Gallows at Twilight (6 page)

The skinwalker began to close in on Jake.

‘I’m your friend,’ it purred in its stolen voice. ‘Why do you fear me?’

Jake retreated until his back hit the wall.

‘I’m Simon. Here, touch me, see that I’m real.’

‘I know you’re real.’

The witch stopped an arm’s length short of Jake. His movements were lithe, almost feline.

‘But you’re not Simon. You’re … ’

Names. For the Navajo people, names possessed power. If you named the skinwalker to its face, the legends said that the witch would grow sick and die. Jake didn’t know the name of this dark witch, but he knew
what
he was …

‘I name you—
skinwalker
!’

The predator smiled his last smile. Then his lips fell and every scrap of humanity washed out of his face. The red light in his eyes dimmed. He became as cold and as still as a statue.

Muffled voices called out. Rachel—

‘Jake, we’re here. Are you all right?’

Jake eyed the frozen figure. He sidestepped it and went to the door.

‘Is Brag there? Tell him to club away! I want to get out of here.’

‘Right-o, stand back!’

The door leapt in its frame.

‘Bloody enchanted doors!’ Brag bellowed. ‘This one’s been hexed good and proper!’

An icy hand fell on Jake’s shoulder.

‘You named me, child. Now you will
see
me.’

‘Who’s that?’ Pandora cried. ‘Jake, who’s in there with you?’

Jake tried to answer. All that came out of his mouth was wasted breath. What he witnessed in the pale moonlight was so horrible he could not hope to describe it.

The skinwalker’s mouth opened wide. In the pink dimness at the very back of its throat, just beyond the tongue and behind a pair of saliva-slick tonsils, Jake saw a single dark eye blink out at him. He shuddered—the Navajo witch was actually living somewhere
inside
this body!
CRACK—
the sound of a jaw dislocating. All around the mouth the lips had stretched taut, like rubber bands that were about to snap.

Two fingers emerged from the throat. Others followed, until a pair of russet-coloured hands had grasped the corners of the mouth. The fingers flexed, tensed, and strengthened their grip. Dry and creaky—the sound of skin stretched to breaking point. Warm and wet—the glug of the skinwalker drawing breath from deep inside this borrowed body.

Rooted to the spot by a fearful fascination, Jake could only watch as the witch
unzipped
his skin suit. With a sudden tug, the mouth ripped apart at the corners. Blood burst from the torn flesh in a fine spray that doused Jake’s face. The two tears that had started at the corners of the mouth scissored their way down the neck in rough zigzags. Eventually they met at the chest and came together to form a single and ever-widening gash. The skinwalker’s hands slipped along the raggedy lips of flesh. They tightened their grip again, and he peeled away the rest of the body.

Skin rolled down like a sock stripped from a foot. With it came the rags that ‘Simon’ had been wearing. Both flesh and clothes snagged for a moment around the hips, and the witch had to push and tug them free. Once it reached his legs, the skin suit slipped down easily enough. Finally, it lay upon the floor in a curled, withered pile, like sloughed snakeskin.

Somehow Jake managed to speak.

‘Is Simon dead?’

The little witch blinked up at him. Naked from the waist up, he wore a pair of faded blue jeans with a turquoise pendant tied to one of the belt loops.

‘Your friend lives,’ he said, wiping blood from his dark eyes. ‘I can only replicate the form of living creatures.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Why do you need to know? You will never see him again.’

The Navajo stepped out of the skin pile and strode back to the curtain. He squatted down and picked something from the ground. ‘You will die here.’

The door splintered under the continued barrage of Brag’s club, but still it held.

‘Your friends will not be in time to save you, Jake Harker. The Master himself enchanted that door.’

The skinwalker stepped forward. In his hand he held a short-handled axe decorated along the haft with eagle feathers. He pulled his arm back and launched the tomahawk. The weapon scythed the air and buried itself in the wall a centimetre from Jake’s head.

‘Summon your magic, boy,’ the witch advised, ‘or you
will
die.’

The Navajo was strong and quick. Big muscles ran along his arms, across his torso, and down his back. Even without his dark powers, he would have been a formidable opponent.

He made a dash for Jake and, in one smooth motion, wrenched the tomahawk from the wall. The skinwalker’s elbow smashed into Jake’s jaw and sent him sprawling into the fireplace. Jake cracked his head against the grate. Pain and panic rattled through him. He looked up into a victorious face, slick with blood.

‘I cannot believe the Master has gone to so much trouble over such a miserable child.’ The skinwalker stood astride Jake, feet planted wide, tomahawk raised. ‘He told me that you had bested powerful witches! Told of how you stopped the Demontide and destroyed the Door! What has happened to you, little one?’

Jake held out his hand. The smallest of blue flames crackled in his palm.

‘Is that it?’ the witch roared. ‘Is
that
your power?’

A sneer rumpled the skinwalker’s lips. He breathed in and prepared to strike.

Jake turned his face away.

And that was when he saw the ash in the grate. The pages of his dark catalogue whispered to him. In the legends of the Navajo, one of the few ways a skinwalker could be killed was with a bullet dipped in white ash. Jake clung to that fragment of myth. Willed it to be true. He made a grab for the poker that was lying nearby and thrust it into the grate, baptizing its iron head with white ash.

A split second before the tomahawk fell, Jake rolled to one side. The axe clanged against the fireplace’s stone surround. Bent double, arms outstretched, the witch still had hold of the tomahawk. His flank was vulnerable. Jake took his chance and plunged the ash-coated poker between the skinwalker’s ribs.

A terrible scream tore its way out of the witch. Shocked, Jake let go of the poker, and the skinwalker tumbled to the ground. With his hand clasped against the weeping wound, he tried to crawl his way over to Jake but the pain was too great. Billows of blood bloomed between his fingers.

His eyes narrowed. His breath shortened. The witch stared at Jake and something like fear tightened his features.

‘What are you?’ he wheezed. ‘My sight darkens, but I see you clearly now. For the first time … ’ He stabbed a finger at the boy. ‘You
burn
, Jacob Harker. Your skin is stone. Your eyes are fire.’

He reached out and his hand trembled.

‘Would you forgive me, if I asked? I won’t … but if I asked, would that be within your power? To forgive a man who murdered his own father for the secrets of the
adishgash.
’ A red trickle ran out from between his lips. His hand clutched at the wound. ‘You are no witch, no simple conjuror.’

The skinwalker’s head slumped against the floor. With his final breath he repeated the question:

‘What. Are. You?’

The enchantment that had been placed upon the door must have been tied to the skinwalker’s life-force. At the next blow from Brag’s club, it was smashed off its hinges. Rachel and Pandora rushed into the room, followed by an exhausted Brag Badderson. They saw the dead man and the blood spreading out beneath him like a pair of scarlet wings. Jake staggered to his feet.

‘Another of the Demon Father’s tricks.’

‘Bloody … ’ Brag’s brow knitted. ‘Er … what exactly was he, Jake?’

‘A skinwalker.’

‘Course. Bloody skinwalkers.’

‘You’re hurt.’

Rachel brushed back a lock of Jake’s hair. Although his forehead hurt like hell from the skinwalker’s blow, he almost forgot the pain. At her touch, his heart surged and he felt a flicker of magic spark somewhere deep inside.

You burn … What are you?

What had the Navajo witch meant by those words? Perhaps in his final moments he had sensed what Jake really was: a clone of the long-dead Witchfinder. Something unique. Something unnatural.

‘Any sign of him?’ Pandora asked.

Jake could not look at his friends. He had led them through a night of pain and fear, and what did they have to show for it? Only the scars on their bodies and inside their minds.

‘Simon’s not here,’ he sighed. ‘Perhaps he never was. I’m sorry … ’

The smallest of whimpers sounded from behind the curtain. Daring to hope, Jake dashed across the room and pulled the drape right back. There in the far corner, swaddled in shadows, a shape shivered. The friends moved forward and the boy cried out in terror. Jake motioned for the others to step away while he approached alone, hands held out before him to show that he posed no danger. As he came nearer, he could make out more of the huddled form—its shaven head, its candle-coloured skin, its striking green eyes …

‘It’s all right,’ Jake whispered. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

The boy’s chest rose and fell. He was crying.

‘The skinwalker kept you close,’ Jake said, more to himself than to the boy. ‘The closer you were, the stronger his connection to you.’

‘Ja-ake?’

Simon’s voice rasped like a boot on dry gravel.

Jake knelt beside his friend and took his hand.

‘I’m here, Simon. You’re safe now.’

‘No. Not safe. Nev-er safe.’

Tears rolled down Simon’s face and a great shiver ran the length of his body.

‘They are coming, Jake. Very soon now. Very soon … They bring the darkness with them … ’

Chapter 5

Face of Flies

The Volkswagen people carrier was where they had left it, parked on the hillside road that overlooked the forest. The sky had cleared and the moonlit road spooled out towards the village of Little Muchly like a silver thread. At the sound of approaching strangers, the old troll standing guard beside the car raised his club.

‘Who goes there? Friend or foe? Identify yourself or I’ll brash yer brains in!’

‘It’s us, Dad,’ said Brag Badderson, emerging from between the trees. ‘And keep your bloomin’ voice down— there are banshees in these woods.’

‘I ain’t frightened of banshees, boy! Any ugly old women start screaming at me and I’ll shove my club where the sun don’t shine. That’ll give ’em summat to shriek about!’

Jake, Rachel, and Pandora followed Brag out of the forest. They shambled over the ground like zombies, exhausted by the trials they had endured. Brag plodded up the bank and onto the road. The boy in his arms didn’t murmur as he was laid down on the cold tarmac. Soon after Jake had found him, Simon had fallen into a dead faint and could not be woken.

At a height of just under nine feet, Badderson Senior was a little shorter than his son. He had a bushy grey beard, a bent back, and steady eyes scored with wrinkles. These things aside, father and son looked remarkably similar. Even their stone clubs could be twins.

‘Used Dr Harker’s phone to call me dad,’ Brag explained. ‘Thought someone ought to watch over the doc till we got back. Them buttons is designed for human fingers.’ He held out the battered mobile. ‘I got a bit frustrated with the diallin’. Sorry.’

‘Name’s Olaf,’ Brag’s dad put in, nodding at Jake. ‘I’ve knowed your pa a long, long time. Great man.’

‘How is he?’ Jake asked.

‘He looks as rough as my missus in the mornin’s, and that’s sayin’ summat.’ Olaf attempted a grin but it fell from his lips. ‘He’s in a bad way, son, and that’s the Odin’s honest truth.’

Olaf used the scraggy tip of a fingernail to open the car door. Adam had been laid across the back seat. There was a dark brown crust running from his left ear down the length of his neck. His breathing came in shallow waves, like the hush of a gentle sea. At the sight of his grey-faced father, Jake felt his legs weaken and had to hold on to the car roof for support.

‘You have to keep your promise, honey,’ Pandora said. ‘You mustn’t let on that you know.’

‘I can’t,’ Jake whispered.

‘You have to. He wanted to keep the grief from you as long as he could. If he starts fretting about
you
, he won’t have the energy to fight this thing.’

‘Why should he even try? You said yourself, there’s no cure.’

‘You see that smart, pretty girl over there?’ Pandora pointed to where Rachel stood talking to the Baddersons. ‘You know, the one you’re sweet on? Oh, don’t look so shocked, Jake, I’ve got eyes in my head. Well, it’s like she says—there’s still hope. Still a reason to fight on. My own daddy once told me: you always gotta fight against the inevitable, girl. Fight it till you can’t fight no more. Only then will you find the courage to accept what can’t be changed, and the peace that comes with that knowledge.’ Pandora smiled sadly. ‘You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you? You’ve got such an old soul that sometimes I forget you’re really just a kid. But one day you
will
understand.’

She patted his shoulder and called out to Brag, ‘Stop your gabbin’, troll! Pick that poor boy up and put him in the car. It’s time we were on our way.’

Brag did as instructed. Then the trolls bid their farewells.

‘Thank you,’ Jake said. ‘Both of you.’

‘It’s an honour to help Dr Harker,’ Olaf said, his tone solemn. ‘My family will always owe him a great debt. The Scandinavian troll purge of ninety-three will live long in infamy, but there were heroes of that time, too.’

Jake suffered another of Brag’s bear hugs before the trolls took their leave. While Pandora and Rachel got into the car, Jake looked out across the forest in the direction of Havlock Grange. They had overcome many dangers that night and had faced terrible foes, all to rescue Simon Lydgate, their friend. Now, bloodied, bruised, but victorious, they were going home. Jake should feel elated, or at least content that they had done a good night’s work.

‘Something’s not right,’ he muttered, his gaze roving over the desolate forest. ‘It was too
easy
… ’