A part of me longed to say yes. I faced the Spook being burned and a lonely journey north to Caster with no certainty that I’d be able to continue my apprenticeship. If only things could return to the way they’d been! But although I was tempted to say yes, I knew that it just wasn’t possible. Even if the Bane kept its word, I couldn’t allow it to roam loose in the County, able to work its evil at will. I knew the Spook would rather die than let that happen.

I opened my mouth to say no, but even before I could get the word out the Bane spoke again.

‘The girl would be easy!’ it said. ‘All she wants is a warm fire. A home to live in. Clean clothes. But think what I offer you! And all I want is your blood. Not a lot, see. And it won’t hurt that much. Just enough is all I ask. And then a pact we’ll make together. Just let me suck your blood so I can be strong again. Just let me through the gate and give me my freedom. Three times after, I’ll do your bidding and you’ll live a long, long life. The girl’s blood is better than nothing but you’re what I really need. A seven times seven, you are. Only once before have I tasted sweet blood like yours. And I still remember it well, I do. The sweet blood of a seven times seven. How strong that would make me! How great would be your reward! Isn’t that better than the nothingness of death?

‘Ah, death will come to you one day. It will surely come despite all that I do, creeping towards you like the mist on a riverbank on a cold damp night. But I can delay that moment. Delay it for years and years. It would be a long time before you’d have to face that darkness. That blackness. That nothingness! So what do you say, boy? I’m got proper. I’m bound. But you can help!’

I was scared and tried again to wake up. But suddenly words tumbled out of my mouth, almost as if they’d been spoken by somebody else:

‘I don’t believe there’s nothing after death,’ I said. ‘I’ve a soul and if I live my life right, I’ll live on in some way. There’ll be something. I don’t believe in nothingness. I don’t believe in that!’

‘No! No!’ roared the Bane. ‘You don’t know what I know! You can’t see what I see! I see beyond death. I see the emptiness. The nothingness. I know! I see the horrible state of being nothing. Nothing at all, there is! Nothing at all!’

My heart began to slow and I suddenly felt very calm. The Bane was still behind me but the crypt was starting to get warmer. Now I understood. I knew the Bane’s pain. I knew why it needed to feed upon people, upon their blood, upon their hopes and dreams…

‘I’ve a soul and I’ll live on,’ I told the Bane, keeping my voice very calm. ‘And that’s the difference. I have a soul and you don’t! For you there is nothing after death! Nothing at all!’

My head was pushed hard against the near wall of the crypt and there was a hiss of anger behind me. A hiss that changed to a bellow of rage.

‘Fool!’ shouted the Bane, its voice booming to fill the crypt and echo beyond it down the long, dark tunnels of the catacombs. Violently, it swatted my head sideways, scraping my forehead against the hard, cold stones. Out of the corner of my left eye I could see the size of the huge hand that was gripping my head. Instead of nails, its fingers ended in huge yellow talons.

‘You had your chance but now it’s gone for ever!’ bellowed the Bane. ‘But there’s someone else who can help me. So if I can’t have you, I’ll make do with her!’

I was pushed downwards into the heap of bones in the corner. I felt myself falling through them. Down and down I went, deep into a bottomless pit filled with bones. The candle was out but the bones seemed to glow in the darkness: grinning skulls, ribcages, leg bones and arm bones, fragments of hands, fingers and thumbs, and all the while the dry dust of death covered my face, went up my nose into my mouth and down my throat, until I was choking and could hardly breathe.

‘This is what death tastes like!’ cried the Bane. ‘And this is what death looks like!’

The bones faded from view and I could see nothing. Nothing at all. I was just falling through blackness. Falling into the dark. I was terrified that the Bane had somehow killed me in my sleep, but I struggled and struggled to wake up. Somehow the Bane had been talking to me while I slept and I knew who it would now be persuading to do what I’d refused.

Alice!

At last I managed to wake myself up, but it was already too late. A candle was burning close beside me but it was just a stub. I’d been asleep for hours! The other one had gone and so had Alice!

I felt in my pocket but only confirmed what I’d guessed already. Alice had taken the key to the Silver Gate…

When I staggered to my feet I felt dizzy and my head hurt. I touched the back of my hand to my forehead and it came away wet with blood. Somehow the Bane had done that to me in a dream. It could read minds too. How could you defeat a creature when it knew what you intended before you had a chance to move or even speak? The Spook was right – this creature was the most dangerous thing we’d ever faced.

Alice had left the hatch open and, snatching up the candle, I wasted no time in climbing down the steps into the catacombs. A few minutes later I reached the river, which seemed a bit deeper than before. The water, swirling downstream, was actually covering three of the nine stepping stones, the ones right in the middle, and I could feel the current tugging at my boots.

I crossed quickly, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t be too late. But when I turned the corner, I saw Alice sitting with her back against the wall. Her left hand was resting on the cobbles, her fingers covered in blood.

And the Silver Gate was wide open!

CHAPTER 13

The Burning Alice!’ I cried, staring in disbelief at the open gate. ‘What have you done?’

She looked up at me, her eyes glistening with tears.

The key was still in the lock. Angrily, I seized it and pushed it back into my breeches pocket, burying it deep within the iron filings.

‘Come on!’ I snapped, almost too furious to speak. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

I held out my left hand but she didn’t take it. Instead she held her own, the one covered in blood, against her body and looked down at it, wincing with pain.

‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked.

‘Ain’t nothing much,’ she replied. ‘Soon be right as rain. Everything’s going to be all right now.’

‘No, Alice,’ I replied, ‘it’s not. The whole County’s in danger now, thanks to you.’

I pulled gently at her good hand and led her down the tunnel until we came to the river. At the edge of the water she tugged her hand free of mine and I didn’t think anything of it. I simply crossed quickly. It was only when I got to the other side that I looked back to see Alice still standing there staring down at the water.

‘Come on!’ I shouted. ‘Hurry up!’

‘I can’t, Tom!’ Alice shouted back. ‘I can’t cross!’

I put the candle down and went back for her. She flinched away but I grabbed hold of her. If she’d struggled I’d have had no chance at all, but the moment my hands touched her, Alice’s body became limp and she fell against me. Wasting no time, I bent my knees and lifted her over my shoulder, the way I’d seen the Spook carry a witch.

You see, I had no doubt. If she couldn’t cross running water, then Alice had become what the Spook had always feared she would. Her dealings with the Bane had finally made her cross to the dark.

One part of me wanted to leave her there. I knew that’s what the Spook would have done. But I couldn’t. I was going against him but I had to do it. She was still Alice and we’d been through a lot together.

Light as she was, it was still quite difficult to cross the river with her over my shoulder and I struggled to keep my balance on the stepping stones. What made it worse was the fact that as soon as I started across, Alice began to wail as if she were in torment.