Writ in Water
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WRIT IN WATER. THREE NOVELS OF SUSPENSE. SPECIAL BOX SET. Copyright © 2014 by Natasha Mostert. First edition published by Portable Magic Ltd, 2014. Jacket design by Asha Hossain.
SEASON OF THE WITCH. Copyright © 2007, 2013 by Natasha Mostert. First published in the United Kingdom by Transworld/Bantam in 2007. First published in the United States by Penguin/Dutton in 2007. Portable Magic Edition, 2013. Photograph of woman © Martin Hooper
THE MIDNIGHT SIDE. Copyright © 2000, 2013 by Natasha Mostert. First published in the United Kingdom by Hodder & Stoughton in 2000. First published in the United States by Harper Collins in 2001. Portable Magic Edition, 2013. Lyrics from ‘Brilliant Disguise’ by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1987 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. Photographer / © Denis Cohadon / Trevillion Images.
WINDWALKER. Copyright © 2005, 2013 by Natasha Mostert. First edition published by Tor, Tom Doherty Associates (USA). Second, revised edition: Portable Magic, 2013. Jacket design by Stefan Coetzee/Asha Hossain; Photograph © Zachar Rise; Photograph of Skeleton Coast Wreck © Trygve Roberts.
The books in this volume are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Author photograph by Mark Andreani. © Natasha Mostert
ISBN 978-1-909965-26-3
www.natashamostert.com
www.portablemagic.com
EBOOKS IN THIS VOLUME
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Begin reading SEASON OF THE WITCH
Begin reading THE MIDNIGHT SIDE
Begin reading WINDWALKER
About the Author
Contact Natasha
PRAISE FOR SEASON OF THE WITCH
‘This woman will haunt your days and keep you awake at night’—Mo Hayder
‘Dazzlingly clever and original… one can only marvel at the author’s own witch-like power to enchant her audience’—Daily Mail (London)
‘Black cats, snakes, spiders, mystical signs and symbols and dangerous sex are skilfully stirred together in this brain-squeezing thriller’—Kirkus (starred review)
‘Vividly and evocatively written… enthralled me right to the end’—The Times (London)
‘This heady fiction doesn’t so much push at the edges of the genre as ride roughshod over them’—Observer (London)
‘Fans of Anne Rice and Joyce Carol Oates should appreciate Mostert’s take on mysticism, magic, and the ancient art of memory’—Booklist
‘Saturated in beauty, with wonderful observations, insights and eroticism… a bewitching book’—Ian Watson, author of the screen story for A1
‘This spellbinding tale of magic and seduction from Mostert shows that the unfettered pursuit of arcane enlightenment can sometimes come at too high a price. Goth SF at its finest’—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
For Carl,
pint-sized warrior
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Praise for SEASON OF THE WITCH
Dedication
Prologue
HOUSE OF A MILLION DOORS
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Chapter 13 | Chapter 14
ENCHANTED SUMMER
Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18
Chapter 19
SHADOWS
Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23
Chapter 24
THE PORTAL
Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28
Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32
Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36
Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40
Chapter 41 | Chapter 42 | Chapter 43 | Chapter 44
Chapter 45 | Chapter 46
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Novels by Natasha Mostert
Preview of Natasha Mostert’s DARK PRAYER
PROLOGUE
He was at peace: his brain no longer blooming like a crimson flower.
Slowly he opened his eyes. Above him, a black sky shimmering with stars. A pregnant moon entangled in the spreading branches of a tree.
Vaguely he realised he was on his back, floating on water. A swimming pool. Every now and then he would move his legs and hands to stay afloat. But the movements were instinctive and he was hardly aware of them.
A violin was singing, the sound drifting into the night air. It came from the house, which stood tall and dark to his right. The windows were blank and no light shone through the tiny leaded panes. The steep walls leaned forward; the peaked roof was angled crazily.
His thoughts were disoriented and his skull was soft from the pain, which had exploded inside his brain like a vicious sun. But as he looked at the house, he could still remember what was hidden behind those thick walls.
And how could he not? For months on end he had explored that house with all the passion of a man exploring the body of a long-lost lover. He had walked down the winding corridors, climbed the spiral staircases, entered the enchanted rooms and halls. It was all there—locked away inside his damaged brain—every minute detail.
The green room with its phosphorescent lilies. The ballroom of the dancing butterflies. The room of masks where the light from an invisible sun turned a spider’s web to gold. Wonderful rooms. Rooms filled with loveliness.
But inside that house were also rooms smelling of decay and malaise. Tiny rooms where the walls were damp and diseased; where, if he stretched out his hand, he could touch the unblinking eyes growing from the ceiling: eyes whose clouded gaze followed his ant-like procession through a tilting labyrinth of images and thoughts.
He knew their order. The order of places, the order of things. He had followed the rules perfectly. Why then—his mind a spent bulb, his body so heavy—was he finding it increasingly difficult to stay afloat?
A wind had sprung up. He felt its dusty breath against the wetness of his skin and he wondered if the fat moon might topple from the tree.
He was becoming tired. His neck muscles were straining. He should try to swim for the side of the pool, but half of his body felt paralysed. It was all he could do to move his arms and legs slightly to keep from sinking. Below him was a watery blackness. And he suddenly realised he was no longer at peace but horribly afraid.
But then the darkness was split by a warm beam of light. Someone had switched on a lamp inside the house. He wanted to cry out, but the muscles in his throat refused to work. The light was coming from behind the French doors with their inserts of stained glass carefully fitted together in the shape of an emblem. Monas hieroglyphica. See, he still remembered…
A shadow appeared behind the glowing lozenges of red, green and purple glass. For a moment it hovered, motionless.
The shadow moved. The doors opened.
She stepped out into the garden and her footfall made no sound. As she walked towards him, he thought he could smell her perfume.
His heart lifted joyously. She had known he was out here all along. Of course she did. And now she had come to save him. No longer any need to be afraid. But hurry, he thought. Please hurry.
She was still wearing the mask. It covered her eyes. Her hair was concealed by the hood of her cape. On her shoulder perched
the crow, black as coal. Even in the uncertain light he was able to see the sheen on the bird’s wings.
Sinking down to her knees at the very edge of the pool, she leaned over and looked squarely into his face. A wash of yellow light fell across her shoulder. Round her neck she was wearing a thin chain and from it dangled a charm in the shape of the letter M. It gleamed against the white of her skin.
From inside the house, the sound of the violin was much clearer now and he recognised the music. ‘Andante cantabile’. Tchaikovsky’s string quartet no. 1, opus 11. The ecstatic notes struck a fugitive chord of memory. The last time he had listened to this piece there was a fire burning in the hearth, a bowl of drooping apricot roses on the dark wooden table and next to it three glasses filled with red wine waiting on a silver tray.
He was sinking. His feet were pale finless fish paddling sluggishly. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. But she would help him. She would pull him to safety. With difficulty he moved his arm and stretched out his hand beseechingly.
Her forehead creased with concern but the eyes behind the mask were enigmatic. She placed her hand on his face and pushed it softly into the water. The crow left her shoulder with a startled shriek.
His mouth opened in protest and he almost drowned right then and there. He turned his head violently to one side, sneezing and coughing. Panic-stricken, he tried to swim away from her but his limbs were so heavy.
Again she leaned forward and pushed him down. And again. Each time he broke the surface, he gasped for breath, aware only of her white arms and the chain with the initial M hanging from her neck. Her movements were gentle, but laced with steel. As his head bobbed in and out of the water, he knew he was about to die.
Exhaustion. His lungs on fire. He made one last enormous effort to free himself but she was too strong.
She had relaxed her grip now but he could no longer find the strength to push himself upward. As he started to sink, he kept his eyes open and through the layer of water he saw her get to her feet. She looked down at him and lifted her hand: a gesture of regret.
Air was leaving his mouth, rippling the water, dissolving her figure, her masked face. And as he slowly spiralled downwards, he wondered with a strange sense of detachment if he might not still be on a journey, still searching for the path that does not wander…
HOUSE OF A
MILLION DOORS
‘I always wanted to know what was knowable in the world…’
—Johannes Trithemius, Steganographia (Secret Writing), 1499
CHAPTER ONE
Was there anything as cool as rush-hour traffic on a hot day?
The light turned red. Gabriel Blackstone brought his bicycle to a stop at a crowded junction. Balancing himself with one foot on the road, the other still resting on the pedal, he half-turned and looked around him. He was surrounded by cars and he could sense the expectation—the barely tamed aggression—lurking in the hearts of the motorists sweating gently behind the wheels of their vehicles. They seemed relaxed; elbows pushed through open windows, heads casually cradled against the headrests of their seats. But he was not fooled. When the light turned green, he would have to move quickly. In this part of the City of London, cyclists were barely tolerated. That was part of the fun, of course: moving in and out of tight spaces, taking chances. Still, the possibility of getting squished was rather high. In front of him he could see a cab driver’s eyes—puckered and creased with lines—watching him in the taxi’s rear-view mirror. Behind him a TV van was already inching closer with unnerving stealth.
It was hellishly hot. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Summer had come early. The tarmac underneath his foot felt soft. The air tasted like paraffin. But he liked the City this way: sticky, unkempt, the pedestrians moving languidly. People’s emotions were closer to the surface, not muffled by scarves and thick coats or hidden by hats turned down against the freezing rain.
A flash of red caught his attention: a girl walking on the pavement next to him, swinging a fringed bag and wearing a crimson skirt and blouse. Her navel was bare and he could see the tattoo of a butterfly on her flat stomach. She walked with such devil-may-care insouciance that he smiled with pleasure. Life was good. Four o’clock in the afternoon in the Square Mile… and the City was his.
The light turned to green. The traffic bulleted forward. A rapturous roar of sound ricocheted off the steep walls of the buildings, making the ground tremble. He pedalled furiously across the junction, dodging a green Mercedes whose driver seemed more intent on shouting into the mobile in his hand than keeping his car on the road.
It was on days like these that he was also acutely aware of that other—secret—dimension to the city. Mingling with the car fumes, the layers of noise and the haze of heat was something even more ephemeral. Digital stardust. As he pedalled past the looming façades of London’s banks, insurance companies and businesses, he imagined himself moving through an invisible but glimmering cloud.
Humming quietly behind the walls of the city’s skyscrapers were machines filled with dreams. Dreams of money and power. Dreams broken down into binary code. Data. The most valued currency of all in this city, where the foreign exchange turnover equalled $4637 billion every day. Hidden in the brains of the computers were files, memos, research documents. A treasure trove of information protected by locked doors, computer firewalls and killer passwords.
But nothing was impossible, was it? He smiled into the wind and curved his back as he made a sharp turn into a narrow side street, leaving the worst of the traffic behind him. Doors can be knocked down; walls can be scaled and the magic of encrypted incantations dissolved. Secrets were meant to be tapped. You only needed focus and determination—and wasn’t it fortunate that he was gifted with both?
Today he was on a scouting expedition. His client was Bubbleboy, a toy company specialising in toys for the six-to ten-year-old age group. His target was Pittypats, Bubbleboy’s biggest competitor. In this bunny-eat-bunny world, the way to gain the edge was to know your rival’s secrets. Companies can glean a great deal of information about the competition by studying reports by the City’s financial analysts and by trawling through newspapers and trade journals. This modus operandi is boring, unadventurous but—to be fair—not ineffective.
Public documents, however, will only allow you a partial reading of the tea leaves. Ultimately, a more innovative approach is necessary. And that was where Gabriel came in. His scouting expedition today would only be the first step in an elaborate operation designed to give Bubbleboy deep access to its main rival’s secrets.
Pittypats’ City offices, he was interested to see, were located in two modest, if charming, late eighteenth-century houses complete with Venetian windows and scalloped arches. Very unassuming for a company with an impressive global reach. The offices sat quietly at the end of a narrow street, dwarfed by a 1960s concrete tower that was unashamedly ugly. A steel railing ran the length of the building.
He chained his bike to the railing, and as he straightened he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the plate-glass window. Ankle boots, jeans, grubby T-shirt with the words City Couriers emblazoned on the front. Leather satchel slung across his back. Clipboard clenched underneath one armpit. Good. He looked the part.
Security at Pittypats’ front door was basic: the ubiquitous security camera and a buzzer and voice intercom unit. He placed his thumb on the button and almost immediately the door clicked open.
Inside, it was a different matter. Against the ceiling were motion detectors and the door leading from the tiny reception room to the rest of the building was equipped with a magnetic keycard reader. No cameras in this room, although that was no guarantee there weren’t any somewhere deeper inside the building.
A girl, sitting behind a green and gold leather inset desk, looked up as he walked in. Her hair was coiled primly behind her head, but her lips looked as though they belonged to one of the replicants in Blade Runner. The gloss was stupendous and her mouth seem
ed to glitter. Quite stunning, actually. But also somehow forbidding. You had the feeling that if you kissed those lips you might lose some skin.
‘Can I help you?’ She was looking at him coolly, one eyebrow lifted to form an impressive arc.
He smiled at her and swung the leather bag from his shoulder. ‘Package to deliver.’
She waited while he opened the bag, her fingers clutching a pencil and tapping it softly on the old-fashioned blotter in front of her.
‘Here you are.’ He extracted a small package wrapped in brown paper, placing it along with the clipboard on top of the desk. ‘Package for Mr Peake. And it needs signing for.’
‘Peake?’ She frowned. ‘No. There’s no one here by that name.’
He knew there wasn’t. He had made sure of it beforehand, but now he spoke with exaggerated patience. ‘Yes. Peake. See. It says so right here.’ He stabbed a finger at the clipboard. ‘Mr Donald Peake.’
‘No.’ She pushed it back at him, irritated. ‘There must be a mistake.’
‘This is Pittypats?’
‘Yes, it is. But—’
He peered at the address on the package. ‘Mr Donald Peake. Human Resources.’
‘Oh.’ Her face cleared. ‘Our human resources department is out in Croydon. You’ve got the wrong office.’
No, sweetheart. I haven’t, he thought silently, but continued, ‘Would it be possible to leave the package here—for you to send it on to Mr Peake, like?’
She looked uncertain. He watched as she worried her lower lip between her teeth. Surprisingly, the lipstick showed no sign of smudging, staying preternaturally glistening and smooth. Amazing.
‘Maybe you could just ask?’ he prompted. ‘Please, love. Help me out.’
For another moment she hesitated. Then she opened the drawer of the desk and took out a small square of plastic. ‘Wait here.’
She turned and swiped the key through the electronic scanner. The tiny red eye at the top of the scanner turned green and she pushed the door open. He caught a brief glimpse of a well-lit but completely bland hallway. There was no indication whatsoever as to what went on inside the building.