Читать книгу The Power of Dark - Robin Jarvis - Страница 7

ATTACK

The din of Verne Thistlewood’s frantic pursuit echoed down the narrow lanes of the East Cliff. His feet thudded over the cobbles and his heart was hammering in his chest, but all he could hear were the taunts and threats of the three older girls behind him. Verne wasn’t a fast runner. They were almost upon him, and they were vicious.

Bursting from the lane, he dashed into the open area of Market Place and spun round desperately. Where could he go? Which was the safest way?

The girls came shrieking after him. Before he could dodge them, they spread out, cutting off his best chances of escape,

‘Get him!’ Tracy Evans yelled as they closed in.

Verne pelted into the only way left, a slim passageway leading on to Fish Pier. This spur of stone jutted into the river. He had hoped he could jump down on to the shore, dart along the sand, then run up the nearest set of steps. But the tide was high and the sand was deep beneath rough, foam-marbled waves that smacked the harbour wall. Verne was trapped.

Fearfully, he turned to face Tracy and her two cronies, Bev and Angie. Their faces were ugly and alive with aggression.

‘What you run off for, Flimsy?’ Tracy asked. ‘I only wanted a chat.’

Verne edged further along the pier.

‘Look at him!’ Bev cried with a snort. ‘He’s shivering – ha!’

‘You scared, Flimsy?’ Tracy demanded, stalking closer.

‘Don’t call me that,’ the boy told her.

Tracy’s hand flashed out and grabbed the scarf round his neck. Twisting it in her fist until he choked, she shook him from side to side like a rag doll then shoved him backwards. The boy crashed on to the cold, wet stone. The girls laughed and Bev took out her phone to film it.

‘Now you listen,’ Tracy snarled, leaning over him and squeezing his thin face in her strong fingers. ‘If my boyfriend loses any more money in your family’s rip-off arcade, I’ll come looking for you. You got that? How’s he supposed to take me out and buy me stuff without any dosh? I’m not cheap.’

‘Could’ve fooled me,’ Verne said bravely as he tried to get up.

Tracy shoved him down again and slapped him hard.

‘Ha!’ Bev squealed. ‘He’s crying!’

Tracy stood back so that Bev could get a clear view on her phone. Then, with a curling lip, she told Angie, ‘Take his shoes off and lob them in the river.’

Angie grabbed at Verne’s flailing legs, while Tracy dragged the rucksack from his arms and swung it round to cast it into the waves.

‘Leave him alone!’ a new voice demanded. ‘And put the bag down.’

Verne’s attackers whipped round and saw a younger girl approaching along the pier. The black cloak she wore over her school uniform was flapping madly in the wind and a vivid streak of blue in her hair whipped above her brow.

‘What do you want, Wilson?’ Tracy snapped.

‘I’ve already told you. Don’t make me say it twice.’

‘Get lost!’

Bev and Angie looked at the new girl uneasily. Lil Wilson was a weirdo. Even though they were older than her, she gave them the creeps.

‘Leave it, Trace,’ Bev said, returning the phone to her pocket.

Tracy bared her teeth. ‘She don’t scare me!’ she said.

‘You sure about that?’ Lil asked. ‘Because I’d be really worried if I was you.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘You know what my mum and dad are.’

‘Mental!’

‘Witches,’ Lil corrected.

She raised her hand and the many silver rings that adorned her fingers glinted as she made a mysterious sign in the air.

‘What’s she doin’?’ Angie asked nervously.

Lil took a deep breath and half closed her eyes.

‘Selvedge aran intarsia shibori sirdar attente echantillon,’ she chanted.

‘Stop it!’ Bev cried nervously.

‘She’s castin’ a spell or somethin’!’ Angie said, moving away. ‘I don’t like this.’

Bev and Angie ran past Lil and darted back through the passageway. But Tracy wasn’t so easily intimidated.

‘Pathetic!’ she yelled after them before glaring at Lil, who was still drawing shapes in the air and muttering strange words.

Tracy swung Verne’s rucksack round with all her strength and threw it as far as she could into the white foaming waters. It vanished into the deep. Verne cried out in dismay and Tracy laughed like a donkey.

‘Little kids,’ she said, striding past Lil. ‘You’re both saddo losers.’ And she jabbed the girl sharply in the side with her elbow.

Lil turned on her, but before she could do anything there was a rumble far out at sea. The storm that had been threatening all afternoon was about to break. The waves smashed with more fury against the pier and one huge swell raced towards them. Tracy screamed as it broke over the stone wall, right where she stood, drenching her from head to toe. Seawater poured from her sleeves and sloshed in the hood of her coat. For several sopping moments she could only gag and spit out the brine that had crashed into her mouth. Then she saw what the great wave had deposited at her feet. It was Verne’s rucksack.

Tracy spluttered with disbelief and she stared back at Lil and Verne with bulging eyes. The wave hadn’t touched them.

‘What are you?’ she said fearfully as she stumbled away. ‘You’re not normal! They should bring back burning!’

Lil and Verne watched her stumble and squelch out of sight, back into the town. Then Lil helped the boy to his feet and retrieved his rucksack for him as he loosened his scarf.

‘She’s such an ignoramus,’ she said with irritation. ‘They didn’t burn witches in England. You all right, Verne? Maybe I should’ve made you a bobble hat for Christmas instead of that scarf. You can’t throttle someone with a woolly hat.’

‘How did you do that?’ he asked, amazed.

‘It’s easy. You just cast on and get knitting.’

‘No. I mean summon that wave to bring my bag up from the bottom of the river and soak Tracy?’

Lil laughed. ‘Don’t be daft!’ she said. ‘That was just a massive, freaky coincidence.’

‘But those words, the spell . . .’

‘That wasn’t a spell, you thicky. They were knitting terms and types of wool! I wouldn’t waste good Latin on that lot. Besides, I keep telling you – there’s no such thing as magic. My mum and dad might think they’re witches, but that doesn’t make it true! Still, it should keep her off your back for a while. She’s a nasty piece of work.’

The boy eyed her doubtfully as he hoisted his wet bag on to one shoulder. Wearing that long black velvet cloak, Lil looked entirely capable of commanding the sea to do her bidding.

She glanced at the darkening sky. The low clouds were trawling a curtain of rain towards the harbour.

‘We’d best get out of this,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Come back to ours and get dry. There’s cake.’

High on Whitby’s East Cliff, in the old churchyard, the biting wind whipped round the church of St Mary and raged between the hundreds of blackened headstones. The day was getting darker and the sea and the clouds were the same threatening brownish-grey. The storm was gathering in strength. When its full force hit the small seaside town, it would be brutal. The streets below were empty now; everyone had sought shelter.

But through the graveyard a lone, slender figure was creeping. The bright pink raincoat the woman wore almost glowed in the deepening gloom. Stealthily, she threaded her way across the clifftop, staring searchingly at the worn tombstones.

‘Gotta be one here someplace,’ Cherry Cerise muttered to herself, pushing a pair of large retro sunglasses further up her nose. ‘Those little critters love a foul day like this. This is precisely the sort of soaker that always brings them out. So where are . . . ?’

She halted suddenly and caught her breath as a long grey feather blew into her face. Brushing it away, she saw it was streaked with blood. The woman smiled grimly. Gulls were a favourite snack of squalbiters. Another feather rushed by, then another and she stared across the churchyard to where they had come from.

Clinging to the corner of one of the headstones, digging its hind claws into the pitted surface, was a repulsive creature – a squalbiter, just what she was looking for. Cherry had read descriptions of them in the books she kept in a locked drawer back at her cottage, but this was the first time she’d got close to a live one. They were amphibious vermin; vicious imps from the deep regions of the sea, only surfacing to bask in the most violent storms. One of the books contained an old engraving, but even that hadn’t prepared her for the ugly reality.

It was the size of a small terrier, and covered in black and silver scales. Barbed spines ran down a ridged back to the tip of its hooked tail. The four yellow, fishlike eyes in its flat face were fixed on the twitching remains of the bird grasped in its front claws. As Cherry watched, the squalbiter tore off the gull’s head and chewed and crunched it noisily, swallowing the tasty mouthful beak first.

The sea imp was so preoccupied with its meal that Cherry managed to sneak up unnoticed. She lunged forward. Before the creature could react, she caught it in a purple net bag.

Dropping the gull, it let out a scream, reaching through the gaps to attack the human who had captured it. Cherry held the bag at arm’s length and the squalbiter’s talons raked empty air.

‘You play nice,’ she warned. ‘Else I’ll swing this round and smash you against the stone so hard, your nasty carcass will resemble a mess of dropped eggs. You hear me?’

The squalbiter continued to struggle and it began chewing through the purple string.

‘Hey!’ Cherry protested. ‘That’s a Mary Quant original!’

Whirling the bag in a wide arc, she crashed it against the headstone, more as a warning than with any real force. Even so, the creature within screamed and pulled its limbs inside, whimpering.

‘That’s better,’ the woman said. ‘You be a good little monster or I’ll turn you into a gull buffet. If they’d even go near your stinky guts.’

Through the netting, the yellow eyes blazed at her and a snarl gargled behind the rows of sharp teeth.

‘Zeer knows you,’ a thin, rasping voice hissed. ‘Zeer knows.’

‘What do you know, squidbreath?’

The creature’s thin tongue flicked out at her.

‘Witch,’ it said.

Cherry’s jaw tightened.

‘Who told you that?’ she demanded.

‘Zeer hears much,’ came the snickering rely.

‘What else did you hear? Tell me about this storm blowin’ in. This ain’t natural. I know there’s somethin’ awful behind it, somethin’ stronger than I ever sensed before.’

‘Yes,’ the creature said with a vile grin. ‘Very strong. Zeer likes it much.’

‘Who sent it and why?’

‘Won’t tell. You do well to worry.’

‘Want me to wallop you again?’

The squalbiter flinched and shook its ugly head.

‘Not safe to tell,’ it said flatly. ‘Crunch my bones, witch. That better than Zeer telling.’

‘Well now,’ Cherry declared, intensely curious, ‘what could possibly be worse than getting your brains bashed in? I’m just gonna have to find out the hard way.’

‘Zeer not tell!’

‘Keep calm, buster,’ she said. ‘This won’t hurt a bit. I’m just gonna step inside your head and have a look around – I’ll even wipe my feet, psychically speaking of course.’

With her free hand, she removed the oversized sunglasses, revealing startlingly pale blue eyes. The squalbiter gibbered and wriggled frantically, trying to hide its face, but it was no use. The urgent movements faltered under the power of Cherry’s gaze. Its four round, fishlike eyes were now the palest blue.

‘I am Zeer,’ Cherry murmured in a remote voice and the thin lips of the squalbiter moved in unison with her words. ‘I swim the dark deep. Hate . . . hate fills the waters. Such anger has never been. Hate for this place. For the insult long ago. There are voices in the fathomless trenches. Vengeance. The old grievance. It rankles more than ever. There can be no peace. Secrets. Whitby must pay and the way has been found. The Nimius curse will be roused. Long-dead enemies will awaken. Their quarrel will burn fiercer than before. Melchior Pyke and Scaur Annie will rise again to fight. Two hosts have been chosen. All shall suffer, before the final end . . .’

Cherry let out a strangled gasp and staggered against a headstone as a power greater than she had ever encountered severed the link. The bag dropped from her hand and the squalbiter squirmed free.

‘Now you see!’ it spat, its yellow eyes glaring at her. ‘Now you see!’

‘It can’t be!’ she cried, aghast. ‘The promise.’ She clutched at the largest of her many bracelets. It was a thick bronze ring, set with three ammonites. ‘The Lords of the Deep and Dark,’ she whispered fearfully. ‘They are forbidden. Whitby is protected.’

Zeer flicked out its tongue, taunting her. ‘The ban has grown weak,’ it said. ‘The storm that comes carries much power. Their power . . . the Lords of the Deep and Dark have decreed it.’

‘But the Nimius has never been found. Even I thought it was just a myth!’

The creature shrieked with mocking laughter. ‘This very night the Nimius will emerge from its long hiding and bring about the final end.’

‘What . . . what will happen?’

Zeer crawled towards her.

‘Cliff shall strive against cliff,’ it said. ‘Annie and Melchior will do battle and this time everyone shall die. The river will flow thick with blood.’

‘And then?’

The squalbiter licked its teeth. ‘The cliffs will crumble and fall into the waves. The sea shall devour. Whitby will be no more.’

‘There must be a chance,’ Cherry said in horror. ‘Some way to avert it – to appease Them?’

Zeer tilted its head to gaze up at the glowering sky. The first splashes of rain had started to fall.

‘Too late,’ it said, grinning horribly. ‘The power is upon us. Your time is over. You will be the last witch of Whitby. There will be no Whitby.’

The wind grew stronger and Zeer crowed with glee. With a last triumphant glance at Cherry Cerise, the creature darted through the long grass and leaped off the cliff edge. Frilled webs of skin fanned out beneath its long, skinny arms and it rode the fierce gale, sailing over the church tower and out of sight.

Clutching the headstones for support, Cherry stumbled away. She was shaken and mortally afraid. Against the Lords of the Deep and Dark there was nothing she nor anyone else could do. But she had to try. To defend this small seaside town from supernatural attack had been the solemn duty of every Whitby witch for thousands of years.