Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13) (6 page)

I didn't trust her one bit. Before the battle on Pendle Hill, she had tried to force me to open one of Mam's boxes for her—the trunks that the Malkins had stolen after raiding the farm and kidnapping my family. When I'd refused, she'd threatened to murder Mary, my young niece. And I'd known instinctively that it was no idle threat. Mab was a blood witch and would kill to get what she needed in order to practice her dark magic.

However, she had since formed an uneasy alliance with us. She had accompanied us to Greece to fight Mam's mortal enemy, the Ordeen.

“Help us to do what?” I demanded.

“Help you to finish off the Fiend, of course—destroy him near that big rock. Must make you feel really important to have a hill and a rock named after you!”

I felt cold inside. I'd thought that this knowledge was confined to just a few people—me, the Spook, Grimalkin, Alice, and the lamia witch Slake.

Mab gave me a wicked smile. “I suppose you thought it was a secret! But nothing stays hidden from me for very long. It was easy-peasy to scry what you're up to. And I know others will find out too, and at Halloween they'll all head for that hill where you're supposed to kill Alice! Many will be servants of the Fiend. You'll need our help to fight 'em off, so don't you scowl at me like that. I thought you liked me once.”

“He was a bit soft on you, that's for sure!” Jennet said. “Once Alice is dead, he'll soon come round to that way of thinking again.”

Of course it wasn't true. Mab had used dark magic to make me kiss her, hoping to sap my will and control me. But her attempt was doomed: when we first knew each other, Alice had gripped my forearm so tightly that her nails pierced my flesh, leaving scars. She'd told me it was her brand. And it meant that no witch could control me in that way. So Mab had failed. I'd never felt anything for her but anger and revulsion.

“Should I tell him about Alice?” she said, smiling slyly at each of her sisters in turn.

“Yes! Yes! Tell him now. I want to see the look on his face,” Beth gloated.

I thought I knew what was coming. No doubt she was going to claim that she'd scryed Alice's death again. Had she seen me slay her as part of the ritual? If so, she was mistaken. I wasn't going to do it. And for all her power, Mab had been wrong about Alice before.

Scrying could be uncertain. In Greece, Mab had predicted Alice's death. But when Alice had been seized by a lamia and dragged deep into its lair, I had saved her with a spell—a dark wish given to me by Grimalkin.

But what Mab now told me came as a real surprise.

“You saw Alice, didn't you?” she said. “Well, guess what—she'd been back for nearly a week before she bothered to contact you! She can't care that much about you or she wouldn't have let you go on worrying, would she?”

I just stared at Mab, wondering if she was simply lying to hurt me.

“Tell him the rest, Mab!” said Jennet. “I want him to hear all of it!”

“Alice has found another way to finish off the Fiend. Grimalkin is helping her,” Mab gloated.

“I know that already,” I snapped angrily. “She told me what she was doing.”

“Did she now? Well, I bet she didn't tell you everything. Alice is going to use the
Doomdryte
,” Mab crowed.

That word,
Doomdryte
, was like a blow. I couldn't hide my feelings, and all three girls grinned at the dismay on my face.

Grimoires were books full of dark magic spells. And the most notorious and dangerous of them all was the book Mab had just referred to—the
Doomdryte
. It contained one very long spell. It had to be recited perfectly, without even the slightest pause for rest or mispronunciation of a single syllable. That task had never been accomplished. Every mage or witch who had attempted the incantation had failed.

And the price of failure was death.

I didn't know what to say. My master and I had found that grimoire in a private library in Todmorden while fighting witches and demons from Romania. I had been unconscious for three days and nights, then confined to my sickbed for two more weeks after almost dying in the grip of Siscoi, the vampire god. While I lay helpless, Grimalkin had killed or driven away the remaining vampiric entities. She said she had searched for the
Doomdryte
, but in vain. But if what Mab Mouldheel said was correct, I knew exactly what had happened.

Grimalkin must have found that deadly book, hidden it away, and then taken it to Alice when she emerged from the dark. It was no wonder Alice hadn't come to see me at Chipenden right away! She'd waited a whole week and then visited me on the edge of the garden without my master present. And she'd told me only half a tale. The Spook and I would have been in full agreement: it was madness to even attempt the incantation. I was hurt, really hurt, by Alice's failure to confide in me.

My master considered the
Doomdryte
to be totally evil. He had wanted to burn it. Alice would surely die attempting such an impossible task. And even if she did succeed, what would be the result? Would it help her destroy the Fiend? My fear was that, in using that evil grimoire, she would finally become a fully fledged malevolent witch.

Alice would have finally joined the dark.

“Do you know where Alice is now?” I asked Mab. “Could you take me to her?”

As I uttered these words, I remembered the last time Mab had taken me to her. It had been a trap: Alice had already been a prisoner of the Mouldheels.

“She's too well hidden,” Mab retorted. “Must have used an incredibly powerful cloaking spell to hide from me.”

“So she's too strong? You can't scry her whereabouts?”

It was a measure of Alice's tremendous power that not even Mab could find her.

“I wouldn't go looking for her anyway!” snapped Mab. “Me and Alice never did see eye to eye, and she wouldn't thank me for meddling in her affairs.”

“So you won't help?”

“Can't, and wouldn't if I could. There's Grimalkin to worry about, too. It doesn't do to cross her. Anyway, it's been nice talking to you, Tom. We're off to visit the Wardstone. Need to learn the lay of the land so that we'll know what's what at Halloween.”

“You're wasting your time, Mab. I'd already decided not to carry out the ritual, and now that Alice is using the
Doomdryte
, I won't even be there at Halloween.”

“Don't be so sure about that, Tom. Scrying is difficult—sometimes the future changes from minute to minute—but I do know one thing. Something really big and powerful is going to happen near the Wardstone this Halloween. Creatures of the dark will be drawn to that spot—some to fight for the Fiend, others to oppose him. There'll be witches of every type, abhumans, and other dark entities. The outcome of that conflict will change the world. And guess what! You'll be there too. That's one thing I'm sure of.”

With that, Mab gave me a wave of farewell, turned her back, and led her grinning sisters off into the trees.

I stayed in the same spot for quite a while, deep in thought. My instincts told me that Mab was correct in at least one thing. Even without the ritual, something significant would happen at Halloween, and I felt certain that the Wardstone would play a part.

My mind returned to Tibb's prophecy again; to the part that came before “and finally she will die for you.”

I remember what had preceded it: Tibb had claimed that “she will betray you . . .”

Isn't that what Alice had just done? She'd been back from the dark for almost a week before bothering to tell me that she was safe, that she'd survived. And she'd known that I'd be desperate for news. Not only that; she'd gone off to use the
Doomdryte
, knowing that it was against everything my master and I believed in.

Wasn't that a betrayal?

CHAPTER VII

A T
ERRIBLE
S
CENE

T
HE following night I didn't dream at all. It was a wonder, because I'd enough worries and anxieties to conjure a dozen nightmares.

There was no nightmare.

It was something far worse.

Well before dawn, I suddenly awoke in a cold sweat, certain that something was terribly wrong. I got out of bed, trembling from head to foot, full of dread and a terrible sense of loss. I felt sure that somebody close to me had died—or at least been badly injured.

My master!

I ran downstairs. The Spook was in the kitchen. He didn't sleep in his bed every night. Sometimes his back felt stiff and sore of a morning, so he dozed upright in a chair. He was in his armchair now, close to the embers of the fire. He was very still.

Was he breathing?

I walked slowly across the flags toward him. I was expecting the worst, but suddenly he opened his eyes, stared up at me, and scratched his beard.

“What's wrong, lad? You look as white as a sheet.” “There's something not right. Something's happened to someone, I feel sure—something terrible.”

“Perhaps it's nothing, lad.” My master rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Maybe you just woke from a bad dream and carried the feeling of unease back with you. That happens sometimes.”

“I wasn't dreaming.”

“Dreams can be forgotten at the instant of waking. You can't be sure of that,” said the Spook.

I shook my head. “I need to go outside,” I told him.

Full of apprehension, I went out into the garden. The dark sky was covered with uniform light-gray cloud; it was starting to drizzle. I shivered. The feeling of dread and loss was stronger than ever.

Suddenly there was something like a flash of light right inside my skull, and a pain in the center of my forehead. And now the wrongness had a direction. Its source was some distance away, in a southeasterly direction.

I heard the Spook approach and stand at my side.

“Whatever is wrong, it's over there. . . .” I pointed through the trees.

“It could be dark magic,” said my master, “luring you out into a trap. The servants of the Fiend will never give in. We must be on our guard.”

“It's strange. I've never felt like this before. I'm scared. . . . But you could be right—it might just be a trap.” I began to pace up and down, my stomach churning with anxiety while the Spook stared at me, clearly concerned and alarmed.

“Take deep breaths, lad. Try to calm yourself. It'll pass in a few moments.”

“But what if it doesn't?” I demanded, coming to a halt and looking him right in the eye.

All at once the need to go and investigate became overwhelming. “I have to go!” I cried out. “I have to see for myself what's wrong or I can never rest.”

The Spook stared into the trees for over a minute without speaking. Then he simply nodded.

Five minutes later we'd left the garden and were striding southeast. I was carrying both bags, as usual, as well as my staff. In addition to his own staff, the Spook had also brought a lantern, as dawn was still some way off. I didn't know how far we had to go.

The source of my unease proved to be much nearer than I expected.

Years earlier, when I first met Alice, she had been staying in the area with Bony Lizzie and an abhuman called Tusk. Lizzie's plan had been to rescue Mother Malkin from a pit in our garden, and also to kill my master, John Gregory. They had all been living in an abandoned cottage southeast of the Spook's house. Of course they failed, and the cottage had been burned out by local people who were outraged by the proximity of a dangerous witch.

Now I could just glimpse that cottage through the trees, and the nearer we came, the more certain I was that this was the source of my fear.

The lantern light showed us the first of the dead bodies: a man lying on his back, his eyes wide open; rain streamed down his face like tears. Blades were still clutched in both dead hands, but they had availed him not. His throat was cut from ear to ear.

There were other bodies closer to the blackened walls of the cottage—maybe a dozen or more. Most were female, and almost certainly witches. They were armed with blades, some lashed to the ends of long poles in the Pendle manner. All had died violent deaths. Their wounds were fresh, and there was a lot of blood splattered on the grass.

All was silent, but I was drawn to the cottage. I led the way in, shaking nervously at what I might find there. The doors and windows had been burned out years ago and never replaced. All at once, in the gloom, I saw someone propped up against a far wall. At first I thought it was another dead body. Could it be Alice? The thought made me tremble with anguish.

My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, but when my master came in behind me, the lantern illuminated a terrible scene.

I saw that it was the witch assassin, sitting in a pool of her own blood. She was breathing hoarsely, and her eyes were half closed. It was hard to tell whether she was conscious or not. Her body was covered in stab wounds that looked like open mouths.