enough: a close-up of the Beast showing his ‘hard' face. Dan whimpered and took a step back from the computer on instinct. The second showed the Beast shirtless in a pose reminiscent of an angry bodybuilder, muscles popping and teeth clenched. And the next one  … 

‘Bloody hell!' Spike said, stunned out of his usual maddening composure. ‘I did
not
want to see that!'

Adam contemplated sticking his head in a bucket of boiling water, in the hope of erasing the image of the Beast's naked buttocks from his cringing brain. ‘He doesn't hold back, does he?'

Dan held up one scrawny arm and wistfully clenched his right bicep. ‘If I was that massive I'd be taking photos of myself too.'

Archie held up his hand. ‘OK, let's just stop there. Thinking about your arms is bad enough but your arse is a step too far. The Beast is hooked on the Wonderfish. What happens next?'

There was a long pause as three pairs of eyes swivelled towards Adam. He hesitated, not sure what to say. The thing was, he'd been hanging out with Melissa in the art room and thus hadn't seen the Beast around. The art block, like the library, had teachers mad enough to challenge the Beast, so he tended to stay away from them. While he was leaving them alone it seemed unwise to rock the boat. ‘Well, maybe we can just keep emailing him. You can do some more pictures. Of Chl— of the Wonderfish.'

Archie leered horribly. ‘It would be my pleasure to keep drawing the Wonderfish. Maybe her next pictures can be the bikini shots.'

Dan shuddered. ‘Yeah but what if the Beast sends his version of the bikini shot? He might go full frontal next time.'

This was an unwelcome image and led to a roar of disgust and an angry ‘Ssssshhhhhh!' from Mrs Nostel, the school librarian. She brandished a box of herbal tea in their direction.

‘Sorry,' Adam hissed. He turned back to Spike. ‘Maybe let's just string him along for a while. At least then if I want to go for a walk with Melissa at lunchtime I won't need to worry about the Beast jumping me.'

‘You can always go out with her after school, you know,' Spike said. ‘I mean it's a bit naff always hanging out in school.'

‘Yeah, but he's still grounded, aren't you?' Dan sounded sympathetic.

Archie shook his head. ‘Seriously what did you actually
do
? I mean, you didn't actually kill anyone, did you?'

Pretty much the opposite
, Adam thought. ‘My parents are just really strict.'

Dan nodded violently. ‘Yeah, I bet they're like my parents. Always going on about doing my homework and studying and stuff, even though the exams are miles away!'

Adam almost laughed out loud at the thought of anyone in his house giving a monkey's uncle about homework but managed to mutter, ‘Yeah,
really
strict, totally obsessed with work.' It was true, they
were
obsessed with work – just not the school kind.

Spike sighed. ‘Well, until they lighten up I guess it's up to us to keep the Beast off your back.'

Archie grinned. ‘As long as the Beast keeps some clothes on
his
back I can live with that.'

Adam managed a pleasant lunchtime in the art room with Melissa. She did insist on doing some work as her deadline loomed closer but there were still some happy minutes left devoted to hanging out and kissing her. It was tricky getting the balance right. Kissing was brilliant but he actually liked talking to Melissa. He kept meaning to give her a call in the evening after school but it was hard to find a moment when no one was snooping about and listening. He was already in enough trouble; if Elise thought he had a girlfriend as well she would whip him out of school before his feet could even touch the ground.

He still hadn't seen what Melissa's artwork looked like and after the Beast's nude photos he was starting to get worried. The theme of the piece was passion. He didn't want to get big-headed, but there was plenty of passion when they kissed. In fact, there was a bit more passion than was really comfortable given where they were. What if Melissa was making her artwork really true to life? Adam knew there was going to be a big display of all the work in a couple of weeks. Some special guest was supposed to be coming in too. He didn't want to have his naked flesh revealed to the whole school. His mates would never let him live it down.

But all day, no matter how much fun he was having, gnawing at the back of his mind was the knowledge that Clotho was waiting. He'd come to the conclusion that the only way he could get there was by going straight after school. Because time moved differently in the Realm of the Fates he should have time to get there and back and still catch his bus home before any of his family noticed. It was a foolproof plan. All he had to do was get through the Hinterland without getting beheaded, eaten or torn limb from limb by whatever unknown guard was lurking out there in the gloom. With a name like ‘the Hunter' he didn't get the impression it would snuggle him to death.

As the final bell rang at the end of school Adam felt a queasy sense of disbelief. He was going to do this. He was actually going to do it. He slipped into the boys' toilets and pushed his cubicle door closed, leaving it unlocked. There was no better place for him to step into the Hinterland unseen. He waited till the last stragglers stopped spraying each other with water and ran out into the corridor, hollering and laughing. He studied the small crystal Clotho had given him. It wasn't unlike the one they had used to go to the Summoning but it was green instead of clear, with a hint of gold gleaming at the centre.

Stepping into the Hinterland was easy with his keystone. He began walking. It felt strange moving through the school unseen; through walls and windows and even through the staffroom just because he could (he'd always known Mr Burns and Miss Oakes were friendly but he hadn't realised just
how
friendly  …  ). He imagined unleashing this particular ability on Archie and decided the girls in the PE changing rooms would never be safe again. That was the thing about being a Luman – there were so many ways to abuse the abilities that they had. No wonder their world had to be kept secret. If someone like Spike could get his hands on a keystone and figure out how to use it he really
would
end up ruling the world.

As Adam left the school building behind and set off across the playing fields it was tempting to keep seeing the Hinterland as usual; the invisible world on top of the physical world. The trouble was this wasn't getting him any closer to the Realm of the Fates. Now that it was time to see the true Hinterland properly Adam realised there was every chance he wouldn't be able to get there at all. Last time he had relied on Nathanial to help him stay focused – and that was before he knew something was out there waiting to pick him off. How could he deliberately lose sight of the physical world, knowing that as soon as he did so he would become prey?

Adam forced himself to stop. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the stone, admiring the veins of gold as they caught the light. Clotho wouldn't have given him the stone if she didn't think he could get to her realm. He had to do this.

Remembering Nathanial's advice from last time, he closed his eyes and continued walking, concentrating all his attention on the stone in the palm of his hand.
Forget the physical world
, he thought.
This is the Hinterland, place of souls. This is a place with its own rules.
Clotho's stone felt different from the last one. It was cooler and smoother. He let it nestle there like a seed taking root and growing  …  and when he opened his eyes the physical world was gone.

The shock of his success momentarily jarred him back – but he snapped his eyes closed and focused once more. Opening them and seeing the endless, grey twilight, Adam stopped and felt a rare thrill of elation.
He'd done it!
He'd done it all by himself! So he might not be High Luman just yet, but maybe he wasn't quite as incompetent as he'd thought.

He walked on, with just a hint of a swagger in his step. This was
easy
! After all his worrying Adam began to enjoy himself. He started jogging, loving the lightness in his body that came from being in the Hinterland. It was so weird, running across nothing but grey light. He was conscious that whatever was out there was aware of him now. Presumably the Hunter knew he was there. He paused, thinking. No one seemed to know exactly what it was – or at least no one had lived to tell the tale. He allowed himself to imagine, just for a minute, that
he
was going to get a glimpse before escaping to safety at Clotho's. Maybe for once he would do what others hadn't done and live up to the Mortson name. He could see it now: his own scrawling handwriting in
The Book of the Unknown Roads
, giving the first ever description of the Hunter.

It was tempting. Adam peered into the pearlescent light, searching for the elusive guard. The Hinterland seemed endless and unchanging – but far, far off he thought he saw something and a thrill between terror and excitement shot from the top of his neck to the base of his spine. It was a shadow, nothing more, but as he squinted he was sure he could see
something
. This was amazing! How would he be able to go home and not brag about this?

Usually in the Hinterland Adam could still hear the sounds of the physical world and even feel a faint trace of the wind (it always seemed to be able to cross the veil between worlds) but just as the sights of the physical world vanished in the true Hinterland, so did the sounds too. The only sound Adam could hear was the thrum of his own blood – and something else. He was sure he'd heard it the last time too, a soft rattling hiss, when Nathanial and Heinrich were talking after the Summoning. They hadn't wanted to hang about – and anything that made a High Luman and Chief Curator cautious was probably worth giving a wide berth.

Reluctantly Adam decided not to push his luck. If it came to it he could always tell Luc that he'd seen it (he didn't have to let on that it was miles away). Anyway, he wouldn't be telling anyone about this trip for a long time, if ever. Adam turned his back on the distant shadow and started walking again. He let his eyes dance through the dim light ahead, waiting for the golden edge of the doorway to appear.

Only it didn't. Adam stopped and frowned. Was there something he didn't know? He'd been with Nathanial and he was pretty sure there were no magic words; his father had been talking to
him
not muttering incantations. He wasn't doing anything
wrong
. He just needed to keep walking and keep thinking about the doorway.

The thing was it was hard to think about the doorway when you were thinking about something else – namely the monster that was coming to get you. The sound was getting louder, loud enough to hear over the thud of his own heartbeat. Adam turned and looked behind him, any trace of cockiness vanishing without a trace. There
was
something there now, that was for sure. It gave him the sense of a storm approaching, massive and unyielding, rushing closer, and some primitive instinct made him want to run, even though he knew it would overtake him.