Gallows at Twilight (3 page)

‘
They call me Troll—Gnawer of the Moon—Giant of the Gale-blasts—Curse of the rain-hall—Companion of the—
’

‘Yes, yes,’ Pandora groaned. ‘We’ve heard it all before.’

‘Eh? You wanna hear some more?’

‘I said—WE’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE!’

Brag picked at one of the tusk-like teeth that overhung his bottom lip.

‘Some folk got no culture,’ he grumbled.

‘Brag’s a forest troll,’ Pandora explained. ‘And, as you may have noticed, he’s as deaf as a post. He’s also hideous, rude, stupid, and has the worst personal hygiene of any creature I’ve ever encountered, dark or otherwise. But don’t let any of that put you off. If it comes to a fight, you could do worse than have Brag Badderson in your corner.’

Jake took in the troll’s massive arms and the great stone club that he bounced idly against his shoulder. Pandora was right: this guy was a definite asset to the team!

‘Hey!’ Brag shouted, shivering a shower of leaves from the trees. ‘I may be hideous, rude, deaf and … ’ He counted the insults off on his fingers. As he had only three on each hand the tally seemed to confuse him.

‘And putrid-smelling,’ Pandora said.

‘Yup, that too,’ Brag agreed, ‘but I ain’t dumb. You said I’d be getting paid for this little gig, Pand, so where’s the gold?’

Pandora shot Adam a sheepish look. ‘I promised him gold. Thought the big idiot would forget.’

‘ “
You wanna cross a bridge, you gotta pay the troll
,” ’ Brag said solemnly. ‘That’s the Badderson family motto.’

‘Badderson, Badderson … ’ Adam clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘Of course! Got it!’ He took the mobile phone from his pocket and dialled. While he waited for the call to connect, Adam winked at the confused forest troll. ‘Ah, hello? Yes, this is Dr Adam Harker speaking … Yes, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? How are you? The wife? Good, good. And the other wife? Ah, ran away with a Bulgarian ogre—I’m sorry to hear that … How many kids now? My, you have been busy, Mr Badderson.’

Brag, who had been cupping his ear and listening carefully, looked thunderstruck.

‘Yes, I’m fine, sir,’ Adam continued. ‘I’m just calling because I have your son here. I was telling him about the old days. You remember the time when I helped to smuggle your family out of Scandinavia during the troll-hunting season … ? Indeed, it was
quite
an adventure. Well, I was telling young Brag that I needed a favour, but he seemed quite reluctant to help out, and so I thought … Yes, he’s here.’ Adam held out the phone. ‘Daddy wants a word, Brag.’

The troll gulped. He took the phone, which looked like a baby’s toy pinched between his formidable fingers.

‘Hi, Dad … Yeah, but … but the family motto … The family motto’s horse dung? That’s not what you say when you’ve had a few on Sammal’s Eve … No, please don’t put Mum on … OK, I will … Said I will, didn’t I? No, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, tell her I put a fresh pair on this mornin’ … Yeah, g’night, Dad.’ The troll returned the phone and looked down at his feet. ‘I’m very sorry, Dr Harker. My dad says I’m to do whatever you tell me and to keep my big, fat, ugly mouth shut.’

Pandora slapped the troll playfully across the knee.

‘Well, that’s that sorted. Shall we get this show on the road? By the way, Brag, try to keep that great melon of yours below the trees—we’re not in the grounds yet, but we don’t want to warn them we’re coming.’

The reinforced company struck out, moving ever deeper into the forest.

Adam tried to keep his voice low but Jake heard him whisper to Pandora:

‘Is the troll all you could muster? I was hoping you could bring at least ten dark creatures with you. Maybe more. Loads of you fought against the Crowden Coven.’

‘Times have changed, honey. It ain’t just witches we’re facing these days. Rumours are spreading like wildfire among the dark creatures: something has been released from the demon realm—’

‘But he’s not here,’ Jake cut in. ‘Your contacts, Pandora, they said he’s abroad.’

‘Boarded a plane this mornin’,’ Pandora confirmed. ‘But when he gets back and finds out what we’ve done … Listen, even
I
thought twice about coming tonight.’

‘I guess we should be thankful for small mercies then,’ Adam muttered. ‘But just what is the Demon Father up to? Weeks have passed since he came through from the demon world, but he still hasn’t made a move against us. And all these short trips abroad: the US, Japan, Egypt, Australia, and now Spain. Who’s he visiting?’

‘Beats me,’ Pandora said. ‘All we know is that, wherever he goes, his trident mark turns up a day or two later: burned into cornfields, graffiti tagged onto monuments, even scratched into the earth of the Australian outback. Last night, one of my contacts in Tokyo saw it as a red neon light flashing high above the city streets.’

‘Whatever he’s doing, I’m just glad that this time Pandora found out about his travel plans in advance,’ Jake said. ‘This is our first real chance … ’

He reached for Rachel’s hand.

‘It’s now or never. We have to rescue him tonight. Simon’s counting on us.’

Adam gave a weary sigh. ‘Jake, I know we’ve had this argument before, but are you sure about this? The Demon Father will have left behind powerful protections to guard the boy. Simon is his son and—’

‘I owe him,’ Jake said through gritted teeth.

‘But you have to consider: he may no longer be the boy you knew. He’s half-demon, Jake.’

‘He’s my friend.’ Jake locked eyes with his father. ‘My
best
friend.’

Adam nodded. ‘Very well, then we better get moving.’

They marched on for another ten minutes or so before coming to a break in the forest. A fence, four metres high and covered in barbed wire, cut through the trees. The metal sign attached to the chain-link rattled as they approached.

Chapter 2

Blades of Her Ancestors

‘There’s an old legend about the Crowdens of Havlock Grange,’ Adam said, staring up at the sign. ‘Marcus was the youngest of the family, and the only boy. He had three older sisters—Miss Drude, Miss Lethe, and Miss Frija. Some say that these Crowden sisters would lure orphan children to the house with promises of food and shelter. They pretended to be kindly spinster women, but after a few weeks of fattening the kids up—’

‘They’d eat them,’ Rachel said in a hollow voice.

‘Bloody witches,’ Brag grunted.

‘Aren’t trolls supposed to eat people, too?’ Jake asked.

‘Not women and children!’ The troll looked offended. ‘Only men. Bad men … mostly. We ain’t monsters, you know!’

‘Well, we’ve learned two things about the Demon Father already,’ Adam said. ‘He knows his history and he has a twisted sense of humour.’

‘ ’nough gabbin’.’

Brag strode up to the fence and raised his club.

‘Let me handle this, troll boy,’ said Pandora. ‘All mortals present, please stand well back.’

Her hands reached around and disappeared into a fold at the back of her dress. She drew out eight silver daggers from their hiding place and proceeded to juggle them through the air. The thick blades, curved at an angle of about twenty degrees, dazzled in the moonlight. The speed of the daggers made it difficult to see the designs on the hilts, but Jake thought he could make out images of multi-armed men and women dressed in battle regalia.

‘These are the weapons of my ancestors,’ Pandora called, her voice just audible over the swish of the knives. ‘You guys ready for a show?’

Still juggling the daggers high, she ran like the wind towards the security fence. Jake watched the first blade descend towards the wire. The dagger cut through the chain-link and a mini-lightning bolt shot out from the fence. It wrapped itself around Pandora, sparking and fizzing as it locked her in a lethal embrace. A second bolt, and then a third, struck the woman, rooting her to the spot. Before the eyes of her friends, Pandora blazed and burned.

They were powerless to help. To touch her, even to approach, would mean certain death. Rachel screamed and hid her face in the crook of Jake’s shoulder. Like a great bear, Brag Badderson dropped onto all fours and, with his back arched, hollered at the fence as if it were a living creature. Aside from drenching the others in phlegm his outburst achieved nothing. Wreathed in jagged blue light, Pandora’s body continued to writhe.

Jake thrust out his hand. If he could stop the current, somehow interrupt the flow or, best of all, blow the damn fence to Kingdom Come, maybe there was still a chance to save his friend. He went back to those memories of anger and despair—the sight of his mother’s death, the grinning face of Tobias Quilp, the powerlessness he had felt before his connection with the Witchfinder—hoping that they would prompt his magic. With Pandora dying in front of him it was difficult to concentrate. He stared at his cupped palm and willed the blue flame to spark into life.

Nothing.

He screamed inside. He cursed. He screwed his fury into a white-hot spear of energy and visualized it racing along his arm and breaking between his fingers.

Nothing.

He summoned the face, the voice, the presence of Josiah Hobarron in his mind. What he saw was a dim reflection of the Witchfinder, and so he conjured …

Nothing.

‘Please,’ Jake murmured. ‘Just this once,
please …
’

Pandora shrieked inside her deadly cage of light and energy. Very soon now she would burn up. Her eyes would melt in their sockets, her hair would crackle to a crisp, flesh would roast and peel from her bones. All that would remain was a charred skeleton; a blackened, smoking testament to the failure of Jacob Harker.

Jake couldn’t bear it. His eyes misted with tears and he turned away. He and Rachel stood together, arms wrapped around each other, caught in the flickering light of Pandora’s last moments …

And then Jake felt a hand on his arm. He glanced up at Adam and, to his surprise, saw that his father was smiling.

‘Look closer.’

‘But she’s dying. Dad, I can’t help her.’

‘Look,’ Adam instructed. ‘See.’

Jake wiped away the tears with the back of his hand and forced himself to look back at the fence. To really
look
at the blazing figure of his friend.

‘But that’s impossible!’ he cried, his voice full of wonder and joy. ‘That’s … that’s
brilliant
!’

At first, Jake had thought that Pandora’s violent thrashing was the result of electricity burning through her body. Now he saw that those whips of blue light had nothing to do with her movements. Pandora’s arms moved with a definite purpose. The daggers in her hands slashed through the fence like a hot knife through butter. Thirty seconds later, a heap of shredded metal lay at her feet.

Pandora tossed the daggers high, caught them one-handed, and returned the blades to their hiding place in her dress.

‘The Demon Father juiced that baby pretty good,’ she panted.

Grinning, she turned to the others and a few stray flashes of electricity crackled between her teeth. Rachel ran to her, hesitated, and when Pandora nodded, threw her arms around her.

‘You could’ve warned us you were going to do that! You scared me half to death.’

‘I’m sorry, child, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly human. Kinda thought the arms gave it away, but there you go. Hey, big man, you OK?’

Brag Badderson sniffed and cleared his throat. ‘Course I am. Come on then, you lot. Gab, gab, gab.’

The troll lumbered towards the hole in the fence. Clomping past Pandora, he gave her a hard look.

‘Don’t you ever do that to me again.’

Jake also tried to feign annoyance, but he couldn’t help smiling as he passed his remarkable eight-armed friend.

The forest outside the gate had been creepy enough, but here, in the grounds of Havlock Grange, the atmosphere became ever darker. In some places the trees crowded so close together that Brag had to use his club to beat a path through. Thick branches entangled overhead and blocked out the light of the moon. For the first time, Jake began to hear the rustle of unseen creatures. He took a torch from his pocket, flicked the switch and played the light over the undergrowth.

Like the forest, Jake’s thoughts became bleaker. Once again, at the crucial moment, he had been unable to summon his magic. If Pandora had really been in trouble, he could not have helped her. And yet here he was, walking through a hostile forest, his destination the fortress of the most evil being on Earth. His dad’s doubts were right: this plan was absolutely insane.

Rachel’s hand slipped into Jake’s and squeezed. Her smile knocked all the breath out of his body. Glancing down at his free hand, he saw a pale blue flame skip between his fingers. A second later, it vanished.

‘This is crazy, Rachel,’ he said. ‘We need to get out of here. Now.’

‘We can’t. Simon—’

‘I know, but even if we manage to find Simon, who’s to say that he’ll still be the person we knew? He’s been the Demon Father’s prisoner for weeks now. He’s probably been tortured, brainwashed. And even then … ’ Jake could hardly bring himself to say it. ‘He’s the son of a demon, Rachel.’