Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  He laid her softly on the ground. Their fingers parted.

  ‘I found my magic again because of you.’ He looked to the black box and a blue flame with a heart of scarlet ignited in his palm. The tears had vanished from his eyes. ‘Now it’s time to use it again.’

  ‘Jake?’ She held his gaze. ‘You must never let the darkness win or I will truly have lost you.’

  Jake could no longer look at her. It was too painful. He walked to Frija’s side and the witch strained again to slow the box.

  ‘Once you’re inside lay your hands upon the door and concentrate on the place you wish to be taken,’ she instructed.

  ‘Surely Quilp’s already done that.’

  ‘You’re a stronger sorcerer than he. Remember, I know this demon, it was my brother’s familiar. It is both disloyal and greedy. It will respond to whoever wields the greatest power. Hurry now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jake said. ‘You stood with us against your sisters. It must have been difficult for you.’

  Frija Crowden shook her head. With her free hand she took hold of the corner of her veil.

  ‘Not as difficult as you may think.’

  Jake remembered how Frija’s brother had torn away the dirty cloth that had hidden his face from view. In Marcus Crowden’s case he had been concealing a beauty that belied his evil. As she pulled her veil away, Jake saw that Frija hid her features for a very different reason. More skull than skin, the horribly burned face of Frija Crowden glistened in the candlelight.

  ‘Such is the evil of dark witches and demons,’ she croaked.

  The mist pouring from her fingers thickened. The box slowed to a near stop and the door swung open. Jake strode towards the demon, all the while sensing the magnitude of its evil. Aside from the Demon Father himself, this ordinary-looking cabinet was the foulest, darkest creature he had yet encountered.

  Jake stepped inside.

  A fiery wind gusted against his face. The call of a thousand despairing voices filled his head. He squinted, trying to see beyond the gale and the darkness. There was no sign of Quilp.

  ‘Don’t look!’ Frija cried. ‘Turn back to face the door. Do as I say, or risk losing your mind!’

  Jake grasped the sides of the nightmare box. Voices again, telling him he would fail, that soon the Demon Father would stride across the wastelands of his new dominion.

  And then he heard her voice, and his soul stirred again.

  ‘Goodbye, Jake!’ Eleanor called. ‘Remember me … ’

  Turning, he caught the meanest glimpse of the girl before the door slammed shut.

  Chapter 32

  The Witch Ball

  ‘Punters are getting tetchy, Boss,’ Razor observed.

  ‘I can see that, you flea-bitten mutt.’

  ‘’m just saying, something magical better start happening soon or this lot’ll kick off. You do know we’ve got some of the Unseelie Court in the audience?’ The Cynocephalus dug a toothpick around his gigantic canines and tried to appear unconcerned. ‘You don’t really wanna mess with dark fairies unless you can help it. Or any of the Old Ones come to that … ’

  ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Murdles shouted.

  Puzzled faces turned to the open door of the Grimoire Club, and Murdles managed a carefree smile. It only took a quick glance around the square for the smile to fall away.

  Five rows deep, the covered walkways teemed with dark creatures. Thousands jostled for the best view of the square while more monsters arrived through the teardrop doorways every minute. So many creatures that Murdles had been forced to beg his fellow managers at the Lizardman Lounge and the Gore Gardens for extra doormen to control the crowds. Even in the glory days of the Grimoire, when Mulgrew the Magnificent, Savage Bones, or Letty Scrivener had graced the square, there had never been such a crowd as this. From every corner came the jingle of coins being collected.

  But Razor was right, curse his hairy hide. The dark creatures were becoming impatient. The Shades of the Shadowlands whispered between themselves and kept turning their smooth, featureless heads towards Murdles. A horde of vampires sheltering under black umbrellas hissed whenever they looked in the manager’s direction. And the Unseelie Court? Well, those little creatures just waited and watched in eerie silence, as the Ancients are wont to do. Meanwhile, the rest—trolls and boggarts, werewolves and warlocks, goblin and chimera, wyvern and gorgon—growled and grunted and grumbled. If the show didn’t start soon then, instead of a magical display, the square would be hosting a bloodbath.

  Murdles looked at the sky and shivered. The giant sun had started to set over the desert.

  Fingers clicked an inch from the manager’s nose.

  ‘Borderlands to Murdles.’

  His eyes focused on Rachel Saxby and Simon Lydgate. Arms folded, these humans looked almost as threatening as the crowd.

  ‘What d’you want?’ the manager snapped.

  ‘We want to know what’s going on,’ said Rachel. ‘The hour before sunset, your poster said. So where is he?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Murdles hissed. He floated to within whispering range. ‘Truth is, I don’t know where he is … Look, I wonder if you could do me a favour?’

  ‘A favour?’ Simon raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s just, if Dr Harker could come out and talk to a few of his friends here, explain that this really isn’t my fault, I would be eternally grateful. He has such influence with these … people.’

  Rachel and Simon exchanged glances.

  ‘I’m sure Dr Harker would like to help—’

  ‘Excellent!’

  ‘If he could.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Adam lost consciousness an hour ago. Pandora’s with him, but … ’ Rachel tailed off .

  ‘Pandora, she … ’ Simon put his arm around Rachel. Steadied himself. ‘Pandora doesn’t think he’ll wake up again. Dr Harker is dying.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  Murdles looked forlornly into the square.

  And then he noticed a change in the crowd.

  A few of the psychics had ceased their chatter and were pointing at something as yet invisible to the naked eye. More and more of the dark creatures seemed to sense the same disturbance. A deathly hush fell across the square. Razor’s ears pricked up. Simon grasped Rachel’s hand. Murdles felt a shiver run through his ectoplasmic body.

  Magic in the air.

  Suddenly, an explosion of scarlet light blinded all but the eyeless.

  When the glare fell back, Murdles saw a tall black box spinning just above the sandy ground in the centre of the square. He was about to whisper something to Razor when the door of the cabinet burst open. A thin boy wearing old-fashioned clothes and with close-cropped hair stepped out. He paced out a dozen steps, turned, and stopped, his eyes rooted on the open door.

  ‘Jake,’ Rachel and Simon said together.

  A blue flame tinged with red flashed into Jacob Harker’s hand.

  The crowd roared.

  After the door slammed, Jake had tried to clear his mind of thoughts of Eleanor. The pain of losing her would have to wait. He peered into the unending darkness but could see no sign of Quilp. Was it possible that the witch was inside the box with him, but existing inside some other dimension?

  Jake placed his hands against the door. Icy to the touch, the wood crackled with magic. Through this connection, Jake caught a glimpse of the cabinet’s destination: it was not moving in space, only through time, catapulting them forward to the derelict Havlock Grange of the twenty-first century.

  Back to the Demon Father.

  Jake pressed his palms into the wood.

  Home, he thought, take me home.

  A cruel voice echoed around him. The voice of the box—

  Very well, boy, but where is ‘home’?

  Good question—the house in which he had grown up was now empty, deserted.

  Take me to my father.

  The man who stands in the shadow of death?

&
nbsp; Jake did not answer.

  Let me feel your magic and I will do as you ask.

  An outraged shriek came from the shadows. Jake glanced around but there was still no trace of the witch.

  ‘You serve my master!’ Quilp cried. ‘The Demon Father commands you!’

  We demons are capricious creatures, Mr Quilp, and the boy’s power intrigues me.

  Quilp’s manic screams faded away.

  Now, child, the demon box whispered, how shall we occupy ourselves during our journey? Shall I show you visions of your dead mother? Your slow-dying father? Or shall I—?

  A blue flame stood out against the darkness. Holding it aloft, Jake shook his head.

  ‘I’d shut up, if I were you. Dimensions of suffering, endless torment, but when all’s said and done you’re still just an old wooden box.’ The flame billowed in Jake’s hand. ‘And I bet wood and magical fire don’t mix too well.’

  You wouldn’t dare.

  Jake grinned. ‘I’ve had a pretty rough few weeks, demon. Don’t test me.’

  * * *

  Shouts, whoops, cheers, and catcalls.

  Thousands of monstrous faces ranged all around him.

  It was a strange scene. Why were all these creatures packed into the square outside the Grimoire Club? For now Jake put the question out of his mind and concentrated on the doorway. He transferred the ball of magic from hand to hand while his senses strained at the silence within the nightmare box.

  At last, a pale presence in the darkness. The cultured voice.

  ‘No Crowden sister to help you now, boy. No pretty little wretch to divert your attention. It’s just you and me.’

  The first twist of anger coiled in Jake’s gut.

  ‘Do you remember our first meeting on the road to the Hobarron Institute?’

  Quilp’s cadaverous face shone in the gloom. His claw-like hands curled around the side of the door.

  ‘Less than a year ago, and you, such a miserable little child.’

  The witch stepped out of the box and into the dying light. A few of the dark creatures recognized him and the whisper of his name rustled around the square. Quilp did not look once at the crowd; his full attention was focused on Jake. A blaze ignited in his palm and bathed his pallid features in a smoky red light. The enemies began to circle each other.

  ‘Do you remember how you wailed when I took your mother’s head?’ Quilp purred. ‘How you bawled and bleated when I cut her down and gave her to the fishes? You must remember. How could so much blood ever be forgotten?’

  Anger strengthened into fury. Blades of white-hot rage sliced through Jake’s mind. He saw his mother just as Quilp described her: a headless corpse falling into the murk of the canal. All it had taken was a slash of the witch’s finger.

  ‘That’s it,’ Quilp laughed. ‘Remember her as she is—your stinking, putrid corpse of a mother. Feel the pain that I feel for my Esther.’

  Something inside Jake snapped. To hear his mother spoken of in the same breath as Esther Inglethorpe brought every shred of darkness roaring out of his soul. The flame in his hand turned from blue to deepest, darkest red.

  Jake looked back at his foe and grinned.

  ‘That withered old hag?’ he mused. ‘That rancid old bag of bones? Is she really what all this is about? Cos, I gotta say, she was just about the most hopeless excuse for a dark witch I’ve ever seen. We didn’t even need magic to kill her. All it took was a single bullet, smack through the brain.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘One bullet. Just one, ordinary kill-a-human-stone-dead bullet.’

  ‘I said, shut up.’

  Jake’s eyes reddened in the light of his magic. He put his head to one side and pouted his lips.

  ‘Oh dear, have I upset you, Mr Quilp? Do you really miss Mother Inglethorpe that much?’

  He strode forward, magic swirling in his grasp. His long, bleak shadow fell over Tobias Quilp.

  ‘Then let me send you to hell too!’

  Jake poured every scrap of spite and hurt, pain and bitterness, hatred and cruelty into the flame. His brain screamed. His heart wept. Fuelled by the agonies he had suffered at the hands of Quilp and his kind, Jake crafted a spell of pitch-black malevolence. Its ferocity was shaped by the blood on the walls of Hobarron Tower; by the loss of his friend, Brett Enfield; by the slaughter of the magician Sidney Tinsmouth; by the death of his mother; by the hexing of his father; by the scars on the face of the girl he had lost. He could feel this new magic boil in the very pit of his soul and run out like poison through his veins. It scorched his fingers, burned his skin, but he did not release it until he was sure that he had nothing left to give. When the spell was done, Jake looked down into his hand and gloried in the darkness.

  Even the most evil of the creatures in the crowd gasped at sight of the flame. It burned with such ferocious power that the flaming sun on the horizon seemed to dim in awe of it.

  All the swagger drained from Tobias Quilp. He staggered away from Jake, tripped and fell to the ground. His own dark magic spluttered in his hand.

  ‘Mr Quilp,’ Jake shook his head, ‘what’s wrong with you? Scared of a little dark magic? Tell you what, I’ll give you a sporting chance and let you go first.’

  Quilp took Jake at his word. Whispering a few incantations, he released three feeble bolts which Jake swatted away with ease.

  ‘’S that all you’ve got?’ Jake squatted down to Quilp’s level, the dark red flame spinning in his hand. ‘I’m not going to kill you, Tobias. Not just yet anyway. Let’s have some fun first, shall we? I’ll give you twenty seconds.’

  ‘W-what?’

  ‘Tick-tock, tick-tock. That’s four seconds gone already.’

  Quilp wiped a shaking hand across his mouth.

  ‘I don’t … Please, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Ten seconds gone. You’re wasting valuable time, Tobias.’

  ‘But, I—’

  Jake thrust his face forward. ‘Run.’

  Quilp didn’t need telling twice. He scrabbled to his feet and set off across the square. Howls of derision followed the fleeing witch while the crowd roared its approval for Jake. He found that he liked the adulation. Turning on the spot, he held up the crackling, spitting orb. Faces spread into wicked grins and clawed fists punched the air.

  ‘Thataboy, Jake! Play with the witch! Make him suffer!’

  ‘Strike him down, Jake! Do it now!’

  ‘Slaughter him!’

  ‘Finish him!’

  ‘Kill him!’

  ‘KILL! KILL! KILL!’

  Jake called over his shoulder to Quilp—

  ‘Run!’

  Of course, he had no intention of letting the murderer escape.

  ‘Run!’

  He was just giving him the illusion of freedom. An illusion he would snatch away …

  ‘RUUUUN!’

  Now.

  A final charge of dark thoughts and the flame billowed higher than ever.

  Quilp was on the far side of the square, making for one of the teardrop doorways.

  Jake licked his lips.

  Targeted his victim.

  Threw back his hand.

  And …

  ‘Jake!’

  Her voice.

  Jake glanced over his shoulder and there she was, running to meet him. Her skin shone and her yellow hair dazzled in the sunset. She was here. She was real. Her words reverberated in his heart—

  You must never let the darkness win or I will truly have lost you.

  Eleanor’s hand slipped into his. In Jake’s other hand, the magic immediately transformed. The red light vanished and a pure, blue flame rose up in its place.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  Reaching back, Jake hurled the Oldcraft magic across the square.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ he said, ‘but he can’t escape with the witch ball.’

  The magic hurtled past Quilp and into the teardrop doorway. From beyond came a thunderous crack and t
he rumble of falling stone. The way had been blocked. Quilp panicked and tried to head for one of the other portals but the dark creatures clubbed together and would not let him pass. With no choice left, the witch ducked into the doorway he had originally chosen.

  One of the larger forest trolls that had gathered around the door called out to Jake.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Harker, we’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t find a way out. You just catch your breath. Great show, by the way!’

  A ripple of applause greeted this remark. Clearly some of the dark creatures had wanted Jake to finish the witch, but few could deny that they had witnessed a real spectacle.

  Jake turned to the girl beside him.

  Yellow hair. Sea-green eyes. Not Eleanor of the May, but Rachel Saxby.

  ‘Jake,’ Rachel smiled through her tears. ‘You look disappointed to see me.’

  Jake wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘Disappointed?’ he laughed. ‘Are you kidding? I never thought I’d see you again! Rachel, I’m so sorry about everything. I shouldn’t have run away like that. I just—’

  A boy with a crooked lip tapped Rachel on the shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, Rach, but Jake and I need a word.’

  Jake stepped back and held out his hand to Simon.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Simon,’ Rachel protested.

  ‘Friends don’t shake hands,’ Simon grinned, and threw his arms around Jake. After five solid minutes of hugging he held Jake at arm’s length and scowled. ‘But don’t you ever do that to us again, understand? Now, I think we better go and sort out that witch.’

  It was cold beyond the teardrop doorway. Dust from the explosion billowed all around, but high above, where the vine-tentacles creaked, it was beginning to clear. A delighted Mr Murdles (‘A triumph, Jacob! A masterpiece of magical theatre! Enough money in the pot for at least three hundred ecto-suits!’) had provided Jake and his friends with powerful electric torches which they now swept around the ceiling. Dislodged by Jake’s spell, ancient chunks of stone had fallen and blocked the tunnel path that led back to Yaga Passage and London. Jake wondered whether Quilp had instinctively chosen this portal over the others. The doorway that led back to the old headquarters of the Crowden Coven.