The Spook's Sacrifice (20 page)

I decided to employ my weapons in that order:
chain, staff and then blade. But first I would attempt to
bind my enemy with words. I would use everything at
my disposal to delay her until Mam was ready to
attack.

Yet even as those thoughts whirled around within
my head, the Ordeen opened her eyes and looked
straight at me before sitting upright on her throne. Her
lips began to suffuse with blood, becoming swollen
and bright red; her eyes were the dark blue of the sky
an hour after sunset.

She was awake.

The Ordeen came to her feet and glared down at
me angrily, her expression wild and arrogant.

'
An insect creeps into my domain
,' she said softly. '
I
sense it shiver and shake with fear. All I need do is stretch
out my finger and smear it against the cold marble floor.
Shall it be done?
'

It was then that I noticed her jaws. The lower one
was particularly powerful and wide, the muscles
bunched below her ears. When she opened her mouth,
I saw that her teeth were very sharp – the canines
particularly. They weren't long like those of a water
witch, but they were curved, and once she bit into flesh
there'd be no escape from her terrible jaws. I glanced
down at her hands. They were very large for a woman
and the veins were prominent. And instead of fingernails
she had sharp talons.

I knew that she was trying to terrify me, so I took a
slow deep breath and attempted to control my fear –
always a spook's first task when dealing with the dark.
I felt it subside and then, as my trembling eased, I took
a step towards her. She didn't expect that, and I saw
her eyes widen in surprise.

'
Who are you, insect?
' she demanded. '
I feel that I know
you somehow. I sense that we have met before. How did you
get here? How did you pass by my servants and the traps
and barriers to come so close to me?
'

'I crept in like a little mouse,' I replied. 'I'm too small
and unimportant for anyone to notice me.'

'
Yet what is that staff you hold in your hand? A staff of
rowan wood that hides a fang within! A metal blade
impregnated with silver.
'

'Do you mean this?' I asked calmly, pressing the
recess in my staff so that the blade emerged with a
loud click.

'
That's a very sharp tooth for a little mouse
,' she said,
descending the first step of the dais. '
But still you are a
mystery. You're a stranger to this country. Where is your
home?
'

'Far across the sea in a green land where rain is
never very far away.'

'
What is your parentage? Who begat you?
'

'My father was a farmer who worked hard to bring
up his family and taught us right from wrong. He's
dead now but I'll never forget him. And never forget
what he taught me.'

'
I feel I know you. You could almost be my brother. Do you
have sisters?
'

'I've no sisters but I do have brothers—'

'
Yes! I see it now. There are six! Six! And you are the
seventh! And your father before you was a seventh son. So
you have gifts. The ability to see and hear the dead. The
facility to block the long-sniffing of a witch. You are a
natural enemy of the dark. Is that why you are here, little
mouse? To slay me with your staff? However sharp, you'll
need more than one small tooth to destroy me . . .
'

How did she know these things? Was she reading
my mind? It was frightening, because within moments
she seemed set to learn who I was. And through me
she'd become aware of Mam. Immediately my fears
proved well-founded.

'
Wait! There's more
,' she continued. '
Much more!
You
have other gifts. Gifts from your feral mother. A speed that
mocks the tick of time. The ability to smell the approach of
death
in those afflicted by sickness or injury. A long moonshadow
that shows
what you'll become. But what mother
could give you such things, little
mouse? I see her now!
Through you I know her. Your mother is Lamia,
my mortal
enemy!
'

I saw the intent in her eyes. She was going to slay me
on the spot. Quickly – quicker than ever before – I slid
my silver chain onto my wrist and withdrew my hand
from my cloak. She didn't react. I was moving but the
Ordeen wasn't. She was just staring at me, anger
creasing her brow.

The moment expanded. Time flickered and froze. I
felt strange. I was the only thing moving in an utterly
still world. I wasn't breathing. My heart wasn't
beating.

Was this what the Ordeen had meant by 'a speed
that mocks the tick of time'? Had I really inherited it
from Mam? Was it something similar to what the Fiend
used? That same trick had allowed me to pluck a blade
from the air the previous summer when Grimalkin had
hurled it at my head.

Taking very careful aim, all my focus on the target,
I cracked the chain and hurled it straight at her. I
had no fear at all that I would miss. Moving targets
are always difficult to hit, but she was as immobile
as the practice post in the Spook's Chipenden
garden.

The chain fell in a perfect spiral over her head
and tightened against her body. Her eyes widened and
seemed to bulge in her sockets and she slumped to her
knees, in obvious pain. She screamed before arching
backwards, the veins in her neck distending. Then she
convulsed, pitched forward and landed hard upon her
chin, her neck extended, her face still towards me.
I'd heard a sharp snapping sound. Was it a bone
breaking? Was it her neck?

I was breathing again, my heart now thumping in
my chest. Whatever had happened as I prepared to
cast the chain was over; time was now ticking along
normally.

The Ordeen seemed to be gazing in my direction,
but her eyes were unfocused and glassy and she
certainly wasn't breathing. Was she dead? If so, I
couldn't believe how effective the chain had been.
I stared in astonishment. I was elated but still wary. I
was confronting one of the Old Gods. It had been too
easy. Far too easy . . .

I took a step backwards – just in case it was a trick –
and studied her carefully. She was totally immobile,
showing not a single flicker of life. Had the contact
with silver alloy killed her? Surely not?

Then I spotted something, the first warning of
danger to come. Steam seemed to be rising from her
body. The air above it was shimmering too. There was
a crackling sound and a sudden acrid stench of
burning flesh. I watched as her skin began to scorch,
wrinkle and blacken. She was burning! Flames were
leaping upwards!

Her head gave a jerk. I looked at the powerful lower
jaw and saw it widen and lengthen, the head lifting.
Still she didn't seem to be breathing, but I could see the
side of her throat convulsing even as it charred. I took
another step backwards and readied my staff. Her
head had become an orb of fire and there was a tearing,
snapping sound; her jaw suddenly dislocated and the
blackened skull shattered and fell away like shards of
broken pottery. But there was something else still there
within. Something inside the flames, very much alive
and dangerous! Something slowly emerging from the
burning, blackening human husk. She was like a snake
easing off her old skin. I had to strike now, before it
was too late.

I stepped forward quickly, shielding my face with
my arm and lunged with my staff, aiming at the point
behind her shoulders where I judged her heart to be.
The blade struck something hard – far harder than
bone. It jarred my hand painfully: the shock went right
up my arm to my shoulder so that I lost my grip on the
staff. But my dismay gave way to relief.

It was fortunate that I'd relinquished my hold on the
staff; otherwise I'd have lost my arm – because the next
second the staff went up in flames with a loud
whoosh
,
consumed by a heat so intense that it disintegrated into
white ashes. I backed away as something emerged
from the flames on four clawed legs, sloughing off the
blackened skin of what had been a human form,
shaking itself free of my silver chain.

It was a large lizard-like creature, mottled green and
brown and covered with warty protuberances. It had
the shape of the salamander, the most potent and
dangerous of all the fire elementals, which Seilenos
had told me about. But, if so, this was no ordinary
example. The Ordeen had now taken on her true form,
it seemed – that of a creature that basked in fire and
ruled that element.

She scuttled towards me out of the ashes of her
previous form, her mouth opening to reveal two rows
of sharp, murderous teeth. There was a loud hiss as she
breathed out, and a large plume of hot steam erupted
from her nostrils straight towards me. I stepped to one
side and it just missed me, passing close to my face so
that I was forced to close my eyes against the scalding
heat.

I had just one remaining weapon: the blade that
Grimalkin had given me. With my left hand I reached
over my shoulder under my cloak and shirt, tugging it
from its sheath. Then I faced the Ordeen and concentrated.
Again I felt time slowing. I breathed deeply
and steadied my own heart, trying to calm my
nerves, and took a slow step towards my enemy.

The Ordeen didn't move but her salamander eyes,
the pupils vertical red slits, regarded me intently, her
claws splayed as if she was tensed to spring. I focused
on her long lizard-like body and the place behind the
neck where I intended to bury the blade. But would I
be able to drive it home? Would it burst into flame like
my staff? I had no alternative but to risk it, though I
would have to get very close if I was to be successful.
Much closer than when I'd used my staff. And intense
heat was still radiating from her body.

Her jaws widened slightly, then extended quickly to
reveal the ruby-red oval of her open throat. That was
all the warning I got. This time, rather than scalding
steam, a jet of orange-yellow fire speared directly
towards me.

Again it missed me by inches. Now the Ordeen
suddenly stood up on her hind legs so that she
towered above me, her head beginning to sway from
side to side.

I concentrated again, locking my eyes on a new
target – the pale throat beneath the long jaws. This was
softer. More vulnerable. That was the spot to aim for.
Almost immediately, the Ordeen stopped moving.

Was that it? Concentrate and time slowed . . . almost
stopped? Yes, it had to be. It was a result of focus and
concentration.

But asking myself that question and reaching that
conclusion almost cost me my life. It had disrupted my
intense focus. The Ordeen's lizard head swayed from
right to left, and another tongue of flame surged
straight at me. Just in time I dropped to my knees and
I felt my hair crackle and singe.

Concentrate!
I told myself.
Squeeze time! Make it stop!

Once more my focus began to do its work and I came
to my feet, readied my blade and took a tentative step
towards my enemy. That was it. Focus on the task.

Take one step at a time. That was the way. And I
remembered what Mam had once told me:

When you're a man, then it'll be the dark's turn to be
afraid, because then you'll be the hunter, not the hunted.
That's why I gave you life.

Well, I wasn't a man yet, but suddenly I did feel like
the hunter . . .

I was less than an arm's length from the Ordeen's
open jaws now. Too close to escape if another plume of
fire erupted. I tensed, then struck upwards into her
throat, burying the blade to the hilt and releasing the
weapon instantly. A wave of despair washed over me
as I watched the blade melt, dissolving into globules of
falling molten metal.

I staggered backwards as burning heat radiated
towards me. Time was moving again and I could do
nothing about it. But I saw that I had hurt her after all.
Boiling black blood spouted in an arc from the
Ordeen's throat to fall onto the mosaic floor, where it
instantly turned to steam, forming a thick mist that
obscured my view. Surely I had weakened her at least?
The stench of burning was so bad that I retched and
choked, my eyes stinging and watering, momentarily
blinded.

But when the steam cleared, the Ordeen was still
standing. The wound in her throat had healed and
now she fixed her pitiless eyes upon me. I had no
weapons left. She came straight at me, faster than I
could run. In seconds I would be reduced to ashes.

Then, just when I thought I was finished, as good as
dead, it happened . . .

My ears gave me the first warning. There was a
sudden silence. That utter stillness – as when an owl
swoops towards its unsuspecting prey. A silence so
intense that it hurt. I looked up and saw something
plunge down from the balcony above as the Ordeen
twisted sideways and upwards to meet the airborne
threat.

It was Mam. Her transformation was complete, but
she was nothing like I'd expected. There were wings,
yes, and outstretched claws, ready to rend and tear her
enemy. But they were not the insectile wings of
the vaengir. She was more angel than insect, and
her wings were feathered, white as freshly fallen
snow.