But at what cost to myself?
Would it be better to allow myself to be sacrificed after all?
But then Grimalkin told me something that made me put aside my own concerns.
“I also come to meet you with news of a great danger,” she said. “I have been on a journey far to the north, where I encountered a strange nonhuman species called the Kobalos; they have powerful mages, able to wield strange magic that may eventually pose a threat to the County. They have the ability to create monstrous creatures, and they enslave human women because they have no females of their own.”
“No females? How can that be possible?” I asked.
“They murdered all their own long ago,” Grimalkin replied. “I fear that soon they will burst out of their northern territory and embark upon a war that will have dire consequences for humans. They will kill all our men and boys, and our women will become slaves. It is vital that we deal with the Fiend quickly and put an end to him once and for all. Once that is done, we can begin to prepare for that new threat. Alice, we must use the Doomdryte!”
It fills my heart with sadness to have approached so close to the house of Old Gregory without being able to greet Tom. I have missed him so much. . . . When Grimalkin guided me away from Chipenden, I thought my heart would burst with the pain of it.
But she is right. She has convinced me that we must use the Doomdryte. And this is something that we can tell neither Tom nor his master, because they would strive to prevent it.
I believe my magic will enable me to bring sufficient concentration to bear upon the recital of the long spell so that I may complete it successfully. That done, I will use the power I have acquired to destroy the Fiend.
But I know that the consequences for me will be terrible.
The mark on my skin will quickly become a dark full moon. I will be bound to the dark forever, a thing without conscience, compassion, or a shred of human feeling.
That is a more terrible sacrifice than to die at the hands of Tom Ward, but it is the course that I have embarked upon.
For now, the witch assassin and I are living in a ruined cottage not too far from the Spook’s house. It is the place where I once stayed with Lizzie while she plotted the death of John Gregory, hoping to free Mother Malkin from the pit in his garden. It is from that cottage that I once set out and met Tom for the first time.
Now it is the place where I will triumph or die in the attempt.
I must be brave.
I must do what has to be done.
I am Alice.
CREDITS
Cover art © 2013 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: I Am Alice
Copyright © 2013 by Joseph Delaney
First published in 2013 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title Alice.
First published in 2013 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 © 2013 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 ebook 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.
www.epicreads.com
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman and Paul Zakris
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-171513-6 (trade ed.)
EPub Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062373168
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FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
DEDICATION
FOR MARIE
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter I - Another Way
Chapter II - The Spook’s Legacy
Chapter III - The First Lamia
Chapter IV - The Unexplained
Chapter V - The Wardstone
Chapter VI - The Doomdryte
Chapter VII - A Terrible Scene
Chapter VIII - Only You Can Do It
Chapter IX - The Ambush
Chapter X - The Pursuit
Chapter XI - The Dark Tower
Chapter XII - The Coffin
Chapter XIII - The Vast, Dark Tide
Chapter XIV - The Spook’s Boggart
Chapter XV - The Battle on the Steps
Chapter XVI - A Tide of Blood
Chapter XVII - The Dark Rider
Chapter XVIII - The Last Apprentice
Chapter XIX - A Price to Be Paid
Chapter XX - Tendrils of Green Mist
Chapter XXI - A Scrawny Boy
Chapter XXII - A Fierce, Warlike Race
Chapter XXIII - The Abhumans
Chapter XXIV - A Plague of Skelts
Chapter XXV - Brewer’s Farm
Chapter XXVI - Nobody Will Be Safe
Chapter XXVII - The Clash of Witch Assassins
Chapter XXVIII - The Battle of the Wardstone
Chapter XXIX - A Question of Time
Chapter XXX - A Terrible Hunger
Chapter XXXI - The Tower of Time
Chapter XXXII - Draw Your Sword
Chapter XXXIII - Lamia Blood
Chapter XXXIV - The Last Lesson
Chapter XXXV - The Chipenden Spook
Epilogue
Credits
Copyright
CHAPTER I
ANOTHER WAY
I awoke from a nightmare, my heart pounding, and sat up in bed feeling sick. For a few moments I thought I was going to vomit, but gradually my stomach settled down.
In my dream I had been killing Alice—cutting away her thumb bones.
At Halloween, now barely a month away, I would have to carry out this terrible ritual in the real world. It was what was expected of me. My mam wished it, for it was the only way to end the threat of the Fiend forever.
But how could I do it? How could I kill Alice?
I lay awake, fearful of going back to sleep lest the nightmare resume. Painful thoughts continued to swirl through my head. Alice was a willing victim. She was prepared to be sacrificed. Not only that, but she had bravely ventured into the dark to retrieve the Blade of Sorrow. This was one of the hero swords—three sacred weapons to be used to destroy the Fiend . . . weapons that would kill her in the process.
The hero swords had been forged by the Old God Hephaestus; the first of these was the Destiny Blade, given to me by Cuchulain in Ireland. The second was called Bone Cutter, and now, if Alice had succeeded in her quest into the dark, I would possess all three.
At the moment the Fiend was bound to his dead flesh—his body impaled with silver spears in the Irish countryside, his head in a leather sack in the possession of Grimalkin, the witch assassin. She was on the run, fighting desperately to keep it from the Fiend’s servants. If they got hold of it, they would reunite head and body, and the Fiend would walk the earth once more, and the ritual could not take place.
But Alice had still not returned from the dark. Perhaps something had happened, I thought. Maybe she would never come back. . . .
I was also worried about my brother James,
who had gone missing. The fiend had said that his servants had cut his throat and thrown him into a ditch. I desperately hoped he was lying, but I couldn’t keep the terrible thought of it out of my head for long.
I tried to sleep again, without success, and the night dragged on. Then, just before dawn, the mirror on my bedside table suddenly began to glow. Alice was the only one who ever contacted me using a mirror. I sat up and grabbed it, looking into the glass, hardly daring to hope. For weeks and weeks I had been waiting for word from her. I had thought that perhaps I would see her just stroll happily into the garden, the Dolorous Blade in hand. But now Alice would be able to tell me that all was well immediately.
My heart soared with happiness as she stared out of the glass at me, a faint smile on her lips. She mouthed a sentence: “I’m on the edge of the western garden.”
In the past I used to communicate with Alice by breathing on the glass and writing, but I had grown skilled at reading her lips. She had no difficulty at all in reading mine.
“Wait there!” I told her. “I’ll be down right away.”
I dressed quickly, then went downstairs as quietly as possible, trying not to wake the Spook. As I headed out through the back door, a thought struck me: Why hadn’t Alice come into the garden?
The sky was growing lighter in the east, and as I passed the bench where my master sometimes gave me lessons, I saw Alice waiting at the edge of the trees.
She was dressed as I had last seen her—in a dark dress that just came down below her knees, and her pointy shoes. But what cheered me most of all was the smile on her pretty face. I ran toward her and she opened her arms, her smile broadening. We hugged each other tight and rocked back and forth.
“You’re safe! You’re safe!” I cried. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
At last we broke apart and stared at each other silently for a moment or two.
“There were times when I thought I’d never escape from the dark,” Alice said. “But I did it, Tom. I got in and out safely, and I have the blade. Glad to see you, I am.”
She pulled it from a pocket and held it out to me. I turned it over and over in my hands, looking at it closely. It looked just like its twin, Bone Cutter: the same skelt with ruby eyes adorned the hilt, staring up at me. The skelt was a killer that hid in crevices near water before scuttling out on its eight legs to pierce its victims with its bone tube and drain their blood.
I forced my eyes away from the blade and looked again at Alice, feeling a surge of happiness. I’d missed her so much. How could I ever have considered sacrificing her? Even the destruction of the Fiend surely couldn’t justify it. It was clear to me now that I couldn’t go through with it. Tears came to my eyes and a lump to my throat.
“You’re brave, Alice. Nobody else could have succeeded. But I’m sorry—you did it all for nothing. I can’t go through with the ritual. I won’t sacrifice you. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. We’ll have to find another way to put an end to the Fiend.”
“It’s funny, Tom, but you’re the second person to tell me that my going into the dark was unnecessary. Grimalkin thinks so, too.”
“You’ve talked to Grimalkin? I haven’t seen her in over a month.”
“Grimalkin’s been helping me. She’s found another way to destroy the Fiend—we’re working on it together. I’m hopeful, Tom. I really believe we can do it without the need for such a sacrifice. Had to come and see you and tell you, I did, but I’ve got to get back now. There’s work to do.”
I couldn’t believe that Alice was already going off again.
We’d been apart for so long, and now all we’d had was a couple of minutes together. It was so disappointing. I wanted to know more about Grimalkin’s plan. How had she discovered a method that Mam had not been aware of?
“Come back to the house for a while, please,” I begged her. “Tell me what’s going on. And I’d like to know how you coped in the dark—I’m sure the Spook will have all sorts of questions to ask you, too.”
But Alice shook her head firmly. “That ain’t possible, Tom. You see, Grimalkin’s plan makes use of seriously dark magic. It’s the only thing that’ll work. Old Gregory wouldn’t approve, you know that. He’s bound to ask me questions about what I’m up to, and I’d have to lie to him. He’s good at telling when people are lying. It’s best that I go.”
“Then when will I see you again, Alice?”
“Ain’t sure, but Grimalkin and I will return for sure. . . . See you when we’ve succeeded.”
Alice looked just as I remembered her, but as she spoke now, she sounded different—completely confident of success. Was she being overconfident?
“Is it dangerous?” I asked nervously.
“I won’t lie to you, Tom. Of course it’s dangerous. But we’ve been in danger from the dark from the moment we met, and we’ve always come through safely. Don’t see why this shouldn’t be the same.”
Suddenly she rushed into my arms and kissed me fiercely on the lips. Before I could respond, it was over; she broke away from me and began to walk off.
I stared after her in shock. I was stunned. Why had she kissed me? Could it really be that she cared for me as much as I cared for her? I had never known. I desperately wanted to hold her in my arms again.
Alice turned, looked back, and called out over her shoulder, “Take care, Tom! Don’t tell Old Gregory you’ve seen me. It’s best that way.”
And then she was gone. There was so much I hadn’t had time to ask her. What had it been like in the dark? How had she managed to survive and retrieve the blade I now held in my hand?
I walked back toward the house sadly. I was very relieved that Alice had returned safely, but now I had something else to worry about. What were Alice and Grimalkin about to attempt? No doubt there were great risks involved.
She’d asked me not to tell my master that I’d met her. One part of me agreed with her; it was probably for the best to keep it from him—he’d only ask questions. But I’d kept too many things from him in the past. I’d have to hide the blade to make sure he didn’t see it.
I’d been feeling increasingly guilty about such deceptions. Each had seemed very necessary at the time, but they had accumulated, and the more there were, the worse I’d felt. This was one more to add to the list, and I didn’t like it.
CHAPTER II
THE SPOOK’S LEGACY
THE following day, late in the morning, the Spook and I were sitting at a table in his new Chipenden library. Opposite us sat a small thin man dressed in a black three-piece suit and a white shirt with a dark gray tie. He was a lawyer, a Mr. Timothy Potts, who had made the journey south from Caster. He was taking notes as my master spoke.
The Spook was making his will. Or, to be more accurate, he was updating it.
As he did so, I looked around, only half listening. The house had burned down and had been rebuilt, and now almost everything within it was new. The library smelled of fresh wood. The shelves were still mostly empty and probably contained fewer than three dozen books. It would take a long time to restore it, and much of what had burned was irreplaceable—especially the legacy of books written by former spooks, with their personal accounts of how they’d practiced their trade. We dealt with ghosts, ghasts, boggarts, and witches—all manner of things from the dark. So we relied on books and notebooks a lot. Our careful records were vital; we looked to the past in order to prepare for the future.
“So those are my wishes,” ended the Spook very firmly.
Mr. Potts adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and coughed to clear his throat. “I’ll read it back to you, Mr. Gregory. Please interrupt if you have anything to add or feel that I have not accurately recorded those wishes.”
The Spook nodded, and Mr. Potts began to read very slowly, with hardly a trace of a County accent. He sounded really posh. He was obviously an “incomer” who had been born and educated down south.
“‘I leave my two main houses, at Chipenden and Anglezarke, t
o my apprentice, Thomas Ward, including all fixtures, fittings, books, and tools of the trade. They remain his, as long as he lives, on condition that he practices the trade of spook for as long as he is able. In his own will, he may only leave them to another spook, and on these same conditions.’”
I was sad to hear those words. It made me feel as if my time as the Spook’s apprentice was almost over. But I took a deep breath and tried to think positively. Our time together might be drawing to a close, but surely we had another couple of years—time to complete my apprenticeship properly, and then perhaps continue when I was a fully trained spook, so that I could take some of the burden off his shoulders.
“‘I grant the use of my third house, north of Caster, which I inherited from William Arkwright, to Judd Brinscall, for as long as he practices as a spook in that location. In the event of his death or early retirement from the trade, that property, with its library, will revert to the ownership of Thomas Ward on the same terms stipulated for my other properties.”
Bill Arkwright had died fighting the dark in Greece. Now Judd Brinscall, a previous apprentice of the Spook, had taken up residence in Bill’s old water mill and was attempting to deal with the water witches there.
Mr. Potts gave a little cough. “Is that correct, Mr. Gregory?”
“Aye, it’s correct,” my master confirmed.
“What about your other financial affairs? Have you any income to dispose of?”
The Spook shook his head. “There is nothing significant, Mr. Potts. This is not a trade that makes a man rich. But if money is in my possession at my death, I leave that to my apprentice, Master Ward.”
“Very well.” Potts made a further short note before packing up his papers, pushing back his chair, and rising to his feet. He took his pocket watch from his waistcoat and glanced at the time before tucking it away again. “I will write this up in the proper manner and return here next week so that you may sign the document.”
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