Alice nodded.
“Am I right in thinking you’ve put your own blood in it—the blood of a daughter of the Fiend—and the blood of my apprentice, Tom?”
Alice nodded again and bowed her head.
“Well, lad, I’m finding this hard to believe. You actually gave your own blood for the purposes of a dark magic spell?”
“No!” Alice cried defiantly. “Ain’t true, that. Tom was unconscious when I took it. Back in Greece, there was a rockfall in a cave. Knocked out, he was, so I took three drops of his blood and added them to mine in the jar. Tom didn’t even know about it. It was only later, when the Fiend came for him, that I pushed it into his hand. After that Tom had to keep it on him to stop the Fiend from coming back and dragging him off to the dark. I have to stay close to Tom as well, else he’ll take his revenge on me!”
“So tell me what you got for your soul,” the Spook asked.
I explained how the Fiend had given me three things: the location of our terrible enemy, the Ordeen; a delay of one hour before she awoke; and, finally, his life and Alice’s, as they were facing imminent death.
“Not only that, he showed me the future,” I said. “Thousands would have been massacred that day—men, women, and children. Had the Ordeen won, the County would have been the next place to be destroyed. In the past I’ve resisted the temptations of the dark—even when the lives of my own family were at risk. This time it was the County in danger. And you’ve always taught me that we protect it, and that our first duty is to the County and its people. So in the end, that’s why I did it. Not for Alice, not for you—for the County. It seemed worth my soul at the time.”
“Show me,” the Spook said quietly.
I reached into my breeches pocket and pulled out the small jar. I held it in my open palm so that he could see it properly.
“Give it to me,” my master ordered.
“It’s dangerous even to let it out of my possession—”
“Hand it over, lad!” he commanded angrily, raising his voice.
Nervously I did as he asked. He peered at it closely, and for a moment his fingers gripped the stopper. One twist and it would be open, and he could pour away the drops of blood. My heart was in my mouth.
“What if I were to smash this now, or drain it of its contents?” he asked me. “Could the girl make another?”
“Ain’t possible to make another to save Tom,” said Alice. “You can only use a spell like that once.”
“And it would be the end of me and Alice,” I added. “The Fiend would come for us. We’d be dead and our souls dragged off to the dark. You too probably—he wouldn’t spare the life of a spook.”
“Don’t try to scare me, lad. I’ll do what’s right, whatever the cost.”
“I wasn’t trying to scare you. Just telling you how things are. I’ve thought about it a lot,” I retorted.
“Would he come right away?” asked the Spook, looking thoughtful. “Tell me that, girl. You made it, so you should know. I’ve never encountered this type of jar before.”
“Could be here in the blink of an eye,” Alice told him.
“What a miserable existence you’ve got ahead of you,” said the Spook, shaking his head. “Living in fear with just this little jar standing between you and a terrible fate. Then, when you die, which is inevitable, the Fiend will be waiting for you. He’ll collect your soul the minute you draw your last breath.”
“Not if Tom manages to bind or destroy him first—”
“And how on earth is he going to manage that?” demanded the Spook.
Alice shrugged. “Tom’s mam believed he would do it one day.”
“Did she ever say how it could be done?”
“Perhaps the secret is buried among her papers and notebooks in Malkin Tower,” I suggested.
“Well, lad, that might be so, but the last time I was there I found nothing like that. And Malkin Tower is a long way from here, across the sea and now behind enemy lines. I can’t help thinking that if your mam really had known how to bind or destroy the Fiend, she’d have told you before we went to Greece. After all, as her letters told us, she thought she’d have to sacrifice her own life to defeat her enemy. No, I think she hoped that you might discover a way to do it yourself.”
There was a long silence, and I thought about what I’d seen within myself. Maybe that would help me to find a way. . . .
Then Alice spoke up. “I can think of someone who might know—someone who’s thought about it long and hard. Grimalkin.”
“The witch assassin?” My master scratched at his beard in irritation. “It just gets worse!”
“She once told me how much she hates the Fiend. She said she thought he could be bound with silver spears,” Alice went on.
“What? Bound in a pit?”
“He’d be impaled on the spears,” she explained. “Then maybe you could bury him beneath a stone like you do with boggarts. Wouldn’t that work?”
“Maybe, girl. When a demon such as a buggane or the Bane takes material form and you pierce its heart, it’s usually destroyed. I can’t see that being enough to finish off the Fiend—he’s much too powerful. In any case, where would we get silver-alloy spears from?” asked the Spook, shaking his head.
“Grimalkin would make them. She’s a skilled blacksmith. We should send for her; bring her here.”
“You’d use a mirror, no doubt,” said the Spook, his face grim. “More dark magic.”
“What’s done is done,” Alice snapped, “but the main thing is to keep Tom safe. And Grimalkin’s resourceful. War or no war, she would find a way to get here.”
“I need time to think this through,” said the Spook, handing the jar back to me. “Get out of my sight for a while—both of you!”
I nodded and we wandered slowly off into the trees, Alice still limping badly. I was relieved to have the blood jar back in my pocket. For a long time Alice was silent, her lips pressed tightly together, her face a mask. Then she began to cry, great sobs racking her body. I put my arms around her, offering comfort as best I could.
“Ain’t crying for Lizzie,” Alice said at last as her grief began to subside. “Not even crying for poor Adriana and Simon, although I’m sorry that they lost their lives like that and can never enjoy the happiness they deserved. No, I’m crying for what I never had. Crying for the mam every girl should have—someone who’d have loved me and cared what happened to me.”
After a while she smiled and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Thanks for saving me back there in the dungeons, Alice,” I said softly. “The buggane was draining me. I could feel my life slipping away. I was so cold and weak.”
Alice squeezed my hand. “In the shaman’s study, as soon as I worked out how to control the cache, Lizzie’s power started to wane. I used a spell to cloak myself. Walked right past her and she didn’t see me. I went into the tunnels and started to work on the buggane. It was in its spirit form, whispering to you, when I finally reached it with my mind. I was just in time, Tom. It was planning to drain you in one go, as Lizzie had ordered. So I called out to you; told you to fight it—and, just in time, you started to resist. Then I went looking for Lizzie again and managed to stop her from taking your bones. By then I knew we’d won. I was stronger than her.”
“Have you still got that power, Alice?” I asked. “Is all that dark magic at your service?”
“Still got a bit left, but it’s fading fast. Power’s there down in that cavern, but I can’t reach it no more.”
“What do you think the Spook will decide to do?” I asked.
“Old Gregory will send for Grimalkin, mark my words. He wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing once, but now he hasn’t any choice. He’s not the man he was. Too much has happened: his library’s burned to the ground, the County ransacked, and now this—being defeated by a powerful witch not just once but three times over. But for Adriana, I think Lizzie would have killed us all, Old Gregory included.
“From now on you’ll get stronger and he’ll get weaker. It happens to us all eventually. He’s had a long life fighting the dark, but now it’s coming to an end. You’ll be the new spook, and you’d best get ready to replace him.”
I nodded. There was some truth in what Alice had said, but I wasn’t ready to take over from my master just yet. I put my arms around her and hugged her again. Once more we’d survived, and two more enemies of the light were no more.
As we walked back toward the cottage, we saw the Spook waiting for us in the doorway. What had he decided to do? His face was grim, and I thought it looked like bad news.
But I was wrong.
“Find yourself a mirror, girl, and summon Grimalkin,” my master said. “We have no choice now but to attempt to bind the Fiend.”
ONCE again, I’ve written most of this from memory, just using my notebook when necessary. We are still on the island of Mona in the cold, dark, stormy heart of winter, staying at the abandoned cottage Adriana showed us. Over the last two months we’ve been busy with spook’s business.
My master has almost finished rewriting a book about the Pendle witches, and Alice has volunteered to add to the beginnings of his new library. She’s started on an account of the two years she spent being trained in witchcraft by Bony Lizzie; it will add to our knowledge of the dark.
The tunnels beneath the chapel have collapsed, closing off all access to the Grim Cache. So my master, Alice, and I have hunted down and slain every other known buggane on the island—five in all—to prevent one from burrowing down to find it again. Now Mona is a safer place for those who work for the light.
Grimalkin agreed to join us in an attempt to bind the Fiend once and for all, but she has not yet arrived and Alice is no longer able to contact her by using a mirror. She now fears that something has happened to the witch assassin. Without her we can do nothing, and the blood jar is our only defense against the Fiend.
There is no good news from the County. It seems that it is in the iron grip of the enemy. And here on Mona, the ruling council is assembled again and has started returning refugees across the water; there is no news of how they were received—or of Captain Baines. The yeomen are still searching for those who have avoided their net, and the island is less safe for us with each passing day.
The Spook was right. The people have reverted to their old ways.
At least with Lizzie’s death, Bill Arkwright will have finally found his way to the light.
I long to go back to the County, but the Spook’s plan now is to escape westward, to Ireland. We go within the week. But whenever I think of that land, I remember my nightmare and the threat made by the Celtic witch; I remember the Morrigan.
In a little more than two years I’ll finish learning my trade. My master tells me that he might take it easier then and let me do most of the work. As a young spook, he worked alongside his own master, Henry Horrocks, until he died, and it was to the advantage of both.
It’s his decision. He’s the Spook and I’m still just his apprentice. Soon we sail to take refuge even farther from the County’s shores. No doubt we’ll be heading into even greater danger.
THOMAS J. WARD
Credits
COVER ART © 2010 BY PATRICK ARRASMITH
COVER DESIGN BY CHAD W. BECKERMAN AND PAUL ZAKRIS
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
The Last Apprentice: Rise of the Huntress
Copyright © 2010 by Joseph Delaney
First published in 2010 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title The Spook’s Nightmare.
First published in 2010 in the United States by Greenwillow Books.
The right of Joseph Delaney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Patrick Arrasmith
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Delaney, Joseph, (date).
[Spook’s nightmare]
Rise of the huntress / by Joseph Delaney ; illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith.
p. cm. — (The last apprentice ; 7)
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: Returning from Greece, Tom and the Spook find that their home, including the Spook’s precious library of knowledge, has been burned to the ground, and that their battle against the denizens of the dark must continue.
ISBN 978-0-06-171510-5 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-171511-2 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Apprentices—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Witches—Fiction.] I. Arrasmith, Patrick, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.D373183Ch 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009044188
10 11 12 13 14 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN 9780062120960
Dedication
FOR MARIE
Contents
Dedication
Chapter I - Beware the Jibber!
Chapter II - Blood Everywhere
Chapter III - The Visitor
Chapter IV - The Mirror
Chapter V - Killorglin
Chapter VI - An Instrument of Torture
Chapter VII - The Siege of Ballycarbery Castle
Chapter VIII - Thin Shaun
Chapter IX - Small Cold Fingers
Chapter X - In the Grasp of the Fiend
Chapter XI - The Killorglin Goat
Chapter XII - The Old God Pan
Chapter XIII - A Pact
Chapter XIV - The Head of the Witch
Chapter XV - Dark Angel
Chapter XVI - The Dragon’s Lair
Chapter XVII - Words in a Mirror
Chapter XVIII - The Talons of the Morrigan
Chapter XIX - The Hound of Calann
Chapter XX - Nobody Will Hear You Scream
Chapter XXI - Frozen in Time
Chapter XXII - The Destiny Blade
Chapter XXIII - Covered in Blood
Chapter XXIV - Poor Tom
Chapter XXV - All Fall Down
Credits
Copyright
CHAPTER I
BEWARE THE JIBBER!
DRIVEN by the gentlest of breezes, our small fishing boat was sailing slowly west, bobbing gently toward the distant shore. I was staring ahead to the green hills of Ireland, trying to take in as much as I could before the light failed. In another twenty minutes it would be dark.
Suddenly there was a roaring, howling sound, and the fisherman looked up in alarm. From nowhere a great wind blew up. A black cloud raced toward us from the north, zigzag lightning flickering down into the sea, which was now boiling and surging so that the small boat rolled alarmingly. Our three dogs began to whimper. The usually fearless wolfhounds—Claw, Blood, and Bone—didn’t like sea voyages at the best of times.
I was on my knees, clinging to the prow, cold pinching my ears, sea spray stinging my eyes.
The Spook and my friend Alice were cowering down below the gunwales, doing their best to take shelter. The waves had suddenly become much bigger—unnaturally so, I thought. We seemed about to capsize. As we slid down into a t
rough, a gigantic wave, a sheer wall of water, came out of nowhere and loomed above us, threatening to smash our fragile craft to match wood and drown us all.
But somehow we survived and rode up the wave to its crest. A torrent of hail came then—pebbles of ice, raining down onto the boat and us, beating at our heads and bodies with stinging force. Again lightning flashed almost directly overhead. I looked at the mass of churning black cloud above us and suddenly saw two orbs of light.
I stared up at them in astonishment. They were quite close together and made me think of two staring eyes. Then, as I watched, they began to change. They were eyes—very distinctive eyes, too, peering down from the black cloud. The left one was green, the right blue, and they seemed to glitter with malice.
Was I imagining it? I wondered. I rubbed my own eyes, thinking that I was seeing things. But no—they were still there. I was about to shout to get Alice’s attention, but even as I watched, they faded away to nothing.
The wind dropped as suddenly as it had arisen, and within less than a minute the huge waves were no more. The sea was still livelier than it had been before the storm, though, and the wind was once more at our backs, driving us toward land at a much faster rate.
“Five minutes and I’ll put you ashore!” cried the fisherman. “There’s a good side to everything, even a storm.”
I thought about the eyes in the cloud again. Maybe I’d only imagined them, I thought. It might be worth mentioning to the Spook later, but this wasn’t the time.
“It was strange the way that storm came up so suddenly!” I shouted.
The fisherman shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “You see strange things at sea, but that was just a squall. They often blow up out of nowhere. Mind you, that sea was something. Almost like a tidal wave. But this old tub is sturdier than she looks.” He looked quite pleased with himself. “I need to be back well before dawn, and we’ve got a bit o’ wind to fill our sails now.”
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 154