I don’t know how long I sat there, pondering my limited options, but at one point I wept for the Spook, who had served the County well and suffered much to protect it. He had also been more than a master to me; he had become my friend. He deserved a better end to his life. I’d hoped that as I completed my apprenticeship, he would start to reduce his own workload while I took a greater part of the burden until he finally retired. Now our future together had been snatched away. I was alone, and it was both a sad and a scary feeling.
Eventually I came to a decision and walked back to the tavern. I went up to my room and from the Spook’s bag I took a small piece of cheese and enough money to pay the landlord. I left both bags in my room, locked it and went downstairs.
He scowled when I approached, but soon brightened when I dropped a silver coin into his palm.
‘That’s for two more nights,’ I told him.
‘Did you find your master?’ he asked.
I didn’t reply, but as I walked away he called after me, ‘If he’s not back by now he must be dead, boy. You’ll end up the same way if you don’t go home!’
I headed back to the bridge, nibbled at the cheese and washed it down with a few mouthfuls of cold river water. I thought about Mistress Fresque’s house. How could it be clean and orderly during the day, with its library full of books, but a dilapidated ruin at night? Some type of powerful dark magic was being used here – a spell of illusion.
So what was the truth about that house – its day-time and night-time condition? Spooks had to develop and trust their instincts, and mine told me that its ruinous condition at night was its true state.
What would my master advise me to do? I asked myself. Instantly I knew. He would advise me to be bold and act like a spook! I would put my fears behind me. I could take back my master’s head by force and thus give him the peace he deserved. I had the Destiny Blade, and I was determined to use it. I would clean out that vile cellar and kill all the creatures of the dark within it. And I would attack at night when things were as they seemed.
It was time to stop being afraid. Now I would become the hunter.
SOON AFTER DARK I began to climb Bent Lane once more. As I walked, I pondered on what I was facing. The Spook’s Bestiary was back at Chipenden – it would be the first book to be placed in the new library – so I could not use it as a reference source. Desperately I dredged my mind for what I had read about Romanian creatures of the dark.
Strigoii and strigoica were daemons, male and female respectively. They worked and lived in pairs. The male possessed the body of a dead person and had to spend the daylight hours hidden from sunlight, which could destroy him. The other, the female, possessed the body of a living person and was on guard during the day. No doubt Mistress Fresque had once been a nice ordinary young woman, but now her body had been taken over by a malevolent creature of the dark. I had decapitated her partner, but she’d said that wasn’t the end of him. Normally slaying a daemon with a silver-alloy blade would bring about its destruction, but these Romanians seemed very powerful. I had seen the strigoi leave its dead host; now it would be searching for another. Once it had found one, it would seek me out. How could I put a permanent end to it? I wondered. There were far too many unknowns here.
There was something else that was even more worrying. Mistress Fresque had said that she had been ordered to lure us to this place – commanded by others who could summon a being so powerful that it could ‘obliterate her in an instant’. What could that be? Had there been anything about such an entity in the Spook’s Bestiary? I could not recall anything. Romania had seemed so far away, and I could not believe that its denizens of the dark posed much of a threat. Consequently I had read the entries fast – skimming the information rather than absorbing it properly for future use. I shook my head, annoyed with myself. From now on I must become more thorough, and think and act like a spook rather than an apprentice.
Now I was approaching the dark tunnel of trees once more. I hadn’t taken more than a dozen paces along the path when I heard those disturbing noises to my right.
I stopped, and whatever it was stopped too, but I could still hear slow heavy breathing. I had a choice: either I could continue along the path until I reached the front door of the strigoica’s residence, or I could stop and deal with this creature once and for all.
Without delay, I drew my sword. Instantly the ruby eyes of the Destiny Blade began to glow red, illuminating what I faced. A huge bear was lumbering towards me on all fours. All at once it stood up on its hind legs, towering over me, and for the first time I saw its claws clearly. They resembled long curved daggers and looked razor-sharp, capable of tearing human flesh to shreds. The bear was immensely powerful and could no doubt crush the life out of me in seconds. It opened its mouth wide and roared, saliva dripping from its teeth, the stench of its hot breath washing over me. I raised the sword, ready to meet its advance.
Then, suddenly, I had another idea.
I retreated three steps, until I was standing on the path once more. Instantly the bear dropped back onto all fours. It regarded me intently but did not attack. I remembered the warning I’d been given – not to stray from the path because of bears. So was I safe if I remained on the path? I wondered.
I sheathed the sword and began to walk towards the house again. The bear followed but made no move to attack me. It must be some sort of guardian, patrolling the grounds of the house for Mistress Fresque, just as the Spook’s boggart had once guarded his garden at Chipenden. And then a word dropped into my head: moroi!
Mistress Fresque had told me that they’d fed the Spook’s body to a moroi. I vaguely remembered reading about them in my master’s Bestiary. They were vampiric elemental spirits that sometimes lived inside hollow trees. But they could possess animals – bears being their favourite host. They hunted humans and crushed them to death before dragging them back to their lair. Direct sunlight could destroy them, so they weren’t seen abroad during daylight hours. Then I remembered something else: a moroi was often controlled by a strigoi and strigoica. So my guess had been correct. Mistress Fresque was using the elemental as a guard.
But why didn’t it attack those who used the path? The answer came to me in a flash of insight. It was because the path itself didn’t need guarding. Anyone using the path would be instantly known to those within the house. And it provided a safe route for anyone who was welcome there.