Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

I squeaked and ducked, just in time to avoid her hand smacking me in the face, then I skidded around the tree and sprinted around the edge of her marshy lair. But Baudi had the advantage: her feet didn’t sink repeatedly into the thick mud so she could move much faster than me. She also knew the territory like the back of her blue hand.

I barely managed six metres before she was on me again, her hand swiping towards my neck. I managed to pull forward and prevent her fingers wrapping around my throat, but she still caught hold of my jacket collar. I frantically tried to yank free; when that didn’t work, I fumbled for the zip of my coat. It was one of my favourites and I’d miss it, but I’d rather lose it than end up as a will-o’-the-wisp’s dinner.

My fingers were caked in mud and they felt fat and clumsy. When the zip caught halfway down, I knew I wouldn’t be able to shrug it off quickly enough. With one hand snarled in my collar, Baudi used her other hand to spin around my helpless body, then her face loomed towards mine.

I dropped my gaze instantly: one glance into her eyes and I’d end up zombified like the others. This was not good; this was not good at all.

I twisted and wrenched, desperate to get free, but I couldn’t attack her and I didn’t want to hurt her. That didn’t mean I was out of options for defending myself, though. Scenarios tumbled one after another through my head, while Baudi’s cold breath chilled my skin and she half-snarled and half-smiled.

‘It’s so wonderful to have another visitor to my humble home.’ She grabbed my chin and hauled it upwards to force me to meet her eyes.

I jerked my head in the same direction and looked over her shoulder into the shadowy trees on the far side of the clearing. Then I jolted out several bursts of air magic to make the leaves and twigs in several different locations rustle and twist.

Baudi stiffened and immediately released her hold on me as she turned to look.

‘Get ready!’ I yelled towards the trees, addressing an invisible – and non-existent – cavalry. ‘Get ready to attack!’

‘There are more of you?’ She grinned, revealing pointed, yellowing teeth. ‘Marvellous!’ She lurched towards the trees, determined to catch more prey. It wouldn’t take her long to realise that she’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

If I tried to run away, I wouldn’t get far before she came after me. I had to reach the others and try to free them from their trance. If even one of them was fully conscious, we might get out of this situation unharmed.

I headed for Hugo first. Baudi was crashing around in the trees only metres away, so I knew I didn’t have long. I shook him hard and, when he didn’t react, I slapped his cheek. He still didn’t react. I conjured up a burst of water and threw it in his face but it didn’t do a damned thing: I couldn’t wake him.

There wasn’t time to haul his body out of the clearing – and anyway, I was already up to my ankles in gloopy mud. I hissed and grabbed Otis and Hester from his shoulders. That was the moment when Baudi careened out of the tree line and came for me again.

‘You thought you could fool me!’ She aimed a fist towards my head that I couldn’t dodge. It caught my cheekbone and sent a jolt of pain reverberating through my skull. As I reeled backwards, I dropped Otis and Hester who landed in the mud with a wet splat. The mud was like quicksand; they would be swallowed up within seconds.

Desperate to retrieve them, I scrabbled forward, pinched Otis’s legs and pulled him up. I hastily dropped him into the dubious safety of my pocket.

‘Look at me!’ Baudi screeched. ‘Look! At! Me!’ She aimed another blow and another, both of which connected with vicious, agonising pain. Yep, she was thoroughly kicking my arse.

I managed to scoop Hester up in the palm of my hand and felt her limbs stir beneath my fingers; perhaps the seconds she’d been trapped in the mud had knocked her out of her trance. I didn’t have time to check because Baudi smacked me hard on the back of my head and I collapsed once more into the quagmire.

I sensed rather than saw her body circling around mine. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

I didn’t answer, mostly because my mouth was full of mud. She hit me again. ‘I said what’s your name?’

I spat out the dirt. ‘Daisy.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘I live in Edinburgh but I’m originally from the north of England.’

‘Do you dye your hair that colour or is it natural?’

Eh ? ‘It’s natural.’

‘If you could choose between fighting one hundred duck-sized elephants or one elephant-sized duck, which would you pick?’ What ? ‘Answer me!’

‘One elephant-sized duck,’ I said quickly.

‘You’re stupid,’ she muttered. ‘Why did you come here?’ She wasn’t pausing for breath but firing out questions like a skilled interrogator. And some of those questions were very strange indeed.

Before I could answer, Hester’s tiny body spasmed and she started to cough. Delight coursed through me. As I raised my head to look at her, my gaze snagged on Gladys propped up against a pile of wood only a few metres away. Ah-ha.

A half-baked plan started to form. Baudi was a will-o’-the-wisp who lived in the middle of nowhere. The last reports about her activities were from years ago, and she was clearly a creature who attacked first and asked questions later, so she probably didn’t know about the law that protected her in her habitat. She certainly didn’t know that I always tried to stick to that law, so all I needed to do was threaten her enough for her to release us. I simply needed to convince her that I was bigger, badder and scarier than she was – and Gladys could help me do that. So could my innate magic.

I spat out more mud, then reached inside myself and tugged on my power. I conjured up a vast, powerful spurt of air magic and angled it behind Gladys before releasing it and using the techniques I’d been working on with Slim.

It worked. Despite her hefty weight, Gladys was thrown forward until the tip of her blade scraped against my cheek. I grabbed her hilt with my free hand and hauled myself up, tossing out several more bursts of magic at the same time. None of them were aimed at Baudi because I didn’t want her to feel their effect, but I did want her to witness what I was capable of.

A heaving flash of earth magic rocked the ground and sent splatters of mud flying up into the night air. Water magic crashed down on both sides of the wisp’s body and pooled by her feet. A ring of fire magic appeared in mid-air and surrounded the whole clearing with flickering flames.

‘I came here to kill you,’ I said, hoping she wouldn’t catch the lie. I kept my eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder so I couldn’t judge her expression.

When she started to laugh hysterically, it was clear what she was thinking. ‘Kill me? Kill me ?’ she spluttered. ‘You won’t be the first elf to come here and try that, and I hope you won’t be the last. I will keep you till last. You’ll be here for months and you can watch me kill your companions. You and I will be spending a lot of time together.’ She sounded pleased at the prospect; the one thing she didn’t sound was scared.

Hester coughed again and I gave her tiny body a reassuring squeeze before I swung Gladys menacingly in the air. The sword, helpful as ever, vibrated and hummed in response.

‘Your sword doesn’t scare me,’ Baudi said. She lunged forward in a blur of motion.

I steeled myself for the blow but the will-o’-the-wisp was cannier than I’d given her credit for. She feinted left so that I thought she was aiming for Hester. With a flash of fear, I altered my stance – and loosened my grip on Gladys. At the very last second, Baudi switched her attack: instead of trying to grab Hester, she knocked Gladys clean out of my hand.

Hester muttered something and fluttered against my fingers. I opened my hand and she flew upwards, shaking herself off and retreating to a safe distance. ‘Hester?’ I called. ‘Are you alright?’

‘What the fuck do you think?’

I exhaled. ‘Don’t look at her. Don’t look at the will-o’-the-wisp’s face.’

Baudi laughed again. ‘You’re only delaying the inevitable.’

I scowled and bent down to get hold of Gladys again, but Baudi was wise to my plan and ready for it. As soon as I moved, she slammed into me and forced me backwards, further away from Gladys. ‘Look at me,’ she commanded.

I forced my head down.

‘Look at me.’

I clenched my jaw. I wasn’t giving up yet.

‘Look at me!’ she roared.

I made a show of shaking my head and my gaze snagged on a neat pile of leaves, mushrooms and berries that had been arranged into sections. I frowned – then Baudi smacked me again. At this rate, I’d soon be seeing pretty lights dancing in front of my eyes.

My heart was rattling against my ribcage, while the blood that was coursing through my veins seemed to be heating up. My mouth felt painfully dry. I didn’t want to break the law, and I didn’t want to hurt Baudi, but if there was no other option then I would. It wasn’t only my life on the line, it was everyone else’s too.

‘Look at me.’ Baudi’s voice dropped to a silky whisper. ‘Look into my eyes or I will start killing your companions. I’ll do it right in front of you. I won’t wait.’

Something snapped and the heat in my blood became scalding fury as it overtook the spider’s silk in my system. Coherent thought fled.

I raised my hands high into the air and stretched.

‘Uh, Daisy?’ Hester sounded scared but I barely heard her. My hands were twitching now. I’d take Baudi down. I’d do what needed to be done. I’d?—

‘That’s not elf magic,’ Baudi said. The confusion in her voice drew me back to myself. As I glanced up at my hands, I saw tiny flickers of lightning jumping from fingertip to fingertip. In an instant, the heat in my body subsided to a distinct chill.

The only people I’d seen use magic like that were fiends.

Now the will-o’-the-wisp was backing away, putting distance between us. I still didn’t look at her; my focus remained on the sparks at my fingertips. I licked my lips and concentrated. A beat later, a single lightning bolt shot upwards, flashing from my right hand into the sky. Cumbubbling bollocks.

I concentrated harder on dousing the sparks, and one by one they flickered out. I stepped forward and picked up Gladys. A preternatural calm had overtaken my fury.

By now, Baudi was at the edge of the clearing. ‘Do it,’ Hester hissed. ‘You have to do it! Kill her and everyone will be freed. You can make it quick so she doesn’t suffer.’

As I tightened my grip on Gladys’s hilt, I thought about Agatha Smiggleswith at the museum. I’d liked her because I’d understood her motivation.

I glanced at the collection of leaves, berries and fungi and then looked around the quiet little marsh. I thought about everything that Baudi had said and done. Then I lowered Gladys and dropped my shoulders. ‘You talk to yourself,’ I said to the wisp.

Baudi’s answer was swift and defiant. ‘So? I’m not mad.’

‘I wouldn’t suggest anything of the sort. I often talk to myself, too, though I don’t do it so much now that I spend less time on my own.’

‘I’m not always on my own!’

Uh-huh. ‘When did Chuchi last visit?’ She didn’t respond, which gave me all the answer I needed.

‘Baudi,’ I said softly, ‘it’s been twenty years since anyone came here, hasn’t it? You live alone and your usual diet is vegetarian. You asked me several daft questions because you wanted to talk. You were happy about capturing all my friends because you thought it meant that Chuchi would visit, not because you cared about having a few spicy elven meals. ’

‘He will visit,’ she muttered. ‘Chuchi will visit.’

‘You were happy at the prospect of having me here for months before you killed me. You’re lonely.’ I paused. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘No!’

‘You don’t want to kill anyone, and you don’t want to eat anyone either. You’ve not really hurt any of us.’ I shrugged. ‘Sure, you smacked me around a bit and made a lot of threats, but I’ve got nothing more than a few bruises. If you’d wanted to, you could have hurt me a whole lot more. You were fast enough and strong enough to break my skull if you chose to, but you chose not to. I know what you really want.’

‘I want to eat you all!’ Baudi bellowed, still keeping her distance from me.

‘Nah.’ I shook my head. I thought about the information Mark had given me and I felt more sure of myself. Baudi had attacked two hikers in 2003 and they’d reported that she’d nearly killed them, but she obviously didn’t kill them or they wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale. They’d obviously escaped and not ended up in a cauldron of will-o’-the-wisp soup.

‘All you want is a bit of company,’ I continued. ‘It can’t be easy out here on your own all the time. The curse on the Fonaby Stone means you don’t get many visitors.’ I corrected myself. ‘In fact, it means you don’t get any visitors. There are no unwitting travellers to lead astray, nobody to chat to. That’s rough.’

Baudi didn’t say anything.

‘Being alone can be really hard,’ I said softly. I lifted my head and, for the first time, looked directly into her eyes. ‘I think I can help with that.’