‘Doom – destroy!’
*
The howling Grim wakes the Hunter from its trance.
It feels pain – the first time it has known the sensation for countless years. It does not remember staring at its reflection, but it knows it has been tricked. It has been thrust outside the cottage walls against its will. It spins with teeth bared – it can see the treacherous boy. It reaches, snarling, towards the broken threshold of the shattered glass door.
But the Grim hound is as fast as the Hunter. Unleashed, with eager and violent delight, the black dog leaps.
The Hunter goes down beneath the shadowy body like a bundle of sticks. It raises its claws to fight, but the Grim has it in its jaws, fangs sparkling in the silver moonlight, savaging and tearing as the Hunter struggles beneath it.
The Hunter makes no sound, but it knows it has met its match at last.
Despite the shining redness of its skinless face, its blood is clear as water. There is no gruesome gore to paint the ground, nor are the Grim’s white teeth marred by any stain as it lowers its jaws to the Hunter’s neck, and . . .
Darkness.
Chapter 26
Cold invaded the room.
Callum reached his unconscious grandmother first. Melissa was right behind him, hovering over his shoulder.
‘Is she all right? Oh please tell me she’s all right!’
There was a huge lump on the side of the old woman’s head where she’d hit the wall, but to Callum’s unspeakable relief, she was breathing steadily, and though her face was pale there was colour in her lips. Her skin was warm. Nothing seemed broken. Her pulse was steady.
‘Help me,’ Callum said. ‘Move these chairs, get this glass out of the way . . .’
Melissa grabbed the shawls and cushions from the armchairs and spread them over the floor. Callum gently arranged his grandmother on her side in the recovery position. He was surprised at how light and fragile her body was when she was lying still – normally she seemed so strong and energetic.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked Melissa, turning his head to look at her.
‘Yeah, just half strangled and scared brainless! But, Callum, your face!’ Melissa pulled off one of her glittering scarves and began to mop blood from his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, this scarf only cost ninety pence at Shaman’s . . .’
Callum laughed.
He looked at his grandmother’s pale face, and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Then he glanced up at Melissa, bent over him in concern. Her face was also pale, her big eyes wide with their now-familiar anxious look. Gran and Melissa had both been hurt, but they were all right. They’d survived.
And so have I.
‘Callum.’
Jacob was standing in the shattered doorway, still barred from entering the house. Callum smiled.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in, Jacob. You are welcome here.’
The pale boy bowed politely. Then he stepped easily across the cottage threshold. He picked his way cautiously around the scattered rowan berries and came to stand by the fire, near Melissa and Callum.
‘It is nice to be welcome,’ he said.
‘Should we call an ambulance?’ asked Melissa.
Jacob knelt down beside Gran and held his hand over her head for a moment. His eyes closed, as if he was concentrating on a distant voice that only he could hear. Then, after a moment, they opened again.
‘The old lady is not seriously hurt,’ he declared.
‘Thank God,’ breathed Callum, his shoulders sagging with relief.
‘But shouldn’t she see a doctor, just in case?’ asked Melissa.
‘If I were you, I would leave things be,’ replied Jacob. ‘Doctors will have too many questions that you cannot answer. She is strong and proud, this one. She will not thank you if she wakes to find strangers fussing over her.’
‘That’s true,’ said Callum. ‘I suppose we’d better clear this up, though,’ he added, bending down to pick up pieces of broken crockery.
‘Let me help,’ offered Melissa.
‘You’ll just make it worse!’
This time they laughed together.
‘You stay there. Just stay by Gran and keep an eye on her. I’ll clean up. I know where everything goes.’ Callum thought of Gran’s saying: As long as everything is in its right place, there’s plenty of room.
The worst part was the broken glass door. Callum went to the kitchen for a broom and swept all the glass out on to the patio – there wasn’t much to see there any more. There was no sign of Doom, nor of the body of the Fetch. A makeshift DIY job of nailing a blanket over the gaping hole cut out a bit of the cold. Finally, Callum cleared up the broken crockery and swept the debris into the bin under the sink in the kitchen.
Jacob and Melissa watched Callum work, neither of them speaking. Callum realised with a twist of apprehension in his heart that they were waiting for him to tell them their next moves. They wanted him to act as their leader.
For a moment, when he came back to the sitting room, Callum simply stood looking at his strange new friends – one dead, one living, both of them far more complex than he had ever guessed.
Both of them were worth having on his side.
‘So what happens now?’ Callum demanded softly. ‘Jacob, you’re the one with all the answers. What comes next? How many more creatures of the Netherworld will turn up on my doorstep?’
The unpredictable blood began to drip from Jacob’s hands. He turned and held his hands up to the fire, as if he were warming them, until the dark rivulets dried and disappeared. He spoke with his back to Callum.
‘I don’t know what manner of being will come next,’ Jacob answered quietly. Even muted, his voice rang like the striking of a muffled bell. ‘The Fetch has been defeated; one threat against your life has been thwarted. The threat of the Shadowing is about to begin. One Churchyard Grim will not protect you, or your world, from all the Netherworld breaking its boundaries and overwhelming it with darkness.’
Callum hesitated. Melissa sat with her head bent, one hand on Gran’s forehead, listening but keeping her mouth shut. Another thing she was good at, Callum realised: knowing when to stand back.
‘What will?’ Callum asked. ‘Tell me what will protect my world.’
‘You.’
‘How can I help?’
‘Fight with me. Fight to keep the boundary intact. I know you feel you didn’t ask for this -’
‘I didn’t ask for it,’ Callum interrupted. ‘But who asks for anything they’re born with – the colour of their skin, their parents, the place they live? You’re stuck with what you get. You’ve got to make the most of it.’
‘For yourself, if for no one else,’ Melissa repeated. ‘It’s worth fighting for yourself.’
‘And you, and Gran.’
‘And Ed,’ Melissa pointed out softly.
Callum took a breath. He nodded. ‘Yeah. People confused about who their real enemies are.’
‘It is hard to tell, sometimes,’ Jacob said. He was still holding his hands up to the fire, and didn’t look at Callum as he spoke. ‘When your enemy has the same face as your friend. Well . . .’
‘But you’re right,’ said Callum. ‘I have to help. I’ll fight with you.’
Melissa rolled her eyes. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying all along.’
Gran suddenly moaned and rubbed her forehead. Melissa bent over her in concern. ‘Mrs Scott? Mrs Scott?’ she said. ‘Can you hear me?’ She shifted the cushion beneath Gran’s head and smoothed back the short grey hair.
‘I think she’s waking up,’ Melissa said to Callum.
Callum knelt by Melissa’s side, frowning with worry as he watched Gran stirring restlessly. Her eyes still closed, the old woman rolled away from Melissa and moaned again.
Jacob stood up. ‘I must go. Doom is finished out there, and we have no more business in your house tonight.’