Spook’s: I Am Grimalkin Read Online Free PDF Page B

away to help. She was back at Chipenden with John Gregory and Tom Ward.
    I went through the list of the ones I might be able to trust, but quickly dismissed them in turn. Pendle’s clans had been split into three groups when they had summoned the Fiend to walk the earth: there were those who served him, those who opposed him and, finally, those who watched and waited, perhaps planning to ally themselves with the winners of the conflict.
    I had been away from Pendle for many months and there was no way I could be sure of anyone now. I stared towards the grey mass of Pendle Hill, my mind circling like a moth around a candle flame, going anywhere but into that inevitable fire.
    There was one person I could ask for help, but she was young and I didn’t want to endanger her. However, she was also strong and was well able to assist.
    Witch assassins are not like spooks; traditionally they do not take apprentices. But I am not like previous assassins. I trained a girl in secret. Her name?
    Thorne.

That beast has arms strong enough to tear you limb from limb, a fanged mouth big enough to bite off your head. What chance have you against such a foe? None at all; you are as good as dead. I know the answer; it is simple: kill it from a distance!
    THORNE SOUGHT ME out five years ago when she was just ten years old. I was sitting cross-legged under an oak tree close to Bareleigh village and meditating on my next task: to seek out and kill something that wasn’t human. In the forest northeast of Pendle a bear had turned rogue and had killed three humans in the last month. There were few bears left in the County but it had to die.
    I was not aware of the approach of danger because I did not recognize it in one so young.
    The child came very close to me and kicked me hard on the thigh with the toe of her pointy shoe. In a second I was on my feet. I lifted her by her hair and dangled her so that her face was close to mine.
    ‘If you ever do that again,’ I warned her, ‘I will slice off your foot!’
    ‘I’m brave,’ she said. ‘Don’t you agree? Who else would dare to kick the witch assassin?’
    I looked at her more closely. She was just a slip of a thing with hardly any meat on her bones, but she had a determination in her eyes that was very unusual in one so young. It was as if something much older and more powerful glared out of that young face. But I wasn’t going to take any nonsense from her.
    ‘You’re more stupid than brave!’ I retorted. ‘Be off with you. Go back to your mother – there’ll be chores for you to do.’
    ‘Don’t have a mother or a father. I live with my ugly uncle. He beats me every day.’
    ‘Do you kick him?’
    ‘Yes – and then he beats me even harder.’
    I looked at the girl again, noting the bruises on her arms and the dark mark under her left eye. ‘What do you want of me, child?’
    ‘I would like you to kill my uncle for me.’
    I laughed and set her down on the ground, then knelt so that we were eye to eye once more. ‘If I killed your uncle, who would then feed and clothe you?’
    ‘I will work. I will feed myself. I will become a witch assassin like you.’
    ‘To become the witch assassin of our clan you will need to kill me. Are you capable of that? You’re just a child.’
    Traditionally, each year three witches were trained to challenge the incumbent clan assassin. But no one had confronted me for many years. After slaying the fifteenth pretender, I had put a stop to the practice, having grown sick and weary of slaying challengers. It was a foolish waste of lives that was gradually bleeding away the strength of the Malkin clan.
    ‘Soon I’ll be as big as you but I won’t kill you,’ the girl said. ‘You will die one day, and then I’ll be ready to replace you. The clan will need a strong assassin. Train me!’
    ‘Go home, child. Go back and kick your ugly uncle even harder. I will not train you.’
    ‘Then I will come back and kick you again tomorrow!’
    With