The darkest he had ever known.
He stood now in the mouth of the cave, the flame dancing between his fingers. Blue light licked up the cavern walls and shimmered across the stalactites. It was not cold but still he drew his cloak close about him. Hairs on the back of his neck bristled to attention. Every fibre of his being felt it, thick upon the air: Evil. He had been aware of it all his life. Evil like an icy hand upon his cheek, like a freezing fist clasped around his heart. To feel the presence of true, demonic Evil was a gift, his father had said, and he must use it wisely. He must seek evil out and, with the help of God, put an end to it.
As a boy, his ability had been a curse, and he had done all he could to ignore it. Only in this last year had he truly used his gift. He had seen the cruelty and the injustice meted out to the poor folk by people like Matthew Hopkins and the other witchfinders. Men who saw witches everywhere and lined their purses with blood money. His father had encouraged him to follow these men wherever they went and to challenge their work. The irony was that he had been confused with them, and labelled a witchfinder, too.
The latest outbreak of witch-hunting had started in a little village by the sea. From the moment he had stepped into the community, he had felt Evil everywhere. In the streets and houses, in the river, even in the church. It had choked the air and poured out of every doorway.
Here was a place where real witches thrived.
Now, standing in this cave, he felt it stronger than ever. Pure Evil. He touched the enchanted glass ball that hung around his neck …
A man came forward out of the darkness. Behind him floated a tall black box.
The Coven Master smiled.
‘Welcome, Witchfinder.’
Jake woke with a start. He looked down at his hands, half-expecting to find the blue flame flickering between his fingers. He had never had a dream so vivid, so real. It felt as if the dream had come to him in the same way the memories of his mother’s murder had returned. A sudden flash emerging from a hidden part of his mind, but what did it mean … ?
The front door slammed shut. His father’s voice rang out—
‘Where are you?’
Jake ran out into the hall. Adam, his face drawn with fear, his clothes muddied and torn, raced to meet his son. Thick files stuffed with paper spilled out from under his arms. His words came in panicked snatches.
‘They’re—almost here—go upstairs—now!’
‘Who’s almost here?’ Jake could hear panic in his own voice.
‘Holmwood—Saxby—her. Go. If I can, I’ll explain later.’
A thunderous crack sounded from the front of the house. Splinters appeared in the door. Adam pushed Jake down the hall and towards the stairs.
‘Get into bed,’ he hissed. ‘If they start questioning you, play dumb. Don’t try to call the police. They have eyes everywhere. Whatever you hear now, whatever you see, stay upstairs. Promise me.’
‘But, Dad … ’
‘Promise!’
Jake gave a reluctant nod.
‘OK. Now, go … ’
The door gave way.
Jake caught a glimpse of Dr Holmwood and a dozen white-coated men on the lawn. He didn’t think Holmwood had seen him. Obeying his father, he ran to the stairs.
A torn sheet of blue paper caught Jake’s eye as he hit the first step. It must have fallen out of his dad’s files. He scooped it up, stuffed it in his pocket and bounded upstairs.
Noise—clamour—swearing. The sound of Adam Harker being dragged to his knees. Questions—What have I done? Where are you taking me? No answers. Adam’s heels kicked against the floor and he was bundled out of the house. Sick with fear, Jake crossed the landing and slipped into his bedroom. From the window, he watched the white-coated men force his father into a waiting ambulance. The doors closed, the engine started and the ambulance drove out of the street. Adam’s abduction was over in the space of three minutes.
Footsteps on the stairs. Jake scooted under the duvet and closed his eyes. The door eased open. A few seconds later it clicked shut again. Muffled voices throbbed through the floor. As quietly as he could, Jake left his bedroom and crept downstairs. A crack of light shone through the living room door. Jake tiptoed to the door and peered into the room.
Dr Saxby paced up and down. Dr Holmwood sat on the sofa and smoked a cigarette. There was a third person in the room but Jake could only see the top of her head poking over a chair back.
‘ … sound asleep,’ Dr Holmwood said.
‘So, where have you taken Adam?’ Saxby asked. ‘Back to the Institute?’
‘Surely even you wouldn’t want Adam to be held in the Institute cells like some common conjuror!’ Holmwood snapped. ‘Dr Harker is not our enemy—his only crime was to love his son. For now, I will keep him at Green Gables. My house is comfortable, but it is as secure as any prison.’
The woman coughed. The eyes of the men turned to her.
‘What about the boy?’
There was something familiar about that deep, raspy voice. Jake had heard it before, many years ago.
‘Surely he must go to Hobarron’s Hollow,’ Saxby said.
Holmwood hesitated. ‘I—I can see no other solution. Yes, the boy must go. I will notify all Hollow residents to expect him. We don’t want anyone talking about the Demontide and frightening the child away. Not when a sacrifice is our only hope.’
‘We are sure then, that the weapon will not work?’ the woman asked.
‘It has been tested and does appear to be useless.’ Holmwood sounded defeated.
‘A grand scheme that came to nothing,’ Saxby sighed. ‘It was always a foolish dream … ’
‘My brother is not a fool!’
The woman turned her face to Saxby. Jake almost cried out in surprise. He ought to have known! He had heard her name mentioned the night of Dr Holmwood’s party. He had not seen her for almost ten years, but now he recognized Aunt Joanna, his father’s sister.
‘I was there that night in Hobarron Bay,’ she said, spitting the words at Saxby. ‘I saw what was done to Luke.’ Her eyes flickered towards Dr Holmwood. ‘My brother and I stood on the clifftops and watched as the boy’s throat was cut from ear to ear. You may be an Elder, Saxby, but have you ever witnessed the murder of a child?’
‘No,’ the doctor admitted.
‘Then keep your mouth shut about my brother. Adam grew up reliving that sight, night after night in his dreams. And he swore that he would never allow such a thing to happen again. He would find another way. His “grand scheme”, as you call it, his great weapon, could have saved us all. Instead we cart him off like a madman and prepare, once again, to kill an innocent child.’ She turned to Holmwood. ‘I will bring Jacob to Hobarron’s Hollow. To my home … ’
Joanna Harker got to her feet.
‘We will stop the Demontide, gentlemen, as we always have. But mark my words: one day we will burn in Hell for these things we do.’
Chapter 8
Attack of the Hellhounds
Jake tiptoed across to his desk and turned on the reading lamp. By its light, he studied the paper his father had dropped in the hall. A fragment of an engineer’s blueprint, it looked as if it had been torn from a larger sheet. The central design was of a box, a metre in length and fifty-three centimetres in width and depth. Cables snaked out from the base while the casing itself seemed to be transparent. The title of this strange contraption had been stamped above it, although the last word had been partially torn away:
So this was the weapon his mother had created! The machine she had devised to stop the Demontide! But what did it do? After ten minutes or so staring at the drawing, Jake gave up trying to work it out. He turned off the light and went to the window.
The moon blinked between the clouds. Silver shadows danced across the garden.
Jake eased open his bedroom window and climbed out onto the sill. Teeth gritted, he slid down the clattering drainpipe. With one eye on the dark windows of the house, he crossed the
garden and took his BMX from behind the shed. The squeal of the gate sounded unnaturally loud in the early morning stillness.
Jake checked his watch—3:30 a.m. He had about two hours until dawn. He mounted the bike, flipped the torch on the crossbar and pedalled along the lane. His legs pumped as he hit the main road and swept the bike in a wide circle. While he focused on the road ahead, fresh mysteries raced through his mind.
After Holmwood and Saxby left, he had waited until he heard Aunt Joanna climb the stairs. Half an hour later, her snores signalled that it was safe to leave. Before setting out, he had placed a can of spray paint and a wire coat hanger in his rucksack.
What did Joanna Harker have to do with all this?
Jake hadn’t seen his aunt for a long time. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d only met her once. An untidy hulk of a woman, she’d turned up unannounced at his sixth birthday party. When she bent down to give him a kiss, Jake had smelt whisky on her breath. His father had whispered a few stern words in her ear and she’d left pretty sharpish. After that, Jake only ever heard her mentioned in passing between his mum and dad. There had never been any talk of her being connected to the Hobarron Institute. And yet, in her conversation with Holmwood and Saxby, it sounded as if she had some authority within the organization. What possible role could she play?
Jake turned off the main road and into the woodlands. The forest path ran down to the river. All along the bank, he could hear the stir of wetland creatures in their hollows.
Hobarron’s Hollow. The place that Aunt Joanna planned to take him. He whispered the name over and over. Why should this place share the same name as a scientific institute? An institute whose real work was the destruction of demonkind. More troubling still was the fact that, due to the weapon’s failure, it looked as if a sacrifice was needed to stop the Demontide. Jake grimaced—it was pretty obvious who that sacrifice was going to be …
Twenty minutes of furious pedalling brought Jake to a huge iron gate. The rear entrance to Green Gables, Dr Holmwood’s manor house. The black eye of a security camera glinted down at him. In a flash, he snatched the spray paint from his rucksack and blinded the lens. Then he straightened out the wire coat hanger and threw it at the gate. Sparks crackled between the bars. As he suspected: electrified. He picked up the scorched wire and tucked it back into his rucksack.
Jake hid his bike in the undergrowth and slipped down the bank. Attached to the gate was a chain-link fence, about four metres high and topped with barbed wire. Jake followed it all the way through the forest. He had expected the fence to end at the river’s edge, but it plunged into the water and stretched out quite a distance from the shore. He took off his shoes and tied the laces around the straps of his backpack. Then he stepped into the icy water. Hissing through his teeth, he waded forward. Reeds caught at his legs as if they were another part of Dr Holmwood’s security cordon. When the water had reached his chin, he kicked off from the bottom and swam the last few metres around the end of the fence.
He had begun to make his way back to the shore when he saw a light track across the water. A man in uniform appeared from between the trees and spoke into his fist.
‘I’m at the south perimeter, no sign of an intruder. I’ll go and check the camera. Probably just short-circuited or something.’
A voice crackled through the walkie-talkie.
‘Come back to the hut first. I’ll walk down to the gate with you and we’ll take one of the dogs. If there is someone in the grounds, it could be dangerous. Remember what Dr Holmwood says about the enemies of the Institute.’
‘Spook stories,’ the guard laughed. ‘You know, for a clever guy, I think the doc’s got a few bats in the belfry. But OK, I’m on my way. Shuck needs a run anyway.’
Shuck. In the ancient legends of the eastern counties of England, Black Shuck was the name of a hellhound. That didn’t sound good.
Jake swam quickly to the shore and scrambled up the bank. Teeth chattering, he pulled on his soggy trainers. The backpack had half filled with river water which Jake now emptied out onto the ground. Green Gables was a ten minute walk through the woods. Jake set off, and was under the shadow of the house before three minutes had elapsed. The run helped him warm up.
Silhouettes moved across the window of the security guard’s hut. The small wooden building stood by itself, a stone’s throw from the main house. Two dirt bikes with helmets on their saddles rested against the hut wall. A fenced-in dog run was attached to the hut, kennels at the rear. Leashes with empty collars hung from the kennel roofs. Jake gulped. There was no sign of the dogs.
The hut door swung open and Brett, the guard from the Institute, strode out.
‘Come on, Shuck.’
A large, elegant Doberman trotted out of the hut. Brett fitted a leash around its neck and its ears pricked up on either side of its head like two demonic horns. Jake waited until the men and the dog had disappeared from view. Then he made a dash for the hut.
Brett had locked the door behind him. It appeared to be a simple catch. Jake took the wire coat hanger from his bag and slotted it between the door and the jamb. With a little jiggling, the catch flipped and he was inside.
A bank of monitors marked Driveway, Forecourt, Rose Garden, Main Hall, Cellar, Woodland Path stood along one wall. The screen labelled Rear Gate was blank. Jake watched as Brett, Shuck, and the other guard crossed the rose garden. At that pace, it would take them maybe seven minutes to reach the gate—another ten or so to check the area and alert the house. At best, he had twenty minutes to get into the house and rescue his father. That was if he could get into the house.
Jake had visited Green Gables many times. The place was a high-tech fortress, the doors electronically secured. With one eye on the monitors, he searched the coats that hung behind the door. Nothing but sweet wrappers and pocket fluff. He turned his attention to the filing cabinet. Papers, bills, receipts, old security tapes …
The minutes ticked by and his search became frantic. No longer caring about the evidence he would leave behind, he tore open files and ransacked drawers. His gaze shifted to the screen marked Woodland Path. The guards and the dog flashed across the monitor. Soon they would be at the gate.
He spun around and, in his panic, knocked a mug of cold tea from the desk. Jake cursed. Then, seeing what lay beneath the cup, his heart leapt. His luck was holding—Brett had been using his keycard as a coaster. Jake grabbed the card and checked the house monitors. Each showed an empty room. An idea popped into his head. If this was the only monitoring station, he might be able to buy himself a little more time. He grabbed a hammer from a toolbox under the desk and set to work. Within seconds he had smashed every one of the monitor screens.
The silent fortress waited.
Jake went to the back door. A card swipe device was bolted to the wall. He tried the keycard. The LED flashed red. Maybe the card was faulty. Maybe that was why Brett had been using it as a coaster. If he ran back to the hut …
A low growl came from the bushes directly behind Jake.
‘Oh crap,’ he muttered.
There was no hope of running back to the hut now. Any sudden movement and the dog would be on him. He tried the card again. Red.
‘Good doggy,’ he said, frantically swiping the card. ‘Good pooch.’
The LED flashed: red, red, red, red …
The growl deepened. Paws padded onto the path.
‘Good Rex. Good Rover.’
… red, red, red, red …
Wet jaws slapped together. The hound came closer, closer.
‘Come on, come on!’
Swipe. Red. Swipe, swipe, swipe. Red, red, red.
Claws clicked across the paving. Saliva slopped onto the ground.
Jake felt hot breath against the back of his legs.
‘Don’t eat me,’ he pleaded.
Swipe.
Green.
The door swung open.
Jake moved just in time. He heard the snap of the dog’s jaws followed by
a yelp of frustration. The beast pounced as Jake closed the door. A thrashing head with spittle-flecked jowls caught against the door jamb. Jake fell back into the hall while his foot kicked out at the door. For a moment, he thought that the massive hound would succeed in forcing its way into the house. He could hear the scrabble of its hind legs, could feel the power of those heavy-muscled limbs. The battle of wills between Jake and the dog lasted less than a minute. To Jake, it felt like hours. Finally, the dog let out an exhausted pant and pulled its head back. Its collar caught against the jamb and slipped from its neck. The door slammed shut.
The silver name tag twinkled up at Jake, and identified his attacker as ‘Cerberus’. A dark catalogue reference told him that, in Greek and Roman mythology, Cerberus was the ancient guardian of the underworld—a monstrous beast with three heads.
‘Cerberus.’ Jake nodded. ‘Figures.’
Despite the rumpus, the household remained undisturbed. Jake got to his feet and crept along the corridor. His plan had been hazy at best and now that he was inside Green Gables he wondered how he would find his father. There must be over a hundred rooms, most of which he had never seen.
The corridor opened out into a huge entrance hall. Like the rest of the house, it was a scene of luxurious splendour. Beautifully woven tapestries hung from the walls. A staircase made of iron and glass swept down from the floor above. The marble floor, polished to perfection, gleamed … Except that wasn’t quite true. No, not polished to perfection. From the door to the stairs, two parallel tracks tarnished the marble.
Dawn of the Demontide Page 8
