Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) (14 page)

‘Funny, aren’t you? Well, you’ll find it hard to crack a joke when Seb’s finished with you. I promised him I’d take you alive, but I imagine that state of affairs ain’t going to last long.’

‘Stop it!’ The voice rang out from somewhere below him, and there was a scrambling sound as Rosa staggered to her feet. Luke tried and failed to look down at her, but his heart flooded with relief. ‘Alexis, you bastard. Let him go!’

‘Sister dear,’ Alexis drawled, but there was a pant in his voice, and Luke could see that he was tiring. His face hadn’t changed – his self-satisfied smile was stuck just as firmly to his lips as ever. But his magic was flickering like a flame in a strong breeze. He was not a strong witch – not nearly as strong as Rosa. Or at least – not nearly as strong as Rosa had been . . .

‘Put him down.’ Rosa spoke dangerously, her voice calm and low, but Luke could hear the almost imperceptible edge of fear beneath.

‘Or what?’ Alexis said carelessly. ‘Seb told me he’d clipped your wings. Said I wouldn’t have any trouble from
you
.’

‘Put. Him.
Down
.’

Alexis shrugged nonchalantly, but his magic was a strangled flicker. Surely he couldn’t keep this up much longer?

‘Very well then.’

Suddenly, as if he had meant to all along, he let the spell go with an abrupt rush and Luke fell to the forest floor with a bone-rattling thud that left him gasping and winded, his head ringing with the blow. He tried to get up, but there seemed to be no muscles in his gut – he could only lie on the pile of leaves that had broken his fall, trying not to groan aloud.

‘What did you mean?’ Rosa was edging round, trying to get between Luke and Alex. Luke wanted to groan, tell her to stop, point out that she couldn’t protect him without magic – but he couldn’t get the breath to say the words. ‘Clipped my wings – what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Sorry, can’t help you there,’ Alexis drawled. He was enjoying this little moment of power. ‘According to the sot, I’m too stupid to know what I’m saying. Now, get over here. You too, Brimstone.’ He clicked to the horse, who gave a nervous snort and backed away.

‘I’m not coming.’ Rosa’s voice shook. ‘You can’t force me back.’

‘Oh really? I think you’ll find I can. I’m your legal guardian, until you marry Seb.’

‘I will never marry him!’ Rosa choked out. ‘Don’t you understand that? Why would I give myself up to a life of – of
abuse
and misery? He doesn’t love me! He hates me – he hates all women, I think. Why would I condemn myself to a marriage like that?’

‘Because,’ Alexis came very close, and put his hand on her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh, ‘because Mama and I say you will. Because you made a promise and I intend to see that you keep it. And lastly, dear little sister, because you have no other choice. Who else will want you, after you’ve spent three days whoring and slumming around the countryside with
him
?’

‘How dare you!’ Rosa snarled. She drew back her hand and smacked Alexis round the face, a ringing slap that cracked through the silent wood like a gunshot. For a moment there was complete silence, broken only by the screech and caw of birds startled out of sleep by the noise and the shocked scream of an owl. Then Alexis began to laugh and he flung out a blast of magic that sent Rosa tumbling to the forest floor, sprawling at his feet.

‘How dare
I
? My God, that’s rich! You little slut. You should be thanking God on your knees that Seb still wants you, not teaching me my manners.’

‘Why does he still want me,’ Rosa said thickly, ‘if I’m such a worthless slut?’

‘God knows.’ Alexis looked down at her with contempt. ‘But he seems to. Perhaps it’s precisely
because
you’ve run. There’s no fun in hunting, after all, if the fox doesn’t run. All those pretty English girls in India on the prowl for a husband, who sighed and gave up the prize for the asking – where’s the fun in that? What a man likes is the chase. The hunt. The fox at bay. And when a chap can have anything, perhaps it’s natural to want the one thing you
can’t
have. Perhaps Seb’s had enough of kissing girls who swoon. Perhaps he wants one that shudders instead. To be frank, I don’t really care.’

‘You bastard,’ Rosa’s voice shook.

‘Don’t swear, you horrible child,’ Alexis said in a bored voice. ‘Now.’ He pulled a twist of rope from his belt. ‘I’m going to tie your hands. Don’t make me gag you as well. It won’t look nice when we stop at inns.’

‘You’re going to drag me home to London with my hands tied!’ Rosa said scornfully. She climbed to her feet, brushing the leaves from her scorched and stain-marked skirt. ‘And you expect people to stand by while you do this?’

‘I’ve got the carriage, you little fool. You didn’t think I walked all the way here, did you? No one will know what’s happening behind the doors, much less care. Now, keep still.’

He said the words of a spell, there was a brief flare of magic and Rosa turned suddenly rigid against the moon, still as a post while Alexis bound her wrists together with laborious thoroughness. Luke seemed to have been forgotten about – almost. Just a few feet away across the clearing he could see something silver-pale glinting in the moonlight. The knife. If only he could reach it before Alexis noticed . . .

He edged himself across the carpet of leaves, keeping low, trying to time the rustle of the leaves with Alexis’s bouts of swearing. Four feet away. Three. Two.

Then he heard Alexis give an exclamation of satisfaction.

‘There, get out of that, if you can! Now, where’s the sot?’

Abandoning caution, Luke leapt for the knife and scrambled to his feet, holding its blade out in front of him.

‘Keep still,’ he snapped at Alexis. ‘I know you’re a witch, but I can gut you before you finish a spell and, trust me, I will.’

‘What?’ Alexis said delightedly. He gave a long, sneering laugh, as if this was the best joke he’d heard all day, and took a step towards Luke. ‘Gut me? You couldn’t pick your nose, unless I let you.’

He spat out a word in that foreign spell-casting tongue they all used, and Luke found himself suddenly as heavy as molasses, his limbs stuck to his side. He swore, but he was not motionless, not by a long stretch. With a huge, trembling effort he took a step towards Alexis and then another. Alexis’s eyes widened and, for the first time, Luke saw fear there.

‘What? God damn you!
Belúcan!
’

This time it was easier – Luke shook off the words like shaking off a heavy tiredness. He took another step. Another. And then he gripped Alexis around the throat.

‘Who are you?’ Alexis gritted out – it was half a snarl, half a whimper. His skin felt clammy beneath Luke’s fingers and his pale-green eyes were wide and wild with fear. ‘Who
are
you? You’re no God-damned outwith! No outwith should be able to do that.’

‘Who am I? I’m a man.’ Luke was panting heavily with the effort of holding off the spell. There was sweat running into his eyes, in spite of the coldness of the night. ‘Which is more than I can say for you. How do you want to die?’

‘I don’t want to die.’ Alexis looked suddenly ill with fear, as though he’d realized his predicament. In the moonlight his face was fishbelly-white, his freckles standing out dark against the bleached skin. ‘P-please. Don’t kill me.’

The knife was against Alexis’s throat, the tip pressing into the pale skin above his cravat.

‘Please!’ Alexis moaned. His voice cracked, high and shrill with fear. ‘Please don’t do it!’

Luke pressed harder and harder, thinking of John Leadingham’s words.
Carotid artery. Stick ’em quick and get out, before they can bewitch you. Don’t look back
.

A bead of blood appeared at the tip of the knife and Alexis gave a high, keening cry . . .

And Luke stopped.

It was not the spell. He could still feel it, weighing down on him, sucking at his limbs like thick mud, trying to stop his every movement. But it was not what was stopping him from killing Alexis. All that would have taken was one small shift – but he could not do it. It was the same story. The old story.

Coward
.

He hesitated just one second too long – and then there was a sudden blinding crack of light and Alexis was no longer in his grip. Luke whipped around, the knife outheld – but he couldn’t see; he was blinded by the flash and Alexis seemed to be nowhere in the clearing. Where was he? Where was he?

And then he felt something thick and strangling drop over his head and tighten around his throat, and he heard Alexis laugh, a long, half-hysterical cackle that went on and on.

‘You fool!’ Alexis’s voice was high and shaking with relief. ‘You dumb sot! Why didn’t you do it?’ He laughed again and tightened the blanket around Luke’s face and throat until Luke began to see stars. He dropped the knife, clawing with his fingers to try to pull it away from his throat, buy himself a little air, a little time . . .

And then there was a ringing crack and a cry of pain – but
whose
?

Luke stumbled forwards, still blinded by the blanket, but it was loose around his face and he was pulling free, able to breathe – only the air was full of terrible, choking fumes . . .

At last he dragged the blanket away and drew a breath of the choking air, looking wildly around.

And then he saw.

Rosa was standing over Alexis’s prone body, her bound hands still clutching the neck of the broken bottle she had smashed over her brother’s skull. Her eyes, as she stared down at Alexis’s unconscious body, were wide and dark, dilating into black.

‘The bottle!’ Luke managed, hearing his voice hoarse and croaky in his own ears. ‘You broke the bottle! For God’s sake – cover your face!’

The smell was making him feel faint and woozy, even as he wound the blanket back around his nose and mouth, trying not to breathe as he snatched up the rest of their belongings.

Holding the knife awkwardly, he slashed the rope around Rosa’s wrists. She was still standing, gasping, her mouth and nose uncovered to whatever poison was in that bloody bottle.

‘Come on!’ he yelled. ‘Move!’

She stumbled against him and he grabbed her shoulders, half dragging her along, away from the dizzying, choking fumes.

‘Is he . . . ?’ she slurred. ‘Will he . . . ?’ But she couldn’t finish. Instead she stopped to heave into the bushes at the side of the path.

‘Come on!’ Luke pressed the blanket against his face; the fumes were still making his head swim even ten, twenty, thirty feet away from the clearing. Rosa shuddered, wiped her mouth and let Luke pull her the rest of the way to the road where she vomited again, trying to hold her skirts away from the mess, tears watering down her cheeks.

‘Don’t look!’ she managed to choke out as Luke held her hair back from her face. ‘Go away!’

At last the vomiting stopped and she was able to sit by the side of the road, her face white and her hands shaking.

‘Will he live?’ she managed. ‘I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t know . . . What was it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Luke shuddered at the memory of the stench, at the memory of John Leadingham’s words as he handed it over:
Whatever you do, don’t break the bottle or the witch’ll be the least of your worries
. ‘Something like chloroform, I think. John Leadingham gave it to me. You’re supposed to put it on a rag – just a drop – press it over their mouth. It stops them from casting spells, sends ’em unconscious. I don’t think it’s supposed to kill them.’

Not used as he’d said, no. But having a full bottle broken over your head and lying unconscious in a pool of the mixture?

‘He’ll be all right,’ he said at last. ‘He has to be.’ He had to be, because if he was not, Rosa would never forgive herself, would never be able to move on from this thing she had done, to save him, to save Luke. ‘He’ll be all right. Come on.’

But Rosa didn’t move. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, shivering in the falling snow, her eyes wide and dizzyingly black. Her huge black pupils reminded him of the opium addicts down at the docks. What
was
in that bottle?

‘What did he mean?’ she said.

‘I don’t know – look, come on. We need to get out of here.’ Sebastian might not have come himself, but he would certainly be keeping close watch on Alexis’s movements. It would not take them long to find Alexis – dead or alive.

‘Sebastian clipped my wings, he said. What did he mean?’

‘I don’t
know
!’

‘I do.’ Her voice was slurred, but there was a queer determination in her face as she held out her hand. ‘Give me the knife.’

‘What?’ He had not even realized he was still carrying it, stuck into his belt. Rosa stood, drunkenly, and pulled it from his waist.

She spread her left hand out on a fallen tree stump, the fingers spread wide, the ruby ring flashing in the moonlight. Her other hand she clenched around the knife. Then she shut her eyes.

The tip of the knife rested against the thin gold band.

‘Rosa . . .’ He was suddenly alarmed, more than alarmed – frightened. ‘Rosa, what are you doing?’

She drew a whimpering breath.

‘Rosa!’ he shouted and leapt forward – too late.

There was a sickening crunch and Rosa screamed. Her hand was clutched to her breast and there was blood pouring down her dress – pouring, pouring as if it would never stop. Her magic blazed suddenly like a fire in the black night, blindingly bright and beautiful.

And Luke could only stand, gasping in horror, as the ring fell to the ground. Rosa slumped after it, her eyes closed, her face pale and still.

His blood was screaming in his ears, and his breath tore in his throat, and he found he was sobbing, ‘Rosa, Rosa, oh my God, what have you done, oh, Rose, oh my God . . .’

He fell to his knees in the mud beside her and picked up her limp hand, where it lay cradled against her breast.

The third finger of her left hand was gone, cut away at the joint.

Luke vomited into the ditch. Again and again he heaved, where Rosa had been sick just a moment before, though there was little in his stomach to throw up, just spit and acid.