“And she beat you,” said Amber. “So now I’m going to beat you.”
“Wrong,” said Shanks, a flicker of irritation crossing his features for the first time. “She tricked me. She didn’t beat me, she tricked me into doing this to myself.”
“So not only are you weak,” Amber said, “you’re also an idiot?”
Shanks made a sound she couldn’t identify, and started up the stairs. “I’ve been doing this a very long time, young lady. I’ve hunted all kinds of people.”
Amber stood as he approached. “You’ve never hunted anyone quite like me.”
He reached the top, came towards her, and she stepped out of the shadows and smiled, giving him a flash of her fangs.
He froze, stared at her, and then his eyes narrowed. “You are a girl full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said, starting to move to the side. Circling her. That knife in his hand. “So that’s why you want Buxton. You have your power and now you want more. Funny the effect power has on a person.”
“I suppose it is,” she said, turning with him as he circled.
“Has it changed you, Amber? Apart from physically, I mean. Are you a different person now?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Shanks smiled. “I bet. I saw you and I thought to myself, easy target. Now look at you. Suddenly I feel very silly indeed.”
“How did you get me in here?”
Shanks’s chuckle was dry, and lacking good cheer. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “You’re never going to leave.”
He lunged, jabbing low and then slashing high. Amber dodged backwards, barely avoiding the blade that whistled by her throat. Shanks didn’t stop moving, however. In an instant, he was on her, pushing her back against the banister. She grabbed at his knife hand, fingers closing round his wrist. He was stronger than she’d expected. Not as strong as her but close enough. He headbutted her and pain flashed outwards from her nose. His other hand was on her throat and he was pushing her back, over the banister. She grew talons and raked his arm.
Howling, Shanks released his grip. They stumbled, locked together. Blood ran from Shanks’s forearm, but he ignored it and reached up for her horns. He suddenly stepped back and yanked downwards and Amber cried out, her knees hitting the floor. He kicked her, the toe of his shoe connecting with her chin, and Amber sprawled.
“You’re all strength,” Shanks said, kneeling on her throat, “but no finesse. No style.”
“Amber!” came Milo’s voice from all around them. “Amber, someone’s coming. We must have set off an alarm. Amber?”
Through the window behind Shanks, she could see out into the room as Milo stepped in. He was a giant.
“Amber?” he said, his voice astonishingly loud.
Shanks smiled down at her. “Hush now. Don’t spoil the surprise.” He pulled her up, holding the knife against her throat, and moved her to the window.
Glen came in after Milo, closing the door. He noticed the key. “Where is she?” he asked, fiddling with it. The key twisted as he fiddled, locking the door.
“Oh my,” whispered Shanks. “This will be even easier than I thought.”
Milo came closer to the dollhouse, peering through the windows. “Shanks. I’d like a word.”
Behind him, Glen turned the key in the other direction, and opened the door.
Shanks shoved Amber away, and ran for the stairs.
Amber toppled, still woozy from the kick to the head. She looked down through the banisters, saw Shanks sprinting for the front door. He vanished right before he hit it and she snapped her head up—
—as he smashed into Glen, throwing him violently off his feet, then rebounded, went stumbling towards Milo as Milo turned. As the door slammed shut behind him, Shanks hit Milo with a wild swing boosted by his momentum, and Milo twisted and went down. Shanks got his feet under him, looked around and then through the dollhouse window, and a smile broke across his features.
Amber stood up, fresh terror mounting.
She heard footsteps, running footsteps from beyond the closed door.
“Get out of there!” came Heather’s voice.
Shanks’s face took on an expression of pure joy, and he darted behind the door.
“Heather, no!” Amber screamed, stumbling to the window. “Don’t come in!”
Heather didn’t hear her. She threw the door open and ran in and Shanks grabbed her, pushed her back against the wall and plunged his knife into her and Amber went cold.
Heather stared into Shanks’s eyes, her mouth open, but no sound coming out.
“I told you,” Shanks snarled as he dragged the blade across her belly. “I told you I’d kill you, you interfering little bitch.”
He gave the knife another twist and Heather made a sound halfway between a sigh and a gag, and then a series of explosions filled Amber’s ears. Shanks went stumbling, letting Heather fall as he scrambled out of the door. A moment later, Milo rose into view, his gun in his hand.
He helped Glen back to his feet, then tore the jacket off him. He crouched by Heather, pressing the jacket against her wound. “Keep applying pressure,” he said. “Glen! Call an ambulance!”
Heather grabbed his arm. “Stop Shanks,” she said, her voice weak. “Stop him.”
Milo hesitated, then stood. “Glen, stay with her. When help comes, find Amber.”
Then he was gone.
AMBER RAN FOR THE banister, leaped over it, and dropped to the floor below. The impact juddered from her feet to her hips, but she sprang for the white door the way Shanks had … and smashed straight into it.
She staggered back, landed on her ass.
She got up, hurried to the closest window. From there, she could see the huge figure of Glen pressing his jacket against Heather’s wound as he talked on the phone, giving the address. There was blood everywhere. Amber looked past them, to the door, to the brass key still in the lock.
“Glen!” she yelled.
Glen looked around. “Amber?”
“Glen!”
He took Heather’s hands, laid them on the jacket. “Hold this,” he said, and hurried over, checking the windows. “Amber! You in there?”
She waved until she caught his attention. His face filled the window.
“Amber! You’re red again!”
She stopped waving. “I’m also trapped in here.”
“Yes,” Glen said quickly. “Of course. How do I get you back to normal size?”
“The door. Close it and lock it, then unlock it and open it. Don’t walk through.”
Glen frowned. His eyebrows were massive and hairy. “Why?”
“The key! It’s the key Heather told us about, the one that let Shanks travel between doorways!”
“Ohhh,” said Glen. “Okay, cool. Hey, Amber? What does it look like when someone is dying? I think Heather might be dying.”
“The door, Glen!”
“Right,” he said, then hunkered down to peer in. “And listen, if this doesn’t work, you can live in my pocket. I won’t mind.”
“The door!” she shouted.
Glen hurried to the door, stepping over Heather’s outstretched legs as he did so. He locked it, unlocked it and opened it, and Amber ran forward, and right before she slammed into the dollhouse door it turned into the room outside, and she stumbled into Glen, who shrieked and spun as the door slammed shut behind her.
“Amber!” he gasped.
Relief washed over her, but then Heather raised her head, her eyes widened and she screamed.
“No, no, it’s okay!” Glen said. “It’s Amber! She’s with us! She won’t hurt you!”
Despite her wound, Heather scrambled away from them both, leaving a bloody smear on the ground.
“Glen, it’s okay,” Amber said. “I’m leaving. I’m going after Shanks.”
“Well then, I’m going with you.”
“No, you stay with her.”
“I’m going with you,” he insisted. “Heather’s fine.
Heather, aren’t you fine? The ambulance will be here shortly, and all I’ll be doing is soaking up blood. I’m going with you.”
“Fine,” Amber muttered, taking the brass key from the lock and pocketing it. She opened the door. The corridor looked perfectly normal.
“If you disappear again, I’ll rescue you,” Glen said from beside her.
She patted his shoulder, and then shoved him out into the corridor. He tripped, went sprawling, but at least he didn’t disappear. She ran, jumped over him and kept going.
He did his best to keep up. “I don’t mind that you did that,” he called.
Amber ignored him.
She burst out into the night air just as Milo came striding back to the Charger, his gun held down by his leg.
“Amber! Where the hell were you?”
“Never mind that,” she said. “Any sign of him?”
“No,” Milo said as he opened the car door. “Get in. He’s probably headed to the toystore.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “He mentioned the other dollhouses – he might be going there, instead. You check the toystore, I’ll check the school.”
“We’re not splitting up,” said Milo. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s my fault he’s out!” she shouted. “If he hurts anyone else, that’s on me! I’ll be fine – I’m a goddamn demon, okay? Go!”
Milo hesitated, then tucked his gun into his waistband and jumped in behind the wheel. Glen hurried up behind her as the Charger was speeding away.
“Come on,” said Amber.
Glen panted and wheezed as they ran the block to the school, whereas she ran easily, giving a wide berth to every darkened doorway while Glen staggered by, oblivious to the threat Shanks posed. They got to the corner and paused, peering out across the street.
“It doesn’t look like he’s here,” Glen whispered, still panting.
“Let’s get closer.”
Glen grabbed her arm. He could barely fit his hand around her bicep. “Maybe we should wait for Milo. He has the gun, right? I mean, you’ve got claws and you’re amazing, but a gun’s a gun.”
“If we delay, he might hurt someone.”
“So? Do you really care?”
She snapped her head round to him. “What?”
He held up his hands. “Hey, sorry. I just … You didn’t exactly force me to stay with Heather, you know?”
She snarled. “You said she’d be fine.”
“Well, yeah, but what do I know? I just said that so I could come along.”
She leaned in. “Of course I care about Shanks hurting people.”
“Right. Okay. I thought maybe you didn’t really give a crap about that stuff. My mistake.”
Amber wanted to hit him, wanted to take out her anger and frustration on his stupid face, but right before she made a move an alarm rang out, drawing her attention back to the school.
“Looks like we’re the lucky ones,” she said.
“I’ll call Milo.”
“You do that. I’m going to— damn it.”
She ducked back as a police cruiser swept in, hopping the kerb and stopping right at the foot of the steps.
“Wow,” said Glen. “Response time here is fast.”
They watched Sheriff Roosevelt get out, and Dacre Shanks walk down the steps towards him.
Amber couldn’t hear what Teddy was saying over the noise of the alarm, but Shanks kept on coming with his head down. Teddy backed away, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered gun.
Amber broke from cover, sprinting towards them, Glen at her heels.
She was halfway across the street when Shanks got close enough for Teddy to recognise him. Teddy jerked back, went for his gun, but Shanks took three quick steps and plunged his knife into the sheriff’s throat.
Amber roared and Shanks turned to her, Teddy’s gun in his outstretched hand.
She pulled up, stumbling a little. Glen ran into the back of her.
Shanks smiled at her. “Where’s your friend?”
Amber hissed as Teddy sank slowly to the ground.
This just made Shanks smile wider. “He’s a dangerous one. I could tell just by looking at him. Do me a favour, would you? Call out to him? Tell him to join us, and to leave his gun behind?”
“He’s not here,” said Amber.
“But he’ll be here shortly,” Glen added.
“Well then, I had better be ready for him, hadn’t I?” said Shanks. “You are both going to accompany me into the school, if you please. Oh, and young lady, if you would do me the courtesy of changing from this beautiful red-skinned creature back to the dull little girl you really are, that would be simply marvellous.”
She didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was take her chances and dive at him. Maybe he’d shoot her, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d miss. But she wouldn’t miss. She’d carve his face up. Rip out his eyes. Tear his throat out with her teeth.
The gun in his hand didn’t waver. Amber swallowed her anger, and reverted to normal.
“There,” said Shanks. “Isn’t that better?”
THE ALARM WOULDN’T STOP WAILING. It howled through the high school’s wide corridors, an unrelenting assault on Amber’s eardrums, and escaped through the open door that led out into the night.
Glen sat with one hand cuffed to the radiator. Amber herself was on her knees, both hands cuffed behind her back. She watched as Shanks opened the glass cabinet, and trailed a long finger over the contours of the dollhouse within, the last surviving dollhouse that contained so many of his victims.
He looked back at her, and smiled.
“This is my life’s work,” he said, his voice barely audible over the alarm. “This is everything that has ever given my existence meaning. What is your meaning, Amber? What is your purpose?”
Amber didn’t say anything.
“Do you even know?” Shanks continued. “Do you have any idea? You probably don’t. Very few do. I didn’t – not when I was alive. I needed to die before I could see why I needed to live. The Shining Demon helped me. He granted me my new life, and he gave me the key that made everything so much easier. Do you have it, by the way? Did you bring it with you?”
“He wants you to help me,” Amber said.
“Sorry? What was that?”
“The Shining Demon,” she said, louder this time. “He wants you to help me.”
Shanks laughed. “I don’t think so, Amber. He plays games, as is his right as a Duke of Hell, but that is not a game he is interested in playing. He would rather we scurry about on our own, fumbling blindly in the dark. We arouse his curiosity only rarely, I’m afraid.”
She shook her head. “I’m special. He said it himself. If you hurt me, if you harm me or my friends, he’ll be—”
He hit her. It was a slap, an open palm, but it struck so fast and so suddenly that it rocked her, sent the world tilting and the floor rushing up to crack against her skull.
She lay on her side, the alarm in her head, tasting blood. Then she felt Shanks’s hands on her as he pulled her back to kneeling position.
“My apologies,” he said. “I don’t like it when people lie to me. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. That was rude. But try not to lie again, all right? It brings out my ugly side.”
“Every side is your ugly side,” Glen said.
“Do you really think it wise to taunt the man with the gun?”
“You think I’m scared of you?”
“Yes,” answered Shanks. “You said as much, not fifteen minutes ago.”
“That was then,” Glen said. “This is now. You know what I think? I think you’re the coward. You’re a big man with the gun and the knife, but take those away, and you’re a pathetic little loser.”
Shanks said, in a bored voice that the alarm nearly drowned out, “You do realise I don’t need you, yes? All I need is Amber here. You are quite disposable.”
Glen laughed. “Of course I’m disposable. I’ve got four days to live. I’m practically dead
already. Four days or right now – what difference does it make? Shoot me, or take these cuffs off and we’ll settle this like men.”
Amber watched them, waiting for her moment.
“I think I’ll shoot you,” said Shanks. “It’ll be funnier.” He raised the gun.
There.
A brief wave of pain washed over Amber as she shifted into her demonic form, and she charged into him, her shoulder catching him in the middle of the back and one of her horns scraping his neck. Shanks went down and she fell on top of him. She tried to snap the handcuffs that bound her wrists behind her – she felt the links strain – but her demon strength wasn’t up to the task. Instead, she knelt on his hand and he let go of the gun, and she twisted and fell back, managing to kick the weapon. It skittered across the polished floor towards Glen. He reached for it with his free hand, but it stopped just short of his splayed fingers.
Shanks pushed her off. She got to her knees while he leaped to his feet. He darted for the gun and she threw herself at his legs. He fell sideways, smashing through the glass of the cabinet, narrowly avoiding the dollhouse inside.
Roaring, he clambered out, glass covering him in a thousand crystals. He grabbed Amber by the throat and threw her backwards, then reached down for the gun. In his fury, his clumsy attempt to snatch it up merely pushed it a few inches further away. Glen closed his hand around it, brought it up and fired three times, point-blank, into Shanks’s chest.
The alarm cut off.
Shanks straightened up and kept going, toppling over backwards. He landed in a bed of glass and didn’t move.
Amber stood up. Glen stared at the gun in his hand. The air carried a whine in the sudden silence.
“You okay?” Glen asked, his voice dull.
She nodded. “You did it.”
“I did,” said Glen. “I killed—”
Shanks sat up so suddenly it actually made Amber cry out in surprise. Glen tried to get another shot off, but Shanks tore the gun from his grip and pressed the barrel into his jaw.
Amber froze.
“You can’t kill what’s already dead,” said Shanks. “Haven’t you ever heard that?”