(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)
Grimalkin
Grimalkin is the witch assassin of the Malkin clan. She is ruthless and unrelenting, delighting in torture and inflicting pain. The snip-snip of her scissors is a particular favorite, and she uses them to cut the flesh and bone of her victims.
Grimalkin might pull me back as I climbed over the fence. She could catch me crossing the pasture. Or the yard. Then I would have to wait while I unlocked the door. I imagined my trembling fingers trying to insert the key into the lock as she ran up the stairs behind me. But would I even reach the fence? She was getting nearer now. Much nearer. I could hear her feet pounding down the slope toward me. Better to turn and fight, said a voice inside my head. Better to face her now than be cut down from behind. But what chance did I have against a trained and experienced assassin? What hope against the strength and speed of a witch whose talent was murder?
In my right hand I gripped the Spook’s staff; in my left was my silver chain, coiled about my wrist, ready for throwing. I ran on, the blood moon flickering its baleful light through the leaf canopy to my left. I’d almost reached the edge of Hangman’s Wood, but the witch assassin was very close now. I could hear the pad-pad of her feet and the swish-swish of her breath.
As I ran beyond the final tree, the farm fence directly ahead, the witch sprinted toward me from the right, a dagger in each hand, the long blades reflecting the moon’s red light. I staggered to my left and cracked the chain to send it hurtling at her. But all my training proved useless. I was weary, terrified, and on the verge of despair. The chain fell harmlessly onto the grass. So, exhausted, I finally turned to face the witch.
It was over, and I knew it. All I had now was the Spook’s staff, but I barely had the strength to lift it. My heart was hammering, my breath rasping, and the world seemed to spin around me.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Attack of the Fiend)
Bloodeye
Bloodeye’s true name is Morwena. She is the daughter of the Fiend, and the oldest and most powerful of the water witches. Some say she has been terrorizing the County for a thousand years.
Morwena surged into the air with the strength of a salmon leaping up a waterfall, her arms outstretched to tear at the Spook’s face, though her left eye was still closed.
My master met her with equal speed. He spun, bringing his staff in a rapid arc from left to right. It missed Morwena’s throat by a hair’s breadth, and with a terrible shriek of anger she flopped back into the water less than gracefully, creating a huge splash.
The Spook froze, looking down into the water. Then, with his right hand, he reached back and tugged his hood up, forward, and down so that it shielded his eyes. He must have seen the pinned eye and realized who he was dealing with. Without eye contact Morwena would not be able to use her bloodeye against him. Nonetheless he would be fighting “blind.”
He waited, immobile, and I watched anxiously as the last ripple erased itself from the surface of the canal, which became as still as glass. Suddenly Morwena surged from the water again, this second attack even more sudden than the first, and then landed on the very edge of the wharf, her webbed feet slapping hard against the wooden boards. Her bloodeye was now open, its baleful red fire directed at the Spook. But without looking up, he stabbed toward her legs and she was forced to retreat.
Immediately she struck at him with her left hand, the claws raking toward his shoulder, but he stepped away just in time. Then, as she moved the other way, he flicked his staff from his left to his right hand and jabbed toward her hard and fast. It was the same maneuver he’d made me practice against the dead tree in his garden—the one that had saved my life in the summer when I’d used it successfully against Grimalkin.
He executed it perfectly, and the tip of his blade speared Morwena in the side. She let out a cry of anguish but leaped away quickly, somersaulting back into the water. The Spook waited a long time but she didn’t attack again.
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Wrath of the Bloodeye)
The Fiend
The Fiend is the dark made flesh, the Devil himself.
I heard a noise from the shadows in the far corner of the room: a thump followed immediately by a sizzling, hissing sound. It was repeated twice more.
Suddenly I could smell burning. Wood smoke. The floorboards. And then I saw that although time had stopped and everything within the room seemed to be frozen into immobility, one thing was moving. And what else could move but the Fiend himself?
I couldn’t see him yet—he was invisible—but I could see his footprints advancing toward me. Each time one of his unseen feet made contact with the floorboards, it burned the shape of a cloven hoof into the wood, which glowed red before darkening with a spluttering hiss. Would he make himself visible? The thought was terrifying. I’d been told by Grimalkin that to inspire awe and force obeisance he’d appeared in his true majestic shape to the covens at Halloween. According to the Spook, some people believed his true form was so terrible that anyone who saw it would instantly drop dead. Was that just a scary bedtime tale or was it real? Would he do that to me now?
(For the full story, read The Last Apprentice: Wrath of the Bloodeye)
About the Author
JOSEPH DELANEY lives with his family in Lancashire, England in the middle of boggart territory.
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Credits
JACKET ART © 2009 BY PATRICK ARRASMITH
JACKET DESIGN BY CHAD W. BECKERMAN AND PAUL ZAKRIS
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
The Spook’s Tale and Other Horrors
Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Delaney
First published in 2009 in Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, under the title The Spook’s Tale.
First published in 2009 in the United States by Greenwillow Books.
The right of Joseph Delaney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Patrick Arrasmith
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Delaney, Joseph, (date).
The Spook’s tale / by Joseph Delaney ; illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith.
p. cm. — (The last apprentice)
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: As sixty-year-old John Gregory reflects on the past, he reveals how the world of ghosts, ghasts, witches, and boggarts was exposed to him and he later becomes the Spook, even though his first intention had been to join the priesthood.
ISBN 978-0-06-173028-3 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-173030-6 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. Coming of age—Fiction.]
I. Arrasmith, Patrick, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.D373183Sp 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008042235
09 10 11 12 13 LP/RRDH First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Epub Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9
780062120977
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Joseph Delaney, The Spook's Tale: And Other Horrors
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