Authors: Joseph Delaney
Spook's Destiny
Chapter 6: An Instrument of Torture
Chapter 7: The Siege of Ballycarbery Castle
Chapter 10: In the Grasp of the Fiend
Chapter 11: The Killorglin Goat
Chapter 14: The Head of the Witch
Chapter 18: The Talons of the Morrigan
Chapter 19: The Hound of Calann
Chapter 20: Nobody will Hear You Scream
Chapter 25: They all Fall Down
WARNING: NOT TO BE READ AFTER DARK
‘You belong to the blade now. You’ll belong to it until the day you die …’
The Spook, Tom and Alice have travelled to Ireland, fleeing the war in the County. There, Tom must tackle a group of evil mages who are desperate to rid their land of the Spook and his apprentice, and to increase their own dark powers.
His dangerous mission against the mages leads Tom to the Destiny Blade – a sword with a dark side, and a thirst for blood … will this new weapon give him a fighting chance against the Fiend?
If he’s to survive, he’ll need training, and only one person can help – Grimalkin, the witch assassin. The dark against the dark …
Tom
Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he was born with certain gifts – gifts that make him perfect for the role of the Spook’s apprentice. He can see and hear the dead and he is a natural enemy of the dark. But that doesn’t stop Tom getting scared, and he is going to need all his courage if he is to succeed where twenty-nine others have failed.
The Spook
The Spook is an unmistakable figure. He’s tall, and rather fierce-looking. He wears a long black cloak and hood, and always carries a staff and a silver chain. Like his apprentice, Tom, he is left-handed, and is a seventh son of a seventh son.
For over sixty years he has protected the County from things that go bump in the night.
Alice
Tom can’t decide if Alice is good or evil. She terrifies the local village lads, is related to two of the most evil witch clans (the Malkins and the Deanes) and has been known to use dark magic. But she was trained as a witch against her will and has helped Tom out of some tight spots. She seems to be a loyal friend, but can she be trusted?
Mam
Tom’s mam always knew he would become the Spook’s apprentice. She called him her ‘gift to the County’. A loving mother and an expert on plants, medicine and childbirth, Mam was always a little different. Her origins in Greece were a mystery. In fact, there were quite a few mysterious things about Mam …
T
HE HIGHEST POINT IN THE
C
OUNTY IS MARKED BY MYSTERY
.
I
T IS SAID THAT A MAN DIED THERE IN A GREAT STORM, WHILE BINDING AN EVIL THAT THREATENED THE WHOLE WORLD
.
T
HEN THE ICE CAME AGAIN, AND WHEN IT RETREATED, EVEN THE SHAPES OF THE HILLS AND THE NAMES OF THE TOWNS IN THE VALLEYS CHANGED
.
N
OW, AT THAT HIGHEST POINT ON THE FELLS, NO TRACE REMAINS OF WHAT WAS DONE SO LONG AGO, BUT ITS NAME HAS ENDURED
.
T
HEY CALL IT –
T
HE
W
ARDSTONE
.
DRIVEN BY THE
gentlest of breezes, our small fishing boat was sailing slowly west, bobbing gently towards the distant shore. I was staring ahead towards the green hills of Ireland, trying to take in as much as I could before the light failed. In another twenty minutes it would be dark.
Suddenly there was a roaring, howling sound, and the fisherman looked up in alarm. From nowhere a great wind blew up. A black cloud raced towards us from the north, zigzag lightning flickering down into the sea, which was now boiling and surging so that the small boat rolled alarmingly. Our three dogs began to whimper. The usually fearless wolfhounds, Claw, Blood and Bone, didn’t like sea voyages at the best of times.
I was on my knees, clinging to the prow, cold pinching my ears, sea-spray stinging my eyes.
The Spook and my friend Alice were cowering down below the gunwales, doing their best to take shelter. The waves had suddenly become much bigger – unnaturally so, I thought. We seemed about to capsize. As we slid down into a trough, a gigantic wave, a sheer wall of water, came out of nowhere and loomed above us, threatening to smash our fragile craft to matchwood and drown us all.
But somehow we survived and rode up the wave to its crest. A torrent of hail came then – pebbles of ice, raining down onto the boat and us, beating at our heads and bodies with stinging force. Again lightning flashed almost directly overhead. I looked up at the mass of churning black cloud above us, and suddenly saw two orbs of light.
I stared up at them in astonishment. They were quite close together and made me think of two staring eyes. Then, as I watched, they began to change. They
were
eyes – very distinctive eyes too, peering down from the black cloud. The left one was green, the right blue, and they seemed to glitter with malice.
Was I imagining it? I wondered. I rubbed my own eyes, thinking that I was seeing things. But no – they were still there. I was about to shout to get Alice’s attention, but even as I watched, they faded away to nothing.