Shadow Spell (2 page)

‘STOP!' Strood's housekeeper, Mrs Dunvice, held up a hand. Everyone stopped.

‘There,' she said after a moment, ‘can you hear that?'

Down in the earth, some way below the bottom of the deep well that used to be the laboratory floor, something stirred. It did it with a lot of cursing and unpleasant squishing sounds, but it definitely stirred. The cursing was garbled, as if it came from a mouth that was half missing and choked with dirt into the bargain. Most of the cursing involved unpleasant things happening to somebody called Ninevah Redstone.

Secretary Scribbins gulped. ‘It's him,' he whispered hoarsely.

A murmur ran around the gathered workers. Some of them edged away. Even the bogeymen.

‘Right,' said Mrs Dunvice decisively. ‘Everyone out, except for the bogeymen and guards Stanley and Floyd. NOW!'

Bodies tumbled towards the complicated scaffolding running up the sides of the well. The servants got there
first, scampering up and out as quickly as they could. The goblin-Grimm guards followed.

When the others had gone, the werewolf-Grimm housekeeper pointed at the three bogeymen who had been doing the tunnelling.

‘Dig some more, but do it carefully, OK?'

One of the BMs, the one wearing a pair of sacking trousers and a bow tie, blew out a slow breath. None of them fancied having to dig out a furious Mr Strood. But then on the other hand they would be
helping
him, so maybe he wouldn't want to give them the sack. The BM straightened his bow tie and stepped forward, crouching down just about where the muttered curses were coming from. The others joined him.

Now they could hear scraping, scuffling noises, like a giant mole digging its way up towards the light. One of the BMs snarled and jumped back as a hand shot out of the earth. It was a slender hand half covered in scars that made it look like a bad patchwork glove. The other half was still mostly skinned.

‘We found 'im!' yelled the one with the bow tie, unnecessarily.

The hand felt around and its owner hissed.

‘Ged be oud you worthlesh bunch of idiotsh!'

Mrs Dunvice leaned forwards and held out a hand, then realised that Mr Strood couldn't see it as his head was still below the surface, so grabbed his wrist instead and pulled. The earth heaved like a small volcano as slowly his head rose from the ground to be followed by
the rest of him. Or at least, what was left of the rest of him.

Mrs Dunvice cleared her throat. ‘Welcome back, sir. We found your ear. You must have lost it on the way down.'

Scribbins bobbed forward, holding out the ear wrapped in a napkin. Someone had cleaned the mud out of it.

‘Don'd bother,' hissed Strood, ‘I'b growd a dew one.'

‘And the arm, sir? And what about …'

‘The leg? Yesh, yesh, id'sh growd back. Sho has by jaw. Almosht.'

At last, Arafin Strood stood before them, wobbling badly and holding on to the rung of a nearby ladder for balance. Mrs Dunvice thanked her lucky stars that she had sent all the others away. They could do without all the screaming and throwing up. Scribbins was bad enough.

Several hours had passed since the accident in the laboratory, in which a shattered bottle of faerie venom had showered Mr Strood with flesh-dissolving poison. Even so, the venom was still at work eating him away and Strood was less than whole. His clothing had suffered too and he was left with only half a ragged pair of trousers and a badly crumpled shirt collar. Most of his ribs were exposed, giving an interesting view of the workings of a heart and lungs for anyone who liked biology. His lower jaw was trying hard to grow back in spite of the persistent venom, and one hand had just about managed to reform completely. Because it was
new, it was free of the scars that covered the remaining parts of Strood like an insane road map. One leg was mostly bone. One eye socket was busily refilling itself. The other was full of a horribly gleaming eye. It was a good thing he was immortal, or he'd have been well past dead by now.

Mrs Dunvice licked her lips nervously. Behind her, Scribbins whimpered, a pathetic sound that made the werewolf in Mrs Dunvice want to bite him. The BMs gazed on, silent and wary.

Slowly, Mr Strood raised his head. His eye was a pool of darkness in his horribly mangled face.

‘Guard Shtanley and Guard Floyd,' he said in a voice like cracked ice, ‘brig be one of by ped digersh and a human Quick. Any Quick will do. Then ged the bordal dishtillation bachine ready. There'sh work to be done.'

‘Yesh … I mean yes, sir!' Stanley turned smartly and hurried towards the scaffolding, half falling over himself in his eagerness to get away. Floyd followed hard on his heels.

Mr Strood switched his attention to Scribbins. ‘A bath. Clothesh. Coffee. Five binutes or you're doast.'

Scribbins gave a strangled squawk and ran for it. Finally, Strood turned to the BMs and Mrs Dunvice.

‘Only three?'

‘They were the only ones we could find, sir.'

Strood considered for a moment. Then he leaned forward and smiled a smile that made even the werewolf part of her nervous.

‘Id will do for now, we can always ged bore later. The girl may think she'sh shafe for the moment,' he said, his voice strengthening as his jaw finally achieved wholeness, ‘but nightfall ish on its way.' His chilling one-eyed stare swivelled to the bogeymen, who bunched up together nervously. ‘So one of you is to bring me Ninevah Redshtone, EVEN IF THERE ARE WITNESSESS, understand?'

The BMs swapped a look. Snatching kids in front of witnesses was against the Bogeyman Code, but then again …

‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND?' Strood's eye gleamed feverishly. ‘I need bogeymen who can be adaptable …' He didn't need to finish the sentence. They knew what he meant. Adapt or be fired.

‘Yessir!' One of them even saluted. ‘I'll do it, sir!'

Strood's eye fixed on him, the gleam incandescent. ‘Remember I want her alive. I've got plans for Ninevah Redstone and they don't involve an easy end.'

He switched back to the other BMs. ‘And as for you two, well …'

There was a long pause while some old emotion struggled to show on Strood's ravaged face. Mrs Dunvice shuddered. She could feel something coming and it was making her blood tingle.

‘I've let their pathetic leftovers linger on all these years,' Strood hissed at last, ‘but I know they'll try to help her. So now the time has come to deal with the last remains of the Seven Sorcerers. These are your orders …'

Jibbit stopped. ‘That's when I left.'

Skerridge groaned. ‘Gimme a break! Couldn' yer 'ang on five more minutes!'

‘There was a crow,' said Jibbit coldly, ‘and I was hungry.'

‘Sheesh! Which bogeymen were they? D'ya know that?'

‘They were just bogeymen. How should I know?'

‘What were they wearin',' said Skerridge patiently. ‘Ya can always tell a BM by what 'e's wearin', even when 'e's in anovver shape.'

Jibbit huffed. ‘Erm. Torn red trousers and a rope belt. Ordinary trousers like yoo and a bow tie. And … and … a pair of blue dungarees with paint on.'

‘Bogeymen Rope, Pigwit and Bale, then. Fanks.'

‘No problem.' Jibbit glanced anxiously over Skerridge's shoulder. Skerridge turned to look. Out across the sea the sun was drowning in a pool of light, sinking lower and lower towards the blue rim of the horizon. The bellringer began to fidget.

‘I got tooo ring the bell in a moment,' he said, hooting nervously. ‘It's my job and I got tooo dooo it. Every sundown I ring the Evebell so people know that the day is turning into night.'

Although Skerridge chose to be different, as a general rule bad things didn't like the light and that included bogeymen. So, even though the BMs would not leave
the House straight away, he knew that Mr Strood's instructions would be put into action the moment the sun dipped below the horizon. Which gave him little more than a few minutes to act.

Sending a glance back over the top of the House to where Ninevah Redstone was still sitting on the beach far below, unaware of what was about to happen to her, Skerridge did some fast thinking. He couldn't superspeed over the roof because superspeed generated a lot of heat and he would simply turn the tiles into blobs of molten lead, which would fall into the attic and do some fairly serious damage to the servants who lived there. But the bogeyman that Mr Strood had sent to get Nin would be able to superspeed all right.

On the plus side, the girl wouldn't be alone. Taggit was still there, along with Jonas of course. Toby didn't count because he was too small to do anything anyway. And although it was taking a while because he'd been so badly damaged, hopefully the mudman would be done baking soon.

While the bogeyman worked things out, Jibbit was inching towards the bell tower. Just as the edge of the sun touched the dark curve of the horizon he made a break for it, skittering away over the tiles. Skerridge jumped, landing just in front of the fleeing gargoyle, who darted left to go around him.

‘No ya don't,' said Skerridge. He picked the bellringer up and held him by his back legs, upside down and thrashing wildly.

‘I got tooo! I got tooo! IS MY JOB!' hooted Jibbit.

‘Not today it ain't,' said Skerridge. ‘See, I need to send a message and I'm bettin' that the goblin or the boy will be bright enough, even if the kid don' work it out.'

As the sun began to slip below the edge of the world, the darkening sky was filled with the bellringer's howl of anguish.

Jonas sat up and turned to stare back at the cliff, where he could just make out the rooftops of the Terrible House, black and jagged against the liquid glow of the evening sky. Taggit, dozing by the fire, opened one eye and frowned.

‘Uh oh!' said Nin, sensing danger.

She got to her feet, pulling on her grubby pink rucksack as she did so, then glanced at the fire still burning around Jik. They had been feeding it all afternoon and the core of the flames, where the mudman was baking, glowed red hot.

‘You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?' said Taggit, glancing at Jonas. The nine-foot-tall Fabulous goblin's face creased into an expression that was probably worry, but that looked more like a Halloween mask having a bad day.

‘Come on, Toby,' called Nin hurrying over to her little brother, who had fallen asleep in the middle of the sandcastle he had been building. He mumbled sleepily as she pulled him to his feet and dusted him down, talking to
him reassuringly.

‘Yep. It's sundown. We should have heard the Evebell by now,' said Jonas. ‘There's something's going on.'

Taggit called over to Nin, his voice urgent, ‘Get to the Sanctuary. I'll bring yer brother.'

Nin hurried Toby over towards Taggit, then got going, heading inland towards the stone ladder cut into the cliff face that led up to Strood's garden and the Lockheart Sanctuary. Behind her, she could hear Toby laughing excitedly as Taggit picked him up and began to run.

The light was fading fast. Night was falling, and with the night came the Dread Fabulous, the bad things that didn't like the light. Bogeymen, for example. Superfast, superstrong, fire-breathing bogeymen that could run up walls as easily as Nin could walk across a living-room floor.

She hauled herself up the cliff face as fast as she could, her heart hammering like it wanted to get out. Her breath was harsh in her throat and her hair kept flopping in her eyes. She could hear Jonas right behind her, and below him came Taggit with Toby hanging on around his neck. Toby had worked out that this wasn't about fun and had stopped laughing.

‘You're nearly there!' called up Jonas. ‘Follow the path, but turn in through the arch of stones.'

By now Nin could barely put one hand in front of the other. Tumbling off the top of the ladder, gasping for breath and with her legs like jelly from the climb, she
hurried on up the path. Ahead of her swept Mr Strood's garden, rising steeply through many levels of tall trees and shaggy lawns dotted with follies and grottos until it reached the dark walls and bricked-in windows of the Terrible House.

The Lockheart Sanctuary was perched on the landside edge of the cliff. It was so heavily wreathed in ivy and overhung by trees that it was barely visible even without the magical spells that protected it from view, spells cast by the long-dead sorcerer who had built it many decades ago. Following the path that wound on through the crazy growth of wild roses and vivid peonies, Nin searched desperately for the entrance. And then, off to one side, she saw a low arch of huge, mossy slabs, nearly invisible in the twilight. Stumbling through it, she fell into a small cave dimly lit by a golden lamp that burned on the cave wall, next to a door set in the rock.

‘We're here!' she called back to the others, then ran towards the door and hammered on it.

There was a crackle of heat and the hiss of something moving very fast overhead and coming to a halt right behind her.