Witch Hunter (2 page)

going to arrest themselves, you know.’

We edge along the front of the houses, our footsteps

squelching softly in the mud. Finally, we reach the one

we’re looking for. It looks like all the others: a dingy

white plaster thing with a wooden door covered in peeling

red paint. But unlike all the others, given what’s on the

other side. The wizards I usually catch are still alive,

still corporeal. Not so, today. My stomach tightens in the

familiar way it does before an arrest: part thrill, part nerves,

part fear.

‘I’ll kick it open, but you go in first,’ Caleb tells me.

‘Take charge of it. It’s your capture. Sword up and out.

Don’t lower it, not for a second. And read the arrest

warrant straightaway.’

‘I know.’ I don’t know why he’s telling me this. ‘Not my

first time, remember?’

‘I do. But this won’t be like the others. They won’t be like

the others. Get in and get out. Nothing fancy. And no more

mistakes, okay? I can’t keep covering for you.’

I think of all the things I’ve done wrong in the past

month. The witch I chased down the alley who nearly

got away. The chimney I got stuck in trying to find a

hidden cache of spellbooks. The cottage I stormed that

didn’t house wizards brewing potions but a pair of aged

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friars brewing ale. They’re just a few mistakes, true. But I

don’t make mistakes.

At least, I didn’t used to.

‘Okay.’ I raise my sword, my sweaty hands slipping off

the hilt. I quickly wipe them on my cloak. Caleb draws his

leg back and slams his foot against the door. It smashes

open, and I burst into the house.

Inside are the five necromancers I’m looking for,

huddled around a fire in the centre of the room. There’s a

large cauldron perched above the flames, a foul-smelling

pink smoke billowing from the top. Each of them wears a

long, tattered brown robe, and oversized hoods conceal

their faces. They stand there, moaning and chanting and

holding bones – either arm bones or a very small person’s

leg bones – and shaking them like a bunch of damned

Mongol shamans. I might laugh if I weren’t so disgusted.

I circle around them, my sword pointed in their

direction. ‘Hermes Trismegistus. Ostanes the Persian.

Olympiodorous of Thebes—’

I stop, feeling like an idiot. These necromancers and the

ridiculous names they give themselves. They’re always

trying to outdo one another.

‘You five,’ I say instead. ‘By the authority of King

Malcolm of Anglia, I am commanded to arrest you for the

crime of witchcraft.’

They continue chanting; they don’t even look up. I

glance at Caleb. He stands by the door, still flipping

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his dagger. He almost looks amused.

‘You are hereby ordered to return with us to Fleet prison

for detention and to await your trial, presided over by the

Inquisitor, Lord Blackwell, Duke of Norwich. If you are

found guilty, you will be executed by hanging or by burning,

as is the king’s pleasure, your land and goods forfeit to the

crown.’ I pause to catch my breath. ‘So help you God.’

This is usually the part where they protest, where they

say they’re innocent, where they ask for proof. They always

say this. I have yet to arrest a witch or wizard and have her

or him say to me, ‘Why, yes, I have done illegal spellwork

and read illegal books and purchased illegal herbs and thank

goodness you’ve come to stop me!’ Instead, it’s always,

‘Why are you here?’ and ‘You’ve got the wrong person’ and

‘There must be some mistake!’ But it’s never a mistake. If I

show up on your doorstep, it’s because you’ve done

something to draw me there.

Just as these necromancers have.

I keep going. ‘Tuesday, 25th October, 1558: Ostanes the

Persian purchases wolfsbane, a known poison, at the black

market in Hatch End. Sunday, 13th November, 1558:

Hermes Trismegistus etches the Seal of Solomon, a talisman

used for summoning spirits, on Hadrian’s Wall outside the

city. Friday, 18th November, 1558: all five subjects seen at

the All Saints Cemetery in Fortune Green, exhuming the

corpse of Pseudo-Democritus, né Daniel Smith, another

known necromancer.’

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Still nothing. They just drone on and on, like a hive of

old bees. I clear my throat and go on, louder this time.

‘Subjects possess the following texts, each on the list of

Librorum Prohibitorum, the king’s official list of banned

books: Albertus Magnus’s Magister Sententiarum. Thomas

Cranmer’s New Book of Common Spells. Desiderius’s

Handbook of a Reformist Knight.’

Surely they’ll react to this. Wizards hate nothing more

than finding out I’ve been inside their home, finding things

in places they thought no one would ever look. Small

hollowed-out niches under the floorboards. Beneath the

chicken coop. Stuffed inside a straw mattress. There’s

nothing a wizard can hide that I can’t find.

It occurs to me that it’s rather pointless to recite their

crimes, considering I’ve caught them in the middle of an

even bigger one. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t have all

day to stand around listening to these old fools chant, and I

can’t let them finish their spell. But I can’t exactly jump in

and lay them out with my sword, either. We’re supposed to

capture, never kill. Blackwell’s rule. And none of us would

dare break it. Even still, my fingers tighten around the hilt

and I’m itching to start swinging, until I see it: a shape

beginning to form in the pink mist in the cauldron.

It rises into the air, swaying and undulating in a

nonexistent breeze. Whatever this thing is that they’re in

the middle of conjuring – my guess is that it’s Pseudo-

Democritus, né Daniel Smith, who I watched them dig

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up – it’s hideous. Something between a corpse and a ghost,

translucent yet rotting, mossy skin, disjointed limbs, and

exposed organs. There’s a strange humming noise coming

from it, and I realise it’s covered in flies.

‘Elizabeth.’

Caleb’s voice startles me. He’s standing beside me

now, his dagger held in front of him, staring at the thing in

front of us.

‘What do you think?’ I whisper. ‘Is it a ghost?’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s too, I dunno…’

‘Juicy?’

Caleb makes a face. ‘Ugh. You know I’d rather you say

viscous. But, yes. And a ghost wouldn’t take five men to

raise, so my guess is ghoul? Maybe a revenant. It’s hard to

say. He’s not fully formed enough yet for me to tell.’

I nod.

‘We need to stop them before they finish,’ he continues.

‘You take the two on the left, I’ll take the three on the right.’

‘No way.’ I turn to face him. ‘This is my arrest. I get all

five. That was the deal. You can have the viscous thing in

the pot.’

‘No. You can’t take on five by yourself.’

‘Three more sovereigns say I can.’

‘Elizabeth—’

‘Don’t you Elizabeth me—’

‘Elizabeth!’ Caleb grips my shoulders and spins me

around. The necromancers have stopped chanting, and the

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room has gone silent. They’re staring right at us. Instead of

bones, they’re clutching long, curved knives, all of them

aimed in our direction.

I break free of Caleb’s grasp and step towards them, my

sword held high.

‘What are you doing here, girl?’ one of them says to me.

‘I’m here to arrest you.’

‘On what charges?’

I tut in irritation. If he thinks I’m going through the

litany of that arrest again, he’s got another thing coming.

‘That thing.’ I jerk my sword at the twitchy apparition.

‘That’s the charge.’

‘Thing?’ one of them says, looking affronted. ‘That’s not a

thing. It’s a ghoul.’

‘Told you,’ Caleb whispers behind me. I ignore him.

‘And it’s the last thing you’ll ever see,’ the necromancer

adds.

‘You wish,’ I say, reaching for my handcuffs. I look

down, just for a second, to unhook them from my belt. But

it’s enough. One of the necromancers sends his knife flying.

‘Watch it!’ Caleb shouts.

But it’s too late. The knife lands with a sickening thump

in my chest, right above my heart.

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‘Damnation.’

I drop my sword and rip the knife from my chest,

throwing it to the floor. There’s a flash of heat in my

abdomen, followed by a sharp, prickling sensation. And in

an instant, the wound heals. There’s almost no blood; it

doesn’t even hurt – at least not much. Seeing this, all five

necromancers go still. They know – the moment I came

through the door they knew – but it’s different altogether to

see it work: the stigma branded into the skin above my

navel, a scrawl of black. XIII. The stigma that protects me

and shows me for what I am. An enforcer of the Thirteenth

Tablet. A witch hunter.

They back away, as if I’m the one to be afraid of.

I am the one to be afraid of.

I lunge forward and punch the nearest necromancer in

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the stomach. He doubles over as I slam my elbow into

the back of his neck and watch him slump to the floor.

I turn to one of the others. Stomp on his foot, pinning it

to the floor, and slam my other foot into the side of his

kneecap. He drops to his knees, howling. In a flash, I

snatch his hands and bind them tightly with the brass

handcuffs. Brass is impenetrable to magic; there’s no

escaping for him now.

I round on the other three. They hold their hands in

front of them, backing slowly away. From the corner of my

eye, I see Caleb watching me. And he’s grinning.

Snatching another pair of cuffs from my belt, I start

towards them. Close up, I can see how old they really are.

Grey hair, wrinkled skin, watery eyes. Each of them seventy

if they’re a day. I want to tell them they’d be better off going

to church and saying their prayers instead of exhuming

bodies and conjuring spirits, but what’s the point? They

wouldn’t listen anyway.

They never do.

I grab a necromancer’s wrists and clamp the manacles

around them. Before I can get to the other two, they

twist away, one of them muttering an incantation under

his breath.

‘Mutzak tamshich kadima.’

The room goes still. The fire stops burning and the

billowing pink smoke disappears, receding into the cauldron

as if it never existed. The necromancer keeps muttering;

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he’s trying to complete the ritual. I grab a dagger from

my belt and hurl it at him to try to stop him. But it’s too

late. The spirit hovering over the cauldron above us,

hideous yet harmless before, becomes solid. It drops in

front of me with a thud.

Caleb swears under his breath.

Before either of us can move, the ghoul knocks me to the

floor, fastens his cold, rotting hands around my throat, and

starts to squeeze.

‘Elizabeth!’ Caleb leaps forward, but before he can reach

me, the last two necromancers turn on him, their knives

held high.

I grab the ghoul’s hands. Tug at his wrists, scratch and

beat on his arms. Try to suck in air, even if it does smell like

dirt and rot and death. It doesn’t stop him. I can hear Caleb

shouting my name, and I try to call back, but my voice

comes out a strangled whisper. I keep struggling, twisting

back and forth to try to break his grip. But he’s too strong.

My vision starts fading, disappearing into patches of

black. I slap my hand against the stone floor, trying to reach

my sword. But it’s too far. And Caleb can’t help me. While

he’s managed to get one necromancer on the floor in cuffs,

he’s still fighting off the other, who sends objects flying

towards him: furniture and smoking logs and bones. I’m on

my own. There’s a way out of this – I know there is. But if I

don’t figure it out soon, this ghoul will strangle me to death.

Not even my stigma can protect me against that.

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Then I get an idea.

I summon the last bit of air I have, give what I hope is a

convincing last gasp, and go still. Let my jaw go slack, allow

a vacant look to slide into my eyes. I don’t know if it will

work, because this thing is dead and maybe the dead can’t

be fooled. When he doesn’t stop squeezing, I think I’ve