The Myth Hunters - Page 47/48

But the woman only narrowed her eyes and gazed at Julianna. “They’ve gone. Came to see the professor, and this is what comes of it. Maybe that’s the end, though. No more strangers on the island. Better for everyone if you just let us clean up the mess. Turn round and go back to the mainland. Those you seek have gone.”

Halliwell sighed and gestured to indicate that since the woman was ignoring him, Julianna should ask the questions.

She narrowed her eyes and gazed at the woman. “What professor? Where is he?”

The woman scowled and pointed. “Continue on the way you’re going if you must, but you won’t like what you find.”

Then she turned and strode away without a single backward glance. Julianna watched until she had left the main square, then turned to find Halliwell watching her expectantly. She took a breath and let it out slowly.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Halliwell nodded and together they continued on toward the building whose porch was now crumbling in flames. Bits of the ornate woodwork had burned away completely. Railings had fallen, withering in the fire. The flames glowed within the gutted structure, burning inside the windows like the eyes of some gigantic jack o’ lantern.

The burning church was behind them, now, along with the two other houses of worship and a number of cottages. Julianna felt the chill of the storm, the snow whipping around her face as the wind picked up, but as they neared this other fire, its heat made her feel as though the skin on her face was stretched too tight.

“What is that?” Halliwell said, his voice barely audible over the hungry roar of the blaze.

Julianna picked up her pace. Her boots slid in the slushy melting snow. To the left of the burning building was an old rock wall that ran out of the village square, the stones piled up decades— perhaps centuries— earlier as some sort of boundary. It lined a path. In the firelight they could clearly see a cottage at the end of the path. The little house had been destroyed recently enough that there was only a dusting of snowfall on the shattered interior now exposed to the elements.

Fire had not been the culprit here. At first glance she thought an explosion had taken place, but then realized that much of the debris had caved inward rather than blowing outward.

Yet she spared only a moment’s thought for the cottage.

It was the carnage that drew her attention. In the diffuse daylight that filtered through the storm and the bright glare of the fire, they could easily make out motionless figures scattered on the ground, shrouded in a thin layer of fresh snowfall. Dark stains spread out from the corpses, and already frost was beginning to form on the puddles of blood. There was something odd about the corpses, but Julianna could not focus on them long enough to determine what it was that unsettled her.

Because there was another corpse in their midst that made her breath catch in her throat. She could only stare at the creature— for she could not think of it as a man— impaled upon jagged stalagmites of ice that jutted from the ground. Thin, frozen blades punctured the creature’s leg and side, shot up through its chest and belly and skull . . . and its wings.

Julianna could only stare. Though it had the shape of a man, its upper body and head were that of some giant bird of prey, and its wings were enormous, dark-feathered things.

“My God,” Halliwell rasped beside her. “This can’t be real. None of it.”

He started forward and knelt by the nearest corpse, brushed away the snow to find orange and black fur beneath, and a snout full of deadly fangs. The dead man was not a man at all, but some kind of tiger that walked like a man.

“You mean like the ice man we saw with Oliver? And the way he and the others just disappeared, like they were stepping right out of the world?” Julianna asked, staring at him. After a moment she glanced at the tiger-man again, and then at the bird-thing impaled on the ice. “You said we’d follow wherever they went, Ted. You’ve got a whole lot of mysteries on your hands, not just Max Bascombe’s murder and the little girl in Cottingsley, but the other children you think are connected to this killer who’s removing their eyes. I’m having just as hard a time with this as you are, but you can’t turn back now.”

Halliwell’s expression darkened. “Who said anything about turning back? I’m not going anywhere. I just . . . the world isn’t supposed to be like this.”

Julianna swallowed. Her throat was dry and tight and she didn’t think it was from the fire’s heat.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

The detective nodded and they started for the ruined cottage. As she passed the dead things scattered around her she tried not to look too closely, but could not help herself. Some were missing limbs, at least one figure beneath that thin blanket of snow had no head, and one of the things on the ground had horns. There was even a creature that was no larger than a dog, with wings folded against its back.

Julianna hurried on.

She reached the front of the cottage. Where the door had been there was a hole, with no sign remaining of even the frame. For a long moment she studied the wreckage, trying to determine how she might safely enter. In the midst of the ruined home she saw snow-dusted legs poking out from beneath a portion of collapsed roof. Jagged, broken beams jutted out of the ruin, and Julianna thought that perhaps they had come as far as possible. Whatever they could learn about what happened to that cottage, they would have to determine from outside.

“Julianna,” Halliwell said.

She turned to see him crouched a short way back along the path and off to the left. The snow there had been disturbed and as she walked over to join him, she saw that in addition to a small pool of frosted blood on the ground, there was a spattering that seemed more recent, even fresh.

Halliwell touched the spots of blood and lifted his fingers to show that they were smeared with red.

Since they had arrived on Canna Island she had been nearly numb. Wonder and confusion and horror had swirled in her mind, but this was the first time she had been afraid.

“One of those things . . .”

Halliwell nodded. He gestured to the ground and she saw that the path of broken snow— where one of those things had crawled or dragged itself on the ground— went around the side of the ruined cottage, past one of the walls that was still standing. Halliwell started to follow the trail.

“Wait. Ted, please. I don’t think we should—”

He shot her a dark look. “What did you just tell me about finding answers?”

Julianna moistened her lips. Her pulse was pounding in her temples as she nodded. “All right.”

Halliwell went around the corner of the house. Julianna followed warily, peering into the ruin of the house and looking carefully at the stone boundary wall to make certain there was nowhere for anyone to hide. But the trail continued, the broken snow sprinkled and streaked with fresh blood.

The wall went on perhaps fifty yards past the house, where it intersected with another at a tiny structure built of the same stone, with a roof of cracked and faded tiles. The little building might once have been an outhouse or some kind of storage— perhaps even a workshop— but its two small windows were cracked and covered with grime.

The heavy wooden door hung open. The trail ended there.

“Ted,” Julianna whispered.

Halliwell did not even hesitate. He went to the door, tensed as though he might jump aside if an attack was forthcoming, and flung it open. The hinges creaked loudly. Inside there was nothing but dust and shadows.

“What the hell?” Halliwell muttered, and he stepped inside, glancing around to be sure there was nowhere for the wounded creature to hide.

Julianna watched him for a moment and then followed. As she stepped into the little building, she peered into each corner and then up at the ceiling. There was a third window at the back, opposite the door, and Halliwell went over to it and examined the frame and the lock.

“Whatever came in here, it didn’t get out this way,” the detective said.

“But it didn’t go out the door,” Julianna said. “So where is it?”

Halliwell looked at her, frowning. Then he inclined his head and pointed past her, to the deep shadows hidden behind the open door. Julianna held her breath. If something was back there, she had been only inches from it a moment ago.

The detective came up beside her. The two of them stood a moment and just listened. If something was in here with them, wounded and enraged, surely they would hear it breathing. But there was no sound at all.

Halliwell swung the door closed. The latch clicked shut. If the storm had turned the afternoon dark and gray, inside that little stone house, behind those grime-smeared windows, it was like midnight. It was a mistake on Halliwell’s part. If something had been in the corner, it could have killed them both in the seconds it took their eyes to adjust.

But the corner was empty.

Julianna breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Agreed.”

She went to the door. It seemed to stick a moment, and then the latch gave and Julianna hauled it open, hinges creaking again.

Outside the door, the world had changed.

The storm was gone, and so was Canna Island. A blast of warm air rushed in to greet them. A light summer rain fell from a sky striped with low clouds, torn through with clear spaces where the blue sky showed behind that curtain.

Julianna could not breathe.

Shaking, she stepped out of the little stone hut. It stood now at the top of a long, sloping hill of rock, striated with colors like thousands of years of volcanic eruption. At the base of the hill, far below, a river rolled gently past. Some small brush and greenery grew on the banks of the river, but on the other side, once again, there was nothing but rock. She turned in a complete circle. Around her there were only mountains, though far to what ought to have been the south she saw the tops of trees in the river valley.

A short way along the rocky slope was the still, lifeless form of the tiger-man, who had escaped the carnage of Canna Island only to die here, alone on the craggy hillside.

“This . . . can’t be,” Halliwell rasped.

Julianna studied his face. Tentatively, she reached out a hand to touch him. The moment her fingers confirmed that he was real and solid, she felt foolish. Of course he was real. But in that moment, she had been uncertain of everything.

“Go back,” she said. “Go back through.”

Halliwell looked stricken, but he nodded and quickly reentered the stone hut. She followed him in. Even the warmth of the day and the gentle rain made her skin crawl, simply because they were wrong. Unnatural.

They exchanged a silent look. Trembling, Julianna reached out and closed the door, casting them once more in the grim gray darkness within those stone walls, behind those filthy windows. She expected to feel cold almost immediately, but the warmth remained.

A terrible weight settled upon her and Julianna bit her lip as she opened the door. Beyond it, nothing had changed. There was the barren hillside and the river below, the summer rain pattering the rocks. Whatever sort of door they had just traveled through, it only swung in one direction.

After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped back out into the impossible world. Her heavy jacket was too warm and she unzipped it, then slid it off and dropped it on the ground beside the open door.

She wouldn’t be needing it here.

Julianna turned and glanced at Halliwell. She was surprised to find not fear or confusion but determination etched upon his face.

He stepped out after her, treading heavily upon the rocky terrain.

“All right, then,” Halliwell said. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” She knew they had no choice, but had no idea how to begin, which direction to take. “Where are we going?”

“The job hasn’t changed. We’re going to find Oliver. And we’re going to find some goddamned answers.”

* * *

Grim silence embraced Oliver and his companions as they made their way along the bank of the Sorrowful River. When they had crossed through the Veil from Canna Island they had emerged on a rocky slope not far from the water. Blue Jay had transformed himself into a bird and taken to the air to survey their surroundings, and had returned with the news that not only did the river valley become fertile and wooded to the south, but that he knew the area and believed they were not far from a place called Twillig’s Gorge.

Kitsune had balked at this. She believed Twillig’s Gorge was only a story, a legend amongst legends, but Blue Jay insisted it was real.

So they had set out, following the river as it ran through the valley and then into a forest of whispering leaves and cool shade.

The longer Oliver spent in the forest, the more troubled he became. It was peaceful here, even pleasant, and it simply felt wrong to him. It was jarringly discordant, moving from the carnage of the battle they’d fought in his world to the gentle respite provided here, beyond the Veil. He knew that it could not last, that there would be fear and blood to spare in the days to come. But to experience the calm beauty of this wood and the rushing river was unsettling.

They all felt it. He knew that they did. But none of them would speak of it. Blue Jay led the way, the wind making the feathers tied in his hair dance, and he rarely paused to look back and see that they were following. Oliver and Kitsune were side by side, though as close as she was, still she seemed far away from him. Frost trailed them all, sometimes falling back so that he was nearly out of sight. The winter man’s face was a frozen mask. Icy mist trailed from his eyes and from his mouth, but he said nothing.

Amongst the four of them, fewer than a hundred words had been spoken since they had arrived here. Oliver understood. Jenny Greenteeth had betrayed them, and Kitsune had been forced to kill her friend. Gong Gong, the Black Dragon of Storms, was dead. Professor Koenig, the man they had gone to Canna Island to meet, had been murdered by the traitorous Jenny. Oliver blamed himself for the professor’s death. If he had never tracked him down, the old man would still be alive.