Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  Jake took a quick glance around. A bank of whirring computers occupied one wall while, at the far end of the room, a sterile area like a surgical theatre had been set up.

  ‘After your visit this morning, I was called to Downing Street,’ Dr Holmwood said, leading the way across the lab. ‘The new Prime Minister has cut all remaining ties with the Elders and has advised her fellow world leaders to do the same.’

  ‘But she must know that demons destroyed the tower.’

  ‘Cynthia Croft flatly refuses to believe in such things.’

  They reached the surgery area. Holmwood banged his fists against a metal operating table.

  ‘With a stroke of her pen, she has taken away the Institute’s power and influence. Now our only hope rests with you, Jake. Are you prepared to journey on the Scarab Path?’

  ‘If it leads me to the witch ball, yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  Holmwood reached out a closed fist to Jake. Slowly, reverently, he opened his hand.

  ‘This is the Khepra Beetle,’ he said, a touch of awe in his voice. ‘The key to the Scarab Path.’

  Jake wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the amulet in Holmwood’s palm was something of a disappointment. The highly-polished blue and black stone was roughly the size of a matchbox. On closer examination, Jake saw that it had been crudely painted to resemble a dung beetle.

  ‘Not much to look at, is it?’ Holmwood echoed Jake’s thoughts. ‘Just a piece of soapstone with a few hieroglyphs daubed on the back. But do not be fooled. This seemingly innocuous talisman contains magic of phenomenal power.’

  ‘My dad said it was named after an Egyptian god.’

  ‘Some stories say that this little stone contains the very soul of the old sun god himself,’ Holmwood nodded. ‘But in truth, no one really knows what the beetle is or where it came from. All that is certain is that it is both wonderful and dangerous.’

  ‘My dad said he knew a man who’d used it. That he’d come back “changed”.’

  ‘Fletcher Clerval.’ Holmwood grimaced. ‘An old friend of Adam’s. Fletcher had some minor magical gifts which he thought might be enough to sustain him on the Scarab Path. He survived the experience, but only just. His is a sad tale.’

  In other circumstances, Jake would have insisted on hearing the story, but his furious desire to get his hands on the witch ball made him impatient.

  ‘Save it for another day. I want to know how this thing can help me find Josiah’s witch ball.’

  Holmwood looked relieved. ‘Then lie down.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation—a second during which, once again, Jake questioned the wisdom of trusting Holmwood. But what did he have to lose? His best friend had betrayed him; the girl he cared for wasn’t interested in him; his father was dying before his eyes; and Quilp and the Demon Father were free to work their evil. He had to do this.

  He jumped up onto the table.

  Before he had a chance to react, metal clamps locked around his wrists and ankles.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Stay calm, the restraints are for your own protection. We don’t want you wriggling off the table when the pain begins, do we?’

  Holmwood placed the amulet on Jake’s chest.

  ‘What pain?’

  ‘Travelling on the Scarab Path is a somewhat rigorous business. Even if it is done correctly, the physical trials can be extreme, and the human body is so very fragile. Now, you must listen carefully to what I am about to say … ’

  Holmwood touched the amulet with his forefinger.

  ‘You must prepare your mind.’

  He tapped the talisman again …

  ‘You must concentrate.’

  … and again.

  ‘It is such a dangerous form of magic.’

  Tap

  ‘Time travel.’

  The amulet flinched.

  Twitched.

  Shivered.

  With a sound like the snap of little bones, a series of eggshell cracks appeared across the back of the painted beetle. Fragments of delicate stone fell away as, piece by piece, the thing beneath the shell revealed itself. Jake caught glimpses of the creature’s hard black body shining dully in the light. Six tiny legs broke free of the soapstone casing and tickled Jake’s chest. The last crumb of stone fell away and a small, hideous head, horned with a pair of quivering antennae, emerged. The beetle turned its empty eyes on Jake.

  ‘Quickly now,’ Holmwood hissed. ‘Focus your mind on the witch ball.’

  With his mouth clamped shut, Jake could not speak. He felt the beetle climb along his neck, scurry over his chin and brush across his lips. A moan of disgust purred at the back of his throat.

  ‘Visualize the ball falling from Josiah’s neck,’ Holmwood continued. ‘See it hitting the floor and rolling into the shadows. Picture when and where it was lost: the thirteenth of June 1645; the town of Hobarron’s Hollow, then called St Meredith-by-the-Sea; the cavern that came to be known as Crowden’s Sorrow. Picture yourself in the cave moments after the ball vanished. You will find it waiting for you there, in the darkness.’

  The insect used its front legs to clean its mandibles— those pincer-like jaws that sat at the front of its head. Then, to Jake’s utter horror, it started to force its way into his left nostril.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ he screamed.

  The beetle squeezed along his nasal cavity. With a strange popping sound that echoed inside the chamber of his head, Jake felt it move into the space behind his eyes. Little legs danced across his optic nerves. He heard the thrum of the insect’s movements and screamed again.

  ‘The beetle is burrowing into your head,’ Holmwood said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Soon it will find a seat for itself between the right and left hemispheres of your brain. Its pincers will dig into your brain tissue and it will feed upon the emotional energy that is flooding through your mind. All your thoughts must be focused on the witch ball. The beetle’s magic will take you to it.’

  It was almost as if the beetle was following Holmwood’s instructions. Jake sensed it using the optic stalk as a kind of bridge to his brain.

  ‘I can’t!’ Jake shrieked. ‘I can’t think … It hurts!’

  ‘Focus!’ Holmwood insisted. ‘If the beetle picks up on fragmented thoughts then it will transport your body in a fragmented way. Parts of you will be taken to one place and time, other parts will end up elsewhere. You could be torn to pieces!’

  ‘Is that what happened to Fletcher Clerval?’ Jake cried. ‘He came back changed.’

  ‘No questions. Concentrate on the witch ball.’

  It was too late to argue. Jake had to follow Holmwood’s instructions. He could feel the Khepra Beetle creeping around his skull. It reached the spinal link at the back of his brain and burrowed its way up to his visual cortex—that place in the brain where all sight-memory is stored. The hard black body pressed into the warm, wet tissue.

  Pincers hooked into Jake’s brain.

  The Khepra Beetle started to feed.

  Pain seared through Jake’s body. His fists clenched, his teeth snapped together, and the heels of his feet rattled against the metal table. A voice called out to him, but next to the roar of agony it was no more than a whisper—

  ‘The witch ball … ’

  At those words, the image of the green glass ball flashed into Jake’s mind. Responding, an orb of magic sparked in his hand. The ferocity of the spell seared through the metal clamps. Deep inside, Jake could hear the beetle chirrup with excitement. Another stab of pain, this time outside his head.

  Holmwood cried out, ‘You must focus your thoughts or you will be ripped apart!’

  ‘Aaarrrrghhhh!’

  Agony lanced into Jake’s right shoulder. It felt as if his arm was being wrenched out of its socket. He could not ignore the pain, and that made it difficult to narrow his thoughts onto the witch ball. Every time he tried to summon an image of the orb other pictures would flash into his mind—his fathe
r, sick and dying; Quilp working the hex that had killed his mum; Pandora and Brag fighting at his side; the demon Door with its glowing symbols; the silver fountain in the middle of the square; Razor, dog-headed doorman of the Grimoire Club; the triumphant face of Marcus Crowden, or was it the Demon Father? Simon and Rachel, wrapped in each other’s arms …

  And then another image flashed into his mind. Not the witch ball, but a face. Her face: cornflower blue eyes, golden hair …

  Blue light roared around Jake’s body. The magic spread out and enveloped him in a crackling blanket.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Holmwood shouted, his back pressed against the wall. ‘Keep focusing. When you’ve got your hands on the witch ball the beetle should recognize that you’re ready to come home. All you have to do is think of this time, this place, do you understand? As long as it doesn’t sense that you’re in mortal danger, the beetle will remain inside your head. It’s your only way back … ’

  The bellow of magic drowned out the doctor’s words.

  The Khepra Beetle locked on to the single strongest image in Jake’s mind. The mysterious girl with the blue eyes. It sent out its temporal feelers and tried to locate her in the great expanse of time and space. Then, using Jake’s own well of hidden magic, it opened a portal into history.

  The Scarab Path.

  The invisible gateway crackled above Jake’s body. Through it, he caught a glimpse of a town square hemmed in by old-fashioned, timber-framed buildings. Horses rubbed shoulders beside what looked like a tavern. Crows pecked at the hard earth while a pack of dogs raced across the marketplace.

  The Khepra Beetle clicked happily, and Jake disappeared into thin air.

  Chapter 15

  The Burning Boy

  ‘Jake was right all along!’ Adam spat out the words. ‘He warned me not to get involved with the Institute again, but I didn’t listen, and now he’s paid the price for my mistake. So tell me honestly, Gordon, did he survive the Scarab Path?’

  Dr Holmwood took a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit up.

  ‘I believe so. It was a wondrous sight.’

  Adam’s face twitched with anger.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Rachel said, ‘what’s happened to Jake?’

  They were all crowded into the study at the Grimoire Club. Brag Badderson lurked by the door, his head bowed so that he could clear the ceiling. Rachel and Simon sat together in one corner while Pandora stood behind Adam, a look of fury on her beautiful face. Holmwood had arrived a few minutes ago to a decidedly frosty reception.

  ‘Do you want to explain or shall I?’ Adam didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Our good friend Dr Holmwood here has come to tell us that he has killed my son.’

  Simon’s head snapped in Holmwood’s direction and a deep growl rolled through his lips.

  ‘Keep your temper, Mr Lydgate,’ Holmwood instructed. ‘I haven’t killed anyone. I’ve just sent Jake on a little trip.’

  ‘He’s as good as dead,’ Adam said. ‘You see, Dr Holmwood has sent Jake in search of Josiah Hobarron’s witch ball. To be sure of finding it, Jake has travelled back to the year 1645.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t fret, Miss Saxby. As soon as Jake finds the witch ball he’ll return, safe and sound.’

  ‘If he finds the witch ball,’ Adam corrected. ‘The Khepra Beetle will only return him once he has achieved whatever mission was in his mind when he was transported.’

  ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Simon said. ‘Why has Jake gone looking for this thing?’

  ‘Because it contains magic powerful enough to destroy the Demon Father,’ Holmwood said. ‘Without such sorcery we cannot hope to stand against him.’

  ‘I told Jake it was too dangerous.’ Adam collapsed into his chair. ‘He wouldn’t listen. He was too upset.’

  Simon and Rachel exchanged guilty glances.

  ‘Once he finds the witch ball, all will be well.’ Holmwood sucked his cigarette down to the stub. ‘I’m sure that he is hunting through the cavern as we speak.’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out.’

  Adam shot to his feet and started rummaging through the bookshelves behind the desk. Over the last two weeks, he had arranged for his library of occult books to be transferred from the Harker house in New Town to the Grimoire Club. After ten minutes of searching, Adam let out a relieved sigh and pulled an immense leather-bound volume from the shelves. Thousands of pages thick, it landed on the desk with a heavy thump. Holmwood stared at the golden symbol on the cover—a dragon swallowing its tail—and his eyes widened with surprise.

  ‘It can’t be!’

  ‘It is.’ Adam couldn’t hide the delight in his voice. ‘The Codex Tempus. The Book of Time.’

  ‘But a genuine codex would be worth millions!’

  ‘Not if you know the right people.’ Adam nodded towards Pandora.

  ‘What’s a Todex Cempus?’ Brag said, brow knitted.

  ‘Codex Tempus,’ Holmwood corrected.

  ‘I was asking Dr Harker, not you, old man.’

  Adam managed a wry smile. ‘The Codex is a living history of temporal wanderers.’ The troll’s frown deepened. ‘Time travellers, Brag. Anyone who has, or is, existing outside their own time-frame will have their adventures recorded within these pages.’

  ‘But that book was written before Jake went back in time,’ Simon objected. ‘How can it tell his story?’

  ‘I told you—it’s a living history. The Codex Tempus was created by a monk, Brother William the Recluse, in the thirteenth century. He was one of the Benedictine brotherhood, the so-called black monks. These brothers were a strict order: they fasted, wore shirts made of coarse material, and very often spent years in solitary confinement. The story goes that, after decades of isolation, William went stark staring mad. He told his brothers that a demon had come to him in a vision. This creature had offered William the power to see all of Time and Space.’

  ‘What was the catch?’ Simon asked.

  ‘No catch. No price. No favour. The power was his, free of charge.’

  ‘Why would a demon be that generous?’

  ‘Because it wanted to destroy the monk’s mind. And once William accepted the gift, his fate was sealed. The demon opened William’s eyes to the endless and unloving march of Time, and his fragile human mind broke under the weight of it. Believing that he was possessed, the other monks dragged William to Prior Tybalt, the head of their monastery. Once in Tybalt’s presence, William started babbling about the secrets of ancient civilizations and the technological wonders that were to come. The Prior saw terror in the eyes of his monks. If such blasphemous talk went unchecked it would set a bad example to the brethren. And so he decided on the ultimate punishment: Brother William would be walled up alive.’

  A gasp from Rachel did not interrupt Adam’s flow.

  ‘The monks threw William into a tiny cavity in the monastery’s outer wall and, brick by brick, sealed him inside. His screams could be heard for days afterwards. When they finally stopped, the monks reported a strange scratching sound coming from behind the wall. Some of them later confessed that William had begged for a book of blank vellum pages, a bottle of ink, and a quill to be buried with him, and that they had agreed to this last request.

  ‘Centuries passed. In the reign of Henry VIII, the monastery was dissolved and the walls were knocked down. Behind one such wall, the king’s commissioners made a grisly discovery: the skeleton of a man dressed in a tattered black habit. Lying at his feet was a great book, its pages filled with strange predictions.’ Adam laid a hand on the cracked leather cover. ‘This is the tome of William Reclusus. His Book of Time. His Codex Tempus. And the strangest part of the story is, he is still writing it.’

  ‘But he’s been dead for centuries!’

  ‘William lives within these pages. I believe that, through the horror of his death, his conscious mind became imprinted in the book. He still sees all of Time and those that wander in it. He tel
ls their stories here.’

  Adam flipped to the back of the Codex. Simon and Rachel joined Dr Holmwood and Pandora at the desk. They watched Adam’s finger move down an index of names.

  ‘He’s here!’ Adam’s finger trembled as it traced:

  ‘HARKER, Jacob Josiah—travelled to 26th August, Anno Domini 1645—arrived in the town of Cravenmouth, Englande. Entry at on 1153.’

  ‘That’s not right!’ Holmwood blurted. ‘The date, the place. He’s supposed to be in Hobarron’s Hollow!’

  ‘I told you,’ Adam snarled. ‘Time travel is dangerous, unpredictable magic. I just hope Jake’s OK, for your sake.’

  Adam turned to Jake’s entry in the Codex. The page was blank.

  ‘Does that mean he didn’t make it?’ Rachel asked in a panicked voice. ‘I don’t under—’

  The sound of a phantom quill scratching against parchment rustled in the air. Letters, small and neat, started to appear on the page:

  ‘This is the storie of a traveller in TIME.

  In the yeare of our Lord 1645, Jacob Josiah Harker, as he was known to mortal men, did arrive in a place called Cravenmouth, a most godly towne on the east coast of Englande … ’

  The laboratory disappeared and Jake found himself in a realm of utter darkness. With no ground beneath him, he floated through the freezing void. His skin prickled into gooseflesh and ice crystals crackled in his hair. He lifted his hands to his eyes—not even a smudge of flesh to texture the nightscape. He tried to call out. The sound left his lips and vanished, as if an unseen hand had reached out and snatched it away.

  Time slipped by. Would he remain here for ever? Jake wondered. Was that the price of his muddled thoughts?

  Pain returned, bright and brilliant. As the magical blue flame reignited around his body, Jake saw a tear open up in the curtain of darkness. Wind blasted his face. Light flooded his eyes. Jake stumbled forward and the opening sealed up behind him.