‘The Fetch ate . . .’ Callum swallowed and tried again. ‘The boy it killed, it ate his eyes. Why does it do that?’
Jacob’s mouth narrowed with distaste.
‘The eyes of its victims give the Fetch its power,’ he explained. ‘But there is another reason too. Some people believe that, after death, the eyes of a murder victim hold an image of the true face of their killer, seeing them for what they really are. It is an old myth, but I think there is some truth to it. The Fetch blinds its victims so that it does not have to look at its own reflection in their dead eyes.’
Callum couldn’t repress a shudder.
‘But why is it here?’
Jacob bowed his head. ‘It is hunting the chime children. There have never been many of our kind. Now there are fewer still. You may be the last chime child, Callum – the last living.’
Callum shook his head.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that now the Fetch is hunting you alone. You are its final victim. It will not rest until it has tracked you down and satisfied its hunger with your eyes.’
Chapter 21
The easy catch outside the school has whetted the Hunter’s appetite. It has never felt more alert: its senses at their peak, its awareness of the real quarry electrifying. It knows where the boy is, knows exactly where to find him.
The Hunter tracks silently through the trees towards the abandoned church. The trail is clear and sharp. The Hunter does not need moonlight to find the way, but it enjoys the blue glow that will illuminate the terror on the boy’s face when he is finally caught. The game has gone on long enough.
The Hunter arrives at the church. But the quarry is not alone. There is a mortal girl there too. She is no matter, but there are other, more potent, beings as welclass="underline" creatures of the Netherworld, an unusual ghost and a spirit hound. The ghost is speaking to the mortal children as if they share the same world.
The Hunter would rather not let these others watch it feed – a ghost will not scream and flee in terror of the Hunter as a living being will, and a Churchyard Grim is a formidable opponent. The Hunter does not fear such things; it does not understand fear, though it is amusing to see it in mortals. Still, for now the Hunter is outnumbered. Very likely it will not be able to take its prey by surprise here. The boy must be lured to his own, carefully guarded dwelling place, where the ghosts cannot enter.
The Hunter knows how it can cross that charmed threshold. It only needs an invitation. And it is already masked with the boy’s own face.
The Hunter smiles with its borrowed mouth. It passes by the church without any further hesitation.
It heads towards the lighted cottage.
Chapter 22
Doom growled.
It was the same sound the great dog had made when Jacob first mentioned the Fetch, beginning low in the hound’s deep chest and rising to a dull roar. Then Doom spun round and snapped his long, white fangs. He took a few steps towards the western end of the church, where the dark tower squatted, and stopped, sniffing the air. The growl rose again in the beast’s throat as he gazed piercingly at the church wall, as though he could see or sense something beyond it.
‘Doom,’ Jacob said in his echoing voice, and the dog turned a querying head to look at his master. ‘Let. Sit. These mortal beings are safe enough here for the moment.’
Doom whined. It, too, was a fearful sound, like the wail of a man being tortured. Melissa covered her ears.
‘Quiet, Doom,’ Jacob ordered. ‘Guard the door, if you must. I have urgent business with the chime child.’
Doom slunk to the door in a rush of shadows and spread his enormous body at full length across the ruined threshold of the church. Callum felt increasingly trapped; not only was he surrounded by the church’s stone walls, but the entry was blocked by the waiting Grim.
Jacob’s bloodless lips quirked suddenly into his faint, wry smile.
‘You still fear we mean you harm.’ It wasn’t a question.
Callum took a deep breath. ‘You’ve agreed to trust Melissa. I’ve agreed to trust you. We’re even.’
Jacob nodded. ‘Good. Let me tell you what I am.’
‘We’re listening.’
The pale ghost looked away. He stood casually, with his gleaming white hands hidden in the invisible pockets of his trousers. His unwillingness to face Callum and Melissa as he spoke gave Jacob an air of embarrassment, as if he was sharing a shameful secret.
‘I said that you may be the last living chime child,’ he said slowly. ‘But there are others. Others like me. I too came into this world in the chime hours, but not as one of the living. I was stillborn, dead at the moment of my birth. I am the ghost of a child who never lived, born more than a hundred years ago. I am one of the Born Dead.’
Jacob’s shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. ‘Because I never drew breath, I was buried unbaptised, in the unconsecrated plot beyond the yew tree. But my mother named me Jacob. My name is all she gave me.’
‘But if you’re the ghost of a baby, how come you look like you’re our age?’ asked Callum.
‘The Born Dead are given the power to choose their shape,’ explained Jacob. ‘I chose this – the form of the boy I would have grown into had I lived.’
‘You’re bleeding,’ Melissa interrupted faintly.
A line of black blood trickled, glistening, down Jacob’s throat. The ghost frowned, and swiped the blood on to his fingers.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I can’t control it. An echo of my birth, perhaps . . .’
Melissa and Callum exchanged horrified glances in the dim light. Jacob held up his hand and the blood slowly faded away.
‘So what does it mean to be one of the Born Dead?’ asked Melissa. ‘I’ve never heard of you before.’
‘We haunt the boundaries between the Netherworld and the realm of the living, belonging neither in one world nor the other. It is a lonely business. When I first found myself to be a waking spirit, I raised this dog’s shade from its grave to be my companion.’ Jacob cast a glance at Doom, crouched by the church door. The great beast seemed unaware his master was talking about him. ‘It caused a deal of upset in the village. No one even knew Nether Marlock had a Church Grim before I summoned the dog’s spirit. But I needed a companion. And a Grim is a formidable foe against the demons of the Netherworld. Doom is my protector, as he protects all the humans buried in this churchyard; and he will protect you, too, if I command it.’
‘But what does this have to do with the Fetch?’ Callum asked.
Jacob turned to look at Callum and Melissa directly. Then he held out his long white hands, palms facing upwards.
‘Touch me,’ Jacob commanded.
Callum and Melissa glanced at each other in alarm.
‘Can we?’ Melissa said. ‘If you’re a ghost, we shouldn’t be able to, right?’
Jacob nodded.
‘Well, there you are,’ she said without conviction.
‘Try.’
Melissa raised her hand tentatively. Then she reached toward Jacob’s palm and laid her hand against it.
‘Oh!’
She jumped as though she’d received a jolt of electricity through her whole body, but she kept her palm held steadily against Jacob’s.
‘Should that happen?’ Melissa whispered.
Jacob looked at Callum, the tilt of his head challenging. He shook the long, black hair out of his face.
‘Go on.’
Callum laid his living hand against the ghost’s dead palm.
It was cold. But Callum could feel it, the shape of it – dry, lifeless skin without any heat of its own. It wasn’t a repellent touch, not clammy or icy, just lifeless, like a handful of dead leaves.
‘How?’ Callum croaked. ‘I’ve never been able to touch a ghost. How are we able to touch you?’
‘Once in a century, this happens.’ Jacob spoke quietly, but his bell-like voice was no less commanding. ‘Once every century, for thirteen months – a year by the moon’s clock – comes a time called the Shadowing.’