Demon Witch (Book Two - The Ravenscliff Series)

by Geoffrey Huntington

  “Who are you? From what line do you come?”

  He smiled. “Your guess is as good as mine on that one. But I know I’m Nightwing. Exactly one hundred down from Sargon.”

  “You still cannot overcome my power,” she seethed.

  “Maybe not, but I’m sure going to give it a try.”

  Just then the floor seemed to explode. The trapdoor to Bjorn’s tunnel, leading from the village to the Witch’s castle, had sprung open. And through it flew dozens of Nightwing—female Nightwing!

  Suddenly their odds improved greatly. Devon watched as the Nightwing overpowered the demons. The beasts are booted, punched, kicked back to hell. Sybilla of Ghent came to the aid of her daughter, sending a hairy creature thudding into the wall.

  Devon was assaulted again by something he couldn’t see. Talons gripped him from behind, closing around his throat. He elbowed the thing in the ribs, knocking it off him—and watched as another Nightwing landed a punch to the beast’s gut, sending it screeching through the air.

  But it wasn’t a female Nightwing as Devon expected. It was a young man—and as Devon looked at him, he saw he was the spitting image of Marcus.

  “Not all of the Nightwing men are so easily ensnared by the Witch’s charms,” the young Nightwing said, noticing Devon’s surprise.

  Devon laughed. “Excellent! Let’s kick some demon butt, man!”

  “With pleasure,” the Nightwing who looked like Marcus said. They dispatched a couple of hairy brutes easily.

  Isobel was standing below, screaming in fury as she watched her demons defeated. “No! No! No!”

  “Actually,” Devon told her, landing in front of her, “I think that’s a yes.”

  Gisele was suddenly in front of him, lashing the golden chain around the wrists of the Witch.

  “Who would have thought a nice little girl like you could ever destroy my beautiful wickedness?” Isobel shrieked.

  “Oh, so that’s where that line comes from,” Devon said, grinning.

  As soon as Isobel was bound, the last few remaining demons disappeared, sucked back down their Hell Holes.

  “Until we meet again,” Devon told Isobel, as the Nightwing women hauled her away to stand trial for apostasy.

  Isobel said nothing, just fixed on Devon with her great black eyes.

  She was found guilty, no surprise.

  And so Devon watched her burn. She was condemned that very day, and the King’s court made haste to attend her execution. The villagers celebrated, dancing in the streets. There were musicians and jesters and vendors with their little spider monkeys. Standing beside Wiglaf, Devon watched as Isobel the Apostate was led to the pyre. Her eyes remained locked onto his. He saw such hatred there, such desire for revenge. Then the green wood and peat around the stake was lit, and the flames consumed her.

  Devon was given the great honor of being the sole Nightwing to witness the Witch’s death. It was better not to inflame the superstitions of the populace even more by a gathering of sorcerers. History would record only that a traitor to the King was executed. There would be no mention of sorcery in the official accounts. Mr. Weatherby’s history books would never tell the whole story.

  But even as she burned, Isobel’s eyes defied her captors. Even before Devon saw her rise from the flames, her arms outspread like the wings of an ascending bird, he knew she was not completely defeated.

  She’ll be back—five hundred years from now.

  Devon coughed, spitting soot from his mouth. He had to sit against the side of a brick building, away from the smoke.

  “Are you all right, my young friend?” Wiglaf asked.

  “I suppose so.” Devon couldn’t get the taste of burning flesh off his tongue. “It’s just that watching somebody get burned alive at the stake isn’t something you do every day.”

  “The eyes of a Nightwing must become accustomed to such horrors.”

  Devon made a face. “You don’t have to tell me that, Wiglaf. I’ve seen rotting corpses come out of their graves. I’ve had slimy beasties from hell gnawing on my bones. So believe me, I’m accustomed.”

  Wiglaf gave him a sympathetic smile. “It is not an easy path, the road of the sorcerer.”

  Devon covered his face with his hands. “I just want to know why me. All of this craziness—and still I don’t know where I come from. Who my parents were. Why it’s me, just a kid from Coles Junction, who’s stuck here in the fifteenth century battling witches and demons.”

  Wiglaf placed a hand on his shoulder. “Tonight, at Witenagemot, there will be many wise Nightwing. Perhaps some of them can help you.”

  “Look, Wiglaf, as much as I’d like to see it, I can’t stick around. I need to try to get back to my own time. Now that I’ve helped defeat Isobel here, maybe I’ll be strong enough to defeat her in the future.”

  “Not yet, my friend. You must first give your report to the council.”

  “But Cecily may already be dead—” Devon stopped. “Okay, I forgot. She’s in no danger because she hasn’t been born yet.”

  “Precisely. So you must attend Witenagemot. You were the only Nightwing to witness the destruction of the Apostate. You must relay the story of how you saw her rise from the flames.”

  They headed back to Kelvedon House to rest. Devon slept on the straw and dreamed of his father. Even for all of Ted March’s advanced years—he was some three hundred years old when he died in the early twenty-first century—he still had yet to be born in this time. Devon awoke feeling more alone than he ever had before.

  Witenagemot was held at midnight in the same great hall as the earlier gathering—which seemed to exist in some sort of parallel vibration. It stood in the middle of a field of goldenrod, but no one but Nightwing could see it or enter it.

  Devon was completely awed. Once again the Nightwing filed into the Great Hall, a large room with a hammer-beam roof ornately decorated with pendants that Devon recognized from Mr. Weatherby’s class as influences from the Italian Renaissance. At the far end of the hall a fan-vaulted bay window shed moonlight upon the dais, where the Nightwing leaders were gathering, talking joyfully among themselves, clapping one another on the back. If the splendor of the room entranced Devon, he was even more awestruck by the sorcerers themselves, dressed in their ceremonial purple robes with sashes of bright yellow. They wore chains of rubies and diamonds; the women had emeralds entwined through their hair. Many swept into the room wearing capes and feathered hats. Wiglaf and other Guardians have shed their drab brown robes for garments embroidered with stars and moons.

  “The tapestries are Flemish,” Gisele told Devon, indicating the rich fabrics hanging from the walls. “A gift from my people.”

  He smiled. The room was abuzz with chatter and good cheer. The wine and ale flowed freely, even among the young. Devon smiled, remembering how Andrea at Stormy Harbor was always so vigilant checking customers’ IDs when they tried to order a beer. Here youths as young as eight imbibed freely, wiping the froth from their chins with the backs of their hands.

  Devon spotted the young Nightwing who looked so much like Marcus, who saved him from the demon in Isobel’s castle. “Hey, man,” Devon called. “What’s up?”

  “What is up?” the boy echoed. “The moon, presently.”

  Devon laughed. “Just a phrase from where I come from. Thought I’d say thanks for helping me out earlier today.” He extends his hand. “I’m Devon March.”

  “I am Thierry of Paris,” he said. “From the line of Louis of Chaumois. My father is Artois and my mother Berengaria of Navarre. And you?”

  Devon realized it was standard for Nightwing to introduce themselves by offering a genealogy. It had been the same when he’d met Gisele. She piped up now, offering her own descent from Wilhelm of Holland. Thierry of Paris shook her hand warmly, then turned his eyes in anticipation to Devon.

  He sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know what line I come from,” Devon admitted. “All I know is that
somehow, from somewhere, I’m Nightwing.”

  “And a powerful Nightwing at that,” Thierry said, “if your battle against the Witch is any indication of your powers.”

  Devon shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  They were distracted by the thunderous bang of a gavel from the dais. Clydog ap Gruffydd was calling the Witenagemot to order. Long benches magically appeared throughout the room, and the sorcerers took their seats.

  “Let a joyful noise be spread throughout this land and beyond the seas,” Clydog said. “The Apostate has been defeated.”

  But Wiglaf stood, telling the body that Devon had his own report to make. The Nightwing all turned in fascination as Devon stood. Their eyes regarded him proudly, with deep respect. No longer was he being scolded; no longer did his knees shake as he addressed them.

  “Look,” Devon said, “I don’t want to rain on your parade or anything like that. But she’s not gone. Not really.”

  The crowd muttered.

  “Oh, you guys are okay. I don’t think she’s coming back to this time. I just know I saw her rise from the flames—and that she’ll turn up in my own time, some five hundred years from now.”

  “Then her unrepentant spirit still burns with the desire for revenge,” Clydog said.

  “So, look,” Devon told the group. “I need help in getting back to my own time so I can try to stop her there. She’s trying to do the same thing in the twenty-first century that she did here.”

  The great Clydog looked at him with some compassion. “We have not learned the secret of time travel, my young friend,” he said. “That will be left to our descendant, Horatio Muir, who has graced us often with his presence.”

  Devon felt desperate. “So he never told you how he does it? How he got the Staircase Into Time to materialize?”

  “No, Devon March. Such would go against the rules of time. It is not knowledge we are destined to have for several centuries.”

  Devon sighed. “But what good is defeating Isobel here if she’s able to come back and start up again in the future?”

  “We shall look into that, my friend. Perhaps we will learn how to stop her spirit from ever returning.”

  “But I’ve got to go back. We’ve got to do it now!”

  There was a small ripple of sympathetic laughter in the hall. “We have five hundred years to study the problem, Devon March,” Clydog told him.

  Devon sat back down. Five hundred years—but he’d be long dead by then. Was that it, then? Was this his destiny—to live out his days here, in the fifteenth century? He’d never know how the future would unfold, what happened after he disappeared from Ravenscliff. Would his friends die? Would the house be destroyed? Would Isobel the Apostate gain control of the Ravenscliff Hell Hole? And then what?

  Maybe Roxanne would snap Rolfe out of Morgana’s spell. Maybe he’d be successful in finding other Nightwing to defeat Isobel. Maybe they would all be okay—maybe they would manage to defeat her on their own.

  But they would always wonder where Devon went—and why he had abandoned them when they needed him most.

  A sense of gloom settled over Devon. He couldn’t concentrate on the proceedings. He didn’t really understand them, either, with all sorts of words and phrases being bandied about that meant nothing to him. Finally Devon slipped out to the fountain courtyard. The moon was high and very bright. He sat beside the cascading water and closed his eyes.

  “I would think a novice sorcerer would be inside, absorbing as much as he can.”

  Devon opened his eyes. It was Wiglaf.

  “I just can’t concentrate,” Devon said. “My heart’s not in it.”

  “You have much you need to learn, Devon March.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Wiglaf sat beside him on the cold stone bench. “You must try to forget your friends’ peril. It is not part of your reality anymore. It is not happening now.”

  “But it will happen.”

  Wiglaf sighed. “Yes. It will happen.”

  An idea suddenly hit Devon. “Hey! Horatio Muir knew how to transcend time. When do you think he’ll be back here?”

  “I know not. When last I saw him, which was more than two centuries ago, he gave no indication that he would return. Perhaps he will never, at least not in my lifetime.”

  “But you said I will meet him, and I haven’t yet.”

  Wiglaf nodded. “That is so. But consider, Devon March, that Horatio Muir might not return for many years. You might be an old man when you finally meet in, say, the year 1560.”

  Devon was flabbergasted. “But I can’t return to my own time as an old man! That would be just too weird!”

  “And by then you might not want to, my friend. You might have come to consider this as your own time.”

  Devon sighed. “But maybe I can change history. Maybe Horatio can send me back in time to stop Isobel from ever appearing in our time. I can prevent Edward from ever meeting her and so she’ll never be brought to Ravenscliff.”

  “But then there would be no reason for you to travel back to this time, would there?”

  Devon admitted there would not be.

  Wiglaf smiled. “You see the paradox you create, Devon. You can do nothing but trust in your fate. I offer you one important lesson. Where you are is always where you are meant to be.” Wiglaf touched Devon’s hand. “It is one of the first things I teach my students.”

  Devon looked up at the moon. He didn’t know what to think.

  “Do you understand, my young friend?” Wiglaf asked. “You played a part in Isobel’s defeat here. If you had never come back, she might have triumphed, and the whole history of the world might be different. You are inextricably a part of this time, Devon. You always have been and always will be.”

  Devon gave him a little laugh. “Then I got gypped, because the history books make no mention of how I saved the King of England.”

  “No. His Majesty has decreed that no chronicler will write the story of Isobel the Apostate.”

  “But, Wiglaf, if I don’t go back to my own time, I’ll never find out who I am. Where I came from, who my parents were and what happened to them, why I was raised by Ted March and why he had to keep my heritage as a Nightwing secret. If I stay here, I’ll never learn those things.”

  The Guardian considered this. “Do not be so certain of that, my good friend.” He grasped an amulet that hung from a silver chain around his neck. He unclasped it from the chain and handed it to Devon. “Do you know what this is?”

  Devon held the amulet in his hands. Imbedded in its middle was a crystal.

  “It’s your crystal of knowledge,” Devon said. “All Guardians have one.”

  Wiglaf nodded. “See what it tells you, my boy. Hold it tightly.”

  Devon obeyed. Might it reveal some truth to him? Might it explain who he is?

  Might it even return him to where he belonged?

  “My baby.”

  It was a woman’s voice. A voice Devon thought he’d heard before…

  He kept his eyes squeezed shut. He concentrated on seeing what the crystal had to show him, but everything was blurred. It was like watching television with really bad picture quality. He could make out only shapes moving against a dimly lit background. The only sound was the woman’s voice.

  “My baby. Don’t take my baby away.”

  Where am I? The place looks familiar…

  Suddenly Devon knew.

  It was the tower at Ravenscliff. The picture shuddered briefly into focus, then faded out again. But the woman’s voice continued.

  “My baby! My baby! My baby!”

  Devon could make out hands clawing the air. He could hear footsteps running down stairs. Lightning flashed. A baby cried.

  “My baby! My baby! My baby!”

  But now the woman’s cries were mixed with laughter—a wicked cackle he knew all too well.

  Isobel.

  “You think I am
gone? You think you have defeated me so easily?”

  He smelled the fire again. The taste of burning flesh collected at the back of his throat. Devon gags.

  “It is not I who will burn this time, Devon March! It is you!”

  Suddenly the flames roared around him. He felt the heat and the pain as they began licking his skin. He screamed out.

  And tossed Wiglaf’s amulet away from him as far as he could.

  When he opened his eyes all he saw was sky. An umbrella of deep violet studded with stars.

  Let me be home, he thought, sitting up. Let me be home.

  Yet although the face hovering above him was Cecily’s, the dress told him the young woman was, in fact, Gisele.

  “I’m still here,” he said, scrunching up his face.

  Gisele took his hand, sitting beside him on the grass. “Is it so horrible, this place?”

  He looked at her. “I just want to go home.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears. “It is this girl-friend of yours. She is the reason.”

  Devon said nothing. Wiglaf had retrieved his amulet and now stood looking down at Devon.

  “I was concerned when you left the hall,” Gisele said. “And I come out to find you sprawled here on the ground. Please, Devon March. Try no more to return to your own time. It is too dangerous.”

  “What did the crystal show you?” Wiglaf asked.

  Devon sat up on one elbow, running his other hand through his hair. “I’m not sure. It may have been a clue as to who I am. There was a woman, crying over a baby… but then there was Isobel, telling me she wasn’t gone for good.”

  Wiglaf shook his head. “I know not what to make of it.”

  Devon looked up at him suddenly. “Isobel had a child, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Wiglaf said. “A son by Sir Henry Apple, the husband poisoned by the Witch.”

  “But the son? Isobel’s child?”

  “Good Queen Elizabeth, King Henry’s wife, has agreed to raise him far from the scene of his mother’s evil. When the time comes he will be trained at my school. Fear not for him. The children of Apostates are not doomed to repeat their parent’s folly.”