A Different Kingdom(108)

A wind blew through the hallway heavy with the smell, and he almost gagged at its potency. It was as though the flat around him were mere illusion and what he really stood in was a damp wood, that charnel house stench hanging in the trees.

He closed his eyes. It was clearer. A looming tangle of mighty trees around him, dead leaves squelching under his feet. All quiet in the twilight,

Dusk deepening and shadows moving in the depths of the wood. The breeze stirred his hair.

No. He was here in the city, and the tiles of the kitchen were cool under his bare feet, though the broomstick was slick with moisture in his palms.

Here, in his own world. With teeming millions. Scores of people slept within earshot of him. And he knew they would never hear a thing.

There was no sound, but he could feel the heavy presence beyond the door. He left the kitchen and padded at a crouch over to the window, peering through the blinds.

—The momentary flash of a diabolic face, laughing at him. He recoiled, then cautiously looked out again.

On to an endless canopy of trees, bare with winter, the stars glittering bright and cold in the sky above.

He retreated from the window. Tricks. They were playing tricks on him.

A smothered giggle, like the laughter of a child, from the bedroom.

He ran in with the spear thrust in front of him, saw the disordered shape of Clare's nude form—and a black, spider-thin creature chuckling over it.

He shouted with outrage and stabbed at the thing, but it leapt away and scurried across the room, still chortling. In one claw-like hand was a black ribbon of hair.

It was hard to see. He prodded the corners, the loose clothes on the floor. The voice laughed again. Its owner invisible. Michael was shaking with rage aand fear. He bent over Clare and saw that some of her dark locks had been cropped. Acorns nested on her eyes and a scarlet cluster of rowan berries had been placed in the dark pelt of her crotch. The bed was covered in shards of rotting leaves and broken twigs, the hard spheres of unripe winter berries. He brushed them away and shook her again, but she continued to breathe in even sleep.

Another smashing blow to the front door. There was a long, eager howl just outside, the sound of animals snapping and yelping. They were waiting for something, growing impatient.

The bedroom seemed empty, the creature that had been there gone. He kissed Clare with an odd feeling of fraud, and shuffled out of the hall.

There were leaves on the floor, pieces of twigs that jabbed his bare soles. Mushrooms and toadstools had begun to sprout in corners. The flat smelled dank, and the temperature had dropped until Michael was beginning to see the plume of his warm breath misting the mephitic air. There was that unwholesome breeze coming out of nowhere, carrying along with the smell of decay a hint of snow, the breath of the dark season. He might have been in the deep woods on a winter night.

Shivering, he went back to the window.

The forest was still there with a mist rising in it and the moon climbing over the tops of the tallest trees. There was a frost starting to sparkle on the bare branches, and the thin mist was set alight by the moon.

Michael sank to his knees in the gathering much that was the floor of the flat. The Other Place had reclaimed him. He groaned, and thought he could hear answering laughter, silvery as bells, outside. But he would not look.

Why? Why had they come back for him? Had he done them and their forest so much harm that they must needs hunt him like this, following him over the years and the long miles, the separating sea? Why?

There was a rending crash, a splintering and tearing of wood, and then a dull boom as the front door was punched off its hinges and fell to the floor. A cacophony of howling and screeching broke out in the hall, and Michael leapt up.

In the living room doorway was a long-eared shape with shining teeth and two glowing eyes. He stabbed the spear into it with all his strength and felt the knife slide sideways from the wooden shaft. But the iron in the blade did its work, and the beast tumbled sprawling to the floor.

More shapes behind it, the rank smell choking his throat. He drew the other knife from his belt and it-flashed in the moonlight that was splintering in wands and bars through the window blind.

Another great head thrust over the corpse of the first wolf and warm slobber spattered his chest. He stabbed again, but this time went wide as the animal swung to one side. Something hit him with tremendous force, flinging him across the room. The knife spun from his fingers. Bright lights stabbed into his head and the breath was crushed out of his lungs. Something raked his upper arm, tearing his sleeve to shreds and ripping long tears in his flesh. There was harsh fur against his face, pricking his cheek. A tremendous animal heat, hot breath, was clouding about him. The twigs that littered the floor pierced the muscles of his back.