Hedge Witch E-Book

Simon Kewin

• Herausgeber: Stormcrow Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Two worlds, one nightmare…

Cait Weerd has no idea the undain are hunting her. She doesn’t know the vile creatures need  her blood to survive. She doesn’t even know she’s a witch, descended from a long line of witches. Cait Weerd doesn’t know much, but all that’s about to change.

At Manchester Central Library, she’s caught in the crossfire between the witches and the undain, two worlds fighting for an old book. Cait takes the book and is told to run, hide the book or destroy it. The undain’s secrets are buried in its pages, and they want it almost as much as they want her.

The fate of two worlds is at stake. Cait has to decide what to do: run, fight, or hope it all goes away.
But then she learns who she really is, along with the terrible truth of what the undain have been doing in our world all this time…

Leseprobe

For Alison, the first part of my own magical trilogy.

Table of Contents

1. Cait

2. Forbidden Books

3. Wild Hunt

4. Grimoire

5. Fer

6. Undain

7. Islagray Wycka

8. Coven

9. Snow on the Northern Hills

10. Archaeon

11. Tanglewood

12. Broken

13. Fires

14. Death on the Ring Road

15. Empire Towers

16. Returning

17. Aethernal

18. Witch-Marks

19. The Golden Palace

20. Extraction Engine Nmbr 1

21. Screaming Machinery

22. Hedge Witch

23. A Parliament of Owls

24. Shadow Paths

25. Night Fall

Landmarks

Title Page

Dedication

Text

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Cover

1. Cait

Manchester, England

Cait pushed her way through the crowded tram and just made it to the doors before they slid shut. Outside, she stood for a moment and breathed. Her eyes had closed more than once on the journey into Manchester, the result of a long, hot day at school and the rocking of the carriage as it rattled into the city. A breeze blew down Mosley Street but it did little to lift the oppressive weight of the air. The weather forecast had predicted thunderstorms. There was no sign of them yet.

The street was busy: office workers sweating in their suits and ties, shoppers burdened with purchases, rowdy children clouting each other with their backpacks. Beyond them all rose the grey, curving walls of the Central Library, like a round fortress built in the heart of the city.

She sighed. She'd promised herself she wouldn't get off here. She thought about Devi, Rachel, Val and Jen, the friends she'd promised to meet one stop up the line at the Arndale Shopping Centre. She watched the tram thundering off that way, ploughing through the traffic toward Piccadilly Square. They'd be there already, cruising through the crowds, laughing and shouting, never bothering to move out of anyone's way. As a group they were invincible. She imagined them veering from shop window to shop window, shouting their disgust at this, their burning desire for that. And no one, no grown-up, no security guard, would dare confront them.

She loved them all, but in her mind she saw herself at the back of the group, saying nothing, not involved. It was like that some days. She would look at them from a distance, marvelling at how they all talked at once but still seemed to hear what each other said. Other times, without really knowing how, she was a part of that. But not today. She couldn't face them today.

She looked down the tracks the way the tram had come. The rails gleamed in the sun, running past the oblong bulk of the war memorial and out of the city, south toward the suburbs.

Her mother would be getting home about now. Cait imagined her switching on the television, pulling steaming food from the microwave. She should be there, too. Another promise. But she couldn't face going home either. She'd left a message, done the right thing. She'd go back later.

She sighed again. The tram had vanished and she hadn't moved. She couldn't just stand there, people would stare. Come on, Cait. Back to the real world.

She thought about last Saturday, her disastrous attempt to secure a weekend job at Bling Thing. He'd said that, the manager, as he explained to her why she was so unsuitable for the role.

“Look, love. You have to live in the real world. You have to smile, be happy to serve the customers. Be enthusiastic about the products. Be excited by them.”

His words had amused her, then annoyed her. He'd wanted her to be something she wasn't. She'd felt trapped, had to fight down the urge to flee. It was all so mundane. Where was the beauty in it? Where was the magic? She'd imagined the man would be old but he was in his twenties or something. He was smartly dressed, polite, but his staring eyes, the way he droned on about retailing, made her shudder and say little.

His office was a square, shabby room at the back of the store, its walls concrete blocks painted lime-green. On the floor, a kettle and a jar of instant coffee sat on a tray. Boxes of stock were strewn all around, in contrast to the manicured layout of the shop. When he took off his jacket, she saw the sweat-rings creeping around his armpits, circles widening toward the white stains of past sweat-rings. She thought of herself still at Bling Thing in five, ten years' time. Interviewing some other poor soul for a job. Would she sound like him by then?

A poster on the wall, the blu-tac holding it up visible as dark smudges in each corner, said Smile - it costs nothing. It wasn't true. Right then, a smile would have cost her more than she could give. And what she actually said to him was, “Hmm.”

And so she hadn't got the job. She was a failure, it was clear. She was no good at school. She tried, she really did, but she always ended up antagonizing her teachers for some reason. Now she couldn't even cut it as a Saturday girl in Bling Thing. She was a failure, going nowhere. Already her life was over.

She threw her rucksack over one shoulder and set off, a small pile of text books cradled in one arm. How she hated her black school uniform. She'd tried to subvert it with blue in her hair and piercings that contravened all the rules. None of it helped. She hated how she looked. She scowled as she walked, warning everyone not to bother her.

Slumped against the grey stone wall of the library, out of the way of hurrying feet and the light of the sun, a man sat on a piece of tatty cardboard. A threadbare blanket was wrapped around his shoulders. On the ground before him lay a hat containing a paltry four or five coins, all coppers. He held a sign in his hands that said simply, Please. The rest of the message, whatever he was begging for, had been torn away. He was asleep, his head nodding forward, long, matted hair covering his face. The crowd ignored him, probably didn't even see him.

She wondered who he was, where he'd come from, what his story was. Perhaps he was one of the few who'd escaped the fire: the factory blaze that had killed her father. This man had limped out, choking, his clothes smoking, his skin burned. He was disfigured now, unable to work, unable to do anything but sit and beg. The formless pleading of that single word on his sign.

She wanted to go to him, sit with him, talk to him. She felt suddenly closer to him than all the people around her. They had so much in common, this shared bond of not belonging to the crowd. She stopped walking. A woman dressed in a smart blue business-suit, her gold necklace expensive, white earphones in her ears, tutted loudly at Cait for being in the way.

A flap of the beggar's cardboard seat caught the breeze and she saw the words This Way Up in red letters. Underneath, smaller, the name of some company.

The man looked up sharply at her. Or rather, through her to something beyond, as if he couldn't focus his eyes properly. He was young. He couldn't possibly have worked with her father. Of course. His skin was unscarred, his features thin and pale. Anger flashed through her, an anger that was part adrenaline. The stupid ideas she had. What was she thinking?

“The hunt! The hunt is coming! Monsters! Run and hide, run and hide!” the man shouted. No one paid him any attention. “They'll chase you down, corner you. You'll see! Sleep safe in your beds, that's when they come. The dead of night, down these streets, knives flashing. Run and hide, run and hide …” He trailed off, his head lolling again as if he was a toy whose battery had run down.

Cait stood for a moment, feeling ridiculous. He was just some loser, disgusting, probably mad.

Then he looked up, this time directly at her, focusing on her. A look of surprise filled his face.

“You?” he said, not shouting now, but still speaking loudly. “Here?”

Concern, then fear, then amusement flashed across his features. He started shouting again, pointing at her.

“They will hunt you! Once they find you, who you are and what you are, they will come! Day or night! You … here all along! All along!”

He started to laugh. A crazy, utterly uninhibited sound. He flicked his head from side to side, expecting everyone to see the joke.

It was too much for Cait. She turned and ran for the library, eyes down, shutting out the beggar, his words knives in her mind.

2. Forbidden Books

A line of pillars guarded the entrance to the library, like a great, gap-toothed mouth. Cait hurried through. She breathed deeply, her heart thundering in her chest. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting the crazy tramp to be following her like a zombie in some ridiculous horror movie. But there was no one. She was safe.

A security guard eyed her. He was tall and heavily built, but with more fat than muscle. He looked like an ex-soldier past his prime. He kept his hair closely cropped but there was a sadness in his eyes, as if he couldn't believe how his life had worked out. His uniform was shabby, the trousers a slightly different shade of blue to his tunic, his cuffs and the peak of his cap threadbare. He said nothing, not moving. She sometimes thought they were all asleep, slumbering away the long, poorly-paid hours with their eyes open. She smiled at him as reassuringly as she could, holding up her textbooks to make it clear she belonged in a library.

The large, circular reading-room that took up most of the ground-floor was a maze of desks and shelves. If you knew the path, the dead-ends to avoid, you could reach the sanctuary of the middle, the island of desks where the librarians stamped and piled books. If not, you could get lost and wind up in the dead-end of Ancient History, the wastelands of Chemistry.

Cait relished the familiar, busy hush. The sound of people concentrating, turning pages, scribbling. It was cooler in here. Controlled. She loved the aroma of the books, of all that paper and leather. She started to relax.

She looked for her gran and spotted her across the floor, her head appearing above a high bookcase as if she were a giant the library employed to reach the top shelves.

Cait set off across the great circle, between huge tables carpeted with open newspapers. She walked along passageways, between high walls of books, wondering what they all said. So much knowledge, how could she ever hope to make sense of things? She couldn't read a thousandth of what was written here.

She weaved her way through the labyrinth until she reached the foot of the step-ladders where her gran perched.

“Hi,” said Cait.

Her grandmother was always pleased to see her. Always had time for her. Still, she managed to make it quite clear when Cait had done something she disapproved of. It was never anything she said; she just made her eyes glint in a certain way. How did she do that? The look was there now as she peered down at Cait through her gold-rimmed glasses.

“Cait, love. I didn't expect to see you.” She stepped down holding three large, dusty books in one arm. Her pendant earrings, tear-shaped gold mesh clasping nuggets of polished amber, swayed in time with each tread. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. Just wanted to drop by. You know.”

“Weren't you going shopping with your friends?”

“Oh, couldn't stand the politics.”

“The politics?”

“Oh, Jen has stopped seeing Ed; Devi texted CJ to say that she was going out with Peter after all and yada yada yada.”

Her gran smiled. Her hair was grey. It always surprised Cait that her hair was grey.

“Dear me. If you're not going to give me your daily updates I'll have to go back to watching the soaps,” said her gran.

Cait offered her gran a hand as she landed on the ground. “Sorry.”

“Well, it's not that bad yet. Come on, I have to take these books down to the vault. Walk with me and tell me the real problem.”

“Let me carry the books,” said Cait.

“OK, love. Let me just tell someone where I'm going.”

They walked to the centre of the circle, where her gran conversed with her friend Jane. She was odd, Jane: perfectly nice, but very, very quiet. She was from Eastern Europe, or somewhere. The simplest things left her genuinely amazed, while big things or scary things didn't bother her in the least. Last week a man had got angry about something, shouting and swearing at her, jabbing at her with his finger. She'd smiled as if he were a foolish boy and waved him away while the security guards converged. She was cool, really.

Her gran finished her conversation and returned to Cait. They walked to a pair of grey lift doors. A sign in faded blue said Staff Only. Her gran took a set of keys from her pocket and used one in the keyhole where the buttons would normally be to summon the lift. Inside, the paint was scratched, the wooden floor scuffed. They descended slowly, the lift clanking and jerking as if reluctant to descend.

Cait's mobile chimed to say a text had arrived. She read it, still holding the books in one arm, then put the phone away without replying.

“Yada yada?” asked her gran.

“Yada yada.”

There was silence for a few moments more. The lift went past the public basement and down to a deeper level.

“And what about Danny?” asked her gran. “Aren't you going to see him?”

The lift stopped. There was a pause while the doors realised they could open.

“He's not my boyfriend, gran. He's just a mate. We like the same bands, that's all.”

It was dark down here, and distinctly cold. They stepped out. Cait waited while her gran found the light switch.

“Ah yes, of course. Let me see. Screaming Machinery. I remember that tee-shirt of his. The one you were wearing. Very colourful.”

“It was just a tee-shirt.”

“I'm very disappointed in you about that, Cait.”

“We're the only ones into them, that's all. There's nothing more to it. He's even got one of their guitar picks from that concert we went to at the G-Mex.”

The lights came on. There was her gran, closer than Cait had expected, smiling broadly.

“I mean about the compilation you promised me. I still don't have it.”

“I thought you were joking.”

“You thought I was too old, you mean. I know how much you love them so I want to hear them.”

“But …”

“You're afraid I'll be shocked or deafened. Is that it?”

Cait smiled. Even when her gran was cross with her she was fun.

“OK,” said Cait. “I really promise now.”

Ahead of them, a straight, concrete corridor led into the gloom. A string of lights provided occasional clearings in the darkness. Old, wispy cobwebs, with no evidence of any actual spiders, hung in the high corners.

“Anyway,” said her gran, “I liked him. I thought he was polite. Made a nice cup of tea.”

“Yeah.”

“So where is he then?”

“How should I know?”

Her gran looked at her and said exactly nothing.

“OK, he's at home,” said Cait. “Revising.”

“Ah, yes. I was coming to that.”

“I thought you might. It's ages until the exams, gran.”

“Three weeks. And I didn't mean that. I meant going home. Your mother will be missing you.”

They walked down the corridor. At regular intervals they passed locked, metal doors, as if the basement were some sort of dungeon. The place the librarians imprisoned troublesome borrowers.

“What is all this down here?” asked Cait. Her voice boomed in the confined space. It didn't sound like her speaking at all.

“Book storage. We only have a small percentage of the volumes on display upstairs, you know. The rest are down here, carefully catalogued and protected.”

“It's huge. There must be hundreds of doors.”

“It's much bigger than the library upstairs. Not many people know this level is even here. It extends a long way under the streets. I like to think this part of the city is built on a foundation of books. It's pleasant down here, so peaceful …” She was half talking to herself. It was something she did. “I like the feeling of the ground all around me. The depths of time. Who knows what's about us in the earth? Victorian coffins. Roman temples. Celtic roundhouses.”

“And … all these doors?”

“In case of fire. To stop flames spreading.”

Her gran glanced at her, concern clear on her face. The mention of fire, the mere suggestion of the building burning. Cait smiled reassurance back at her.

Her gran stopped walking. “She will miss you, you know, your mum. You're all she's got.”

“She's got the television.”

“She wants you.”

Cait shrugged. She could never get a word out of her mother. She would ask her how her day had been, and fine was the best she could hope for. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? The mad thing was, they only talked, had something approaching a conversation, when they watched television together.

The problem was they liked different things. Cait wanted to watch programmes that told her something, showed her something, gave her new ideas. Her mother liked to watch the same safe, comforting drivel over and over. Talent shows and soaps. But sometimes they would sit together and watch a programme acceptable to both. A film maybe. Then one of them would speak, saying something critical. The other would agree or disagree. And so it would go, in a companionable sort of way. They conversed about the people on the screen, never really about themselves, but it was something. It was as if the television was a translator, allowing them to exchange a few broken, half-understood words in each other's language. It wasn't much, but it was something Cait always looked forward to.

“I know, gran,” she said. In the gloom, the quiet, she found she could speak more easily. “Look, I know what she is. She's still your little girl and she's still my mum. But she's given in. She's given up on herself and given up on me. She's a loser. And she thinks I'm a loser, too.”

Her gran put her hands onto Cait's shoulders, then all the way around her.

“If she thinks that it's because she has lost a lot, Cait.”

“I know she has.” Unexpectedly, Cait was crying. The tears were cool on her cheeks. “We all miss Dad. But she's been stuck in limbo for two years now.”

Her gran smiled. She actually smiled. “You know, she used to be just like you. So lively. So strong-minded. So hard to please. Give her time, Cait. However long it takes, she'll come back to us. OK?”

“I'll try, gran. I do try. I just wish she would, too.”

“Well. Anyway. Let's go in.” She nodded to the door behind Cait. “This is us.”

Cait turned to look at the door. The words Vault 23 were stencilled onto it. She stepped aside while her gran took out her key ring.

The room inside was plain, square and surprisingly large. Its floor and ceiling were concrete. More shelves - metal here rather than wood - lined the walls. Labelled cardboard boxes filled them, each full of books. A kick-stool sat in the middle of the room.

“Right, I'll just put these in their proper place,” said her gran as she wrote something on a clipboard that hung from a hook. Cait handed the books over, then wandered across to one of the shelves, thinking about her mother, her father.

She had the urge to pick a book at random, pick one of the pages in the book, and read a sentence, just to see what it was. See if it was some great pearl of wisdom, some advice to give her guidance in life. But she didn't want to upset the filing system.

“Gran,” she said. “These boxes. I've seen one of them today. Just outside the library. A beggar sat on one. I mean, a flattened one. He was pretty mad actually. Started shouting all sorts of weird stuff at me. It was a bit scary.”

Her gran spoke with her back to Cait as she put the books into their correct places. “Young Tom you mean? Oh, he's harmless, love. We've tried to help him, find him somewhere to stay, but he keeps coming back.”

“He seemed to recognize me. Said mad things.”

Her gran turned to her, not smiling, a very direct look on her face. “He's nothing to worry about. Mild schizophrenia and a hard life on the streets. What did he say exactly?”

“Something about if they knew who I really was, if they knew I'd been here all along, they'd come for me.”

“He said that?” She was silent for a moment, her eyes still intent on Cait, sharp as knitting-needles. “Well, as I say, he's not well. But the only person he'd harm is himself.”

Cait nodded. She paced around the room, touching each box with the tip of her finger. In one corner a part of the shelf was sectioned off with strong metal grilling, a large padlock securing a hatchway in it. Several old books were inside, placed carefully onto the shelf so they weren't touching each other.

“So … why are these books locked away when they're in a room that's already locked?”

“Oh they're valuable,” said her gran, turning to face her again. “We sometimes look after books for other people. They have to be well protected for insurance. Some of them have been here for years.” She looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I wonder what's in these,” said Cait.

“Come on. We'd better go. They'll be wondering what's happened to me.”

They locked the door to Vault 23 and retraced their steps to the lift, which still waited with its door open, held by the key. Her gran switched off the lights in the basement as they stepped inside. Cait had the distinct feeling of all the books settling back down to sleep in the darkness, like disappointed dogs in a rescue home.

The old lift doors clanked together. Cait was about to ask her gran whom the locked-away books belonged to when there was suddenly more light in the basement. Flickering, yellow-green beams lit up the walls of the corridor they had walked down.

Cait looked at her gran to ask her what it was, but stopped when she saw her look of terror, saw her step backward from the door as if they were in danger.

The doors juddered slowly together. They heard rapid footsteps then, becoming louder: someone running toward them, although limping slightly, the rhythm uneven. Through the narrowing crack, Cait could see the indistinct shape of someone against the green light, a child-sized silhouette.

Whoever it was reached them as the doors touched together. A ferocious banging rattled the lift doors, the metal denting with each blow. Cait found she had stepped backward, too. She was next to her gran. They were holding hands. There was a faint, sickly smell of burning metal. She imagined motors overheating, cables smoking and snapping, fire in the lift-shaft. Were they trapped down here?

Then slowly, like some creaking, steam-powered space-rocket, the lift began to rise. The pounding on the doors slipped away, fading as Cait and her gran crept upward, back to the light.

3. Wild Hunt

Nox smiled, revving his Harley-Davison V-Rod. They had good prey today. The lad was cunning. Brave, too. But the end was near now. They had him trapped on a footbridge that arched over the motorway, both ends blocked by Nox's men. No escape. So often they ended up hunting some low-life waster who barely knew what was going on. It was too easy then, the fun all over in a couple of minutes. But this was more like it. They'd flushed him out of a Salford doorway two hours ago, waking him from his slumber amid stinking blankets. He'd given them good sport ever since.

Nox turned to look at the phalanx of bodyguards waiting patiently behind him. His glance told them to be ready. Their motorcycles gleamed silver in the bright sun. Each wore a helmet so it was impossible to see their face, but they all nodded, awaiting his command. Nox rode with no helmet, preferring to feel the wind in his hair, hear the shouts and screams. He loved everything about this. The throb and roar of the bikes. The sweet smell of burning fuel. The thrill of the chase. The kill.

He pulled the baton from its holster on the bike: a long, elegant bar of brushed steel, its tip decorated with a spiral pattern of conical spikes. It felt good to hold it in his hand. He practised a few strokes. It was an intimate weapon, preferable to the sleek little gun he carried strapped to his thigh. The gun was reliable; its intelligent sighting and ballistic control system meant he couldn't really miss his target. But that made it too easy. The baton gave the prey a fighting chance.

He climbed off his bike and walked forward. The lad backed away, panic clear on his filthy face. Nox practised a few more strokes. He would take this slowly. Savour it. There was no hurry.

“You've done well,” called Nox. “Really, you have. But now it's over.”

The lad froze, wild eyes darting. Then, once again, he did something unexpected. He clambered over the fencing that lined the walkway to perch with shaking legs on the footbridge's struts, thirty feet above the motorway. The traffic thundered beneath him, the roar and rush filling the air. He stopped there, grasping the rail behind him, looking down in terror. He had only to let go to plunge to his death.

Nox charged. He wouldn't be denied now. One blow at least, that was all he asked. The prey glanced up, looking Nox straight in the eye. Then back at the traffic. He let go even as Nox swung.

The baton caught empty air. Cursing, Nox peered over the rail. He expected to see the prey's mangled body on the carriageway. Cars swerving to avoid it. But there was nothing. How could that be? He turned to the other side of the bridge. A container lorry thundered away up the road. And there, perching on top, sat the prey.

The lad waved. He actually waved.

Nox struck the railing with his hand in frustration. Then he ran to his bike. The chase was still on. He'd been away from the office too long, but he pushed the thought aside. He wasn't going to give up now. And when they did finally catch this one it would be all the sweeter.

As he mounted his bike he barked out orders to his men, arranging them into a pursuit pattern.

They caught up with the prey an hour later. They'd followed him all across the city as he hopped from vehicle to vehicle. But they had him now. Nowhere left to run. The side-street upon which they waited was a narrow, dusty dead-end. On one side was the gable end of a house, a triangle on top of a square, everything made from red bricks the colour of dried blood. On the other side lay a rectangle of derelict land, as if the house there had simply disappeared one night. Scrubby, stunted bushes grew in the space, decorated with rustling plastic bags, the toxic fruit of this small urban orchard.

Nox turned his attention to the dots on his military-grade GPS, each representing one of his men as they moved through the maze of streets. Here in the badlands of Longsight it was impossible to track any other way. Row after row of the same houses, thousands of them packed together in bland, ugly estates. How did people even manage to find their own homes? Really, it was remarkable. Caution was essential. There were too many dead-ends and cul-de-sacs. Ginnels too narrow for a bike to get down. Walls a desperate man could scale. They weren't going to lose him again.

The dots formed a circle around the prey. Nox watched as they followed the pattern he'd dictated. So much of his life was spent doing this. Directing things from afar. Manipulating figures on screens. Subtly influencing events. Which he was very good at. Still, he often resented the remoteness of it. Another reason he loved the hunt. It was good to get your hands dirty from time to time.

The circle shrank, a noose tightening around the prey. Excellent. Not long now. He readied his gun. No time to use the baton. He'd already been away far too long. He resisted the temptation to check in with Central Control, make sure everything was running smoothly. Of course it was. He was just nervous because of the imminent arrival of their visitor.

He tried to put that out of his mind, too. Everything was in place. It wasn't unknown for such visits to happen. There'd been several over the centuries. And there could be many reasons for one now. Certainly his performance couldn't be called into question. Genera had met and surpassed all its targets. Profits were vast, for all that mattered. Raw tonnage was high and rising. And the refinery piped huge amounts of Spirit. Attention to detail, that was what he brought to the table. He'd given them reliability. No. There could be no possible problem.

The more he thought about it, the more likely reason for the visit was a reward. Recognition. Perhaps he would be offered the promotion, the ascension he so craved. At long last. It would explain the personal visit. His masters had to be careful, of course. Had to protect themselves. He would be grilled to ensure this was what he really wanted, that he was ready, that he was right. There was no doubt in his mind he was.

A call interrupted these delicious thoughts, the bike relaying it to the tiny transceiver he wore as a silver stud in his ear. This would be it; the men had spotted the prey. He revved his engine, savouring the great growl of the machine through his body like the deep laughter of a demon. Behind him, one of his men's horns blared, a hunting call over the rush of the cars on the nearby main road.

“Do you have him?” he asked.

But it was Central Control, not one of his men.

“I have a message for you, Mr. Nox.”

He scowled. It had better be something important. He'd left strict instructions. “What is it? Has our visitor arrived early?”

“No, sir. But one of the monitors has detected an electromagnetic anomaly.”

“Where?”

“In Manchester. The Central Library.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes, sir. The readings are quite clear. Something came through 30 seconds ago.”

Damn. He couldn't ignore this. He'd prepared too long for this. Those old fragments of paper had hinted there was an archive of some sort at both ends of the pathway between the worlds. He'd always suspected it would be a library. They watched them the world over, of course, but Manchester especially, after everything that had happened here.

“How many came through?”

“Just one.”

Nox calculated, gunning his engine again in frustration. They'd have to abandon the hunt, that was clear. And he hated to be beaten. But there was no choice. And this could work out very well. Their visitor due in a few days, and now this. Yes. It could work out very well indeed.

“Very well. Make sure you capture CCTV. And send soldiers. A lot of them. I'll go there myself.”

Without looking back he dropped his bike into gear and roared off toward the city centre, moving through traffic as if it wasn't there, his bodyguards filing in around him.

Somewhere behind them, at the end of an alley, a young man crouched in a wheelie-bin rank with the smell of old milk and rotting vegetables. Shaking, eyes wide, breathing panicky, he listened to the sound of engines as they faded into the distance.

4. Grimoire

“Wait here. Hold the lift. Make sure no one uses it,” said her gran once they'd creaked up to the ground floor. She slipped sideways through the reluctant doors when they were only half-open and walked briskly into the library.

Cait stood by the open lift, feeling that everyone was looking at her. She tried to breathe deeply, slowly, in, out. She'd read in a magazine that it calmed the nerves. It didn't seem to be helping. A churning sickness filled her stomach. She waited, afraid, useless. Her gran and Jane were talking, their heads close. Her gran pointed toward the lift. They bustled over together.

“Who was that in the basement gran?” asked Cait. “Where did they come from?”

“We have to hurry,” said Jane, ignoring Cait. The urgency was clear in her voice despite her accent. “Cait can stay up here. You and I must do this.”

“Do you think she'll be safer up here?” asked her gran. A stern look replaced her usual smile. It was unsettling, as if all her normal warmth was a front. “Tom recognized her. Others could, too.”

“She's just a girl,” said Jane.

Her gran's features were taut with tension. Underneath, Cait could tell she was weary. Sometimes, when she had been working too hard, or when she'd been ill, she did look old after all.

“Look, whatever's going on here, I want to come with you,” said Cait. “I can't just leave you.” She was speaking in a sort of whispered shout. Readers at nearby tables frowned at her. She stepped into the lift.

The two women exchanged glances then followed her inside. Her gran smiled, but the expression melted into anxiety almost immediately. Jane pressed the button to descend. Cait hooked her arm through her gran's, as she had done so many times.

“Who is it down there, gran?” she asked. “What is going on?”

The lift began to shudder and clank. Her gran squeezed her arm. Her voice was thin as she spoke. “We only have a few moments, love. Listen carefully, all right? I'll try to explain. And Cait, when we get to the basement, do what I say for once?”

Cait nodded.

“OK,” said her gran. “The truth is, there's something down there. In the basement. Something that shouldn't be there. Something that shouldn't even be.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Cait, listen to me. This thing is extremely dangerous and, I'm not going to lie to you, extremely frightening. It's come from another world in search of something. A book. And we must stop that from happening, at whatever cost. Do you understand?”

She didn't in the least, but she nodded again.

“We thought, we'd hoped, this would never happen,” her gran continued. “But it has and there's only us here to stop it. So that's what we're going to do.”

They were nearly at the bottom, the lift slowing as it reached the basement. Jane was breathing quickly, clearly afraid. Cait felt suddenly claustrophobic, enclosed in the tiny square lift. Her heart raced, surely too rapidly. She could do nothing but nod again, unable to think of anything to say. She had come to protect her gran, but really, what good would she be? She was useless. She couldn't do anything.

They heard three great booms from outside, as if someone were striking a huge drum. The whole lift shook with each concussion.

“Were you able to tell what it is?” Jane asked quietly.

“Not really,” said her gran. “Just this great emptiness, sucking in the light. One of the higher nobility, maybe. Perhaps one of the Elder Dukes or even a Prince.”

Jane nodded. “Well. We must do what we can.”

Her gran put on her glasses. As they waited for the doors to jerk open, she turned to Cait. She tried to look reassuring despite the fear in her eyes.

“Stay close, love,” she said. “And … I'm sorry.”

The doors opened.

Cait's first impression was of snow. It drifted in the air, thick as a winter's storm. But it was black snow. She saw what it really was: charred scraps of paper. The air hung heavy with ash and smoke, sharp at the back of her throat.

Another great boom echoed down the corridor. Moments later, a great flurry of shredded, blackened tatters bloomed into the air, as though carried on a strong northern wind.

Jane and her gran strode forward. Cait followed, wading through mounds of ash and paper scraps like fallen leaves.

They reached the first metal fire-door. It bent inward as though struck by a huge force. It stood like a ship's sail in a high wind, hanging on by its hinges. All around lay great drifts of tattered and burned pages. To Cait it seemed like someone had started with a chainsaw, then set the whole lot on fire. How was that possible? They'd only been gone for a minute or two. The ash in the air grew thicker, the smell of smouldering paper stronger, making Cait cough and retch. Why hadn't the sprinklers and alarms come on? It wasn't supposed to be possible for fires to just burn like this.

They continued down the corridor, stepping around larger piles of shredded paper, until sudden footsteps galloped toward them.

They stopped. Cait wanted to turn and run for the lift after all: get away, get up and out into the fresh air. She wanted to be back in that crowd on the streets of Manchester. She would have run, too, but her legs wouldn't obey. Her whole body shook and it was all she could do to remain standing.

Something hurtled around the corner. It ran like a dog, but larger, perhaps as tall as Cait. Its hairless body was the colour of wax. Its head was completely featureless: a bone battering ram that it used to smash down the metal doors. It bound up to them and stopped. A mouth appeared, a great wide crack full of needle teeth splitting its head.

“Three more witches,” it said, its voice strangely soft. “I will eat you alive.”

“No,” replied her gran. “You will not.”

The creature snarled, its mouth gaping as it did so. “You are powerless and you know it. Tell me where the Grimoire is. I grow impatient. It is here somewhere, I can smell it. Tell me!”

Jane stepped forward. She held her palm forward, as if that would be enough to stop the creature. “Yes, the book is here. But it is protected by many Forbidding Wards. You will have to kill me to remove them, undain.”

“Jane, no,” said her gran, alarm clear in her voice. “Don't do this!”

“I must,” said Jane, not looking at her gran, not taking her eyes off the monster. “For Andar, or whatever is left of it. For this world. I must. There is no other way.”

“No!”

“I'm sorry.”

The creature snarled and leaped. It ran up one of the walls and slammed down onto Jane, taking her whole arm into its mouth. Jane screamed and staggered backward. But somehow she stayed upright. Through clenched teeth she spoke words in a language Cait didn't recognize.

The creature roared and began to change shape. Its mouth shrank and lengthened. A tongue became an arm, Jane's hand grasped in its fist. Cait could see something, an energy, flowing down Jane's arm. The creature howled in agony, but didn't let go. Perhaps it couldn't. It fought back with a burning fire of its own.

Her gran stepped forward, her own hand outstretched. Seeing her, the creature grew another limb with astonishing speed. An arm ending in a great club lashed out and knocked her gran flying, slamming her against a wall. She sank to the floor, her eyes closed.

Cait found she could move then. Anger filled her, overcoming her terror. She charged at the creature. She still carried her school textbooks. Uselessly, not really knowing what she was doing, she tried to batter the monster with English Literature.

The creature swung its club arm at Cait, intending to swat her aside as it had her gran. Cait flinched. But as the blow was about to land, the creature stopped. Eyes swivelled on the side of its head, tiny like a whale's, little flecks of red clear as if it burned on the inside. It seemed to be studying her.

“But …” it said.

At that moment Jane screamed, her voice a mixture of determined fury and pain. The creature's whole arm glowed white. Jane's arm also burned, brighter and brighter. Cait stepped backward. What was happening? She shaded her eyes, the heat alarming on her face. Jane and the creature became indistinct shapes in the gathering fury of the light.

The explosion hurled Cait down the corridor. She expected pain as she struck a wall or the floor. Instead, she landed in one of the drifts of tattered pages and disappeared.

For a moment, everything was quiet. She was tempted to lie there, hidden, out of sight. But she knew she couldn't.

She pushed her way out, spitting dry paper from her mouth, and peered down the corridor. The monster, Jane and her gran lay unmoving on the floor, a neat triangle of bodies.

She went to her gran first. She was breathing, her limbs twisted at odd angles, like a broken doll. She opened her eyes as Cait stroked her face.

“Hello, love,” said her gran. She peered over at Jane and the monster. “Cait. You must hurry. Take Jane's key. It's around her neck. Go get the book. It's in a cage like the ones you were asking about. Vault 42.”

“But, gran.”

“Please, Cait.”

“OK.”

Cait's stomach heaved as she lifted the key from Jane's neck. The smell of burning flesh made her retch. She expected the key to be burning hot but it was cold metal.

“Good,” her gran whispered. “Go now. Be quick.”

Cait ran. Vault 42 was nearby. The door had been smashed like the others and the books inside shredded. But the locked cage in the corner was intact, as if the monster hadn't noticed it.

She waded through a sea of paper tatters, of scattered words, to get to the far corner of the vault. A single book waited inside the cage, its leather cover a rich, mottled red. She slipped the key into the large padlock. It turned with a series of gentle clicks.

She reached inside, expecting something to happen as she touched the book. Nothing did. Etched into the leather was the sketch of a skull and symbols or letters she didn't recognize. A complete skeleton stretched the length of the book's spine. Cait put the book under her arm, turned, and ran back to her gran.

“Well done, love. Now get out of here. Others will be coming. This evil thing has friends. Take the book and destroy it. Burn it. Burn every page. Not a word must survive. When you've burned it, shred the ashes, too.” She lay back, her eyes shut.

“Gran I … I can't do this,” said Cait. “I can't do any of this. I don't know what's going on, and I don't want to.”

“I know, love,” said her gran, her eyes closed. “I know. But we do what must be done. And you … you always underestimate yourself.”

“But I can't just leave you and Jane with this … this thing.”

“Cait, Jane is dead. She always said it was hard to craft here. She used up all her strength to stun it. But it won't be out for long. It's too strong, much too strong. Don't waste her sacrifice. Go and do what I said.”

“To mum?”

“No. They will expect that. Go to …” She winced as some agony cut through her. “Go to Danny. I liked him. Destroy the book together.”

“But what about you? I can't leave you here.”

“You must. I'll be fine, Cait. Go on.”

“But …”

“Go, Cait. Please.”

The world blurring through the tears in her eyes, Cait picked up her school books and placed them around the old tome to conceal it. She looked down at the creature lying on the floor.

“It wouldn't attack me,” she said. “Why wouldn't it attack me? It seemed like it recognized me.”

“No time now,” said her gran. “Remember what I said. Off you go, love.” Her voice was barely audible.

Cait nodded and tore herself away, a sob rising in her throat.

Back upstairs, security guards crowded the library. These were not like the shabby man she'd seen earlier. These wore black riot-gear and had helmets with visors covering their faces. They cradled guns in their arms and had an array of batons, side-arms and unidentifiable electronic gear hanging at their belts. They wore no insignia, or anything to identify who they were. They moved methodically amongst the shelves as if they were clearing the streets of some invaded city.

Luckily for Cait no one noticed her arrival. A man with thin, grey hair was arguing with two of the guards, shouting about having fought in the war. For a moment, all eyes looked that way. Cait slipped out of the lift and darted into a deserted aisle between two shelves.

She stopped for a moment to consider her options. The guards had formed a ring around everyone in the library and were corralling them to the doors, gradually tightening the circle. Perhaps, if she was quick, she could sneak through the cordon and escape.

She sprinted between the bookshelves toward a bank of desks. She stopped at an intersection. The desks were a few metres away. She might easily be seen if she continued. But time was short. She had no choice. She ran to the desks, sat down and opened one of her books half-way though, her hands shaking. She expected to hear shouts or the sound of boots stomping toward her. She pulled her iPod from her pocket with trembling fingers, put in her earphones, and buried herself in the text.

Moments later someone nudged her roughly on the shoulder. One of the guards stood behind her, pushing at her with the butt of his rifle. She did her best to look shocked and frightened, which wasn't that difficult.

“Who … what?” She gabbled, half shouting, as if she had loud music playing in her head.

The guard said nothing for a moment, then he nodded to the main library doors and spoke in a dead, mechanical voice. “Leave.”

Quickly, Cait picked up her books, taking care to keep the old leather tome as well-hidden as possible, and trotted toward the doors. She was the last person to reach them.

Outside the library stood a handsome man next to a powerful-looking, silver motor-bike. He wore expensive sunglasses, a black leather jacket and steel-capped, black leather boots. He was mid-thirties maybe, and looked like something from a glossy advert for expensive watches. He observed everything taking place, all the while talking, apparently to himself.

She felt suddenly self-conscious under his gaze. Not daring to look at him directly she walked past, sure he would stop her and take the book. All of her fear and uncertainty returned.

She slipped on the step and fell, scattering her books onto the ground at the man's feet. The red leather book was clearly visible, right by his boot.

She glanced up into his face. He looked at her, assessing her. He reached down and picked something out of her hair. A scrap of paper from the basement.

He inspected it carefully. He was about to say something when one of the guards, a woman this time, hoisted Cait up. The guard nodded her head toward the street. Cait scrabbled her books together and, not daring to look back, ran toward the crowd of people being herded away from the library.

She pushed through the throng, all the time expecting more shouts, the sound of pursuit. For once, a tram waited at the stop. It was going the wrong way, up into the city centre, but she pushed inside anyway just as the doors swept shut.

She managed to find a seat at the far end of the carriage. She held the books tightly to her chest, trying to make herself small and insignificant. She peeped out of the window. The man in the leather jacket remained by the library doors. He stared directly at the tram. Directly, it seemed, at her. Even as they moved off she could see his mouth moving, giving orders to his troops.

Surely they would pursue her, especially when they went to the basement and saw what was there. The bodies and the book gone. What chance did she have? Still, she had to try. It was tempting to give up, let them catch her, not shoulder the responsibility. But she thought of her gran, and of Jane. She thought, for some reason, of her Dad and what had happened to him. She would do what her gran had asked. Try at least. It was little enough.

She'd change trams a few times, get a bus, walk through the crowds to put them off her scent. Like they did in the movies. The soldiers, or whatever they were, would be able to track her. CCTV cameras perhaps. But it would take time. Time enough, perhaps, to destroy the book.

She reached into her pocket and switched off her mobile. At least they wouldn't be able to find her from that. Next, she fished her iPod out and, this time, switched it on for real.

Familiar soaring melodies and crashing guitars filled her. She felt instantly strengthened and reassured. A few minutes later, still clutching the books, she left the tram at Piccadilly Gardens and disappeared into the crowds.