Old-School Witch Read online

  Curious though I was, I knew he was trying to engage them to give me a chance to get us all out of here. Again and again I directed my voice (more quietly) at the boundary spells, and again and again I failed.

  Nollaig let out a little shriek of irritation (to be honest, I’m surprised it wasn’t an almighty roar). ‘Dylan’s right. Can’t you lot just tell us why you’re actually here? And while you’re at it, maybe open the other bloody coffin?’ she said. ‘We all know you want to. I mean, really, Bella – shouldn’t someone who likes attention have been an actress rather than a teacher?’

  Bella gave her another smirk. ‘If you insist, my dear, stupid drudge,’ she said, pointing to the coffin. ‘But I would advise you to remember the phrase: Be careful what you wish for.’

  As the coffin lid squealed open, a pit formed in my stomach: there, lying dead still and pale as snow, was Jared Montague.

  25. The Year of the Walrus

  ‘I did rather think of being an actress at one time,’ said Bella, a wistful look in her eyes. ‘But now that I have until the end of time, maybe I’ll finally get to do some things I want. In any case, you’ll want to know why Jared looks so sickly. Well the thing is, when he called round to give Catriona a piece of his mind today, I, in her mouse-like tones, begged him to come to my house to discuss things, because poor lickle Catriona was ever so embarrassed to be arguing in front of the Historical Society. When we got to the house, a few of my friends were waiting.’

  She smiled at the priest. ‘Oh, yes, the priest is one of us, too. I mean really, Ron?’ She shook her head and tutted. ‘You can’t have it both ways you know – an old-fashioned ceremony while you abandon the real vampire ways. That’s just hypocritical, don’t you think?’

  Her skirt was riding up, so she paused to readjust it. ‘The priest helped me secure Jared into a lovely, lovely dream – a dream in which he’s currently having those pretty blue peepers of his gouged out in the most painful manner. So if you want him to wake up from his torment, there are one or two things that have to happen. First, Nollaig, you have to release Ron from the drudgery of being married to you again, and let him come with us.’

  ‘Done,’ said Nollaig without missing a beat. ‘What else?’

  While Bella squealed with delight, Ron looked plaintively at Nollaig. ‘But I don’t want to go with her. Don’t you see? I wasn’t having another affair with her. I barely even pecked her on the lips. I chose you.’

  Nollaig glared at Ron, venom in her eyes. ‘What I see is that all this time you knew that Bella had possessed Catriona. You knew who was responsible for burning the school, for murdering Ben, and Norma’s sister. You knew it all, and yet you never said a word just so you could cover your own sorry behind. Affairs I’ve forgiven, too many times. But this? Just go with your crazy ex-girlfriend, Ron. Neither of you will get far before the Wayfarers get you.’ The venom in her eyes increased. ‘And also, I will tell our son that his safety wasn’t your first concern. Not that he needs any more reasons to hate you.’

  Ron slunk back against the cushioning of his coffin, looking sorry for himself.

  ‘That’s all very sweet,’ said Darina Berry, pushing her way to the centre of the floor. ‘But before we do take Ron with us, I feel like you should all know who it is you’ve had in your midst all this time.’

  Pru gritted her teeth for a moment before calling out, ‘I’ll tell them! My dad is Ronaldo the Righteous. I’m ashamed to be related to him, but I genuinely thought he’d changed.’

  Clearly, many supernaturals in the room had heard of Ronaldo, never connecting him to Ron. People looked at him with surprise and horror.

  Greg squeezed Pru’s hand and said, ‘Don’t worry. No one will look at you any differently, Pru. We all know you’re nothing like your dad.’

  Darina shook her head and rolled her eyes. ‘Good goddess, wizard! Just tell her you fancy her already. Anyway, yes, thank you for stealing my thunder, Pru – but you haven’t stolen all of it. Ron isn’t only Ronaldo the Righteous, founder of the Knights of Darkness and vampire extraordinaire. He is also the founder of Vlad’s Boys.’

  The room grew quiet. I could hear the sound of my mother’s shocked breath, beside me. I could hear Pru’s heart, beating even faster than when she saw Greg in her brother’s suit.

  ‘No.’ Pru shook her head, looking in dismay at her father. ‘You wouldn’t. You … you couldn’t. You left all that behind you. You said all the Knights of Darkness stuff was just because you’d been newly turned and you were a little crazy. This … you wouldn’t. Would you, Daddy?’

  Ron hung his head in shame. ‘I didn’t my little Pru-Pru, I swear. I just … I tossed some ideas around with Bella, that’s all.’

  ‘Hah!’ Bella let out a snort of laughter. ‘Tossed some ideas around? You came up with the name, the manifesto, everything. It was you who decided we ought to start with getting rid of dayturners while we built up money and support for our movement. It was you who realised that witches and vampires were strongest together. It was you who came up with the brilliant twist of calling it Vlad’s Boys to cast confusion on our real aims until we were ready to reveal them.’

  Ron’s face paled. ‘Yes but … it was just talk. I never would have gone through with it. I’d never go through with anything that meant I could lose Nollaig for good. When I heard of a group called Vlad’s Boys who were terrorizing dayturners, I thought it was just … I don’t know … a coincidence.’

  ‘Of course you did, Ronaldo.’ Bella gave him a scathing look, then focused on the wedding guests. ‘Now, I think it’s finally time to reveal the real aims of Vlad’s Boys. Back in the Year of the Walrus–’

  ‘Oh good goddess, not this again,’ said Grace.

  Bella continued to speak, through gritted teeth this time. ‘Back in the Year of the Walrus, Ron and I envisaged a new world together. A world where pure vampires and witches recognised their own superiority, and worked together to fight their real enemies.’

  Her eyes, for some reason, strayed to me. ‘Ron might have chickened out in the end, but his ideas lived on. I shared them with my best and brightest pupils, you see. Felim’s spell might have wiped their memories of me for a few decades, but it didn’t wipe all their memories. Roger had the idea to start up an offshoot of the Knights of Darkness – their military arm, if you will. He didn’t know where he got the idea, or the name, but they stayed with him nonetheless, and so, together with his wife and closest friends, he brought Vlad’s Boys to the world, and he found an excellent witch with which to ally himself.’ She smiled at Darina. ‘Darina, would you like to take the floor?’

  ‘Why yes, Bella, I would. For years now I’ve been running Vlad’s Boys, together with the de Balfes and some others. I believe in everything the group stands for. Pure vampires and witches are the only worthy supernaturals. As tonight’s little performance has proved, when we work together, we can achieve anything.’ Just as Bella’s eyes had done a moment ago, Darina’s eyes now strayed to me.

  She quickly moved her focus back to the rest of the room. ‘We came here tonight for a few reasons,’ Darina continued. ‘The first was to get Ronaldo the Righteous back where he belongs. He is our founder, and he will join us. The second reason is a lesson, for all of you. You’ve seen what it’s like to be helpless tonight. That’s an experience you must keep in mind for the future. In the coming weeks, lines will be drawn, and battles will be fought. It is our hope that tonight’s demonstration will make it easier for you to decide what side you want to be on. Because make no mistake – Vlad’s Boys do have more power than any other supernatural in this world. And anyone who isn’t with us will know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that power.’

  Bella approached Ron’s coffin. ‘Vlad’s Boys are on top of the world, Ronaldo, just as you and I always dreamed. We’re leaving now, so grab onto my hand and you can travel with me.’

  Ron shook his head, struggling to climb out of his coffin. ‘No! No, I want no part of this.
I’ve grown out of that way of thinking. What would be the point of having me with you when you know that I’ll not really be with you?’

  ‘The point,’ said Roger, idly sipping from his goblet before walking towards Jared’s coffin, ‘is that what Bella wants, Bella gets. And right now, Bella wants you. But if you’d prefer to see your son dead …’ He pulled a stake from inside his cloak, dangling it above Jared’s heart.

  Nollaig shook her head furiously at Ron. ‘If you don’t get out of here with your friends – right now – I will kill you myself.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ I looked at Bella. ‘Is this it? You came here to prove your power, and now you’re just going to leave?’

  She gave me a strange smile. ‘Oh, you’ll be seeing a lot of us in the coming weeks, Miss Smith – don’t you worry about that. But you do make a good point. There is one more thing we have to do before we leave. Darina?’

  Darina gave a little jolt of mock-surprise. ‘Moi? Oh yes, of course. I’d quite forgotten about the last reason for my coming here.’ She smiled at Dylan. ‘You might not realise this, Dylan, but I did love you. I wanted you to be a part of this. I wanted you to play a part in this. But you resisted at every turn. Refusing to let a superior vampire like Jared Montague turn you was a huge mistake on your part. A mistake for which you shall now pay.’ She pointed a finger at him and said, ‘Conáil.’

  The freezing spell took immediate hold, and Dylan turned stock-still; even his eyes didn’t blink.

  But freezing him couldn’t be her big revenge, could it? Not when she was still twirling her fingers, and her smirk was growing wider and wider by the nanosecond. I saw it then: the glitter of green coming from her fingertip as she kept it pointed in Dylan’s direction. She was going to do something bad to him, something dark, and without my magic, there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop her.

  They say you find friends in the unlikeliest of places. And so, just as I was feeling lower than I ever thought possible, a friend I didn’t even realise I had decided to join the fight. It was the yellow-eyed owl, flying off Bella’s shoulder, completely unseen by anyone but me. It flew to Darina, its talons at the ready, plucking the Impervium locket from her neck, lifting it up, and flying towards Dylan.

  This was a truly shocking moment, but there was no time to wonder why Bella Foyle’s ghost-familiar was helping us. Already, Darina was opening her mouth and uttering the one, terrible word it took to set a death spell in motion: ‘Marbh.’

  I watched in fear and awe as the spell flew from her finger and headed to Dylan. At the same time, Bella sent a bolt of magic towards the Impervium, desperately trying to stop the locket from reaching Dylan. She might not be able to see her owl, but she sure could see the locket, and she knew that the second it was around Dylan’s neck, the death spell could do him no harm.

  But the owl was so much more agile than I could have hoped – it immediately swooped down, avoiding Bella’s magic and dropping the locket onto Dylan.

  I had the briefest, most beautiful moment of relief when I realised that Dylan was safe. But the moment passed, and I realised something else – seeing magic is not all it’s cracked up to be. Not when you have to witness the most deadly spell of all, ricocheting off an Impervium locket and bouncing towards your friend.

  26. A Truth Universally Acknowledged

  Greg cried out, but it made no difference. All the crying in the world couldn’t stop a death spell in motion. My eyes were in pain from staring at it all – the awful green, dark magic, missing Dylan and getting redirected to Greg instead.

  It was only when Dylan moved freely, running to Greg, that I realised the freezing spell he’d been under was gone. The magic on everything was gone, along with Vlad’s Boys. While everyone in the room had been looking helplessly at Greg, the bad guys had disappeared.

  For a moment, I didn’t know where to look, or what to do.

  Jared was sitting up in the coffin, looking extremely confused while his mother went to help him out. Pru, Grace, Dylan and my mother gathered around Greg, with everyone else keeping a respectful distance, looking on in concern.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Grace. ‘How did the locket get off Darina? It just flew through the air. Was it your magic, Ash?’

  I fell to my knees beside her, staring down at Greg. ‘No, it was the owl,’ I whispered. ‘The ghost-owl that I’ve been seeing for days. I think it might be Bella Foyle’s familiar. I also think that, for some unknown reason, it might be on our side.’

  As my friends gasped at that news, the doors burst open and the Wayfarers raced in, my father along with them. He ran to me and my mother, while I continued to stare helplessly at Greg.

  ‘Thank the goddess you’re all right,’ I heard my mother say.

  ‘Thank the stars you are,’ he told her. ‘I was so worried about you all. The power went off everywhere. Even the magical grid went down in Riddler’s Cove. I couldn’t get it going again, and I had this sense of foreboding, so I brought the Wayfarers here, but … we couldn’t get through the boundary spell. We did manage to hear the whole thing from outside, though. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that evil people really like the sounds of their own voices.’

  My mother and Grace quietly filled him in on anything he might have missed, while I focused on Pru and Greg. Tears were spilling from Pru’s eyes and onto his face. ‘This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!’ she cried. ‘This is all wrong.’ She fussed around him, checking his heart and his breathing.

  ‘Is there anything there?’ I asked. ‘A heartbeat? Anything?’

  She sniffed back her tears. ‘Yeah. Yeah, there’s something. Because the spell only bounced off the Impervium and onto him, it’s going to be an even worse experience for Greg. A death spell should be quick. Immediate. Instead, Greg’s going to die slowly and painfully, while his organs shut down one by one.’

  I felt sick to my stomach. One part of me was so very, very glad that Dylan had survived, and the other was feeling devastated to see Greg like this. He was supposed to be dancing with Pru around now. He was supposed to be putting his heart on the line and asking her out. And yes, I would have been so sad for him when she inevitably rejected him, but I would much rather a heartbroken Greg than a dead one.

  Nollaig approached, with Jared leaning on her, rubbing his eyes. ‘Maybe you could do something, Brian,’ she suggested. ‘You saved that weredog at Christmas when we all thought she was done for.’

  My mother squeezed my father’s shoulder. ‘She’s right, Brian. If anyone can do this, you can.’

  My dad didn’t look too confident, but he bent down nonetheless, touching his hands to Greg’s and humming softly, like a bee by a flower. A light came from him, dazzling and white. Everyone else in the tavern covered their eyes, but I kept looking into it, just as I had when he healed poor Lola last Christmas.

  But this time … this time something was different. The light journeyed into Greg, but it shot right back out again. My dad hummed again, directing more light out of himself and into Greg, but again the light shot out of my friend.

  Shaking his head, my dad looked at Pru. ‘I was afraid this would happen. I can’t take away the death spell. It’s too strong, Pru. And if I keep going, it’ll be too late. But you know, there is one more thing that might save him.’

  Their eyes locked, and something I couldn’t understand was exchanged between them. I knew Pru had seen terrible things in the future for her and Greg. I suddenly wondered if my father had seen them too.

  An expression of reluctant acceptance washed over Pru, and she looked away from my father and concentrated on the rest of us, speaking in a low voice. ‘Someone has to turn Greg. It’s the only way to save him. Becoming a vampire is the only thing that will heal him from the death spell. Once he’s healed, we can use some sióga blood to turn him back.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Jared offered immediately. ‘I’ll turn him.’

  ‘No.’ Pru’s face tensed. ‘It shouldn’t be you or me.’


  Nollaig moved closer. ‘I’ll do it,’ she offered, bending quickly to Greg. Almost immediately, she moved away again. ‘I … my fangs. They won’t work. I can’t bite him.’

  Malachy had joined us to volunteer, but he quickly shook his head in puzzlement. ‘My fangs won’t come out to play, either. The spell that blocked everyone’s magic must still be affecting the vampires.’

  A quick check confirmed that every other vampire was in the same predicament. Well, almost every other vampire.

  Jared revealed sharp, pointed teeth. ‘That’s weird. My fangs are working fine. I guess it has to be me, then.’

  Pru looked down at Greg, love and fear in her eyes. ‘No. Oddly enough mine are okay too. I’ll do it. But the second the transformation is complete and he’s healed, you’ll give him your blood, Brian? You or Ash will change him back?’

  ‘Of course,’ my father assured her. ‘You know we will. Turn him, Pru. Once he’s turned, and he’s healed by becoming a vampire, we’ll give him some sióga blood. Okay?’

  Pru nodded uncertainly, and then she extended her fangs, and bent her head.

  ≈

  The next morning, I paced the bedroom in the lighthouse, looking out over the town I’d grown to love so much. A town that was now in more danger than ever before. Vlad’s Boys were out and proud, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it until they made their next move.

  But whatever that next move might be, it was truly frightening to me. Because in my belly, I knew there was so much more to all of this. We still had no idea why Darina had been obsessed with Dylan becoming a vampire, but I had a sneaking suspicion that there was a reason for it. Just like I had a sneaking suspicion that their next move wasn’t going to be against the remaining dayturners.