Spook's Destiny Read Online Free PDF

that would be your answer … It still saddens me to think that the only way we can get rid of jibbers is by using dark magic,’ my master added. ‘Maybe things are changing, though. Maybe in the future that will be a new way for a spook to fight the dark, using the dark against itself. I don’t hold with it myself, but I’m from a different generation. I belong to the past, but you’re the future, lad. You’ll face new and different threats, and deal with them in a different way.’
    So Alice and I continued with our work, and in the space of six days, together we freed two inns, another shop and five private houses from jibbers. Each time, Alice countered the spell, and I then talked the freed spirit out of Limbo and into the light. Each time we felt apprehensive, but the witch didn’t appear again. Was she bluffing and just trying to scare me away? But I had my job to do.
    In contrast to the County, it seemed that the custom in Ireland was to pay someone immediately a job was completed, so we had plenty of money in our pockets. Then we had a visitor – someone who arrived on the seventh day, sending us off on a different course.
     
    We were sitting at our usual table having breakfast. The inn still had no other customers, but the landlord was confident that the situation would soon change and had hinted that our departure would hasten the arrival of his first paying guest. Our presence here was now widely known, and although the inn was no longer haunted, few people would really wish to take a room in a place where a spook was staying. My master understood that, and we’d already decided to move our quarters later that day, probably heading south of the river Liffey, which divided the city.
    I was just swallowing my last piece of bacon and mopping up my egg yolk with a wedge of buttered bread when a stranger entered the room from the street. He was a tall, upright man with white hair and a contrasting black beard and moustache. That alone was enough to earn him a second glance on any of the teeming Dublin thoroughfares; but add to that his clothes – a formal knee-length coat, neatly pressed black trousers and expensive boots, which marked him out as a gentleman of the first rank – and all eyes would have marked his passing. He also carried an ivory walking stick with a white handle in the shape of an eagle’s head.
    The landlord rushed across to greet him, bowing low before welcoming him into the inn and offering him the best room. But the stranger was barely listening to his host; he was staring across at our table. Wasting no time, he came across and addressed the Spook.
    ‘Have I the pleasure of speaking to John Gregory?’ he asked. ‘And you must be Tom Ward,’ he added, looking at me. He gave just a curt nod in Alice’s direction.
    The Spook nodded and got to his feet. ‘Aye, that’s me,’ he said. ‘And that’s my apprentice. Are you here to ask for our help?’
    The man shook his head. ‘On the contrary, I am here to offer you assistance. Your success in ridding the city of many of its troublesome apparitions have brought you to the attention of a powerful and dangerous group. I speak of the goat mages of Staigue. We have our own spies, and they tell me that the mages have already dispatched assassins to this city. Being servants of the dark, they cannot tolerate your presence in our land. That is why the few remaining Irish spooks avoid the main towns and never settle in one place for more than a couple of days.’
    The Spook nodded thoughtfully. ‘We’d heard that they were a dying breed. What you say makes sense, but why should you wish to help us? By doing so, won’t you be putting yourself at risk?’
    ‘My life is permanently at risk,’ said the man. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Farrell Shey, the leader of the Land Alliance, a league of landowners who have been at war with the mages for many years.’
    In addition to what I’d read in the Spook’s Bestiary, while