Warped (19 page)

Will rolled his eyes and swore beneath his breath. “No. I doubt that you’ve ever swooned in your life, mistress. But it would be a blessed relief to hear the truth from those lovely lips.”

The anger took hold of her and flared. Tessa straightened. “The truth? Okay. Then listen to this,” she ordered. Her voice was stronger now, and as cold and smooth as black ice. “I was never in Cornwall. Never sat on my tuffet, waiting in the woods to trap a unicorn. I never met you before I pulled that stupid thread, and
I wish I hadn’t.
” She advanced, jabbing a finger toward him, and Will was forced back a step. “If you don’t feel you can trust me, then you’d better keep your distance,” she shouted. “A century or two would be fine.” She stopped. Her throat felt so tight it hurt.

Will appeared taken aback by her outburst, and a hint of uncertainty appeared in his eyes. But he tightened his jaw. “I suppose I should.”

“Great.” Tessa wheeled around. She dragged her gym bag from the floor. She shoved it at Will so hard he stumbled backward. “Then why don’t you take the stupid tapestry and get the hell out of my life.”

The bag turned over and the tapestry rolled out, thumping to the floor.

“Fine,” Will returned with a shout. “I shall.”

“And you can deal with Gray Lily and the Doomsday Sisters on your own,” she added. Her life would be back to normal again. No more magic towels or glowing mirrors or evil witches. It had nothing to do with her anymore. Correction: it had
never
had anything to do with her. “And I don’t care,” she said aloud.

“That is apparent,” Will agreed. But his voice had lowered. The hard line of his shoulders softened slightly. He looked at her. “Tessa, I—”

“Don’t.” She cut him off. She crossed to the window and peered out.

There was no sign of the black sedan below. “I don’t think he’s out there.” She didn’t understand how her voice could sound so level, so cool. “You can get away now.”

“I am sorry,” Will said. “I am grateful, Mistress Brody, for all that you have done. Good-bye.” He stooped to gather up the tapestry, which had unfurled on the floor. Something caught Tessa’s eye.

“Wait.” She stepped closer and, with a puzzled look, took the tapestry and held it up before her. But it was too close; she couldn’t see it properly that way. She spotted a couple of empty hooks on the wall. She hung the tapestry up on these and stepped back.

“It appears the same,” said Will, glancing at it only briefly.

Tessa scanned the tapestry. There was the dark center of the picture where the unicorn had been, the more distant background of woods and trees and flowers. In the morning light the tapestry looked shabby and frayed at the edges, but the muted colors still glowed. Even now she could hardly believe what had happened: William de Chaucy had really come out of a piece of woven fabric. He was real.

Tessa frowned and took a step closer. “No,” she said slowly. “I think it’s different.”

Gray Lily pinched the bridge of her nose and said, “This girl, this Brody person, is beginning to annoy me. Obviously my serpent did not have the desired effect.” She turned to Moncrieff, who stood some feet away, his head bowed. Gray Lily raised her hands in clenched fists and shrieked. “
And she still has my tapestry!
”

Moncrieff nodded once. “Yes, my lady.” He paused. “The unicorn. Even now, could you not control him as you—”

He broke off, the rest of it not needing to be said.
As you do me
.

Gray Lily jerked her head in the negative. “I can’t. The unicorn is the only thread I left whole within the tapestry. It’s the only way I could”—she glanced at Moncrieff—“contain the creature.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said briskly. “I have other useful threads.” She sat down and tugged open the drawstrings of her velvet pouch with quick, vicious movements. “I will have this girl on her knees before this day is done. I will have her blood and her tears.” She pulled two coarse, spiky threads from her bag and dangled them in the air. Speaking in a low voice, she murmured a series of incantations.

The threads drifted up and away from her hands and out through the open window.

“There,” said Gray Lily. “I have sent the lymerer. The hunt begins in earnest.”

Chapter 28

T
he tapestry
was
different. There were two figures in the upper right-hand corner of the tapestry that Tessa hadn’t noticed before. They were so small they were just two dark smudges. She took a deep breath. Stared.

“Will.”

“What?” He looked over at her and came closer.

“Look at this,” Tessa breathed. Her eyes were fixed on the dark woven surface. “It’s changing.” She stared at it, trying to see if words were forming. No. Not words.

The figures in the corner were bigger. She could see them clearly now, even though they were only about an inch high. They had taken on faint colors too. One was a man dressed in black; next to him was a shorter form. A dog, held on a leash.

“They’re getting bigger,” Tessa said faintly. She shivered. The threads of the tapestry were reworking themselves, transforming the wriggling surface of the fabric. The tapestry flapped against the wall, releasing small puffs of dust. Its surface rippled and shook as the figures got bigger. Closer. The grim-faced man had something black over one eye. A patch. The dog was huge and black, with glowing orange eyes and bared teeth.

Tessa heard the sharp hiss of Will’s indrawn breath and turned. He stood, white-faced, staring at the tapestry. The jagged cut made a dark track on his pale skin. “Tessa!” Without tearing his eyes from the tapestry Will gripped her arm and pulled her back. “Get away from it. He’s a lymerer.”

“What’s a lymerer?” whispered Tessa.

“A kind of huntsman. They use dogs to track and to—” He broke off and she glanced up. There was a wild look in his eyes. The same look he’d had when he’d come from the tapestry, Tessa thought. A frozen, hunted look.

“Will, what’s happening?” she cried. When he didn’t answer, she looked back. The figure of the man was in the center of the tapestry now, and bigger still. His face was thick and brutish. He held the leash wound around his fisted right hand. A heavy sword hung from his side, as well as a horn. The threads shifted.
He was moving
.

The dog pulled forward, pawing the air. The picture got bigger with every passing second, filling the tapestry as Tessa watched in horror.

“He’s coming here.” Will pushed her toward the door. “Get away, Tessa. Run!”

Then it happened. So quickly there was no time to run, no time to think. The room shook, and Tessa heard the rumbling and the tearing sound, the same as before. She stumbled to the door, got one hand on the knob and flung the door open as she twisted to look behind her. “Will!” she screamed.

The teeth came through first.

Chapter 29

S
napping fangs snagged and tore the threads as a monstrous dog pushed his head out of the tapestry.

“Run!” Will yelled, shoving Tessa through the open door.

They flew down the stairs. Will grabbed the rail and leapt over the last few steps, landing with a heavy thud behind her as they reached the bottom floor.

Claws scrabbled above them; then Tessa heard feet pounding down the stairs, chasing them. Thank God her father wasn’t here, she thought as she and Will dashed through the back door to the store.

Tessa slammed it, threw the dead bolt and leaned against it as a heavy weight struck the other side. There was a curse and then scratching high on the other side of the door. She smelled hot, pungent odors: dog and drool and human sweat.

“It won’t hold them,” gasped Will. He grabbed her arm and pulled her, running across the wide, creaky floor of the bookstore. “Get outside—”

“I’ll call the police.”

“We’ll both be dead before they arrive,” he snapped, pulling her to the store’s front door. The door behind them shuddered with a blow. Will dashed back, pulled a heavy dictionary from a display shelf and smashed the front of a glass case.
Webster’s Collegiate
, Tessa noted dully. She didn’t understand what Will was doing until, using the book, he began to swipe the shards of glass onto the floor. Without hesitating, Tessa bent to help spread the sharp pieces, brushing them in a wide path.

“Tessa! Not with your hands!” Will cursed and grabbed her by her shoulders. He propelled her through the front door just as she heard wood splintering. The door behind them was being savagely broken down. Will pushed her forward onto the steps. “Run to Opal’s house,” he shouted over the wild barking coming from inside the store. “It’s me he’s after. Do you understand?”

Tessa jerked a nod, turned away and began to run. Her heart thudded, as if slowed by fear-thickened blood. Behind her a melee of noises exploded from the store: a door bursting from its hinges, followed by the skitter of glass, then yelping canine cries.

She slowed and turned to look behind her. Will was running down the sidewalk.
They’ll catch him
, she thought.
They’ll catch him
. The thought rammed her fear aside and replaced it with a fierce determination. No. She stopped and pivoted, then tore back after Will, running past the storefront again, where she caught a glimpse of the lymerer. His hulking, black-garbed form was bent over the dog, and he straightened just as she fled past. Tessa choked down a gasp as she saw him stand. The lymerer was gigantic; he must have been seven feet tall. He looked like some gruesome giant from a fairy tale.

Tessa raced after Will. To her relief, it wasn’t like a dream. She was running fast, covering ground, closing the gap between them. He threw a glance behind him and, slowing, shouted at her. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Coming with you. This way,” Tessa gasped, pounding up beside him. They raced side by side, Will nudging at her shoulder as she veered into an alleyway. They tore up the narrow, mud-slicked passage, dodging trash containers and restaurant delivery pallets.

“Up here.” She rolled one of the tall recycling bins to the wall, hoisted herself on top of it and grabbed the edge of a fire-escape landing. She hooked a leg up and pulled herself onto the rattling metal frame.

“Faster,” Will said. He sounded absurdly calm to her as he kicked the bin away and swung himself up. They scrabbled up the swaying iron steps to the second-floor landing as the lymerer’s dog came whipping around the corner and along the alleyway. Unleashed, it bulleted toward them.

Tessa stared.
That couldn’t be a dog
. Its thickly muscled haunches must have come up to her waist. A head the size of a cinder block. Sleek black fur, ears flat, muzzle rolled back from red slavering gums. Teeth like sharpened white tombstones snapped the air, and its bark sounded like savage machine-gun fire. Her gaze flicked to the opening of the alleyway. There was no sign of the giant lymerer—yet.

“Down,” she tried weakly. “Heel. Sit.”

“It’s no use,” said Will, breathing hard. “A lymerer’s dog obeys only its master, and it knows only two commands: ‘Hunt’ and ‘Kill.’ ”

“Great.” Tessa found herself frozen. She was trapped by the monster Hell dog below and the wobbly framework of the decrepit fire escape above.

“Climb!” yelled Will. He put a firm hand on her back end and shoved.

Arms trembling, Tessa climbed the last section: a rusty ladder, bolted to the brick wall. She tried not to look at the sheer drop to the alley below. Tessa slung herself up and over the jutting ledge, onto the flat rooftop.

She rolled from the edge onto her back, panting as Will landed next to her in a crouch. He remained tensed, motionless, as they both listened. Running footsteps sounded below. The dog’s barking stopped. Below them, the fire escape creaked.

With a muttered curse Will sprang up and jerked Tessa to her feet. As they ran across the pebbled surface, Tessa took in the limited options for escape. A rooftop garden had been laid out next to a small shed. Beyond this, the building’s access door stood in an elevated, wedge-shaped structure. Will reached it and yanked. Locked.

They turned and ran into the garden shed. Will snapped the lightweight door shut. “There’s no bloody bolt,” he muttered.

“Garden tools don’t need to lock themselves in,” hissed Tessa. She peered through the ventilation slats of the flimsy barrier. At the edge of the roof the lymerer swung a booted leg up and climbed over. He stood.
Big and ugly
was all Tessa’s mind could register for a moment. He came closer, and through the narrow spaces she saw him pause and swivel his gaze over the rooftop. One of his eyes was covered by a patch, and his face was marked with splotchy blemishes. His sloping forehead hung down over a thick, misshapen nose. The lymerer’s one good eye fixed on the toolshed. He bared his blackened, broken teeth. It was something like a smile.

In the small, shadowed space, standing hip to hip with Will, Tessa saw the lymerer approach and her heart lurched. They were trapped in here. She turned slightly, trying to make no noise. “He’s coming.” She barely mouthed the words.

“Find a weapon,” Will whispered into her hair. Tessa reached out and grabbed the first handle she touched as Will searched the cramped, stuffy space. In the dim light Tessa saw his fingers racing lightly over the piles of plastic tubs, watering cans and flowerpots. He lifted a bag and turned to her. He pointed to the skull-and-crossbones warning label.

“What’s this?”

“Weed killer. Poison for plants,” Tessa whispered.

Will nodded his understanding and opened the plastic sack to peer at the white powdered contents. Outside, the crunch of boots on gravel came closer.

“That won’t do anything,” she said in a desperate undertone. “Not unless you can make him eat it.”

“I was thinking of something more immediate,” he answered, reaching into the bag.

The door snapped open. Will shouted and flung a handful of the white powder into the lymerer’s face. In an explosion of dust the man reeled back with a grunt, clutching his one good eye.

Will and Tessa scrambled out. The lymerer’s face was plastered with white powder, and he squinted through one red, blinking eye. He swung a bulky arm, catching Tessa around her waist with such force that the air was knocked from her lungs. He dragged her closer and held her pinned to face him as she struggled helplessly. With a grunt he reached up and pulled off his eye patch. Beneath it, a scar-skinned globe veered in its misshapen socket. The milky, grotesque eye rolled down and fastened on Tessa. The lymerer grinned.