Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(88)

Tom pushed the coffee table to one side and rolled up the rug. Joan could feel the tension in the room. Tom’s size alone was part of it. His muscled bulk seemed to fill the whole space.

He looked at the corners of the room, the placement of the sofa, as if assessing angles. ‘Stand back,’ he said. He waited for them all to shuffle away. Then he put the plastic square at his feet. The square seemed to shimmer.

A small chessboard appeared, floating in midair. It was the strange type of chess Joan had noticed in the Serpentine Inn: the kind with elephant and sailing-ship pieces instead of bishops and rooks. For some reason, seeing the board made Tom’s expression soften. ‘Just because you beat me that first time,’ he murmured.

‘It’s a game?’ Ruth asked.

‘It’s a password,’ Tom said. ‘One that only two people know.’ He placed a white pawn, and then a black one, and then kept going, alternating between white and black, his fingers moving with unhesitating confidence. The pieces clacked against the board just as though they were real. But Tom wasn’t quite touching them, Joan saw. And when he tossed aside the first pawn, it vanished like a popped bubble.

He was replaying a game, Joan thought. Recalling every move without effort. Whoever had set this password had known he would. Joan thought about the drunk idiot he’d seemed to be just a few days ago. The real Tom Hathaway was turning out to be an entirely different person.

Finally, the white king stood alone, surrounded by black. Tom moved a knight into checkmate.

And then the board was gone. For a moment, a number floated in midair: 10.

And when that was gone, Nick was in the room.

‘Run!’ Joan shouted.

Tom’s arm shot out, catching Joan as she tried to flee. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ He steadied her.

‘It’s him!’ Joan screamed at him. ‘It’s the hero!’

‘He’s not really here,’ Tom said. ‘It’s just a recording.’

Nick didn’t look like a recording. He looked as real as anything in the room. Joan’s heart was pounding. Aaron had tried to run too. His back was pressed against the wall. Ruth was behind the pushed-back sofa. Her eyes were huge, breath coming fast.

Nick looked deceptively unthreatening. He was sitting in a wooden chair. And now that Joan wasn’t freaking out, she could see what Tom meant. Nick was young—fourteen, maybe. And he wasn’t here in this house. He was in the kitchen of a different house. There was a microwave, a fridge.

Movement in the kitchen became a man, walking toward Nick. He was clearly a monster. Nick was wearing a T-shirt and black jeans. But the monster was dressed for a different century. He wore a suit and a top hat. He removed the hat now, revealing sleek black hair.

He placed the hat carefully on the kitchen counter and stood in front of Nick’s chair.

Joan swallowed. ‘Run,’ she whispered to the man, even though it was pointless if this was only a recording.

Without warning, the man slapped Nick hard across the face.

Joan gasped. Nick lifted his head slowly. The slap had bloodied his mouth. Joan closed her eyes, not wanting to see what happened next. In a way, having her eyes closed was worse. She remembered how Nick had shoved the sword into Lucien—in and then out. She remembered how he’d hurled the blade into Edmund’s chest. She remembered Lucien’s blank face.

She remembered Gran, lying dead on the sofa.

There was another sharp crack. Joan’s eyes flew open again. She’d expected to see the man dead, but he was still standing over Nick, and now there was more blood—all over Nick’s nose and mouth.

‘What is this?’ Joan could hear the horror in her voice. It didn’t make sense. It had taken Nick just seconds to kill Lucien.

Expression cold, the man drove his fist into Nick’s jaw. Nick rocked back, just taking it. His arms were bound to the armrests of the chair, Joan realised.

The man struck him again. And now, finally, Nick reacted. ‘Please,’ he whispered. Blood was running down his chin, down his neck. His nose looked broken. ‘Please, no more. Please—’

‘Stop,’ a woman’s voice said.

The scene froze. Or at least Nick froze, mouth half-open, pleading. The man wasn’t frozen. He looked over his shoulder at someone out of frame. ‘I can get him there,’ he said.

‘No,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘Start again.’

The scene vanished, leaving the sitting room empty. Joan stared at the space where Nick had been, sickened. After the massacre, she’d imagined hurting him for what he’d done to her family. But actually seeing him get hurt in front of her . . . hearing the crack of breaking bone . . . She wanted to throw up.

A number floated in the air: 15.

Nick was in the chair again, face uninjured. The monster stood over him. Joan could hardly breathe.

‘Who shall I kill first?’ the monster said to him. ‘You have so many siblings. Should I go youngest to oldest, and kill your parents last? Or the other way around?’

‘Leave them alone!’ Nick said. ‘They’re—’

The monster struck Nick’s face, breaking his nose again. Joan flinched hard. A terrible dread began to fill her chest.

‘Stop,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘Start again.’

The number 93 floated in the air.