A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (12 page)

I was on a beach, if you could use that word to describe a mud-flat beside a filthy river. And I was covered with stinking black silt from head to toe. There were cold pebbles beneath my cheek and around me were strewn empty drinks cans, clogged plastic bags, a used condom. I sat up, spitting filth and grit, and looked wildly about, trying to figure out where I was.

For a minute I was totally disoriented – then I saw the familiar pyramid-topped tower of Canary Wharf in the distance. I must be on the eastern stretch of the Thames – but how? And where were the others?

There was a coughing sound to my right and I looked down to see Abe curled on the mud.

‘Abe!’ I hugged him fiercely and he gasped, coughing up river-water.

‘Go easy,’ he said hoarsely, but his fingers squeezed my wrist. I felt a hot rush of relief that he was alive.

‘Are you OK?’

‘No, I’m lying here dead,’ he croaked, hauling himself into a sitting position. ‘You’re just hallucinating me hacking up phlegm like a sixty-a-dayer.’

‘Stop it,’ I choked, and he put his arms gently around me, filthy and stinking as I was. My fingers clenched his mud-matted hair and then we both pulled back, looking at each other’s stained and muddied faces.

‘What the hell just happened?’ Abe asked.

‘I don’t
know
.’ I tried to make my battered, waterlogged brain work properly. Then, as I began to realize the full horror of what had happened, I shut my eyes. ‘Christ, he’s dead. Thaddeus Corax is
dead
.’

‘Why do you care?’ Abe asked.

‘He knew …’ I said slowly. ‘He was the only person left who knew the truth about me. Everyone who gets close is getting picked off. But I thought … I thought …’

‘You thought he was behind Caradoc’s killing,’ Abe finished. ‘Maybe he was. But then, who killed him?’

‘Was it the spy?’ I stared at him. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Anna, this is pointless.’ He stuck out a mud-streaked hand and hauled me to my feet. ‘We’re not going to get any answers here. And we’ve got to find Em.’

Emmaline. Oh God. I tried to think back, to remember if Marcus’ shield had had time to reach her – and I couldn’t. My only comfort was that she was a powerful witch in her own right. If magic could save her, Emmaline would be all right.

‘Let’s try ringing her,’ Abe said. But our phones were blank and dark, waterlogged to the point of death. Even when we tried breathing magic into them nothing happened.

‘Arse,’ Abe said. We both stared at each other for a while and then began the trudge back towards London.

We fell into silence after the first mile or two, so that when Abe’s wordless exclamation broke the relentless beat of our footsteps, I looked up, startled.

‘What?’

For answer he pointed at the gap in the Wapping warehouses which had opened up to show the Thames.

I stifled my own gasp.

The Thames was running red with blood.

A great swathe of gore was flooding out from the south bank into the river, turning the water into a churning cauldron of red. On the wind floated the sound of sirens and a faint hubbub of voices.

‘We’ve got to get across,’ Abe said. ‘How? Come on, you’re the Londoner – isn’t there a bridge?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That way.’

Abe grabbed my wrist again and we ran.

I could hear the shouts and sirens wailing as we pounded along Shad Thames towards St Saviour’s dock, and all the time the flood of gore kept pumping into the river like a slashed artery. What
was
it? Where was it coming from?

‘Stand back,’ shouted a policeman as we approached. He flung his arms out, barring our way. ‘We’ve had a building collapse. No access until the area’s been cleared.’

‘Oh you bastard,’ Abe panted. He pulled me around the corner behind a building and said, ‘Invisibility. Pronto.’

Then he disappeared. If it hadn’t been for the feel of his hand still gripping my wrist, I wouldn’t have even known he was there.

‘Come on,’ said his voice from close beside my ear. ‘What are you waiting for?’

I was shattered; cold and bone-tired, both physically and magically. I’d seen two dead bodies since breakfast – it felt like I’d lived a hundred years since I listened to Caradoc’s message.

I couldn’t feel a single scrap of power left inside me, but Abe had managed, and I was damned if I was going to ask him for help. From somewhere I scraped together a little magic and muttered the charm my grandmother had drilled into me.

‘Did it work?’ I asked.

‘Not completely.’ Abe’s voice was appraising. ‘I can see your outline, like a ripple.’

I gritted my teeth and repeated the incantation, forcing power out of every muscle, feeling it shudder across my skin like goosebumps.

‘Better,’ Abe’s voice said. ‘Come on, while you can still keep it together. Hold my hand so we don’t lose each other.’

We ran silently back past the policeman and round the corner, almost bumping into another policeman who stepped into our path, unable to see us coming. Then we were teetering on the edge of St Saviour’s Dock, almost in the water, staring open-mouthed at the ruins of a huge warehouse near the head of the docks. The foundations seemed to have crumbled from underneath, bricks and chunks of concrete were piled in the water, and from beneath came the gouts of pumping blood, mixed with swirls of something black and viscous – like tar. Currents boiled beneath the surface, as if some sinuous giant creature were writhing in the depths. There were dead birds in the crimson water: crows, three of them. Real birds – or witches, trapped in their changed state and unable to get out? A woman’s designer shoe floated past on the swirling current. It looked a lot like the ones worn by my grandmother. I felt nausea suddenly rise up, overwhelming, and put my hands to my mouth, pressing it back as a cold sweat prickled over my skin.

‘Anna!’ I heard Abe’s sudden, urgent hiss and I realized to my horror that I’d flickered into view.

‘No!’ He grabbed my arm as I gabbled the spell again. ‘Don’t make it worse – oh you’ve done it. You idiot, there was a policeman watching.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

‘Never mind, just stay invisible now and let’s get out of here. We need to find Em.’

‘And Marcus,’ I whispered.

‘Screw Marcus,’ Abe said harshly. He pulled me roughly towards a gap in the warehouses – and then we both stumbled into something hard and invisible – something that gave a yelp of shock and pain.

‘Argh!’ Abe bellowed and he came abruptly into view, as if a switch had been flicked. One hand was outstretched, feeling for the invisible obstacle. The other was pressed to his nose, which was running scarlet with blood. ‘For crying out loud, not my nose again!’

‘Your nose!’ Emmaline was suddenly standing in front of us, clutching at her forehead with both hands. ‘What about my head?’

‘Is your head broken? I don’t bloody think so.’

‘Oh Abe!’ She dropped her hands from her head and flung them around him, hugging him so hard that he gasped. ‘I was so worried. Where were you? Where’s Anna?’

‘I’m here!’ I stepped towards her and then realized from her wild gaze that I was still invisible. ‘Here!’ I shrugged off the spell impatiently. ‘It’s me!’

‘Anna!’ Em flung her arms around me. ‘Thank God. What happened?’

‘I don’t know – we ended up somewhere near Canary Wharf, miles away. What happened to you?’

‘We washed up near Westminster. We did the only thing we could think of and followed the river down – then we saw this.’

‘We?’ Abe asked sharply.

‘Me and Marcus,’ Em said. A few feet away there was a sudden ripple in the air, like a heat haze, and Marcus shimmered into view. He was dry. Immaculately dry. So was Em, I realized.

I looked down at my own soaked clothes, drying into stiff, mud-crusted creases.

‘Marcus shielded us,’ Emmaline said sheepishly, interpreting my gaze. ‘So we didn’t actually get wet.’

‘But no matter,’ Marcus said. ‘We can fix that.’ He pointed a finger at my feet and murmured something under his breath, drawing a line up the centre of my body from my feet to the top of my head. When I looked down, my clothes were dry and clean. No illusion – actually clean.

‘Wow!’ I gasped. ‘Why didn’t we think of that, Abe?’

‘Seems like most people would be more worried about finding their friends than drying their clothes,’ Abe said sourly. ‘Forgive me if I had something else on my mind.’

‘You think I didn’t?’ Marcus crackled with sudden anger. ‘Are you forgetting we saw my father’s body shortly before his office was blasted to smithereens?’

‘If you’re bothered, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,’ Abe spat back.

‘My father is
dead
. Murdered. How dare you presume to know anything about my feelings on the matter!’

There was a sudden spitting sizzle in the air between the two men and a feeling of silent tension, as if some great unseen struggle was taking place. Abe’s fists clenched and I saw a vein was standing out on Marcus’ forehead. The air seemed to ripple with fury and then, just as suddenly, they both turned away.

I looked from one to the other, trying to work out what had just gone on. Abe’s face was twisted with disgust but there was a tiny, cruel smile at the edge of his mouth. Marcus looked as if nothing had happened, but his breath was coming fast; I could see his chest heaving beneath his snowy shirt.

‘If you two have quite finished swinging your dicks around,’ Emmaline said furiously, ‘maybe we could try to work out what the hell just happened.’

What
had
just happened? Suddenly the horror of it all washed over me. Two elderly men, butchered like pigs. And the only thing that linked them was a knowledge of my past, my true identity, and the fact that I’d used them – or tried to – to find out the truth. Then something else occurred to me.

‘Elizabeth. What if she was in there?’

‘I don’t think she was,’ Marcus said. ‘But either way, she’ll have returned now. They’ll have summoned her back.’

‘Which entrance would she use?’ I asked. ‘She was going to Charing Cross.’

‘I’m not sure.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘It’d be a toss-up between the Fleet entrance and the Effra entrance from there. She uses the Effra more. I think that’s where she’d try first. I’ll come with you – I need to get back there, find out what’s happened.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. I looked at him, his white, worn face, the blue shadows beneath his eyes. I wanted to hug him, to promise him it would be OK. But I didn’t know him well enough – and anyway, that was a promise I had no right to make. His father had died. Nothing would ever be OK for him again.

Instead I turned to Emmaline and Abe. ‘You two don’t have to come. I don’t know what we’ll find. I don’t want—’

Abe shook his head, his jaw set.

‘If you’re going back, I’m going too.’

I looked at Emmaline and she raised one eyebrow.

‘What? And stump back to Winter on my tod? Not likely. Looks like it’s a cab for four.’

We stood on the parapet of Vauxhall Bridge, peering into the dark, swirling waters.

‘No blood,’ Abe said. ‘Looks all right.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Marcus said. ‘Well – who wants to go first? Shall I?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll go first.’

‘Anna –’ Abe put out a hand ‘– wait!’

But I knew if I waited I’d lose my nerve. I jumped. Abe’s voice disappeared as I fell, and then the waters closed over my head and I was tumbling towards oblivion.

I landed with a crash and a sudden sense of foreboding. I was in the familiar concrete vestibule, like the lift shaft of an underground car park – but the reinforced steel door stood open and the smell that came out was not the rich scent of heavy magic, but a stink of river mud, blood and filth. Before I could do anything there was a series of crashes and Emmaline and Abe tumbled on to the concrete floor beside me. Last of all, Marcus touched gently down. As he saw the open door his face paled, but he squared his shoulders and together we led the way into reception.

No one was there but from further down the corridor I could hear shouts and the stench of river mud grew stronger as we began to walk in the direction of the noise. The witchlights in the sconces along the walls were burning so low they cast only a flickering grey light as we passed and the red damask walls were stained and blotched with river mud. There was a sound from above our heads and I looked up to see a crack zig-zagging across the ceiling above us, splintering through the cornicing like icing on a cake. Black water began to drip through, spattering us as we ducked beneath.

We turned a corner, heading towards the main debating chamber, and the corridor forked.

‘Which way?’ I asked Marcus.

He opened his mouth to reply – but the answer never came.

‘Watch out!’ Em’s cry cut across whatever he might have said. ‘The wall!’

I turned sharply. The wall to our left was bulging, splitting like an overripe fruit. As I watched in horror, a giant rent appeared in the paper.

Marcus shouted an incantation and his forefinger drew a lightning-fast symbol in the air. The characters glowed bright for a second before exploding in a firework flash. The wall shuddered, and seemed to heave itself back into place for a moment, but then with a crash like a waterfall, it exploded, silt and mud and water gushing through the split.

We ran for our lives along the narrow corridor, Marcus hurling charms over his shoulder, the waters snarling and roaring behind us, like some vast beast that had slipped its chain and rampaged out of control.

My breath was tearing in my chest and I stumbled as the water snapped and spat at our heels.

‘In here!’ Emmaline yelled.

She flung open a door and we scrambled inside, slamming it shut just as the torrent crashed against the wood. The door groaned and Emmaline slapped a hasty charm across it and then looked at me, her face ashen.

‘What in the name of all that’s crazy is going on out there?’

‘The place is falling apart.’ Marcus had his back to the door and I could see the strain in his muscles as he forced all his magic into trying to keep the water at bay. ‘The rivers are breaking loose.’ There was sweat on his forehead and he closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping back the waters.