‘Just. Stay. Out.’ Callum glared at the spirit as fiercely as he could as he tugged at the shredded nylon wedging the door open.
Astonishingly – unbelievably – the ghost answered.
‘I can’t come in.’
Callum froze. The ghost was talking to him. The boy’s voice was hollow and echoing, as though he was speaking from the bottom of a well. Just the sound of it was enough to raise goosebumps on Callum’s exposed arms.
‘What’s stopping you?’ Callum demanded.
‘You are.’
Callum straightened up slowly. His heart was still thundering in his ears. Surely it couldn’t be that simple. Was he really safe, or was the ghost-boy playing some trick?
‘What about your dog?’ he said. He could see the enormous beast behind its master, crouching on the brick path like a great black shadow.
‘Doom cannot enter either.’ The pale boy shrugged. ‘Few creatures of the Netherworld can cross your threshold unless invited. And certainly not if you have expressly forbidden it.’
The spectre waved a hand at the tree overhead. ‘Rowan at the door, and holly growing under all the windows. They, too, are barriers.’ The boy’s bell-like voice was compelling. Callum found himself paying close attention to each word.
‘I hardly dare venture one step off this path into your grandmother’s garden, for her beds and borders are rife with such old wards,’ the boy continued. ‘Ash, hazel, garlic . . .’ The boy gave a twisted smile, revealing sharp, white teeth. ‘She keeps you well guarded.’
‘Garlic?’ Callum tensed. ‘Are you some sort of vampire?’
‘Nothing so mundane. My name is Jacob.’
Even in the dark, Callum could see cold amusement on the ghost’s face. It glowed with a pale light of its own, faint, but enough to illuminate the bloody letters on the door.
‘Did you write that?’
The ghost gave a single nod.
‘Whose blood is it?’ Callum asked.
‘Mine,’ replied Jacob, holding up his emaciated right hand. Liquid trickled down the slender fingers, crimson against the bone-white skin. ‘As was the blood I used in my last warning. You are in danger. Mortal danger.’
Callum leaped to his feet.
‘Don’t threaten me!’ he shouted, flicking the switch for the outside light. Callum thought that ghosts were supposed to prefer the dark, but the electric lamp had no effect on the spectre at the door. If anything, the contrast made his black hair darker, his eyes more depthless. The dog behind him was hidden in shadow.
‘You are being hunted,’ said Jacob, narrowing his eyes. ‘Surely you have seen it – boys and girls like you, murdered.’
Callum flinched at the brutal words, his mind flying back to the alley in his dream. The broken body of the boy, his eyes torn out. The idea that he might have some sort of connection to the mutilated corpses found across the country made him feel sick, as though he were somehow responsible for the killings, instead of this thing on his doorstep.
‘Listen,’ snarled Callum, renewing his efforts to free the door. ‘You may have killed those others, but I’m different. I can see you.’
The ghost’s expression did not change.
‘The others could see me too. But they did not heed my warnings. Now they are dead.’
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ said Callum, finally tugging the door loose.
The ghost boy saw what was coming. He reached out to prevent Callum from closing the door, but he couldn’t even put his gleaming hands over the doorstep. Whether it was Gran’s rowan tree or Callum’s command, something was holding him back.
‘You can’t hide what you are,’ hissed the ghost furiously. ‘You can’t change it. You must fight. Or you will die like the others.’
‘Well I’m not like them,’ Callum said furiously.
‘But you are,’ retorted Jacob. ‘You are just like them – only stronger. This is your destiny. One of you must fight back if you want to save the others.’
‘What others? It’s nothing to do with me!’
‘The others like you,’ replied the ghost. ‘All those born between the chimes. The dead ones were all born in the chime hours.’
Callum shook his head, confusion raging in his mind.
‘I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!’
For the first time, a flicker of doubt passed over the white face.
‘Can it be? Can you truly not know the truth about our kind?’
‘Our kind? What do you think I am?’ Callum cried in frustration.
Jacob gave a smile that almost froze his blood. ‘You are a chime child. Like me.’ Callum slammed the door.
Chapter 10
It has come a long way. Distance and effort mean nothing to the Hunter; time does not age it. But the time between kills makes it hungry. It understands time.
Instinct has brought it to a place of tangled trees. It can sense the leaf mould of long centuries at rest here. This has never been a place for flesh and blood to live, though at the old wood’s heart is one of their flimsy sacred piles of stone, and down where the wood thins stands a row of ruined, empty dwellings.
The next human victim is close. The Hunter can sense its presence. Hunger draws them together. But the Hunter cannot tell precisely where its target waits.
It pauses in the wood, straining to follow the tantalising glimmer of the victim’s energy, that power that makes this one worth the chase. The Hunter’s hunger grows piercing.
Then, suddenly, as though a door has been slammed, the energy is gone.
There is nothing. No clue, no guide.
This has never happened before.
The Hunter is furious. It is happy to be challenged, but it will not be mocked.
With lithe, supernatural stealth, it moves swiftly through the trees. It cannot sense its victim any more, but it remembers the row of ruined dwelling places.
Perhaps not all of them are empty.
The Hunter must feed.
Chapter 11
Callum leaned against the door, breathing hard. His heart was beating wildly. After a moment, he threw the bolt across and double-locked the door. Then he ran through the cottage, pulling all the curtains closed, determined to shut out the horrors beyond them.
Back in the sitting room, he looked around. The jar of rowan berries and hazel leaves still stood on the table. Melissa had told him about their powers of protection against the supernatural – now he had seen it at first hand. Was it just a coincidence that the cottage was filled with them?
Yes, of course it was. Gran was an artist. The leaves and berries were pretty. She was probably planning to use them in one of her paintings.
Still, even surrounded by their protective power, Callum wished he wasn’t going to be in the house alone for the next hour and a half. What were you supposed to do when a demonic spectre defaces your door with his own dripping blood? Dial 999? Yeah, right . . .
Two bloody messages in two days, Callum thought, shuddering. He had tried to convince himself that the first one wasn’t meant for him, even though he couldn’t see any possible way he could have known about it before the news was made public. But the message on the door – there could be no denying who that was intended for. Was Jacob telling the truth when he claimed they were warnings? And what did they have to do with Callum being a . . . what had the boy called him?
A chime child.
‘Born in the chime hours . . .’ Callum murmured. That didn’t make any sense either. How could the time he was born make a difference?
And all the other murder victims – even if they had been born at the same time, why would that make someone want to kill them all?
Callum stormed around the little cottage trying to convince himself that everything was normal. Table, pulled out. Jar of rowan (pretty berries, no more than that), on the mantelpiece. Homework, on the table. Kettle, on the gas ring -
The front door shook. Someone was rapping smartly on the round brass knocker.