OUR VISIT TO Todmorden had cost my master his life, but he had not died in vain. Now that I knew of the increasing danger, and of the threat to the County, I could perhaps do something about it. Otherwise it might have developed and grown unchecked for many years. But first I had to retrieve the Spook’s head and burn it in order to free his soul. Perhaps Judd Brinscall’s knowledge of Romanian dark entities might help me to do that.
‘How do you destroy a strigoica?’ I asked him. ‘I mean permanently, so that it can’t go off and possess another body. How do you do that? I’ve killed two strigoi hosts already but it hasn’t achieved anything in the long term. And Mistress Fresque told me that the first strigoi I drove from its body would quickly find a new one and be back to hunt me down.’
‘Two? You’ve killed two? Which was the first one?’
‘It was the partner of your enemy.’
‘Well done, Tom,’ Judd said with a grim smile. ‘Then Cosmina is half avenged already. There are many ways of dealing with strigoii and strigoica, but few are permanent: even decapitation or a stake through the left eye can only drive them out of their host. Garlic or roses can be used as a defence, and while salt can’t do them any great damage, a moat filled with salty water keeps them away.’
‘That’s the same method we used against water witches . . . ’ I realized.
‘That it is, Tom. No doubt you spent a tough six months getting thick ears from Bill Arkwright. I’d had enough of it and ran back to Chipenden before my stay was half over,’ Judd told me.
I nodded sadly. ‘Bill’s dead. He was killed in Greece fighting the dark.’
‘Well, I can’t say I liked the man,’ he said, ‘but I’m sorry to hear that he’s dead. The northern area of the County will be a more dangerous place now. What became of Tooth and Claw? They were good working dogs but Tooth didn’t take to me much: he was well-named. He bit a piece out of my leg one night and the scar is still here to this day!’
‘Tooth is dead, killed by water witches. But Claw is still alive and has two pups, Blood and Bone. We left them back at Chipenden with the local blacksmith,’ I explained.
‘Pity, that. They’d be more use here helping us with these witches,’ Judd replied. ‘But to return to what we were discussing: the way to put a permanent end to the strigoica who possess living bodies is to burn the body while they are still within it. With the strigoii who possess the dead, the only sure way is to expose them to sunlight. I know a lot about dealing with such creatures. We need to work together now – I want to make up for what I did and there’s a lot that I can teach you. But one thing I can tell you: there’s little to fear from the strigoi coming back to kill you. Oh, it’ll find itself another host eventually, but once it’s been driven out of a body its memory starts to disintegrate. With a different host it’ll start a new stage of its existence and forget all about Todmorden and its former strigoica partner. She was just trying to frighten you, Tom, that’s all.’
‘I saw your book in the daemon’s library – the one about the moroii,’ I said.
‘I wrote that in happier days. The daemons took it from me to make the library seem more convincing. You see, each strigoi and strigoica dwelling is a place of deceit, a house of illusions. They use a grimoire as the source of those illusions. That and my own book were probably the only real books in there. Now, explain why they wanted you and John Gregory here. They never bothered to tell me.’
I explained about our struggle against the Fiend and how we had bound him temporarily. Then I told him that Grimalkin was on the run with the Fiend’s head, trying to keep it out of the hands of our enemies.
‘Because you were guiding us here, we put most of our suspicions aside. It was only after they’d murdered my master that the strigoica explained what they wanted,’ I explained. ‘She had been put under pressure to lure us to Todmorden. You told me that they all worked together – well, they are certainly doing that now, and for a special purpose. They killed my master and bound his soul within his head just so they could put pressure on me. They want me to summon Grimalkin so that they may kill her and take back the Fiend’s head in exchange. That’s something I’m certainly not going to do. I need to find my master’s head and burn it. They must have hidden it somewhere. We must search the hillside and check the house of every one of those daemons.’
‘I’m sorry, Tom, but if we attempt that, they would know what we were up to before we reached the first house. Day or night, one of each pair is always awake and alert to any threats. They’d sense us almost immediately and summon the witches to defend them. Romanian witches use animism magic. Unlike Pendle witches, who generally use blood, bone or familiar magic, they draw the life force out of their victims without even touching them. Their orbs would be there in the blinking of an eye. Within seconds we’d be dead, our animas drained. Later they’d use what they’d taken from us in rituals and incantations, and gather further power from the dark.’
‘So what can we do?’ I demanded, frustrated by Judd’s explanation. I already knew most of what he’d just told me, but that knowledge wouldn’t deter me. I had to release my master’s spirit. I was determined to do something.
‘We’d have to deal with the witches first,’ Judd continued, ‘picking them off one by one. That might give us half a chance. Unlike female daemons, witches sleep during the day so that’s the time to strike. They don’t have a partner to watch over them.’
‘Are the witches more powerful than the daemons?’ I asked.
‘Yes, without a doubt – the moroii are the weakest of the hierarchy. So we try to kill the witches first – take them unawares while they are sleeping.’
‘Well, I know where at least four of their houses are,’ I told Judd. ‘While you were sleeping, I went up onto the moor again and marked them on a map. Here they are . . . ’ I reached into my breeches pocket, pulled out my sketch and handed it to him.
He studied it for a few moments and then gave me a searching glance. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to a mark I’d made.
‘There was a strange beam of light, coloured an unusual dark shade of red. It came out of the ground beneath the trees and shone high into the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it before. The witches came in the form of orbs and circled it in a sort of dance, flitting in and out of the beam. After a while they soared off. It wasn’t long afterwards that the strigoi started to feed from you and I came down the hill to see if I could help.’