by Helen Harper
‘Sorry, that came out badly. What I mean is that there’s no way you could have missed. I saw the rune you used. That was powerful stuff, Rafe. The magic wasn’t aimed anywhere other than at our very own serial-killing bastard.’ I paused. ‘So why didn’t it hit him? It didn’t even slow him down. You didn’t think you’d missed him. I didn’t think you’d missed him. So what the hell actually happened?’
He rubbed his chin with the base of his thumb and looked thoughtful. ‘I see where you’re going with this. You think that magic doesn’t work around him. The ghosts cease to exist when he’s in the vicinity and spells don’t work.’
I bobbed my head. ‘It’s only a theory.’
He met my eyes. ‘It does fit.’
‘Maybe it’s some kind of amulet. You know, like the one that Tarquin gave Belinda Battenapple to stop her from ageing. Or maybe he is a witch and he hates magic so much that he’s cast a spell on himself to avoid it entirely.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But if we can’t use magic against him…’
‘Then this is going to be even harder than we thought,’ Winter finished for me. ‘Let’s hold that thought for now. I don’t think it’s a crazy theory.’ He sighed. ‘Unfortunately.’
Winter cautiously opened the door to Blackbeard’s room and I held my breath. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting – some kind of booby trap or explosive device maybe – but nothing happened. A musky scent floated out towards us, as if the room hadn’t been aired for days. Other than that, the room was almost identical to the one that Winter and I were sharing.
Winter stepped inside and looked around. I followed. We knew that Blackbeard had left in a hurry but there was little evidence that he’d left behind anything that he would miss. The bed was made, with the sheets neatly smoothed over and the pillow plumped up. There was a duffel bag on the chest of drawers by the window. Winter walked over to it while I headed for the bathroom.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ I said, apologising to the young woman sitting on the toilet. I quickly pulled back and closed the door. Winter turned towards me with a question in his eyes. I frowned. Hang on a minute.
Re-opening the door, I peered inside again. She was still sitting in the same position. She raised her head slowly and gazed at me, her dark hair hanging limply around her face. ‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’
I grimaced. ‘Yeah. I think so.’
Winter reached into Blackbeard’s bag and pulled out an urn. He waved it at me. I gave a brief nod of acknowledgment and returned my attention to the woman. ‘You were in a coven. In Dorset.’
She stared at me. ‘Were you the one following us?’ Before I could reply, she answered her own question. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That would have been him, wouldn’t it? The one who did this to me. To us.’
This wasn’t an enjoyable conversation but I had to continue. ‘You were awake? When he killed you?’
Her fingers went up to her neck where there was an ugly wound. ‘I was first,’ she whispered, ‘and he was clumsy. I came to as my life was ebbing away and I saw what he did to the others.’ She looked around. ‘Where are they?’
‘Three are in a place not far from here called Wistman’s Wood. Three are probably still with the man who killed you. He’s been dumping your coven’s ashes one by one, every time there’s a new moon. Wistman’s Wood is an old pagan forest and your companions there cannot leave. We don’t know whether that’s deliberate on the part of your murderer or not.’
I glanced back at Winter. If my theory about Blackbeard’s ability to avoid all magic was true, it was certainly possible that he was aware of the strange properties of Wistman’s Wood and had chosen it specifically.
‘Tonight is a new moon?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘No. We think he was planning to leave your remains in the wood with the others, but we don’t know why he’s not waited until the moon turns when he always has before.’
‘He’s bored,’ she said softly. ‘He needs more.’
I started.
She smiled sadly. ‘I wasn’t just a witch. I trained as a psychologist too. I didn’t work with murderers but they were part of my studies. He has a taste for killing now and he wants to keep going. He’s drawn out disposing of our remains because he thought it would prolong his enjoyment, but he’s realised it’s not enough. He’s moved his schedule up. He’s going to get rid of all of us as quickly as possible so that he can move on to a new target.’
Her voice was so matter-of-fact that it sent a chill down my spine. ‘It’s possible that he’s targeting witches,’ I told her. ‘He doesn’t seem to like them. And it’s possible he can nullify any spells thrown his way.’
She considered this. ‘That makes sense,’ she nodded. ‘Timothy was the second one to die. He had herbs with him for protection because he was more convinced than the rest of us that we were being followed. He used them to set up a ward before we started chanting.’ She raised a shoulder. ‘Obviously the herbs didn’t work.’
I absorbed her words with a faintly sick feeling. ‘Why did he think he was being followed?’
‘He’d had strange messages. Threats, that kind of thing.’
I sucked in a breath. Timothy hadn’t been one of the coven members at Wistman’s Wood but if he had evidence that might tell us more about Blackbeard, I had to find out more from him. I swung back to Winter. He was still holding the duffel bag but he’d abandoned rummaging through its contents in favour of watching me. I wasn’t sure how much he could glean from what was going on.
‘Are there any other urns there?’ I asked.
‘No. There’s just the one. There’s a name on it,’ he added, ‘if that’s helpful.’
‘I’m Clare Rees,’ the woman said.
I checked with Winter. ‘Clare Rees?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘It was our custom to perform coven spells in ceremonial robes,’ Clare said. She gestured at herself and I realised she was wearing exactly the same outfit as the three others from her coven. ‘There aren’t any pockets. In any case, we tend to leave all real-life objects at home. Karen was convinced that they would interfere with the magic.’
In other words, she didn’t have any ID on her when she’d died but Blackbeard had still known exactly who she was.
‘She cursed us, didn’t she?’ Clare said. ‘Karen, I mean.’
I tried to demur. ‘It wasn’t really your coven she was cursing. She just wanted to make sure that your murderer receives the justice he deserves.’
‘Funny that we’re the ones who are suffering,’ Clare commented. ‘I can feel it, you know. It’s like a block. My body is being tugged away but something’s preventing it from going. I can’t see it but I can feel it. It’s all around me.’ Her shoulders drooped. ‘It’s awful. There was so much I still wanted to do. I never travelled. I always wanted to visit South America but now I’ll never get the chance. I was going to tell Mike at work what I really thought of him but I was too scared. I was going to learn how to fly.’ Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘I’ll never do any of that.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Never had an apology felt so inadequate.
‘It’s not your fault.’
I watched her for a moment or two. ‘We can take your ashes to the wood so you can be with the others. Blackbeard, the man who killed you, cremated you somehow. I guess it made it easier to transport your bodies.’
‘Blackbeard?’
I scratched my neck. ‘That’s what I’ve christened him. He checked in under the name Nicholas Remy but we don’t know if that’s his real name. It could—’
‘It’s not.’ I glanced at her askance and she explained. ‘Nicholas Remy is the name of an old French witch hunter from the sixteenth century.’
I sucked in a breath. Well, that made a kind of sense.
Clare got to her feet. ‘I’d appreciate it if you could give my remains to my parents,’ she said. ‘I have no desire to be trapped with the others in an ancient forest. They were bad enough when they were alive.
I can’t begin to imagine how annoying they’ll be now they’re dead.’
She had a point. ‘We can do that,’ I promised.
‘Thank you. I’m going to leave now. I want to find my family. My real family. I want to find out if they’re alright.’
I nodded and watched her dissipate into nothingness. I hoped for her sake that everything was alright. It would be torture if her family were suffering and she could do nothing but watch.
Winter strode over and put his arms round me. ‘Are you okay? You’re shaking all over.’
‘I’m fine.’ I ran a hand through my hair. ‘This is just so hard.’ I met his eyes. ‘I don’t want to be the only person in the world who can talk to ghosts, Rafe. I can’t cope with this kind of responsibility. It should be someone else.’
‘You’re stronger than you know, Ivy Wilde,’ he murmured in my ear. ‘And I’ll be with you every step of the way.’
I leaned into him, taking a moment to enjoy his closeness. I had a horrible feeling I was going to need all the comfort I could get.
Chapter Nine
If this had been a normal kind of day, driving to the arse end of the country to tramp around soggy moorland, converse with dead witches and almost catch a bearded serial killer would have resulted in a good night’s sleep. There again, if this had been a normal day, I wouldn’t have left my sofa for anything more than a choccie biscuit – and even then I probably could have inveigled Winter into getting it for me. I might have had to put up with him presenting it on a lace doily, followed by him passing judgment when I ate not one biscuit but twenty, but it would still have been better than this.
It was rare that anything prevented me from sleeping; the last time I suffered from a bout of insomnia was around the time Billy Smythe stole my Barbie and set her hair alight and I couldn’t decide between turning him into a Barbie himself or making him my personal slave. I think that was when I decided that I was going to do everything I could to avoid letting life’s travails stress me out, whether they involved mutilated Barbies or not.
The bed was comfortable and Winter was his usual warm, snuggly self. He didn’t snore and he didn’t hog the bedcovers. His feet were toasty warm. There weren’t any ghosts in the vicinity chatting to me and trying to keep me awake. Brutus wasn’t even there, pawing at my face and demanding attention. So why the hell couldn’t I sleep?
I sighed heavily and turned over. Maybe counting sheep would help – except that reminded me of what had happened up in Scotland just last month and only exacerbated my sleeplessness. A hot milky drink was supposed to be another helpful remedy – or so I’d heard. Unfortunately, the only milk here was in those little plastic containers designed for tea and coffee. Even if I could work out a way to heat them up without using either a microwave or magic, they’d provide little more than a single mouthful.
If Winter were awake, I’d have asked him to bespell me but he was fast asleep. His jaw was slack and, for once, he was utterly at rest. I screwed up my face. This was ridiculous: Ivy Wilde did not suffer from insomnia. Unless it had something to do with the latent necromancy swirling around my system. That chilling thought had me sitting bolt upright and breaking into a cold sweat.
I got out of bed and padded naked into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I was dabbing it dry with a towel when I heard the sound of an engine outside. That couldn’t be right; it was three o’clock in the morning and we were in the middle of nowhere. Even farmers wouldn’t get up this early.
I checked on Winter, who’d not even stirred, and grabbed my coat, shrugging it on to preserve my modesty. Then, doing what no one should ever do when it’s the middle of the night, there is a serial killer on the loose and many, many ghosts to contend with, I slipped out.
The pub was silent inside but I could hear voices outside. Frowning, I walked over to the front door and put my ear against it.
‘We should just ring the bell.’
‘Or spell it open and find rooms for ourselves. We can settle up with the owners tomorrow.’ There was a pause. ‘I mean, today.’
‘We will do no such thing,’ the familiar voice of the Ipsissimus – the living one – said. ‘There is plenty of room in the car. Besides, we’re not here to sleep.’
‘We can’t investigate anything while we’re out here.’
‘Honestly, I never knew witches could whine so much! Villeneuve, get back to the car. You can sleep in the boot. Masters and Houseman can have the back seat. The other two can take the front.’
‘What about you, sir?’
‘I’m going for a walk. I want to see this wood.’
There were a few audible intakes of breath. ‘But it’s the middle of the night! It’s too dangerous!’
‘I rather think,’ the Ipsissimus said drily, ‘that the only risk will come from stumbling in a pothole. As I can use magic to light the way, that will not be an issue. Go on, you young folks, get your rest. I’ll see you in a few hours.’
‘I’ll go to the wood!’ Tarquin burst in. ‘I don’t mind. I’m not tired anyway.’
‘I’m a higher rank than you, Villeneuve,’ another voice said. ‘I’ll go. You stay here with the Ipsissimus. It might not be safe for you.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.’
‘Hmm,’ the Ipsissimus said, staving off the impending argument and sounding for all the world as if he were trying to come up with an amicable solution to suit everyone. I grinned to myself. It appeared that he was a man after my own heart. ‘You’re right. It probably would be better if more than one person went to the wood. I tell you what, you lot go and investigate then report back to me. I’ll stay here.’
There was a moment of brief and, to my mind, sullen silence then the witches acquiesced with a series of quiet mumbles. I listened as their footsteps drew away. I could learn a lot from the Ipsissimus, I decided.
‘Are you going to open that door, Ms Wilde?’ he enquired.
Startled, I drew back. My smile grew and I unhooked the chain and let him in. The other witches, Tarquin included, had already been swallowed up by the night.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ the Ipsissimus said cheerfully. ‘They’ll be quite some time before they return. Between their bickering and the fact that none of them can navigate their way around clearly marked roads, they won’t be going anywhere fast.’
I couldn’t help asking, ‘If they’re such an annoyance, why bring them?’
The Ipsissimus knitted his fingers together and looked astonished. ‘This is the Order, my dear. We work together as a team. Besides,’ he added on a grimmer note, ‘from what Adeptus Exemptus Winter has told me, there may be serious danger. There are more Order witches on the way. We were caught short in Scotland but I won’t let that happen again. Not when there are very real risks to consider.’
‘And then some.’ I met his eyes. ‘There have been some further developments.’
‘Excellent,’ he replied flatly. ‘That’s always what I want to hear.’
I drew him over to the deathly silent bar area and we sat down before I filled him in. I have to say this for the Ipsissimus – he knows when to keep quiet and listen. It wasn’t until I’d finished talking that he started to ask questions. ‘There was no other identification in the room at all?’
I shook my head. ‘The Barcells, who own this place, have agreed to seal the room off until the police can get here and dust it down for prints.’
‘They’ll be here first thing in the morning. It’s already arranged.’
I nodded acknowledgment. ‘That’s good. I just…’ I sighed.
‘Go on, Ms Wilde.’
My unhappiness was obvious. ‘I think that Blackbeard is going to prove a lot more clever than that. He was forced to leave here in a hurry but there are no identifying features anywhere. Not to mention that we only came across his existence by accident. We don’t know how long he’s been operating for, or how many others he’s killed. How can an entire coven vanish and no
one think to report them missing or to ask questions? Whether they’re in the Order or not, you’d think that someone would have said something.’
‘You think that Blackbeard has been covering his tracks.’
‘I do.’ I grabbed a curl and wound it tightly round my finger, cutting off circulation to the tip and watching absent-mindedly as it turned red. ‘This isn’t about ego. We weren’t supposed to know what he’s been doing. He doesn’t want fame or notoriety or a following, he’s all about the mission.’
‘And the mission is to kill witches?’
‘So it appears.’ I released the curl but the tension still remained.
The Ipsissimus stood up and walked to the window, gazing out at nothing. ‘She was right, you know, your ghost. Nicholas Remy was indeed a witch hunter. By all accounts he was a nasty bastard. It cannot be a coincidence that the killer selected that as his name. If we do not find him soon, I have no doubt that there will be more deaths.’ He stroked his chin. ‘I shall have to reach out to the non-Order covens and tell them to be on the lookout.’
‘I think that would be very wise,’ I said quietly. ‘And as for my theory…’
He turned and faced me. ‘If your theory proves to be true and Blackbeard is immune to magic, the situation is incredibly grave. I shall set the librarians to research the matter immediately. If there are amulets to negate the effects of spells or the supernatural, or any precedents for this kind of situation, we shall know about them soon.’
Shifting slightly, I eyed him. I felt guilty for asking about myself considering everything else that was going on but I had to know. ‘Speaking of scholarly research,’ I said. ‘Has Philip Maidmont uncovered anything about my, er, condition?’
‘Hmm?’ For a brief moment the Ipsissimus looked blank then his expression cleared. ‘Ah, yes. You’re perfectly safe. Your ability to converse with the dead is indeed a side-effect of the necromantic magic you absorbed from the boy but, as all the energy you displaced is now focused towards the spirits, there is no need to worry. Unless you actually try to raise the dead, you are no danger to either yourself or to others.’