The Blood List Read Online Free PDF Page A

out to try and reach the surface but instead careened head first into a rock on the lake bed.
    He gasped, inhaling water. He tried to cough but more water poured down his throat. Darkness seeped into the corners of his vision. Points of light spun and danced just out of reach. He watched
his own hand move forward to touch them but it was too clumsy and slow. The lights seemed to whisper to him, and their voices were the music of the flint and mica rolling along the lake bed. He
wanted to speak to them, but they vanished, leaving only the shadows and the cold.
    A bubble escaped his nostril and he watched it lazily as it spiralled up towards the light.
    But now a shadow blocked the light. An ugly, thrashing shadow that tore through the drowsiness that was drifting over him.
    The pike.
    He was so tired, but he had to fight.
    It clamped its mouth around his wrist and he twisted free. A moment later it had him around the throat. Its jaws were powerful but strangely toothless. It wrenched him upwards and the pressure
in his lungs became unbearable. He fought wildly as the drowsiness was replaced by pain. Still the colossal fish jerked him up towards the light.
    His clawing hands found a soft part and the pike recoiled, with a yelp, but the grip around his throat didn’t loosen.
    The light became more and more glaring. The pain in his chest was unbearable. He could feel the fibres of his lungs ripping and hot blood filled his mouth.
    His head broke the surface of the water.
    The pike made a sound – or was it him? – a monstrous, heaving gasp followed by retching. Still he fought until eventually the pike, its nut-brown face haloed in wet curls, punched
him square on the jaw.
    The girl pulled him to the shore and dragged him up the shingle before collapsing on her back beside him.
    By the time his own wrenching gasps had subsided and he was able to sit up, she was on her hands and knees coughing up clear mucus, like a cat bringing up a hairball. Ribbons of emerald-green
weed were wound into her curls.
    She must have felt his gaze on her because she turned her head and their eyes met. Her emerald irises were ringed by burst blood vessels.
    ‘Thanks,’ he said hoarsely.
    As she spat onto the gravel he saw that his fingernails had raked three scarlet lines down her left cheek.
    ‘Next time,’ she wheezed, ‘I’ll let you drown.’

2
The Path
    Barnaby limped home, bedraggled and bruised. The Waters girl hadn’t even invited him into the cottage for a warming broth or a stiff drink. Neither had she sent her
damned brother to get his clothes: his feet were sore and scratched from the thistles and coarse grass he had to pick through to fetch them.
    At least he would get concern from his father and Juliet, though the best he could expect from his mother would be a
how silly of you, Barnaby
. As he got nearer home he began to cough,
only half for effect: he was still feeling awful, as if someone had kicked him in the chest.
    But no-one seemed to hear him. Certainly no-one came to the door.
    He pushed it open and hobbled in. The parlour was empty. Surely they had not dined without him. He threw himself against the dresser to make it bang against the wall, then he leaned on it,
wheezing, waiting to be discovered.
    But it wasn’t his father who came out of the kitchen. Nor even Juliet.
    It was Abel.
    There was an air of sly triumph in the tilt of his brother’s chin that immediately made Barnaby uneasy. Was he in trouble for something?
    ‘Father’s been looking for you,’ Abel said.
    ‘Why?’ Barnaby said, straightening up. All pretence of suffering vanished at once: they knew each other too well to deceive one another.
    ‘The witch is dying,’ Abel smirked.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your precious Agnes.’
    Barnaby blinked at him. His mouth opened but no words came.
    Abel turned to go up the stairs.
‘Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes and make magic bands upon the head of every stature to hunt