The Spook's Blood (Wardstone Chronicles) (4 page)

Alice began to speak in a sing-song voice. It was a dark spell. Louder and louder, faster and faster she began to chant – until I looked around uneasily, sure that every dead witch in the dell would hear her and come towards us. We were now deep in witch territory; the three villages set in the Devil’s Triangle lay just a few miles to the south. There could be spies around and the noise would alert them to our presence.

Agnes suddenly let out a blood-curdling scream and jerked backwards, away from Alice. She lay in the grass, moaning and whimpering, limbs thrashing and body spasming. Alarmed, I went over to Alice. Had the spell gone terribly wrong? I wondered.

‘Be all right in a few minutes, she will,’ Alice said
reassuringly
. ‘Hurts a lot because it’s such powerful magic, but she knew that before I started. Accepted that, she did. Agnes is very brave. Always was.’

After a few moments Agnes stopped writhing about and got to her hands and knees. She coughed and choked for a few moments, then lurched to her feet and smiled at us in turn. There was something of the old Agnes in her expression. Despite her filthy face and tattered, blood-stained clothes, she now seemed calm and confident. But in her eyes I saw a hunger that had never been present in the living Agnes.

‘I’m thirsty!’ she said, looking about her with an intensity that was really scary. ‘I need blood! I need lots and lots of blood!’

We headed south, with Alice in the lead and Agnes close on her heels; I brought up the rear. I kept glancing about me and turning my head to look behind. I expected to be attacked at any time. Our enemies – the witches who served the Fiend – might well be following us or lying in wait ahead. Despite his predicament, the Fiend could still communicate with them. He would take every opportunity to have us hunted down. And Pendle was a dangerous place at the best of times.

We were making good progress, and Agnes, who had been able to crawl only with difficulty, was now matching Alice stride for stride. The moon would rise soon – it was vital that we reached the tunnel beneath the tower before its light made us visible to all in the vicinity.

I wondered about Slake, the surviving lamia. How far had she progressed towards the winged form? She might well have
lost
the power of speech – which meant that I would be unable to question her properly. I needed to know as much about the sacred objects as possible. I also hoped to be able to communicate with Mam in some way.

Soon the three of us were walking along beside Crow Wood; the way into the tower was now close: the dense tangled copse that had grown over an old abandoned graveyard. The entrance to the tunnel was to be found roughly at its centre. You reached it by entering a sepulchre, built for the dead of a wealthy family. Although most of the bones had been removed when the graveyard was deconsecrated, theirs remained in place.

Alice suddenly came to a halt and raised her hand in warning. I could see nothing but a few tombstones amongst the brambles, but I heard her sniff quickly three times, checking for danger.

‘There are witches ahead, lying in wait. It’s an ambush. They must have scryed our approach.’

‘How many?’ I asked, readying my staff.

‘There are three, Tom. But they’ll soon sniff out our presence and then signal to the others.’

‘Then it’s best that they die quickly!’ Agnes said. ‘They’re mine!’

Before Alice or I had time to react, Agnes was surging forward, bursting through the thicket into the small clearing that surrounded the sepulchre. Witches have varying levels of skill when long-sniffing approaching danger; while Alice was very good at it, some are relatively weak. Moreover, an attack that is improvised and instantaneous rather than
premeditated
can take the enemy completely by surprise.

The screams that came from the clearing were shrill and earsplitting, filled with terror and pain. When we caught up with Agnes, two witches were already dead and she was feeding from the third: the woman’s limbs thrashed as Alice’s aunt sucked the blood from her neck in great greedy gulps.

I was appalled by the speed with which Agnes had changed; she no longer bore any resemblance to the kindly woman who had helped us so many times in the past. I stared down at her in horror, but Alice just shrugged at my look of disgust. ‘She’s hungry, Tom. Who are we to judge her? We’d be no different in her situation.’

After a few moments Agnes looked up at us and grinned, her lips stained with blood. ‘I’ll stay here and finish this,’ she said. ‘You get yourselves to safety in the tunnel.’

‘More enemies will be here soon, Agnes,’ Alice told her. ‘Don’t linger too long.’

‘Don’t you fear, child, I’ll soon catch you up. And if more come after these, so much the better!’

We could do no more to persuade Agnes, so, very reluctantly, we left her feeding and headed for the sepulchre. The building was almost exactly as I remembered it from my last visit – getting on for two years ago – but the sycamore sapling growing through its roof was taller and broader, the leafy canopy that shrouded this house of the dead even thicker, increasing the gloom within.

Alice pulled the stub of a candle out of her skirt pocket, and as we walked into the darkness of the sepulchre, it flickered
into
life, showing the cobwebbed horizontal tombstones and the dark earthen hole that gave access to the tunnel. Alice took the lead and we crawled through. After a while it widened and we were able to stand and make better progress.

Twice we paused while Alice sniffed for danger, but soon we’d passed the small lake once guarded by the killer wight – the eyeless body of a drowned sailor who’d been enchanted by dark magic. This one had been destroyed by one of the lamias and now no trace was visible, his dismembered body parts long since lost in the mud at the bottom. Only a faint unpleasant odour was testimony to the fact that this had once been a very dangerous place.

Before long we reached the underground gate to the ancient tower and were walking past the dark, dank dungeons, some still occupied by the skeletons of those tortured by the Malkin clan. No spirits lingered here now: on a previous visit to this place, my master had worked hard to send them all to the light.

We soon found ourselves in the vast cylindrical underground hall – and saw the pillar hung with chains; there were thirteen chains in all, and to each was attached a small dead animal: rats, rabbits, a cat, a dog and two badgers. I remembered their blood dripping down into a rusty bucket, but now it was empty and the dead creatures were desiccated and shrunken.

‘Grimalkin said that the lamias created the gibbet as an act of worship,’ Alice said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘It was an offering to your mam.’

I nodded. On our previous visit, the Spook and I had wondered what the purpose of the gibbet was. Now I knew.
I
was dealing with things that had very little to do with the warm caring person I remembered. Mam had lived far beyond the normal human span, and her time spent on the farm as a loving wife and the mother of a family of seven boys had been relatively short. She had been the very first lamia; she had done things that I didn’t care to think about. Because of that I’d never told my master her true identity. I couldn’t bear the thought of him knowing what she’d done and thinking badly of her.

THERE WAS NO
sign of the lamia so we began to climb the steps that spiralled up around the inner walls. High in the ceiling above, the lamias had enlarged the trapdoor into an irregular hole to allow themselves easier access. We clambered through this and continued up more stone steps, worn concave by the pointy shoes of many generations of Malkin witches, our footsteps echoing off the walls. We were still underground, and water was dripping from somewhere in the darkness far above. The air was dank, the light of Alice’s candle flickering in a cold draught.

We began to pass the cells where the witches had once incarcerated their enemies. On our last visit to the tower, we
had
spent some time in one of them, fearing for our lives. But when two of the Malkins had come to slay us, Alice and Mab Mouldheel had pushed them off the steps and they had fallen to their deaths.

There was a noise from inside and I saw Alice glance at the door of our former prison. She raised her candle and headed for the entrance. I followed, staff held at the ready, but it was just a rat, which darted past us and scampered down the steps, long tail trailing after it like a viper. As we started to climb again, Alice looked down to the place where her enemies had died. She shuddered at the memory.

In a strange way, that natural reaction gladdened my heart. By exerting her magical power, Alice might have moved closer to the dark, but she was still able to feel emotion and was not so hardened that she had lost herself, finally surrendering her innate goodness.

‘It was a bad time, that!’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t like to be reminded of what I did there.’

My brother, Jack, his wife, Ellie, and their young child, Mary, had also been prisoners in that cell. As they’d opened the cell door, a witch had uttered words that chilled me to the bone:

Leave the child to me
, she’d said.
She’s mine
 . . . 

At that moment Alice and Mab had attacked them.

‘You did what you had to do, Alice,’ I reassured her now. ‘It was them or us. And don’t forget that they came to kill a child!’

At the top of the steps we emerged into the storehouse, with its stink of rotting vegetables. Beyond this lay the living quarters, once home to the Malkin coven and their servants.
Mam’s
trunk was there – the one that contained her notebooks and artefacts. It was open, and beside it stood the lamia, Slake.

The trunks had been stolen from our farm and brought here by the Malkin witches. Mam’s two lamia sisters had been hidden in the other two trunks. I had released them and they’d driven the witches from the tower. Since then, it had been safer to just leave the trunks here, guarded by the lamias.

Slake’s face was now bestial in appearance, and her body was covered in green and yellow scales. Her wings were almost fully formed and folded across her shoulders. Was she still able to speak? I wondered.

Almost as if she had read my mind, she spoke, her voice harsh and guttural. ‘Welcome, Thomas Ward. It is good to see you once more. Last time we met I was unable to speak; soon I will lose that ability once more. I have much to say to you and we have little time.’

I bowed before replying. ‘My thanks for guarding the trunk and its contents and keeping them safe for me. I was sorry to learn of the death of Wynde, your sister. You must feel very lonely now.’

‘Wynde died bravely,’ the lamia rasped. ‘It is true that I am lonely after spending so many long happy years in the company of my sister. I am ready to leave the tower and find others of my kind, but your mother has commanded me to stay until you have learned all there is to know here. Only when you have destroyed the Fiend will I be free to fly away.’

‘I was told that there is an artefact in the trunk – a sacred object that might help my cause. May I see it?’ I asked.

‘It is for your eyes only. The girl must leave while I show it to you.’

I was about to protest when Alice spoke up.

‘It’s all right, Tom. I’ll go back and meet Agnes,’ she said with a smile.

‘There is another with you?’ asked Slake, extending her talons.

‘Remember the witch who was slain below the tower? Her name is Agnes Sowerbutts and her body was carried to Witch Dell by your sister,’ Alice explained. ‘She is still an enemy of the Fiend. As a powerful dead witch, she will be a strong and useful ally.’

‘Then go and guide her to us,’ the lamia commanded.

Alice left the room and I heard her pointy shoes descending the stone steps. Alone with the lamia, I suddenly felt nervous, my senses on full alert. She was dangerous and formidable, and it was difficult to be at ease in the presence of such a creature.

‘In all, there are three sacred objects which must be used to destroy the Fiend,’ hissed the lamia. ‘The first is already in your possession – the Destiny Blade given to you by Cuchulain. It is fortuitous that it came into your possession – otherwise you would have needed to journey to Ireland again in order to retrieve it.’

Slake had used the word ‘fortuitous’, suggesting that the blade had come into my hands by chance. But the name alone told the truth of the matter. It was destiny that had united me with it. We were meant to be together; intended to bring about
the
final destruction of the Fiend. Either that, or I would die in the attempt.