But she was not to be defeated so easily. There was an intense flash of light and a blast of hot air that made me close my eyes. When I opened them again, the birds were screaming, falling out of the sky, wings aflame. Some dropped, blackened, burned and twitching, onto the cliff-top; others fell down towards the sea, trailing smoke. Lizzie had blasted them out of the sky.
Adriana let out a great sob and rushed towards her, but the bone witch seized her by the throat and lifted her off her feet.
I knew what was going to happen: I let go of Alice and stumbled forward to try and help her, but the world was still spinning about me and I was forced to my knees, hard pressed just to stay on the cliff-top, still consumed by the desire to throw myself onto the rocks.
As I watched, horrified, Lizzie hurled Adriana over the cliff. As she fell towards the rocks, she gave a shrill cry like a bird. Then she was gone.
Agloating smile settled over Lizzie’s face.
‘Do you know why the boy stayed behind with the girl instead of coming to help you?’ she asked the Spook. ‘Do you know why he disobeyed you? He needs her more than anything else in the world, and she’s just as soft on him. Your apprentice sold his soul to the Fiend, and now the only thing that’s keeping him and the girl safe is a blood jar. That’s why they have to stay together. He’s using dark magic to save the both of them. That’s just one step short of belonging to the dark!’
The Spook staggered to his feet and looked at me, and as our eyes met, I saw on his face a mixture of sadness and disappointment. I’d let him down. I wasn’t the apprentice he thought I was.
Lizzie laughed long and loud, and the ugly sound was filled with triumph, with the knowledge that the dark had won.
But the battle wasn’t over yet. Adriana was dead, but her final cry hadn’t merely been one of pain and shock; it had been a command. Fresh raucous caws sounded overhead, and I saw a large flock of circling seagulls – the fierce aggressive birds that Alice had once called ‘rats with wings’.
Suddenly they swooped towards the witch, their harsh piercing screams filling the air. Bony Lizzie waved her arms to scare them off, whirling them about like a windmill in a gale. Perhaps she’d exhausted her power, or maybe there were just too many of them and she never had time to gather herself to with-stand the attack. The gulls dived straight for her, eager talons outstretched. Soon all I could see was birds, a chaotic turmoil of beating wings and stabbing beaks.
For a moment I glimpsed Lizzie’s head again. Her hands covered her face and blood ran down between her fingers. She staggered towards the cliff edge, leaning back at an impossible angle. Her eyes were black sockets in the moonlight, her mouth wide open in a scream, the sound lost amongst the shrieking of the birds. The seagulls obscured her again; when they soared upwards, she was gone.
I ran to the cliff and peered down. For a moment her broken body was visible below. Then a big wave engulfed her, its ebb dragging her into the sea’s salty embrace. The bone witch was no more.
‘Well, that’s the end of her, lad,’ the Spook said, walking up to stand beside me. ‘If she’s not dead already, that salty sea will kill her quickly. Then she’ll be food for the fishes. They’ll eat the heart and everything. She won’t be coming back.’
‘Poor Adriana and Simon have gone as well,’ I said sadly. I could see no trace of their bodies on the rocks below. The sea had taken them too.
My master nodded. ‘Aye, that was a bad business, lad – but that girl helped to save our lives. She was a witch all right – no doubt about it!’
‘But what kind of witch was she?’ I asked. ‘She didn’t use blood or bone magic and didn’t have a familiar.’
‘She was something new to me, lad. I’ve certainly never met her like before. Maybe she simply had a special ability, one that can’t be learned and passed on to others.’
‘Adriana was a benign witch,’ I insisted.
My master didn’t reply. I knew he didn’t agree. Adriana had used some kind of magic to kill. To his way of thinking, the fact that she’d killed Lizzie, a malevolent witch, was irrelevant. She had still employed the dark.
I heard a noise behind us, and turned to see Alice limping along. The Spook looked at us in turn. ‘What Lizzie said about you selling your soul and employing a blood jar … please set my mind at ease and tell me she was lying,’ he said quietly.
‘I can’t,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘It’s true. I owe the Fiend my soul. Alice made a blood jar, and that’s the only thing keeping him away. That’s why I couldn’t leave her behind. If I do, the Fiend will claim her in revenge for saving me.’
‘Why did you give him your soul?’ he asked, frowning at me. ‘What sort of a fool would sell his soul to the Fiend?’
‘I did it at Meteora, in Greece. It’s a long story, but without that we’d all be dead now, and the whole world – not just the County – would be at risk …’
The Spook sighed; it was a sound filled with sadness and a hint of despair. ‘We’ll find somewhere to rest,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m weary. We’ll talk in the morning.’
His head bowed, he turned and began to walk away, heading back towards the mill, where we needed to collect our bags. Once he had his back to us, Alice put her hand in the pocket of her skirt and drew out some objects, flinging them over the cliff and into the sea. They gleamed silver in the moonlight as they fell, the same colour as the tears that glistened in her eyes.
They were the thumb-bones of the shaman.
* * *
Luckily we quickly stumbled upon the ruin of a cottage. There were just three walls standing, and no roof, but it provided some shelter, and fortunately it didn’t rain again, so we settled down there for the rest of the night.
We awoke at dawn, cold and stiff, and the Spook set about building a fire while I went off to catch rabbits for our breakfast. I only managed to get one, which I skinned and gutted before Alice cooked it. There wasn’t really enough to go round but it took the edge off my hunger.
As we ate, it began to drizzle, and dark clouds gathered from the west. There was worse weather to come.
At last there came the full reckoning.
‘Right, it’s time to talk!’ commanded the Spook. ‘Don’t leave anything out. I want to know everything. I don’t care how bad it is, I want to know it all. Let’s start with you, girl. Tell me about the blood jar. Did you fashion it?’