Witch-Finder Page 5

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  'From Ghasties, and Ghoulies, and Long-Leggit Beasties ... ‘

  On the television screen, the News camera displayed the yew trees dripping, with late summer rain. The stone church guarded the left of the picture and at the open church gate stood an ambulance and two police cars with blue lights strobe over the scene.

  The full moon shines down on where something has been digging at the newly filled grave. Dunkley surveys the claw marks. Hefting his wolfspear, he feels a moment's relief—they tell him that the infestation is new. The creature is hungry, but has not—yet—learnt to hunt.

  Two wolfhounds snuffle at the scrapes. Calmly, Dunkley checks around him. The yew trees cast shadows that shift in the breeze. Lit from inside by the glorious moon, luminescent clouds drift across the sky. Pure white, like the white coating on the blade of the wolfspear.

  The night is not cold, but he turns up the collar on his biker jacket and zips it over his throat. He lifts a bottle from his pocket. It looks like an ordinary drinking bottle, but he uses it to squirt nearly a complete circle near the grave. A pinch of salt and a bishop's blessing make this water holy: salty, like the compassionate tears of a Savior.

  From his side, Rory growls.

  Dunkley turns sharply, his long plait of hair swinging out, his wolfspear at the ready. A large manwolf hurls from the cover of the yew trees.

  Snarling, Ross charges the beast while Rory crouches, ready at his master's side.

  The creature leaps over the dogs and straight at Dunkley.

  He ducks down, the wolfspear raised.

  The creature sees the spear. Twisting and frantically lashing its tail, it tries to change direction mid air. The tip of the spear catches the creature's inner thigh.

  It howls in pain, a long aching note not heard in Britain for four hundred years. The creature cuts and runs. Clearly visible in the quiet, midnight light, it leaps over the church wall.

  Calling his dogs, Dunkley follows. One hand braced on the top, he vaults the wall. His boots beat down on the tarmac road as the moon glints off the white spear tip.

  Silver may be traditional, but there is a better catalyst, which is why Dunkley always edges his wolfspears in platinum.

  * * * *

  The hammer clangs on the hot metal. The red light from the firebox drowns the daylight coming in through the open door. With arms bare in the heat of the forge, Dunkley brings down the first blow, the telling blow that will show him if the metal will produce the temper he looks for in a blade.

  * * * *

  The cold moon glares down, her hawk-bright eye on the creature running through the village. The houses, friendly cottages in the sun's warm, forgiving light, at night loom over a street plunged into shadow by the moon's stark, black and white beliefs of right and wrong.

  Her pure light exposing the affront to nature, she lights the trail for Dunkley.

  Rory and Ross alternate between running ahead to sniff the path and trotting close, ready to protect their master. A slow jog, Dunkley puts one foot in front of the other. This could be a long run.

  * * * *

  Raw from the fire, the red-hot bar flattens under repeated blows. His arm holds to the steady rhythm needed to create a true blade. For strength and springiness, he folds a bar of carbon steel into the center of the wrought iron and seals it inside with hammer blows.

  * * * *

  The others tell him to use a gun, that the chase is unkind. What they mean is that they do not wish to put themselves to the trouble of chasing. Dunkley knows that the silver bullet in a gun kills the body host as well as the wolf demon. If there is the smallest chance to save the person who was infested, he must take that chance, whatever the danger to himself.

  * * * *

  The flattened bar has cooled and he stokes the fire in his furnace.

  The bellows blow the glowing coals brighter.

  Carefully, he chooses the place into which to thrust his metal again.

  * * * *

  The creature lives in this village—Dunkley knows that. Hereabouts, there are family and friends who do not know what this creature becomes by the full moon; each of them is one more reason to save the host.

  The pain of transformation drives it mad, as the body warps from man to manwolf.

  Dunkley slows his pace. The creature knows every hiding place. He must lure or drive it into the open.

  Ross charges.

  The creature leaps out from behind the bin, knocking it over. The clatter echoes round the sleeping village.

  An electric light flares in the house.

  Both Dunkley and the creature freeze, then dive into cover, as the owner of the bin flings open his bedroom curtains. The sash window is raised and the bin owner glares at the scattered rubbish on his drive.

  'Foxes!’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘They should never have banned the hunt.'

  The window slams shut. Dunkley sprints from his shadow, which is too close to the emptied bin. He hunkers down in a darker shadow nearer the street. The house door bangs open. Viciously tying the cord on his dressing gown, the man stalks out to clear up—and into danger.

  Dunkley braces to intervene.

  * * * *

  He pulls out the red hot metal. For once the tongs fail to grip. The metal slides out of his grasp and towards his feet, but the shock of meeting the cold floor could ruin the blade. Dunkley jumps out of the way. The flattened bar clatters dully on the stone floor of his forge. He leans down with his tongs and retrieves the metal bar. He thrust it back into the fire—the next round of beating into shape will show him the finished work.

  * * * *

  Where is the creature? As he moved away from the house, Dunkley lost sight of the manwolf.

  He squints into the darkest corners, it has to be here. Even Dunkley can smell the food in the split plastic bags.

  Then Dunkley can see it, creeping one limb forward at a time. It is quivering, barely holding back from rushing the plastic bags.

  The man bends over, his back to the creature. As he sweeps the scattered rubbish into his dustpan, his curses, of the namby-pamby government that banned fox hunting, cover any noise the creature makes as it stalks the rubbish.

  The wolfhounds crouch, ready to distract the creature. Dunkley is poised to spring with the wolfspear ready. The smell drags the creature into the open. One thrust of its powerful hind legs and the manwolf lands beside the man, knocking him aside in its desperation to get at the sweet smelling food.

  The creature howls that long note. Its teeth rip open the plastic to get at the carcass of the Sunday chicken.

  The man cries out in pain as his head slams against the wall. The sharp edge of a stone block cuts into his head. Dazed, the man lifts his hand and looks at the red stain on his fingers. His eyes are wide and white with fear as he sees this thing from nightmares inhabiting the waking night.

  The smell of fresh blood awakens something in the creature. It growls low and bares its fangs. Its eyes lock onto the man. Snarling, it slinks towards him.

  The man curls up behind raised hands, ducking his chin, protecting his throat from those ice white teeth.

  Dunkley is there.

  The wolfhounds each sink fangs into a hairy leg, dragging at the creature.

  It half turns and rakes its claws down Rory's back. Grimly, the hound holds on.

  The creature howls again, this time in pain. Dunkley spears its shoulder.

  The burning, platinum-edged blade sets the wolf demon inside the body-host reeling. One wolfhound nips at the manwolf's throat, the other rips at the injured arm.

  * * * *

  He withdraws the bar from the heat and inspects it. It seems right, but the shaping will tell. He turns the flattened bar on its side and begins the rhythmic pounding again, forming the bar into a classic leaf shape. The blade is too short to be a sword. It is too curvy to be a knife. He beats out a point.

  * * * *

  Driven by the pain, the c
reature backs away from the injured man, swiping with huge clawed hands at the hounds that harry it.

  Without another look at the man on the ground, Dunkley jumps over him to where the dogs herd the creature into the shadows.

  Still sniffing towards the enticing scents of the bin, the creature flees the snapping dogs and the dreadful spear.

  Dunkley halts a moment and runs a hand over Rory's back. The hound licks the scrape—it is superficial. Rory wags his tail and gruffs, ready to continue the chase.

  Dunkley's heavy boots pound the road again. Behind him, fading into the night, he hears a door slam shut.

  * * * *

  More heating. Dunkley takes a glowing crosspiece from the firebox and, hammering on the hot metal, he welds it across the base of the blade.

  * * * *

  At Town End Farm, the houses stop abruptly. Dunkley and the hounds jog into a lane. High hedges cast reaching shadows over the road. He whispers a word to his dogs and they sit, still alert. He listens intently for a moment then calls them on.

  Ross takes the lead while Rory pads near Dunkley.

  The height of the hedge falls and a gate through to a field halts them momentarily.

  With a hand on the hinge end, and a foot on the lowest bar, Dunkley is over. Ross is quick to hurdle the gate in his wake, Rory scratches a way underneath.

  Long grass swishes about his legs as Dunkley and his hounds follow the creature's scent. Then, at a beck, the scent ends. It's just a drainage ditch around a field really, but recent rains have filled it.

  The moonlight shows the grass scuffed up where the creature slid down the bank into the muddy flow. Black streaks of the creature's blood stain the grass. The hounds snuffled up and down the bank, they cross over, splashing and churning up more muck from the bottom and do the same drill on the other side. The trail has gone cold.

  * * * *

  For the next stage Dunkley holds an already flattened piece of metal into the fire. He hammers the heated bar around a metal form, producing a cone.

  Heating both the blade and the cone he welds them, hammering the hot metal together. A stout ash shaft already rests against the forge walls. While it is still hot, he rams the socket of the leaf-shaped blade down over the ash—together they form a spear. Smoke curls up from the strong wood. A nail, driven through the socket and staff, secures the spear blade firmly.

  * * * *

  Dunkley leans on his spear. Up or down. He watches the water as it begins to run clear over the drowned grass. He calls his hounds back and sets off up stream. As they walk, the dogs snuffle the edge of the water. Within minutes, they find another black stain on the grass where the creature climbed out. The dogs catch the scent again and start to run.

  Long clouds crowd in from the north. The pure white clouds of earlier are tangled by the rising wind and the air takes on a chill. The moon will soon be gone. Dunkley picks up the pace. He can see the church from here. The dogs are leading him back to the graveyard.

  * * * *

  Dunkley takes the now cool blade and sets the grind stone turning. He pulls a safety mask over his face and sparks fly around him as he sets the blade to the grindstone. Every so often he pulls away, lifts up the mask and checks the blade. Then he pulls down the mask and returns the blade to the stone.

  * * * *

  He runs faster now. The dogs lead him around the edge of the field, not through the wheat awaiting harvest, a further sign—if he needed one—that the creature is local. Then his hounds lead him back to the churchyard.

  Again he vaults the dry stone wall. His dogs scramble after him, their claws scrabbling against the rough boulders. He sprints into the shadow of the church and stealthily works his way around to where the fresh grave had been dug out. The manwolf is scratching at the ground with its good front pawhand, clawing away the soil from above the promised meal, before the rain arrives to cover the smell. It seems calmer now.

  Dunkley slowly steps out of the shadow into the fading moonlight. His hounds fan out on either side.

  The creature looks up.

  'I can help you.’ His confident tone fills the night. Again he produces the water bottle from his pocket. ‘I have something here that will fill your hunger.'

  The creature sniffs the air, but it can smell nothing. It limps forward on three legs—the front right is useless from the earlier mauling. It sees the spear and staggers back.

  Taking a deep breath, Dunkley lays the spear aside and steps forward holding only the bottle.

  'This will help you,’ he says.

  His soft Scottish accent seems to reassure the creature.

  Dunkley keeps the circle he drew earlier between him and the creature.

  Again the creature falters forwards. Its front paw drags.

  Dunkley is sure that it cannot have fed for the three days of the full moon so far; it must be desperately hungry now.

  It takes another step towards the ring.

  Dunkley smiles holding the bottle in open hands. One more step and the creature will be inside the almost complete ring.

  * * * *

  Finally a last check, the tip is sharp. He takes the spear to where he has set up an electroplating system.

  He fixes the spear into a vice and lowers the blade to rest in the liquid. Switching on the system at the mains, he watches as the thin layer of platinum adheres, turning the blade matt gray then pure, tin white.

  He switches off the system. He raises the blade from the liquid and frees it from the vice. He inspects the blade, taking pride in continuing the unbroken tradition from the Stone Age, when the wizard-smiths brought about the first industrial revolution, in their discovery of the magic of changing raw stone ore into bright metal.

  Studying the spear, he can see that this one is good.

  * * * *

  One more step.

  The creature stops. It sniffs the air. It sniffs the ground. Then it lifts its head and howls in rage. The red, angry eyes lock onto Dunkley.

  He lunges for his spear.

  The dogs dart in from the side.

  The creature leaps out from under the dogs—their claws scrabble in the loose soil, but they slide into each other, getting tangled.

  The creature's claws rake Dunkley's leg, ripping through denim to tear into the flesh beneath.

  Dunkley rolls away from the creature, but also away from the spear.

  Lifting its pawhand, it licks the dark blood from its claws. It howls, turning sharply to finish Dunkley, but the wounded front paw gives under the strain and its muzzle bangs drunkenly against the ground.

  The manwolf recovers as Dunkley scrambles to his feet.

  The dogs circle the manwolf, looking for their next opening; they dart in, snapping at the rangy fur, as the creature turns this way and that, clawing and biting.

  All the while it moves towards Dunkley. The slavering jaws open as it lunges.

  Dunkley hurls the bottle into creature's maw.

  It bites through the plastic and the liquid spills down its throat, burning the wolf demon from inside.

  The creature howls again. It bats at its muzzle with the uninjured pawhand.

  'I can help you,’ Dunkley calls again.

  The creature is too maddened to hear him. It leaps for Dunkley.

  He dodges.

  The creature turns, hugging its injured paw to its chest, and slams into Dunkley's side.

  He is thrown into the wall of the church. Tucking in his chin, he avoids slamming his head into the wall. The hounds dart in, to drive the creature back. Dunkley pushes to his feet and staggers to where his wolfspear lies on the ground.

  The creature tears away from the hounds and races him to the weapon.

  Dunkley dives for the spear, rolling as he hits the ground. He grabs the haft as he rolls over it and up onto one knee. No time to stand, he braces the spear against his foot.

  At the last moment the manwolf tries to turn aside but the wolfhounds snap at its back. The momentum forces the spear
deep into the manwolf's chest. The dripping jaws snap millimeters from Dunkley's eyes, but the crosspiece holds the creature back.

  A bitter sigh escapes its muzzle as Dunkley twists the spear. The carcass collapses at the knees, blood sputtering over Dunkley's clothes and boots.

  The eyes are the last part to die. They change from angry red to surprised blue as Dunkley watches. The manwolf changes slowly back to a man. A naked young man—nearly a boy, no more than twenty—lies at the end of his spear.

  Dunkley wrenches the blade free. He shuffles to the boy's side. His torn jeans rest on the fresh soil, scuffed by the fight and where the creature had been digging for meat to fill its hunger.

  'I'm sorry,’ whispers Dunkley. ‘I am so very sorry.’ He leans over and places a kiss on the boy's forehead.

  For a long time Dunkley kneels in the dirt, knowing that this was another one he could not save. Dark clouds stretch out to cover the moon. Fat drops of rain splash onto the ribcage shattered by the wolfspear, but they cannot wash away the regret.

  Ross lies down to rest, his tongue lolling; Rory licks the wound on his back. They both wait for their master.

  With fingers bruised by the last rush of the creature onto his wolfspear, Dunkley pulls his wallet from an inside pocket of his leather jacket. He fumbles out a small rectangle of cardboard with only a simple cross printed on it. He fits the card inside the young man's hand.

  Stiff and leaning heavily on his spear, Dunkley stands. He calls the dogs to heel, and limps out of the churchyard shutting the gate behind him.

  * * * *

  The stretcher carried a body, with the face covered by a white sheet. A sobbing young woman, huddled in the arms of an older lady, followed behind. The detective in the picture fingered a white business card in his hand, then he slid it into his coat pocket.

  A newsreader spoke in a voice over. ‘In Wiltshire, the body of a young man was discovered near a partially re-opened grave this morning. The police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.'

  * * * *

  ’ ... And things that go bump in the night, May the Lord and his Angels protect and keep us.'

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