Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  ‘We have to help her,’ Eleanor said.

  Jake looked from the gloating witch to her undead minions. Two of the soldiers were closing in around Pepper while the others waited beneath Jake and Eleanor’s tree. Long ribbons of drool spilled over their hungry lips and made their constant cry of ‘Flesh’ even more terrible.

  ‘Enough,’ Jake growled.

  He climbed down to a sturdy branch that faced the soldiers and the frightened horse. Lying flat on his stomach, he held onto the branch with his left hand while, with his right, he conjured a ball of scarlet-tinged magic. He targeted the soldier closest to Pepper and hurled the hex.

  The magic smashed into the man’s chest and sent him toppling to the ground. Jake had already conjured a second hex, and was sighting another target, when the felled soldier moved.

  Its legs flinched. Its hands twitched. Lifting his worm-eaten head, the soldier looked up at Jake with an expression that mixed sadness with deep, gnawing hunger. Nearby, the witch remained focused as she directed her puppets. She clicked her fingers and the soldier began to crawl across the ground. It was only then that Jake saw that his spell had blasted right through the creature, severing its spine and cutting it in half. Leaving his flinching, kicking legs behind, the soldier used his arms to drag himself back to the camp. Guts and intestines trailed behind him like the tentacles of some hideous octopus.

  ‘Such an idiot!’ Jake muttered. He swirled the magic in his palm and flicked his fingers towards the creature. ‘Only one way to kill a zombie!’

  The magic hit and the creature’s head exploded.

  Jake looked up at Eleanor and grinned.

  ‘Gotta take out the brain!’

  A flash of red light from Jake’s fingers and another zombie’s head was torn from its shoulders. Blood and brains misted the air. Next, he targeted the undead horse.

  ‘The old man was right,’ Jake said, summoning more magic. ‘You can’t think about the power—you just have to feel it.’

  Two zombies left.

  Strike.

  The first dropped, its dirty yellow sash stained with fresh blood.

  Jake was about to finish the job when Eleanor called out:

  ‘Something’s happening. Jake, look at the witch.’

  The old woman was on her knees, hands clutched over her heart. Pain had etched itself in tight lines across her face.

  ‘She must be connected to the zombies,’ Jake said. ‘Of course! She used her blood to resurrect them and so her life-force is bound to theirs. And now there’s only one left … ’

  The flame danced in Jake’s palm. He eyed the zombie below.

  ‘You can’t!’ Eleanor cried. ‘You’ll kill her.’

  ‘But she was going to let those things tear us apart!’

  Jake kept the witch in view while the magic pulsed and darkened in his hand. The blue heart of it fell back against the roar of red. His gaze played across the woman’s bloody apron and he pushed his fingers towards the zombie.

  ‘She’s a murderer,’ he said. ‘My dad told me the history of the Crowden sisters: they were cannibals, eaters of children.’

  ‘And they deserve to be punished. Jake, look at me.’

  Eleanor climbed down to Jake’s branch. She reached out and drew him close. He could feel her heart racing against his chest. Cornflower blue eyes bored into his soul.

  ‘Let this anger go, Jake. For your sake, not for hers, be rid of it.’

  ‘But she wanted to hurt you.’

  Magic, darker than ever in his hand.

  ‘Nothing could ever hurt me as much as the sight of you destroying that woman. Do you understand?’

  ‘Eleanor, I … ’

  ‘ENOUGH!’ the witch shrieked. ‘I will not live by the mercy of a coward! I will die, boy, but in dying I will keep my promise to Master Quilp. I will take you to him.’

  She screamed in agony and a dense black smoke whipped out of her hands. Before Jake could think of responding, the smoke had formed into an impenetrable wall which wrapped itself around the tree. Inside the vapour—Jake, Eleanor, Pepper, the zombie, and the witch. The meadow beyond had vanished. All around the tree, the little scrap of land trembled as if shaken by an earthquake. While Jake and Eleanor clung to the branch, the witch shrieked against the pain of her final conjuring.

  Shapes began to appear in the black wall. Shadows emerging from the smoke:

  A bleak woodland.

  A house with blank, staring windows.

  A great door with a lion’s head knocker.

  Jake turned to Eleanor.

  ‘Hold tight.’

  The cauldron on the table burst into flames. Its life tied to the witch, the inanimate demon was returning to its own world.

  Frija’s eyes snapped open. Before she could stop herself, the cloud-spinner spluttered, ‘Drude is dead.’

  She pointed a shaking finger at the door and, behind her veil, a smile creased her lips.

  ‘The boy is here.’

  Chapter 30

  Rhapsody in Darkness

  Materializing in an explosion of magical energy, the oak tree smashed against the wall of the manor house. Its branches punched through windows and its roots cracked the stone slabs outside the great door. On impact, Jake and Eleanor lost their grip and fell from the tree. The patch of soft, muddy ground that had been transported with the oak saved them from breaking their necks. Groaning, they picked themselves up and saw that the black smoke had dispersed.

  Pepper nudged her nose against Eleanor. ‘All right, girl, it’s over now.’ Long, smooth strokes against her flank seemed to calm the mare.

  Jake walked over to where the witch lay sprawled on the ground. The last of her venom was frozen in her glassy eyes. She was dead. With its puppet master gone the zombie had also crumpled, the tormented soul of the soldier finally at peace.

  ‘Where are we?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘The home of the Crowdens,’ Jake said. ‘Havlock Grange.’

  The house towered over them, its haughty face grey in the moonlight.

  ‘I’ve been here before. Years from now, Rachel, Pandora, Brag, and me, we came to rescue Simon from the Demon Father.’

  ‘Rachel?’ Eleanor frowned. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Rachel Saxby, my friend. Your grea—You’d like her,’ Jake said, catching himself. ‘She’s brave, loyal, strong. She’s, well, she’s a lot like you.’

  A sudden sense of dread made Jake shiver. Time was in flux, warping and changing around them. In the settled history of things, Rachel Saxby was a descendant of Katherine Hobarron, the daughter of Eleanor and Josiah. Yet in this version of history it seemed that Eleanor had never had a daughter. What did that mean for Rachel? Had she simply ceased to exist? And if so, why had history changed?

  ‘What’s that?’ Eleanor said. ‘Do you hear it?’

  Haunting music, played upon the strings of a harp, reached out to them.

  ‘It’s so beautiful.’

  In another time and place Jake would have agreed but here, under the shadow of this malevolent house, he shivered at each sombre note.

  ‘Cut the horse loose,’ he said. ‘I want you to take her and go.’

  ‘What?’

  Jake stepped off the clump of meadow and approached the great door.

  ‘Get out of here, Eleanor. There isn’t much time.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, I’m not leaving you.’

  Jake placed his hands on the door. Smooth, solid oak. It seemed strange to think that in his past he had seen this door old and weathered. That the entire house had once been a ruin and would be so again. Only one thing about Havlock Grange would remain unchanged: the Evil that clung to its rotten heart. Jake could feel the strength of it now, pulsing through his fingers. So many had died here …

  ‘Please, Eleanor, I have to do this alone.’

  ‘That’s what he said.’ The girl’s voice shook with emotion. ‘That’s what he always said: it’s not safe, I have to do this alone. Don’t you und
erstand, I can’t let it happen again? I can’t let him—you—face all the horrors on your own. I need to be with you.’

  Her hands pressed against Jake’s.

  ‘He couldn’t take you with him, Eleanor. If you’d ever been hurt—’

  ‘I was hurt, every time he left without me. And then, when I heard of his death … I cannot, will not, be hurt like that again.’

  ‘But I’m not him. You said so yourself. You won’t ever have to mourn for me.’

  Eleanor took his hands from the door and made Jake face her.

  ‘How could I not mourn you?’

  Her lips close to his. Her fingers tracing his jaw. Her eyes making him forget the music.

  ‘I … ’

  The door burst open.

  Light flooded out from the Great Hall.

  Beyond the glare, Jake glimpsed the tall, thin figure of a man standing on the stairs. His pale skin gleamed and his eyes shone from their deep, dark sockets.

  ‘Good evening, Master Harker,’ Quilp said. ‘I have been waiting for you.’

  At the sound of that voice, Jake forgot all about Eleanor. All he could focus on was the steady beat of his rage. He brushed her aside and stepped forward to meet his old enemy.

  Mr Murdles floated towards the open door of the Grimoire Club. The early evening sunlight baked the yellow stone of the square and struggled through the body of the ghost. Murdles was wearing a new ecto-suit for the occasion; the very last in his wardrobe.

  He tried to ignore the calls coming from the shadowy arcades. Fifty or more dark creatures had already gathered there. They had travelled many miles, on foot and claw, on hoof and hands, on leathery wing and scaly belly. More arrived by the minute, emerging from the teardrop doorways behind the columns. Spying the ghost that had summoned them, they called out—‘Murdles! What times does the show start?’

  The mood in the square was good-natured as the creatures greeted old friends and took out their picnic hampers (some of them, Murdles noticed, carried suspicious, blood-soaked lunch bags). As jovial as the atmosphere was now, the manager knew that it would not remain so for long. He glanced at the fangs and claws, the pincers and stingers. If things didn’t go to plan then it would take days to clear the corpses from the square.

  Razor, the dog-headed doorman, stepped across Murdles’s path. He cradled the bottom of a leather purse in his huge palm, jingling the contents.

  ‘Takings have already met your target, boss.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Murdles flustered. ‘Any of them reluctant to pay up?’

  Razor swung a heavy club, not unlike the preferred weapon of the troll, Brag Badderson. The end was matted with blood and hair.

  ‘One or two,’ he grunted.

  ‘Remember, only take gold and silver coins,’ Murdles instructed. ‘I don’t want to see any human currency. The way they run their economies, most of their money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.’

  ‘Speaking of humans,’ Razor lifted his hairy eyebrows.

  Rachel Saxby and the Lydgate boy hurried down the steps of the club and towards Murdles.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ the manger grumbled. Then, grinning broadly—‘My dears! What can I do for you?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Just a little event I’ve organized. Nothing to concern your good selves.’

  ‘Murdles,’ Simon warned.

  The manager looked to his doorman for help. Razor just shrugged, slapped Simon on the back, and headed off in search of gold.

  ‘Bloody Cynocephalus!’ Murdles glanced nervously at Simon. ‘No offence.’

  ‘My canine side forgives you,’ Simon growled, ‘but don’t try its patience. We haven’t seen a soul around here for days and suddenly the square’s packed to the rafters with … Well, whatever the hell some of those things are. So, out with it.’

  ‘It’s the Oracle,’ Murdles sighed.

  ‘Your little snakey friend in the pit?’

  ‘I went to her a few days ago, desperate for news. You see, Mr Lydgate, I can’t pay my bills. The club’s almost bankrupt, and if it goes under then there will be no more ecto-suits for poor Mr Murdles. So I had to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘When he was coming back.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Simon frowned, ‘when who’s coming back?’

  ‘Jake,’ Rachel said. ‘He made a deal with Murdles so that we could stay here.’

  ‘A show of magic,’ Murdles nodded. ‘A show to end all shows. The Oracle told me that today’s the day! Jake will return within the hour and he will keep his promise. I’ve sent out telegrams, notices, proclamations to every corner of the borderlands. Look.’

  Murdles reached into the pocket of his ecto-suit and withdrew a rolled-up poster. Unfurled, it showed an artist’s impression of Jake standing before the demon Door, magical energy rippling around him. Written above the illustration:

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this?’ Rachel snapped. ‘Didn’t you think Dr Harker would like to know that his son was coming back?’

  ‘The prophecy was vague, I didn’t want to get his hopes up. He seems very frail these days.’

  ‘But you’ve arranged this event! You had to believe it was true.’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Murdles seethed. ‘This is my only chance to survive. It’s the biggest gamble of my life, and perhaps the last. In any case, I couldn’t tell you because you weren’t here.’ He looked at Simon and Rachel curiously. ‘Are you and Pandora still skulking around London, keeping your ear to the ground for news? Things have changed so quickly for the humans, have they not? In a matter of weeks, the entire world turned on its head! I hear that Pandora’s contacts will no longer see her. Powerful people are breathing down their necks. And what of Dr Holmwood and Dr Saxby? Whoever would have thought that such important men could fall so low?’

  ‘Come on,’ Rachel said, taking Simon’s hand, ‘we should talk to Adam.’

  Simon hesitated. ‘I don’t know, Rach. Maybe Murdles has a point. Adam’s very weak. He can’t eat or drink anything, he’s drifting in and out of consciousness. Pandora says … ’ Simon put his arms around the girl. ‘She says he doesn’t have much more time.’

  ‘He should know,’ Rachel insisted.

  ‘Let’s just wait and see what happens, OK?’

  The great sun of the borderlands dipped in the sky and the shadows stretched across the square.

  Twilight approached.

  There were four figures in the hazy candlelight beyond the door: Tobias Quilp standing on the stairs, his little demon slavering beside him; a veiled woman, bound and chained at the bottom of the staircase; and a second woman, small, beautiful, sitting on a stool in the centre of the Great Hall. A harp rested between the woman’s legs and against her shoulder. Jake tried to tear his gaze back to Quilp, but the song of the harp was impossible to resist. His eyes moved across the instrument—its quivering strings, its gilded wooden frame decorated with scrolls and carvings. The little witch’s fingers strummed with hypnotic grace.

  ‘Qu-ilp … ’ Jake stumbled into the hall. ‘You. I’ve come for you. I need to … ’

  To what? Why had he journeyed back in time? To find the witch ball, his addled mind answered. The witch ball would cure his father and give him the strength to destroy … Who? He struggled against the sweet lull of the music.

  ‘Qui—’

  The man on the stairs smiled down at Mr Pi—Jake shook his head—the demon’s name would not come to him.

  ‘That’s right, Jacob—listen to Miss Lethe’s music. Let it charm the thoughts from your mind, let it soothe all your sad and hateful memories away.’

  The yellow-eyed demon laughed. It lifted a mocking talon and beckoned Jake on. He had almost reached the harpist when a weak voice called out:

  ‘Jake. Stop. Come back.’

  Something familiar in that tone. Instinct told him to trust the stranger. Looking over his shoulder, Jake saw the golden-haired girl framed in th
e doorway. Who was she? Her name haunted his lips but the music snatched it away. The music: it moved through his mind like a breeze, snuffing out the light of memories, leaving only darkness in its wake.

  ‘Come back to me … Ja—’

  The creases in the girl’s brow smoothed out. The muscles in her face relaxed. Memories vanished, and with them all emotion, thought, and feeling was gone. Jake turned his back on her.

  More darkness than light now. Memories closing down around him. Birthdays, Christmases, bedtimes, holidays, school trips—all of it taken by the music. And as each light was swept away, so people vanished into shadows. Eddie Rice and Dr Holmwood, Joanna Harker, Dr Saxby, the Preacher, Pandora, Lanyon and Murdles, Brag Badderson, Rachel, Simon, his father … his mother …

  He must fight it, must cling to something.

  The girl in the doorway.

  ‘El-Elea—’

  ‘Let her go, Jacob,’ the harpist sighed. ‘Let them all dance away into the dark.’

  She turned her elfin face to him and smiled.

  ‘Lethe,’ he breathed.

  Something stirred in his mind. The pages of a book. A boy with a crooked smile had once given the book a name—‘Jake’s dark compendium’. No, that wasn’t right. ‘Dark archive’? He shook his head. It didn’t matter. It was what the book told him that was important.

  ‘Is that your real name?’ he asked. ‘Lethe?’

  ‘That’s right,’ the witch crooned, her fingers plucking the strings.

  ‘Lethe,’ Jake breathed. ‘Roman myth … ’

  ‘Greek,’ she corrected.

  ‘Greek. Yes. Lethe was one of the rivers of the Underworld. Anyone who drank the waters would … they would … ’

  Jake clutched his head. Screamed against the vanishing. The book was gone.

  ‘Yes,’ the witch smiled, ‘they would.’

  There was something he could do. He wasn’t powerless. This was the work of magic and he … He was … What was he? Jake stared at his outstretched hands. He turned them over, as if looking for something that should be there.