Bone Jack Read Online Free PDF

‘He’ll be around there somewhere.’
    ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’
    She shook her head. ‘He wants to talk to you, not me. Go on.’
    He watched her go, her slight figure becoming a shadow that melted away into the night until at last it swallowed her and he was alone.
    Except for Mark.
    He went deeper into the woods, then stopped in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat. A gaunt white face stared down at him, long and bony, its eyes hollow with night.
    Beyond it, other faces gleamed in the dark, a dozen or more of them.
    He started to back away. Then he realised what they were. Skulls, sheep skulls. Some wedged in the forks of branches, others stuck up on sticks driven into the ground or turning slowly at the ends of strings tied around boughs. Three dead rooks, feet bound together, swinging from a branch. Feathers blacker than the fire-cut dark, black as the feather he’d found in his bedroom.
    And behind the rooks and the skulls, monstrous shadows shifted among the trees, a dozen or more of them. Figures in masks, distorted and weird, throwing out long limbs, leaping, plunging, twisting.
    Freaky shadow people dancing like crazed shamans around the fire.
    Mark had company.
    Ash dropped into a crouch behind a tree and watched them dance. They were quick and agile, soaring up, spinning, tangling, tearing apart, re-forming and sinking to the ground only to leap up again.
    His heart thumped so loudly he was sure they’d hear it.
    Fear ran through him. The dancing boys seemed more than human and somehow less at the same time. Half boy and half beast, as airy as wraiths, as dark as the night.
    And Mark was in there with them.
    They’re just shadows thrown by hound boys in fancy dress, Ash told himself. That’s all. Maybe this was just a game, the usual ritual in the run-up to the Chase, when the hound boys tormented the stag boy and tried to unnerve him to give the race a dangerous edge.
    Or maybe it was something else.
    But he was here now. Callie had brought him and Mark was expecting him. He couldn’t get out of it. He’d look like a coward and an idiot if he ran away or crouched behind a tree all night.
    He drew a deep breath to steady his nerves, then stood up and walked out into the clearing.
    His arrival seemed to shatter a spell. The shadowy boys spun away into the night. They didn’t go far though, he was sure of that. He couldn’t see them any more but he sensed them still out there, lurking among the trees, beyond the circle of firelight. Watching him.
    Now they were gone, he saw Mark. He was standing in front of the fire, facing it. He was dressed in loose, torn trousers and nothing else. His hair was matted and spiked with pale clay, his body caked with it.
    Ash had seen that look before, on the stag boy running in the mountains.
    ‘Mark,’ he said, walking towards the fire. ‘Hey, Mark. It’s me. Ash. Callie brought me. She said you wanted to talk to me.’
    Mark turned. His face was a cracked clay mask. There were charcoal smudges around his eyes. Skull-faced, death-faced. His grin flashed bright and fierce in the firelight. ‘Ash,’ he said. ‘You came then. I thought you’d chicken out.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Ash. ‘I nearly did.’
    Mark nodded. His gaze slid away towards the trees on the other side of the fire.
    ‘What’s with the zombie look?’ said Ash.
    Mark looked at him again. He raised his arms straight out in front of him, slackened his jaw, took a few stiff-legged steps towards Ash. ‘Mwuuuuh! I smell fresh meat. Human meat. Mwuuuuh!’
    Ash laughed. ‘You’re still an idiot,’ he said. ‘Where have the others gone? The boys who were dancing around the fire?’
    Mark dropped his arms back down to his sides. ‘Dancing boys?’
    ‘Yeah, those boys who were leaping around the fire a minute ago. All dressed up in hound costumes. Looked like that, anyway. Then they ran off when I got here. Who were they? Why did they run off like that?’
    Mark shrugged and cocked