Dawn of the Demontide (29 page)

A red flame sparked between the Master’s fingers. His eyes darkened until they resembled two black suns.

‘When last we met you fought me with the most ferocious, primal magic I have ever known. Now you return in the form of this child and hope to beat me again?’

The Master’s gloved hand reached up to his cloth mask.

‘You will fail, Witchfinder.’

He tore the mask away.

Jake had expected a horrific vision to be revealed. Instead, the face of Marcus Crowden was one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. A strong jaw, sharp cheekbones and a delicate nose: features that might have been carved by angels. The only imperfection was around the mouth, which was distorted by a permanent sneer. Deep in his memory, Jake found an echo of this face. He had seen it before, lit by candlelight in the dank depths of a cavern.

Mother Inglethorpe stared open-mouthed at her master.

‘You wonder why I keep myself covered?’ Crowden caressed his features. ‘It is because this face is a pale reflection of who I am. My true self is a thing of darkness!’

Crowden thrust out his hand and a scarlet stream of light soared towards Jake. Automatically, Jake held out his own hand. Just before the pulse hit, Adam rushed forward and pushed his son out of its path. Landing on his side, Jake glanced back in time to see the hex strike his father in the shoulder and spin him round. A scent of burnt skin, similar to that which Jake had smelt when Ambrose Montague had been hit by the lightning, filled the air. Adam crumpled to the ground.

‘No one to save you now, boy conjuror,’ Crowden smiled. His fist crackled with fresh energy. ‘Tell me, where is your fire? Where is the magic of old?’

At that moment, the sound of battle broke out from beyond the curtained doorway. Glass shattered, voices shrieked and cursed. In his surprise, the magical light disappeared from Crowden’s hand. The curtain was ripped aside and Mr Grype hurried into his master’s presence.

‘Monsters,’ he panted, ‘they’ve broken into the shop. Dozens of them.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve come from Yaga Passage.
She
is their leader. They have already killed most of the Coven and are breaking their way into the back office. We must flee.’

‘But these are dark creatures!’ Crowden exclaimed. ‘Why do they fight
us
?’

‘They fight for him!’

Grype pointed at Adam, still unmoving on the ground.

‘For once, the librarian is right,’ Mother Inglethorpe said. ‘We must make haste to the Hollow. There is less than an hour until dawn.’

‘What about him?’ Crowden stared at Jake with a mixture of hatred and wonder.

‘If you are to survive in the living world, you must conserve your magic,’ Inglethorpe said. ‘If you weaken before the Door is opened then you will be dragged back to this prison. Grype and I will conjure the portal. Come!’

The three witches turned their backs on Jacob Harker. Grype’s vulture-demon fluttered down to perch on his shoulder; Miss Creekley rustled free of her mistress’s dress; Crowden’s cabinet hovered behind its master. Joining hands, the witches pooled their magical forces. They whispered a few words and the mist before them formed into an oval gateway. At the edges, it took on the hue of rough, reddish stone. Grype entered first, followed by Inglethorpe. Before joining them, Crowden looked back at Jake.

‘Do not attempt to follow.’

He stepped forward and the portal dissolved around him.

The strange woman that Jake had seen in the window when he arrived in Yaga Passage now helped to carry his father back through the curtained doorway and into Grype’s office. Between them, they lifted the unconscious Adam onto an old sofa. Then the woman disappeared for a few minutes before returning with a bowl of water and some bandages.

‘It’s real deep,’ she said, cleaning the wound at Adam’s shoulder. Her voice was low and sweet, and put Jake in mind of the great open prairies and misty bayous of the American South. ‘The magic that did this is some of the darkest I have ever seen.’

The creature leaned over Adam. A concerned expression pinched her brow. Even when standing, she moved like a dancer, her hips swaying, her eight arms writhing, as if she was responding to some unheard music. Apart from those impossible arms, her appearance was that of a beautiful middle-aged woman with rich ebony skin.

‘Why did you help us?’ Jake asked.

‘Because, long ago, your daddy helped
me
. He has aided many of my kind over the years.’

‘What are you?’

Two hands were busy bandaging Adam’s arm while another covered him with a blanket and a fourth smoothed his brow.

‘We are the so-called “dark creatures”. We live at the border between the world of Man and demonkind.’

‘Are you demons?’

‘No. Pure demons can only exist in your world as demonic familiars—servants to witches—a position they secretly loathe. Some of us dark creatures
are
related to demonkind. Vampires, for example, are demon cousins, and few of them can resist their evil heritage. For the most part we are just like human beings—some are bad, most are good. Your father knows this and he has helped to protect us.’

‘From the Hobarron Institute?’

‘Them, and others. We thank him by keeping an eye on the Crowden Coven. When I saw you arrive here tonight, I decided to call in a few friends and crash the party … ’

‘Thank God you did, Pandora.’ Adam blinked up at them. His hand went to his shoulder and he grimaced. ‘Could you leave us for a few minutes? I must speak to my son.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Oh, and Pandora? We will be needing a portal. Perhaps your friends can rustle something up? Quick as you can.’

Pandora nodded and went to the door. Before disappearing into the shop, her gaze fell upon Adam. The worried look in her eyes made Jake feel uneasy.

Adam propped himself up on his good arm and smiled sadly at his son.

‘So, I guess you’ve got a lot of questions.’

Jake went and sat behind Grype’s desk. He took a moment before he spoke.

‘I am Josiah Hobarron, the Witchfinder?’

‘Yes … And no.’

‘Dad … ’

‘I’m not trying to be mysterious, but the fact remains: he
is
you, but you are more than him.’ Adam sighed. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. If I know my son, you’ll have tracked down Sidney Tinsmouth and worked out a lot of the story for yourself.’

Jake nodded. He would tell Adam about what had happened to Tinsmouth later. Now was not the time.

‘Good.’ Adam took a deep breath. ‘Luke Seward was the best friend I ever had. When I became an Elder, and was told why he had been sacrificed, I decided I had to find another way to stop the Demontide. The problem was this: in the beginning, just a smear of blood from a child descended from Josiah Hobarron was enough to seal the Door. But, as the blood weakened with every new generation, the Elders found it took more and more to keep the Door closed. Not only that, but the Door itself was a living thing and, over the centuries, it had grown hungry for the blood of children. It was difficult to see how we could ever seal the Door again
without
a sacrifice.

‘And then a thought struck me: one person
had
managed to lock the Door without a drop of blood being spilled. The Witchfinder had sealed it with magic. The solution was obvious—we had to bring Josiah Hobarron back to life. But how?’

The sound of voices casting a spell came from outside the office door. Jake barely heard the chant.

‘By this time, I had taken my degree in psychology and I was working at the Institute. In my first few days there I met a young scientist called Claire Peterson. We clicked immediately. She was funny, clever, beautiful … ’ Adam’s voice tightened. ‘As we became closer, Claire started telling me more and more about her work. She was a genetic biologist and—’

‘Genetic? I knew Mum studied biology before switching to engineering, but—’

‘We’ll come to that. Through Claire’s knowledge of genetic science, I began to see a way in which we might bring the Witchfinder back. If it could be done, then it would be the miracle the Elders had been searching for. With Dr Holmwood’s approval, I told Claire about the Institute’s secret mission. She needed a lot of convincing!’ Adam laughed. ‘But finally she came on board and we started work.

‘When the Witchfinder originally sealed the Door, he had used some kind of freezing spell. It seemed that the spell had got out of control, backfiring on Hobarron and freezing him in a block of ice. Unlucky for him, but fortunate for our plan. We took a team of scientists to the cavern and started drilling.’

Jake nodded, remembering the hole he had felt in the ice block.

‘We reached the body and managed to scrape away a number of skin samples. Now our experiment could begin.’

Dimly, Jake started to see the truth. He felt the first stirrings of dread and disgust.

‘We had to be careful,’ Adam continued. ‘What we were planning was against international law, and yet I thought it was worth the risk. I won’t bore you with all the complexities of the science. To put it simply, we took an egg from your mother and removed the nucleus—that’s the genetic material that comes from the mother. Then we implanted cells taken from Josiah Hobarron’s skin into the egg. The egg was then transferred to a machine that fused and activated it. Finally, we implanted the egg back into your mother where it developed into a healthy baby boy. The experiment was very complicated. We had to use magic to stabilize the process and—’

‘Stop it,’ Jake said quietly. ‘Just tell me what I am. I want you to say it out loud.’

‘Jake, listen to me … ’

‘Say it!’ He shot out of the chair. ‘SAY IT!’

Adam could not look at his son.

‘You’re a clone. An exact copy of Josiah Hobarron.’

A heavy silence followed. Jake’s world reeled around him.

‘I don’t understand. I’m a clone of the Witchfinder. I’m the weapon … Then what was the “Incu” box?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Jake explained about the blueprint he had found on the night of Adam’s abduction. The diagram of the machine labelled ‘Hobarron Weapon: Incu’.

‘You’ve linked that blueprint to your mother’s work in engineering and come to the wrong conclusion,’ Adam said. ‘The Hobarron Weapon was
never
a machine.’

‘But Mum—she told Quilp the weapon was an engine. A machine of ferocious power.’

‘She said that to protect you. To throw Quilp off the scent. And, like you, the Coven assumed that, because Claire was involved, the weapon
had
to be a machine.’ Adam sighed. ‘The doctors working on the weapon project expected you to be very weak when you were born. A special piece of equipment had to be built to keep you alive. The full title of the machine was the “Hobarron Weapon:
Incu
bator”. It’s where we placed you after you were born.’

‘Born?’ Jake echoed. ‘I was
never
born. Not really. Mrs Rice, she said I was “no child of God”. I was made. I’m an experiment!’

‘No. You’re my son. Your mother … ’

‘I don’t think she ever loved me,’ Jake said. ‘Not really. She was always so cold. So distant. Did she just think of me as a science project?’

‘The experiment changed her,’ Adam admitted. ‘Despite the miracle of your life, she felt that what we had done was wrong. That was why she turned her back on genetic science and became a mechanical engineer. It’s true that your mother sometimes found it hard to separate
you
from
how
you had come into the world, but she
did
love you. In the end, she gave her life to save you.’

‘But why, Dad? Why did you do it?’

‘I did it to create a weapon that we could use to end the Demontide once and for all. Only the magic of the Witchfinder could bind the Door without bloodshed. We knew from the stories that Hobarron’s magic was a natural part of who he was. All I had to do was reawaken that ability in you.’

‘The comic books,’ Jake said.

Adam nodded. ‘The years were passing and there was no sign of you possessing any magical ability. I decided to try two approaches. I would fill your world with stories of monsters and witches, hoping that the magic part of you would respond. The second approach was even more desperate. There is a theory that memories can be encoded in a person’s DNA and, just like a father or mother passing on their hair or eye colour, they may pass on these memories too. I tried hypnotism, probing deep into your unconscious mind while you slept, trying to seek out any trace of the Witchfinder’s past … ’

‘It worked,’ Jake said. ‘I’ve heard his voice. I’ve dreamed about him.’

Adam’s eyes widened. ‘Then you can really feel the magic? You can seal the Door?’

‘I’ve felt his power,’ Jake said. ‘But to stand against Crowden?’

Adam rose and walked towards his son. He took the boy’s face in his hands.

‘You must try or this world will fall into darkness.’

The office door opened and Pandora stepped inside.

‘If you’re ready, we’ve summoned the portal.’

Step by stumbled step, the man dragged the children across the bay. A rope in each hand, Dr Holmwood squinted through the rain. It was as if the years had rolled back and he was cast in the role of murderer once more. Everything was the same—the fury of the storm, the tug of a straining leash, the pleas of a child-voice in his ear. He had made a promise that this would never happen again …

Alice Splane, Joanna Harker, and Walter Drake—the dead postmaster’s brother—helped to hurry the children across the bay. Eddie Rice’s mother had descended into hysterics when told of the Elders’ plan. The poor woman had always been haunted by the horror of what had happened to her brother all those years ago, and now some of her closest friends were preparing to do the same thing to her son. Joanna had tried to calm her but the woman had ranted and raved. Eventually Dr Saxby had sedated her.

Holmwood stole a glance at the man walking beside him. The rain made it difficult to tell if Malcolm Saxby was crying or not. Was it wise, allowing him to join them? Wouldn’t any father try to save his daughter when the time came? Perhaps, but what if the father knew that, in so doing, he would risk the destruction of the world? No, Saxby could be trusted to see it through.