A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3)

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘I think,’ I swallowed against the sharpness of the grief in my throat, ‘I think it’s what they came for. A riddle. And it’s gone.’

  ‘A riddle?’ Jonathan raised his eyes to the ceiling and his face twisted into an expression of such heartbreak that I looked away. ‘Oh Caradoc, you gave your life for a bloody riddle.’

  And then he began to sob – huge, heavy, tearing sobs. I tried to comfort him, but he put out a hand.

  ‘Go. Just go, Anna.’

  ‘But – the police …’

  ‘Just go.’ His voice was rough and torn. ‘You can’t help. It’s better not to complicate things any more. I can just say I found him.’ He pulled out the cash drawer of the till and threw the contents on the floor, the coins skittering towards the exit. ‘There. It was a burglary. Now, I’m calling nine-nine-nine, so go.’

  ‘But – but my clothes. They’re all covered in blood.’

  ‘You’re a damn witch,’ Jonathan cried. ‘You sort it out.’

  He sank to his knees on the shop floor, while I crept away.

  The bloodstains were gone by the time I reached the main road.

  The tears on my face took longer to dry.

  I trudged aimlessly, trying to walk away the dread and agony. Leicester Square, Soho, Oxford Street, Regents Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street – I zigzagged across London, the pavements hard beneath my feet, the outwith parting before me like gusting leaves. My feet were throbbing, but the feeling somehow kept the memory of Caradoc at bay, and I kept putting one foot in front of another, until I ended up in Green Park.

  And there – bizarrely, inexplicably – Emmaline was standing on the path in front of me, her face full of fury and shock. She ran towards me, gripping my arms with painful intensity, and then threw her arms around me.

  ‘Thank God! What happened?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked dully.

  ‘Abe heard you – I don’t know how. He heard you screaming and he rang me at school. And that was when I realized, you hadn’t come in all day. So I went to your house and you were gone – what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I came …’ I sank to the grassy verge and drew my knees up to my chin. ‘I came to see Caradoc.’

  ‘And? Anna, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  It was too close to the truth. I shut my eyes, pressing my palms to my face. The words swelled and choked inside me, lodging in my throat like stones. ‘Caradoc’s dead,’ I managed.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘I asked him to trace a text, a riddle, that my mother stole from the Ealdwitan. And he found it and called me to tell me. But he was killed before I could get to him.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ The colour had drained from Em’s face and she sank to the grass beside me. ‘This is serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Caradoc should never have been involved!’ I cried. ‘It’s all my fault – I asked him to look for that riddle. I should have known!’

  ‘How on earth could you have known? This is not your fault.’

  ‘So people keep saying – not my fault … not my fault … None of it’s ever my fault – Bill’s death, Bran’s death, now Caradoc’s death. I didn’t kill them – but they died because of me, Em. Not my fault? Really? What else do you want?’

  ‘They died because of something far bigger than you. And the fact that you’re caught up in it too doesn’t make you responsible. You’re in this trap just as much as the rest of us. It could have been you.’

  ‘Who’s next? Who’s going to be next?’

  Em only shook her head, while hideous pictures flashed through my head: Emmaline, Abe, Seth, Dad … I shut my eyes, unable to bear it, but the images only burned brighter in the darkness.

  ‘It’s Thaddeus Corax,’ I said at last. ‘I know it is. He was responsible for Bill’s death. He must know whatever my mother was trying to hide. He knows – and he doesn’t want me to find out.’

  ‘It could be,’ Em admitted, though there was something reluctant about her expression. ‘But what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to confront him.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘No, it’s the only way. If I keep digging around in the dark, more people are going to get hurt. This way—’

  ‘This way the person who’ll get hurt is you!’

  I just nodded.

  ‘No,’ Em said. She grabbed my arm. ‘No! Don’t be stupid, this is not the way.’

  ‘It’s the only way.’ Suddenly I was calm. ‘I’ll visit him at his office. I’ll make an appointment. If it’s all out in the open, what can he really do?’

  ‘You’ve just finished telling me that you think this guy had Caradoc Truelove killed. And you’re asking me, what can he do?’

  ‘He’s not going to have me killed. He wants something – something I’ve got. I’m just about the only person he can’t get rid of.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’ She pushed her glasses impatiently back up her nose and began digging for her mobile. ‘I’m calling Abe.’

  ‘Call who you want. I’m calling Marcus.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Marcus?’

  ‘Marcus is my cousin. He’s Thaddeus’ son.’

  I could hear Emmaline frantically jabbing buttons on her mobile as I picked up mine and fished Marcus’ thick, expensive handkerchief out of my pocket. I felt suddenly completely calm, completely sure.

  He answered on the first ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Marcus? It’s Anna – Anna Winterson.’

  ‘Hello, Anna. How lovely to hear from you.’

  ‘I’m not calling for a chat, I’m afraid. I need a favour. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. What’s the favour? I can’t promise I can grant it, but if I can help…’

  ‘I want to see your father.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think that will be possible.’

  I bit my lip.

  ‘I don’t want to be pushy – but it’s really important. I could come and wait – I don’t care how long it takes.’

  ‘His appointment diary gets booked up weeks in advance.’

  ‘Couldn’t he fit me in between meetings? Or over dinner? I’m sorry, Marcus, but this is urgent. If I have to I’ll just turn up and sit outside his office until he comes out. I’d rather not make a scene about it, but if I have to I will.’

  ‘It’s that important?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was another silence, as if Marcus was wrestling with something, making up his mind. Then he said. ‘Hold on. I’ll speak to his secretary and see what can be done.’

  There was another silence, punctuated by a door shutting and the sound of muffled voices. Then Marcus came back on the line.

  ‘You’re in luck, he’s just had a cancellation. He was supposed to be meeting your grandmother actually, but she had an emergency call and had to hurry off. Some old friend’s had an accident, I believe?’

  Caradoc – oh Caradoc! I shut my eyes at the thought of my grandmother, heading towards the hideous waiting news.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I didn’t try to disguise the bleakness that had crept into my voice. ‘It’s part of the reason I need to see your father.’

  ‘Your grandmother’s meeting with him was at four. Can you make it for then?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there. Goodbye, Marcus.’

  ‘Goodbye, Anna.’

  And he was gone.

  As I put the phone away I heard Emmaline’s panicked voice and imagined Abe’s sarcastic tones on the other end of the line.

  ‘Yes, completely nuts … That’s what I’m telling you … Well of course I did, but failing that, what can I do? You tell me …’ There was a long silence and then Emmaline nodded. ‘OK, I’ll try … OK … Bye.’

  She looked up at me, then shook her head.

  ‘He’s coming. He says don’t get killed be
fore he gets here.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Lovely to see you again, Anna.’ Marcus kissed me carefully on both cheeks and then looked past me at Emmaline and Abe, both standing in attitudes of furious tension by the reception desk. ‘Won’t you introduce me to your friends?’

  ‘Marcus, this is Emmaline Peller. Emmaline – my cousin Marcus. And this is Abe Goldsmith.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Marcus shook hands with Emmaline and then put out a hand towards Abe. Abe only stared at it, as if he’d never heard of such a bizarre custom as ‘shaking hands’. There was a brief silence and then, after a moment, Marcus gave a shrug and dropped his. I thought he’d be offended, but when he looked at me there was a small smile at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Well, quite the happy party. Are you all seeing my father?’

  ‘No,’ I said, at the exact same time as Abe said, ‘Yes.’

  We glared at each other.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Abe said. ‘Do you and Thad need some time alone together to catch up on old times? Or were you going to regale him with your girly secrets?’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come,’ I snarled.

  ‘No, my role as a human shield is in a purely voluntary capacity,’ Abe spat back.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Marcus looked from me to Abe with a puzzled expression and suddenly I was too tired to fight it out any longer.

  ‘Come if you want,’ I said. ‘I really don’t care. Just leave the talking to me, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Abe said meekly.

  We set off down the long velvet-carpeted corridor and behind me I could see Emmaline gazing around with a mixture of horrified wonder, taking in the flickering witchlights, the huge domed chambers that led off to the left and right, and the pulse and flow of power beneath our feet, as the rivers chained to this place twisted and writhed to be free.

  ‘This is too much,’ she whispered. ‘I can hardly breathe – it’s putrid with magic.’

  I knew what she meant – the heaviness of power in the air was almost overwhelming. But, as I saw it through her eyes, I had the strangest sensation that the spells holding the place together were buckling, no longer effortless, but perhaps even inadequate. I felt as if I was watching a dyke holding back the sea and had seen a single pebble roll down the face: the warning of a deluge.

  ‘Here we are,’ Marcus said, and we stopped outside a carved oak door, black with age and deeply polished. He knocked and waited for a moment. No answer.

  ‘Hmm.’ He looked at his watch. ‘He should be there – he’s expecting you.’ He knocked again.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Abe reached for the handle. ‘He’s probably fallen asleep.’

  ‘There’s no point trying the door,’ Marcus said. ‘My father has enchantments twelve-deep on that—’ but his voice broke off as Abe turned the handle without effort and the door swung wide.

  It seemed that Abe had guessed right; Thaddeus Corax was not at his desk, but lying on the sofa in front of the fire. The sofa back was between us and him, but I could see his head, lolling against the arm, and his eyes were closed.

  ‘Father,’ Marcus said, walking briskly over. ‘Father, your four o’clock …’

  He stopped. For a moment I couldn’t understand why, then as I drew level and saw over the back of the sofa, I realized.

  The carved bone handle of a sword stuck straight up between his ribs.

  Thaddeus Corax was dead, stabbed through the heart.

  Before I had time to do more than gasp, there was a terrifying rumbling roar, the red damask wallpaper split like wet tissue and the walls of the room caved in.

  I caught sight of Marcus, his arms outstretched towards his father; Abe, his face blank with terror; Emmaline, frozen in a scream – and then the waters crashed in. Above the roar and thunder I heard Marcus bellow an incantation and a huge shield sprang out to encompass his side of the room – but before it could reach me the current snatched me.

  Somewhere in the muddy swirling crash of waters, I felt a hand grip my wrist, fierce with strength.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ Abe’s voice roared in my head, and I didn’t. He pulled me towards him in the buffeting torrential rush, his arms around me, his shield reaching out to cover us both. I knew I should be trying to help him, but the force of the water was crushing us together, crushing the breath out of my body, and then the waters crashed over my head and it was all I could do to keep myself alive.

  I was on a beach, if you could use that word to describe a mud-flat beside a filthy river. And I was covered with stinking black silt from head to toe. There were cold pebbles beneath my cheek and around me were strewn empty drinks cans, clogged plastic bags, a used condom. I sat up, spitting filth and grit, and looked wildly about, trying to figure out where I was.

  For a minute I was totally disoriented – then I saw the familiar pyramid-topped tower of Canary Wharf in the distance. I must be on the eastern stretch of the Thames – but how? And where were the others?

  There was a coughing sound to my right and I looked down to see Abe curled on the mud.

  ‘Abe!’ I hugged him fiercely and he gasped, coughing up river-water.

  ‘Go easy,’ he said hoarsely, but his fingers squeezed my wrist. I felt a hot rush of relief that he was alive.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No, I’m lying here dead,’ he croaked, hauling himself into a sitting position. ‘You’re just hallucinating me hacking up phlegm like a sixty-a-dayer.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I choked, and he put his arms gently around me, filthy and stinking as I was. My fingers clenched his mud-matted hair and then we both pulled back, looking at each other’s stained and muddied faces.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ Abe asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I tried to make my battered, waterlogged brain work properly. Then, as I began to realize the full horror of what had happened, I shut my eyes. ‘Christ, he’s dead. Thaddeus Corax is dead.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ Abe asked.

  ‘He knew …’ I said slowly. ‘He was the only person left who knew the truth about me. Everyone who gets close is getting picked off. But I thought … I thought …’

  ‘You thought he was behind Caradoc’s killing,’ Abe finished. ‘Maybe he was. But then, who killed him?’

  ‘Was it the spy?’ I stared at him. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Anna, this is pointless.’ He stuck out a mud-streaked hand and hauled me to my feet. ‘We’re not going to get any answers here. And we’ve got to find Em.’

  Emmaline. Oh God. I tried to think back, to remember if Marcus’ shield had had time to reach her – and I couldn’t. My only comfort was that she was a powerful witch in her own right. If magic could save her, Emmaline would be all right.

  ‘Let’s try ringing her,’ Abe said. But our phones were blank and dark, waterlogged to the point of death. Even when we tried breathing magic into them nothing happened.

  ‘Arse,’ Abe said. We both stared at each other for a while and then began the trudge back towards London.

  We fell into silence after the first mile or two, so that when Abe’s wordless exclamation broke the relentless beat of our footsteps, I looked up, startled.

  ‘What?’

  For answer he pointed at the gap in the Wapping warehouses which had opened up to show the Thames.

  I stifled my own gasp.

  The Thames was running red with blood.

  A great swathe of gore was flooding out from the south bank into the river, turning the water into a churning cauldron of red. On the wind floated the sound of sirens and a faint hubbub of voices.

  ‘We’ve got to get across,’ Abe said. ‘How? Come on, you’re the Londoner – isn’t there a bridge?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That way.’

  Abe grabbed my wrist again and we ran.

  I could hear the shouts and sirens wailing as we pounded along Shad Thames towards St Saviour’s dock, and all the time the flood of gore kept pumping into the r
iver like a slashed artery. What was it? Where was it coming from?

  ‘Stand back,’ shouted a policeman as we approached. He flung his arms out, barring our way. ‘We’ve had a building collapse. No access until the area’s been cleared.’

  ‘Oh you bastard,’ Abe panted. He pulled me around the corner behind a building and said, ‘Invisibility. Pronto.’

  Then he disappeared. If it hadn’t been for the feel of his hand still gripping my wrist, I wouldn’t have even known he was there.

  ‘Come on,’ said his voice from close beside my ear. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  I was shattered; cold and bone-tired, both physically and magically. I’d seen two dead bodies since breakfast – it felt like I’d lived a hundred years since I listened to Caradoc’s message.

  I couldn’t feel a single scrap of power left inside me, but Abe had managed, and I was damned if I was going to ask him for help. From somewhere I scraped together a little magic and muttered the charm my grandmother had drilled into me.

  ‘Did it work?’ I asked.

  ‘Not completely.’ Abe’s voice was appraising. ‘I can see your outline, like a ripple.’

  I gritted my teeth and repeated the incantation, forcing power out of every muscle, feeling it shudder across my skin like goosebumps.

  ‘Better,’ Abe’s voice said. ‘Come on, while you can still keep it together. Hold my hand so we don’t lose each other.’

  We ran silently back past the policeman and round the corner, almost bumping into another policeman who stepped into our path, unable to see us coming. Then we were teetering on the edge of St Saviour’s Dock, almost in the water, staring open-mouthed at the ruins of a huge warehouse near the head of the docks. The foundations seemed to have crumbled from underneath, bricks and chunks of concrete were piled in the water, and from beneath came the gouts of pumping blood, mixed with swirls of something black and viscous – like tar. Currents boiled beneath the surface, as if some sinuous giant creature were writhing in the depths. There were dead birds in the crimson water: crows, three of them. Real birds – or witches, trapped in their changed state and unable to get out? A woman’s designer shoe floated past on the swirling current. It looked a lot like the ones worn by my grandmother. I felt nausea suddenly rise up, overwhelming, and put my hands to my mouth, pressing it back as a cold sweat prickled over my skin.