“I don’t want you training me,” I snapped angrily. “I’m happy with things just the way they are!”
“What makes you think that you’ve any choice in the matter?” Morgan said, his voice suddenly cold and threatening. “I think it’s time to show you just what I can do.”
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Night of the Soul Stealer)
Marcia
Marcia, the sister of the Spook’s love, is a feral lamia witch.
The floorboards were scattered with feathers, splattered with blood and littered with fragments of dead birds. It was as if a fox had got into a chicken coop. There were wings, legs, heads, and hundreds of feathers. Feathers falling through the air, swirling around my head, stirred by the chill breeze that was blowing through the skylight.
When I saw something much larger, I wasn’t surprised. But the sight of it chilled me to the bone. Crouching in the corner, close to the writing desk, was the feral lamia, eyes closed, the top lids thick and heavy. Her body seemed smaller somehow, but her face looked far larger than the last time I’d glimpsed it. It was no longer gaunt but pale and bloated, the cheeks almost two pouches. As I watched, the mouth opened slightly and a trickle of blood ran down her chin and began to drip onto the floorboards. She licked her lips, opened her eyes, and looked up at me as if she had all the time in the world.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Night of the Soul Stealer)
Golgoth
Golgoth, Lord of Winter, is an elemental force, the most powerful of the old gods once worshipped in the County.
“Although trapped within the bounds of this circle, I can still reach you. Let me show you . . .”
Cold began to radiate out from the pentacle, the mosaic whitening with frost. A pattern of ice crystals was forming until I could feel the chill rising into my flesh from the floor, starting to numb me to the bone. I remembered Meg’s warning when I left for home: “. . . wrap up warm against the cold. Frostbite can make your fingers fall off.”
The most severe cold was at my back, close to my hands where they were bound to the ring, and as the cold bit into my flesh, I imagined my frozen fingers with the blood no longer circulating, becoming blackened and brittle, ready to break off like dead twigs from a dying branch. I felt my mouth opening to scream, the cold air rasping within my throat. I thought of Mam. Now I would never see her again. But suddenly I fell away onto my side, away from the iron ring. I glanced back and saw that it was in pieces at the foot of the wall. Golgoth had frozen and fragmented it in order to free me. He’d done it so that I could do his bidding. He spoke to me again from the pentacle, but this time his voice seemed fainter.
“Dislodge the candle. Do it now, or I’ll take more than your life. I’ll snuff out your soul, too. . . .”
Those words sent a deeper chill into me than the cold that had shattered the iron ring. Morgan had been right. My very soul was at risk. But to save it, all I had to do was obey. My hands were still tied behind my back and had no feeling in them, but I could have stood, moved toward the nearest candle, and kicked it over. But I thought of those who would suffer because of what I’d done. The severe winter cold itself would kill the old and the young first. Babies would die in their cradles. But the threat would become even greater. Crops wouldn’t grow, and there’d be no harvest next year. And for how many years after that? There’d be nothing to feed the livestock. Famine would result. Thousands would perish. And it would all be my fault.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Night of the Soul Stealer)
Tibb
Tibb is an inhuman creature created by the Malkin and Deane witch clans during a rare truce between them. He can see things at a distance, and can see into the future.
I could see nothing at all, but I could hear him—claws scratching and scrabbling, biting into wood. Then I realized that the sound was above, not below me. I looked upward just in time to see a dark shape moving across the ceiling like a spider, to halt directly above my bed. Unable to move anything but my head, I started to take deep breaths, trying to slow my heartbeat. To be afraid made the dark stronger. I had to get my fear under control.
I could see the outline of the four limbs and the body, but the head seemed far closer. I’ve always been able to see well in the dark, and my eyes were continuing to adjust until I could finally make some sense of what threatened from above.
Tibb had crawled across the wooden panels of the ceiling so that his hairy back and limbs were facing away from me. But his head was hanging down backward toward the bed, supported by a long, muscular neck, so that his eyes were below his mouth; and those eyes were glowing slightly in the dark and staring directly toward my own; the mouth was wide open, revealing the sharp needlelike teeth within.
Something dripped onto my forehead then. Something slightly sticky and warm. It seemed to fall from the creature’s open mouth. Twice more drops fell—one onto the pillow beside my head, the next onto my shirtfront. Then Tibb spoke, his voice rasping harshly in the darkness.
“I see your future clearly. Your life will be sad. Your master will be dead and you will be alone. It would be better if you had never been born.”
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)
Wurmalde
Wurmalde comes from the same land as Tom’s mother—in fact, they are old enemies, and Wurmalde carries her grudge onto Tom.
Mistress Wurmalde frowned, and anger flashed into her eyes. She took a step toward me: Her skirts rustled and the sound of her pointy shoes made two hard clicks on the cold flags of the kitchen. “Time to think is a luxury that you can ill afford,” she told me. “Have you got an imagination, boy?”
I nodded. My mouth was too dry to speak.
“Then let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a grim dungeon, dark and dreary, crawling with vermin and rats. Imagine a bone pit, redolent of the tormented dead, its stench an affront to high heaven. No daylight reaches it from the upper ground, and just one small candle is allowed each day, a few hours of flickering yellow light to illuminate the horror of that place. Your brother Jack is bound to a pillar. He rants and raves; his eyes are wild, his face gaunt, his mind in hell. Some of it is our doing, but most of the blame must fall to you and yours. Yes, it is your fault that he suffers.”
“How can it be my fault?” I asked angrily.
“Because you are your mother’s son, and you have inherited the work that she has done. Both the work and the blame,” said Mistress Wurmalde.
“What do you know of my mother?” I demanded, stung by her words.
“We are old enemies,” she said, almost spitting the words out.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)
Grimalkin
Grimalkin is the witch assassin of the Malkin clan. She is ruthless and unrelenting, delighting in torture and inflicting pain. The snip-snip of her scissors is a particular favorite, and she uses them to cut the flesh and bone of her victims.
Grimalkin might pull me back as I climbed over the fence. She could catch me crossing the pasture. Or the yard. Then I would have to wait while I unlocked the door. I imagined my trembling fingers trying to insert the key into the lock as she ran up the stairs behind me. But would I even reach the fence? She was getting nearer now. Much nearer. I could hear her feet pounding down the slope toward me. Better to turn and fight, said a voice inside my head. Better to face her now than be cut down from behind. But what chance did I have against a trained and experienced assassin? What hope against the strength and speed of a witch whose talent was murder?
In my right hand I gripped the Spook’s staff; in my left was my silver chain, coiled about my wrist, ready for throwing. I ran on, the blood moon flickering its baleful light through the leaf canopy to my left. I’d almost reached the edge of Hangman’s Wood, but the witch assassin was very close now. I could hear the pad-pad of her feet and the swish-swish of her breath.
As I ran b
eyond the final tree, the farm fence directly ahead, the witch sprinted toward me from the right, a dagger in each hand, the long blades reflecting the moon’s red light. I staggered to my left and cracked the chain to send it hurtling at her. But all my training proved useless. I was weary, terrified, and on the verge of despair. The chain fell harmlessly onto the grass. So, exhausted, I finally turned to face the witch.
It was over, and I knew it. All I had now was the Spook’s staff, but I barely had the strength to lift it. My heart was hammering, my breath rasping, and the world seemed to spin around me.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)
Bloodeye
Bloodeye’s true name is Morwena. She is the daughter of the Fiend, and the oldest and most powerful of the water witches. Some say she has been terrorizing the County for a thousand years.
Morwena surged into the air with the strength of a salmon leaping up a waterfall, her arms outstretched to tear at the Spook’s face, though her left eye was still closed.
My master met her with equal speed. He spun, bringing his staff in a rapid arc from left to right. It missed Morwena’s throat by a hair’s breadth, and with a terrible shriek of anger she flopped back into the water less than gracefully, creating a huge splash.
The Spook froze, looking down into the water. Then, with his right hand, he reached back and tugged his hood up, forward, and down so that it shielded his eyes. He must have seen the pinned eye and realized who he was dealing with. Without eye contact Morwena would not be able to use her bloodeye against him. Nonetheless he would be fighting “blind.”
He waited, immobile, and I watched anxiously as the last ripple erased itself from the surface of the canal, which became as still as glass. Suddenly Morwena surged from the water again, this second attack even more sudden than the first, and then landed on the very edge of the wharf, her webbed feet slapping hard against the wooden boards. Her bloodeye was now open, its baleful red fire directed at the Spook. But without looking up, he stabbed toward her legs and she was forced to retreat.
Immediately she struck at him with her left hand, the claws raking toward his shoulder, but he stepped away just in time. Then, as she moved the other way, he flicked his staff from his left to his right hand and jabbed toward her hard and fast. It was the same maneuver he’d made me practice against the dead tree in his garden—the one that had saved my life in the summer when I’d used it successfully against Grimalkin.
He executed it perfectly, and the tip of his blade speared Morwena in the side. She let out a cry of anguish but leaped away quickly, somersaulting back into the water. The Spook waited a long time but she didn’t attack again.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Wrath of the Bloodeye)
The Fiend
The Fiend is the dark made flesh, the Devil himself.
I heard a noise from the shadows in the far corner of the room: a thump followed immediately by a sizzling, hissing sound. It was repeated twice more.
Suddenly I could smell burning. Wood smoke. The floorboards. And then I saw that although time had stopped and everything within the room seemed to be frozen into immobility, one thing was moving. And what else could move but the Fiend himself?
I couldn’t see him yet—he was invisible—but I could see his footprints advancing toward me. Each time one of his unseen feet made contact with the floorboards, it burned the shape of a cloven hoof into the wood, which glowed red before darkening with a spluttering hiss. Would he make himself visible? The thought was terrifying. I’d been told by Grimalkin that to inspire awe and force obeisance he’d appeared in his true majestic shape to the covens at Halloween. According to the Spook, some people believed his true form was so terrible that anyone who saw it would instantly drop dead. Was that just a scary bedtime tale or was it real? Would he do that to me now?
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Wrath of the Bloodeye)
Credits
COVER ART © 2009 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: The Spook’s Tale And Other Horrors
Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Delaney
First published in 2009 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title The Spook’s Tale.
First published in 2009 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 © 2009 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.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Delaney, Joseph, (date).
The Spook’s tale / by Joseph Delaney ; illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith.
p. cm. — (The last apprentice)
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: As sixty-year-old John Gregory reflects on the past, he reveals how the world of ghosts, ghasts, witches, and boggarts was exposed to him and he later becomes the Spook, even though his first intention had been to join the priesthood.
ISBN 978-0-06-173028-3 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-173030-6 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. Coming of age—Fiction.]
I. Arrasmith, Patrick, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.D373183Sp 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008042235
09 10 11 12 13 LP/RRDH FIRST EDITION 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN 9780062120977
Dedication
FOR MARIE
Contents
Dedication
Meg Skelton
Chapter I - The Fight with the Abhuman
Chapter II - Harboring a Witch
Chapter III - Just a Pussycat
Dirty Dora
Chapter I - My Sabbaths
Chapter II - My Doom
Chapter III - My Revenge
Alice and the Brain Guzzler
Chapter I - My Name Is Alice Deane
Chapter II - A Witch You’ll Always Be
Chapter III - Nanna Nuckle’s Head
Chapter IV - Brain Plugs in Apple Juice
Chapter V - Seven Big Handfuls
The Banshee Witch
Chapter I - A Hard Lesson
Chapter II - The Shroud Washer
Chapter III - The Worme
Chapter IV - The Celtic Assassin
Chapter V - The Banshee Cry
Credits
Copyright
A Coven Of Witches
Meg Skelton
THIS is a tale that must be told, a warning to those who might one day take my place. My name is John Gregory, and I’m the local spook; what now follows is the full and truthful account of my dealings with the witch Meg Skelton.
CHAPTER I
The Fight with the Abhuman
FOR five years my master, Henry Horrocks, had trained me as a spook, teaching me how to deal with ghosts, boggarts, witches, and all manner of creatures from the dark. Now my apprenticeship was complete
d and I was fully qualified, still living at my master’s house, working alongside him to make the County a safer place.
Late in the autumn, an urgent message came from Arnside, to the northwest of the County, begging my old master and me to deal with an abhuman, a foul, monstrous creature that had brought terror to the district for far too long. Many families had suffered at its cruel hands, and there had been many deaths and maimings.
Henry Horrocks’s health had been deteriorating for quite some time, and three days before the message arrived, he’d taken to his bed.
“You’ll have to go on ahead, lad,” he told me, struggling for breath, his chest wheezing as he spoke. “But take care—abhumans can be very strong. Keep it at bay as I’ve taught you, using your staff, then stab it through the forehead. If the job looks too dangerous, keep watch from a distance. As soon as I’m fit enough, I’ll follow you north. Hopefully tomorrow . . . ”
With those words we parted, and carrying my staff and bag, I set off for Arnside. Had I been going to face a witch, I would have borrowed my master’s silver chain, but there were doubts about its effectiveness against abhumans, which have varying levels of resistance toward such tools of our trade as rowan wood, salt, and iron. No—a blade was the best way to deal with such a creature.
I visited Arnside village and a few farms to gather as much information as possible concerning the nature of what I faced and where I would find it. What I heard did little to boost my confidence. The creature was immensely strong and had attacked a farmer only a week earlier, ripping his head from his shoulders while the terrified milkmaid watched from her hiding place in the barn. After killing her unfortunate employer, the abhuman drank his blood, then tore the raw flesh from his bones with its teeth. It had now made its home in a tower and usually went hunting for prey soon after midnight. People for miles around were living in fear; no home was safe.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 278