The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks) (4 page)

‘Beth finally got sick of him, and when her mother died and left her the other cottage, she left him. No doubt she’d prefer to be twenty miles further away, but it’s better than sharing a house. It’s the third time he’s accused her of witchcraft since they parted, and that was my third visit here. I just thought I’d come along and see how you handled the situation. Not all spook’s business involves dealing with the dark.

‘But you did well, lad,’ he continued. ‘And there was another reason why I came along. I wanted to stretch my legs, get a bit of pure County air into my lungs and do a bit of clear-headed thinking. I’ve spent too much time brooding recently – worrying and doing little. Now sit yourself down and listen to what I’ve got to say,’ he said, pointing to a stile we were approaching.

I set our bags down next to the hedge, took a seat and watched the Spook pacing up and down in front of me, his boots flattening the long grass. It reminded me of our lessons in the pretty western garden behind his house, where there were no bound witches or boggarts. It was a long time since we’d done that, and I missed it. Nowadays he usually taught me in his new library or at the kitchen table.

‘We’ve already agreed that we can’t use the ritual – it’s barbaric. But we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.’ The Spook came to a halt and looked me straight in the eye. ‘I asked you what your mam looked like when she appeared to you in Malkin Tower. You said she was like a fierce angel, but then she changed into the woman I spoke to at your farm – the woman we accompanied to Greece to fight the Ordeen. I remember her well. She had an honest, open face. I sensed a tremendous strength in her and, above all, goodness. That woman would never ask you to sacrifice Alice – never mind kill her in such a cruel, inhuman way. So my conclusion is this, lad. You’ve been deceived. That
wasn’t
your mam. Someone or something was impersonating her.’

I could understand why the Spook said what he did. But this time his instincts had let him down. I still knew things that he didn’t. Now was the time to tell him more.

‘Just before she left me, Mam turned back into that cruel angel. She’s very old, and only a very small part of her existence has been in human form. She became Mam for two reasons. One was because she loved my dad and wanted to repay him for rescuing her when she was chained to a rock, about to perish in the sun’s lethal rays. The other reason was so that she could have me – a seventh son of a seventh son. I would be her son as well as my father’s, so I would inherit some of her gifts, such as the ability to slow or halt time – the gifts that have helped us come through some dangerous situations and bind the Fiend. She had me so that I would be a weapon to be used against the Fiend. That was why I was born. She would do anything to put an end to him. And if it means killing Alice – then she would do that too.’

‘I’m still not convinced, lad.’

There was nothing for it. I had to tell him the whole truth, something I’d always hoped to avoid.

‘Mam was the first Lamia,’ I told him. ‘She was the mother of them all.’

THE SPOOK STARED
at me for a long time without saying a word. Then he turned, bowed his head and started to walk slowly away. He’d almost reached the gate at the far end of the field before he stopped and began to pace back towards me.

‘This seems to be a day for truths,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s get ourselves back to the library.’

I stood up, allowing my master to climb over the stile first, then picked up our bags and followed him miserably back to the Chipenden house.

Once there, he led the way up to the library and pointed to my usual chair at the table. I took a seat while he went to get a book from the almost empty shelves. I knew which book it would be.

The Bestiary.

There was an entry that the Spook had made in this book, which was the only one that had survived the fire. I knew it almost word for word because it was so important and painful to me personally. He set the book down in front of me, open at the page I’d predicted. The heading was:

Lamia Witches

‘Read the full entry – not out loud, because I remember what I wrote. I just want to be sure you know what you’re saying about your mam.’

Feeling more and more despondent, I read the account silently.

The first Lamia was a powerful enchantress of great beauty. She loved Zeus, the leader of the Old Gods, who was already married to the goddess Hera. Unwisely, Lamia then bore Zeus children. On discovering this, the jealous Hera slew all but one of these unfortunate infants. Driven insane by grief, Lamia began to kill children wherever she found them, so that streams and rivers ran red with their blood and the air trembled with the cries of distraught parents. At last the gods punished her by shifting her shape so that her lower body became sinuous and scaled like that of a serpent.

Thus changed, she now turned her attentions to young men. She would call to them from a forest glade, only her beautiful head and shoulders visible above the undergrowth. Once she had lured her victim close, she wrapped her lower body around him tightly, squeezing the breath from his helpless body as her mouth fastened upon his neck until the very last drop of blood was drained.

Lamia later had a lover called Chaemog, a spider-thing that dwelt in the deepest caverns of the earth. She bore him triplets, all female, and these were the first lamia witches. On their thirteenth birthday they quarrelled with their mother and, after a terrible fight, tore off her limbs and ripped her body to pieces. They fed every bit of her, including her heart, to a herd of wild boar.

The three lamia witches reached adulthood and became feared throughout the land. They were long-lived creatures and, by the process of parthenogenesis (needing no father), each gave birth to several children. Over centuries the race of lamia witches began to evolve and breeding patterns—

‘Are you past the third paragraph?’ the Spook interrupted.

I nodded.

‘Then that’s enough,’ he said. ‘It’s a terrible tale. But according to that, Lamia was slain by her own children.’

‘The information is wrong. Yes, she did quarrel with her children, but they did her no physical harm. You once told me that not everything in your Bestiary can be verified, and that some things are definitely wrong. And we make notes and corrections as we find out more, don’t we?’

‘That’s true enough,’ said the Spook, nodding. ‘Well, how did you find this out, lad?’

‘Mam told me herself when we were in Greece. It’s true. After the terrible things she did, Mam repented and started to fight against the dark. Her greatest wish is to destroy the Fiend, but you have to realize that she isn’t
just
the woman you met at the farm. She has spent most of her long life as Lamia, and she is ruthless. She sacrificed herself to destroy the Ordeen. She loves me – but would ask me to sacrifice myself if it proved necessary. She is also willing to sacrifice Alice. She’ll do anything to destroy the Fiend. She really does want me to carry out that terrible ritual.’

As I said this, I wondered if I’d have been brave enough to sacrifice myself if Mam had actually asked me to. Would I be as brave as Alice?

‘Despite all you say, I still find it hard to believe,’ said the Spook. ‘I trust my instincts. The woman I met wouldn’t ask you to do that.’

‘She’ll do anything to destroy the Fiend. She wants me to sacrifice Alice. She’s no longer the woman you knew. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Well, we’ll agree to differ, lad, but it changes little. You can’t carry out that ritual. So in that case, we need another plan. Let’s both get our thinking caps on and try to come up with some alternative method.’

I nodded and resolved to try – though I wasn’t optimistic. How could I hope to do better than Mam, who had lived so long and knew so much about the Fiend?

The following morning, just after dawn, I headed for the area in the western garden that we used for training. There was a dead tree, which was useful for practising with our staffs, and a post over which I would cast my silver chain. I remembered the first time I’d managed to cast it successfully one hundred times. My master had warned me against complacency, pointing out that a witch wouldn’t oblige me by standing still; after that I’d had to cast on the run and from a variety of angles.

Now I was competent with both chain and staff, but still practised here three times a week in order to maintain those skills. The Spook had done the same until a few months ago.

I was surprised to find him using his staff against the trunk of the dead tree. He was driving the blade into the wood again and again, almost in a fury. The sweat was pouring down his forehead and he was breathing hard.

In fact, so great was his concentration that I stood watching him for a couple of minutes before he stepped back and looked round, as if becoming aware of my presence for the first time.

‘Well, lad, that’s just about enough for one day – for me, that is. Now it’s your turn to sweat a bit. I’ll get back to the house. I’ll see you at breakfast. We need to talk again.’

With that, still panting after his exertions, he strode away through the trees. I did my routine training, and after about an hour followed him back, wondering what he wanted to say to me now.

It was a good breakfast. The boggart had done us proud. The toast was crisp and brown, and our plates were heaped high with bacon, eggs and mushrooms.

The Spook nodded, and I nodded back; then, without further preamble, we tucked in and didn’t say a word until we’d finished every last mouthful. Only then did my master ease his chair back from the table and fix his gaze firmly upon me.

‘I’m sorry, lad,’ he said. ‘I’ve been neglecting my duties and letting you do all the work. What’s worse, I’ve not been training you.’

‘It’s been a very difficult few years,’ I said. ‘We’ve travelled a lot and faced great dangers; we’ve both been lucky to survive. Recently, you’ve needed time to recuperate and gather your strength – I know that. So there’s no need to apologize. You’ve been a good master; but for your help and training I’d be dead by now.’

‘It’s kind of you to say so, lad. But I’m going to try and make up for the past weeks. Do you remember what I said we’d be studying in your fourth year of training?’

‘Yes – it’s something that you called the “unexplained”; you told me to look in the back of your Bestiary.’

‘And did you do that?’

I nodded, not mentioning the fact that my master had failed to follow it up with the expected lessons.

At the end of the Spook’s book there was a short section called ‘Mysterious Deaths in the County’. One account told of a woman called Emily Jane Hudson, who had died under very strange circumstances. There had been puncture marks in her neck, but she hadn’t been drained of blood. Instead, the blood had been forced in between her flesh and her skin, as if to store it there. The incident had remained a mystery. Who or what had done that to her?

‘So you do have an idea what you’ll be learning. It will take us right to the edge of what we know. It’s a higher level of study: rather than me just passing on my acquired knowledge to you, we’ll be carrying out research together. We’ll hopefully be able to expand our knowledge and record what we learn. Some of it will be just speculation, but we will also search for likely causes. We’ll begin today with a journey to a location that’s mentioned in that terrible ritual – the place where you were bidden to perform it. We’re going to journey across the fells to the northeast. It’s time for me to show you the Wardstone.’

‘Is it a big stone or just the name of a hill? I remember once seeing it marked on one of your maps, but that wasn’t clear.’

‘It’s a big hill
and
a big stone, lad – one of the highest in the County.’

‘And what we see when we get there – will that be part of our study of the unexplained?’ I asked.

‘Aye,’ replied the Spook. ‘It certainly will. And I’ll tell you something else. You’ll be the first apprentice I’ve ever shown the Wardstone. Despite some deceits – or shall we call them “failings of trust”? – you really have become the best apprentice I’ve ever trained.’