Shadow Spell (6 page)

‘'Spect she's been called out ter identify the remains,' sighed Skerridge. ‘Poor fing. That ain't gonna be fun! But she'll be 'ome soon cos I spect she's gotta bit o' cryin' t' do – well, a lot actually – and then we'll stand 'ere an' watch over 'er till somefin' 'appens. Which it's bound t' do, though prob'ly not till nightfall. BMs don' go out in the day.'

‘Yik dik.'

‘Yeah, but I made a choice see, ovver BMs jus' wouldn'.'

Jik didn't look convinced and Skerridge could see his point. If Skerridge could make a choice, surely so could the others? Not that they would, somehow Skerridge was sure of that.

Skerridge burped loudly, fished around in his teeth and then spat out a small silver disc with the name
‘Tuffin' on it in curly letters. Jik sent him a look and then turned his gaze to the flickering TV screens next door. The many images were now showing an interview with a senior police official who looked pale but calm and who was answering a battery of questions from the press.

He sighed. Skerridge was right. Nothing more was likely to happen here until nightfall.

‘Well,' said Skerridge cheerfully, scratching his ribs under his fancy waistcoat, ‘time fer me t' be movin' on.'

Jik glared.

‘Le's face it, yer perfectly suited t' standin' in one spot impersonatin' a statue an' watchin' over fings. An' I'm perfectly suited t' superspeedin' back ter the Drift t' look around an' see wha's goin' on.'

Jik glared some more.

‘Tha's the spirit. Keep that up an' no one'll buy ya!'

The air fizzed. Jik glared at the empty space where a bogeyman used to be, then he switched his gaze back to the block of flats across the road, heaved a sigh and stood guard.

In the Sunatorium, Mr Strood was getting even more things done.

Below Jibbit, who was still watching through the Sunatorium's crystal roof, a large barrel of blood had been added to the bizarre collection of things in the wood. It stood to one side and was already covered in
crowsmorte grown from the single bloom Strood had thrown into it a short while earlier. Guard Stanley, who was topping up the blood with a couple of bucket loads, had a job finding a gap to pour through. And as soon as the fresh blood tipped into the barrel, the whole thicket of blooms quivered and rippled, as if they were one great body sucking up the gore. And growing. Unfurling new blooms and putting out more shoots. Spreading.

Jibbit shuddered. He didn't have any blood, but even so, he knew what it meant to a Quick to lose it all. He wondered how many humans and animals would be bled dry to feed this growing crop and where Strood would get them all from.

‘That will do for the present,' said Strood cheerfully.

He was settled in his armchair, one silk-clad leg crossed tidily over the other, his quartz eye glittering with satisfaction. He went back to studying the bottle on the table beside him. It was full of a golden liquid, shot through with dark ripples. Essence of Tiger-Man.

In the machine, the remains of the original tiger-man bore no resemblance at all to the exotic creature of this morning. Its vitality and spirit had been distilled out of it and all that was left was a dried-out yellow skin with a few pale stripes. Scribbins was gingerly gathering it up to put in a sack, handling it carefully in case it crumbled into dust and got all over the place.

As he studied the essence, Strood hummed thoughtfully. It was the sort of hum that meant he was ready to move on to the next stage of an interesting experiment.
Hearing it, Scribbins paused in his work and shuddered.

Strood got to his feet. He picked up the bottle carefully, carried it from the small table to the workbench and set it down again next to a beaker of blood.

‘A bloom, Scribbins.'

Scribbins laid down the sack and went to pick a crowsmorte flower. He didn't have to go far. By now the plant was spreading across the Sunatorium floor. He took the bloom over to Strood who had opened the bottle and drawn off a syringe full of golden liquid.

‘Now, Scribbins, pay attention. I want this recorded in full.'

With a trembling hand, Scribbins reached for the notebook. Far over their heads, Jibbit leaned a little further forward, listening.

‘According to the story of the Seven Sorcerers – although as we all know there is always a large gap between story and truth – this plant was developed by Morgan Crow using the best of his magic and was meant to grow a new body for him. Crow's plan is said to have failed, because the plant ate him instead. Whatever the truth of that tale the fact remains that he left behind a plant that has a taste for flesh and blood and is saturated with creative magical power. Now, it may be nothing more than a side effect, but crowsmorte is known to have amazing healing properties and to me that indicates a deep regenerative force, which, I suspect, has never been fully tested. You
understand, I hope?'

Scribbins gulped. ‘The m-magic in the crowsmorte bloom g-grows people back?'

‘Well done, Scribbins.' Strood leaned over the flower lying on the table and injected it with one tiny drop from the syringe. Next he laid down the still full syringe, dropped the flower on to the ground and tipped the beaker of blood over it. Then he stood back to watch.

The crowsmorte bloom quivered. It began to grow, its stem fattening and its petals growing broader and paler. The colour leaked out of it, purple turning to red and then to gold. Only streaks of darkness remained. Shoots split from the stem and thickened in their turn, coiling in on themselves, doubling back and twisting, some parts growing larger, some longer until the whole mass had a horrible innards kind of look.

‘More blood,' snapped Strood.

Guard Stanley threw on more blood.

And now it went faster. The newly pale petals turned back on themselves, wrapping their soft velvet around the innards like skin. Four more shoots detached from the bulk, shoots that grew in an oddly jointed way, and the petal skin covered those too. The whole thing started to throb as if a pulse had begun to beat somewhere inside. Both ends lengthened. The bottom end grew longer and thinner in a tail that began to twitch. The top put out a short stem that soon stopped growing, then thickened and rounded, the front part hollowing
and curving and splitting. Thorns grew in the split, but they looked horribly white and sharp to the watching Jibbit.

And then eyes opened in the hollows, the mouth yawned widely and the new tiger-man uncurled and rose to its feet in one sinuous movement.

This tiger-man was smaller than the original, though not by much. The pattern carried in the single drop of tiger-man essence had shaped it, but it was still grown from crowsmorte and the plant's colouring showed through. The creature was softly golden, but the stripes across its velvet skin were dark purple and a scarlet flash ran down its spine from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. Its purple eyes somehow managed to glow red.

Guard Stanley shuddered. Scribbins nearly dropped his pencil. Strood beamed.

‘So, Scribbins, how many blooms do you think we have here?' He waved an arm over the coated woodland. ‘And how many drops do you think a bottle that size can hold?'

‘Y-you're going t-to make more?'

‘Oh lots more, Scribbins. We are going to war with Ninevah Redstone and anyone who dares to aid her.'

The tiger-man opened a mouth fringed with needle teeth.

‘Morrrr blood?' it asked.

‘Plenty,' said Strood quietly. ‘Do what I ask and you can have all the blood you want.'

The door opened and Dunvice came in.

‘Ahh, perfect timing,' beamed Strood. ‘Now, while Scribbins gets on with making more tiger-men, you and I can start recruiting officers.'

Nin turned to send one last look back into the Lockheart Sanctuary. Through the doorway she could see Toby waving. She waved back and smiled. Then the door closed, shutting them out of the Sanctuary's warmth and safety. They were alone in Dark's Mansion, standing in a stairwell laced with narrow windows through which the wind howled, clean and clear and sharp as glass.

Leaning to look out of the window next to her, Nin could see nothing but sky, above, around and below. Far beneath them, clouds swirled in a grey mass. She couldn't quite make out what they were being today; they looked like a tangle of wispy hair twisting and waving in the wind. One thing was sure though, Enid had been right when she said that Dark had built his home tall enough to touch the sky. And the Sanctuary had set itself right at the very top.

Jonas had set off down the spiral stairs. Nin glanced back at the Sanctuary door for the last time. It had blended into the wood of the walls, only the thinnest
crack betraying its presence. She wished they could go back in, but they had a job to do. Two jobs. Find Dark. Stop Strood. Sighing, she hurried after Jonas.

‘So,' she said, catching him up, ‘tell me, just
how
do sick people manage to climb all the way up here to reach the Sanctuary?'

‘For the sick and desperate there are many ways into the Sanctuary. We're neither, so we have to use the real door, the one that opens exactly where the Sanctuary is and not where the desires of Quick need it to be.' Jonas laughed. ‘Just be glad Enid's spell brought us here!'

‘It's only trying to help itself,' muttered Nin. ‘Anyway, where's the Mansion in relation to Hilfian? I mean, when we've found the clue, whatever it is, we're going on to Hilfian, right? To meet up with the others and find out what's going on before we go and see Nemus?'

‘Right. Let's hope the Drift folk are gathering there like Taggit thinks; we could do with some help against Strood. But the problem for us is that Hilfian is a long way from here. Dark's Mansion is right down in the south-western part of the Drift. Hilfian is a lot further up and way over east, near the Giant's wood, remember that? But we'll find a way somehow. And if Taggit manages to find Skerridge, then he might be able to carry us there at sub-superspeed.'

‘And how is Taggit going to get to Skerridge? If Skerridge and Jik are still on the beach then Taggit's got to go …' she thought about it ‘…even further east and north, out beyond Hilfian and the Forest and even the
Heart. And then get back again to meet us.'

Jonas laughed. ‘I dunno, but the Fabulous have their ways.'

They hurried on, winding down the narrow stairwell. The walls on either side of them were rough wood, touched here and there with twigs, moss and the occasional plant. They had to pay attention as they went, because the steps were uneven in height and depth, each tread different from the last, each surface dipped or raised underfoot as if they had formed naturally instead of being made.

After a while Nin stopped again to look out. Now, gazing first down, then craning her head up and back, she could see that Dark's Mansion was half gothic castle and half mountain. Its summit was a vast tree growing out from the uppermost part of the mansion to tower against the sky, with the Sanctuary perched at the top like an oversized bird's nest caught in a net of branches. She and Jonas were travelling down inside the tree's hollowed out trunk and were only about halfway, even after all that walking.

‘So what's the deal with this place? It's pretty amazing.'

‘Sorcerers can't leave the Land,' said Jonas, ‘but as long as they've got a direct line of contact, they're OK. Story goes Dark formed the Mansion straight from the rock of the Land. So he could be high above everything, but still be in touch with the ground, see?'

‘So we really are inside a giant tree! Cool!'

‘He liked to push the rules a bit, did Simeon Dark.'

As they went further down, the wood walls darkened, becoming blackened and losing the mossy look.

‘Dawn,' said Jonas shortly. ‘The dawn fires must burn through it about here.'

Nin was about to say how much she would love to see that, then bit the comment back. Since Jonas had nearly lost his soul to the Storm and become one of the Gabriel Hounds, she was always wary of mentioning the dawn. She had been there with him, as part of the Storm, and had felt the raw power of the dawn fires as they burned across the Drift sky. She still felt a stab of loss whenever she remembered it and she knew that what Jonas felt must be a hundred times worse, even though he had conquered the Hound inside him. So she said nothing and just kept on, following him down the twisting stairway.

The lower they went, the wider the trunk of the giant tree became. The hollowed-out part widened with it until the stairs seemed miles away from the walls, spiralling down through empty air like a wooden corkscrew. Fortunately for Nin a thick coil of stringy stalk dotted with large ivy leaves followed the turns of the stair – sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left – so she had something to hang on to. She didn't think she would have been able to move an inch otherwise. The sense of standing there, with nothing but a thin wooden step between her and vast amounts of empty air made her head spin and her insides turn to jelly.