Alice was about to give up when, after the eighth attempt, I suddenly felt cold. It was the warning that something from the dark was approaching. Everything became unnaturally still and silent. Then there was a rustle of grass, followed by low squelching noises. Something was approaching across the soggy ground. Soon I could hear snuffling and grunting.
Within moments, we spotted a dead witch crawling toward us. It could have been any dead witch out hunting for blood, thinking we were likely prey, so I tightened my grip on my staff.
Alice quickly sniffed twice, checking for danger. “It’s Agnes,” she whispered.
I could hear the witch sniffing the ground, finding her way toward us. Then I saw her. She was a sorry creature indeed, and the sight brought a lump to my throat. She had always been such a clean, house-proud woman; now she wore a tatty dress that was caked in dirt, and her hair was greasy and wriggling with maggots. She smelled very strongly of leaf mold. I needn’t have been concerned that she might have forgotten us: as soon as she came close she began to sob, the tears running down her cheeks to drip onto the grass. Then she sat up and put her head in her hands.
“Sorry to be so maudlin, Alice,” she cried, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “I thought it was bad when my husband died—I missed him terribly for many a long year—but this is far worse. I just can’t get used to being like this. I wish the fire had taken me. I can never go back to my cottage and live my old comfortable life. I’ll never be happy again. If only I’d been a strong dead witch. At least then I’d have been able to travel by night and hunt far from this miserable dell. But I’m not strong enough to catch anything big. Beetles, voles, and mice are the best I can hope for!”
Alice didn’t speak for quite a while. I couldn’t think of anything to say either. What comfort could I give to poor Agnes? No wonder most living witches kept away from their dead relatives. It was painful to see someone you liked in such a terrible state. There was nothing to be said that would make her feel better.
“Listen, Tom, I’d like to have a few words alone with Agnes. Is that all right?” Alice asked me eventually.
“Of course it is,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll wait over there.”
I walked well out of earshot to allow Alice a bit of privacy with her aunt. In truth I was more than happy to get away. Being close to Agnes made me feel sad and uneasy.
After about five minutes Alice came toward me, her eyes glittering in the starlight. “What if Agnes was a really strong witch, Tom? Just think what that would mean. Not only would she have a much better existence, which she deserves, she’d be a really useful ally.”
“What are you saying, Alice?” I asked nervously, knowing she wasn’t much given to idle speculation.
“Suppose I make her strong. . . .”
“Using dark magic?”
“Yes. I can do it. . . . Whether I should is another matter. What do you think?”
CHAPTER III
LOTS OF BLOOD!
“I thought that all the magic drained out of a dead witch, leaving only a need for blood. So how can your magic help?” I asked Alice.
“It’s true that a dead witch no longer has her own magic in her bones. But I can use mine and just make her stronger for a while,” she replied. “Her new strength will lessen with time, but her existence in the dell could be better for years to come. By the time she weakens, her mind will have started to disintegrate anyway, so she will no longer pine for her old life. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“But what about her victims? What about those she’ll kill because she needs their blood? At least she’s feeding on insects and small animals now—not people!”
“She’ll only take the blood of the Fiend’s servants—there are plenty to keep her satisfied for a long time! And each one she kills will lessen the danger to us and make it more likely that we’ll succeed in destroying him for all time.”
“Can you be sure she’ll limit herself to them?”
“I know Agnes. She’ll keep any promise she makes—I’ll get that commitment before I do anything.”
“But what about you, Alice? What about you?” I protested, raising my voice a little. “Each time you use your magical power, it brings you closer to the dark.”
My argument was exactly the one my master would have used. I was Alice’s friend and was worried about her, but it had to be said.
“I use it so we can survive, so that we can win. I saved you from the witch Scarab and the goat mages back in Ireland, didn’t I? I used it to stop the witches from getting away with the Fiend’s head; and I gave Grimalkin some of my power so she could kill our enemies. If I hadn’t done so, she would be dead, I’d be dead, and the Fiend’s head would have been reunited with his body. It had to be done, Tom. I did what was necessary. This could be just as important.”
“Just as important? Are you sure you’re not helping Agnes because you feel sorry for her?”
“And what if it was only because of that?” Alice retorted angrily, her eyes glittering. “Why shouldn’t I help my friends just as I helped you, Tom? But I promise you it’s more than that, much more. Something’s going to happen, I feel sure of it. I can sense something moving toward us from the future—something dark and terrible. Agnes might be able to help. We’ll need a strong Agnes just to survive. Trust me, Tom, it’s for the best!”
I fell silent, filled with a terrible unease. Alice was using dark magic more freely than ever. She’d given Grimalkin power, and now she wanted to make a dead witch stronger. Where would it end? I knew that whatever I said, she’d go ahead and do it anyway. Our relationship was changing for the worse. She no longer valued my advice.
We glared at each other, but after a few seconds Alice spun on her heel and went back to Agnes. She crouched down, placed her left hand on the head of the dead witch, and spoke to her softly. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Agnes’s reply was clear as a bell. She spoke just three words: “Yes, I promise.”
Alice began to speak in a singsong voice. It was a dark spell. Louder and louder, faster and faster she began to chant, until I looked around uneasily, sure that every dead witch in the dell would hear her and come toward us. We were now deep in witch territory; the three villages set in the Devil’s Triangle lay just a few miles to the south. There could be spies around, and the noise would alert them to our presence.
Agnes suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream and jerked backward, away from Alice. She lay in the grass, moaning and whimpering, limbs thrashing and body spasming. Alarmed, I went over to Alice. Had the spell gone terribly wrong? I wondered.
“Be all right in a few minutes, she will,” Alice said reassuringly. “Hurts a lot because it’s such powerful magic, but she knew that before I started. Accepted that, she did. Agnes is very brave. Always was.”
After a few moments Agnes stopped writhing about and got to her hands and knees. She coughed and choked for a few moments, then lurched to her feet and smiled at us in turn. There was something of the old Agnes in her expression. Despite her filthy face and tattered, bloodstained clothes, she now seemed calm and confident. But in her eyes I saw a hunger that had never been present in the living Agnes.
“I’m thirsty!” she said, looking about her with a hunger and intensity that was really scary. “I need blood! I need lots and lots of blood!”
We headed south, with Alice in the lead and Agnes close on her heels; I brought up the rear. I kept glancing about me and turning my head to look behind. I expected to be attacked at any time. Our enemies, the witches who served the Fiend, might well be following us or lying in wait ahead. Despite his predicament, the Fiend could still communicate with them. He would take every opportunity to have us hunted down. And Pendle was a dangerous place at the best of times.
We were making good progress, and Agnes, who had been able to crawl only with difficulty, was now matching Alice stride for stride. The moon would rise soon—it was vital that we reach the tunnel beneath the tower
before its light made us visible to all in the vicinity.
I wondered about Slake, the surviving lamia. How far had she progressed toward the winged form? She might well have lost the power of speech, which meant that I would be unable to question her properly. I needed to know as much about the sacred objects as possible. I also hoped to be able to communicate with Mam in some way.
Soon the three of us were walking along beside Crow Wood. Our objective was now close—the dense, tangled copse that had grown over an old abandoned graveyard. The entrance to the tunnel was to be found roughly at its center. You reached it by entering a sepulchre, built for the dead of a wealthy family. Although most of the bones had been removed when the graveyard was deconsecrated, theirs remained in place.
Alice suddenly came to a halt and raised her hand in warning. I could see nothing but a few tombstones among the brambles, but I heard her sniff quickly three times, checking for danger.
“There are witches ahead, lying in wait. It’s an ambush. They must have scryed our approach.”
“How many?” I asked, readying my staff.
“There are three, Tom. But they’ll soon sniff out our presence and then signal to the others.”
“Then it’s best that they die quickly!” Agnes said. “They’re mine!”
Before Alice or I had time to react, Agnes was surging forward, bursting through the thicket into the small clearing that surrounded the sepulchre. Witches have varying levels of skill when long-sniffing approaching danger; while Alice was very good at it, some are relatively weak. Moreover, an attack that is improvised and instantaneous rather than premeditated can take the enemy completely by surprise.
The screams that came from the clearing were shrill and earsplitting, filled with terror and pain. When we caught up with Agnes, two witches were already dead and she was feeding from the third. The woman’s limbs thrashed as Alice’s aunt sucked the blood from her neck in great greedy gulps.
I was appalled by the speed with which Agnes had changed; she no longer bore any resemblance to the kindly woman who had helped us so many times in the past. I stared down at her in horror, but Alice just shrugged at my look of disgust. “She’s hungry, Tom. Who are we to judge her? We’d be no different in her situation.”
After a few moments Agnes looked up at us and grinned, her lips stained with blood. “I’ll stay here and finish this,” she said. “You get yourselves to safety in the tunnel.”
“More enemies will be here soon, Agnes,” Alice told her. “Don’t linger too long.”
“Don’t you fear, child, I’ll soon catch you up. And if more come after these, so much the better!”
We could do no more to persuade Agnes, so, very reluctantly, we left her feeding and headed for the sepulchre. The building was almost exactly as I remembered it from my last visit—getting on for two years ago—but the sycamore sapling growing through its roof was taller and broader, the leafy canopy that shrouded this house of the dead even thicker, increasing the gloom within.
Alice pulled the stub of a candle out of her skirt pocket, and as we walked into the darkness of the sepulchre, the flame flickered into life, showing the cobwebbed horizontal tombstones and the dark earthen hole that gave access to the tunnel. Alice took the lead and we crawled through. After a while the tunnel widened and we were able to stand and make better progress.
Twice we paused while Alice sniffed for danger, but soon we’d passed the small lake once guarded by the killer wight—the eyeless body of a drowned sailor who’d been enchanted by dark magic. This one had been destroyed by one of the lamias, and now no trace was visible, his dismembered body parts long since lost in the mud at the bottom. Only a faint unpleasant odor was testimony to the fact that this had once been a very dangerous place.
Before long we reached the underground gate to the ancient tower and were walking past the dark, dank dungeons, some still occupied by the skeletons of those tortured by the Malkin clan. No spirits lingered here now: on a previous visit to this place, my master had worked hard to send them all to the light.
We soon found ourselves in the vast cylindrical underground hall—and saw the pillar hung with chains. There were thirteen in all, and to each was attached a small dead animal: rats, rabbits, a cat, a dog, and two badgers. I remembered their blood dripping down into a rusty bucket, but now it was empty and the dead creatures were desiccated and shrunken.
“Grimalkin said that the lamias created the gibbet as an act of worship,” Alice said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “It was an offering to your mam.”
I nodded. On our previous visit, the Spook and I had wondered what the purpose of the gibbet was. Now I knew. I was dealing with things that had very little to do with the warm, caring person I remembered. Mam had lived far beyond the normal human span, and her time spent on the farm as a loving wife and the mother of a family of seven boys had been relatively short. She had been the very first lamia; she had done things that I didn’t care to think about. Because of that, I’d never told my master her true identity. I couldn’t bear the thought of him knowing what she’d done and thinking badly of her.
CHAPTER IV
SHE WHOM YOU MOST LOVE
THERE was no sign of the lamia, so we began to climb the steps that spiraled up around the inner walls. High in the ceiling above, the lamias had enlarged the trapdoor into an irregular hole to allow themselves easier access. We clambered through this and continued up more stone steps, worn concave by the pointy shoes of many generations of Malkin witches, our footsteps echoing off the walls. We were still underground, and water was dripping from somewhere in the darkness far above. The air was dank, the light of Alice’s candle flickering in a cold draft.
We began to pass the cells where the witches had once incarcerated their enemies. On our last visit to the tower, we had spent some time in one of them, fearing for our lives. But when two of the Malkins had come to slay us, Alice and Mab Mouldheel had pushed them off the steps, and they had fallen to their deaths.
There was a noise from inside, and I saw Alice glance at the door of our former prison. She raised her candle and headed for the entrance. I followed, staff held at the ready, but it was just a rat, which darted past us and scampered down the steps, long tail trailing after it like a viper. As we started to climb again, Alice looked down to the place where her enemy had died. She shuddered at the memory.
In a strange way, that natural reaction gladdened my heart. By exerting her magical power, Alice might have moved closer to the dark, but she was still able to feel emotion and was not so hardened that she had lost herself, finally surrendering her innate goodness.
“It was a bad time, that!” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t like to be reminded of what I did there.”
My brother Jack, his wife, Ellie, and their young child, Mary, had also been prisoners in that cell. As they’d opened the cell door, a witch had uttered words that chilled me to the bone:
“Leave the child to me,” she’d said. “She’s mine. . . .”
At that moment Alice and Mab had attacked them.
“You did what you had to do, Alice,” I reassured her now. “It was them or us. And don’t forget that they came to kill a child!”
At the top of the steps we emerged into the storehouse, with its stink of rotting vegetables. Beyond this lay the living quarters, once home to the Malkin coven and their servants. Mam’s trunk was there—the one that contained her notebooks and artifacts. It was open, and beside it stood the lamia, Slake.
The trunks had been stolen from our farm and brought here by the Malkin witches. Mam’s two lamia sisters had been hidden in the other two trunks. I had released them, and they’d driven the witches from the tower. Since then, it had been safer to just leave the trunks here, guarded by the lamias.
Slake’s face was now bestial in appearance, and her body was covered in green and yellow scales. Her wings were almost fully formed and folded across her shoulders. Was she still able to speak? I wondered.
>
Almost as if she had read my mind, she spoke, her voice harsh and guttural. “Welcome, Thomas Ward. It is good to see you once more. Last time we met I was unable to speak; soon I will lose that ability again. I have much to say to you, and we have little time.”
I bowed before replying. “My thanks for guarding the trunk and its contents and keeping them safe for me. I was sorry to learn of the death of Wynde, your sister. You must feel very lonely now.”
“Wynde died bravely,” the lamia rasped. “It is true that I am lonely after spending so many long, happy years in the company of my sister. I am ready to leave the tower and find others of my kind, but your mother has commanded me to stay until you have learned all there is to know here. Only when you have destroyed the Fiend will I be free to fly away.”
“I was told that there is an artifact in the trunk, a sacred object that might help my cause. May I see it?” I asked.
“It is for your eyes only. The girl must leave while I show it to you.”
I was about to protest when Alice spoke up.
“It’s all right, Tom. I’ll go back and meet Agnes,” she said with a smile.
“There is another with you?” asked Slake, extending her talons.
“Remember the witch who was slain below the tower? Her name is Agnes Sowerbutts, and her body was carried to Witch Dell by your sister,” Alice explained. “She is still an enemy of the Fiend. As a powerful dead witch, she will be a strong and useful ally.”
“Then go and guide her to us,” the lamia commanded.
Alice left the room and I heard her pointy shoes descending the stone steps. Alone with the lamia, I suddenly felt nervous, my senses on full alert. She was dangerous and formidable, and it was difficult to be at ease in the presence of such a creature.
“In all, there are three sacred objects that must be used to destroy the Fiend,” hissed the lamia. “The first is already in your possession—the Destiny Blade given to you by Cuchulain. It is fortuitous that it came into your possession. Otherwise you would have needed to journey to Ireland again in order to retrieve it.”
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