Hollow Pike (36 page)

The chant was repeated, round and round like a carousel, the room starting to spin with it. Jack felt nauseous and lightheaded; the lavender fumes were overpowering. His vision swam in and out
of focus.

‘Stop it!’ barked Jennifer, picking up Jack’s scissors from where he’d dropped them in the struggle. ‘What’s going on?’

The voices grew deeper and stronger, less childlike and more sinister, this time seeming to come from below, from the bowels of the earth.
Safe in your light. Safe from harm. Safe from fear.
Safe in your light. Safe from harm. Safe from fear. So mote it be.

Jennifer blinked hard and peered through the lavender smoke. Was it her imagination? Had writing suddenly appeared on the walls, or had it always been there? Old Latin incantations seemed to
seep out of the plaster, blood red letters transforming into pentagrams which then swirled and reformed, taking a new shape. The images merged together to form a shadow that rose up the walls,
sweeping onto the ceiling. The shadow was roughly the size of a man, but the head was more like that of a goat or bull, with two curved horns on either side of the face. Thick arms ended in
hawk-like talons.

The silhouette loomed over Jennifer Rigg, bearing down on her as it grew larger and larger. The woman backed into the farthest corner of the room, cowering away from the monstrous shadow.
‘Please, no. This can’t be happening,’ she croaked. ‘Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy . . . Save me . . . NO!’

As she screamed, the windows shook in their frames.

Keep going!
Lis powered forwards, swiping at hanging branches that got in her way. She no longer cared in which direction she ran as long as it was away from the
footsteps behind her.

And then suddenly the ground wasn’t there any more. Lis’s legs gave way, and she fell, landing painfully on her left hip and tumbling awkwardly down a slope. As she ploughed through
thorns and brambles she wondered if she’d fall forever. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come. Eventually, she slid to a halt in slick wet mud.

A freezing, creeping sensation rose up about her legs. She was in water: the brook. Fresh, hopeless tears streamed down her face. Clawing at reeds she tried to pull herself clear of the stream,
but found herself sliding back in the slippery mud. No! This couldn’t be happening. But it was, and she’d been here before.

The water, the pebbles, the rain, the birds . . .
the dream
. Everything about this situation was the same and also different. Her dreams had merely
felt
real. This
was
real:
surround sound, high definition. It all made sense now, of course. Lis and Laura, linked by blood, by Hollow Pike, by Pike Copse,
by murder
. And not just Laura’s murder, but the
murders of all those women who had died at the hands of the Righteous Protectors.
Were they drowned in this very water?

Lis was well rehearsed at this part. This was where she had to crawl. Maybe this time it would end differently . . . She hoped so. She started to move forwards. Rain pelted her, streaming down
her body and into the brook and she wondered if she could let the stream’s little current take her, but she wasn’t sure in which direction it would carry her: into Hollow Pike or right
back to Fulton?

She couldn’t take the risk. Delving deep within, she struggled with muscles she’d never used. Snarling, she pulled herself through the swollen stream, biting her lip against the
cold. She crawled for everything she had: Sarah, Max, Logan and her mother. Kitty, Jack, Delilah. And Danny . . . all the things she needed to say to Danny. There was no ice water on the planet
that would stop her, no bleeding nose, no twisted ankle or throbbing hip.

Lights. In the distance she saw lights: houses, people and safety. She was going to make it! Relief broke like dawn in her heart.

There it was. The strong, silent hand in her hair.

She should have known better.

Through the billowing, lavender-infused smoke, stepped two figures, arms outstretched. The first carried a stone mortar, from which the thick smoke billowed. The second figure
coughed and spluttered, wafting her way through the fog.

Ms Dandehunt pulled back her hood and fully entered the room. ‘It seems we got here just in time, Celeste.’

Mrs Gillespie extinguished the smoking bowl and rested it on Mr Gray’s desk. ‘So mote it be,’ she finished her incantation.

‘Kitty, Delilah and, er . . . Jack. We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.’ Ms Dandehunt strode over to Jennifer and hauled the sobbing woman out of the corner. Mrs Rigg was
pale and stiff with terror.

Jack looked over at Kitty and Dee, both blinking hard against what was left of the dizzying smog. Mrs Gillespie soon had Delilah free, and started work on untying Kitty. Jack’s head was
still throbbing and he could hardly see straight. Whatever was in that bowl was strong stuff. His vision gradually came back into focus, and he regained his senses.

‘Daniel was coming around,’ Ms Dandehunt said as she tied Jennifer Rigg to a chair with her own tape. ‘He’ll have called the police by now.’

‘Where’s the librarian?’ Kitty asked, as Mrs Gillespie pulled the tape from her mouth. Delilah was busy unwrapping Jack from the table legs.

‘She’s resting,’ Celeste Gillespie said flatly.

‘Now, I think we’d better get our stories straight, don’t you?’ Ms Dandehunt nodded at each of them.

‘But Ms Dandehunt,’ Jack begged. ‘Lis! She’s in trouble!’

‘I’m sorry, Lis. This is the only way.’

His empty apology was the only new chapter to this experience. Lis pulled away, gasping, filling her lungs with much needed air. He was so strong! Her wet body had managed to slip through his
fingers a couple of times, but he always regained the upper hand.

Even though she knew how this ended, with a vacuum of nothingness, she wasn’t going to go without a fight. She dug her fingers deep into the flesh of his forearms and spat in his face,
deriving satisfaction from the brief flash of red-hot anger he exhibited before he regained control.

‘Relax, Lis. It’ll be better for you if you just let go.’

‘Go to hell!’ she screamed, but he just pushed her down into the black brook. The sky vanished. She pushed and kicked and squirmed but his grip held fast. Rearing up, her face
managed to break the surface, but Gray took a hand off her neck and forced her face back under.

Water rushed up her nostrils. She remembered this bit vividly from her nightmare. Soon everything would become peaceful; the battles in the forest and in her head would momentarily cease fire,
allowing her a moment’s silence before the end.

If death is like this, it’s nothing to be afraid of
, she thought as the calm set in. She knew she should be fighting, but the sense of peace was oddly gorgeous, akin to going under
anaesthetic. Lis didn’t want to die. She thought of all those things she wanted to do, all those places she wanted to go. They were nothing now. Only dreams.

It could be worse. She’d come this far. Maybe the others could overpower the older women?Without Gray, they might have a chance of escaping.
That is a good last thought. Hang on to
that
, Lis told herself. She felt Gray’s stranglehold relax slightly as the life ebbed out of her body.
Is this how he killed Laura?
Death wrapped its soft petals around her and
started closing up.

Suddenly, Lis felt Gray let go. Why? She wasn’t dead yet. Did he think she’d gone already? His hands left her throat and she felt him stagger away from her. With a last surge of
energy she forced her tired body to sit upright. Her face broke the surface of the stream, and as muddy water poured out of her mouth, sweet, sweet air flooded in. She choked and coughed,
spluttering as she cleared her eyes.

What was going on? Lis peered around. Gray had fallen backwards and now sat in the fast-moving brook, looking stunned. A huge, sleek crow squawked as it flew at the teacher’s face, pecking
at his skin. Lis had been saved by a bird. If she weren’t so cold, she’d have laughed out loud. Velvet, blue-black feathers flapped in Gray’s bewildered face.

He struggled to his feet and stumbled out of the stream, staggering left and right. As he did so, another crow joined the first, needle-sharp talons clawing at Gray’s eyes and face. Then
another. The teacher slapped at himself, trying to hit out at the birds. Lis seized her chance to scramble out of the brook and onto the bank. Then, with a whispered ‘thank you’ to the
crows, she started running towards the comforting orange windows of Hollow Pike that glimmered just over the hill.

With a last swipe at the birds, Gray came after her again, but she felt stronger now – as if Death himself had given her a second chance. Gray grabbed her shoulders, but Lis whirled around
and scratched at his already bleeding face.

‘Get off me!’ she snarled.

Gray tried to wrap his hands around her throat, but she yanked his head back by his hair so he couldn’t get a firm grasp on her wet body. Sliding through the waterlogged mud, the pair
slithered away from the stream. They trampled through the undergrowth, throwing body blows at each other. There was no way Lis was giving up now. With a final war cry from her gut, she threw all
her weight at him. They both fell forwards into a black abyss.

She could be flying. Her hands grasped uselessly at thin air, the shock of the fall taking all the scream out of her. It was slow, effortless, silent and weightless. Freezing air rushed up
around her and she tumbled away from Gray, closing her eyes. When the flying ended, this was going to hurt. A lot. As she fell, Lis braced herself for impact.

She squealed when she hit the ground, but needlessly. Whatever was underneath her was wet, but soft. Her face smacked into it, reminding her of Mr Gray’s punch, but she was fine. She heard
a loud, moist snap beside her – and then near silence. Only the cawing of the crows could be heard faintly over the polite whisper of the rushing stream.

Lis finally dared to open her eyes. The rubbish dump. Of course. The fly-tipping heap had broken their fall. Lis was face down on a stained yellow mattress, but Mr Gray was motionless. She
didn’t understand – why wasn’t he coming after her? Then she saw why: Gray had landed at an impossible angle on a mound of derelict furniture and a metal chair leg now protruded
through a ghastly red hole in his neck. His blood trickled down the long, thin metal pole as the rain ran off his perpetually shocked face.

If this were a horror movie, Lis knew she should shoot the bad guy in the heart or chop his head off, or something; the killer’s never really dead, he always comes back for one last scare.
But from where Lis was, crouching on her dirty mattress, he looked pretty bloody dead. Yep, he was dead. And at this point in time, she couldn’t find it in her heart to feel anything but
relief.

From the other side of Pike Copse she heard the beautiful singing of police sirens and started to cry.