Chapter 20

Chapter

Twenty

D awn emerged on Wednesday morning without any fanfare: there were no rose-pink tendrils or golden-hued shafts of light indicating the start of a new day on the outskirts of Sutton Bridge. The darkness of the night slid into dull grey – and there was rain. Lots and lots and lots of rain.

‘I thought Scottish rain was bad,’ Hester muttered. ‘This English stuff is horrendous.’

‘Rain is good for the plants, Hes,’ Otis said in a vain bid to keep her spirits up.

She pointed to a waterlogged fern that had certainly seen better days. Its long leaves were drooping forlornly into a muddy puddle. ‘Tell that to that poor bastard.’

For my own part, I wasn’t bothered by the slate-coloured skies and wet weather; they seemed appropriate. I was concerned, however, that the rain would hamper our efforts to locate King John’s treasure. That task was hard enough, given the vast area and the time frame, and localised flooding would hardly aid our cause. The helicopter had helped enormously but we were still under extraordinary pressure.

Stretching inwards from the coast, the land here was flat. Shrubby grass covered a large area of it, patchy, marshy and doubtless treacherous, especially in these current weather conditions. There were few people around. I spotted a couple of dog walkers in the distance and a trio of witches collecting salt-drenched plants for their own supplies, but most sensible people were staying indoors. At least that meant our search wouldn’t be interrupted.

‘The River Nene used to be called the Wellstream,’ Hugo said. ‘A lot of the land has been reclaimed since King John’s time and the landscape is very different to what it was eight hundred years ago.’ His mouth set in a grim line. ‘It’s no surprise that the lost crown jewels have never been located. Slim found some old documents that suggested King John attempted to make the crossing not far from the Crosskeys Bridge.’ He pointed to his left. ‘It’s about half a mile that way. The baggage carts were lost in – and I quote –“whirlpools and quicksand”.’

I grimaced. ‘I don’t suppose that there are any thousand-year-old creatures living around here who we can ask for guidance?’

Hugo waved a hand around the open, empty landscape. ‘I’m afraid not.’

I sighed. What I wouldn’t have given for a monster-sized spider right about now.

At least all the Primes had joined us; there was no longer any reason for them to stay at Pemberville Castle as decoys so that Athair believed we were still following his treasure hunt. With Duchess’s delighted help, they’d killed the vampires lurking outside Pemberville then driven straight here.

This was a no-holds-barred, all-hands-on-deck situation, so the Primes weren’t the only new addition to our group. Amy hadn’t taken as much persuading as I’d expected. Athair had been correct: she’d found a small chest of gold buried in the garden of the old cottage. It was already being assessed for its connection to the rest of the Staffordshire Hoard.

Despite her sudden newfound wealth, Amy wasn’t resting on her laurels. Essentially, I’d asked her to join us for her own safety because Athair had indicated that her life was in danger, even if she wasn’t a priority for him. She hadn’t appeared particularly concerned about the mortal threat; she was young enough to still believe in her own invincibility. But when I’d suggested that she could join in our latest treasure hunt so that I could keep an eye on her and help keep her safe, she’d jumped at the chance. She said her mum would be thrilled to have her out of the house for a few days and that she was sure she could help us.

As soon as we picked her up at the train station, I recognised the gleam in her eyes. Amy had been well and truly bitten by the treasure-hunting bug. I wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or dismayed to be the cause of that. ‘There’s a lot of ground to cover,’ she said, eagerly bouncing on her toes.

That was an understatement. There were miles of shifting sands and marshy lands to search.

‘You’d think that old King Johnny would have been smarter.’ She snickered. ‘What a dickhead. Thinking he could beat the tide? I’ve eaten sandwiches that have more intelligence than that.’

Hester gazed at her with wide-eyed admiration. ‘You’re going places, girl.’

‘Not today,’ Otis pointed out. ‘For the next four hours we’re all staying right here, until the tide comes in again.’

Amy smirked. ‘Not if I find that treasure before the sea shows up.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Let’s get started.’

We fanned out across the vast estuary in a long line like a crime-scene team scouring for clues. Soon the boggy ground was throbbing with bursts of earth magic as we searched for large items buried beneath the shifting, salty earth.

Unfortunately for us, experts believed that even if the location of the drowned crown jewels could be pinpointed the hoard would probably lie under at least twenty feet of mud, sand and silt. We only had two and a half days; there certainly wasn’t time to dig up the entire estuary.

My first blast of magic sent several ricochets of pain through my body, indicating the presence of unnatural items. I squelched over to the nearest one and crouched down: a discarded water bottle lay wedged in a spot of bare, sludgy sand. I hauled it out and dropped it into a black rubbish bag I was carrying for that very purpose.

I side-stepped to the next point and had to scrabble in the wet ground before I located a length of rubber hosing. I added it to the black bag and continued. Another water bottle. A disposable cigarette lighter. A large number of barely recognisable cigarette butts. Three empty crisp packets. The now-hairless pink head of a discarded doll. There was plenty to be found but none of it counted as treasure.

I moved to the next section and repeated the process. The results were depressingly similar.

Miriam was searching to my immediate right; Hugo was to my left. Amy was next to him and the other Primes stretched out beyond her. Every so often one of us would pause and investigate the ground more closely. With depressing inevitability nobody found anything of real note, but none of us were prepared to quit. We kept going, scouring every inch of land for hour upon hour until it was only the incoming tide that caused us to stop.

‘We can’t stay any longer,’ Hugo said, just as I uncovered a straggly length of old rope that was knotted at one end. ‘If we do, we’ll end up being washed away like King John.’

‘I’m not that dumb,’ Amy said. ‘I’m not drowning. Not today, not ever.’

‘King John survived his encounter with the sea,’ Slim pointed out. ‘It’s only his magical crown jewels that were lost.’ He gazed at the incoming water. ‘But, yes, we have to get out of here until low tide returns. In six hours or so we can start again. We’ll have more time to search then.’

What he didn’t say was that it would be night time when the tide receded. Our treasure hunt would be even more difficult in the dark but we couldn’t afford to wait for daylight and low tide; they wouldn’t coincide again until Thursday morning and I had to face Athair on Friday night.

I didn’t look at the shore line and the fast-approaching sea, I looked at the tense, frightened expressions on the faces of my friends. My gut twisted. Our earlier optimism had vanished in the face of the reality of our situation.

Only Hester was brave enough to say the words aloud. ‘What do we do when we don’t find these magical crown jewels?’ she demanded.

‘ If we don’t find them,’ Otis hissed. ‘Not when we don’t find them.’

She gave him a long, measured look and his head dropped. ‘All I’m saying,’ she said, ‘is that we need to come up with a plan B.’

Everyone nodded their agreement but, alas, nobody had any suggestions to offer.

Although Sutton Bridge was the nearest settlement, it was a small place and there wasn’t much in the way of accommodation. The relentless rain and driving wind meant that camping would be unpleasant, but the larger town of King’s Lynn was just across the county border. Mark had managed to secure us a whole floor of rooms at one of the hotels where we could dry off properly and rest before the tide receded and the next round of searching began.

There was a certain poetic symmetry to staying in the historic town because Bad King John had started his own ill-fated journey there more than eight hundred years earlier. The shiver of history ran through these streets, co-existing easily with modern shop fronts and the hustle of twenty-first century life.

Once we’d checked into the hotel, I went for a shower then lay down on the pristine white sheets of the double bed and closed my eyes. Not much later, Hugo stretched out beside me. I appreciated the warm, reassuring touch of his body next to mine but I still couldn’t relax. Troubled thoughts tumbled one after the other, precluding any real rest or relaxation.

We lay together for several long minutes, neither of us speaking. Despite the comfort of his silent company, it was clear that this would be one of those rare occasions when sleep eluded me.

Eventually I opened one eye. Hugo was as wide awake as I was and his velvet-blue eyes were watching me carefully. ‘It doesn’t seem that either of us can sleep,’ he said.

I sighed. ‘No. I know I should get some proper rest.’ I tapped my forehead. ‘But there’s too much going on in here for me to settle down.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He offered me a wan smile. ‘There is still hope, Daisy. We might still uncover the lost crown jewels and find the sceptre that will help us get rid of Athair and all his kind for good.’

I estimated the odds of success at around a million to one. If I were optimistic. ‘I shouldn’t have gone looking for the Fachan,’ I said for the umpteenth time. ‘If I hadn’t done that, he’d still be alive and Athair wouldn’t have imposed his impossible deadline. We wouldn’t be in this situation.’

‘Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Besides, we made the decision together. We’ve gone through this. It was a better idea than going through every book in every library in the country.’ He cupped my face and stroked my cheek with the base of his thumb. ‘We can still run.’

‘Athair would track us down eventually and you know he’ll cause havoc until he does.’ I gazed into Hugo’s eyes. ‘By havoc, I mean mass murder.’

He didn’t disagree. ‘We might get lucky, Daisy.’

We needed a lot more than luck, though I didn’t say that aloud. My skin itched and I felt the painfully familiar scratch of my lost addiction. It would have been easier to give myself completely over to spider’s silk, safer for everyone I loved if I’d surrendered to it.

I pulled away from Hugo and sat up. ‘I can’t lie here,’ I said. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

He nodded. ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll come with you.’

‘No.’ I touched his hand. ‘Stay here and get some rest. I checked online earlier and there’s a meeting nearby. It would help me to go to one.’

Thankfully, he understood. ‘I can come with you and wait outside until you’re done.’

‘I appreciate it but I’d rather go alone. Besides, it’ll cause problems if anyone recognises you.’ I gently mussed his tawny hair before kissing his cheek. ‘Try and get some rest. I won’t be too long.’

Then I quickly dressed, put on my coat and shoes and slipped out of the hotel room.