Gallows at Twilight (36 page)

‘Qui—’

The man on the stairs smiled down at Mr Pi—Jake shook his head—the demon’s name would not come to him.

‘That’s right, Jacob—listen to Miss Lethe’s music. Let it charm the thoughts from your mind, let it soothe all your sad and hateful memories away.’

The yellow-eyed demon laughed. It lifted a mocking talon and beckoned Jake on. He had almost reached the harpist when a weak voice called out:

‘Jake. Stop. Come back.’

Something familiar in that tone. Instinct told him to trust the stranger. Looking over his shoulder, Jake saw the golden-haired girl framed in the doorway. Who was she? Her name haunted his lips but the music snatched it away. The music: it moved through his mind like a breeze, snuffing out the light of memories, leaving only darkness in its wake.

‘Come back to me … Ja—’

The creases in the girl’s brow smoothed out. The muscles in her face relaxed. Memories vanished, and with them all emotion, thought, and feeling was gone. Jake turned his back on her.

More darkness than light now. Memories closing down around him. Birthdays, Christmases, bedtimes, holidays, school trips—all of it taken by the music. And as each light was swept away, so people vanished into shadows. Eddie Rice and Dr Holmwood, Joanna Harker, Dr Saxby, the Preacher, Pandora, Lanyon and Murdles, Brag Badderson, Rachel, Simon, his father … his mother …

He must fight it, must cling to something.

The girl in the doorway.

‘El-Elea—’

‘Let her go, Jacob,’ the harpist sighed. ‘Let them all dance away into the dark.’

She turned her elfin face to him and smiled.

‘Lethe,’ he breathed.

Something stirred in his mind. The pages of a book. A boy with a crooked smile had once given the book a name—‘Jake’s dark compendium’. No, that wasn’t right. ‘Dark archive’? He shook his head. It didn’t matter. It was what the book told him that was important.

‘Is that your real name?’ he asked. ‘Lethe?’

‘That’s right,’ the witch crooned, her fingers plucking the strings.

‘Lethe,’ Jake breathed. ‘Roman myth … ’

‘Greek,’ she corrected.

‘Greek. Yes. Lethe was one of the rivers of the Underworld. Anyone who drank the waters would … they would … ’

Jake clutched his head. Screamed against the vanishing. The book was gone.

‘Yes,’ the witch smiled, ‘they would.’

There was something he could do. He wasn’t powerless. This was the work of magic and he … He was … What was he? Jake stared at his outstretched hands. He turned them over, as if looking for something that
should
be there.

What was he?

Who
was he?

Another light snuffed out. Another memory taken.

And the music played on … and on … and on …

Chapter 31

Jake’s Sacrifice

‘Who am I?’

‘My dear, how should
I
know who you are?’ the lady at the harp tittered. ‘Such a silly question!’

The hall in which the boy found himself was very grand. As large as an upturned ship’s hull, the great arched ceiling soared beyond the reach of candlelight. The boy stared into the ceiling. Shouldn’t there be rain falling through the roof? Wasn’t there someone upstairs, waiting to be rescued? He tried to remember, but the music swelled and swamped his senses.

‘Have a care, Lethe,’ said the man on the stairs. ‘My master will not thank you if the child’s core memories are lost. He will want to examine the boy’s magical abilities in detail.’

‘Very well, Master Quilp. I will only take away those memories most precious to him.’ The woman stared at the boy, as if seeing deep into his soul. ‘Memories of his father and his friends. Memories of his beloved Eleanor.’

Eleanor …

A light reignited in the darkness.

He spun round and saw the girl in the doorway. She was reaching out to him.

‘Eleanor.’

Her name left his lips and the magic appeared in his hand—a bright blue flame sizzling red at its edges. The roar of Oldcraft drowned out the song of the harp and Jake reclaimed his name from the shadows. The lights came back on inside his head, one by one: birthdays, Christmases, bedtimes, holidays, all brightening the corridors of his mind. The people who had shaped his life crowded back in, and with them came the identity of the man on the stairs.

The murderer, Tobias Quilp.

The flame in Jake’s hand darkened.

‘Eleanor, are you all right?’ he called.

The girl nodded. Her face had lost that vacant, empty expression.

‘Stay where you are.’ Jake switched his attention to the witch at the harp. ‘You know something, Miss Crowden? I never did like classical music.’

Lethe looked from the ball of magic to Jake’s grim, determined face. Her shaking fingers left the strings.

‘This was my revenge!’ she shrieked. ‘You killed my sister!’

‘She killed herself,’ Jake spat back. ‘I was there. I
remember
.’ He drew his hand back over his shoulder. ‘Now, if I were you, I’d move away from that demon.’

Jake was about to hurl the magic when a shout from Eleanor alerted him to danger.

In a two-pronged attack, Quilp had released Mr Pinch while at the same time summoning a dark hex. The demon bounded down the stairs, its thick tongue lashing around its lips. As it ran, flecks of green mucus flicked out from the large, weeping hole that served as its nose.

Forced to turn away from Lethe, Jake sent his magic streaming towards the demon. It struck Mr Pinch with such power that the creature was plucked into the air and dashed against the wall. Pinch hit the ground and stayed there, shaking a dazed and hideous head. Jake barely had time to recover before Quilp’s hex struck. It left the witch’s fingers in the form of a jagged, blood-red lightning bolt.

‘Know my pain!’ Quilp shouted. ‘Feel it!’

Jake thrust out his left hand. The lightning hit his palm and the smell of scorched skin filled the air. Dark magic juddered along the length of Jake’s arm and shrieked into every corner of his body. It felt as if his blood had been turned into a river of fire and that flames were dancing in the chambers of his heart. He staggered under the onslaught of the hex.

Maintaining the lightning stream, Quilp descended the stairs.

‘They told me that you had become a great sorcerer,’ he laughed. ‘Magic at your command as powerful as any wielded by Josiah Hobarron. It seems that such reports were exaggerated.’

As he stepped off the last stair, Quilp brought his wrists together. The source of the hex throbbed in the bowl between his hands and grew stronger.

‘Come now, show me this legendary Oldcraft I have heard so much about.’

Jake tried to lean into the lightning stream, to deflect it, but the hex was too powerful. All he could do was to contain the worst of it in his hand; a strategy that could not continue for much longer.

Lethe Crowden left her harp and skipped to Quilp’s side. Pinch walked groggily to stand beside his master. The dark triumvirate looked down on Jake like cats eyeing a wounded mouse.

‘You and your father have haunted my dreams these many nights,’ Quilp said. ‘A pair of murderers stalking my nightmares.’

‘Muh-murderers?’ Jake panted. ‘
You
are the murderer, Quilp. My mother … ’

‘
My
definition of murder is the destruction of a glorious life by an unworthy adversary. Your mother was a pathetic nobody, a scientific tinkerer without a scrap of magic in her veins. Yes, I killed her, and what did it matter? Even in the world of Man such an inconsequential life was shrugged away. But you and your father! You murdered a woman whose dark light shone with
such
brilliance … ’

Jake could hardly believe the emotion in Quilp’s voice. Could such a monster really grieve?

‘Mother Inglethorpe,’ Quilp shouted, spit flying from his lips. ‘My Esther!’

And now Jake understood the force behind the hex. It was born of love. Dark, unkind, and twisted, but love just the same.

Love—magic’s most powerful spur.

Quilp joined his hands together and the source of the hex pulsed with fresh intensity. Jake felt it blaze into his flesh, reach deep and burn him from the inside out. He screamed and fell to his knees.

Cool hands touched his face. Eleanor, kneeling beside him.

‘What can I do?’

‘Go,’ Jake hissed. ‘Run.’

‘The girl.’ Quilp looked to the veiled lady chained at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Yes indeed, your coming was also foretold by Mistress Frija.’

Frija Crowden shivered at Quilp’s words.

‘Before you die, Jacob, you will know some of my pain. You will lose the thing you treasure most.’ The effort of maintaining the hex was beginning to show as Quilp addressed Lethe. ‘A little sport for you, my dear.’

Lethe giggled and skipped back across the hall. She was within ten metres of Jake and Eleanor when she stopped and clicked her fingers. A pretty red flame flickered at the tips.

‘Such a fine young girl.’ Lethe’s tongue slipped over her lips. ‘Such sweet and supple skin. Yes, I see that I shall enjoy my lonely supper tonight.’

She swirled the magic and directed her fingers at Eleanor.

‘No!’

Jake broke his defensive spell and switched all the magic to his right hand. As soon as he had relaxed his guard, the full power of Quilp’s hex struck home. Jake tried to ignore the pain and focus on his conjuring. There was no point in targeting Lethe, the spell had already left her fingers. Instead, he sighted the magic itself—a flame-red orb flying towards Eleanor—and released.

Jake’s burst of blue light struck the orb like one missile crashing into another. Both spells shot into the ceiling, illuminating the web-strewn darkness with flares of red and blue. While Jake screamed with pain and hit the floor, the two bolts of magic smashed through the roof. The impact shook Havlock Grange to its foundations. Tiles, dust, and debris rained across the Great Hall. Cracks splintered the walls and ran through the floor.

Shaken by the explosion, Quilp lost focus. His hex spluttered and died in his hands. Despite this, the witch smiled victoriously: one look at Jake, wrapped in a tight ball of agony, was enough to show him that the dark spell had achieved its purpose. The boy had been weakened and could now be transported back to the Demon Father. Quilp snapped his fingers. A moment later, Marcus Crowden’s nightmare box emerged from one of the upstairs corridors and swept into the hall. It swirled behind Quilp, waiting, watching.

Lethe looked at Quilp imploringly. ‘May I?’

‘Yes, my dear. Finish her.’

Jake strived with every sinew to move but the pain was too great. He felt Eleanor’s arms tighten around him.

‘Go,’ he gasped. ‘Leave me.’

‘Never,’ Eleanor said.

‘Such nobility. Such bravery,’ Lethe purred. ‘Such love.’

The witch stood over them, a bright red light in her hand. Lethal light, reflected in Eleanor’s eyes.

It was then that Jake caught sight of the veiled figure, bound and chained. She was holding her manacled hands out to him in a gesture of desperation. Jake’s heart responded. That secret store of power deep inside him opened its doors. Magic squeezed a path through his pain-crippled body and gasped into life between his fingers. A tiny flame flitted weakly through the air. It was seen by Quilp and Lethe and dismissed as Jake’s last pathetic attempt to save the girl. A spell unworthy of their attention.

‘Make her suffer,’ Quilp hissed. ‘Make him watch every shred of life being wrung out of her.’

Lethe pointed a finger at Eleanor. Dark magic pulsed at the tip. The girl stared defiantly at the woman, her body thrown over Jake …

Meanwhile, Jake’s magic crept across the floor until it arrived at the feet of the witch. Frija Crowden bent her hands to the flame. At the magic’s touch, the chains snapped and fell from her wrists. Frija pulled the rest of the chains from her body, straightened up, and thrust her arms into the air. Words fluttered against her veil—

‘I am sorry, sister.’

Lethe’s hex vanished from her finger. ‘Frija … ?’

She turned and glared at her sister. Then, following the direction of Frija’s hands, she looked up into the ruined ceiling. Part of an immense wooden beam had been sheared away by the magical crash and now hung precariously overhead. All that kept it attached to the main rafter was a thin strip of wood. Before either Lethe or Quilp could react, Frija dropped her hands and the beam was severed from the ceiling.

Quilp managed to jump aside but Lethe was not so quick.

She opened her mouth to scream.

The wooden spear fell and, in an explosion of blood and gore, silenced the witch for ever. On cue, Lethe’s demon harp burst into flame.

Frija hurried to Jake’s side and helped Eleanor to lift him from the ground.

‘Thank you,’ he panted.

‘You saved my life as much as I saved yours,’ said the veiled woman. She looked to the stairs and the lightless corridor beyond. ‘I pray now that those poor children are at peace.’

Jake reached out with his mind. He felt that, although evil still haunted Havlock Grange, its intensity had weakened. Something had departed from the house.

‘They’re gone,’ Jake whispered. ‘Flown.’

Although he could not see her face, Jake was sure that Frija was smiling. He was about to turn to Eleanor when the coldest of cold voices echoed through the chamber.

‘I am not done yet, boy.’

Quilp, his lip bloody, his clothes torn, staggered to his feet. Beside him, the demonic Mr Pinch.

‘At her!’ Quilp commanded.

In the same instant, he directed two streams of magic towards Jake and Frija. Taken by surprise, both conjurors reacted to deflect the hexes. These spells were much weaker than the dark magic Quilp had originally used against Jake. Still, they were enough to divert attention while Mr Pinch made his move.

The demon sprinted across the hall and threw itself at Eleanor. Pinch followed the trademark attack that had served him well for many centuries: a precision landing at his victim’s throat followed by a brutal, ravenous assault. During those few precious moments while Jake and Frija dealt with the hexes, Pinch unfurled his long, rapier-sharp talons. Eleanor had no time to cry out before the demon slashed at her face. A ribbon of blood folded through the air.