Hedge Witch

4. Grimoire

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.