“Come on,” she whispered. Once he got closer, she would be able to help. She could find a weapon or distract the creatures by throwing something at them. But he was still too far out for her to do anything, and he was drifting away from the front door.
Clare took a step forward, confusion and panic catching in her throat. Instead of aiming for the house’s front, Dorran had speared off to the side. She couldn’t tell if the creatures had managed to herd him off course or if he’d become disoriented. As far as she knew, there was no entrance to Winterbourne in the direction he was moving. Just endless windows, all locked. And the pond.
When Clare craned her neck, she could see the hollow in the snow. Dorran had told her to avoid the area. The excess warmth from the garden room was piped outside near the pond. The ice would be unstable.
Clever, Dorran.
He passed behind the snow-frosted hedges. Clare, unwilling to let him out of sight but also conscious of her promise to stay in the house, slipped through the open doorway. Her sore feet ached as they jarred on the marble floor. She pushed the doors closed so that passing eyes wouldn’t think there was a way into the house but left them unlocked in case Dorran needed to make a hasty retreat. Then she kicked off her snowshoes as quickly as she could and jogged through the house.
Despite the time she’d spent in the manor, she still wasn’t familiar with its layout. She thought she could visualise the path she needed to take, though. She burst through one of the doors and into the dining room. The immense space stretched along one side of the house, overlooking the front gardens. And, like Clare had hoped, it had a view of the pond.
She ran across the room, pressing close to the tall, narrow windows as she watched Dorran’s progress. He seemed to be flagging. His broad shoulders shook, and when he swiped the shovel, the movements lacked their earlier intensity. But he’d managed to lead the monsters on without letting any of them circle around him. Clare bit her thumb as she watched.
The snow dipped down over the pond, and Dorran let himself skid down the side. As he came to a halt in the basin, his movements slowed and became much more cautious. He lowered his body and used a hand to help disperse his weight as he crept back towards the building.
It was a gamble. He was banking on the idea that the ice was melted enough to crack when eight emaciated bodies weighed it down but wasn’t thin enough to drop him in too. He’d asked her to trust him. He wasn’t making it easy.
Clare pressed close to the window. Dorran moved incredibly slowly. The humanoid creatures were gaining on him. They didn’t seem to realise what he was doing, and in their eyes, it must have looked like Dorran’s energy reserves were gone. One of them got near enough to bite at his leg. He jabbed the shovel at it, and it backed off, teeth bared.
Now that they were closer, Clare could see the malformed bodies. They were walking nightmares. The closest one, the one who had tried to bite Dorran, had meters of excess skin. The flaps hung loose, like a blanket wrapped around the body and pinned at strange places. Whenever the creature moved, the flaps swung like pendulums. Holes pocked the skin. Clare thought she saw maggots squirming inside one of them.
Another creature scuttled closer. Its lower teeth had grown horribly long. Three of them had pierced its upper jaw and poked out through the cheeks. The skin around them trembled every time the being breathed.
Dorran had passed the halfway point in the lake. He looked down then back up. Clare felt her stomach drop. The monsters gathered together, keeping in a group, but their combined weight wasn’t enough to break the ice.
Maybe he miscalculated. Maybe the vent wasn’t hot enough. Maybe the lake is still frozen solid or has five feet of ice that won’t crack, no matter what.
Dorran stood. Clare guessed what he was about to do. She yelled and banged her open hand on the window. He turned, looked at her, and gave her a very small smile. Then he lifted the shovel and slammed its edge down onto the ice.
Clare heard the cracking noises even through the window. Dorran took a step back as the frozen surface under his feet lurched.
The creatures sensed their moment of opportunity and swarmed forward. Shards of ice burst upwards as the lake’s surface broke, showering little specks of snow across the scene. Then they all, monsters and human, plunged into the lake.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“No!” Clare beat her fist against the glass. Jets of water sprayed up as the nine bodies disappeared into the lake. Dorran wasn’t surfacing.
The front door was too far away. Clare tore off her gloves. Numb fingers scrambled along the window’s edge and found the latch. It was fused closed from disuse and cold. She wrenched on it until the glass cracked and the latch finally gave way. Then she kicked at the window frame, forcing it open, and climbed onto the sill.
Dorran surfaced, black hair plastered over his face. He coughed violently, reaching for the shore. The ice, already fractured, broke under his hands.
Hold on. Please, please, hold on.
She wouldn’t be able to get close enough to pull him out without being sucked into the lake as well. Desperation pulsed through her as she searched for something—anything—she could throw to Dorran. The serving tables were too large and heavy. The chairs were too short. The curtains…
The curtains might just do.
The windows were massively tall, and the curtains had been designed to match. The vivid red cloth had to be close to fifteen feet from floor to ceiling. Clare grabbed the nearest bunch. It was thick, heavier than was ideal, but there was no time to look for something better. She yanked on it. The curtain rods were well-made and barely bowed. Clare wrapped her arms around the fabric and leapt off the windowsill, using her weight to pull them down.
The wooden rods cracked and broke, and Clare tumbled to the ground in a flurry of fabric and clatter of metal rings. She rolled, regained her feet, bundled the cloth up, and threw it through the window.
Dorran clawed at the edges of the lake. Icy water surrounded him in a maze of blue and fractured blocks of white. Every time he gained an inch, the snow gave way and dropped him back in.
Clare ran, struggling through the thick snow and dragging the curtain with her. She stopped where the snowbank sloped down to the water’s edge and bundled the curtain up.
“Dorran!” She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she threw one end of the fabric. It spiralled out, unravelling as it tumbled, and slapped into the water near Dorran. He grabbed it. Clare tightened her grip on the other end then leaned back and pulled.
Slowly, agonisingly, Dorran began to emerge from the lake. He kicked to help push himself out while Clare tilted backwards. Her tired muscles screamed. She stumbled, dropping Dorran back by half a foot. Then she collected herself and redoubled her efforts.
He coughed, hacking up water as he gained solid ground. Once he was free, he fell to his side.
Clare let go of her end of the cloth and scrambled down to Dorran. He was shaking uncontrollably, and his eyes were closed. He looked completely spent. She dropped to her knees at his side, gripped his wet shirt, and shook him. “Dorran. Dorran. You have to get up.”