Spook's Destiny (30 page)

It was very dark beneath the trees, and the moon would not rise for another hour. But my witchy eyes could see well despite the lack of light and I gazed upon the severed head of the Fiend, the Devil himself.

It was a terrible sight to behold. I had stitched the eyelids together so that he could see nothing; I had stuffed his mouth with a large, green, bitter apple wrapped in a tangle of rose-thorns, so that he could not speak. He had been well looked after; dealt with exactly as he deserved. Neither the head nor the apple had rotted despite the stench; the first was due to his power, the second a result of my magic.

I spread the sack on the ground and lowered the head onto it. Then I sat cross-legged opposite it, scrutinizing my enemy carefully.

Somehow it looked smaller but was still almost twice the size of the average human head. Was it shrinking as a result of being separated from its body? The horns that protruded from its forehead were coiled and curved like those of a ram, the nose resembled that of an eagle. It was a cruel face and deserved the cruelty that I had inflicted upon it.

Leather straps crisscrossed my body, holding scabbards within which were my weapons and tools. From the smallest of these I withdrew a thin sharp hook with a long handle. I thrust it into the open mouth pushed it deep into the green apple, twisted and tugged. For a second there was resistance but then I pulled the fruit from the Fiend’s open mouth bring with it the tangle of rose-thorns.

Relieved of the obstruction the mouth slowly closed. I could see the broken teeth within. I had smashed them with my hammer as we had bound him. The memory of it was vivid and I watched it again in my mind’s eye.

Long had I waited for the opportunity to bind or destroy the Fiend, my greatest enemy. Even as a child I disliked him intensely. I observed the subtle ways in which he increasingly controlled my clan; watched the way its coven fawned over him. They spent most of each year looking forward to the Halloween Sabbath, the time when he was most likely to visit. Sometimes he appeared right at the centre of the fire and they reached forward desperate to touch his hairy hide, oblivious to the flames that seared their bare arms.

My growing revulsion was something instinctive in me; a natural born hatred and I knew that unless I did something he would become a blight upon my life; a dark shadow over everything that I did.

But there is one sure way that a witch can ensure that he keeps his distance. A method which is very extreme but a certain way she can free herself from his fearsome majesty. She need be close to him just once then bear his child. After that, after he has inspected his offspring, he may not approach her again. Not unless she wishes it.

Most of the Fiend’s children prove to be abhumans, misshapen creatures of the dark with terrible strength; others are powerful witches. But a few, a very few, are born perfect human children untainted by evil.

Mine was such a child – a beautiful, fragile baby boy.

I had never felt such intense love for another creature. To feel its soft warmth against my body so trusting, so very dependent, was wonderful – blissful beyond my dreams; something I had never imagined or anticipated. That little child loved me and I loved it in return; it depended upon me for life and I was truly happy for the first time in my life. But, in this world, such happiness rarely lasts.

I remember well the night that mine ended. The sun had just set and it was a warm summer’s night so I walked out into the walled garden to the rear of my cottage, cradling my child humming to him softly to lull him to sleep. Suddenly lightning flashed overhead and I felt the ground shift beneath my feet, the air become sharp with cold. The Fiend was about to arrive and my heart lurched with fear. At the same time I was glad because once he saw his son he would leave and never be able to visit me again.
I
would be rid of him for the rest of my life.

Previously, the Fiend had always appeared to me as a handsome young man with dark curly hair, blue eyes and a mouth that often turned up at the corners with a warm welcoming smile. But the Fiend can take on many shapes and this time he appeared in the form that the Pendle witches refer to as ‘
his fearsome majesty
’; it is a shape intended to intimidate and terrify.

He materialized in very close proximity to where I was standing and his fetid breath was in my face so that I struggled not to retch. He was large – three times my height – with the curved horns of a ram and a huge naked body covered in black matted hair. No sooner had he appeared than with a roar of rage he snatched my innocent baby boy and lifted him high ready to throw him to the ground.

‘Please!’ I begged. ‘Don’t hurt him. I’ll do anything but please let him live. Take my life instead!’

The Fiend never even glanced at me. He was filled with wrath and cruelty. He smashed my child’s fragile head against a rock. Then he vanished.

For a long time I was insane with grief. And then, as the long days and sleepless nights slowly passed, thoughts of revenge began to swirl within my head. Was it possible? Could I destroy the Fiend?

Impossible or not, that became my goal and my only reason to continue to live.

I partially achieved that goal just one month ago. He is not destroyed but at least he is temporarily bound. That binding was accomplished with the help of the old spook, John Gregory and his young apprentice, Thomas Ward. We transfixed the Fiend with silver spears then nailed his hand and feet to the bed-rock of the deep pit where his body is now buried.

I still delight in the moments of our victory. He was on all fours, tossing his head like an enraged bull and roaring with pain. I stabbed the first nail into his left hand then struck the broad head three times with the hammer driving it right through the flesh to pin his huge hairy hand fast to the rock. In my eagerness to bind him I became careless and that was the moment that I almost died.

He twisted his head, opened his mouth wide and lunged towards me as if to bite my head from my body. But I avoided that deadly mouth then swung the hammer back hard into his face smashing his front teeth into fragments leaving only broken bloody stumps. Few things have given me greater satisfaction!

After that, Tom Ward wielded the Destiny Blade given to him by Cuchulain, the greatest of Ireland’s dead heroes. With two deadly blows, the Spook’s apprentice cut through the Fiend’s neck and I carried that severed head away with me. Whilst body and head are apart the Devil is bound. But his dark servants pursue me. They want to return the head to its body and pluck forth the nails and silver spears so that he is free once more.

To thwart them I keep moving. By doing this I buy time so that the Spook and his apprentice can discover the means by which the Fiend might finally be destroyed or returned to the dark. But I cannot run for ever and my strength is finite. Besides it is in my nature to fight not run. This is a conflict I cannot win; there are too many of them – too many powerful denizens of the dark for even the witch assassin of the Malkin Clan to overcome.

‘It feels good to have you in my power!’ I told the Fiend now.

For a moment the severed head did not reply but then the mouth slowly opened and a dribble of blood-flecked saliva trickled down his chin.

‘Unstitch my eyes!’ he cried, his voice a deep growl. His lips moved but his words seemed to rise up from the ground beneath the head.

‘Why should I do that?’ I demanded. ‘If you could see you’d tell your servants where I am. Besides it is my pleasure to watch you suffer.’

‘You can never win, witch!’ he snarled, showing his broken teeth again. ‘I am immortal and can outlast even time itself. One day you will die and I will be waiting. What you have done to me I will repay a thousand times over. You cannot begin to imagine the torments that await you.’

‘Listen, fool!’ I told him. ‘Listen well! I don’t dwell on past failings nor do I project my mind into the future more than is necessary. I am a creature of the ‘now’ and I live in the present. And you are here in the present trapped with me. It is you who suffer now. You are in
my
power!’

‘You are strong, witch,’ the Fiend said quietly, ‘but something stronger and more deadly stalks you now. Your days are numbered.’