Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
E sme opened the door to the bookshop and walked inside. The doorbell, that was usually a gentle chime alerting the Book Keeper that a visitor had arrived, was a crashing discordant noise. An alarm.
It wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. Kate Foster was sitting on the floor in the biggest room of the shop, a can of spray paint in one hand and a wheelie case open to reveal several plastic bottles of liquid. She had pushed back the kilim rug and was in the middle of desecrating the ancient oak floorboards with squiggly symbols.
Esme kicked herself. Instead of following her heart and coming directly to warn Luke, she ought to have called Bee and Tobias. She had texted Hammer to tell him she was coming to the bookshop rather than meeting him at the castle, but now that seemed nowhere near enough. Belatedly, she realised that her first call should have been to the police. This woman, shiny and perfect as she looked, had most likely murdered Iain. It was too late for recriminations, though. She was standing a few feet from a killer.
‘You don’t look all that surprised to see me,’ Kate said conversationally as she finished spraying a little more paint onto her design. It was a circle, like the one painted on the castle wall. Instead of symbols on the outside of the circle at the four compass points, the symbols were drawn inside.
‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ Esme knew she needed to turn around and get the hell out, but she also didn’t see Luke. Where was Luke?
‘A little renovation. I told you all.’ A little smile, pleased and cruel, played at the corners of her mouth.
‘I was looking for you,’ Esme said, her voice sounding hoarse. All of her saliva seemed to have dried up. ‘At your house.’
Kate’s eyes narrowed. ‘You went inside?’
‘I did.’ Esme forced herself to maintain eye contact. There was a chance that Kate hadn’t seen Luke and that he was hiding somewhere. If she kept Kate focused on her, he could get out, go and get help.
‘You’re looking for Luke, I presume.’ She gave Esme a knowing look. ‘He ran off, I believe. Wise of him. You’re staying, I assume?’
‘Why do you say that?’ Esme’s fingers were tingling and her chest felt tight. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen and she reminded herself to take a breath.
‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ Kate gestured to the symbols on the floor. ‘And witches are always so curious. We want to know everything, and it’s always our downfall. Makes you wonder how many of us would have been burned at the stake if we had just behaved ourselves?’
‘I can’t tell if you’re joking.’ Every part of Esme wanted to turn and flee, but she didn’t know where Luke was and she didn’t want to leave this maniac alone in the bookshop. Her eyes flicked to the bottles of liquid in the open case.
‘I never joke about witchcraft.’
The door to the stockroom was wide open, light spilling out into the corridor. And there was a strange buzzing sensation in the atmosphere, like static or the feeling in the atmosphere before a lightning storm. It made the hairs on Esme’s skin stand up.
‘What is that?’ Esme pointed to the circle. ‘It’s like the one you drew at the castle.’
Kate shook her head. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. Circle of protection. Basic stuff.’ She moved so that she was standing inside the circle, dragging the open case close enough so that she could reach the bottles. She picked one up and began unscrewing the lid.
Esme moved forwards, intent on grabbing the case, or maybe Kate herself, but a muffled thump came from inside the stockroom, distracting her. Luke appeared in the doorway. His lip was bleeding and he looked a little dazed.
Kate glanced over her shoulder, a look of surprised irritation crossing her face. ‘Hello, sleepyhead. I must admit, I thought that would knock you out more permanently. Not another step, please.’ She turned and splashed liquid over the floor, splashing over Esme at the same time. The smell was unmistakable. Petrol.
‘You hit me,’ Luke said, staring at Kate Foster in disbelief. ‘What did you hit me with?’ He shook his head as if trying to clear it.
‘Just a little spell of my own devising.’ She gave them both a wide smile that had no warmth in it. ‘Amazing what you can learn from books, isn’t it?’
‘Elin Jones,’ Luke said, his voice slurring very slightly. Esme wondered what magic Kate had used and whether it had caused permanent damage. The image of Iain’s decomposing corpse swam to the front of her mind and her head span dizzily.
Kate Foster raised her eyebrows. ‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ She had another bottle open and was dousing the floor around her, and then squeezing the bottle to widen her radius.
‘That’s your name, isn’t it?’ Luke said. He took another step toward Kate, but Esme could see he was unsteady on his feet. His skin was very white, the blood from his lip stark against his complexion. He didn’t seem to be noticing that Kate was splashing petrol around, soaking the books, wooden floor and shelves, her own clothes. The smell was pungent and hit the back of Esme’s throat, making her cough.
‘It was,’ she said, bending to the case again. ‘I go by Kate, now.’
Esme lunged for Kate, trying to stop her from opening a third bottle. Her hands bounced off an invisible barrier, one that made her whole body spasm in a single instant of agonising shock. Esme had never stuck her fingers into an electrical socket, but this was exactly how she had imagined it would feel. She checked her clothes to see if she had wet herself, as it had felt as if she had lost all control of her body for a few seconds, and was momentarily relieved that her front was already soaked with petrol which would hide a urine stain. Then her mind came fully back online, and she remembered why being covered in petrol was a more terrible, frightening thing. Especially now that the woman inside the circle was on her last bottle of petrol and Esme had to assume that wasn’t the end of her trick.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Luke was holding his head as in pain, and he still seemed woozy. He staggered as he came closer to the circle and Kate and Esme wondered if he was acting, trying to get Kate to lower her guard. ‘Don’t touch her!’ She warned him. ‘The circle hurts. It gave me an electric shock.’ She shook her hands, fingers still tingling painfully.
‘I came to see why my little gift didn’t work. This place,’ Kate waved a hand, ‘is supposed to be a pile of ashes.’
‘You sent the hexed book,’ Esme said.
‘Ding ding ding.’ Kate pointed a finger. ‘She’s got it.’
‘But why?’
The look that Kate shot at Esme was part mocking amusement and part simmering rage. ‘You’re all the same.’ The words spat like a curse. ‘You think you’re so special. You’re not special. And I’m going to prove it. You’ll burn just the same as anybody else.’
Esme couldn’t process the words. ‘What have we done to you? Why would you-’
‘Your husband died,’ Luke said quietly. ‘Nicholas.’
Kate whipped around. ‘Don’t say his name.’
‘The paper said it was an illness, but the word in the Shambles is that he topped himself.’
Luke wasn’t looking at Esme and she realised he was trying to hold Kate’s attention. He probably wanted her to take the chance to run away. But she wasn’t going to leave him.
‘Those people,’ Kate was saying. ‘They didn’t care who they hurt. Dealing in information they don’t understand. They had to be stopped. You lot are even worse. I think you might know a thing or two, especially you,’ she looked at Esme, ‘and you’re still buying and selling like it’s nothing.’
‘Not like it’s nothing,’ Luke said. ‘We look after the information. We keep it safe.’
‘You sent the book,’ Esme said, trying to catch up. Her own fury was building. ‘Luke nearly died.’
The smile that crossed Kate Foster’s face was a twitch of muscles, nothing warm or happy about it. ‘It was meant to burn down the bookshop. I had to come here to find out why that hadn’t happened and I found you. And Tobias. And now Fiona and those freak children of hers. All of you. There is something very wrong with this place and I am going to clean it up.’
The wrongness of the woman hadn’t been imaginary. Later she might feel some pride in that fact, but right now Esme was consumed with the danger she represented. Every hair was standing up on her arms and her instinct to freeze or flee was trying to override her system. She fought it. ‘What have we done to you?’
‘You’re all the same. Dangerous. Don’t care who you hurt…’
‘That’s not true.’ Esme interrupted, her fury gaining ground on her fear. This was the woman who had tried to kill Luke. She had killed Iain and, apparently, Graham at the York bookshop, too. The evil of it was staggering.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ Kate said, eyes blazing with barely controlled fury. ‘Ordinary people get hurt.’
‘Ordinary people like Iain. What had he done to you?’
Luke frowned at Esme, his expression questioning.
Kate waved a hand airily. ‘He was dabbling in something he didn’t understand. Supplying the demand for the information, even if he didn’t know what he was dealing with. He would have started using eventually. And if not, he was still part of the problem.’
‘Besides,’ Esme said, her voice grim, ‘you needed human blood for your little spells. That’s why he died, wasn’t it? Your convenience. Your desires. It wasn’t anything high-minded. You’re just a murderer.’
Esme was hoping to use Luke’s trick. If she could keep Kate’s eyes on her, Luke would have a chance at getting outside and phoning for help. The big lug wasn’t leaving, though. At least she didn’t think so, she didn’t want to shift her gaze to where he was standing in case Kate followed suit.
‘Hardly little spells. I’m protecting people. Innocent people,’ Kate spat. ‘My husband stumbled into your world and he didn’t stand a chance. I’m going to stop that from happening to anybody else.’
‘I don’t understand. I’ve never met your husband.’
‘It seduced him. Both of us, really. I loved it, too. In the beginning we were so excited.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘We could do so many things. Things that shouldn’t be possible. Fairy tales, but in real life.’
Fairy tales were gruesome as far as Esme remembered, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Kate said, the light in her eyes dimming. ‘He’s gone.’
‘We can help you,’ Esme said. ‘You don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t mess with magic. It’s making you sick.’ Esme found it hard to believe that the woman couldn’t feel the damage she was doing. If she looked carefully, she thought she could see a dark miasma surrounding Kate’s body, as if she herself had become cursed.
A short laugh cut the air. ‘Like you care.’
‘There’s been enough death. Surely.’
‘Not nearly enough. Nicholas is gone.’ She threw the empty bottle of petrol to one side and produced a metal lighter from her pocket. ‘And we are going to join him.’