The Spook's Nightmare (27 page)

Lizzie seized my left hand with her right and lifted it before me. ‘Take a last look at that thumb, boy. It’ll be boiling and bubbling in my cauldron soon!’

Was this it? Was I to die here after all I’d been through?

With her left hand the witch brought the knife down towards my thumb. I tried to break free of her grip but was powerless. I flinched, expecting to feel an agonizing pain. But the blade failed to make contact with my skin. Instead the torches flickered and died down, and a shimmer of light appeared. Suddenly, to my utter astonishment, Alice was standing there, in front of me, holding one of the shaman’s grimoires.

All at once I noticed that tell-tale shimmer of an apparition – it wasn’t Alice in the flesh; it was her spirit. She’d projected it here from somewhere else. I was filled with sudden hope. Was this a result of her study of the shaman’s books?

‘If you hurt Tom, you’ll never get your hands on this!’ Alice warned, her image flickering. ‘I took Barrule’s notebook and studied it. I learned that the really useful stuff is in this grimoire here!’

‘Might have known you were up to something, girl,’ Lizzie snarled.

‘Tells you in here how to tap the power of the cache directly, but he wrote it down in code. You’ve got to take bits from lots of different pages and link the spells together,’ Alice said. ‘Without this book and my knowledge you’ll never know what to do. You’d study for years and get nowhere. Ain’t that so?’

Lizzie’s face twisted with anger but she didn’t reply.

‘If you want this book and what I know, come and get it. I’m down in the long room where Lord Barrule and his gambling cronies used to have their fun and
games. Bring Tom with you, but don’t you dare hurt a hair on his head or you’ll never get your mucky hands on this.’ Alice raised the book towards her mother.

She vanished and the torches flared up again.

Lizzie turned to me. ‘Looks like you’ll live a little longer, boy! At least until I get my hands on that book …’

Keeping a tight grip on my arm and holding her knife at the ready, Lizzie dragged me down the steps of the keep, through the guardroom and along the underground passages. As we passed the cells, I noticed that all the doors were now shut, as if they contained prisoners.

The long room was almost in darkness – just a couple of torches were flickering in their rusty wall brackets. Lord Barrule still lay there on the stone floor, and the place reeked more strongly of death than ever.

Alice appeared, walking out of the shadows to face Lizzie. She was carrying the grimoire in her left hand and my staff in her right.

‘Let Tom go and then I’ll tell you what I know and give you the book,’ she said calmly, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a grin.

Lizzie pushed me roughly towards Alice. ‘Give me the book and start talking! Make it fast. My patience is stretched to breaking point!’ she snapped.

‘You’re welcome to the book,’ Alice said, and she tossed it towards her.

Lizzie reached out to catch it, but before her fingers closed on it, with a loud
whoosh
, it burst into flames. The witch flinched away and it fell at her feet, the pages curling and blackening.

Her expression was now black as thunder but Alice was smiling, a look of triumph on her face. The witch arched her back, pointed her finger straight at her daughter and muttered some words in the Old Tongue. For a moment I was horribly afraid for Alice, but nothing happened and her smile grew even wider.

‘Used the cache to protect myself,’ she said to Lizzie. ‘You can’t hurt me, and now Tom’s at my side you can’t hurt him either! But I can hurt you. Push me and I can
hurt you really badly. If you weren’t my mother, I’d kill you now! But you’re going to do as you’re told and do it right away. Give me the shaman’s thumb-bones! Hand’em over now!’

Lizzie began to shake, and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Her face was twisted with the effort of trying to resist Alice’s command but she wasn’t strong enough. I remembered how she had controlled us, but now things were reversed. Now she was forced to do Alice’s bidding, reaching into the pocket of her dress and pulling out the bones that she’d cut from the dead body of Lord Barrule. They were white now, clean bones, the flesh boiled off as part of the ritual to tap into their full power.

Alice held out her hand to receive them, and once more Lizzie tried to resist, her whole body shaking with the effort, but then, with a gasp, she finally let them fall into Alice’s palm.

That done, with a shriek, the witch ran towards the underground tunnel and scrambled inside.

‘W
e must go after her, Alice,’ I said, heading for the mouth of the tunnel. ‘We can’t let her escape. It’s my duty to bind her.’

Alice shook her head. ‘Sorry I let her go, Tom. Could have killed her then but despite what I said, I wasn’t hard enough to do it. She’s my mother after all. What kind of girl would kill her own mother … ?

‘It ain’t safe to follow her through the tunnels now. Even though I was stronger just then, Lizzie still controls the buggane. She’ll be able to find a way to the surface but she can’t return to the keep. Locked all the cell doors, I have, just to make sure she don’t try to
double back. I’ll lock the door to this room too,’ she said, holding up a key.

‘Then we should head to where we left Adriana and Simon and try to cut her off!’

Alice nodded but her eyes were fearful.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her.

‘The further we get from Greeba Keep, the less I’ll be able to draw on the power of the cache. After a few miles it’d just be me against Lizzie, and she’s bound to be stronger.’

‘All the more reason to deal with her before she gets too far away,’ I said.

We hurried out of the keep; it was deserted and we headed directly for Adriana and Simon. They were still waiting at the edge of the trees, so we quickly explained what had happened and made our way towards the chapel, watching closely to see if Lizzie emerged.

But we watched and waited in vain. Two hours later there was no sign of the witch and we began to grow dispirited. Had she already escaped?

‘Can’t you sniff her out, Alice?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘Been here before, she has, and her stench is everywhere. Can’t tell what’s fresh ’cause there’s so much of it.’

It was then, as the light began to fail, that I saw a figure approaching in the distance and my heart sank right down into my boots. There’d be a reckoning now all right.

It was the Spook, and as he drew nearer, I saw that he was scowling.

It was Adriana who spoke first. She stepped forward, placing herself between him and us. ‘It was my idea,’ she said. ‘We had to try and deal with Lizzie. I knew you’d never agree. It’s all my fault.’

The Spook nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said angrily, ‘you’ve put a bad taste in my mouth in more ways than one. But we’ll deal with all that later.’ He turned to me, his expression grim. ‘We need to get down to practicalities: tell me what happened and make it quick …’

After I’d finished, my master shook his head. ‘It’s a bad business. We need to follow the witch and deal a
with her once and for all. But now that she’s gone and no longer has access to the power here, our first priority is the buggane. I’ve been thinking – and if we can destroy it, eventually the tunnels will collapse and the cavern with that cache of power will be buried. That’ll stop servants of the dark from visiting it in spirit form. They’ll no longer be able to tap into it directly. And that includes you, girl!’ he said, turning on Alice. ‘Deals with everything nicely.’

‘That’s not fair! I’d be dead by now but for what Alice did,’ I shouted.

‘She still used dark power – and not for the first time, as you well know. But we won’t speak of that now. We’ll go directly to the chapel – that’s at the centre of the buggane’s domain. It’ll sense us there and attack.’

‘What about the dogs – won’t they help us?’ I asked my master.

‘There’s no time for that now, lad. I left them at the mill, and we’ve got to deal with this creature.’

The Spook turned and began to walk away. Alice and I were at his heels, with Adriana and Simon close
behind. Suddenly my master spun round to face them.

‘This is spook’s business,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘Dangerous work for just me and the lad. It’s best if you wait here until we’ve dealt with the daemon. And that means you too!’ he said, glaring at Alice. She opened her mouth to protest, but then shook her head. There would be no arguing with my master after what had just happened.

So the Spook and I headed directly for the chapel. Despite his wishes, I hoped Alice wouldn’t be very far behind. She couldn’t afford to distance herself from the blood jar. We arrived at the ruins and waited just inside the trees, within sight of those crumbling dark stone walls. The minutes passed but nothing happened; Lizzie would be getting further and further away with every second, I thought.

It was a cold, crisp, clear night and the grass was white with hoar frost. Half a waning moon cast dappled shadows on the ground. Occasionally an owl hooted, but apart from that all was silent; there wasn’t even a breath of wind.

‘Why doesn’t the buggane attack?’ I asked.

‘It’s nearby – I can feel it in my bones – but it’s not showing itself,’ the Spook answered. ‘Most likely it’ll be down the slope close to the water’s edge – a place we want to avoid. It’ll take the shape of a worme on that marshy ground, and wormes are hard to kill. But what choice do we have? Let’s get it over with!’

I followed my master towards the incline. I was gripping my staff nervously. The last thing I wanted was to face a worme again. I remembered the way they could spit poison and bite off an arm or leg with those rows of sharp teeth.

As we descended, the slope became steeper and our boots squelched in the soft ground. I soon found it hard to stay on my feet. Below, the murmur of the river was ever louder, though as yet I couldn’t see it through the trees. They grew closer together here, interspersed with dense bushes and saplings, making our progress difficult and forcing us to make frequent detours.

‘Spread out!’ the Spook commanded. ‘Giving it more than one target will distract it.’

I did as he said, obeying without question and moving away to the left. My master was the expert here and, having already faced a worme, I knew it was the same advice that Bill Arkwright would have given: he’d been the specialist on all creatures that lived in marsh and water.

We were very close to the riverbank now, and the Spook was hidden from view by bushes and tall reeds, though I could still hear the suck and squelch of his boots.

It was then that I heard another noise in the reeds; a heavy wet slippery sound, almost as if someone had fallen onto their back and was sliding down the steep slope towards the water. But the sound was getting louder and moving closer –
up
the slope, directly towards us. My heart lurched with fear.

All at once something burst through the reeds directly ahead of me and lunged for my head. I threw myself sideways, catching a glimpse of something above me before it withdrew back into the reeds: a
long, sinuous body like a fat snake, small fierce eyes and a mouthful of fanged teeth.

It certainly wasn’t a worme – at least not the type that I’d once fought – and the only snakes I’d ever seen were small grass snakes and, more rarely, adders. But this was huge. It had to be the buggane, and it had taken the form of a great serpent.

In a blind panic, I struggled to my knees. I was only just in time. It attacked, and this time I jabbed at the creature with my staff. It hissed and retreated again. I came cautiously to my feet and heard a scuffle to my right. Then the Spook shouted something – I didn’t catch it the first time, but when he repeated it, I realized it was a cry of warning.

‘Hydra!’

From what my master had taught me, I knew that we were in serious trouble. There were many forms of hydra, some real, some just fantastic creatures made up by storytellers. The one referred to in the Spook’s Bestiary was a creature called a Scylla, which had seven heads. All hydra certainly had several heads – and this
one was attacking my master and me simultaneously.

Again I heard that slithering sound, and the snake-like head surged towards me along the ground, parting the reeds before rearing up towards my throat. But this time I was ready, and I used my staff like a spear, ramming the blade past its teeth and right down its throat with all my strength. It screamed and convulsed, and blood sprayed in an arc from its fanged mouth. It retreated immediately, almost dragging the staff out of my hand, but I held on tight and the daemon’s head slid away, its mouth gushing blood.

I followed it through the reeds towards the water’s edge. Once on the riverbank I could see the buggane by the light of the moon. Its body was hidden underwater but its many heads reared and writhed, lunging towards me. I quickly counted to nine, but then gave up because they were moving too quickly. The one nearest me hung limp, dark blood issuing from its gaping mouth and swirling away in the current. That was the one I’d just speared. The Spook was now on the riverbank too, jabbing furiously with his staff. But a
there were so many heads, all roaring and howling eerily. How could we deal with them?