‘Only open it in a time of great need. Trust your instincts.’
It was a time of great need all right so, very nervously, I pulled the envelope from my jacket pocket. I stared at it for a few moments, then tore it open and pulled out the letter within. Holding it close to the candle, I began to read.
Dear Tom
You face a moment of great danger. I had not expected such a crisis to come so soon and now all I can do is prepare you by telling you what you face and indicatint the outcomes that depend on the decision that you must make.
There is much that I cannot see but one thing is certain. Your master will decend to the burial chambers at the deepest point of the catacombs and there he will confront the Bane in a struggle to the death. Of Necessity, he will use Alice to lure it to that spot. He has no choice. But you do have a choice. You can go down to the burial chamber and try to help. But then of the three who face the Bane only two will leave the catacombs alive.
But if you turn back now, the two down there will surely die. And they’ll die in vain.
Sometimes in this life it is necessary to sacrifice oneself for the good of others. I would like to offer you comfort but cannot. Be strong and do what your conscience tells you. Whatever you chose, I will always be proud of you.
Mam
I remembered what the Spook had once told me soon after he took me on as his apprentice. He’d spoken it with such conviction that I’d committed it to memory.
‘Above all, we don’t believe in prophecy. We don’t believe that the future is fixed.’
I badly wanted to believe what the Spook said because, if Mam was right, one of us - the Spook, Alice or I - would die below in the dark. But the letter in my hand told me beyond a shadow of all doubt that prophecy was possible. How else could Mam have known that the Spook and Alice would be down in the burial chamber now about to face the Bane? And how had it happened that I’d read her letter at just the right time?
Instinct? Was that enough to explain it? I shivered and felt more afraid than at any time since I’d started working for the Spook. I felt as if I were walking in a nightmare where everything had been decided in advance and I could do nothing and had no choice at all. How could there be a choice, when to leave Alice and the Spook and walk away would result in their deaths?
And there was another reason why I had to go down into the catacombs again. The curse. Was that why the Spook had slapped me? Was he angry because he secretly believed in it and was afraid? All the more reason to help. Mam had once told me that he’d be my teacher and eventually become my friend.
Whether that time had arrived or not it was hard to say but I was certainly more of a friend to him than Alice was and the Spook needed me!
When I left the yard and walked into the alley, it was still raining but the skies were quiet. I sensed that more thunder was to come and we were in what my dad calls ‘the eye of the storm’. It was then that, in the relative silence, I heard the cathedral bell. It wasn’t the mournful sound that I’d heard from Andrew’s house, tolling for the priest who’d killed himself. It was a bright, hopeful bell summoning the congregation to the evening service.
So I waited in the alley, leaning back against a wall to avoid the worst of the rain. I don’t know why I bothered because I was already soaked to the skin. At last the bell stopped ringing, which I hoped meant that everybody was now inside the cathedral and out of the way. So I began to head slowly towards it too.
I turned the corner and walked down towards the gate. The light was starting to fail, and the black clouds were still piled up overhead. Then the sky suddenly lit up with a sheet of lightning and I saw that the area in front of the cathedral was completely deserted. I could see the building’s dark exterior with its big buttresses and its tall pointy windows. There was candlelight illuminating the stained glass, and in the window to the left of the door was the image of St George dressed in armour, holding a sword and a shield with a red cross. On the right was St Peter, standing in front of a fishing boat. And in the centre, over the door, was the malevolent carving of the Bane, the gargoyle head glaring towards me.
The saint I was named after wasn’t there. Thomas the Doubter. Thomas the Disbeliever. I didn’t know whether it was my mam or my dad who’d chosen that name but they’d chosen it well. I didn’t believe what the Church believed; one day I’d be buried outside a churchyard, not in it. Once I became a spook, my bones could never rest in holy ground. But it didn’t bother me in the slightest. As the Spook often said, priests knew nothing.
I could hear singing from inside the cathedral. Probably the choir I’d heard practising after I visited Father Cairns in his confessional. For a moment I envied them their religion. They were lucky to have something they could all believe in together. It was easier to be inside the cathedral with all those people than to go down into the damp, cold catacombs alone.
I walked across the flags and onto the wide gravel path that ran parallel to the north wall of the church.
Instantly, as I was about to turn the corner, my heart lurched up into my mouth. There was somebody sitting down opposite the hatch with his back against the wall, sheltering from the rain. At his side was a stout wooden club. It was one of the churchwardens.
I almost groaned aloud. I should have expected that. After all those prisoners had escaped they’d be worried about security - and their cellar full of wine and ale.
I was filled with despair and almost gave up there and then, but just as I turned, about to tiptoe away, I heard a sound and listened again until I was sure. But I hadn’t been mistaken. It was the sound of snoring. The warden was asleep! How on earth could he have slept through all that thunder?
Hardly able to believe my luck, I walked towards the hatch very, very slowly, trying not to let my boots crunch on the gravel, worrying that the warden might wake up at any moment and I’d have to run for it.
I felt a lot better when I got closer. There were two empty bottles of wine nearby. He was probably drunk and unlikely to wake up for some time. However, I still couldn’t take any chances. I knelt and inserted Andrew’s key into the lock very carefully. A moment later I’d pulled the hatch open and lowered myself down onto the barrels below before easing it carefully back into place.
I still had my tinderbox and a stub of candle that I always carried about with me. It didn’t take me long to light it. Now I could see - but I still didn’t know how I was going to find the burial chamber.
Chapter 21
A Sacrifice
I picked my way through the barrels and wine racks until I came to the door that led to the catacombs.
By my reckoning it was less than fifteen minutes or so before nightfall so I didn’t have long. I knew that as soon as the sun went down, my master would make Alice summon the Bane for the final time.
The Spook would try to stab the Bane through the heart with his blade but he would only get one chance. If he succeeded, the energy released would probably kill him. It was brave of him to be prepared to sacrifice his life, but if he missed, Alice would also suffer. Realizing it had been tricked, and was now trapped behind the Silver Gate for ever, the Bane would be furious; Alice and my master would certainly both pay with their lives if it wasn’t destroyed quickly enough. It would press their bodies into the cobbles.
At the bottom of the steps I paused. Which way should I go? Immediately my question was answered: one of Dad’s sayings came into my head.
‘Always put your best foot forward!’
Well, my best foot was my left foot so, rather than taking the tunnel directly ahead, the one that led to the Silver Gate and the underground river beyond it, I followed the one to the left. This was narrow, just wide enough to allow one person through, and it curved and sloped steeply downwards so that I had a sense of descending a spiral.
The deeper I went, the colder it got and I knew that the dead were gathering. I kept glimpsing things out of the corner of my eye: the ghosts of the Little People, small shapes hardly
more than glimmers of light that kept moving in and out of the tunnel walls. And I had a suspicion that there were more behind me than in front - a feeling that they were following me; that we were all moving down towards the burial chamber.
At last I saw a flicker of candlelight ahead and I emerged into the burial chamber. It was smaller than I’d expected, a circular room perhaps no more than twenty paces in diameter. There was a high shelf above, recessed into the rock, and on it were the large stone urns that held the remains of the ancient dead. At the centre of the ceiling was a roughly circular opening like a chimney, a dark hole into which the candlelight couldn’t reach. From that hole dangled chains and a hook.
Water was dripping from the stone ceiling and the walls were covered in green slime. There was a strong stench too: a mixture of rot and stagnant water.
A stone bench curved around the wall; the Spook was sitting on it, both hands leaning on his staff, while to his right was Alice, still wearing the blindfold and earplugs.
As I approached, he stared at me but he didn’t look angry any more, just very sad.
‘You’re even dafter than I thought,’ he said quietly, as I walked up and stood before him. ‘Go back now while you still can. In a few moments It’ll be too late.’
I shook my head. ‘Please, let me stay. I want to help.’
The Spook let out a long sigh. ‘You might make things even worse,’ he said. ‘If the Bane gets any warning at all, it’ll stay well clear of this place. The girl doesn’t know where she is and I can close my mind against it. Can you? What if it reads your mind?’
‘The Bane tried to read my mind a while back. It wanted to know where you were. Where I was too.
But I stood up to it and it failed,’ I told him.
‘How did you stop it?’ he asked, his voice suddenly harsh.
‘I lied to it. I pretended that I was on my way home and I told it you were on your way to Chipenden.’
‘And did it believe you?’
‘It seemed to,’ I said, suddenly feeling less certain.
‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough when it’s summoned. Go a little way back up the tunnel then,’ said the Spook, his voice softer. ‘You’ll be able to watch from there. If things go badly you might even have half a chance of escaping. Go on, lad! Don’t hesitate. It’s nearly time!’
drawing in. The Bane would leave its hiding place below ground. In its spirit form it could fly freely through the
I did as I was told, moving back quite some distance into the tunnel. I knew that by now the sun would have dipped below the horizon and dusk would be air and pass through solid rock. Once summoned it would fly straight to Alice, faster than a hawk with folded wings, dropping like a stone towards its prey.
If the Spook’s plan worked, it wouldn’t realize where Alice was waiting. Once it was here, it would be too late. But we’d be here too, facing its anger when it realized it had been tricked and trapped.
I watched the Spook climb to his feet and stand facing Alice. He bowed his head and stayed perfectly still for a long time. Had he been a priest I’d have thought he was praying. Finally he reached towards Alice and I saw him draw the wax plug from her left ear.
‘Summon the Bane!’ he shouted, in a loud voice that filled the chamber and echoed down the tunnel.
‘Do it now, girl! Don’t delay!’
Alice didn’t speak. She didn’t even move. She didn’t need to because she called it from within her mind, willing its presence.
There was no warning of its arrival. One moment there was just silence, the next there was a blast of cold and the Bane appeared in the chamber. From the neck upwards it was the replica of the gargoyle over the main cathedral door: gaping teeth, lolling tongue, huge dog’s ears and wicked horns. From the neck down, it was a vast, black, shapeless boiling cloud.
It had gained the strength to take on its original form! What chance had the Spook against it now?
For one short moment the Bane remained perfectly still while its eyes darted everywhere. Eyes with pupils that were dark green, vertical slits. Pupils shaped like those of a goat.
Then, upon realizing where it was, it let out a groan of anguish and dismay that boomed along the tunnel so that I could feel it vibrate through the very soles of my boots and shiver up into my bones.
‘ Bound again, I am! Bound fast!’ it cried with harsh, hissing coldness that echoed in the chambers and penetrated me like ice.
‘Aye,’ said the Spook. ‘You’re here now and here you’ll stay, bound for ever to this cursed place!’
‘Enjoy what you’ve done! Suck in your last breath, Old Bones. Tricked me, you have, but what for? What will you gain but the darkness of death? Nothing, you’ll be, but I’ll still have my way with the ones above. Still do my bidding, they will. Fresh blood they’ll send me down! So all for nothing it was!’
The head of the Bane grew larger, the face becoming even more hideous, the chin lengthening and curving upwards to meet the hooked nose. The dark cloud was boiling downwards, forming flesh so that now a neck was visible and the beginnings of broad, powerful, muscular shoulders. But instead of skin they were covered in rough green scales.
I knew what the Spook was waiting for. The moment the chest was clearly defined he would strike straight for the heart within. Even as I watched, the boiling cloud descended further to form the body as far down as the waist.
But I was mistaken! The Spook didn’t use his blade. As if appearing from nowhere, the silver chain was in his left hand and he raised his arm to hurl it at the Bane.
I’d seen him do it before. I’d watched him throw it at the witch, Bony Lizzie, so that it formed a perfect spiral and dropped upon her, binding her arms to her sides. She’d fallen to the ground and could do nothing but lie there snarling, the chain enclosing her body and tight against her teeth.
The same would have happened here, I’m sure of it, and it would have been the Bane’s turn to lie there helplessly. But at the very moment when the Spook prepared to hurl the silver chain, Alice lurched to her feet and tore off her blindfold.
I know she didn’t mean to do it, but somehow she got between the Spook and his target and spoiled his aim. Instead of landing over the Bane’s head, the silver chain fell against its shoulder. At its touch, the creature screamed out in agony and the chain fell to the floor.
But it wasn’t over yet and the Spook snatched up his staff. As he held it high, preparing to drive it into the Bane, there was a sudden click and the retractable blade, made from an alloy containing silver, was now bared, glinting in the candlelight. The blade that I’d watched him sharpening at Heysham. I’d seen him use it once before, when he’d faced Tusk, the son of the old witch, Mother Malkin.
Now the Spook stabbed his staff hard and fast, straight at the Bane, aiming for its heart. It tried to twist away but was too late to avoid the thrust completely. The blade pierced its left shoulder and it screamed out in agony. Alice backed away, a look of terror on her face, while the Spook pulled back his staff and readied it for a second thrust, his face grim and determined.
But suddenly, both candles were snuffed out, plunging the chamber and tunnel into darkness.
Frantically, I used my tinderbox to light my own candle again but it flickered into life to reveal that the Spook now stood alone in the chamber. The Bane had simply disappeared! And so had Alice!
‘Where is she?’ I cried, running towards the Spook, who just shook his head sadly.
‘Don’t move!’ he commanded. ‘It’s not finished yet!’
He was staring up at where the chains disappeared into the dark hole in the ceiling. There was a loop, and beside it a second single length of chain. Affixed to the end of it, and almost touching the floor, was a large hook. It was a sort of block and tackle similar to the ones used by riggers to lower boggart stones into position.
The Spook seemed to be listening for something. ‘It’s somewhere up there,’ he whispered.
‘Is that a chimney?’ I as
ked.
‘Aye, lad. Something like that. At least, that was the purpose it sometimes served. Even long after it had been bound, and the Little People were dead and gone, weak and foolish men made sacrifices to the Bane on this very spot. The chimney carried the smoke up into its lair above and they used the chain to send up the burnt offering. Some of them got pressed for their trouble!’
Something was beginning to happen. I felt a draught from the chimney and there was a sudden chill in the air. I looked up as what looked like smoke began to waft slowly downwards to fill the upper reaches of the chamber. It was as if all the burnt offerings that had ever been made on this spot were being returned!
But it was far denser than smoke; it looked like water, like a black whirlpool swirling above our heads.
Within seconds it became calm and still, resembling the polished surface of a dark mirror. I could even see our reflections in it: me standing next to the Spook, his staff at the ready, blade pointing upwards, ready to jab.
What happened next was too swift to see properly. The surface of the smoke mirror bulged out towards us and something broke through fast and hard enough to send the Spook sprawling backwards.
He fell heavily, the staff flying out of his hand and breaking into two unequal pieces with a sharp snapping sound.
At first I stood there stunned, hardly able to think, unable to move a muscle, but at last, my whole body trembling, I went across to see if the Spook was all right.
He was on his back, his eyes closed, a trickle of blood running from his nose down into his open mouth. He was breathing deeply and evenly so I shook him gently, trying to wake him up. He didn’t respond. I walked across to the broken staff and picked up the smaller of the two pieces, the one with the blade attached. It was about the length of my forearm so I tucked it into my belt. I stood at the side of the chain looking upwards.
Somebody had to try to help Alice destroy this creature once and for all, and I was the only one who could. I couldn’t leave her to the Bane. So firstly I tried to clear my mind. If it was empty, the Bane couldn’t read my thoughts. The Spook had probably been practising that for days but I would just have to do my best.
The Spook's Curse Page 21