Demon Witch (Book Two - The Ravenscliff Series)

by Geoffrey Huntington

  “But Cecily—”

  He wasn’t able to finish, because they were distracted by a loud noise on the street below. A man was shouting, pointing up at the sky. An enormous demon dropped into view—an apelike creature with reptilian wings on its back. Devon couldn’t help but think of the winged monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.

  “It would appear that your services are needed below,” Wiglaf said dryly.

  “Superman to the rescue,” Devon said, a little wearily. He snapped his fingers and he was outside on the street. The flying monkey had attached itself to the window of a second story and the man was throwing stones at it.

  “It’s going to take my children!” the man shouted in terror.

  “Hey, man, take it easy,” Devon called up to him. “I can handle this.”

  The demon turned and hissed, spotting Devon down in the street. It leapt from the building at him. Devon braced himself for the impact.

  But it didn’t come. The demon stopped in mid-air, a look of surprise on its ugly face. Something had caught it from behind. Devon watched as the beast was suddenly swung around by its wings—by a girl who looked exactly like Cecily!

  “To your stinking netherworld!” the girl cried, and with one fling of her arm, sent the creature hurtling through the sky over the rooftops of the village.

  “The Nightwing have arrived!” the man in the window was shouting. “The Nightwing have come to save us!”

  The girl who looked like Cecily landed beside Devon and smiled. “You must be quick, my friend. You mustn’t tarry so long as you did just now. It gave them too much opportunity. Take them from behind, when they are unawares.”

  “Cecily?” he stammered.

  “My name is Gisele.”

  Devon couldn’t speak momentarily, stunned by the resemblance. This girl—this Nightwing—was the exact image of Cecily: red hair, green eyes, the same saucy lift to her chin.

  “I hail from Zeeland and the court of the Count of Flanders,” Gisele was saying. “I am here for Witenagemot. And you?”

  It was clear that she recognized Devon as a fellow Nightwing. He tried to stammer out a reply. “I am… Devon March.”

  “A curious name. Is it English?”

  He considered how much to reveal, and decided on caution. “Uh, yes. Yes, it is.” He considered her accent. It was different than the old English that Wiglaf speaks. “But you’re not from here, are you?”

  “I am from Flanders. My father is Arnulf, my mother Sybilla of Ghent, and we come from the line of Wilhelm of Holland, the great Nightwing artist.” She smiled, evidently proud of her lineage. “And from which line do you descend, Devon March?”

  “Uh, I’m—um—well, I descend from Sargon the Great.”

  Gisele raised her eyebrows. “But we all do. Who is your father?”

  “I don’t know.” Devon swallowed. “I’m Nightwing. That’s all I know.”

  She gave him a bemused look. “A captivating tale, I would think. You have no knowledge, none at all, of your parentage?”

  “None at all.” This was a new voice. Devon turned. It was Wiglaf, coming up behind them. “The boy is under my guardianship for the moment, Gisele.”

  “Wiglaf!” The girl hurried to him, embracing him warmly. “I was so looking forward to seeing you.”

  “You know each other?” Devon asked.

  Gisele turned to him. “Wiglaf was my teacher for several years when I attended the school in the southwest of England. Did you not attend there as well, Devon March? I thought all Nightwing children were trained there.”

  “Not for this young master, I regret to say,” Wiglaf told her. “Devon was not told of his heritage until very recently.”

  “Yeah,” Devon admitted. “I have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Gisele seemed puzzled. “But you are here for Witenagemot, just as my parents and I are?”

  Devon shrugged. “So Wiglaf told me.”

  “It’s my first,” Gisele said, batting her lashes a bit and smiling at him. “I should enjoy being with someone for whom it will also be the first time.”

  Devon blushed. Was she flirting with him? She looked so much like Cecily that he definitely felt drawn to her. It was weird: he felt both a little guilty and completely natural when he smiled back at her.

  “My father says there is to be a secret meeting tomorrow, before the official ceremony began,” Gisele told Wiglaf.

  “You must be quiet about that,” Wiglaf chastised her. “You must say nothing too loudly, for the Witch has ears everywhere.”

  Devon drew close to them. “The secret meeting. It’s about Isobel, right?”

  Wiglaf nodded. “The Nightwing have determined something must be done. She is to be officially named an Apostate.”

  Gisele shivered. “I’ve heard of Apostates before. So she is the one who sent the demon I vanquished.”

  “Lady Isobel has set many demons free upon this land,” Wiglaf explained. “She must be destroyed.”

  “But how?” Gisele asked.

  “That is for the Nightwing to decide, not me.” Wiglaf sighed. “I am just a Guardian.” He put his arms around the shoulders of both young people. “Now take us to your parents, Gisele. I suspect my young ward would enjoy meeting them.”

  That he certainly did. To Devon’s astonishment, Gisele’s mother looked exactly like Mrs. Crandall—except that Sybilla of Ghent is warm and inviting, offering him a cup of hot broth as he sat in front of the fire. For the moment, Gisele’s father was not in their suite of rooms at Kelvedon House, loaned to them by an English Nightwing for the duration of Witenagemot. Devon wondered if Arnulf will look like Cecily’s father. Of course, Devon would have no way of judging, as he’d never seen Peter Crandall. Not even a picture.

  But when Gisele’s father walked through the door, Devon was stunned.

  Arnulf of Zeeland was the spitting image of Rolfe Montaigne!

  “Devon March, this is my father,” Gisele said.

  Arnulf stood tall over him, looking down with Rolfe’s piercing green eyes. “Welcome to you, my young friend. Wiglaf tells me you know not your father. It is a pitiful thing, and a condition I hope you can remedy.”

  “I intend to,” Devon told him. “I am determined to discover the truth of who I am.”

  It was uncanny, watching these people. Devon could swear they were Rolfe, Cecily and Mrs. Crandall dressed up for some costume party. But the warm embrace exchanged between Arnulf and Sybilla, husband and wife, convinced Devon that these were very different people from the two foes of the twenty-first century. Yet it gave Devon a little glimpse into the affection once shared between Amanda Muir Crandall and Rolfe Montaigne, a love that had now turned into hatred and resentment.

  Now turned into? Sipping his ale at the long wooden table, Devon reminded himself yet again that time was no longer linear. There was no “now” but the present—and the present was 1490. Not only had Rolfe and Mrs. Crandall yet to begin their feud, they had yet to even be born. Their grandparents, their great-grandparents—even their great-great-great-great-great-grandparents—had yet to be born!

  But Devon had to find a way to return to his own time. As much as he wanted to attend the Witangemot, he’d rather be back with his friends, making sure they were safe. What if he was trapped here? What if that had been Isobel’s plan all along? To send him back here so she could have free rein at Ravenscliff in the future. Maybe she knew she’d defeat him here and, armed with that knowledge, had dispatched him from the twenty-first century to meet his destiny here. It suddenly all started to make sickening sense to him.

  “More ale, my young friend?” Arnulf asked him.

  “Sure,” Devon said. Back home, he wasn’t old enough to drink beer. But here in the sixteenth century, he was already a man. Fifteen-year-olds got married, owned property, marched off to war. He’d learned that in Mr. Weatherby’s class—or, rather, he would learn that, five centuries from now.

&nb
sp; He couldn’t help grinning wryly to himself. If I am trapped here, I’ll be the first person in history to have the dates on my tombstone in reverse. My birth year will be later than my death year.

  “Devon March,” Gisele said, coming around to the end of the table where Devon sat, “care you to walk with me outside? There is a full moon.”

  The ale had made him a little heady. “Sure,” he said. He noticed the small smile Wiglaf gave him. Then the Guardian returned to the discussion he was having with Arnuf and Sybilla about the secret Nightwing convocation to be held the next day.

  Outdoors the village was quiet, seemingly deserted. “They are all afraid,” Gisele said. “This Witch—she has control of a very large portal, I would assume.”

  Devon looked at her. “You ever been down a Hell Hole?”

  Her eyes widened. “Of course not. Have you?”

  “Yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “I went down there to rescue a kid. Didn’t take all that long.”

  Gisele seemed stunned. “You went into a Hell Hole to rescue a goat?”

  Devon laughed. “No, a human kid. A child. A little boy.”

  Her eyes danced in wonder. “And you made it out alive? Oh, Devon March, how brave of you.”

  He smiled. He liked impressing her, especially after she beat him to the punch in defeating that demon earlier.

  “You know,” he said, “it must be pretty awesome growing up with Nightwing parents, going to a Nightwing school. All my life I’ve just had to wonder what my powers were, why I could do things other kids—other children—could not.”

  “I expect that would have been very difficult for you.” Gisele smiled up at him, the moonlight reflecting off her face. “Tell me, Devon March. Are you betrothed?”

  “Betrothed? You mean, like, engaged to be married?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, where I come from fifteen is a little young to be thinking about that. But I do have a girlfriend.” He grinned. “You remind me an awful lot of her.”

  Gisele seemed to consider the word. “Are you planning on going back to this place where you come from? To this girl-friend?”

  He sighed. “I hope so. But I’m not sure I know how.”

  Gisele took his hand in hers. “Perhaps you will come back to my country with me. It is beautiful this time of year. The tulips are growing. There are boats we can take, on the canals…”

  Devon began to blush a bit, and tried to change the subject. “So, what did they teach in Nightwing school? Did you learn about—?”

  But his eyes caught something moving across the street. Something small, lurking in the shadows. A patch of moonlight suddenly reveals what it was—or, rather, who.

  It is Bjorn Forkbeard.

  Devon took off after him.

  “Devon!” Gisele cried. “It is just a gnome!”

  But he kept chasing the little man down the street. Despite Devon’s cries to stop, Bjorn continued on his way, scurrying through the shadows.

  Gisele caught up with Devon. “What do you want from him?”

  “I know him,” Devon told her.

  At first glance, Devon had been inclined to chalk it up to yet another extraordinary resemblance. After all, everyone else from Ravenscliff seemed to have a double in this time. Why not Bjorn?

  Until Devon suddenly remembered that Bjorn was six-hundred-and-sixty-two years old in the twenty-first century. Meaning that he would be alive now, in 1490. The gnome Devon saw wasn’t Bjorn’s double: it was Bjorn himself.

  “I have reason to suspect he’s allied with Isobel,” Devon told Gisele. “I’ve seen him calling on the spirits, stirring a witch’s cauldron. He’s in league with her. I know it.”

  “Then we should tell my parents, and the other Nightwing,” Gisele suggested, pulling on Devon’s doublet to make him stop.

  He leaned in close to her. “What’s the matter? You can swing flying monkeys around by their wings but you’re afraid of a little gnome?”

  Gisele huffed. “I am not afraid, Devon March.”

  “Then come with me.”

  “I shall.”

  “Good.”

  They resumed their pursuit. Devon suspected that seeing Bjorn here was no mere coincidence: he was meant to discover him here and his connection to Isobel. In fact, Devon was starting to believe, Bjorn was probably the one who brought Isobel to Ravenscliff, just as Simon had once done with the Madman. Bjorn wanted power in the same desperate way Simon had wanted it—the kind of power he could only get by assisting an Apostate in opening the Hell Hole.

  “He’s gone in there,” Gisele said. “That door behind the tavern.”

  Devon saw him too. He strained to pull open the heavy oaken door that Bjorn had just so effortlessly moved through. “They’re strong, these little guys,” Devon told Gisele. “But we have sorcery. Gnomes don’t. Stand back, please.”

  He waved his hand majestically, willing the door to open. It didn’t budge. The powers don’t work merely to impress, the Voice reminded him. Devon realized he was still smarting a little over the fact that Gisele had showed him up in the battle with the demon, and he was hoping to dazzle her a bit with his own sorcery.

  “Shall I try?” she asked.

  “No,” he grunted, managing to yank the door open with his own muscle power. “There are some things better done without any magic.” It creaked open and they slipped into the darkened room.

  “How cold it is,” Gisele said, shivering.

  Devon tried to look around. “Wish I had a flashlight.”

  “You need light?” Gisele asked. “So be it.”

  She snapped her fingers and the room was suddenly filled with a hundred candles, each offering flickering golden light.

  Devon looked back at her. “So how come you can just do that? My powers aren’t nearly so reliable.”

  “You must practice, Devon March. Now be vigilant.”

  The candlelight revealed only wooden kegs of ale. Only the one door led into the room, so Bjorn couldn’t have gone out another way.

  “He’s a crafty one,” Devon said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hiding in one of these kegs.”

  “He’d emerge quite drunk if he were,” Gisele said.

  Devon concentrated. Maybe it was easy for Gisele to just snap her fingers and suddenly bring forth light, but there was more to being a Nightwing than magic tricks. There was what Dad used to call sensitivity. You got ideas, thoughts, impulses. Yes, the Voice told him. See with your mind, not just your eyes.

  “Under there,” Devon said suddenly, pointing to a couple of overturned kegs. “Roll them away.”

  Gisele obeyed. On the earthen floor behind the kegs was revealed a small wooden trapdoor with a bronze ring attached.

  “A portal,” Gisele breathed.

  “But I feel no heat, no pressure,” Devon said. “It can’t be a Hell Hole.”

  “Then what might it be?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Devon said.

  He curled several fingers through the bronze ring and yanked at the door. Once again it was very heavy. He dared not try his powers again just in case they failed, so Gisele leaned in to help him. Together they managed to lift it, revealing a dark hole—a tunnel—below.

  “Did the gnome go down there?”

  “Yes,” Devon told her, the Voice confirming it for him. “And I’ve got to follow.”

  “Not alone you won’t.”

  “Gisele, I don’t know what’s down there. I have nothing to lose. I’m not from this place. I don’t belong here. But you do—you have parents, friends, a whole life here.”

  She stiffened. “I am a Sorcerer of the Order of the Nightwing.”

  Devon couldn’t hold back a smile. “Yes, you are.” She was just like Cecily. Exactly. Stubborn and proud. And it reminded Devon that, powers or not, Cecily descended from Nightwing stock, too.

  So both of them started down the tunnel. It bore through the e
arth at a gentle slope, nothing too steep, but they were definitely going down. It was narrow at first but grew wider as they traveled. Not wanting to signal Bjorn that he was being followed, they remained in the dark.

  “If this isn’t a Hell Hole,” Gisele whispered, “how was it created? What could possibly cut through the earth in this way?”

  “A gnome could. Look.” He indicated the rough surface of the tunnel’s sides, which were covered with little ridges and valleys the size of fingertips. “Have you never seen a gnome’s fingernails? Harder than stone. They built mines like this all through northern Europe with their bare hands.”

  Gisele shivered. “Gnomes give me the oopalas,” she said.

  “The what?”

  She laughed. “The Voice in my head said to tell you ‘the creeps.’”

  Devon smirked. “Look how well we’re communicating and we’ve barely known each other a day.”

  Gisele started to say something back but was distracted. “There!” she whispered, pointing past him. “Up ahead.”

  Devon saw a small, flickering light. It had to be Bjorn. The gnome had paused in a larger hollowed-out area of the tunnel. Devon waited until they were only a few feet behind him before calling out.

  “Bjorn Forkbeard!”

  The gnome nearly dropped his candle in surprise, but he recovered in enough time to turn around and hold the flame up to their faces. In the backglow his little eyes peered at them in terror.

  Devon realized Bjorn didn’t know him. Of course not—they hadn’t met yet. That day would come some five hundred years from now. But it dawned on Devon that on that fateful day on the icy driveway of Ravenscliff, the gnome would already know exactly who Devon was—because they had met here, in the past.

  “We are Nightwing,” Devon said to him, “and we command you to tell us your business. Why did you not stop when I called to you on the street?”

  “Noble sir, great lady, I ask your pardon. But I was so consumed by my purpose this night—surely you understand.”

  Devon looked at Gisele, then back at Bjorn. “What are you talking about?”

  Just then they heard a sound. A squeaking sound—the sound of a bat somewhere off down the tunnel ahead of them.