Spook’s: Dark Assassin (The Starblade Chronicles)

by Joseph Delaney

  CHAPTER 19

  CHINGLE HALL

  THOMAS WARD

  IT WAS SET within a tangle of trees; it looked gloomy and forbidding. However, I was encouraged by the sight of lights shining from two of the downstairs windows. The house was occupied and the inhabitants hadn’t yet retired for the night.

  I hoped that Squire Robinson was at home. He was a strong-willed, level-headed person who hadn’t allowed himself to be frightened by ghosts or driven from his home. He also knew me by sight – which would speed up the process of getting help for Jenny.

  I placed the bags and staffs on the step and deposited Jenny carefully so that she was leaning against the wall. Then I rapped hard on the door. After a few moments’ delay I heard approaching footsteps, and the bolts were drawn back.

  The door opened and I found myself face to face with a tall, thin, hatchet-faced servant. She looked me up and down with obvious contempt.

  ‘I am Mrs Hesketh, Squire Robinson’s housekeeper. My master is away,’ she said in an imperious voice. ‘How dare you come knocking at our front door! The tradesmen’s entrance is at the side of the house.’

  Then she stared down at Blood as if she intended to kick her – not an advisable course of action. The wolfhound glared up at her and gave a low growl.

  Strictly speaking, I was a tradesman: spook’s business was a craft. And some titled and well-to-do people expected tradesmen such as butchers, grocers, carpenters and the like to use that side entrance. The rule was often enforced by snobbish servants rather than those who employed them. Squire Robinson had always received my master and me with courtesy and we’d been admitted through the front door. Now that he was away, the rules were clearly different.

  ‘My apprentice is very ill,’ I said, gesturing towards Jenny. ‘She’s been poisoned. I’d like to see Nora, please. I’m hoping that she can help. This is an emergency.’

  ‘Round the side!’ Mrs Hesketh snapped, and slammed the door in my face.

  I picked up Jenny, along with the bags and staffs, and trudged round to the side door, which was a long time opening.

  ‘You may enter, but first wipe your dirty feet on the mat!’ the housekeeper ordered.

  I stamped the mud off, then carried Jenny over the threshold.

  ‘The dog stays outside!’ Mrs Hesketh snapped.

  I pointed down. ‘Stay, Blood!’ I commanded, and watched her settle herself outside the door.

  As the housekeeper slammed it behind us, I looked about me. The small, chilly, flagged hallway was windowless, its only item of furniture a bench set against the wall. No doubt tradesmen were kept waiting there at Mrs Hesketh’s pleasure.

  Suddenly a feeling of cold ran up and down my spine, the warning a seventh son of a seventh son receives when something from the dark is nearby. There were clearly new ghosts to be dealt with here, but that would have to wait until another time.

  ‘You may stay here until Nora returns,’ the housekeeper told me. ‘She’s out gathering herbs.’ She gave me another glance of disdain, then turned and left.

  I carefully placed Jenny on her side on the hard bench, then took off my cloak to make a pillow for her head. She kept gasping, as if struggling to draw breath, and her forehead was hot with fever. I quickly examined her ankle again: I didn’t like what I saw. Now, in addition to the swelling, purple veins extended up her leg almost as far as the knee.

  I just hoped that Nora could help. She had a reputation as a skilled healer; my master had once told me that he suspected she was a benign witch. The fact that she’d gone out after dark to collect herbs confirmed the idea in my mind. Some believed that herbs and roots gathered under the light of the moon had greater potency. It gave me hope that she might be able to help Jenny.

  At first I paced up and down impatiently, awaiting her return; then weariness began to overtake me. I sat down on the bench, my right knee almost touching Jenny’s head, and fought to stay awake. My eyes kept closing, but at the point of sleep I would jerk back to wakefulness.

  All at once something changed. In my drowsy state I couldn’t work out what it was. Then I knew.

  It was too quiet … Jenny was no longer breathing!

  I shook her gently by the shoulders. At first she didn’t respond; then suddenly she drew in a shuddering breath, but it was a long time before she took another. She was still alive, but her breathing had become very irregular.

  Where was Nora? I wondered desperately. Why was she so long?

  Then, in the distance, I thought I heard a dog barking. Opening the door to check on Blood, I saw that she’d gone. I was surprised that she’d wandered off like that after I’d clearly told her to remain there. Dogs trained by Bill Arkwright were always very obedient. What could have caused her to stray?

  I closed the door and sat down beside Jenny again, her erratic breathing making me increasingly nervous. Not long after, I heard footsteps outside, the door opened and Nora came in carrying a small canvas bag full of herbs.

  She was exactly as I remembered from my last visit to the hall: a short, chubby, motherly woman with red cheeks, a kind face and greying hair.

  ‘What’s this? What’s this?’ she cried, coming to Jenny’s side and laying a hand upon her feverish brow.

  I explained quickly what had happened.

  ‘We need to get her into bed. I’ll have to ask Mrs Hesketh’s permission,’ she said, bustling through the inner door and closing it behind her.

  Nora was away for some time and I started to get impatient. What was keeping her? Then she returned, holding the door open.

  ‘Bring her through!’ she cried. ‘She can have my room.’

  Carrying Jenny, I followed Nora down the corridor to the servants’ quarters. The room was small – just a single bed, a chair and a small chest for clothes. I carefully placed Jenny on the bed and sat there holding her hand. Nora returned a few moments later with a bowl of water and a sponge, and gently bathed Jenny’s face, then examined her ankle.

  Once she’d finished, she looked up at me. Her expression was bleak.

  ‘You must be the new Spook – I heard that old John Gregory had passed away. I remember you coming here. You were a skinny little thing – you’ve shot up like a beanstalk since then!’ she said.

  ‘Jenny is my first apprentice. Can you help her?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve got herbs simmering now, but I fear it may be too late,’ Nora said, shaking her head. ‘The poison’s spreading up her body towards her heart. I’ll do my best, though, never you fear … While there’s life there’s always hope.’

  Her words filled me with dismay. In trying to press on towards Malkin Tower I’d taken a risk. I knew now that I should have taken Jenny for help immediately after the attack. My heart felt heavy.

  I watched as Nora tried to get Jenny to swallow the infusion of herbs. The girl choked and spluttered, and most of the liquid ended up on the pillow. I began to feel more and more desperate.

  Suddenly I smelled an odour, faint but definite – the scent of flowers of a type I couldn’t put a name to. I realized that it came from Jenny, and I remembered where and when I’d smelled it before: early in my apprenticeship I’d visited the farm when Dad was very ill and I’d smelled that same strange scent in his room.

  I’d mentioned it to Mam and she told me that it was a manifestation of one of the gifts I’d inherited not because I was a seventh son of a seventh son but from her; I later learned that Mam was the first lamia. She called the gift ‘Intimations of Death’. It seemed to me more like a curse than a gift. When you met someone who exuded that strange aroma, you knew that they were soon going to die.

  Soon afterwards my dad had died – my terrible gift had correctly predicted his end. Now it was predicting Jenny’s. I knew then that whatever Nora had given Jenny wasn’t working. I had to help her now. And there was only one thing I could do.

  ‘I need to stretch my legs,’ I told Nora, who was sitting beside Jenny once more, mopping her brow.

&nb
sp; I returned to the small hallway, which seemed colder than ever. Quickly I rummaged in my bag and pulled out the small mirror I kept there. I held it close to my face, placed the fingers of my left hand against it and whispered Alice’s name.

  Only she could save Jenny now …

  Nothing happened, so I breathed on the mirror and wrote on it with my forefinger.

  Jenny is dying, Alice. Poisoned by a water witch. Please help!

  As the steam faded, taking my words with it, the mirror brightened, and for a brief second I thought I saw Alice’s face. But with a flicker it was gone, making me think I’d simply imagined it.

  Had I made contact? I wondered. Had Alice understood? She could use her magic to travel to the space between worlds, and from there to this house. But she might be occupied with other problems. After all, Malkin Tower was probably under siege. She might need all her magic just to keep the Kobalos mages and warriors at bay.

  If the Pendle witches fell, the County would be defenceless. Our soldiers, armed only with guns and blades, would be helpless against the enemy’s dark magic.

  I turned, intending to go back to see how Jenny was. But before I could do so, Nora emerged into the hallway. She stood facing me, but she didn’t meet my gaze.

  My heart sank. ‘What is it?’ I asked her. I’d already guessed from her demeanour what she was about to say.

  ‘I’m truly sorry, but Jenny has just passed away. There was nothing I could do to save her,’ she told me, shaking her head.

  I just stared at her, unable to speak, grief choking off the words before I could utter them.

  ‘Would you like to see her?’ she asked, looking up for the first time, a slight smile turning up the corners of her mouth – probably just sympathy, I thought, frowning.

  ‘It’d be best to see her now, while she’s still warm,’ Nora continued, ‘so that your final memory of her will be a good one. The cooling of the blood and flesh brings about terrible changes. Death can be very ugly.’

  I wasn’t really taking in what Nora was saying – I was in shock – though her words seemed a little insensitive. I meekly followed her to the room where Jenny lay.

  I knelt down beside the bed and peered closely at her, tears welling. She wasn’t breathing, but when I took her hand, it felt warm. She looked very peaceful, almost as if she was sleeping, but she didn’t move. I quickly checked for a pulse – first on her wrist and then at her neck, but could find nothing.

  Jenny was dead.

  I was vaguely aware that Nora was standing directly behind me. I felt something brush against my shoulder, but I hardly registered it because my focus was entirely upon Jenny. My chest was heaving with emotion.

  When I realized that Nora was easing the Starblade out of its scabbard, it was almost too late.

  I came to my feet and saw that she had the sword grasped in her right hand.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something shimmering by the door. It was vaguely human in shape, but more bulky, like one of the Kobalos. Something was starting to materialize there.

  I lurched forward and put my hand over Nora’s, my fingertips on the blade, suddenly realizing the truth.

  Nora was a tulpa. She was here either to kill me or get the blade away from me so that my protection against dark magic would be gone.

  I glanced back towards the doorway. The shimmering had ceased, but I had no doubt now that if the tulpa managed to keep the blade away from me for more than a few seconds, then a Kobalos mage would appear and use dark magic against me.

  I struggled to tear the Starblade out of Nora’s grasp. She was incredibly strong, but I was desperate and I managed to get hold of it again. I stepped back and raised it, ready to deliver a mortal blow.

  But, all at once, I hesitated. This woman looked exactly like the Nora I remembered. How could I kill her in cold blood?

  But she wasn’t a woman, I told myself firmly. She was a tulpa, and no doubt she’d let Jenny die so that I would kneel at the bedside, giving her the opportunity to seize the blade.

  Suddenly the thing that looked like Nora gave a shrill scream and covered her face with her hands – in fear that I was about to strike her with my sword, I thought.

  But I was wrong.

  ‘What have I done? What have I done!’ she screamed, lowering her hands and gazing at me with terrified eyes. ‘I’ve killed my mistress. Why did I do that?’

  She ran out of the room, and I followed her down the corridor and into another bedroom. The housekeeper was lying on the bed there, eyes bulging, the whites red with burst veins. She’d been strangled.

  ‘Poor Mrs Hesketh!’ the tulpa wailed. ‘She was a harsh mistress but she always treated me fairly. Why would I do that to her?’

  ‘You did it because you were acting under the control of another,’ I said softly. ‘You aren’t Nora. You probably killed Nora before taking her place. You’re a tulpa.’

  The transformation began immediately. This disintegration was even faster than that of the tulpa that had believed itself to be Bill Arkwright. This female form had been rotund; now the belly swelled grotesquely, then sagged low, forming an apron, before bursting with a sickening squelch. The mouth began to ooze slime and the teeth fell out to plop onto the bedroom carpet.

  I’d seen enough. There was nothing I could do for the murdered Mrs Hesketh. Others would have to deal with it. I just had to get away – though I couldn’t leave Jenny’s body here. I would take it with me and bury her elsewhere.

  I went back into the little bedroom and realized that there was one last thing I needed to do for her. I had to check that her soul was not lingering by her body, unable to leave. I certainly didn’t want her joining the other ghosts that haunted Chingle Hall.

  ‘Jenny! Jenny! Are you there?’ I called softly.

  I repeated the question two more times, just to be sure. Her ghost didn’t appear, and so, satisfied, I prepared to leave.

  I decided that I’d only take my own bag and staff with me. I opened Jenny’s bag and stared at the contents, my mind numb with grief, and transferred a few of the items into my bag: the small sacks containing salt and iron, and her personal possessions, including her notebook. Her mother and father were dead, and she hadn’t been close to her foster parents. Nevertheless, I resolved to return her things to them one day.

  I took the sheet off the bed and spread it out on the floor. Then I lifted up Jenny’s body and gently placed her on it. I kissed her on the forehead, then wrapped her in the sheet, knotting the ends as best I could.

  I let myself out of the tradesmen’s entrance and, carrying Jenny’s body over my shoulder and holding my bag and staff in my left hand, headed east along the ley line that would take me most of the way to Malkin Tower.

  I hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when I came upon the body of Blood. She’d suffered severe wounds – no doubt the tulpa’s work. She was the last of Bill Arkwright’s dogs, but there was nothing I could do but leave her there and move on. I was already filled with grief for the poor dead girl I was carrying. There would be other horrors waiting out there, I thought. The real Nora would have died in a similar fashion to the dog.

  As I walked, I’d been wondering what to do with Jenny’s body. I remembered that churches were frequently found on ley lines, and I knew that one, St Wilfred’s, lay directly ahead of me. I’d never visited it, so I would be gambling on the priest being prepared to allow a spook’s apprentice to be buried next to his churchyard. It was the best I could hope for. Some priests considered spooks to be no better than witches or dark mages.

  The priest’s name was Father Greenalgh and he proved to be a decent man.

  ‘I’m sorry that I can’t allow her to be buried in holy ground – if I did that, my bishop would only have her disinterred. But there’s a nice spot just east of the churchyard,’ he told me.

  ‘Thank you, Father, that’s all that I ask,’ I said.

  The sun was coming up as we walked up to a hillock shaded by a large ye
w tree. Father Greenalgh was carrying two spades, and to my surprise he helped me to dig Jenny’s grave.

  Then he said some prayers while I bowed my head and tried to hold back my tears.

  ‘Would you like to say a few words?’ he asked.

  I nodded and gathered my thoughts. When I spoke, my voice wobbled with emotion. ‘I chose well in making Jenny my first apprentice. She was a good, brave and talented girl and would have become a great spook. It’s terrible that she was taken from us before she reached her full potential. I’ll miss her …’

  I had intended to say more, but my voice grew choked with grief.

  Father Greenalgh patted me on the shoulder, and we lowered Jenny into the grave and filled it in together.

  ‘Thank you again for your help and consideration,’ I said to him. ‘I haven’t much money with me, but next time I pass this way I’ll make a donation to the church and pay for a stone to mark Jenny’s grave.’

  The priest nodded. ‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.

  ‘Pendle,’ I answered. ‘I’ve business there.’

  ‘Well, before you make that journey, come back to the presbytery for some breakfast.’

  ‘Thanks again, Father, but my business is urgent and I need to press on. But I’d just like a few moments alone to pray by the graveside.’

  ‘Of course …’

  Father Greenalgh collected the two spades and set off back towards the church. I waited until he was out of earshot, then said what needed to be said.

  ‘Jenny! Jenny! Are you there?’ I called softly.

  There wasn’t even the faintest breeze, and the birds had fallen silent. I listened carefully.

  I uttered the words three times, but there was no reply and that was good. In the case of a violent death ghosts sometimes stayed at the scene, which I’d already checked, but most lingered by their graveside. However, spooks knew all about ghosts and would certainly not want to become one. After death they would go to the light, and I was sure that’s what Jenny had done.

  She was no longer here.

  I picked up my bag and staff, squinted into the sun, and with a heavy heart began to walk east, following the ley line towards Pendle.