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For Scott
and
For England
I STAND AT THE EDGE of the crowded square, watching the executioners light the pyres. The two men, dressed for work in dark red cloaks and charred leather gloves, circle the narrow wooden platforms, their lit torches held high. At the top of each pyre, four witches and three wizards stand chained to a stake, bundles of wood heaped around their feet. They stare into the crowd, determined looks on their faces.
I don’t know what they did; they weren’t my captures. But I do know there will be no apologies from them. No last-minute pleas for mercy, no scaffold-step promises to repent. Even as the executioners touch their torches to the wood and the first of the flames leaps into the leaden sky, they remain silent. They’ll stay that way, stubborn to the very end. It wasn’t always like this. But the worse the Reformist rebellions get, the more defiant the Reformists themselves become.
It doesn’t matter anyway, what they did. What magic they used. Spells, familiars, potions, herbs: It’s all illegal now. There was a time when those things were tolerated, encouraged even. Magic was seen as helpful—once. Then the plague came. Started by magic, spread by magic—we were almost destroyed by magic. We warned them to stop, but they didn’t stop. Now here we are, standing in a dirty square under a dirty sky, forcing them to stop.
To my right, about twenty feet away, is Caleb. He stares into the fire, his blue eyes narrowed, forehead slightly creased. By his expression he could be sad, he could be bored, he could be playing against himself a game of noughts and crosses. It’s hard to tell. Even I don’t know what he’s thinking, and I’ve known him longer than anyone.
He’ll make his move soon, before the protests begin. I can already hear the murmuring, the shuffling feet, the odd cry or two from a family member. People raise sticks, hold up rocks. They stay their hands out of respect for the men and women on the pyre. But once they’re gone, the violence will begin. Against the executioners, against the guards who line the street, against anyone who supports the justice doled out in front of us. People are frightened of magic, yes. But the consequences of magic frighten them even more.
Finally, I see it: a gentle tug on a lock of dark blond hair, a hand placed slowly in his pocket.
It’s time.
I’m halfway across the square when the shouting breaks out. I feel a shove from behind, then another. I pitch forward and slam into the back of the man standing in front of me.
“Watch it, you.” He whips around, a glare on his face. It disappears as soon as he sees me. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t see you, and—” He stops, peering at me closely. “My word, you’re just a child. You shouldn’t be here. Go on home. There’s nothing here you need to see.”
I nod and back away. He’s right about one thing: There’s nothing here I need to see. And somewhere else I need to be.
I follow Caleb down a wide cobblestoned street, then through the Shambles, a maze of narrow, sludge-filled alleyways lined with squat, dark-timbered row houses, their pitched roofs casting a near-permanent shadow over the street. We wind through them quickly: Cow Lane, Pheasant Court, Goose Alley. All the streets in this area have funny names like this, originating from when the square at Tyburn was used for herding livestock.
Now it’s used for a different kind of slaughter.
The streets are deserted, as they always are on a burning day. Those who aren’t watching the burnings are at Ravenscourt Palace protesting them or at any one of Upminster’s taverns trying to forget them. It’s a risk, making an arrest today. We risk the crowds; we risk being seen. If we were arresting an ordinary witch, we probably wouldn’t risk it at all.
But this is no ordinary arrest.
Caleb pulls me into an empty doorway. “Ready?”
“Of course.” I smile.
He grins back. “Pointy things at the ready, then.”
I reach under my cloak and pull out my sword.
Caleb nods in approval. “The guards are waiting for us down on Pheasant, and, just in case, I’ve got Marcus posted on Goose and Linus covering Cow.” A pause. “God, these street names are stupid.”
I stifle a laugh. “I know. But I won’t need their help. I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so.” Caleb reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single crown. He pinches the coin between his fingers and holds it in front of my face. “Shall we say the usual, then?”
I scoff. “You wish. I’ve got five times the quarry, so that’s five times the bounty. Plus, these are necromancers. Which means there’s at least one corpse, a bunch of blood, a pile of bones… that’s a sovereign at least, you cheapskate.”
Caleb laughs. “You drive a hard bargain, Grey. Fine. Let’s make it two sovereigns and drinks after. Deal?”
“Deal.” I give him my hand, but instead of shaking it, he kisses it. My stomach does a funny little tumble, and I can feel warmth rush into my cheeks. But he doesn’t seem to notice. He just shoves the coin back into his pocket, then pulls a dagger from his belt, and flips it into the air, catching it deftly.
“Good. Now let’s get going. These necromancers aren’t going to arrest themselves, you know.”
We edge along the front of the houses, our footsteps squelching softly in the mud. Finally, we reach the one we’re looking for. It looks like all the others: a dingy white plaster thing with a wooden door covered in peeling red paint. But unlike all the others, given what’s on the other side. The wizards I usually catch are still alive, still corporeal. Not so, today. My stomach tightens in the familiar way it does before an arrest: part thrill, part nerves, part fear.
“I’ll kick it open, but you go in first,” Caleb tells me. “Take charge of it. It’s your capture. Sword up and out. Don’t lower it, not for a second. And read the arrest warrant straightaway.”
“I know.” I don’t know why he’s telling me this. “Not my first time, remember?”
“I do. But this won’t be like the others. They won’t be like the others. Get in and get out. Nothing fancy. And no more mistakes, okay? I can’t keep covering for you.”
I think of all the things I’ve done wrong in the past month. The witch I chased down the alley who nearly got away. The chimney I got stuck in trying to find a hidden cache of spellbooks. The cottage I stormed that didn’t house wizards brewing potions but a pair of aged friars brewing ale. They’re just a few mistakes, true. But I don’t make mistakes.
At least, I didn’t used to.
“Okay.” I raise my sword, my sweaty hands slipping off the hilt. I quickly wipe them on my cloak. Caleb draws his leg back and slams his foot against the door. It smashes open, and I burst into the house.
Inside are the five necromancers I’m looking for, huddled around a fire in the center of the room. There’s a large cauldron perched above the flames, a foul-smelling pink smoke billowing from the top. Each of them wears a long, tattered brown robe, and oversized hoods conceal their faces. They stand there, moaning and chanting and holding bones—either arm bones or a very small person’s leg bones—and shaking them like a bunch of damned Mongol shamans. I might laugh if I weren’t so disgusted.
I circle around them, my sword pointed in their direction. “Hermes Trismegistus. Ostanes
the Persian. Olympiodorous of Thebes—”
I stop, feeling like an idiot. These necromancers and the ridiculous names they give themselves. They’re always trying to outdo one another.
“You five,” I say instead. “By the authority of King Malcolm of Anglia, I am commanded to arrest you for the crime of witchcraft.”
They continue chanting; they don’t even look up. I glance at Caleb. He stands by the door, still flipping his dagger. He almost looks amused.
“You are hereby ordered to return with us to Fleet prison for detention and to await your trial, presided over by the Inquisitor, Lord Blackwell, Duke of Norwich. If you are found guilty, you will be executed by hanging or by burning, as is the king’s pleasure, your land and goods forfeit to the crown.” I pause to catch my breath. “So help you God.”
This is usually the part where they protest, where they say they’re innocent, where they ask for proof. They always say this. I have yet to arrest a witch or wizard and have her or him say to me, “Why, yes, I have done illegal spellwork and read illegal books and purchased illegal herbs and thank goodness you’ve come to stop me!” Instead, it’s always, “Why are you here?” and “You’ve got the wrong person” and “There must be some mistake!” But it’s never a mistake. If I show up on your doorstep, it’s because you’ve done something to draw me there.
Just as these necromancers have.
I keep going. “Tuesday, 25th October, 1558: Ostanes the Persian purchases wolfsbane, a known poison, at the black market in Hatch End. Sunday, 13th November, 1558: Hermes Trismegistus etches the Seal of Solomon, a talisman used for summoning spirits, on Hadrian’s Wall outside the city. Friday, 18th November, 1558: All five subjects seen at the All Saints Cemetery in Fortune Green, exhuming the corpse of Pseudo-Democritus, né Daniel Smith, another known necromancer.”
Still nothing. They just drone on and on, like a hive of old bees. I clear my throat and go on, louder this time.
“Subjects possess the following texts, each on the list of Librorum Prohibitorum, the king’s official list of banned books: Albertus Magnus’s Magister Sententiarum. Thomas Cranmer’s New Book of Common Spells. Desiderius’s Handbook of a Reformist Knight.”
Surely they’ll react to this. Wizards hate nothing more than finding out I’ve been inside their home, finding things in places they thought no one would ever look. Small hollowed-out niches under the floorboards. Beneath the chicken coop. Stuffed inside a straw mattress. There’s nothing a wizard can hide that I can’t find.
It occurs to me that it’s rather pointless to recite their crimes, considering I’ve caught them in the middle of an even bigger one. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t have all day to stand around listening to these old fools chant, and I can’t let them finish their spell. But I can’t exactly jump in and lay them out with my sword, either. We’re supposed to capture, never kill. Blackwell’s rule. And none of us would dare break it. Even still, my fingers tighten around the hilt and I’m itching to start swinging, until I see it: a shape beginning to form in the pink mist in the cauldron.
It rises into the air, swaying and undulating in a nonexistent breeze. Whatever this thing is that they’re in the middle of conjuring—my guess is that it’s Pseudo-Democritus, né Daniel Smith, who I watched them dig up—it’s hideous. Something between a corpse and a ghost, translucent yet rotting, mossy skin, disjointed limbs, and exposed organs. There’s a strange humming noise coming from it, and I realize it’s covered in flies.
“Elizabeth.”
Caleb’s voice startles me. He’s standing beside me now, his dagger held in front of him, staring at the thing in front of us.
“What do you think?” I whisper. “Is it a ghost?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s too, I dunno…”
“Juicy?”
Caleb makes a face. “Ugh. You know I’d rather you say viscous. But, yes. And a ghost wouldn’t take five men to raise, so my guess is ghoul? Maybe a revenant. It’s hard to say. He’s not fully formed enough yet for me to tell.”
I nod.
“We need to stop them before they finish,” he continues. “You take the two on the left, I’ll take the three on the right.”
“No way.” I turn to face him. “This is my arrest. I get all five. That was the deal. You can have the viscous thing in the pot.”
“No. You can’t take on five by yourself.”
“Three more sovereigns say I can.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Don’t you Elizabeth me—”
“Elizabeth!” Caleb grips my shoulders and spins me around. The necromancers have stopped chanting, and the room has gone silent. They’re staring right at us. Instead of bones, they’re clutching long, curved knives, all of them aimed in our direction.
I break free of Caleb’s grasp and step toward them, my sword held high.
“What are you doing here, girl?” one of them says to me.
“I’m here to arrest you.”
“On what charges?”
I tut in irritation. If he thinks I’m going through the litany of that arrest again, he’s got another thing coming.
“That thing.” I jerk my sword at the twitchy apparition. “That’s the charge.”
“Thing?” one of them says, looking affronted. “That’s not a thing. It’s a ghoul.”
“Told you,” Caleb whispers behind me. I ignore him.
“And it’s the last thing you’ll ever see,” the necromancer adds.
“You wish,” I say, reaching for my handcuffs. I look down, just for a second, to unhook them from my belt. But it’s enough. One of the necromancers sends his knife flying.
“Watch it!” Caleb shouts.
But it’s too late. The knife lands with a sickening thump in my chest, right above my heart.
“DAMNATION.”
I drop my sword and rip the knife from my chest, throwing it to the floor. There’s a flash of heat in my abdomen, followed by a sharp, prickling sensation. And in an instant, the wound heals. There’s almost no blood; it doesn’t even hurt—at least not much. Seeing this, all five necromancers go still. They know—the moment I came through the door they knew—but it’s different altogether to see it work: the stigma branded into the skin above my navel, a scrawl of black. XIII. The stigma that protects me and shows me for what I am. An enforcer of the Thirteenth Tablet. A witch hunter.
They back away, as if I’m the one to be afraid of.
I am the one to be afraid of.
I lunge forward and punch the nearest necromancer in the stomach. He doubles over as I slam my elbow into the back of his neck and watch him slump to the floor. I turn to one of the others. Stomp on his foot, pinning it to the floor, and slam my other foot into the side of his kneecap. He drops to his knees, howling. In a flash, I snatch his hands and bind them tightly with the brass handcuffs. Brass is impenetrable to magic; there’s no escaping for him now.
I round on the other three. They hold their hands in front of them, backing slowly away. From the corner of my eye, I see Caleb watching me. And he’s grinning.
Snatching another pair of cuffs from my belt, I start toward them. Close up, I can see how old they really are. Gray hair, wrinkled skin, watery eyes. Each of them seventy if they’re a day. I want to tell them they’d be better off going to church and saying their prayers instead of exhuming bodies and conjuring spirits, but what’s the point? They wouldn’t listen anyway.
They never do.
I grab a necromancer’s wrists and clamp the manacles around them. Before I can get to the other two, they twist away, one of them muttering an incantation under his breath.
“Mutzak tamshich kadima.”
The room goes still. The fire stops burning and the billowing pink smoke disappears, receding into the cauldron as if it never existed. The necromancer keeps muttering; he’s trying to complete the ritual. I grab a dagger from my belt and hurl it at him to try to stop him. But it’s too late. The spirit hovering over t
he cauldron above us, hideous yet harmless before, becomes solid. It drops in front of me with a thud.
Caleb swears under his breath.
Before either of us can move, the ghoul knocks me to the floor, fastens his cold, rotting hands around my throat, and starts to squeeze.
“Elizabeth!” Caleb leaps forward, but before he can reach me, the last two necromancers turn on him, their knives held high.
I grab the ghoul’s hands. Tug at his wrists, scratch and beat on his arms. Try to suck in air, even if it does smell like dirt and rot and death. It doesn’t stop him. I can hear Caleb shouting my name, and I try to call back, but my voice comes out a strangled whisper. I keep struggling, twisting back and forth to try to break his grip. But he’s too strong.
My vision starts fading, disappearing into patches of black. I slap my hand against the stone floor, trying to reach my sword. But it’s too far. And Caleb can’t help me. While he’s managed to get one necromancer on the floor in cuffs, he’s still fighting off the other, who sends objects flying toward him: furniture and smoking logs and bones. I’m on my own. There’s a way out of this—I know there is. But if I don’t figure it out soon, this ghoul will strangle me to death. Not even my stigma can protect me against that.
Then I get an idea.
I summon the last bit of air I have, give what I hope is a convincing last gasp, and go still. Let my jaw go slack, allow a vacant look to slide into my eyes. I don’t know if it will work, because this thing is dead and maybe the dead can’t be fooled. When he doesn’t stop squeezing, I think I’ve made a mistake, and it takes every bit of self-control I have to keep still.
Finally, he stops. In the second it takes him to loosen his grip around my throat, I plunge my hand into the sack of salt on my belt, snatch a handful, and fling it in his face.
An unearthly shriek fills the room as the salt melts what’s left of his skin and penetrates his skull, his eyes, his brain, dissolving it into a gray sticky mass. Warm, putrid chunks of flesh drip onto my face and hair; an eyeball unravels from its socket and dangles in front of me like a viscous ball of twine. Stifling a gag, I roll to the side, snatch my sword off the floor, and swing. The blade cuts neatly through the ghoul’s neck, and in a swirl of hot air and another ear-splitting shriek, he disappears.
The Witch Hunter Page 1