Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ she began. ‘I want to begin by telling you that this outrage perpetrated against the Hobarron Institute and the people of Hobarron’s Hollow will not stand.’

  A low growl rumbled in Simon’s throat. Without a second’s hesitation, Rachel went to him and cradled his head in her lap. The eyes of the others never left the TV screen.

  ‘As yet, we have no intelligence about who might have committed these hideous crimes, but rest assured, people of Britain, we will find them.’ Cynthia Croft’s tone hardened. ‘We will hunt them down. We will punish them. To that, I have sworn.’

  A reporter called out from the crowd:

  ‘Prime Minister, there has been talk of creatures falling from the sky. Eyewitnesses have reported seeing, well, witches. Witches and demons.’

  Nervous laughter from the press, followed by a long pause.

  Miss Croft did not smile.

  ‘We live in a grown-up world, ladies and gentlemen. A grown-up world with grown-up terrors. Fictitious monsters need not concern us.’

  Adam switched off the TV. As soon as the screen blipped to black, the phone rang.

  ‘Adam Harker speaking … Yes. Yes, I understand. Of course, we will be there as soon as possible. Goodnight.’

  Adam replaced the receiver. He shook his head and glanced back at the others.

  ‘We’ve been summoned home.’

  Chapter 12

  Evil Unleashed

  The sun’s first rays had just yawned over the horizon when Dr Harker’s Volkswagen left the outskirts of New Town. The car trundled along the road and kicked up the soft ash that had settled on the tarmac. Blown out half a mile from Hobarron Tower, pebbles of glass crunched under the car’s tyres. Jake stared ahead, unable to believe what his eyes showed him. The once majestic tower was gone. In its place, a confusion of jagged glass and twisted metal stabbed at the bleeding sky.

  Jake reached onto the back seat and shook the sleeping girl. Rachel blinked swollen eyes.

  ‘We’re here.’

  There were holes in the security fence large enough to drive a bus through. The cameras had been smashed to smithereens and the cabin at the gate was now a burned out shell.

  ‘My God,’ Rachel whispered.

  A man in military uniform waved them to the gate. Adam wound down his window and handed over three passports.

  ‘Dr Adam Harker, Jacob Harker, and Miss Rachel Saxby. We’re expected.’

  The soldier scrutinized their faces and checked the names against the paperwork on his clipboard.

  ‘Please drive on through to the plaza, Dr Harker,’ he said, handing back the ID documents.

  ‘Just a minute.’ Jake couldn’t take his eyes off the black-walled security hut. ‘Brett Enfield—he was a friend of mine. Was he hurt?’

  The soldier ran his finger down a long list. He found the name and tapped the clipboard.

  ‘Brett Patrick Enfield. I’m sorry, your friend died in the assault. He fell right where I’m standing.’

  All those silly jokes and games he and Brett had enjoyed over the years came back to Jake. The open, honest-faced guard had been a fixture of his childhood. A good man. In his mind, Jake saw him again, slumped in his seat in the cabin, head in a newspaper.

  Afternoon, fella! How was school?

  Steam from burst water pipes covered the plaza in a white fog. Somewhere inside the fog, lights strobed on and off — blue-black, blue-black, blue-black—a shivery, nightmarish flicker. Adam parked and they got out of the car. Colossal shadows cast by slabs of masonry and melted girders loomed through the mist. Giant cracks splintered the ground.

  Something caught Jake’s eye and he raced across the plaza. Adam and Rachel followed. They found him standing over crumbs of white stone, some so tiny they were little bigger than baby teeth. He picked up one of the larger pieces and showed it to them—

  ‘Olivia Brown’s memorial,’ he said. ‘They destroyed it.’

  A voice called out:

  ‘A little girl who was murdered by a witch and a demon. I wonder how many more must die?’

  Dr Gordon Holmwood emerged from the mist.

  The leader of the Hobarron Elders was very much as Jake remembered him. In fact, despite his spindly legs and rotting yellow teeth, Dr Holmwood didn’t look much older than Adam Harker, a man almost half his age. The doctor held a cigarette between his nicotine-stained fingers. He drew on it with all the hunger of a drowning man sucking down his last lungful of air.

  The small, dark-haired boy standing next to Holmwood took one look at Jake and rushed over. Rachel and the Harkers took turns in hugging the kid.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Eddie,’ Adam said, ruffling his long locks. ‘Growing your hair like Jake, eh?’

  The boy blushed.

  ‘Is your mum OK?’

  ‘We hid in the cellar,’ Eddie nodded. ‘I remembered reading something in one of my old horror comics—Crypt of Fear, I think it was—that if there’s an earthquake you should shelter under an arch or in a doorway. The cellar at the Manor has an arched roof so … ’

  ‘Horror comics save the day again,’ Jake smiled.

  Eddie’s own smile was short-lived. ‘Lots of Hollow people didn’t make it. There were bodies in the streets. People I’d known since I was little.’

  Adam glanced at Holmwood. ‘My sister?’

  ‘Joanna survived.’

  Jake hugged Eddie close.

  Meanwhile, Rachel was staring at the man on Dr Holmwood’s right. Malcolm Saxby came forward and held out his arms to his daughter.

  ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ Rachel said, trying to hide the throb of emotion in her voice. ‘But nothing’s changed. You understand? You are not my father.’

  Dr Saxby winced, lowered his hands, and slunk off into the mist.

  ‘Rachel, why don’t you and Eddie get some breakfast,’ Dr Holmwood said. ‘There’s a canteen set up by the gate. The Harkers and I need to talk.’

  ‘Rachel stays,’ Jake insisted.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Rachel said. ‘I could do with a breath of fresh air. Come on, Edster.’

  They walked away, arm in arm.

  Knees cracking, Holmwood sat down heavily on a chunk of cement. Under the shadow of his shattered dream, the doctor sighed.

  ‘Perhaps I should have listened to you, Jake. When you spoke with the Witchfinder’s voice, perhaps I should have taken heed. Closed down the Institute, disbanded the Elders. If I had, maybe this would never have happened.’

  ‘You were ancient enemies,’ Jake said. ‘I think the Demon Father would have come after the Elders, Institute or not.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to ease an old man’s conscience.’

  ‘It’s not kindness. You’ll always have your share of blame, Dr Holmwood.’

  ‘You’re wise beyond your years, Jake. I always said so.’ The doctor drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘The truth is, I kept the Institute running because I thought we could continue the fight against demonkind. I was wrong. The power of this place was always in the connections I made with governments and the wealthy people who funded us. But ever since that woman was elected—’

  ‘Cynthia Croft?’ Adam asked. ‘The new PM?’

  ‘I’ve had private meetings with her. She’s a practical woman—studied chemistry at university—the sort who will only believe in something if it can be quantified, measured, analysed. She doesn’t credit all this “demon nonsense”. Her words. Since that meeting, our connections in the police and military have dried up. Our supporters have fallen away. Even before this attack, the Hobarron Institute was a spent force.’

  ‘But you still had the defences,’ Adam said. ‘The tower, the Hollow, both were protected by magical charms. How did the Demon Father get through?’

  ‘He had over a hundred witches in his army!’ Holmwood laughed bitterly. ‘A universal coven. He smashed through our defences within seconds. And now … ’

  The doctor watched Jake thr
ough hooded eyes.

  ‘Now he has even greater numbers at his command.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Adam stood up. What little colour he had drained from his face. ‘It never occurred to me … But if that’s true then we’re finished!’

  ‘What is it?’ Jake asked. His dad’s panic was infectious.

  ‘Your father told me what the Lydgate boy said under hypnosis.’ Holmwood flicked the stub of his cigarette into the mist. ‘They will fall like fire from the sky. At their touch, fortresses will burn, prison walls will quake and crumble. This tower was that fortress. These were those prison walls.’

  The Institute vaults. Now Jake remembered. The tragic sorcerer Sidney Tinsmouth had told him that the Elders kept dark witches imprisoned beneath the tower.

  ‘An old enemy will be released,’ Jake said, reciting the last few words from Simon’s trance. ‘Don’t tell me … No!’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Holmwood bowed his head. ‘Among the hundreds of witches the universal coven set free was a man we had scheduled for execution. Unfortunately, they took him before that sentence could be carried out. And now the Third in Command of the Crowden Coven is at large once more.’

  ‘No!’ Jake repeated. ‘NO!’

  Fury burned through his body. He saw his mother dangling over the canal. Saw her silent scream. Saw her die all over again.

  Holmwood’s words came to him as if from far away—

  ‘Tobias Quilp walks free.’

  Bad dreams roused the witch from his slumbers. He cried out and his body shivered so much that the four-poster bed quaked beneath him. He clasped his head in his hands and buried his face in the pillow.

  ‘No more!’ he pleaded, his cut-glass accent ragged at its edges. ‘Please, just kill me. Let me die.’

  Slowly, the horror of the past eight months began to ebb away. The witch drew his knees up to his chin and stared at his reflection in the dusty old mirror on the other side of the room. The man he saw looked nothing like the Tobias Quilp of old. True, his skin was still deathly pale and a tiny spark of cruelty continued to glint in those china blue eyes, but where was his confidence? His swagger? Where was that cold, remorseless intelligence?

  ‘I am broken,’ he whimpered.

  ‘Then I shall mend you.’

  His old master’s voice. Deeper, perhaps, but as musical as ever.

  Marcus Crowden stepped out of the shadows. Quilp could not hide his surprise. Where was the dirty rag that always covered Crowden’s face? And why were his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses? These questions fell away the moment Quilp spied the wooden box in his master’s hands.

  The lid rattled.

  Quilp licked his lips. He held out his hands, like a child about to receive a Christmas present. Tears ran down his cheeks. Then, at the last moment, he snatched his hands away and pinned them under his arms. He looked suspiciously around the bedchamber.

  ‘It is a trick!’ he cried. ‘A new torment designed by the Elders! You are not my master!’

  ‘Mr Quilp, you will listen to me—’

  ‘No. I have told you before—I will not betray Marcus Crowden or my coven. You may torture me as much as you please.’

  ‘I have not come to torture you.’

  ‘Have you not?’ Quilp laughed. ‘Then you are done with this—and this—and this?’

  The witch thrust out his hands. Deep, ugly scars criss-crossed his palms, as if made by the tip of a knife or the sharp belly of a razor. He ripped open the buttons of his shirt. From chest to stomach, his flesh was a yellow and purple mass of acid-scorched skin.

  ‘Pull yourself together, you pathetic creature,’ the Coven Master sneered. ‘Such torture is nothing compared to my own dark imaginings. Now take the box.’

  Daring to hope, Quilp stretched out his hands. He snatched the box and laid it in his lap.

  ‘Open it.’

  His fingers quivered. He tore away the chains and flipped the lid.

  ‘Is it you, my pet?’ Quilp murmured.

  Dull yellow eyes gleamed in the light. The thing inside the box snuffled, chuntered, howled. It reached out and gripped the sides of its prison. Slowly, painfully, the demon crawled out of the chest and into Quilp’s lap. Overjoyed, the witch rocked the demon in his arms like a baby.

  ‘My own dear Pinch, you’ve come back to me.’

  ‘I brought him back,’ the stranger said. ‘I saved you both.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Quilp whispered. ‘You are not my master.’

  The beautiful face smiled. ‘You are more perceptive than the others, Mr Quilp. I will tell you the truth, but it is to go no further, you understand? Your master, Marcus Crowden, had his chance to break through the Door and release demon-kind. He had the Demontide in his hand, and do you know what he did?’

  Quilp shook his head. He could feel Pinch clinging to him—was the demon afraid?

  ‘He let a boy defeat him. A child. I watched all this as it unfolded and I decreed that such failure should not go unpunished. And so I came into this hostile world. I poured my spirit into the body of Marcus Crowden, destroying his soul in the process. And now, with human form, I can achieve what he only dreamed of. I can bring about the Demontide.’

  ‘But who are you?’

  The Master pinched the bridge of his dark glasses between his fingers …

  ‘This is who I am.’

  … and slid them from his face.

  A pair of blood-soaked eyes, without white or iris or pupil, stared back at Quilp.

  ‘Demon Father,’ the witch breathed.

  ‘It is our time now, Mr Quilp,’ the Demon Father nodded. ‘The Age of Man is passing. Soon it will be a memory; a story told only around the campfires of the dark creatures. The Age of Demon and Witch is at hand. I have chosen you, faithful Tobias, to stand by my side as we enter this new dawn. Will you serve me as my most trusted adviser?’

  ‘Of course, but what of Esther?’

  ‘Esther?’

  ‘The Second in Command of the Crowden Coven. Esther Inglethorpe. She should be your first choice.’

  ‘Ah yes, I had forgotten about Mother Inglethorpe.’ The demon slipped the glasses back onto his nose. ‘I am sorry to have to tell you this, Tobias, but your lover and mentor is dead. Killed during the battle to open the Door.’

  Quilp had endured such pain these last few months that he did not believe he could feel any more. He was wrong. The news that Esther had been murdered cut him to the heart. He felt the first stirrings of dark magic at his fingertips.

  ‘Who killed her?’

  ‘Dr Adam Harker fired the bullet, but the one truly responsible? His son, Jacob. You remember him, don’t you? The child you failed to kill. The boy who defeated your master and wiped your coven from the face of the earth. The real killer of your beloved Esther. Maybe it is time, Mr Quilp, that you settled that score.’

  Chapter 13

  The Man with the Forked Tongue

  Jake smashed his fist against a huge slab of masonry. Examining his bloodied knuckles, he muttered, ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  Adam put an arm around Jake’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s natural to feel that way,’ he said. ‘But that’s not you talking. You could never hurt anyone.’

  ‘You were going to let me kill the Demon Father,’ Jake snapped. ‘The night I destroyed the Door, you let me take the gun.’

  Scars of colour whipped into Adam’s grey cheeks.

  ‘That was different. That thing wasn’t human.’

  ‘Tobias Quilp isn’t human. Not after what he did to Mum. I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

  Adam was about to argue further when Dr Holmwood cut in—

  ‘Even if you do find him, Jacob, you won’t be able to kill him. I’ve heard on the grapevine that your powers have faded. How can you hope to stand against Tobias Quilp when he has all the might of the Demon Father to protect him?’

  ‘My powers come back when I
need them … Sometimes. Anyway, I don’t care.’

  ‘Do not be foolish,’ Holmwood said with a touch of his old authority. ‘Do you think your “original” would throw away his life so easily? No. The Witchfinder was clever, calculating. Josiah Hobarron would have a plan.’

  The doctor rose to his feet.

  ‘Gentlemen, if you will follow me.’

  Holmwood led the way into the mist. They crossed the plaza and made for the entrance to the tower, now blocked by a mountain of masonry.

  ‘What’s going on, Gordon?’

  Holmwood didn’t answer. He took a small torch from his pocket and clamped it between his teeth. Then the doctor started to shuffle through a tiny gap in the blocks of fallen stone. Jake followed, trying not to think about the tonnes of concrete, iron, and glass balanced precariously overhead. He stumbled through into what had once been the tower’s reception area and his hand flew to his mouth. Everywhere he turned—blood. Blood on the walls, on the stairs, dappling the ceiling and lying in great pools on the floor.

  ‘They were here,’ Holmwood said, gesturing towards the caved-in doorway. ‘Hundreds of them. Friends and colleagues I’d known for years. We moved their bodies at first light.’

  ‘But you—’ Jake caught his breath. ‘You would have been their main target. How did you survive?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  While Holmwood headed for the stairs, Jake looked back through the gap. There was no sign of his father.

  ‘Dad?’

  Adam’s haggard face appeared on the other side of the rubble.

  ‘I can’t get through, Jake. I don’t have the strength.’

  That was the first time Adam had admitted his frailty. Jake winced at his father’s words.

  ‘It’s OK. We won’t be long, Dr Holmwood just—’

  Adam leaned into the gap. What he said next came in an urgent whisper:

  ‘Don’t believe everything he tells you, son. He speaks with a forked tongue.’

  Jake shivered despite himself. He remembered the words of the Oracle: You may find the cure you seek, but first you must obey the man with the forked tongue …