A New Darkness (5 page)

Jenny smiled and gave me a perfect imitation of a barn owl—it was almost
too
good. I’d heard an owl just minutes earlier. Could I tell her call from the real thing?

“Can you do the cry of a corpse fowl?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “but I can do a pretty good imitation of a nightjar.”

Her cry split the darkness, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

It was good, but not quite as perfect as her owl. It was just what we needed.

“You do know that a nightjar is just another name for a corpse fowl?” I said.

“Of course I do! Can’t you tell when someone’s joking?”

I sighed. This was going to be hard work. “When the creature comes back, just give two quick calls, then count to three and give another. Can you manage that?”

“Of course I can, but please be careful! I’ve met a couple of other spooks—one in particular was a pig, and the second had hairy ears and a foul temper. If anything were to happen to you, who would train me? They certainly wouldn’t!”

I wondered how Jenny knew these other spooks. Had she been spying on them too? But this was no time to start questioning her further.

“Yes, I’ll take care. You do the same. Stay in hiding and don’t get any closer to the oak than this. Understand? Look after this for me.” I handed her my staff.

She nodded, inspected it, and gave me a grin in return.

I turned and very cautiously began to approach the huge tree.

I made a slow circuit of its trunk, wondering if there might be another way in. It was worth checking, but I knew that I would probably have to climb the tree and search for an entrance higher up. After all, that was where the creature had emerged from earlier.

That’s why I’d left my staff with the girl—it would simply have been an encumbrance. But it left me with fewer weapons at my disposal: my pocketfuls of salt and iron, and my silver chain.

I began to climb.

It took me a long time to locate the entrance to the creature’s lair. I circled the tree at several different levels until at last I found it.

It was well camouflaged. A human would have made such a door square, oblong, oval, or even round. This bark-covered door was difficult to see because of its irregular shape. Once I’d spotted it, I found I could ease the door open with my fingernails. It swung out easily, on hinges that had recently been oiled.

The next problem was its size. The creature was a lot smaller than me. It would be hard for me to squeeze through that doorway, and I realized that once I was inside it would be difficult to get out again in a hurry. But I’d have to deal with whatever came my way. I wriggled through headfirst, pulling myself through the opening with my hands. I was now pretty much trapped. I had to bind this creature and must not miss with the chain. I felt confident that I could do so—that was one skill I was proud of.

Looking about me, I was surprised by what I found. I had not seen the creature up close in good light, but Jenny had called it a beastie, and from a distance it had resembled a squirrel. I had expected its lair to be that of a wild beast, a predator, the floor perhaps strewn with bones and straw or grass.

So it was a shock to see rows of shelves, a table, chairs, and lambskin rugs dyed a brilliant red. This was an unexpectedly sophisticated dwelling that made me even more confused about what I was dealing with. Many shelves were filled with books, others with glass jars containing what looked like herbs or strange objects floating in a clear liquid or suspended in yellow gel. Each jar was labeled in some foreign language.

Then I spotted something else of interest. There were two bottles of red wine on the table. I knew that they were of human origin because I recognized the labels.

I plucked one of the books from the lowest shelf and opened it. The text was strange and resembled no language I had ever encountered. This creature could read but was clearly from somewhere far from the County.

What was I dealing with here?

As I returned the book to its place on the shelf, something spoke behind me. I say “something,” because although it spoke our language, its voice was guttural, harsh, and rasping; too alien to belong to a human being.

“It is nice of you to come to visit me, human. I am hungry, and your presence saves me the need to hunt!”

For a moment I froze and my heart began to pound with fear, my mouth becoming dry as I realized that I had been tricked. I had assumed that I would be in control, would take the creature by surprise, but it must have known all along that we were watching its tree. It had pretended to leave and then doubled back once I’d entered its lair. I had heard no warning cry from Jenny—she must have failed to see it returning.

I quickly turned to face it. At first I found it difficult to make sense of what I saw. It was dressed in a long black coat fastened with white buttons that could have been made from bone. Its hands were covered in dark fur and its face resembled that of a wolf, but it had been shaved so that, apart from the elongated jaw and sharp teeth, it had a human quality, and the eyes were intelligent. The expression was human too: it showed a mixture of amusement, scorn and arrogance.

But the most significant thing about the strange entity was its size. This was nothing like a squirrel. It was at least as tall as me. Then I remembered what Jenny had said about her “beastie”—something that I’d dismissed at the time.

It could alter its size.

And I was trapped in here with it.

I stared at the creature, my confidence ebbing. It opened its mouth a little, and saliva began to drip from its jaws as if it was anticipating the first taste of a tempting meal. I was now on the menu. It would drain my blood if I didn’t stop it.

“I’m here to put an end to your murdering ways,” I told the creature, trying to take the initiative. But my voice wobbled with fear as I spoke.

“
Murder
, little human? What do you mean? I have killed nobody here yet. You will be the first.”

“You’ve killed three girls. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Ah, girls—you mean
purrai
! That is not murder. Such females exist simply to obey, and their lives may be taken at whim. I am surprised you do not agree. I had a great thirst, so I drank their blood. It is my right and the way of things. Purrai have
no
rights.”

I was appalled by his words, so casually spoken. “What you do in your own land is abhorrent to me,” I told him. “But you are in the County now, and what you have done is a crime here.”

The creature gave a grotesque smile, opening its elongated jaws to show its teeth. “Your land will soon belong to my people! Then your women will abide by our laws. As for the men and boys, they will all be dead.”

The words spun around inside my head. I’d been given a warning, but I could think about that later. Now it was time to act!

Swiftly I reached into my breeches pockets and grasped what I had stored there. In my left hand I clutched salt; in my right, iron. Salt burns entities from the dark; iron drains away their power.

I hurled both handfuls at the creature, and the two clouds, one light, the other dark in color, came together perfectly on its head. This was often enough to destroy a boggart; it could also temporarily disable a witch, making it easier to bind her with a silver chain. But my target reacted in a way I’d never seen before.

The creature sneezed once, then shook its head. Next it gave me a bestial smile as the cloud of salt and iron settled at its feet.

“That was interesting, human,” it rasped. “I have never before been attacked in such a strangely ineffectual fashion. It was a total waste of our valuable time, for we soon shall be very busy together. I will take and you will give. I will have pleasure and you will have pain, until not one drop of your blood remains.”

At first I’d felt alarmed, but I was now getting my fear under control. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and prepared to deal with this beast in a different way.

My silver chain was in the left pocket of my gown. I brought it out already coiled about my left wrist. Then, in one fluent gesture, I flicked it toward the creature.

My cast was perfectly executed. The chain formed a helix above its head, then dropped to bind it from head to knee, one part lying directly across its teeth. This would have been the perfect cast were I dealing with a witch. If this beast was capable of uttering dark magic spells, it would prevent it from doing so.

I thought it was over.

I truly thought that I had won; that the creature was tightly bound.

I smiled. Now I would carry it back to the Chipenden garden and bind it in a pit there.

But I had completely underestimated my adversary.

I had just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

It escaped from the silver chain in a similar way to a skelt. Skelts are large predatory water creatures that can fold their long bony limbs into small crevices to hide while waiting for prey to come within range. A skelt would contract its body and easily shrug off any chain that bound it.

But I wasn’t expecting that now. I was terrified when my opponent suddenly grew smaller, so that the chain dropped off its body and lay in a useless coil upon the floor. Then, within seconds, the creature had inflated itself so that it was far bigger than me—at least nine feet tall. Its eyes glowed red, blazing with fury, and its jaws opened wide.

Jenny’s “beastie” had transformed into a monstrous beast.

I stepped back in alarm, but it quickly reached out to grab me by the shoulder, dragging me toward its huge mouth. I tried to resist, but it was tremendously strong. Saliva dripped from its jaws again. I thought that it intended to start taking my blood there and then, but instead it breathed hard into my face.

I was enveloped in a sweet, spicy smell. Instantly the world spun about me, and I fell into darkness.

My last thought as I lost consciousness was that if it knew about me, it probably also knew about Jenny. She too would be in danger.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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6

Help Me, Please

I
awoke in a very different room, although I guessed I was still inside the oak tree. I could see the curve of the nearest wall, and a smell of damp wood assailed my nostrils.

This was indeed the lair of a beast.

I saw no table, no shelves, and no lambskin rugs. Instead, there was a heap of bones in the corner and a faint smell of blood.

It looked like a dungeon. There were chains hanging from the ceiling. I was lying on my side and was aware of movement to my left, something strange that I couldn’t identify. What was happening? I wondered.

I felt befuddled. My head was throbbing and my vision was blurred. Only very slowly did I start to make sense of what I was seeing.

Finally, with a jolt, I understood the true horror of the scene before my eyes.

Jenny was hanging from the ceiling by her legs; her head, which was about three feet from the floor, was facing me. Her legs were bound together, her hands tied behind her back. The creature was sitting with its back to me, slightly to one side of the girl, and in its mouth was a thin transparent tube. The other end of the tube had pierced the girl’s neck.

That tube was bright red. It was using it to drink her blood.

I tried to move, but I found that I was totally paralyzed. I could only stare in horror as the beast drained her blood.

Then Jenny opened her eyes and stared at me, her face twisted with terror. She was conscious. She knew exactly what was happening to her.

She mouthed something to me. I didn’t understand, but then she repeated it:

Help me. Help me.

Desperate to go to her aid, I struggled to rise. But my body didn’t respond; it no longer obeyed my brain. Sweat began to pour off me as I tried desperately to overcome whatever rooted me to the spot. It was like a nightmare that went on and on without end. Jenny shuddered and groaned, and the beast continued to drink her blood. And all the while, I could do nothing.

But all nightmares come to an end—unless they end in death. Gradually, feeling began to return to my limbs. It began in my extremities, with pins and needles, which spread up my arms to my torso, followed by a burning sensation, as if my limbs were being consumed by fire.

After a while the pain subsided, and I tried moving my fingers. I didn’t want to alert the creature, but it seemed that my whole body was now capable of movement.

What should I do? I couldn’t allow the beast to continue draining Jenny’s blood, but I had no weapon at hand and it was extremely strong, even without any magical abilities it possessed. It had breathed into my face and caused me to fall unconscious.

What else could it do? I wondered.

Had we been on a ley line, I would have summoned the boggart. The pact between us specified that it would answer my cry for help, and in return could take the blood of my enemies. I was sure that it would have made short work of this beast. But my knowledge of the area told me that we were far from the nearest line.