The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks)

BOOK: The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks)
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About the Book

‘A great battle awaits us, the odds against us overwhelming, and the price of defeat is terrible. All my life has led up to this point.’

Halloween is approaching. The supporters of the Fiend are gathering. And just when Thomas Ward and his allies need to stand together, they are fatally divided by the terrible choices they must make.

Tom is tasked with completing a ritual so barbaric it makes him question his own humanity. Alice plans to complete a spell so dangerous it could turn her to the dark for good. And the Spook is about to discover just how many secrets his best apprentice has been keeping from him for all these years . . .

Time has run out. The Fiend is rising. Can Tom complete the task for which he was born?

The final chilling volume of the Wardstone Chronicles

Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Boggart’s Symbols

Character Profiles

Maps

Epigraph

Chapter 1: Another Way

Chapter 2: The Spook’s Legacy

Chapter 3: The First Lamia

Chapter 4: The Unexplained

Chapter 5: The Wardstone

Chapter 6: The
Doomdryte

Chapter 7: A Terrible Scene

Chapter 8: Only You Can Do It

Chapter 9: The Ambush

Chapter 10: The Pursuit

Chapter 11: The Dark Tower

Chapter 12: The Coffin

Chapter 13: The Vast Dark Tide

Chapter 14: The Spook’s Boggart

Chapter 15: The Battle on the Steps

Chapter 16: A Tide of Blood

Chapter 17: The Dark Rider

Chapter 18: The Last Apprentice

Chapter 19: A Price to be Paid

Chapter 20: Tendrils of Green Mist

Chapter 21: A Scrawny Boy

Chapter 22: A Fierce, Warlike Race

Chapter 23: The Abhumans

Chapter 24: A Plague of Skelts

Chapter 25: Brewer’s Farm

Chapter 26: Nobody will be Safe

Chapter 27: The Clash of Witch Assassins

Chapter 28: The Battle of the Wardstone

Chapter 29: A Question of Time

Chapter 30: A Terrible Hunger

Chapter 31: The Tower of Time

Chapter 32: Draw Your Sword

Chapter 33: Lamia Blood

Chapter 34: The Last Lesson

Chapter 35: The Chipenden Spook

Sneak Preview

Q&A with Joseph Delaney

Comments from fans

About the Author

Also by Joseph Delaney

Copyright

for Marie

CHARACTER PROFILES

TOM

Thomas Ward is both the seventh son of a seventh son and the child of a powerful lamia witch. He has abilities beyond those of a regular spook: as well as being able see and hear the dead, he can also slow down time to aid him in battle. For more than three years he has trained as an apprentice to the local Spook, and now as the wielder of the Destiny Blade he may be the world’s only hope of defeating the Fiend.

THE SPOOK

The Spook is an unmistakable figure. He’s tall and rather fierce-looking. He wears a long black cloak and hood, and always carries a staff and chain. For over sixty years he has protected the County from things that go bump in the night, but his long battles have left him weary. Tom fears that the days when he can continue to rely on his mentor may be numbered.

ALICE

Tom can’t decide if Alice is good or evil. She is related to two of the most evil witch dans (the Malkins and the Deanes) and was trained as a witch against her will. While she counts herself as an ally of the light, she has increasingly been forced to rely on dark magic to save her friends. Tom fears that each time she does it will draw her closer and closer to the dark.

MAM

Tom’s mam always knew he would become the Spook’s apprentice. She called him her ‘gift to the County’. There always were quite a few mysterious things about Mam, but even Tom never suspected the truth: that she was a lamia witch, and that she had planned for Tom to battle the Fiend since before he was even born. Tom’s mam fell in the battle against the Ordeen, but he hopes that she might still be watching over him somehow . . .

GRIMALKIN

Grimalkin is the current assassin of the Malkin witch dan. Very fast and strong, she has a code of honour and rarely to trickery. Although honourable, Grimalkin also has a dark side and is reputed to use torture. Recently she has forged an unlikely alliance with Tom Ward against their common enemy, the Fiend. But can a true servant of the dark ever really be trusted?

THE FIEND

The Fiend is the dark made flesh, the most powerful of all its denizens and the very oldest of the old Gods. He has many other names, including the Devil, Satan, Lucifer and the Father of Lies. Together, Tom Ward and his allies managed to sever the Fiend’s head in battle, but their fight to destroy him once and for all has only just begun . . .

T
HE HIGHEST POINT IN THE
C
OUNTY IS MARKED BY MYSTERY
.

I
T IS SAID THAT A MAN DIED THERE IN A GREAT STORM, WHILE BINDING AN EVIL THAT THREATENED THE WHOLE WORLD.

T
HEN THE ICE CAME AGAIN, AND WHEN IT RETREATED, EVEN THE SHAPES OF THE HILLS AND THE NAMES OF THE TOWNS IN THE VALLEYS CHANGED.

N
OW, AT THAT HIGHEST POINT ON THE FELLS, NO TRACE REMAINS OF WHAT WAS DONE SO LONG AGO, BUT ITS NAME HAS ENDURED
.

T
HEY CALL IT –

T
HE
W
ARDSTONE.

I AWOKE FROM
a nightmare, my heart pounding, and sat up in bed feeling sick. For a few moments I thought I was going to vomit, but gradually my stomach settled down.

In my dream I had been killing Alice – cutting away her thumb-bones.

At Halloween, now barely a month away, I would have to carry out this terrible ritual in the real world. It was what was expected of me. My mam wished it, for it was the only way to end the threat of the Fiend for ever.

But how could I do it? How could I kill Alice?

I lay awake, fearful of going back to sleep lest the nightmare resume. Painful thoughts continued to swirl through my head. Alice was a willing victim. She was prepared to be sacrificed. Not only that, but she had bravely ventured into the dark to retrieve the Blade of Sorrow. This was one of the hero swords – three sacred weapons to be used to destroy the Fiend; weapons that would kill her in the process.

The hero swords had been forged by the Old God Hephaestus; the first of these was the Destiny Blade, given to me by Cuchulain in Ireland. The second was called Bone Cutter, and now, if Alice had succeeded in her quest into the dark, I would possess all three.

At the moment the Fiend was bound to his dead flesh – his body impaled with silver spears in the Irish countryside; his head in a leather sack in the possession of Grimalkin, the witch assassin. She was on the run, fighting desperately to keep it from the Fiend’s servants. If they got hold of it, they would reunite head and body, and the Fiend would walk the earth once more; and the ritual could not take place.

But Alice had still not returned from the dark. Perhaps something had happened, I thought. Maybe she would never come back . . .

I was also worried about my brother James, who had gone missing. The Fiend had said that his servants had cut his throat and thrown him into a ditch. I desperately hoped he was lying but I couldn’t keep the terrible thought of it out of my head for long.

I tried to sleep again, but without success, and the night dragged on. Then, just before dawn, the mirror on my bedside table suddenly began to glow. Alice was the only one who ever contacted me using a mirror. I sat up and grabbed it, looking into the glass, hardly daring to hope. For weeks and weeks I had been waiting for word from her. I had thought that perhaps I would see her just stroll happily into the garden, the Dolorous Blade – the Blade of Sorrow – in hand. But now Alice would be able to tell me that all was well immediately.

BOOK: The Spook’s Revenge: Book 13 (Spooks)
4.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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