Everything went gray.
Blood roared in Jenny's ears like the ocean. She was thrown back, in one instant, to the moment when she and Tom and the others had been sucked into the Game, dragged into the Shadow World. She felt the same riptide dragging at her now, the same dark fog overcoming her senses. The same mindless, helpless terror. She was falling into the emptiness.
She didn't faint. She wished she could, but she didn't. She hung in his arms, barely supporting her own weight, feeling darkness all around her, and remained conscious.
He was going to kill her. He was the voice on the phone. He'd sent the Shadow Wolf after her and Audrey, he'd sent the snake after her in computer class. He'd killed Gordie Wilson.
She could still hear the distorted, malign whisper in her head: "Famished..."
Jenny sobbed.
Sheer terror gave her the strength to take her own weight again, to try and get free again. To her astonishment, he let her. She reeled backward two steps and came up against the balcony railing. Then she just stared at him.
Her first thought was that she should have been more prepared-but there was no way to prepare for Julian. He was always a shock to the senses.
His eyes behind the black mask were like liquid cobalt. His entire face was shadowed. His hair shone in the dimness, as white as moonlight on water.
He wasn't like a human. He was sharper, fiercer, brighter than any human could be. More real-which was strange, since this was supposed to be the real world.
He was in her world now, not even in some halfway place like the More Games store which seemed to exist between the worlds. He was here, walking around, capable of anything.
And just now he radiated menace. Danger.
Jenny's heart was beating so hard and erratically that she thought she might shatter.
"Yellow roses mean infidelity, you know," he said casually.
She remembered his voice now. Once away from it, she'd forgotten. She'd only remembered what she'd thought about it, which was that it was musical and elemental, like water running over rock, but that didn't really give any sense of its beauty-or its coldness.
She put a hand to the cluster of miniature roses at her shoulder. The lovely pale flowers with their golden sheen. In her mind she saw Brian blinking at the sight of them, heard him saying, "The florist must have screwed up... . "
"You sent them," she said. Her voice came out oddly-choked and so openly frightened that she was ashamed. She wanted to tear the roses off, but her hands were shaking.
"Of course. Didn't you know?"
She should have known, but she'd been too stupid, All night she'd been too stupid. She had gone off with a boy in a mask because he didn't look like Julian, forgetting that Julian could look like anyone he wanted. Or had she forgotten? Maybe some part of her had known, and had wanted to get it over with, She'd been so frightened for so long.
With good reason. The last time she'd been with Julian, she'd betrayed him. She'd lied to him, made him believe her-maybe even trust her. And then she'd slammed a door on him, meaning to trap him behind it forever. She'd left him imprisoned like a genie in a bottle. She could only imagine what he must have felt when he realized what she'd done. Now he'd come for his revenge.
"Why don't you just do it?" she said. She was more pleased with her voice this time; it was clear, if not quite steady. She'd die with dignity. "Go ahead and kill me."
He tilted his silvery-blond head slightly. "Is that what I want to do?" he said.
"It's what you did to Gordie son."
He smiled-oh, God, she'd forgotten that smile, Wolf-hungry. The sort of smile to send you running and screaming-or to make you collapse in a heap on the floor.
"Not personally," he said.
"But it's what you brought me here for, isn't it?" Jenny glanced back at the drop behind her. Her fragile composure was splintering. Hysteria was bubbling up inside her, and she couldn't stop it. If he wasn't going to throw her over, then maybe she ought to jump, because dying fast would be better than whatever he was going to do with her... . "Just go ahead and do it. Just get it over with."
"All right," he said, and kissed her.
Oh.
She'd thought she remembered how it was with Julian, how it felt to be kissed by him. Her memories had lied. Or maybe this kind of thing was too strong for memory to be anything but a shadow of it. In one instant she was transported back to the paper house, back to the shock she'd felt at his first touch. When Tom held her-back in the old days, when Tom still loved her-his arms had made her feel safe. Comforted.
Julian didn't make her feel safe at all. She was trembling instantly. Falling. Soaring. The electricity he carried around with him flooding into her, tingling in every nerve ending. Sweet shocks that sent her mind reeling.
Oh, God, I can't-it's wrong. It's wrong, he's evil. I can't feel anything for him. I told Tom I didn't feel anything... .
Her body didn't listen to her.
He wants to kill me... .
But he was kissing her as softly as twilight, tiny sweet kisses and long ones that turned wild. As if they were lovers reunited, instead of hunter and prey.
And Jenny was kissing him back. Her arms were around his neck. He changed the pressure of his lips on hers and light flashed through her. She opened her eyes in shock.
"Jenny," Julian said, not moving away, speaking with his lips brushing hers. He sounded glad-exalted. Full of discovery. "You see how it is with us? You can't fight it any more than I can. You've tried; you've done everything you can to kill it. But you can't kill my love for you."
"No," Jenny whispered. His face was so close, the mask making him look more dangerous than ever. He was terrifying-and beautiful. She couldn't look away from him.
"We were meant to be together. It's our destiny. You've put up a good fight, but it's over now. Give in, Jenny. Let me love you."
"No!" With sudden strength she pushed him-hard. Shoving him away. The force sent her backward against the railing.
Fury swept over his face. Then it ebbed and he sighed deeply. "You're going to fight to the end, aren't you? All right. You're exciting when you're angry, and personally I'm starved for the sight of you. In fact, you might say I'm famished-"
"Don't."
"I like the dress," he continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "In a purely aesthetic sense, of course. And I like your hair like that. It makes you look wild and beautiful."
Terrifyingly, Jenny felt wild and beautiful. Felt desirable. It wasn't right, but his eyes on her made her feel as if no one had ever been as beautiful as she was, since the beginning of time.
But she never stopped feeling frightened, either.
He took her hand. She felt-not saw, because she couldn't take her eyes from his-something slip onto her finger. A cold circlet. A ring. She felt the chill of it all around her as if she'd been banded with ice.
The gold ring she'd thrown away.
Julian said, as if quoting:
"This ring, the symbol of my oath, Will hold me to the words I speak: All I refuse and thee I choose."
Jenny shut her eyes.
"Don't you remember? I told you the promise was irrevocable. You are sworn mine, Jenny. Now and forever."
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 Julian.
And she was his.
Like some horrible old movie, yes. Bride of the Devil. She'd promised herself to him, and now she had no choice.
Or at least some part of her believed that. A part of her she hadn't even known existed before she'd met Julian. A part that had changed her recently, so that people noticed. The wild part, a part that craved risks. Like the thing in Dee that loved danger.
It was this part that responded to him, that found the rest of the world tame by comparison. The part that made her heart pound and her stomach melt. Her knees literally felt weak-the way they had after the last big earthquake in L.A., when the ground did things solid ground wasn't supposed to do, when she'd thought she was going to die. Afterward, her legs had actually felt like wax. The way they did now.
"I've only come to claim what's mine. You cast your own fate, Jenny, you doomed yourself. That's the way it works with runes and oaths. You spoke the words, you let them be written, and that's it. Didn't you ever think you'd have to make good?"
Jenny didn't know what she'd thought. She'd done it to save Tom and the others-she would have done anything to save them at that point.
"It was-I couldn't-it wasn't fair," she said, fumbling. She was at a disadvantage; she couldn't think properly.
"Fair-let's not get on that again. Life isn't fair. That's not the point. You promised yourself to me."
Jenny opened her mouth to explain, but she couldn't seem to summon up any words.
Because the terrible thing was that he was right, There was no real way to justify what she'd done. She'd given him her word. She'd sworn the oath, knowing it would bind her forever. And she supposed the shameful truth was that she'd hoped to get rid of Julian so that he couldn't collect.
With one finger Julian sketched some lines in the air, a shape like a vase turned on its side. "That's Perthro, the rune of gambling and divination. It's the cup that holds the runes or dice when they're cast."
"Oh, really?" Jenny said weakly, not having the first idea what he was talking about.
"I'll tell you something interesting about the people who discovered those runes. They loved gambling. Crazy about it. They would bet everything -
including their freedom-on one throw of the dice. And if they lost, they'd go into slavery cheerfully, because they had made a promise and they always played by the rules. Honor meant more than anything to them."
Jenny looked away, hugging her own arms. She felt very cold. She wished there were somewhere to hide.
"Are you going to keep your promise?"
What could she say? That it was a promise she never should have had to make? Julian had forced her to play the Game in the beginning-but Jenny had come to him looking for a game. Looking for something scary and sexy, something to provide excitement at a party. Julian had just given her what she'd asked for. It was her own fault for meddling with forbidden things.
But she couldn't-she couldn't.
Teeth sunk into her lower lip, she looked at Julian. She could hardly meet his eyes, but she did. She shook her head.