Читать книгу The Devil's Eye - Dawn Brown - Страница 6

Prologue

“You’re a sodding liar, Charlie Deevers.”

Charlie glared at Martin Buldger. He’d have liked nothing more than to smash the other boy right in his stupid gob, but Martin was bigger than him, and would probably lay him out flat if he tried. Still, bigger or not, Charlie wasn’t about to stand there and let a prick like Martin take the piss out of him in front of their mates. Sure, he was lying, but so were they all. Why should he be the only one centered out?

“I did see her, The Witch of Stonecliff, up there on that rise.” Charlie pointed to the rocky ledge through the trees. Sharp gray stone poked out between clumps of fuzzy green moss. “She was hunched over, eating a dead animal. When she looked up, she had blood all around her mouth.”

Martin squinted his piggy eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “What kind of animal?”

How the hell should he know? He’d only added that last bit for effect. Eating an animal raw sounded like something a witch might do. “I don’t know. She’d eaten it, hadn’t she? All I could see was a bit of fur and guts. She looked at me and her eyes glowed red. I thought she was going to eat me as well, so I got the hell out of there.”

“Do you suppose that’s what she does with them?” Dev cut in, his voice heavy with awe. “Do you think she eats the men she takes?”

The wind kicked up, rattling the last leaves clinging to branches. Even without the forest canopy, skeletal trees cut the daylight. Combined with bleak clouds overhead, a dull gloom made the forest darker than outside the woods. Charlie shivered.

Martin snorted and smacked his palm off his forehead. “Don’t be a stupid git.”

“I heard she fucks them to death,” Robbie added, his eyes bright.

For a moment, they all fell silent, even stupid Martin, while considering the possibility. At twelve, Charlie’s knowledge of sex was a combination of science lessons and wank mags Dev’s dad hid in their back shed. The idea of being fucked to death both thrilled and terrified him.

“That’s rubbish. You can’t be fucked to death,” Martin said, but his voice had turned soft and raspy as if he had a sore throat.

“I heard she’s got a dick and a twat,” Dev said, jamming his hands into his coat pockets and hunching his shoulders against the damp air. “My brother, Tom, said so. Griffin Paskin saw, and that’s why she killed him. Maybe she ate him after, and that’s why no one found his body.”

“Deevers is full of shit, and you’re as stupid as he is if you believe a word of it.” Martin jabbed a finger at them both.

“I’m not!” Charlie cried. “And I don’t care if you believe me, anyway.”

“I don’t believe you. I said so, didn’t I?” Martin shifted into his path, standing only a few inches away. “Everyone knows the witch left the island and hasn’t been back. How could you see her when she wasn’t even here?”

Charlie’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Oh, she’s been back. They’ve had another hired man go missing, haven’t they? And Stephen Paskin saw her, too.”

Dev and Robbie nodded in agreement. Ha, even Martin couldn’t dispute facts. The wind kicked up again and Dev wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell that?”

Charlie inhaled and grimaced. A sour, rotting stink laced the air, mingling with brine blowing in off the sea.

“It’s The Devil’s Eye,” Martin said, and shifted back uneasily.

The hair bristled along Charlie’s neck. He couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching them.

He glanced up at the ridge half-expecting to see the witch standing just as he’d imagined, gripping the remains of some animal in one hand, a ring of blood smeared around her mouth. “I need to go home. My mum will be looking for me for my tea.”

“Deevers, you wanker. You’re shit-scared with all of us here. There’s no bloody way you’d have come by yourself.” Martin’s smug smile split his round, freckled face.

“I did, too,” Charlie ground out. “I’ve seen what she does in these woods. That’s why I want to leave. You’d want to as well if you’d seen what I did.”

Robbie pushed his silver-framed glasses up his nose with his fingertip. “Maybe we should go. It’s getting late, and our parents will be looking for us.”

“If you really came here, prove it,” Martin sneered, ignoring Robbie. “Show us where you were, where she was.”

Charlie’s heart beat harder, the spit in his mouth drying. The cold prickle creeping along his skin intensified. He was suddenly certain they were no longer alone in the woods.

He wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to lose face in front of his mates. Martin would never let him live it down. “Fine. I’ll show you exactly where I saw her.”

The sooner he did, the sooner he could get the hell out of there. He crunched through dead leaves littered over the forest floor. As he neared the ridge, that horrible stench, like rotting garbage, intensified. The bog, Martin had said, and he had to be right. What else could it be?

As he climbed the steep, rocky slope, he glanced back at his mates. They watched him with wide eyes, faces pale. Except Martin. He stood with his arms folded over his thick chest, head tilted and a smirk stretched across his face, as if convinced Charlie would back out at any moment.

Stupid Martin. He’d show him who was shit-scared.

Charlie continued up, grabbing saplings to pull himself along. He should have told them he’d seen the witch at the bottom of the ridge, then he wouldn’t—

The wind blew, and he froze, heart jumping into his throat. Voices. He was certain he could hear whispered voices, their words impossible to understand. He whipped his head side to side, scanning the thick cluster of trees surrounding him for the source. Nothing.

“Do you hear that?” he called down.

Dev and Robbie frowned, shaking their heads, but Martin stepped forward. “I don’t hear anything. Now, get moving.”

Had to be the wind. But why hadn’t the whispers stopped when the wind died? Instead, they were growing louder. How much farther to the top? He looked up and his breath lodged in his throat.

A dark shadow stood at the top of the ridge, less than ten feet from him.

Black fear coated Charlie like oil. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

“Holy shit, do you see that?” Dev’s shrill, almost girlish scream exploded in the quiet, shattering the paralysis gripping Charlie’s limbs. He turned and started running down the rocky hill. He didn’t care what Buldger called him.

The rubber soles of his trainers slipped on wet leaves and moss. He fell face-first, slapping hard against the lumpy ground and sliding down the sharp slope. Air rushed from his lungs in a whoosh. He threw his hands forward to protect his face and head. Something sharp jabbed his hip, but the stabbing pain barely registered as he slid down the rest of the hill. When he finally rolled to a stop, his gaze locked on milky eyes in a bloated, dirty face.

He screamed and scrambled back, unable to look away from the dead man staring back at him.

“Are you all right?” Robbie asked, coming up behind him, his voice breathless as if he’d been running. “What is that?”

Charlie swallowed, but didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Somewhere during his tumble down the hill his voice had vanished, along with his ability to truly grasp what he was looking at.

A glistening pinkish-gray worm slithered from the dead man’s nostril and plopped to the ground. Charlie’s stomach lurched. He turned and puked, until his insides were empty and his throat raw. When the dry heaves tapered off, he glanced at the top of the ridge. Whoever had been up there was gone.

Charlie turned to his two mates standing over the rotting corpse. “Where’s Buldger?”

“He ran,” Dev said, then pointed at the mangled midsection of the body. “I bet that’s James’s hired man who vanished. Looks like someone’s been eating him.”