Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(11)

Joan had seen those cars once later that summer. As she’d walked down the street, three of them had rolled past, sleek and black. Inside the last, Joan had glimpsed a grey-suited man in the driver’s seat, wearing a proper chauffeur’s hat. In the back seat, a boy had sat alone. He’d been around Joan’s age, golden-haired and beautiful. And as he’d passed, Joan had seen that he was sneering, as though he despised the whole world.

Cruel, Joan thought now. What would the Olivers do if they caught Joan and Nick here?

A woman appeared beside the vulture-faced man. And then more and more people were popping into existence—in the passage and in the rooms beyond: the Yellow Drawing Room, the Gilt Room.

Joan couldn’t shut the door—not without making a sound. It was old and creaky and whined when it closed. She could only step back into the library, careful not to touch the creaky floorboard. She coaxed Nick back with her, hoping their movements would be masked by all the arrivals.

As she stepped back, there was a sound behind her. A third footstep—a footstep neither she nor Nick had taken.

Joan turned slowly. Where the library had been empty, now there were people all down the long gallery. Joan heard Nick breathe in, sharp and shocked.

A man grabbed Joan’s shoulder with a heavy hand. ‘Why is it,’ he said, ‘that whenever we come to this time, we find the place infested with rats?’





FOUR




They were monsters.

If Joan had fostered any doubt about the truth, she couldn’t doubt it anymore. They’d appeared out of thin air. Joan must have looked just like that yesterday when she’d travelled from morning to night.

Seven of them were standing in the long gallery, elegantly dressed in early-twentieth-century suits and gowns. Joan’s eyes caught on details. A white silk scarf draped over a black jacket. Silver beading on a blue dress. Black leather shoes with a mirror sheen.

‘Did you see that?’ Nick whispered to Joan. ‘Did you see them appear out of the air?’

Joan felt sick. ‘Yes.’ She wished she could tell him what was happening. She wished she knew more herself. She couldn’t stop thinking of Ruth’s words. The Olivers are really bad. Cruel.

In the silence, footsteps sounded, slow and deliberate. The vulture-faced man stepped in from the passage. His shoulder-length hair was as black as a raven’s wing.

The man behind Joan gripped her shoulder tighter. ‘Lucien. These two were here when we arrived. They saw us arrive.’

Joan shivered at the way he said it. She had a horrible foreboding feeling. You must never tell anyone about monsters, Gran had said. And now Nick had seen them. What did that mean?

‘We’re—we’re volunteers here,’ Nick said. ‘We clean the house. We catalogue the books. We don’t have anything you’d—’

The man who’d spoken struck Nick hard across the face.

‘Don’t!’ Joan said, shocked. She flung up a hand, as if she could belatedly stop Nick from being hit. Someone gripped her shoulder and dragged her back. Joan clutched desperately at Nick’s hand, but couldn’t hold on as she was pulled away. There was blood on Nick’s mouth: a horrible smear of red.

Joan’s voice had drawn the attention of the vulture-faced man. Lucien. He closed the gap between them and grabbed her chin. There was a scuffle between Nick and two men. Lucien ignored it, forcing Joan’s chin up. ‘This girl is one of us,’ he said.

‘A monster?’ one of the others asked.

Nick stopped struggling and stared, his dark eyes huge. ‘A monster?’ He sounded bewildered. ‘What?’

‘I’m not—’ Joan started to say, but Lucien squeezed her face, making her gasp.

‘Don’t try to deny it,’ Lucien said. ‘I can see what you are. I have the Oliver power. You’re a monster and your little friend here is human.’ As he spoke, his eyes narrowed as if he’d noticed something else. Some prickling instinct made Joan follow his gaze down to her bracelet. It was a simple gold chain with a small charm—a gold fox with a silver tongue. Gran had given it to her years ago. The Hunt family symbol, she’d said.

Lucien’s mouth twisted. ‘Search them,’ he said roughly.

Two men did, with efficiency. One of them found Joan’s phone. Joan wrenched it away while he was still fumbling for it. She typed fast to Ruth: Olivers at hh. But as she tried to hit send, the man tore the phone from her. He crossed the room in a stride, opened a window, and dropped the phone out. There was a distant smash of glass in the courtyard below. Beside Joan, Nick managed to reach the corded phone on the desk, but then that was torn away too.

And then their arms were caught and they were muscled out of the library. Joan fought, the heels of her sneakers skidding and squealing against the wooden floor. ‘Let us go!’ She could hear the rising panic in her voice. ‘Leave us alone! Let us go!’

They were dragged into the Gilt Room—two rooms over from the library, and the most ornate room in the house, a jewellery box of red velvet and oil paintings with gilded frames and gleaming gold leaf.

At least three dozen people had gathered, as though for a cocktail party. All of them turned to stare as Joan and Nick were hustled in. Joan was humiliatingly aware of her flushed, sweaty face. Her hair had loosened from its tie. Nick was dishevelled too. There was blood on his mouth, and the struggle had rucked up his hair.