Witch Fire

by Laura Powell

  This part of the house was cramped and plain with a floor of rough wooden boards, as befitted servants’ quarters. Lucas peeked out of the sagging shutters, judging the distance from the window to an outhouse rearing up from a tangle of brambles and rhododendrons. It would be a long leap, but not an impossible one.

  He trod very quietly, knowing there could well be militiamen in the rooms below. When he put his ear to the floor, he thought he could hear rough male laughter, and was relieved. It meant he would be able to tell if Glory had company.

  He was wearing a belt containing the tools for the non-witchwork aspect of his activities. They had learned Tap code as well as Morse code back in WICA, and once he knew Glory was below him, and alone, he would tap out a signal on the bare boards to alert her to his presence. Then he would take up the floorboards and knock through the plaster to make a hole in the ceiling of her cell. As long as they found some way of concealing or getting rid of the fallen plaster, they could hide the hole with a fascination. She would be bridled, of course, but his picks should deal with that – the locks on those cuffs were never very complicated. The plan was to pull her up through the floor and then sky-leap out of the window.

  First, though, he had to find out exactly where she was. The caretaker had seemed sure of where she would be held, but Lucas couldn’t leave anything to chance. When he reached the spot marked on the map, he lay down and once more listened with his ear to the floor. Silence. From inside his jacket he brought out a forked twig, sourced from a rubber tree near where Raffi had parked the car. A witch hazel was the traditional choice for blood-dowsing, but any tree would do, as long as the wood was still green with sap.

  Lucas produced the charm that Candice had given him and which contained Glory’s blood. He scraped the two ends of the forked twig against the reddish-black smear, then made a small cut in the centre of his palms. He held the two ends of the forked side in each hand, with the stem pointing straight ahead. Walking slowly, holding a picture of Glory in his mind, he waited for a dip or twitch as the dowsing-rod sensed the flow of her blood. Nothing.

  He retraced his steps, moving from abandoned room to room. Still nothing. Either the caretaker was wrong and Glory was being held in an entirely different part of the building or, more likely, Glory wasn’t in her cell because she had been taken away for questioning. The idea of her being frightened or in pain was choking, so that he suddenly couldn’t think, almost couldn’t breathe, and the flow of fae faltered. The effort it took to bring it back, and with it a picture of Glory – whole and unhurt – made his surroundings grow even darker and hazier, as if he was dowsing in a fog.

  ‘Hold it right there,’ a voice barked. ‘Hands up.’

  Slowly, very slowly, Lucas turned around. A Red Knight was pointing a gun at him. Gideon was standing behind. He looked amused. ‘Really, Lucas,’ he said, ‘we must stop meeting like this.’

  Lucas pressed the button on his silent alarm. Outside the hacienda, in a grove of rubber trees, the distress signal flashed its warning from Raffi’s dashboard. Raffi had been scrying too, so as to be sure to be ready for the getaway. But it was too late for him to respond or even react. A brawny arm was encircling his neck. With a gun pressed to his head, he was dragged from the car.

  While Lucas was cuffed and bridled and his clothing searched, Gideon prowled restively around the room. ‘Your breaking and entering technique has got more ambitious,’ he observed. ‘Shame you didn’t spot the security camera in the yard. This place might be a little rough around the edges, but it’s not completely medieval.’

  Lucas squared his shoulders. It was pointless, but he might as well go through the motions.

  ‘I’m here in Cordoba on a counter-witch-terrorism assignment. I have a mandate from the British Inquisition as well as WICA, and am working alongside the Cordoban police –’

  ‘Spare me the résumé,’ said Gideon. ‘I’m really not interested.’ But although his voice was as languid as ever, Lucas sensed he was on edge. He kept touching things: the shutters, the wall, a pile of dust sheets. His face was flushed, his eyes bright. Excited, but jittery.

  ‘And as a matter of fact, your timing’s good. As a representative of Her Majesty’s government, it’s only appropriate that you should witness the judicial execution of one of its citizens.’

  Lucas’s mind raced. How long before back-up arrived? Could Raffi’s father scramble a helicopter? There must still be things he could do, help that would come. The alternative was unthinkable. So he swept past it. ‘You’re to be judge, jury and executioner now? That’s not multitasking – it’s megalomania.’

  Gideon shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m afraid in this case justice will have to be applied retrospectively. The hag-bitch is already dead. You’re too late in that respect – she died an hour ago, while attempting to escape. But we intend to burn the body all the same.’ He laughed. ‘You always wanted to be an inquisitor, didn’t you, Stearne? Well, this way, you still get to watch a balefire.’

  Chapter 29

  Lucas was tugged back to consciousness by a dull pain at the back of his skull. For a moment it wasn’t so bad, because he couldn’t work out where he was and why. Then reality crashed back. He had lunged at Gideon, a rush of hate surging through his body, and then something had knocked him into darkness.

  When he was able to raise his groggy head, Lucas found he was tied to a chair set in front of a pair of French windows. Beyond the glass, he had an impression of high walls covered in vines, carved stone columns, a mossy fountain. The view, though, was dominated by the pyre set in the middle of the courtyard.

  It was lit up like a film set. As the Cordoban national anthem played from a crackly stereo, two Red Knights secured a body to the stake. The limbs lolled awkwardly, like those of a broken doll. Under the grey prison shift the body looked both frail and lumpen. Lucas couldn’t see a face, only a spill of bright blonde hair. Then the soldiers stood back.

  At that, Lucas made a sound he didn’t recognise: raw and animal. And Gideon, who was standing by the window, laughed again.

  Rose was beside him, his arm around her waist. There were chairs for them too. Unlike the lowly henchmen who were gathering under the colonnade, the pair of them would recline in comfort behind the glass. They wouldn’t want the smoke stink getting into their clothes.

  Gideon moved to check the camera he had set up on a tripod. The film would be something for his private viewing pleasure but also, presumably, for the good folk of Cordoba. Justice must be seen to be done – even though it wouldn’t be half as exciting with a dead body. Clever Glory, to spoil his fun.

  Lucas stared and stared, trying to imprint her face on to his brain for all time, even though his last glimpse of her was already disfigured. There was an ugly bruise on one cheek. And blood too around her eyes and nose.

  ‘How – did – she – die?’ he asked laboriously, one resisted word at a time.

  Gideon shrugged. ‘She must have tried to work her fae through the iron. It brought on some kind of haemorrhage.’ He eyed Lucas with genuine curiosity. ‘A girl like that . . . Did you really care for her? Or was she just a bit of coven rough on the side?’

  Lucas barely heard him. There was white static in his head, a violent shaking building up in his body.

  Rose had been staring fixedly through the glass. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mouthed to the body on the pyre. Her voice was a whisper, her face white. ‘I never wanted –’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Gideon said irritably. ‘You’ve been acting out ever since we got down here.’

  She didn’t respond, just shook her head, as tears welled in her violet eyes.

  However, Gideon’s exasperation didn’t last long. The jittery excitement Lucas had sensed in him earlier was still there, still fizzing in the air around him. Lucas briefly wondered about Raffi, and what could have happened to him, but he didn’t have the strength to think about it. It was too late, anyhow. Everything was too late.

  Gi
deon said something into his two-way radio, and there was a flurry of action around the pyre. He made one final adjustment to the camera and took his seat, pulling it right up in front of the window. ‘Burn time.’

  As the balefire was lit, Rose gave a small muffled cry.

  Lucas kept silent. Though he couldn’t move away, he could close his eyes. He tried to block out the hiss of the flames, the crackle of the wood. Tried to ignore the tang of smoke he could already sense – or did he just imagine it? – clinging to his nostrils and hair.

  Instead, he tried to remember Glory as she truly was. The pride and grace of her, swooping through the night skies above Wildings, dancing through the London chimney tops. How her eyes could look so black, yet be so bright. The waxing and waning of her Devil’s Kiss, as she leaned towards him in candlelight. Loss spilled through him, unstoppably now.

  He felt a clutching pressure on his arm. He thought it was Gideon, forcing him to watch. But it was Rose.

  He looked: he couldn’t help it. The flames had already caught the hem of Glory’s clothes. Flames were licking greedily at her bare feet. But some of the wood must have been damp, for the smoke was so thick it was soon almost hiding the pyre.

  Rose bent down and whispered to him. He twisted away, tried to block out whatever poison she wanted to pass on. Her guilt or regret was almost as repulsive to him as Gideon’s gloating.

  ‘Lucas,’ said Glory’s voice in his ear. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Should you – could you – risk it?’ Rose had asked, back in the prison room.

  And Glory had said yes, because anything was better than this, and what would come after. Even though she thought Rose was probably mad as well as bad, and was clutching her head with twitching hands.

  But then, as so often before, Rose snapped into efficiency.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘One of my headaches. Such a bore . . . Here – you know what to do, right?’

  She produced colouring pencils and paper from her handbag, like someone getting ready to entertain a child. Or a witch, preparing a glamour.

  ‘I’ll say you overpowered me with your Dark Arts,’ she said, as she set about undoing Glory’s cuffs, ‘and stole my identity. These people are too stupid and arrogant to understand witchwork. I won’t be able to give you long, though: half an hour at most.’

  Glory eyed her dubiously. The risk wasn’t just hers; Rose was endangering her own position. Rose saw and understood her look.

  ‘I have to do this. I really must. And,’ she took a deep breath, ‘It’s difficult to be sure but I think this is what I really want. For real. Do you understand?’

  She didn’t wait for Glory’s answer, just pressed her knuckles against her eyes, took another steadying breath. ‘All right. Once you’re disguised as me, your best route out is through here.’ She was using chalk to sketch a map on the floor. ‘I often walk in this part of the grounds if I’ve got a headache and Pedro, the guard stationed there, isn’t too bright. There are cameras about the place, but it’s very hit and miss. You should be OK if you head to the walled garden on your right. From there you can hide in the forest, or get to the main road, hitch a lift. I don’t really care. That’s your problem.’

  Glory nodded through this and other instructions, though she was struggling to keep up. The iron had left her limp and drained, and she was worried about the glamour. Witchwork wasn’t much better at altering body-shape than it was at disguising age. A glamour could clothe her body with an impression of Rose’s taller, slimmer frame, but the measurements wouldn’t stand up to inspection. Would they get away with it?

  Rose, however, was already sketching her face, examining her features with impersonal concentration. Glory picked up her pencils and began to draw. Her own portrait first, followed by the other girl’s. Red hair, purple eyes, white cheeks. Then the details: the puckered burn marks on Rose’s right hand, the faded lilac blot on her neck, the shiny rounded tips of her fingernails. The effort it took to use her fae was dragging. Her Seventh Sense, numbed by the iron, was sluggish and thin.

  Rose was the first to finish. She sat back on her heels, drawings in her hands.

  ‘Are we really some kind of cousins?’ she asked. ‘Is Vince Morgan really my father?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Your Granny Lily was my great-aunt. So you’re a Starling girl, same as me.’

  Rose frowned. ‘I know that should mean something. That it’s something I should feel. But I can’t. At least, not very often.’ She smoothed down the paper restlessly. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I really exist.’

  Glory worried Rose was about to flip out again. Yet despite Rose’s bizarre pronouncements, this was the first honest conversation they had had. She couldn’t let the chance go.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened, when you went to Cambion’s clinic and had the surgery? Do you really not remember?’

  ‘I honestly don’t. It was to do with Alice, I think. Then there was something about – about a gingerbread man.’

  ‘Alice? Is that who gives you your orders?’

  ‘It’s what I called my fae. Back at the school, with Dr Caron.’

  ‘So who’ve you been working for all this time?’

  The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, it’s just me. And Alice, in my head.’

  ‘Alice . . . talks to you?’ This wasn’t anything like Glory’s experience of the fae.

  ‘Not exactly. I feel her words, like an echo. A dark echo. It’s because of the gingerbread man.’ She sighed. ‘I know that doesn’t make sense. But Alice wanted me to hex Esteban, and then she made me put the blame on you, after I asked you to help cure him.’

  ‘But I couldn’t take off the bane,’ said Glory. ‘You must’ve done it yourself.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rose rubbed her head distractedly. ‘Sometimes I can boss Alice, instead of her bossing me. But it never lasts. That’s why we have to hurry, you see . . . before things change again.’ She gave herself a shake. ‘Ready?’

  Rose pulled out a single red hair, tore off a piece of fingernail, and smeared Glory’s picture of her with moisture from her eye and sweat from her palm. Glory reciprocated. They struck a match, burned their self-portraits, and mixed the ash with the other material. Then they pressed the amulets between their palms, and whispered each other’s names as they stared into the other’s eyes. In different circumstances, the set-up might have been almost comical. Yet Glory had never performed witchwork with such seriousness.

  Seconds later, she was gazing at her own face. Rose had done a good job. The eyebrows weren’t quite dark enough, perhaps, and the nose was slightly too hooked. But she’d got the bruise where Gideon had hit her, and the scratches and cuts on her arms.

  Rose examined her handiwork in a compact mirror, before passing it to Glory. Glory looked into the glass and saw that she was beautiful. Her very own fae-tale transformation: from witch to princess.

  Quickly and silently they exchanged clothes. Glory’s prison shift was shapeless enough to hide the change in build, and Rose must have dressed with this in mind. She wore loose-fitting trousers and blouse. The shoes pinched Glory’s feet, and the trousers were too long, but she wasn’t making any complaints.

  Rose pinned the glamour’s amulet into the roots of her now blonde hair. Glory tucked hers into the belt of the trousers. She put Rose in the cuffs, as gently as she was able, and picked up the bridle.

  ‘It wasn’t Mummy’s fault, you know,’ Rose said abruptly. ‘She thought she was helping me. She didn’t want me to suffer like she did. She was a different person before she became a witch. So was I,’ she said, as Glory prepared to lock her in to the head-cage. ‘Before Alice took over. Please . . . will you take my hand?’

  Glory hesitated. She didn’t like to look at her; this mirror-sister, this crooked twin. But though she kept her eyes lowered, she did as Rose asked. The hand had her own chipped red nail polish on the bitten-down nails, but it was Rose’s warmth she felt under the illusion.

  ‘I’m glad this is nearly over,’ R
ose said softly. ‘And when it is, I want you to forget me. This isn’t who I am. The person I was disappeared long ago.’

  The guard outside had been tranced, or something similar. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes glazed and body motionless. Rose had made her preparations well. But at the end of the corridor, Glory lost her nerve. It was somehow more frightening being outside the cell than inside it. She had a sudden fear that the whole business was another of Rose’s traps. She thought of all the questions she should have asked her while she had the chance, and in the midst of her confusion turned right when she should have turned left. It took several long sweaty minutes to put herself back on the right path.

  The house was vast and rambling, badly lit, and with a derelict air. She tried to walk like someone who knew exactly what she was doing and where she was going. Rose had said that Gideon was on a conference call with his superiors, but Glory knew if she ran into him it would all be over. She might be able to manage an approximation of Rose’s cut-glass accent that would fool a foreign soldier. With Gideon, she’d have no chance.

  Finally, more by luck than good management, she approached the outside door Rose had directed her to, the one with carved stone vines around the frame and a pug-faced soldier, Pedro, on guard. She started the performance; clutching her head and grimacing, Rose-style. The guard stood to attention and opened the door. Giving him a distracted smile, she moved past into the warm damp night, her heart speeding so fast she thought she was going to be sick.

  One step into freedom. Then another, and another one after that –

  And then, the shouts. The pounding feet, the cries to stop. ‘Miss! Witch-attack!’ the guard was shouting at her, over a crackle of static from his radio. ‘Miss, you must return. Big danger! Atención, peligro!’