The Beast charged.
Hunter waited until she could see the white spittle dripping from its mouth, and as it lowered its head she stabbed up with the spear; but, as she tried to sink the spear into its side, she understood that she had moved just a fraction of a second too late, and the spear went tumbling out of her numbed hands, and a tusk sharper than the sharpest razor blade opened her side. And as she fell beneath its monstrous weight, she felt its sharp hooves crushing down on her arm, and her hip, and her ribs. And then it was gone, vanished back into the darkness, and the dance was done.
Mr. Croup was more relieved than he would have admitted to be through the labyrinth. But he and Mr. Vandemar were through it, unharmed, as was their prey. There was a rock face in front of them, an oaken double door set in the rock face, and an oval mirror set in the right-hand door.
Mr. Croup touched the mirror with one grimy hand. The surface of the mirror clouded at his touch, seethed for a moment, bubbling and roiling like a vat of boiling quicksilver, and then was still. The Angel Islington looked out at them. Mr. Croup cleared his throat. “Good morning, sir. It is us, and we have the young lady you sent us to fetch for you.”
“And the key?” The angel’s gentle voice seemed to come from all around them.
“Hanging around her swanlike neck,” said Mr. Croup, a little more anxiously than he intended to.
“Then enter,” said the angel. The oak doors swung open at his words, and they went in.
It had all happened so fast. The Beast had come out of the darkness, Hunter had snatched the spear, and it had charged her and disappeared back into the darkness.
Richard strained to hear the Beast. He could hear nothing but, somewhere close to him, the slow drip, drip of water, and the high, maddening whine of mosquitoes. Hunter lay on her back in the mud. One arm was twisted at a peculiar angle. He crawled toward her, through the mire. “Hunter?” he whispered. “Can you hear me?”
There was a pause. And then, a whisper so faint he thought for a moment he had imagined it, “Yes.”
The marquis was still some yards away, standing stock-still beside a wall. Now he called out, “Richard—stay where you are. The creature’s just biding its time. It’ll be back.”
Richard ignored him. He spoke to Hunter. “Are you . . . ” he paused. It seemed such a stupid thing to say. He said it anyway. “Are you going to be all right?” She laughed, then, with blood-flecked lips, and shook her head. “Are there any medical people down here?” he asked the marquis.
“Not in the sense you’re thinking of. We have some healers, a handful of leeches and chirurgeons . . . “
Hunter coughed, then, and winced. Bright red, arterial blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. The marquis edged a little closer. “Do you keep your life hidden anywhere, Hunter?” he asked.
“I’m a hunter,” she whispered, disdainfully. “We don’t go in for that kind of thing . . . ” She pulled air into her lungs with an effort, then exhaled, as if the simple effort of breathing were becoming too much for her. “Richard, have you ever used a spear?”
“No.”
“Take it,” she whispered.
“But . . . “
“Do it.” Her voice was low and urgent. “Pick it up. Hold it at the blunt end.”
Richard picked up the fallen spear. He held it at the blunt end. “I knew that part,” he told her.
A glimmer of a smile breathed across her face. “I know.”
“Look,” said Richard, feeling, not for the first time, like the only sane person in a madhouse. “Why don’t we just stay very quiet. Maybe it’ll go away. We’ll try to get you some help.” And, not for the first time, the person he was talking to ignored him utterly.
“I did a bad thing, Richard Mayhew,” she whispered, sadly. “I did a very bad thing. Because I wanted to be the one to kill the Beast. Because I needed the spear.” And then, impossibly, she began to haul herself to her feet. Richard had not realized how badly she had been injured; nor could he now imagine what pain she must be in: he could see her right arm hanging uselessly, a white shard of bone protruding horribly from the skin. Blood ran from a cut in her side. Her rib cage looked wrong.
“Stop it,” he hissed, futilely. “Get down.”
With her left hand she pulled a knife from her belt, put it into her right hand, closed the nerveless fingers around the hilt. “I did a bad thing,” she repeated. “And now I make amends.”
She began humming, then. Humming high and humming low, until she found the note that made the walls and the pipes and the room reverberate, and she hummed that note until it felt like the entire labyrinth must be echoing to her hum. And then, sucking the air into her shattered rib cage, she shouted, “Hey. Big boy? Where are you?” There came no reply. No noise but the low drip of water. Even the mosquitoes were quiet.
“Maybe it’s . . . gone away,” said Richard, gripping the spear so tightly that it hurt his hands.
“I doubt it,” muttered the marquis.
“Come on, you bastard,” Hunter screamed. “Are you scared?”
There was a deep bellow from off front of them, and the Beast came out of the dark, and it charged once more. This time there could be no room for mistakes. “The dance,” whispered Hunter. “The dance is not yet over.”
As the Beast came toward her, its horns lowered, she shouted, “Now—Richard. Strike! Under and up! Now!” before the Beast hit her and her words turned into a wordless scream.
Richard saw the Beast come out from the darkness, into the light of the flare. It all happened very slowly. It was like a dream. It was like all his dreams. The Beast was so close he could smell the shit-and-blood animal stench of it, so close he could feel its warmth. And Richard stabbed with the spear, as hard as he could, pushing up into its side and letting it sink in.
A bellow, then, or a roar, of anguish, and hatred, and pain. And then silence.
He could hear his heart, thudding in his ears, and he could hear water dripping. The mosquitoes began to whine once more. He realized he was still holding tight to the haft of the spear, although the blade of it was buried deep within the body of the immobile Beast. He let go of it, and staggered around the beast, looking for Hunter. She was trapped beneath the Beast. It occurred to him that if he moved her, pulling her out from under it, he might cause her death, so instead he pushed, as hard as he could, against the warm dead flanks of the Beast, trying to move it. It was like trying to push-start a Sherman tank, but eventually, awkwardly, he tumbled it half-off her.