A Gaggle of Ghastly Grandmamas: Wonky Inn Book 9

by Jeannie Wycherley

  I stared in horror at the creatures before me. No wonder they were so still and watchful, no wonder their eyes burned with dull hope. “That can’t be,” I whispered. “There are so many of them.”

  “On my previous visit there were two or three times as many,” Silvan answered.

  “Are they all witches?” I wanted to know. “Wizards?” Cold fingers of panic were squeezing my insides. What was this woman capable of?

  Silvan shook his head, his face bleak. “Some. Some are mortals.”

  “What does she want with them?” Ezra asked, eyes flicking between the cages and the massive snake in the corner.

  “She’s a parasitic shifter,” Silvan said.

  I had no idea what that might be.

  “She captures the animals and appropriates their souls?” Ezra asked.

  “Yes. And uses their energy in her magick.”

  Ezra shuddered. “I’ve heard of such things. Keeping the host alive allows her to change shape at whim.”

  “Yes, she needs to keep the animals alive for the magick to last,” Silvan nodded. “One of the most distasteful aspects of what she does is that once she takes the animal’s soul away from its body, it appears dead to onlookers. While it’s at its most vulnerable it can be attacked or eaten by another animal.

  “So, if she wants to reuse that animal, she has to keep it safe. That’s why she cages them.” I could hear the disgust in Silvan’s voice. “She assimilates a fair amount of the animal’s particular talents, whether that’s flying or burrowing, and she can assume its form. Once she’s sucked enough energy from it, its soul will wither and die, but to be able to continue using those abilities she needs it to remain alive.”

  “But that’s barbaric! It allows them no peace. Why not kill them and be done?” I demanded. “Why not simply find another owl or badger or whatever?” I gagged at the cruelty of it all. “Why use witches or humans to populate the animal’s body?”

  “Because she’s a complete raving psychopath,” Silvan replied. “No other reason than that she enjoys ripping good people away from their homes and families.”

  Bile burned in the back of my throat. “So she steals human souls too?”

  “To keep her hosts warm,” Silvan said. “She doesn’t care what happens to the human bodies she leaves scattered around. Most of them are buried or cremated and then the souls have nowhere to return to.”

  I couldn’t bear that idea. A soul with no purpose, nowhere to go, was an unhappy soul. My inn was populated by many of those who had once been lost. I could only hope I’d given them some joy in their afterlife. And there was always, always the option to be sent to the next plane.

  I harnessed my disgust and gathered my resolve. “We have to set them free.” I directed a short burst of magickal energy at one of the birdcages. “Libero!” The lock snapped free and swung open. The bird remained inside, rolling its eyes in the direction of Meztli, high above on her swing.

  It was scared. I sensed its fear, and my own heart fluttered in my chest in response, my stomach squeezing painfully in empathy. How dare she? She’d cowed every creature here. Why? And what gave her the right?

  Meztli responded in her own way, by sending a blast of energy at me, knocking me to the ground. Silvan furiously levelled his wand at her as I quickly pushed myself up, my shoulder smarting where her wand strike had made contact. My arm tingled, pins and needles in my fingers. “Don’t make me hurt you, Meztli,” he cautioned her between gritted teeth. “Give yourself up. Let us take you back. It’s for your own safety as much as anyone else’s.”

  “Oh, Silvan.” She reproached him the way a mother might quietly chastise a child. “You of all people should know that I have no intention of ever going back there.”

  “Where’s there?” Ezra wanted to know.

  “Some dungeon in some royal castle somewhere,” Meztli replied, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Not that I ever saw much of it, certainly not the parts of it that were above ground anyway. And the hole they kept me in didn’t come equipped with any luxuries whatsoever.”

  A royal castle?

  “That’s what prison is usually for,” Silvan called up. “How did you get out, anyway?”

  Meztli giggled. “I worked my magick.”

  “I’m guessing it was Delia,” Silvan said.

  “Delia?” I queried.

  Meztli sighed and swung on the swing once more, before suddenly tipping over backwards and falling out of the swing by somersaulting through the air. For a fraction of a second, she hung there above our heads, suspended in mid-air, a beautiful white owl, perhaps the one that had befriended Mr Hoo. The light altered fractionally and she was a raven, and by the time her feet softly hit the floor ten or so feet in front of us, she’d assumed the shape of a sleek black cat.

  She settled into a sitting position and calmly observed us, her gold eyes glinting. Then she bared her teeth and I scuttled backwards as she morphed into a huge tiger, eyes of fire, sharp incisors that caught the light from the lamps, shoulders with muscles that rippled as she moved. She could shuffle through her available shifter personas with the greatest of ease.

  “Ah yes,” the tiger said, its voice a throaty growl, “my poor little sister.” With that, she assumed her human shape again and now I could see a resemblance. Thinner than Delia, as though she needed plumping up a little after months on a restricted prison diet, this is how Delia would have looked had she taken care of herself, her hair clean and conditioned, her eyes sparking with fierceness.

  “With a little help from my friends,” she waved her hand vaguely at the caged animals behind her, “I sent a message to Delia and had her track my whereabouts and come and rescue me. You can’t keep a decent shifter down. It’s all a matter of working with the right animal. Or insect, of course.” She clicked her fingers. With a flash and a pop of air she disappeared. A moment later I wafted a fly away from my face. It buzzed around us all before retreating to a safe distance. Another bright flicker of light and Meztli reappeared. She dropped a low curtsey, evidently pleased with her skills.

  “The problem was,” she continued, “Delia lacked my talent. Months and months of planning went into securing my escape. We coordinated back and forth, and yet she still managed to mess up the finer details. I couldn’t trust her with anything. She was constantly making mistakes. I’d given her the coordinates that would allow us to access The Gilded Cage, but she messed them up. I’d told her to go into Speckled Wood and find the portal I’d set up, but she couldn’t even manage that.”

  That would explain Delia’s frustration when she’d walked around Speckled Wood with Finbarr. She’d been searching for the portal. What she couldn’t have known was that with our magickal perimeter in place, the boundary that Finbarr worked so hard to maintain would not have allowed anyone else to create a portal either from or to Speckled Wood. Meztli was mistaken about that.

  “So you killed her?” I asked.

  “She’d served all useful purpose,” Meztli shrugged. She wrinkled her nose at me, faux sympathy. “You were most put out about that, weren’t you? For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why. Delia was such a horrid, annoying little witch. Constantly complaining about her allergies to my pets. I was doing the world a favour, getting rid of her.”

  Meztli paced. “She had this plan. She thought I didn’t know about it, but I received word. She seemed to think that after she’d rescued me, she could keep me cooped up in a birdcage in that stinking hovel of a back room of yours. She thought she could control me. She’d always been jealous of my powers. But she was absurdly transparent, useless at hiding secrets, and her skills just weren’t up to containing me.”

  She wagged a finger my way. “I know she was getting on your nerves too, Alfhild. I couldn’t be doing with her for a moment longer.”

  “And Mrs Cuthbert?” I asked. “Your mother?”

  “She’s been dead for years. Delia just about had the skills to shift from herself to our mother, so I
utilised that. I imagined that having mother disappear would throw people off the scent if anyone was sent after me. Then I had to create a new portal in a hurry. I’m guessing that’s how you found me.”

  “That rotten elevator,” I glowered. “You have to undo that spell.”

  Meztli sniggered. “You’re in no position to make any demands, Alfhild. By the time I’ve finished with you, the location of my portals won’t matter a jot.”

  “You killed Delia,” Ezra repeated, “so you’re aware we’re going to have to take you in?”

  “To the Ministry of Witches? I don’t think so. What do you say, Silvan?” her merry eyes settled on Silvan.

  He didn’t crack a smile. I could sense his growing fury. “DS Izax will do what needs to be done. You must face the consequences. You killed Delia.”

  “You can’t pin that on me, not really. Only kind of …” she waved at the corner of the conservatory. “I had a little help.”

  I followed the direction of her hand. At first, I couldn’t quite discern what I should be looking at, but there, among the tallest of the potted plants at the far end of the conservatory, I could make out slender threads hung across the ceiling. They sparkled with a cold, silvery-gold light, reminiscent of the ones I’d found in The Snug holding Delia up.

  Among them, something stirred. It skittered across the threads, light as a feather, making the light bounce, before gliding smoothly down from the ceiling. The size of a pony, with black and brown stripes, it landed gracefully on all eight legs and twisted about to look at us.

  “Silvan,” I hissed, my bowels turning to liquid. There are many things I’m frightened of: drowning; vampires and by extension bats; and recently I haven’t been that keen on heights, but spiders? They took the biscuit.

  How many eyes does a spider have? Six? Eight? Whatever, all of them were trained on me. My skin crawled in disgust. Unable to help myself, I hopped backwards.

  “I think that evens up the numbers a little, don’t you?” Meztli’s smug grin dripped with malice.

  Silvan sent a warning blast of heat towards Meztli’s feet. She leapt into the air, took the shape of a frog, then a sparrow, before landing on four paws as the sleek black cat again. Ezra trained his wand to my left. The snake slipped a little closer. The sound it made, its dry skin rasping over the tiles, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

  “Call them back, Meztli,” Silvan ordered.

  Meztli swirled in place, taking the shape of a flamingo, a boxing hare, a hummingbird before assuming her human form once more.

  “Oh Silvan, you’re such a disappointment to me,” Meztli lamented. “I so looked forward to meeting you. You and I, with all our powers, could have been so good together.”

  “That was never an option,” Silvan responded calmly, taking a confident step towards her. “You’re deluded, Meztli. You live in a fantasy world and think only of yourself. You’re a danger to society and you must be stopped.”

  The snake glided a little closer, its tongue rasping from its wide mouth. I couldn’t decide where to look first, but given the spider had its eyes on me, I opted to point my wand at it.

  “Anguis?” Meztli called, and the snake swivelled its neck to look at her. “Aranea?” The spider rotated slightly, lifting its front two legs from the floor. “Deal with them!”

  The air lit up around her as she jumped for the swing, a kangaroo that morphed once more into parakeet. Rapid clicking noises hastening across the tiles diverted my attention. The spider made a beeline for me, faster than I’d imagined it could. Only half-ready, I fired my wand in haste, missing by a country mile. Meanwhile, the snake had rushed Ezra. The force of its attack pushed us all back and we scattered like skittles. I missed my footing, slipping on the tiles and falling to one knee. The spider leapt into the air, velocity carrying it forwards. Time stood still as it flew my way, its front two legs raised like some crazy spider ninja. My brain screamed that it didn’t know any anti-spider defence spells, and I fiddled while Rome burned around me.

  But not Silvan.

  With one hand raised towards Meztli sheltering on the swing above us, to ward off any attack she rained down on us, he flashed his wand at the massive spider. “Aranea mori!” he cried, before instantly redirecting his attention back to Meztli and firing at her. The parakeet’s song filled the room, sounding oddly sweet, yet surreal amidst the heat and drama.

  The spider crumpled in mid-air and fell to the tiles. It twitched once or twice before rolling onto its back and curling into itself, tucking its legs around the huge bloated sack of its body. Grimacing, I stood up and poked it with the tip of my wand.

  Dead.

  No time to celebrate, I whirled to go to Ezra’s aid. The snake had started to coil itself around the detective, his arms trapped by his sides. I fired off a number of heat spells at the coils from a relatively close distance but to no avail. “Help me!” Ezra moaned, his face contorted in agony.

  “Hold on!” I begged.

  Meztli, beside herself with fury, began to rain down short bursts of heat.

  Silvan, still watching out for Meztli, and using blocking spells against her magick, backed towards us. “Kill the snake, Alf!”

  Meztli howled in anger. “Not Anguis!” She fired straight at us, scorching my cheek and knocking Silvan backwards. He clattered against the wall and collapsed to the ground, temporarily winded.

  I sucked in my breath and clamped my free hand over the burn on my cheek. “Yowza!”

  Ezra’s wand clattered to the floor, his head sinking over his chest. “Kill it, Alf!” Silvan yelled at me.

  I didn’t know any spells that would kill anything the size of this snake. Except one.

  The one spell I’d sworn never to use again.

  The Curse of Madb.

  I inhaled, relaxing my knees, feeling the weight of my body grounding myself through my feet. Then I summoned every ounce of intent and shot a wave of death energy at the snake. Anguis hissed and choked and writhed, swinging violently back and forth, knocking Silvan and me against the glass of the conservatory and throwing poor Ezra around like a sock puppet. I kept my wand trained on it, shooting energy its way, until finally it arched its back and collapsed in front of us, the light dying from its eyes as it loosened its grip on Ezra.

  “Murderers!” shrieked Meztli from above us. “I’ll string the pair of you up by your intestines!”

  “I most humbly beg to differ,” Silvan growled and took aim at the swing. “Cadunt ad terram,” he ordered, and with a high-pitched squawk, the parakeet lost its footing on the perch, tumbling end over end, its wings floppy and useless, until it smashed into the tiles at our feet.

  She lay there, her chest heaving, her neck broken.

  Silvan advanced on her, wand ready to deliver a final blow. The parakeet shifted into Meztli’s form, her mouth opening and closing, her eyes glassy.

  I crept towards Silvan, grabbing his arm. “It looks like she wants to say something,” I whispered, my stomach knotted in horror.

  “There’s nothing she can say that will change all the awful things she’s done over the years,” Silvan replied. But as the light faded from her eyes, he glanced away, and I felt the tension in his muscles as he swallowed.

  He hated killing as much as I did.

  There was nothing we could do for Ezra.

  I knelt next to the detective’s broken body, my trembling fingers searching for any signs of life but finding none. Silvan stroked my hair. “He’s gone, Alfie,” he said.

  “Can’t we bring him back somehow?” I sniffled, my heart hollow.

  Silvan pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me. I listened to the steady beat of his heart while sobbing into his clothes.

  “Shhh,” he soothed. “We’ll do right by him, I promise. But for now, we need to decide what to do with all the animals.”

  My knees shook as I turned to look at them, swiping at the tears that ran down my face. “Wh-wh-what do you suggest?”

&nbs
p; He led me to the cages and began to tap his wand gently against each one. Locks clinked, straps unfurled, doors fell or slid open. The animals inside regarded us, some in wonder, some in sadness. “How can we tell which are still animal and which were captured?” I asked. “And which of those captured humans or witches still has a body to return to?”

  Silvan put his arm around my shoulders, speaking softly. “I think it’s probably best to assume that what we see before us is all that we have to work with for now. We should set them free and allow them to decide for themselves what is best for them in the long run.”

  “We can take any who wish to come with us back to Whittle Inn,” I suggested, and Silvan nodded in agreement.

  “And any that wish—” my breath hitched in my chest, “any that wish to journey over to the Summerlands, I can release.”

  “That’s my girl.” His eyes glowed and he brushed my hair away from my dusty face and wet eyes.

  We began ushering the animals out of the cages. Some made a run for it and we let those go. Others gathered before us, waiting patiently, sadly, to be led to a place of safety. Only the white owl remained in its cage. I reached out to touch the bars. This had to be the one that had been at the inn. The one Mr Hoo had befriended. Somehow, Meztli had brought some of those animals here.

  “That’s all of them,” Silvan said, having performed a final check. “I guess we’d better head back to the wood.”

  I darted a glance at Ezra. I didn’t want to leave him here. How would we get back to The Gilded Cage to find him again once we’d returned to Whittle Inn? On the other hand, we couldn’t take him with us, there was no way we’d be able to carry him up that cliff face.

  The thought of him tumbling down the incline only an hour or so before, when we’d cushioned his fall and saved him from death, only to see him succumb here, had me in tears once more.

  We’d failed him.

  “I want to take him back to the inn,” I said.

  “Alf—”

  “We can create a portal!”

  “I don’t know of any magick portal-opening spells, do you?” Silvan asked, picking up a hamster and a mouse and inserting them in his pockets.