Witch Finder (24 page)

She ran.

Luke watched as the girl disappeared into the fog. He could see the bright red-gold flame of her hair dwindling as she ran and then at last even that was gone, swallowed up in the darkness of the narrow streets.

He let the hammer fall from his hand on to the stone floor of the forge.

The Malleus. How could he have forgotten the Malleus?

Images flickered through his mind like half-forgotten dreams – the feel of the knife in his side, the screaming heat of the brand on his shoulder . . . His hand went to the mark beneath his shirt and now he knew what it meant. The hammer. The hammer of witches.

That girl – Rosa – he had never seen her before and yet he knew every inch of her face, the softness of her skin beneath his touch, the feel of her waist between his hands . . . How did he know her?
Why?

And how did she know him?

He thought of her words:
I know that you can see witches
.

The scar at the back of his head gave a great throbbing pang and he vomited on to the floor, heaving and choking until there was nothing left but bile in his gut and he was cold and sweating, and full of fear.

What had he done?

Rosa ran. She ran without looking where she was going, turning at random in the narrow twisting streets, the fog parting and then closing behind her, enveloping her in its strange, muffled world. She stumbled past taverns disgorging drunks on to the pavement, past beggars crowded round braziers, past girls hawking watercress, their eyes huge in the darkness. At last she stopped in a quiet alleyway, panting, her lungs screaming for air, fighting against the constriction of her choking stays. There were black spots in front of her vision, dancing against the sickly yellow swirl of the fog, and she thought she might faint, but she did not. After a while her breathing began to slow and she tried to consider what to do next.

Luke was a killer?

It didn’t make sense.

And yet, in another horrible way, it did. It explained the way he had come so mysteriously with only Fred Welling’s word and no experience. It explained why he’d been prepared to fill in for no money. It explained – she shut her eyes as the realization washed over her – it explained the broken buckle. The buckle that
she
had taken responsibility for, when Alexis wanted him sacked.

She put her hands over her face.

He had tried to kill her.

He saved your life
.

He had betrayed her.

He told you he loved you
.

The voices crowded in her head, screaming at each other for domination.

Shut up – shut up! I can’t think!

She put her hand up to the locket to feel its reassuring weight in her palm as she tried to think what to do. But it was gone.

It began to rain, a fine mist of drizzle that mingled with the fog, clinging to her skin and hair in fine droplets. Rosa shivered.

The factory. Whatever had happened with Luke, it changed nothing about the factory, about the fact that she had sent an innocent girl there to her death. That was her wrong, not his. It was hers to undo.

Luke would not help her. There was no one left to turn to. It was down to her alone to sort this out. There were only two options: undo the charms herself, or force Sebastian to do it. But how?

‘I
wish to see Mr Knyvet.’

The guard at the gate had changed and did not recognize her. He looked her up and down doubtfully and for the first time Rosa looked down at her stained and rain-soaked dress. There was a great patch of soot where she had crouched behind the gas burner in the dipping room, and in retracing her way back to the factory she had stumbled in the fog and fallen into the gutter. She did not look like Sebastian Kynvet’s fiancée.

‘Tell him,’ she groped in her skirt pocket for a card and pressed it into the man’s gloved hand, ‘tell him it’s Miss Greenwood. He will know who I am.’

‘Very well, Miss . . . Oi, Joe.’ He turned to a small boy crouched in the shelter of a brick arch and said a few words. The boy set off at a trot across the courtyard. Rosa waited, the rain trickling down her neck in slow droplets, feeling the guard’s cold eye on her. After a few minutes the boy returned and whispered something into the man’s ear. He stood up straighter.

‘I beg your p-pardon, miss,’ he stammered. ‘I wasn’t, that’s to say—’

‘It’s quite all right.’ She cut him off and turned to the boy. ‘Can you take me now?’

The boy looked up at the guard, as if not trusting his own judgement, and the man nodded, sharply.

‘Of course you can, you young fool. Cut along quick now, and keep a civil tongue in your head.’

‘This way, miss,’ the boy whispered, and she followed him through the brick archway and up the same sets of stairs as before. The clock struck seven as they climbed and Rosa wondered, bewildered, where the hours had gone. Had it really taken so long for her to find Luke? She felt suddenly, enormously tired. It had taken magic for her to find her way back to the factory in the fog, divination spells at every street corner, walking in circles as her powers waned.

As they passed the packing rooms she looked in. In spite of what Sebastian had said about stopping at six, the workers were still there, the conveyor belts still carrying their endless, relentless supply of matches. One girl looked up as Rosa passed and their eyes met: dark holes in a face as thin and white as a skull.

Sebastian was in his office. He looked up as she entered, his face blank with astonishment, and then hurried across the room.

‘That will do, Joe, you can go,’ he said to the boy. Then he turned to Rosa. ‘What in God’s name happened? I looked for you everywhere! I was beside myself. I can’t imagine what your mother is thinking.’

Nothing
, Rosa thought wearily.

‘Your clothes! You’re soaked to the bone.’ He led her across to the fire and pushed her down on an armchair, crouching next to her as if she were a child. ‘I’ll ring for tea – and brandy if they have it, or you’ll be ill.’

‘I’m not ill,’ she said huskily.

‘But what were you thinking?’ He took her chin in his fingers, turning her face towards him so that she was forced to meet his eyes. ‘Rosa?’

She looked at him, at his cold, pale eyes, willing herself to find some spark of humanity there,
some
kind of conscience at least.

‘Sebastian . . .’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Of course.’ He put his hand to her cheek, where the ache of his blows still dwelled. ‘You cannot imagine how much.’

Rosa swallowed and took his hand in hers. It was cold, and very, very strong. Hands that could curb a horse, beat a dog. Or a woman.

‘Sebastian,’ she said softly, ‘let them go.’

‘What do you mean?’ He did not take his hand out of hers, but instead closed his fingers around her wrist, hard enough to bruise. Rosa tried not to flinch.

‘I saw the dipping room.’

‘God damn it.’ He said it quite low, without the black fury she had feared. But his grip didn’t lessen.

‘I’m not a fool. There is no way men and women would work willingly in those conditions, no way they
could
work. Sebastian, they’re dying. They are rotting away as they work, eaten up by whatever poison is in those matches. You’ve chained them, haven’t you? It’s magic keeping them at their posts, day in, day out.’

‘You know nothing about it,’ he said. His voice was cold and flat as river ice, as cold as his eyes.

‘What you’re doing is illegal,
more
than illegal – it’s inhumane, madness. Let them go.’

‘And if I won’t?’

Possibilities raced through her head: she would leave him, she would break off the engagement. Somehow, she thought, none of these would sway him.

‘I will disgrace you,’ she said flatly. ‘I will tell everyone we know. I will denounce you to the Ealdwitan.’

‘You think they will listen to you?’ he sneered. ‘A chit of a girl against the word of a Chair?’

‘A woman,’ she spat, ‘giving evidence against her own fiancé. But in any event, it will not be a case of taking my word for it. If they come here, there will be no question. Their eyes will give them all the evidence they need. They will break you.’

‘You ungrateful little wretch.’

He stood and began pacing the room. When Rosa stood too, he wheeled round and screamed, ‘Sit down, damn you!’

Rosa sat immediately and then a surge of anger shot through her and she jumped back up.

‘No! Why should I?’

‘You are to be my wife, and you
will
obey me.’

‘I am
not
your wife and I never will be! I don’t love you, I
never
loved you. I would rather marry—’ A sob rose in her throat, choking her. ‘I’d rather marry a – a stable-hand.’

‘You are mine,’ he said softly. ‘And I will see you dead before I lose you to the arms of another man.’

Rosa opened her mouth to answer.

‘
Tówierpe!
’ he spat, and instead Rosa flew backwards into the chair, with a force that knocked all the breath from her body. Before she had time to recover he was across the room, crouching beside her with something in his hands. It was cord, the cord they used for tying up the bales of matchboxes.

She felt it bite into her wrists and began to struggle with all her strength.

‘Áhíewe!
’ she screamed, and a blast of flame shot towards him. Sebastian howled, reeling back, clutching at his face. When he lifted his hands away Rosa saw that his lip was bleeding, his cheek slashed to the bone.

‘You’ll pay for that, you bitch.’

He pulled off his cravat and bound it round her mouth, silencing the half-worked spells on her lips. It didn’t stop her kicking, but he soon had her bound hand and foot to the chair. She felt the heat of the fire on the side of her face and looked at him, hoping he could read the hatred in her eyes.

But he only knelt in front of her, staring at her. His blue eyes, just inches away from hers, were bloodshot.

‘Until death do us part, Rosa, my darling,’ he said softly. Then he stood and left the room.

For a moment Rosa did nothing. She breathed through her nose, trying to calm her pounding heart and pull her magic together. The cords were biting painfully into her wrists and she strained at them, yanking uselessly. Nothing happened – only the pain in her wrists and ankles increased. Sebastian had bewitched the knots – these bindings would not break without magic. But she had none left. The long search for the factory and then the fight with Sebastian – it had taken her very last effort. And she could not speak anyway. She remembered Mama saying:
It’s not the words on your lips that are important, Rosamund, it is the words in your head – try to grasp that, for heaven’s sakes.
But there were no words in her head, just a silent scream of fear.

Far away she could hear sounds, crashes, as if machinery were falling to the ground. Cries of fear too. And then: the smell of smoke.

The heat of the forge blazed bright and Luke sweated as he hammered the red-hot metal, the sweat running in rivulets down his face and into his eyes like tears.

William wasn’t back. No doubt he had met a friend and they were drinking. Another night Luke might have gone out himself to the Cock to find them. Not tonight. Tonight he was glad to be alone, hitting something as hard as he could.

But nothing – not even the hot, bright flames of the forge – could chase away the shadowy memories that seemed to be crowding into his skull.

A hand, creeping across the floor like a spider.

A girl’s lips, so soft he could hardly bear it.

The sound of a fist meeting bone – and a girl’s cry.

The feel of a brand in his shoulder.

And then, as he began to twist the hot metal into shape, something else. The shape of a coiled snake, silver bright, on top of an ebony cane.

He let the hammer drop, putting his hands to his head, as if he could keep out the horrors, but they forced their way, exploding in his head like fireworks. The crack of a bridge strut. The scream of a horse. Narrow brows furrowed, a coin in the sun. Blood on white skin. Hair like fire.

Minna.

Cherry.

Rosa.

Oh, God, Rosa.

The memories flooded back, his skull felt as if it would crack. And then he knew – he knew what he had to do.

The guard at the gate was a witch, although not a good one. The thin white wisp of his magic melded with the fog, disappearing into the night. Luke felt in his pocket for the bottle. The one he had taken to Knightsbridge was gone, probably still under the board in Fred Welling’s room for all he knew, but a moment’s search of William’s room had revealed a rough bundle in his chest. Unwrapping it, Luke found a knife, a bottle, a rag.

Now they were in the pocket of Luke’s jacket, the rag twisted round the bottle so that the knife would not chink and smash the glass.

His heart pounding, he pulled out the rag and the bottle, thankful for the meagre gas-light and the muffling fog. When he wrenched out the cork the fumes almost choked him, stinging his eyes and throat, but he splashed some on to the rag, stoppered up the bottle, and took a deep breath. Then he crept forward, hugging the wall.

The witch did not see him until the last moment and, when he did, his eyes widened and his mouth opened – to call for help, or shout a spell? Luke didn’t wait to find out. He leapt at him, the rag clenched in his hand, and crushed it over the man’s mouth and nose. He was a big man, matching every inch of Luke’s six foot, but Luke had the advantage of surprise. The man clawed at Luke’s fingers, scrabbling for a hold, but the stuff in the bottle was too strong. His struggles slackened, his kicks and snorting gasps turned to spasmodic twitches, and at last he hung from Luke’s arms, limp as a sack of coal.

Luke dragged him into the shadow of an arch and there pulled off the man’s greatcoat and cap. No point in sticking out more than he had to.

Dragging them on over his jacket, he stepped out into the courtyard. It was dark, but not as dark as it should have been. There were flames coming from an upper window.

Luke ran to the door and wrenched it open, a great wall of smoke coming out to meet him. He choked but, pulling his muffler over his face, he plunged in. In front of him was a hall, clearly empty, some kind of refectory. The sound of crackling and the smell of smoke was coming from upstairs. He took a deep breath and began to climb up towards the heat.

The first thing that met his eyes at the landing was a huge, long room filled with men, women and children working a vast conveyor belt. They were choking in the smoke, their eyes watering, but they worked on.

‘What are you doing?’ Luke bellowed at one of them, a girl of about ten. ‘This place is burning down! Get out!’

She shook her head and carried on scrabbling the matches into stacks.

‘Are you mad?’ He pulled off the muffler, the better to shout, and choked against the smoke, but found the breath to shout again. ‘Get out, all of you!’

They took no notice. Luke looked around him. There was a long iron pole behind the door, with a hook on the end, designed for opening windows too high to be reached with a ladder. He grabbed one end and brought it smashing down on the conveyor belt. There were cries of alarm from the workers and one of them, a girl with wispy pale hair, looked up, confusion in her eyes.

‘Whatcha doing, mister?’

‘Get out!’ he bellowed again. She shook her head dully, and he raised the pole above his head and brought it down again. The conveyor belt juddered but didn’t stop, and the girl reached, as if mesmerized, for another handful of matches. Luke could have screamed. Would they never stop work until the blasted belt stopped too?

Suddenly he had a thought.

Yanking the knife from his pocket, he scattered aside the handfuls of matches and began to saw at the thick India rubber of the conveyor belt. It was hard, almost impossible – as soon as he made one good cut the machine pulled the fabric from his hands, and he was faced with a fresh, undamaged stretch. He hacked and hacked, fighting against the hopelessness that threatened to overwhelm him. The crackle of flames sounded louder than ever.

Should he just give up? Leave them to it?

With one last effort he raised the knife above his head and stabbed it viciously through the material of the conveyor belt, deep into the wooden support beneath.

It held.

The relentless force of the conveyor belt pulled on, but now it was destroying itself, its whole force ripping against the knife in its guts. A long rent began to appear in the centre of the belt. Then, suddenly, it stuck. The knife had come up against a join in the belt, stitching too strong to slit. There was a shriek as the belt pulled tight, the metal gears bending and whirring. The whole roomful of workers had stopped, watching, hypnotized as the machine strained and screeched its protest. Then, with a deafening bang, the belt snapped, throwing matches high into the air, raining down like hail on their backs.