She was small; Tom Ward’s use of salt and iron had shrunk her to a third of her previous size. And now, after death, she was trapped in that form, but was still terribly dangerous.
Bony Lizzie had been bound in a pit by John Gregory until war had come to the County and the Pendle witches had rescued her. My final confrontation with her had been on the Isle of Mona. Tom and I had pursued her, and she had fallen off a cliff into the sea. Destroyed by salt water, her heart eventually eaten by fish, she too was trapped in the dark and would be desperate for revenge.
‘Well, daughter,’ Lizzie said, a gloating smile on her face. ‘At last I have the chance to pay you back. Now we will make you suffer!’
Old Mother Malkin shuffled forward too; I saw that her long white hair was matted with dirt. Magic didn’t work here, but once this gnarled old witch had been the most powerful in the County, and her wrinkled body would still show a terrible, inhuman strength. Although she barely came up to my knees, her talons were extended towards me, her glowing red eyes desperate for my blood.
I took a step backwards; Thorne took a step forward.
‘Well, look what the cat’s dragged in!’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘Morwena ain’t going to like the way you’ve gone back on your word. She won’t be best pleased – she’ll be cutting more than your thumbs away!’
Thorne didn’t waste words on replying. She never even looked at Lizzie. A blade was in her hand, and she slashed horizontally at Mother Malkin, opening a wide red mouth in her wrinkled forehead.
The old witch screamed and staggered back, blood cascading down into her eyes and blinding her. I attacked too, and struck at Lizzie with my left hand, my nails narrowly missing her eyes.
But before I could do anything more, I was seized by Tusk. He grabbed me from behind, pinned my arms to my sides and lifted me up so that my feet were clear of the ground. I kicked back at his knees with the heels of my pointy shoes, but he began to squeeze me so that I could hardly breathe.
Tighter and tighter he clasped me, until I felt as if my ribs would snap; I could no longer draw air into my lungs. He was killing me. My only hope was that Thorne would somehow intervene and cut him down.
‘Let her go! Let her go!’ cried Thorne.
‘Then drop your blades!’ Lizzie screeched back at her.
By then my vision had grown dark, but I heard the sound of her blades clanking on the ground. There were other noises too: more heavy boots running down the steps and coming into the room behind us.
We were finished. Now I would never be able to get the dagger. The chance to destroy the Fiend would be lost.
The next thing I knew, I was lying face down on a cold stone floor. A woman’s voice spoke somewhere behind me.
‘She’s awake. Now I’ll teach her all about suffering!’
There was a sudden sharp pain in my ribs. I knew it was a jab from a pointy shoe and I recognized the voice. I had been kicked by Bony Lizzie – my own mother.
I rolled into a ball, attempting to protect myself, but was dragged to my feet by a fist bunched in my hair. Lizzie’s eyes were glaring into mine. She looked insane with rage.
‘Now you’ll get your come-uppance, girl!’ she shrieked, showering me with spittle. Almost ripping my hair out by the roots, she twisted me away from her so that I fell back into Tusk’s arms once more. He roared at me, opening his mouth wide. The foul breath was a hot wind in my face, making me retch. The yellow tusks were almost touching my cheeks, and there were a lot more sharp teeth inside his mouth – two double rows of them.
For a moment I thought he was going to bite off my nose or tear a chunk of flesh from my face, but instead he gave me an evil grin, set me down on my feet and turned me round to face a dark doorway opposite the steps. When I turned back to face the witches, I saw that Lizzie had a blade in each hand, pointing towards me.
These were the blades that Thorne had been holding. The assassin was being held by a couple of the brutish men who had followed us down the stairs. Others were standing behind her – perhaps a dozen in all. I thought I recognized a couple of them as yeomen who had served Lizzie on the Isle of Mona, where she had attempted to become queen.
For a second I gazed into Thorne’s eyes. Even though she didn’t speak, somehow I understood that not all was lost. She had dropped her blades and surrendered in order to save me. Otherwise I would have died – my ribs caved in and the life squeezed from my body by Tusk. They had disarmed her: I could see no other blades in the scabbards set in the leather straps crisscrossing her chest.
However, I knew that Thorne’s armoury was a duplication of Grimalkin’s: there was a smaller sheath just under her left arm containing another weapon – the scissors that were used to snip off the thumb-bones of a slain witch.
But for my desperate plight at the hands of Tusk, she would still have been fighting. And I knew that at the first favourable opportunity she would fight again.
Thorne had said that the gate could be somewhere in this room. I glanced about me quickly but could see nothing. What would it look like, anyway? Gates took on different shapes and could be manipulated by those who controlled them.
‘That way!’ Lizzie snapped, pushing me towards the doorway.
I stepped forward to enter another room. This one was long and narrow – no more than three people could walk abreast. On the floor lay a blood-red carpet. I walked directly ahead of Lizzie, Tusk and Mother Malkin, trying not to show my fear.
I was prodded along, blade points pricking my back, towards the shadowed recess at the far end. As we approached it, my first thought was that it contained a throne, but then I saw a hooded figure slouched on a simple wooden chair with a high back. Dressed in a gown and hood, he could easily have been mistaken for a spook. Set on each side of him was a big bucket. And I didn’t have to look to know what they contained: the stink told me.
It was an unmistakable metallic, coppery smell.
The two buckets were filled with blood.
I glanced about me, aware that all eyes were locked upon the rich blood in the bucket – the currency in the dark. But my attention was quickly drawn back to the hooded figure.
Slowly the head lifted and I saw golden eyes gleaming at me from within the darkness of the hood. They were vast; at least five or six times bigger than those usually found in a human face.
What exactly was the creature facing me – another abhuman like Tusk? I wondered.
Very slowly the entity raised its left hand towards its face. The fingers were long and bony, and seemed to be covered in short black bristles. They drew back the hood to reveal what had been hidden within its shadows.