Gallows at Twilight (33 page)

‘Joyous news,’ Quilp murmured.

A girl. A loved one. This was too perfect. Before he killed him, Quilp would strike at the heart of Jacob Harker. The thought fell like summer rain upon the parched soul of Tobias Quilp.

‘My master—your brother—he told me that Jake’s powers had dwindled since that night in the cavern. Even so, he may still be a formidable opponent.’

Drude frowned. ‘There are three of us and one of him.’

‘We must be sure,’ Quilp insisted. ‘We must weaken him
before
he reaches us.’

Drude hurried to the table. She tipped the contents of her cauldron into the empty fireplace. Bones and little hearts turned grey in the ash. Lethe watched her elder sister dash around the room, collecting odds and ends from various chests and cubbyholes.

‘Dear Drude, I haven’t seen you this excited for years! Not since Christmas Eve 1640 when those orphan triplets turned up on the doorstep. What a Christmas dinner that was!’

Drude set the cauldron on the table. She half-filled it with water from a jug and started throwing handfuls of herbs and other unidentifiable things into the mix. She passed her hands over the brew and muttered words, some of which Quilp recognized from spells worked by Esther Inglethorpe. Minutes later the dark green stew was bubbling and spitting. Drude filled a small glass bottle from the cauldron and tucked it into the pocket of her apron.

‘I will bring him to you, Master Quilp, weak and frail.’

Drude plunged her hand into the boiling cauldron. She pulled it out again red raw and steaming, and licked the juice from her fingers. Energy crackled through the air. A phantom wind rose up from nowhere and swirled around the witch. Her hair twisted in a grey cyclone and she seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Before vanishing completely, her voice shrieked around the room—

‘I will bring Jacob Harker to you on the wings of a nightmare!’

Chapter 28

The Pursuing Shadow

The first hour was the worst. Eleanor rolled her eyes and did nothing but complain about the time they were losing. As she watched Jake fall from the horse and climb doggedly back into the saddle for the fourth time, however, her tone softened. She trotted back, took his hands, and showed him again how to hold the reins properly.

‘Not very good at this, am I?’ Jake muttered.

Eleanor laced the reins through his fingers. ‘My father was the best horseman in the shire until, one day, a musket was accidentally fired next to his head. Like you, he lost his hearing in one ear. After that he could never keep his balance on a horse.’

‘Told you it wasn’t my fault,’ Jake grinned.

Eleanor laughed. ‘Come on, we’ve a lot of ground to cover before nightfall.’

Navigating by the sun and by church steeples, she led them on.

It was not until late morning that Jake became aware of their pursuer. It was a feeling more than anything else—a niggle at the back of his neck, a sense that eyes were trained upon him. He looked back often and, although he sometimes caught a glimpse of a shadow moving down the dirt track road behind them, it was never more than that. He didn’t mention it to Eleanor until they stopped for lunch.

They made temporary camp on the side of a hill. Marian and Pepper were busy with their nosebags while their riders ate a simple meal of bread and cheese. The ageing summer sun beat down across the hillside and into the treeless valley below. Listening to Jake’s story, Eleanor brushed the bread crumbs from her lap and began searching through her saddlebag. She took out a small telescope and scanned the valley.

‘I don’t see anything.’

‘Can I take a look?’

Jake found the view fuzzy but there was no way to focus the lens.

‘All I can see is a green blur. This is a pretty primitive telescope.’

‘It was my father’s perspective glass.’ Eleanor’s words came at Jake like stony missiles. ‘He took it with him whenever he fought for the king, and he died with it clasped in his hand. I can see through it clear as clear.’

Jake lowered the telescope from his eye. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘Why should you know anything about me?’ Eleanor shrugged.

Jake had opened his mouth to answer, not even sure what he was going to say, when the horses started whinnying and pawing at the ground. Birds exploded from the fringe of trees on the opposing hillside and a family of frightened deer galloped out of the forest. Heart thumping, Jake trained the telescope on the trees.

A pale moon of a face stared back at him.

From this distance, the features were little more than black scratches: two lines for eyes, the hint of a nose and an ‘O’ marking out the mouth. Before Jake could see any more, the figure stepped back into the forest.

Eleanor at his shoulder: ‘What is it?’

‘A woman. She’s gone now.’

‘Who do you think she was?’

‘No idea, but I’m sure she’s been following us. We’d better keep our eyes peeled.’

‘What are you doing?!’

Eleanor’s cry snatched Jake from his daydreams. He glanced down at the blur of meadow grass thrashing against the horse’s legs. All he could hear was the rush of air and the hammer of Pepper’s hooves against the ground. With his knees locked against her flanks, Jake felt the striving muscles of the horse as she galloped on.

Another shout from behind. Jake glanced over his shoulder and saw Eleanor kick against Marian’s sides and put on a burst of speed. Jake knew that he should be desperately afraid. He had spent most of the day falling off the horse, and now she was bolting at full gallop across this overgrown meadow. Instead of tugging the rein, however, he leaned forward into a comfortable crouch and whispered into Pepper’s ear, ‘Yah! Faster, girl! Faster!’

Pepper snorted her agreement and jolted into a higher gear. Looking back, Jake grinned and waved at the girl pursuing him. He felt no fear, just a rush of confidence and exhilaration. While his mind had been swamped by a hundred cares and questions, old instincts had stirred and his body had responded. Without thinking, he had shaped himself along the natural lines of the horse, feeling its rhythms as he spurred it on to greater speeds. It was like magic, he guessed. The old Preacher had told him that, at its best, Oldcraft was responsive to instinct and emotion; just like the horse, neither had much use for rules and logic.

Jake had caught Eleanor by surprise, but she was by far the better rider. With her long hair flying behind her, she passed him like a comet trailing golden fire. Jake released his grip on Pepper’s flanks. The thunder of hooves softened and the meadow grass came back into focus. He patted the horse’s damp neck and they trotted forward to meet Eleanor.

She tried to show her anger, but amazement won the day.

‘How on earth did you do that?’

‘Not sure,’ Jake panted. ‘Pretty cool though, eh?’

‘Cool? I can’t see what temperature has to do with it! This morning you couldn’t ride five paces without falling off , now this? Did you use magic?’

‘I don’t think so. One minute I was thinking about the witch ball, the next I’m galloping across a field. I think maybe I was subconsciously tapping into Josiah’s memories. His experience of riding. My dad told me it’s all to do with genetic memories and … ’

He stopped dead.

‘Jake? What is it?’

Jake swung himself down from the horse and handed the reins to Eleanor. Then he ran across the hard, sun-baked ground until he came to the place where the strange flower grew. At his approach, the crow that had been picking at the flower’s five pink petals took fright and flew away. A moment later, he felt the dry snort of horse breath on his neck and Eleanor’s hand on his arm.

‘My God,’ she whispered.

Together, they stared down at the human hand that sprouted out of the earth.

Eleanor stepped forward and took a sharp breath.

‘More,’ she murmured. ‘There are more of them.’

Just beyond the hand, the ground fell away sharply. At the bottom of a deep, narrow ditch pools of glinting red water lapped against the bodies of four dead men. Swarms of flies droned over the corpses while beetles crawled in and out of noses, ears, and mouths. A family of rats feasted on the men’s eyes and gnawed their cheeks down to the skull. Twisted together, they were dressed in filthy, bloodstained clothes with tatty yellow sashes tied around their waists.

‘Parliament soldiers,’ Eleanor said. ‘Roundheads. Probably a scout party ambushed by Cavaliers. Looks as if some kind soul started to bury them, but that the troop had to move on before the job was done.’

‘They look really young.’

‘Just boys,’ she nodded. ‘Most of them fighting for a cause they couldn’t understand.’

On the far side of the ditch lay the rotting remains of a large horse. Like the weapons and the boots of the Roundheads, the horse’s saddle had been taken, claimed by the Royalist soldiers. One side of the animal’s face was gone and the white arcs of its ribs poked through tattered strips of flesh.

‘We should finish the job,’ Jake said. ‘Bury them properly.’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘We can’t waste the energy. We still have a long ride ahead of us.’

‘But these people … ’

‘There are corpses rotting in fields all over England, Jake. What do you want us to do? Bury them all?’ The words were softened by a tone of genuine sadness. ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t even have shovels and this ground is as hard as stone. We could say a prayer if you like?’

Jake was silent for a minute, his gaze moving between the upturned faces. It felt as if, in this half-made grave, he was seeing a glimpse of the future. The bodies of the slaughtered thrown aside and left for small monsters to devour. A war was coming, and for the first time in history it would not be fought between men but between humanity and a hidden enemy.

‘Yes,’ Jake said quietly, ‘let’s pray.’

Soon after their discovery of the dead soldiers, the sun vanished behind a blanket of storm clouds. At first Eleanor had wanted to push on, but there was little point in stumbling through the dark only to find that, come morning, they were miles off course. And so they made camp. Conscious of the pursuing figure that Jake had seen, they selected a spot near the middle of the meadow, not too far from the soldiers’ trench, which gave a full view of the surrounding area.

They sat under the shelter of a canvas sheet tied between two small oaks. These were the only trees within sight, and so, sitting back to back, Jake and Eleanor could watch all sides of the meadow.

Eleanor stirred the pot that hung over the fire.

‘Smells good,’ Jake said.

‘It’ll be a few more minutes.’

Jake’s stomach complained and Eleanor laughed.

‘I heard that!’

‘I can’t help it, I’m really hungry!’

‘You can take your mind off it by telling me stories about the future.’

While the pot bubbled, and Pepper and Marian rubbed shoulders, Jake told tales of his own time. Everyday things that seemed like miracles to the girl: hot water at the turn of a tap; distant voices singing and chattering through little boxes called ‘radios’; huge screens on which comedies and tragedies were played out; smaller screens around which a family would gather, like pilgrims around a saintly shrine; vast stretches of road on which metal carriages roared at tremendous speeds; and, most miraculous of all, metal birds that flew swifter than any eagle …

‘Ten years ago, the Percivals—distant cousins of mine—fled this land,’ Eleanor said, her voice trembling. ‘They wanted to lead a more godly life in the New World. They sailed aboard the
Arbella
and reached a place called Salem, Massachusetts, where they settled. The journey was arduous, but most of the travellers survived the nine week voyage.’

‘In my time an aeroplane could take you there in under nine hours,’ Jake said.

‘Nine
hours
?’

‘That’s nothing! In three or four days you could reach the moon!’

Eleanor stared open-mouthed at Jake, ‘Men have been to the moon?’

‘1969,’ Jake said softly. ‘Eleanor, are you all right?’

‘Yes. Of course, I just … ’

She glanced up at the sky. The purple hue of twilight was deepening. Somewhere out there, behind the clouds, the moon was treading an endless path, its surface as yet untouched by the outstretched hand of Man.

‘Is it Oldcraft?’ Eleanor asked. ‘All these things, they sound so magical.’

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but Jake guessed that, if asked, she would not have known why she was crying.

‘It’s science,’ he said. ‘No one believes in magic any more.’

‘They should. They live in an age of wonders.’

The rain started again, a light shower crackling on the canvas and making the fire spit.

‘The Preacher said nothing of these miracles,’ Eleanor said at last. ‘But he did tell me
why
you had returned for the witch ball. The first reason is noble—you want to save your father. But the second … ’

She got to her feet and walked around to face Jake.

‘Tell me of this man you hunt. Tell me why you want him dead.’

Jake felt the first twist of anger. ‘His name is Tobias Quilp.’

He told the story in short, brutal sentences. Quilp on the road. Mr Pinch in the tree. His mother’s murder. Quilp’s incarceration in Hobarron Tower and his release by the universal coven. Jake felt every hour of the monster’s freedom like a knife turning in his gut.

Eleanor knelt beside him.

‘You have such anger. Such rage. You mustn’t let it consume you.’

‘But my mum … ’

‘What was done to her was monstrous. But your anger is making her death the most important thing in her life. It’s becoming your one memory of her, and that’s wrong.’

‘How can I think of anything else? I saw it happen. I watched him butcher her.’

‘And now you want to butcher him?’

Jake hissed through tight lips. ‘Yes.’

‘You want to watch him writhe in agony, bleed and scream and suffer? You want to tear him apart and take
his
head as a trophy? Is that it?’

‘Yes,’ Jake repeated. He felt a savage joy at her words, her understanding. ‘Yes.’