Page 61 of Witchlore
“No, what?” Bastian blushes and turns back to the books. “’Course not.”
His fingers find the triangle; he settles his feet wide; his ring glows. He shoots me a final look.
“Ready?”
I’m touched that he’s still thinking about me, checking on me. I nod sheepishly.He’s doing all the heavy lifting, the least you can do is watch and pluck,I tell myself firmly.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He rolls his shoulders with a sigh, closing his eyes. There’s a moment of beautiful serenity, the hush in the eye of a storm, and then he begins. Bastian looks terrible and wonderful, a witch cloaked in rising blue magic from his ring, smelling like a bonfire, silhouetted against the stark bright stones of the cathedral, its sharp orange lights casting his shadow long and menacing behind him. When Bastian did magic in the library, it felt like standing near an open flame. Today, it feels like the temperature is dropping, a frost descending. I try not to shiver and watch as Bastian’s power builds in his fingers and he moves them in a rhythmic sequence between two hand positions. It’s simple—only Beelzebub’s Horn and the Head of Anubis—but I can tell straight away that the complexity is in the rapid shifting between the two positions that rely on fingers connecting at all times. Still, he doesn’t stop, his eyes fixed on the text, his hands keeping perfect time. I’mnot sure but I think I hear a distant growl under the earth, almost pulsing in time with his movements. My stomach churns with panic and I hold the tweezers out in front of me like a weapon.For Elizabeth,I tell myself. Then I wonder if this is what I really want, but before I can give it too much thought, Bastian pulls his fingers out in a long gesture, stretching an invisible thread between his hands. A rope of shadows is growing between his fingertips, his ring glowing with a cold blue light. It reminds me suddenly of making a bubble with string, the shadow wavering precariously between his trembling hands.
“Dod gwyllgi,” Bastian chants. Only really ancient spells use words, so it’s a surprise to hear his voice like this, in concert with his magic. My skin prickles. “Dod gwyllgi, dod gwyllgi—”
The bubble of magic expands, monstrous and blobby, like a black sack or a picture of an early-stage embryo about to divide. This is it, the space between dimensions, opening for something terrible to come through. It begins to writhe and squirm; there’s something inside that is scrabbling to get out. Bastian’s hands are shaking as they hold their pinched position, prying open an invisible gate. I look down, seeing frost on my boots. The ground begins to tremble with enormous footsteps. I hear the growl of a beast, far away, coming closer.
“It’s coming.” Bastian’s voice is tense, his whole body taut and shaking.
“Okay.” My teeth are chattering but I get the words out. “I’m ready.”
The growling rises to roaring and the night darkens until we are trapped in the center of a black hole. Plunged into impenetrable gloom, all I can hear is our heavy shared breath and rapid, terrified heartbeat. Then I see red eyes, burning and flashing.
“Laqueum diaboli,” Bastian whispers, and I can see, in the dim, cold light from his ring, that he is moving his hands in a different spell. There is a crack like a whip and a corresponding snarl. Bastian holds his hands in a particular shape—a twisted interlocking of the fingers that I don’t know the name of—and in front of him, contained on top of the blood pentagram that has scorched into the grass with black flames, is the Black Shuck itself.
It’s weird to me that something so associated with devilry should be so cold, but I’m shaking with the icy waves of wind coming off it as it struggles against invisible bindings. Bastian slowly pushes his hands down, still holding the spell position. As he does, the hound sinks, thrashing and spitting, the weight of Bastian’s spell pressing it into the earth.
“Now, Lando,” Bastian gasps. There’s sweat on his brow despite the cold, and he is panting heavily, his breath misty around him. Cautiously, I step closer to the hound, my boots crunching on the frosty grass. Its wild, fiery eyes twist to glare at me and I pause.
“It can’t get out?” I ask, desperate for reassurance of what I know to be true, hating how my voice shakes.
“No.” Bastian’s voice is curt with effort. “Not unless the salt circle breaks.”
“Okay.”
For Elizabeth,I tell myself. I hold my breath and reach down with the tweezers but my hands are shaking too much and I drop them. I bend to pick them up but they’re frozen to the grass, unmovable, my cold fingers slipping to grip them.
“Shit,” I whisper. I look at Bastian, his eyes are wide with worry. I can tell he doesn’t have a clue what to do. “It’s fine, it’s totally fine, I’ll just…”
I look at the rippling black fur of the Black Shuck. If Bastian can do frankly ridiculous conjuring, I can surely rip out some hair. Sending a prayer to no one in particular, I dive. I grab the fur, which is thick and oily and so freezing cold it burns, and wrench it away. The hound roars with anger, but I don’t hear it. The second I touch it, I know what’s going to happen. I have to tell him.
“Bastian, I’m—”
I can’t complete the sentence: my throat has closed, my body rigid and out of my control. I can feel it beginning inside me, just like it did on the beach at St. Annes and at Boggart Hole Clough. I’m shifting again and tumbling through memories that aren’t my own once more.
“Near the cathedral, love,” she says. She is peering up through the windshield of the ambulance as the air raid sirens wail around us and the sky is lit with red fires and spotlights. “Turn left, here!”
“You asked me to drive, love!” I half laugh, half yell as she throws her arm across me, determined to give me instructions.
“Now! Now!” She laughs loudly, the ring on her finger catching the light of the fire of the city. I take one hand off the steering wheel to grab it, pulling it to my lips and kissing the back of her hand. I wish she hadn’t come on shift tonight because I am so worried about something happening when we’re out here, working in the raids, but I would worry if she stayed at home, too. She won’t go to the shelter when I ask. She’s only twenty-one and she’s a wonder, a marvel.
“There!” She points ahead and I accelerate, hitting the brakes in front of an air raid warden who is standing in the shadow of the cathedral, desperately trying to direct people away from the terrible fires all around. We throw ourselves out of the ambulance, leaving it running to rush over.
“There’s a lass, I’ve let her have a lie-down in the garden there,” the warden bellows. “Lost half an arm. This lad has terrible burns.”
“I’ll take her!” she calls to me, already heading over to the girl in the grass. I give the lad my attention. The boy’s face is blistered, eyes shut either from damage or pain. I wrap him carefully, wanting to keep the wounds sterile, and help him climb blindly into the back of the ambulance. With the great roar of red fire all around us, I see two figures in the grass by the cathedral. She’s waving to me, the signal for the stretcher, and I pull it out of the back, tucking it under my arm. I’m sweating with the heat, brushing dirt out of my eyes. That’s when I hear it, the long drone of the falling bomb, and before I can call out, it hits. I watch helplessly as the cathedral tumbles. I cannot move, cannot say anything, as the building falls and swallows the woman I love.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
I come around on the cold grass, head ringing, bones aching. I rub the tightness across my chest, feeling breasts again.Female form,I think dazedly. My throat is so dry I turn my head and cough, inhaling something grainy and tart.Salt.
