The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection

by Joseph Delaney

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Delaney, Joseph, (date).

  The Spook’s Bestiary / by Joseph Delaney ; illustrations by Julek Heller.

  p. cm. — (The Last Apprentice)

  Summary: Ready to be presented to the last apprentice, Tom Ward, the spook’s notebook contains instructions for vanquishing boggarts, witches, the unquiet dead, and other dark creatures and spirits.

  ISBN 978-0-06-208114-8 (trade bdg.)

  EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN 9780062081162

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Horror stories.]

  I. Heller, Julek, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.D373183Sm 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010049856

  11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOSEPH DELANEY lives in Lancashire, England, in the middle of boggart territory.

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  1 I had not been working from the Chipenden house for long when I learned that the village and surrounding area are the very center of County cheese-making.—John Gregory

  I’m sick to death of eating cheese. For me it’s the very worst part of the job. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with it.—apprentice Andy Cuerden

  Andrew Cuerden left within a month of making the above observation. This trade needs discipline. He thought too much about the needs of his belly and lacked commitment.—John Gregory

  1 Leys are lines of power beneath the earth: secret invisible roads that boggarts can travel. Several intersect underneath the Spook’s Chipenden house, and sometimes you can hear a loud deep rumble as a boggart passes by below. This is particularly scary, and I’ve lost more nights of sleep because of this than I care to remember.—apprentice Paul Preston

  2 I was born near Hackensall Hall and a glimpse of the horse boggart there, when I was just five years old, was my first warning that I had the gift of seeing the dead and other creatures such as boggarts. My father had left my mother, running off with another woman, and only years later did I learn that he had also been a seventh son.—apprentice James Fowler

  3 Father Stocks was killed in Read Hall near Pendle by the witch Wurmalde. He was a hard working and sincere priest and also a very capable spook who had for years kept the Pendle parish of Downham free of witches .—apprentice Tom Ward

  The priest was my brother, and although we never got on well, his death saddened me greatly. Unfortunately he set in motion the chain of events by trying to rid himself of the boggart using bell, book and candle. Why do such people have to meddle? When threatened by the dark, it’s sensible to send for a spook,—John Gregory

  4 I once had to try and save a priest who had been trapped by a ripper. It had split open the floor of a church and dragged the priest’s leg into the crack, where it was slowly sipping his blood. Although I successfully freed the priest and bound the boggart—my first—the man died later because we had to amputate his leg in order to free him .—Tom Ward

  We discovered another weakness of the boggart. It was tricked by a maenad assassin, who left blood dishes just outside the garden for the boggart to drink. There must have been something mixed into the blood because it didn’t intercept the assassin; it only attacked and killed her when she was safely bound. The Spook considers it a real problem that might one day happen again. We are no longer as safe in that Chipenden house.—Tom Ward

  5 The boggart managed to keep the Priestown Bane at bay but it suffered badly and could have died. When it materialized afterward, it had been blinded in one eye.

  6 The bait dish, which holds the blood, is a deep metal dish with three small holes drilled close to the rim, at equal distances from each other. These are to take the hooks from a tripod chain, which is used to lower the dish into the pit. Once in position, the chain may be relaxed in order to free the hooks. This demands a skill which takes much practice to acquire. It took me almost a year. It’s especially hard when your hands are shaking with fear.—apprentice Billy Bradley

  7 Two-thirds of my apprentices either failed or died while learning the trade. In addition to that, perhaps another ten fled into the night when taken to the haunted house at Horshaw to be tested. But only one of my apprentices turned to the dark. His name was Morgan, and he became a necromancer. He always sought an easy way to do things, and that was his downfall. Another weakness was laziness. He failed to apply himself properly to the study of the Old Tongue.—John Gregory

  8 I encountered an extremely dangerous one at Stone Farm, near Owshaw Clough. After its thorn tree was chopped and burned down, the boggart relocated to Moor View Farm, to the west of Anglezarke Moor. I went out into the yard to present myself as a target for the stone chucker and so make it use up its power. It was a stormy night, and I needed the weakened boggart to enter the house, where the salt and iron would not be dispersed by the wind.

  9 Spooks and their apprentices are not permitted to be interred in church graveyards, so poor Billy was buried in unhallowed ground just outside the cemetery at Layton. He was my twenty-ninth apprentice. It is vital that lessons are listened to carefully, notes written up accurately, and instructions followed to the letter.—John Gregory

  The boggart was very strong and battered me so hard that I almost died. I crawled back into the kitchen, using myself as bait so that it would follow. It was fortunate that my apprentice, Tom Ward, kept his nerve and slayed the boggart. It was many weeks before I made a full recovery.

  Despite that, I did nothing wrong and dealt with the stone chucker according to the tried and tested method outlined here. Boggarts are dangerous creatures, and the risk of being maimed or killed goes with the job of being a spook.—John Gregory

  1 It is certainly true that females make the Bane nervous. In the labyrinth beneath Priestown Cathedral, Alice drove the Bane away by hissing and spitting into its face .—Tom Ward

  2 Last year, the Pendle witch clans united, the three covens performing a ritual to bring the Fiend through the portal and allow him to stay in our world indefinitely. They only controlled him for two days; now he is his own master and poses the biggest threat to the County since the records in my library began. His influence upon our world is waxing, along with that of the dark. Churches lose their congregations, war grows more savage, and men forget their humanity; father is turned against son, marriages fail, and famine and disease increase.—John Gregory

  3 The Fiend took on the shape of bargeman Matthew Gilbert, who was murdered by the water witch Morwena. It was impossible to tell that it wasn’t the bargeman: In appearance and voice they were identical .– Tom Ward

  4 Twice in my lifetime Golgoth has awakened; both events were facilitated by a human agency—that of my former apprentice, Morgan, who used a grimoire.

  5 Although my second eldest brother received the name James in the local chur
ch, my mam’s secret name for him was Hephaestus. How apt that he should grow up to follow the trade of a blacksmith! Another example of Mam’s ability to see into the future .—Tom Ward

  6 Barrows are interesting and mysterious. Most probably contain more than just the bones of the dead; some surely hide powerful artifacts.—apprentice Morgan Hurst

  7 When we faced the banshee witch, the Morrigan, in the shape of a crow, attacked Bill Arkwright, scratching his head with her claws. He was killed by fire elementals within one year of that attack .—Tom Ward

  8 I saw the Ordeen at close quarters, and she was truly terrifying. Initially she had the form of a human female but with a rank animal smell. Her teeth appeared very sharp and her jaws powerful. But after I bound her with my silver chain, she took on her true shape —that of a huge lizard with green scales, a salamander. She spat fire and scalding steam at me, and when I tried to slay her with my staff, it burst into flames and turned into hot ash in seconds .—Tom Ward

  9 Since the above entry, the Ordeen has been destroyed. As I was one of the group who brought this about, I am in a good position to record what we learned. The portal used by the Ordeen to come into this world was both breathtaking and terrifying—a pillar of fire extending from earth to sky. Through it came an immense citadel known as the Ord, many times the size of Priestown Cathedral. Within it were many traps and dangers, not the least being a multitude of fire elementals, including both translucent and opaque orbs, and also asteri.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen fire elementals, but they behaved as other spooks have recorded, and this enabled me to fight them off, so we owe a great debt to the past. On the roof of the main structure were a large number of abhuman spirits, no doubt trapped by the Ord over aeons as it passed backward and forward through the portal.

  What is truly worrying, though the threat from the Ordeen now seems to have ended, is that we did not discover how she could visit our world without human intervention. If that ability were shared by another of the Old Gods, such as Golgoth or Pan, life on earth would become even more difficult and dangerous.—John Gregory

  10 I have now seen three of the Old Gods enter our world through portals. The first was Golgoth, when Morgan used a pentacle to conjure him into our world. The second was the Ordeen, who entered via her own fiery portal. The third, and perhaps the strangest, was when the banshee witch summoned the Morrigan to kill me, using her own mouth as the portal.—Bill Arkwright

  Once again it must be stressed that it is very dangerous to trust a woman—especially a witch. There are many good women in the world, but even when dealing with a benign witch, never tell her everything; always hold something in reserve.—John Gregory

  1 This type of magic is rarely practiced by witches.—John Gregory

  2 The above is based upon the writings of a very early spook called Nicholas Browne, who traveled far beyond the borders of the County. Apart from his notebooks, there is no evidence that any of his assertions are true, but we must keep an open mind. The world is a big place and much remains to be explored.—John Gregory

  3 The word necromancer comes from the Greek nekros, which means corpse. —apprentice Mark Caster

  4 The black candles are identical to those used by malevolent witches in their rituals. Bony Lizzie had them in her house when I rescued the child called Tommy. I’ve seen them many times since, and their presence is always a bad sign. Their dark color is achieved by mixing human blood into the wax.—Tom Ward

  5 My master’s ex-apprentice, Morgan, turned from the light and practiced necromancy. In return for money, he summoned the dead from limbo for grieving families. Even worse, he trapped the spirit of my own father and made him believe that he was burning in Hell .—Tom Ward

  6 Morgan tried to raise Golgoth a second time and succeeded. However, it cost him his life. It was a horrific death that I will never forget.—Tom Ward

  7 Mr. Gregory keeps a grimoire in the locked writing desk of his Anglezarke house. I once saw him reading it and asked him why it was there. He told me to mind my own business.—apprentice Andy Cuerden

  8 Alice told me that Bony Lizzie owned three grimoires, but they were destroyed by fire when a mob attacked their dwelling near Chipenden. —Tom Ward

  1 Testing a witch? Just never trust a woman. And never trust a woman who wears pointy shoes.—John Gregory

  2 The principle behind the swimming test is right—it’s just the practice that is wrong. Most witches cannot cross running water, so a stream or river would be a better place to test them. Witches also find seawater toxic because of its high salt content.—Bill Arkwright

  3 Agnes Sowerbutts of Pendle could fall into the category of a benign witch, but her status is not certain. She is a healer but uses a mirror for magical purposes, something usually considered a tool of the dark.—Tom Ward

  4 Witches (with the exception of water witches) cannot cross running water. As the Pendle district has numerous streams, some means had to be found to enable witches to move about relatively freely. Thus witch dams were developed. A system of pulleys and a handle are used to lower a big wooden board into a stream to block its flow. The heavy board slides down between two grooved posts into a trench in the bottom of the stream, which is lined with wood to make a good seal. Water quickly builds and flows around the dam, but before it does so, several witches are able to cross safely.—John Gregory

  5 Now I know better. Time has shown that I was wrong to allow Bony Lizzie to escape, and I also should have killed Tusk while I had the chance. Years later, both returned to Chipenden in another attempt to free Mother Malkin. It almost cost me the life of my apprentice, Tom Ward. (How we finally dealt with Mother Malkin is chronicled in Tom Ward’s own notebooks.) I have always had a tendency to be merciful. Sometimes it has cost both me and others dearly.—John Gregory

  6 From what has been learned since the return of the Fiend to this world, it is highly probable that Tusk was an abhuman, the result of a union between a witch and the Fiend.—John Gregory

  7 Inside the Ord there were hundreds of vaengir summoned by the Fiend to swell the ranks of the Ordeen’s servants. This accounts for them rarely being seen elsewhere.—Tom Ward

  8 This is the account of my dealings with the lamia witch Meg Skelton. She has now returned to her homeland, Greece, and I do not expect to see her again. I include it now as a warning to my apprentices. —John Gregory

  9 Seawater, with its high levels of salt, is toxic for witches. They avoid the seashore and cannot safely walk on sand even when the tide is at its lowest ebb. Even water witches die if immersed in seawater for too long. However, witches can and do make successful sea voyages. To do so, they must stay in the boat’s hold as much as possible and dress to shield their skin from the wind and spray. —John Gregory

  Bill Arkwright uses a salt solution in the pits he uses to bind water witches. This makes them docile. He also has a salt moat around his garden to keep others at bay.—apprentice Graham Cain

  10 The current leader of the Mouldheels is Mab. She’s a very young but powerful witch and an extremely skilled scryer. Beware—she will use fascination against a spook if she can!—Tom Ward

  11 The powerful witch Wurmalde journeyed from Greece to Pendle and succeeded in briefly uniting the three main clans to bring the Fiend through a portal to this world. That witch is dead now, and the clans are in conflict once more. We must be watchful lest another outsider comes to bring the Malkins, Deanes, and Mouldheels together again.—John Gregory

  12 These former appearances of the Fiend often lasted just a minute or so. Now, of course, he dwells in our world and threatens it with a new age of darkness.—John Gregory

  13 The witch Bony Lizzie had me trapped in a pit and was ready to take my bones. She was already sharpening her knives when Alice helped me escape. —Tom Ward

  14 Limbo comes from the Latin word limbus, which means the edge or fringe. Souls have to pass through it to reach the light. Some find it harder than others.—John
Gregory

  15 When working with Bill Arkwright, I came into contact with a Celtic witch from Ireland, who used a curse to kill a County landowner. We called her a banshee witch because she behaved like that elemental, the difference being that she brought about the death rather than just foretelling it. In addition to the curse—uttered in the Old Tongue—and the wailing cries, she used a ritual that involved washing and twisting a burial shroud. This caused the heart of the victim to rupture.—Tom Ward

  16 The water witch Morwena had a corpse fowl as her familiar. She used it to hunt for me on Monastery Marsh. It was slayed by Grimalkin, the witch assassin .—Tom Ward

  17 Alice Deane made a pact with the Bane, a very powerful spirit that had formerly been one of the Old Gods. In giving it her blood and attempting to bind it to her will, she was in effect making it her familiar. She was in great danger, but the fact that she was able to deal with it in such a way is a testimony to her power. Alice Deane must never be allowed to turn to the dark.—John Gregory