Poppy Darke

by Colin Wraight

  “Witness my power!” she screeched. “See my revenge and know you murdered the wrong sister!” And with that she sent the ball of flame shooting through the bakery window, which instantly became engulfed. “I will allow you to live long enough to witness London incinerated.”

  Suddenly he heard McKay running up behind him; he was out of breath but still trying to recite the Lord’s prayer. His last words were ‘for ever and ever amen’, then he too succumbed to a ball of fire. He had no time even to scream, the flames burned with such intensity that within three seconds there was nothing but ash where he had been standing.

  “Who will save you now Witch finder?” she smiled with sick delight and threw another ball of fire onto the thatched roof of the Starr Inn, then another at Saint Elizabeth’s church. The wind seemed to be getting up as the fires took hold and spread from house to house. Screams and shouts of terror could be heard, but William could do nothing to help she had cursed him frozen to the spot.

  “Are you fearful Witch finder? Does your heart ache with sorrow as you see the bedraggled remnants of this city burn around you?” The flames on her hands doused as she floated to the ground. “My heart aches every second of every day and night. When I think of how your people tortured and burned my poor innocent sister... It should have been me Witch finder, why did you not burn me?”

  “Just give me a light and stand still!” He spat through clenched teeth.

  There is a constant battle between good and bad in all of gods’ creatures. This was also true of Agyness; consumed by an all-powerful feeling of guilt tears began to trickle down her cheeks. As she stood there William found her almost childlike in her sadness.

  “In the name of God end this plague now. Do this and I shall say you perished in the flames!”

  “Sir I cannot! Witches have a saying you know, ‘Evil is in the eye of the beholder’. Do you understand what that means?”

  William frowned and slowly shook his head.

  “I shall not explain... Needless to say an ‘evil’ has been wielded against me and my family and I must have satisfaction!”

  “...Am I to assume that one is not yet satisfied?”

  Thick smoke wafted down the lane carrying with it burning hay and screams of people waking in flames. Voices shouted for their spouses and children for their mums others cried for savior or water. Men jumped from windows as roofs collapsed, some tried in vain to return for loved ones.

  “Agyness, you have the power to sop this... Please!”

  As she walked back to her horse she stopped and without turning shouted. “Let the murderer’s burn!”

  “And where do you think you are going?”

  “Ruby... Ruby... Ruby!” Agyness laughed. “I suppose I should have recognized the poor fashion sense...” Then she turned. “It’s been such a long time... hasn’t it?”

  William hadn’t noticed his wife arrive but now she was standing right beside him. “I cannot move she has put a spell on me!”

  “Release him.”

  “You release him... After all, was it not you, my dear friend who got me into Witchcraft in the first place?”

  Ruby needn’t have glance at her husband she instinctively knew he was frowning. “Let him go and end this plague.”

  The grey matter in Agyness’s brain buzzed into overdrive and from the look in her eyes was nearing the truth. “You... It was you..? Wasn’t it?”

  Ruby stood her ground. “Imelda used her powers to kill my boyfriend Henry Allingsworth; she was in love with him... And she murdered him out of jealousy.”

  “Imelda was no Witch... She would have told me!” Another ball of raging inferno appeared on her hand.

  “She found us in the woods together and flew into a frightful rage...He could not withstand her evil eye and fell dead at my feet.” Ruby pleaded. “A woodsman saw what she had done and told the townsfolk.”

  “No!” Agyness Screeched. “Never... I don’t believe you! All these years and they hadn’t come for me after all. All of this is was for nothing?” She muttered incoherently in Gibberish for a time and then rasped. “The plague is over... It has gone but I cannot stop the city burning... know now old friend I shall not be taken alive.” The ball of fire grew larger.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way!” She spat and then turned to her husband and touched him on the shoulder, suddenly he could move again. “Find Oaks I’ll deal with her!”

  The frown on Williams face grew darker. “I fear there is much you haven’t told me dear!” he said with a questioning look and then jogged across the lane to Oaks who was lying unconscious under the smashed up cart.

  Ruby watched her husband make it to safety and then turned to face the Witch. “You and I... We were once like sisters,” she said. “And now it has come to this... You were my best friend, gentle and kind...Now you would have me take you from your misery... and from this world.”

  Another ball of flame appeared in front of Agyness. “You always read me so well Ruby, but I shall not surrender and I will not make it easy for you... Better to die by your hand than a baying mob!”

  Without warning one of the glowing orbs of fire shot forward, then it was followed by a second. They had travelled no more than half distance when Ruby simply held up her hand. The orbs stopped dead in the air and hovered for a split second, before slumping to the ground and fizzling out.

  “Impressive, but what do you make of this?” She said as fork lightning instantly arced from her hands to the nearest object that would conduct it to earth. With concentration Agyness managed to control the bolts of electricity and direct them upon Ruby. As arcs of blue lightening forked and surged through and around her body, Ruby stood motionless, seemingly unaffected. She slowly raised one finger in to the air and instantaneously all the forks of power converged to that one spot and disappeared, like sponge absorbing water.

  “Fight back... Why won’t you fight back?” Agyness hissed. A demonic scowl flashed across her face as she realized Ruby’s weakness. “Then I shall have to make you.” She raised her hands as a puppeteer might, and suddenly William screamed his wife’s name. William, with sword drawn, staggered toward his wife under total control of Agyness. “I cannot stop myself... You must run!” Tears of frustration and dread poured down his cheeks as he fought the invisible force that compelled him to murder the one he loved. He moved awkwardly toward her, like a marionette on invisible strings, the sword slicing wildly in great arcs

  Ruby snapped her fingers and suddenly the sword ripped itself from his grasp and spun hilt over blade before embedding in a wooden post. She turned back to her enemy and under a pale skull like moon raised both hands. The electricity she had absorbed earlier suddenly released through her fingertips and arced across to Agyness in fierce pink and blue bolts of forked lightening.

  Resistance was futile; the energy had returned tenfold, Agyness screamed in agony and collapsed to her knees. “I feel you have the better of me old friend!” she groaned. “But I shall not be tried and burned like some common magician.” It took every ounce of human energy to clamber to her feet. Then she rose up into the air and hovered in the moonlight, her cape billowing in the breeze like a great black pennant. “It seems that destiny always had this fiery date awaiting me? One cannot avoid ones fate.” With that she turned and floated through the smoke and the open door of the bakery on pudding lane, into hells searing embrace.

  The life of fire is often short and easily doused, but here was the offer of more food, more life. Hungry for fuel the blaze flickered and danced around her, a rejoicing inferno. At first the flames timidly teased her fingertips, and then caressed her face with warmth. Becoming braver with hunger they dared to enflame her cape and singe the curls of her hair. Oblivious to the screams and blind to her agony small ravenous flames rushed their prey, daring to taste her sweet flesh. Larger flames joined in the swirling melee of smoke and fire; the feast had hardly begun when suddenly the roof collapsed upon the conflagration.

  As Oaks
awoke he pulled himself in to a sitting position. “Did I miss anything?” He asked rubbing his blood soaked head. “Did we win? Is she dead?”

  William slowly nodded as he stared wide eyed at his wife. “If that didn’t do for her... Then we are in trouble! Stay here, I must speak to Ruby.”

  “Why did you not tell me?” William asked as he pulled a smoldering ember from his hair.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper so as not to let Oaks hear her words. “I can assure you that I am not a Witch!” She replied angrily.

  “I know what I saw!”

  “Yes, I have certain inexplicable abilities that I have no real control over...But I am no Witch. I fear God and I love my husband.” She took his hand in hers and tenderly stroked his face. “You have nothing to fear from us! You will never witness a display such as you have seen ever again!”

  “You said ‘us’! What exactly did you mean by ‘Us’?”

  “I have been waiting to tell you...We...We are to be parents at last! By summertime you will be a father!” She buried her head in his chest waiting for a response.

  He smiled more with shock than anything, and then found his voice again. “Then we must leave this place at once and go home!” he said softly. “We have fought the good fight for long enough and we have not been found wanting... Perhaps it is time for others to take up the sword.”

  The living inferno raged and continued its unrelenting rampage across London. Flames consumed all in their paths and black, choking smoke billowed in towering plumes. When the screams and cries for help had all but died out all that was left was the sound of collapsing buildings, crackling fires and spitting embers.

  Chapter 13

  Just after midnight 2nd September 1666

  Gulp Rottenoffle moved wearily, he was exhausted and knew the others must be feeling the same. He glanced over at Gargle Skuttlebucket; perhaps the greatest Boneshiner there had ever been, even he looked spent as he slowly chewed on a bats wing. “We need help,” he said. “We can’t carry on like this! There’s just too many of ‘em!” He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t even think they’re really all that scared of us anymore!”

  Few Goyles knew the exact age of Sir Grimble Donkin Wartsnot, because he was so old. He walked with a permanent limp and his wings had ragged holes in them, from cannon shot or so he claimed. Sometimes at night they would sit around a campfire and he would tell great swashbuckling stories about the battles he’d fought and the lady Goyles he had loved and lost. He was a legend amongst Goyles and known throughout the land as the Boneshiner knighted at Hastings by King William. Apparently, an Archer had tripped over the sleeping Goyle, loosed off an arrow and somehow won the battle. The story seemed a little far-fetched but it always got the lady’s swooning.

  “I bumped into a little ‘n just the other night, cheeky little beggar she was, didn’t batter an eye lid when she got a load of my ugly mug! She just looked at me with them sad little eyes, wanted to hold my hand, she did. Wanted to know if I’d seen her brother... I kid you not!”

  “It’s them mass graves... dozens of ‘em squashed together in them pits! It’s just plain wrong! No wonder they’re rioting!” Gulp Rottenoffle groaned. He was new to the outfit and kept his mouth shut mostly, but he was homesick, and he missed his Putrid Dribblepuss; she was the ugliest lady Goyle he had ever set eyes upon and he dreamed of marrying her one dark night

  Skuttlebucket spat out a piece of gristle and coughed. “I’ve heard it’s the same all over the country; those Humans are dropping like flies... It’s akin to a war, worse than a war and we’re the last line of defense.”

  Sir Grimble Wartsnot opened his one good eye; he’d lost the other one to some idiot French lieutenant using him as target practice. “Where are those reinforcements they promised us anyway?” He sniffed. “Should have been here days ago! Thirteen of us can’t cover the entire City”

  Gulp Rottenoffle thought that the eye patch made him look particularly handsome, in a Goyle sort of way, and couldn’t wait to lose one of his own eyes. “Here! Is it me or can anyone else smell smoke?” He said and pulled back a curtain. “Deary me!” He cried. “As if we aint got enough on our plates, the blooming City’s all ablaze!”

  The other two Goyles rushed to see and Grimble almost started crying. “More dead... More spirits and more blooming work for you know who.”

  “Right lads we’re up! You two take the others and circle around to the North and if there’s any deadheads I’ll flush them out... You know the drill and watch out for Demons... Remember Goyles... Protect the dead and save the living!” With that Skuttlebucket unfurled his great wings and took to the sky. He passed three horsemen coming the other way as he glided; but he wasn’t worried, humans can’t see Goyles unless they’re dead. But one, a woman, looked up and for the briefest of moments their eyes met. He could have sworn that she smiled at him.

  “Nah...Impossible!” he said and carried on.

  The sweet scent of burning flesh hung heavy on the air, and where there’s burning flesh there’s usually lost souls wondering around. “I likes a bit o’ crackling I does.” He said sniffing the air. “Come out; come out where ever you are!”

  He landed momentarily on the hilt of a sword someone had left sticking in a post, and then folded his wings neatly away as he hopped on to the ground. “I know you’re here, I can smell you!” He filled his nose three times trying to pinpoint the corpse. “Ah... You’re in the old baker’s aint ya... A bit of bread with my crackling... But wait, I smells magic I does!” He nervously looked around for pesky Gobelinus, specter’s or worse still, poltergeists. The smell of magic was fading, so whatever or whoever had been there must have gone by now.

  Gargle Skuttlebucket followed the ‘Great book of Boneshinery & Goyling’ to the letter. The first task was to seek out the corpse and ensure that the spirit had escaped its earthly vehicle. Recently this had been a most simple job, as the humans in their infinite wisdom, had been stacking the diseased bodies by the side of the road. Apparently, they didn’t even have to be technically dead, but that’s humans for you. Even Skuttlebucket had been troubled by the sight of terrified ghosts trying to claw their way back inside their bodies, or someone else’s, they didn’t seem to mind.

  He stood in what used to be the doorway to the old bakery, the sweet smell of cooking flesh grew stronger. This mixed with the dizzying odor of burnt cakes and hot toast was a delight to his senses and he just couldn’t help drooling. He wiped away the gloopy saliva and carefully edged further into the dying flames.

  “Just one cake, is that too much to ask for? Or a tasty little loaf for my breakfast! It’s not stealing... I didn’t break in!” Gargle always rambled on when he was nervous, it helped him concentrate. The glorious jamboree of scents and odors teasing his senses almost made him forget why he was there. He kicked a piece of blackened wood out of frustration, red glowing sparks shot out of the other end, which was still alight, and fell to the ground like snow. “Just my blooming luck... Suppose the others landed in a butcher shop! Up to their necks in juicy ribs by now, I shouldn’t wonder!”

  The Goyle stopped dead in his tracks; there was another scent in the air, he’d almost missed it because of his rumbling stomach. It was a faint spicy aroma, not unlike ginger or nutmeg and it seemed to be hiding behind all the others, especially bread. He closed his eyes and concentrated all of his senses; there was no denying the scent of magic had returned and was quickly growing stronger.

  Warily he looked around, his eyes darting from one place to another. His claws slowly extended to their full length and scaly spikes on his back and arms filled with blood as adrenaline surged through his body. His wings fluttered and then took on their secondary role as shields, he waited. Gargle Skuttlebucket was ready for battle, alone or not he was a fearsome Boneshiner and was yet to meet a creature to better him.

  A strange tingling feeling began in his left foot, but he dare not look down. Then his other foot suddenly felt like it was full to
bursting with pins and needles. He tried to block the sensation but it seemed to be moving up his legs and soon it was at his waist, chest, then his arms and shoulders and finally his head. The sensation smelled like magic and his mouth tasted of ginger with a hint of nutmeg, confused, he didn’t notice the green aura that had surrounded him. At last he looked down at his feet and there clinging to his left foot was a blackened, charred and bony hand.

  His face contorted in agony as the pins and needles filled his head, numbing his senses. Somewhere behind the pain, he could hear strange words, a nonsensical language with no meaning; it seemed to be taking over his mind and controlling his will. He tried to move, to get away but the more he struggled the tighter his shadowy assailants grip became. The short battle ended with a will smashed and a once mighty Boneshiner Goyle whimpering the only thing he could remember, his name.

  “Skuttlebucket!” He said meekly and bowed. “I serve you... My Lady!”

  He carefully cleared away all the debris one piece at a time, so as not to harm his mistress any further. She was burnt to the floor in a foetal position, her face and head was a series of weeping blisters. Her whole body was either blackened and still smoking or scorched and heavily blistered. She was charred to the bone in places, but miraculously, still clinging to life.

  One word rose to the surface on a mind drowning in a sea of gibberish, that word was ‘cauldron’. Under total control of a near dead Agyness De’athly, Skuttlebucket knew exactly what to do; her magic would take care of the rest. He raised her up in his powerful arms, unfurled his wings and headed for his new home.

  Far below in a parting in the clouds he spied a huge demon army advancing along the great north road to London. At their head rode the Gobelinus, the Goyles most despised enemies.

  Consumed only with saving the Witch, Skuttlebucket watched with scant indifference as he glided by overhead.