Joseph Delaney - The Spook's Mistake

It was Morwena! She must have been wearing a wig. Either that or some dark enchantment had made me see her hair as golden. No wonder she'd kept her back to us. Now I could see that fleshless nose and hideous face. Her left eye was closed.

A shadow fell upon me and I flinched back against the post. I sensed the Fiend close at my back. He didn't move into my field of vision but his voice was an icy chill squeezing my heart so that it began to beat erratically and I could hardly breathe.

'I have to leave you now, Tom. You are not my only concern. I have other important business to undertake. But my daughter Morwena will take care of you. You are in her hands now.'

With those words he was gone. Why hadn't he stayed? What could be so important as to call him away just when I was so completely vulnerable? He must have great faith in Morwena's power. As his footsteps faded away, the Devil's daughter came towards me, her expression cruel.

I heard the flapping of huge wings and an ugly bird swooped down to alight on her left shoulder. She raised her cupped hands and it dipped its beak into them again and again, drinking its fill of what she held there — the blood of the dying horse. Having quenched its thirst, the corpsefowl gave a shrill cry, flapped its wings and fluttered upwards, to be lost from sight.

Morwena then knelt on the wooden quay, her hands red with blood, so close that she could have reached out and touched me. I tried to keep my breath steady but my heart was hammering in my chest. She stared at me with her reptilian right eye as her tongue flicked out and licked the blood from her lips. Only when they were clean did she speak.

'You sit so still and quiet. But bravery has no place here. No place at all. You are here to die and won't escape your fate a second time!'

Now she revealed those terrible yellow-green canine teeth and her foul breath washed over me so that it was hard not to retch. Her voice was harsh and sibilant, beginning each sentence with the hiss and splutter of liquid being poured over hot coals; ending with the gurgle of a swamp swallowing its victims, sucking them down into its sodden maw. She moved her head a little closer to mine, and rather than looking me in the eye was staring at my neck.

For a moment I thought she was about to sink her teeth in before ripping out my throat. I actually flinched, and at that involuntary movement she smiled and raised her right eye to meet mine.

'I've already drunk my fill, so live a little longer. Breathe for a while and watch what's about to unfold.'

I was starting to tremble and struggled to control the fear that is always a spook's worst enemy when facing the dark. Morwena seemed to want to talk. If that was the case, I could get information that might prove useful. Things looked bleak but I'd been in difficult spots before when my chances of survival appeared slim. As my dad used to say, 'While there's life, there's hope,' and it was something I believed in myself.

'What are you going to do?' I asked.

'Destroy my father's enemies: you and John Gregory will die tonight.'

'My master? Is he here?' I asked. I wondered if he was a prisoner in the other hold.

She shook her head. 'He's on his way even as we speak. My father sent him a letter to lure him to this place — just as he forged the letter he placed in your hands. John Gregory believes it's a plea for help from you and now hastens here to his fate.'

'Where's Alice?'

'In the hold where she's safe,' Morwena hissed, that jutting ridge of bone that served as her nose now mere inches away from my face. 'But I want you in view.

You're the bait that will draw your master to his death.'

That final word was like the ugly croak of a swamp frog echoing over a stagnant bog. She quickly pulled a mottled handkerchief from her sleeve and gagged my mouth. That done, she looked up suddenly and sniffed twice.

'He's almost here!' she said, nodding towards the two men, who retreated into the shadows to lie in wait. I assumed she'd join them, but to my surprise and dismay she approached the edge of the canal, lowered herself into the water and disappeared from sight.

The Spook was tough and skilled with his staff. Unless he was taken completely by surprise I estimated him to be more than a match for the two armed men. But if the witch attacked from the water while he fought them, that was another matter. My master was in grave danger.

I sat there, helpless, knowing that any moment now my master would arrive; if Morwena had her way, he'd be the first of us to die. But things still weren't hopeless because, for some strange reason of his own, the Fiend had now left us. My master would not be so easy to kill. He had a fighting chance at least. But how could I help him?

I struggled to free myself from the thick rope that bound me to the post. It was very tight, and no matter how hard I twisted and turned it barely yielded. I heard a faint noise in the distance. Was it one of the waiting men? Or was it the Spook?

The next moment there was no doubt. The Spook was walking down the quay towards me, carrying his staff and bag, his footsteps echoing. I suppose we noticed each other at exactly the same moment because no sooner had I set eyes on him than he came to a halt. He stared at me for a long time before continuing more slowly. I knew he would have worked out that it was a trap. Why else would I be tied up like that in full view? So he could either retreat and make his escape or come forward and hope that he could deal with whatever had been prepared. I knew he wouldn't leave me — so it was no choice at all.

After another twenty paces he halted again, directly under one of the huge posts that supported the roof of the warehouse. He was staring at the two dead horses. The lantern was shining full in his face, and by its light I could see that although he looked old and a little gaunt, his eyes still glittered fiercely and his senses were clearly sharp and alert, testing the dark recesses of the warehouse for danger.

He continued towards me again. I could have nodded towards the water to warn him about the threat from Morwena. But to do so might distract him from the other threat from the darkness on his right.

Suddenly, less than twenty paces from me, he halted again and this time he put down his bag and lifted his staff defensively, holding it with both hands at an angle of forty-five degrees. I heard the distinctive click as he released the retractable blade and then everything happened very quickly.

The two thugs burst out of the darkness from my left, their long knives glinting in the lantern-light. Turning his back on the water, the Spook whirled to meet them. For a second his opponents seemed to hesitate. Perhaps they saw the wicked-looking blade at the end of his staff. Either that or the determination in his eyes. But then, as they rushed on, knives aloft, ready to cut him down, he struck. Using the thick base of his staff, he landed a terrible blow on one man's temple. He fell soundlessly, the knife flying from his fingers, even as the Spook thrust the point of his blade towards his second assailant. As the blade pierced the man's right shoulder, he also dropped his knife, then fell to his knees and uttered a thin, high cry of pain.

The Spook angled his staff towards his fallen enemy, and for a moment he seemed about to stab downwards, but then he shook his head and said something to him in a low voice. The man staggered to his feet and stumbled away into the darkness, clutching his shoulder. Only then did the Spook glance back in my direction and I was finally able to nod desperately towards the waters of the canal.

I wasn't a second too soon. Morwena surged up with the strength of a salmon leaping up a waterfall, her arms outstretched to tear at the Spook's face, though her left eye was still closed.