The Dying Light (Bloodwitch #1)

‘For what we receive, and for another day free from the threat of the covens, no matter our hardship, let us all be content and grateful to our Great Protector for keeping the Wall standing strong for us.’

They ate dinner in the gloom once June had finished leading them in expressing humble thanks for the meal. It was a somewhat rushed affair, as they had to finish while there was still enough light from the guttering candle to see the food on their chipped plates.

Nikolai Ignatiev, the First Hunter General of Matya, looked down on all five of them from his faded portrait on the cracked wall by the staircase. He was always watching from the High Throne, always seeking out the evil of witches.

‘You’re not eating much this evening, Charlie,’ June said, sipping a cup of weak tea.

Charlie stabbed at his potato stew with his knife. ‘Not hungry.’

When they had finished eating, June and the children cleared the table. A comfortable hush enveloped them all as the candle in the kitchen burned low. Charlie went to stand by the draughty window, staring out into the distance.

His eyes were drawn to the lights on the mountain where the stronghold of the Elysian Castle stood. He let out a long, slow sigh, and ran his fingers through his uneven hair. Parted sharply, the longer section fell to one side of his head, its tips brushing his ear. He had been meaning to get around to shaving the shorter side at some point; it was starting to get fluffy.

‘You were home later than usual tonight.’ June stood beside him, following his gaze.

Charlie closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. ‘It’s been a long day. I’m tired.’

The old lady adjusted her glasses and blinked. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

‘No.’

‘I thought you weren’t going to come back, Charlie.’

By now, it was too dark to see who had spoken clearly. But Charlie recognised Ruby’s tentative voice below him, coming from somewhere around his knee. He ruffled her hair. ‘I’ll always come back, you know me.’

‘Charlie, please may we have another candle?’

Ruby had balled a fistful of his narrow black jeans into her hand and was holding onto him fiercely. Charlie did not attempt to extricate himself. It took a lot for Ruby to feel afraid, and more for her to admit it.

‘What does Granny June say?’

Leo’s big voice piped up from near the kitchen. ‘She says we can’t yet.’

‘I like the dark.’ This was Dima. ’I’m down in the mine, like Charlie. Oh no, oh no, I’m trapped – cave in!’ Charlie smiled ruefully and rolled his eyes as the little boy let out a shriek. ‘I’m dying!’

‘Boys, be quiet!’

At the sound of the old woman’s stern voice, the scrabbling movements at the end of the bed stopped at once. Satisfied, Granny June returned to washing up the plates from dinner. Her hunched figure was bathed in the soft, twinkling light lent by the only candle in their home.

‘Were you aware, Charlie,’ she called from the kitchen, her voice even, ‘that Dmitri has been skipping his reading lessons this week?’

Charlie rubbed his shadowed eyes. ‘Is that true, Dima?’

’It is true,’ Leo said, in a tone that suggested there could be no other answer.

‘Only a few times,’ Dima said, pushing Leo aside. ‘I was … doing something else.’

Charlie pressed his fists against his closed eyes, attempting to smother the sharp throbbing that had been building in the centre of his head since the start of that morning.

Before he spoke, he took another deep breath, making sure to speak calmly. ‘I’d like to hear exactly what you’ve got to do that’s more important than working with Granny and learning how to read.’

‘I’m not supposed to …’ Dima mumbled, before tailing off.

‘Well?’ Charlie did his best to bite down on the edge in his voice. ‘Can you tell me?’

Another few seconds passed by in silence. Then he heard Ruby’s voice again. ’Charlie, please can we have another candle?’

‘You should stand beside Granny while she washes up,’ Charlie said, as he gently stroked her hair. ‘She’s got a little candlelight left. I bet she’d be happy if you helped her check everything is clean.’

A snort from the kitchen told him what the old woman thought of that idea.

‘I want to stay with you,’ Ruby said in a small voice. Charlie thought he heard a sniff.

The boys, Leo and Dima, both about a year younger than Ruby, still found the dark nights exciting. At six years old, she had already experienced enough of life in the Karbher Quarter to know that there was good reason to be afraid when the lights went out and the darkness stole in. Nevertheless, they were all still too young to understand why their candles had to be rationed, why there was never enough food – why they lived like this.

It happened before Charlie had time to react.

In the distance, there was the sound of a furious rumble, like thunder, as though from somewhere deep underneath the ground. The whole basement began to shake violently, the rotten floorboards beneath Charlie’s feet creaking. From the kitchen, he heard the rattle of the just-washed knives and forks as they bounced around on the draining board. The candle had toppled over and gone out, plunging them all into darkness. His ears were filled with the sound of screaming and crying children. Ruby was no longer beside him.

‘Where are the kids?’ Charlie yelled, wheeling around in the direction of the kitchen.

June’s voice rang out in answer, strong and clear for a woman of her age. ‘They’re with me. Don’t worry.’

‘Keep them safe!’

Gripping hard onto the windowsill to keep himself upright, Charlie’s eyes found the Elysian Castle, and his gaze lingered there. There was a single moment when everything was perfectly still and silent. Then a blinding white light cast everything into total illumination, and he had to shield his eyes against the piercing light flooding their home. The children’s screams grew louder as the violent shaking started up again, much worse than before.

Fighting against the brightness, painful after such a long time in the dark, Charlie’s eyes were drawn immediately to the source of the disturbance. In the distance, a column of intensely bright light illuminated the sky over the Elysian mountains. It pulsed and swirled as though it were alive. Charlie watched it, mesmerised, unable to pull himself away. The next moment, it had vanished, and the tremors faded to nothing.

‘What in the nine hells …’

Charlie spoke softly, his fingers white from holding onto the windowsill so tightly. Though they had been plunged back into darkness, he could still see the pillar of light burnt into his eyelids when he blinked, like a distant glow on the horizon. The lights of the Elysian Castle twinkled as before. The children’s crying had faded, but for the occasional whimper.

‘Is everyone all right?’

‘We’re all safe,’ came June’s voice, as she struck a match and re-lit the candle.

’Granny, what was that?’ Ruby asked, her voice trembling.

‘I think it was a witch,’ Leo said, sounding confident. ‘It was hungry and mad.’

‘Don’t say such things.’ At Leo’s words, June’s eyes had darted to the portrait of the Great Protector, still swaying slightly on the wall. ‘You will bring the covens down on us.’

‘Does the witch eat people?’ It sounded as though Dima was torn between feeling afraid and excited. ‘Will it eat us?’

‘The Great Protector keeps the Wall standing strong for us,’ June said, her voice firm, her hand at her heart. ‘While he sits on the High Throne in Elysia, we are safe.’

‘It can’t eat us if it can’t find us,’ Leo said to Dima. ‘Let’s build a fort to hide in!’

‘It’s … rather late for that, boys,’ June said. ‘I think we had all better –’

’Charlie, will the witch really eat us?’ Ruby asked, coming to stand beside him again.

Charlie grinned, and placed his hands on his hips. ‘Are you serious? Any witches that come looking for trouble around here had better watch out if they run into me. Trust me, I can handle anything the covens throw our way.’

Ruby nibbled at her lower lip. ‘But what if –’

Charlie stifled an exaggerated yawn. ‘I don’t know about you, Rubes, but I’m feeling tired. It must be almost time for bed.’ Carefully, he unhooked Ruby’s fingers from his jeans and, taking her hand in his, gave it a squeeze. ‘Come and sit by the window with me,’ Charlie said, ‘and I’ll tell you a story. Leo, Dima, you two come over here as well.’

With a cheer, the boys raced over at once. Charlie caught the flash of a smile on Granny June’s lined face as she turned to give him an appreciative nod. As the moon broke free of a patch of cloud, a silvery beam rippled through the window and lent enough light to reveal the smiling faces of the three children sitting by his feet. Charlie felt a surge of happiness course through him. The pain in his head was fading at last.

‘Once, in a place far, far away from here,’ he began, having cleared his throat, ‘there lived three small children, and their names were Ruby, Leo and Dima.’

A wave of excitement spread through his audience, along with a dramatic whisper of, ’That’s my name!’

‘Now, these three children lived a happy life,’ Charlie said. ‘They went to school, then they came home and played together. They always had enough food to eat. They had their Granny June to look after them. Life was good.’

‘But wait!’ Leo interrupted, his eyes wide. ‘What happened to Charlie in the story?’

’How do you know about Charlie?’ Charlie asked, feigning surprise. ‘Wait … I haven’t told you this story before, have I?’ As the children giggled, he settled back against the window and continued with his tale. ‘But life wasn’t always so good for these three children. There used to be a lot of scary monsters lurking around.’

‘Like the witch covens,’ said Leo at once.

‘And the gangs,’ added Dima, sounding nervous.

‘And the bad men,’ Ruby finished, nodding with a solemn expression.

‘Luckily for these three kids, though,’ Charlie went on, as the children squealed happily on the floor, ‘there was a brave knight who lived nearby called Charlie, and he saw how frightened they were by the monsters, and it made him sad.’

’Charlie is my favourite,’ Ruby said to the boys, a gap-toothed smile on her face.

‘He knew he wanted to help the three children somehow,’ Charlie said, smiling too. ‘So, one day, he went out with his sword, and he fought for them. He fought off all the witch covens and the gangs and the bad men. Then they were gone, forever, and the three kids were happy.’

‘What happened to Charlie?’ Dima asked quickly. ‘You never tell us.’

‘He was happy too,’ Charlie told him, ‘because he knew he had saved the children.’

‘What happens at the end?’ Ruby asked. ‘You never tell us that part either.’

‘Yeah, you never tell us!’ Leo insisted. ‘You never tell us how he kills everyone!’

Charlie shrugged. ‘You can make up the ending yourselves, I guess.’ He paused, his hands making fists on top of his knees. ‘One day, I –’ He swallowed, his mind returning to the darkness of the never-ending tunnels, and the ruthless, searing heat of the Pit. ‘I promise, I’ll come home from work on time, every day … and I’ll tell you a story, every single night.’

‘Wow,’ Dima breathed.

Leo was watching him with a serious expression. ’Every night?’

‘You promise, Charlie?’ Ruby’s eyes were wide.

‘I promise,’ Charlie said, drawing a diagonal line across his heart with his index and middle fingers. ‘Someday, everything will be different. I’ll make it all better. I promise I will.’

The creak of a rotten floorboard overhead broke the silence, and Charlie felt a frisson of anxiety spiral through his body. His eyes darted to the top of the staircase, the children’s gaze following his. Their faces had fallen at the sight of his expression.

Through the open shaft, Charlie could just make out a group of dark figures moving along the hallway passage above them. Then there came the unmistakable sound of heavy boots slowly descending the stairs, the creaking of wood underfoot shrieking through the silence. His stomach was churning.

A pleasant, dangerous voice drifted out of the shadows. ‘What a beautiful thought. I hope you don’t mind the boys and I interrupting your little bedtime story, Charlie.’

Charlie’s blood went cold. He recognised the shapes of three men looming out of the darkness by the foot of the stairs, all of them dressed in smart black suits. Marko and Mikhail followed in the footsteps of their master, Faulkner, who had led the way down into the basement.

Charlie leapt to his feet, pulling Ruby, Leo and Dima behind him. In the same instant, he realised that they had not come alone. Two other figures followed in the wake of the three members of the Pen gang. Although Charlie could not see their faces, the way they carried themselves told him that they were no ordinary street thugs. The urge to scratch the itch under the metal collar at his throat was growing again.

‘From what I know about you, I would have thought you’d know better than to believe in fairy tales, Charlie. Praying for a miracle only makes accepting reality that much harder.’

Faulkner strode out of the shadows first, the thump of his boots making the floorboards groan. It felt surreal – obscene – for him to be there, in this sanctuary that Charlie had carved out for himself and his little family. Faulkner towered over everyone else in the room, a jeering smile stretched across his face.

Charlie was keenly aware that he was defenceless. He had left his knife upstairs by the door, hidden inside one of his sneakers. His eyes darted to the kitchen. June had forbidden him from keeping weapons in the house when she took him in, and he would never be able to reach the dull knives by the sink without abandoning the children. Not that they would be of much use, even if he could get to them.

The amused glint in Faulkner’s eyes gave Charlie the uneasy feeling that his thoughts were obvious on his face.

At Charlie’s stony silence, Faulkner went on. ‘Boys, let’s have some light in here.’

On his command, Marko and Mikhail each switched on a high-powered torch, shining their lights directly into the eyes of Charlie and the children. Shielding his eyes from the sudden glare, Charlie scanned the other faces in the room. They belonged to two young men he had never seen before.

The two strangers were both dressed in black too, but their clothing was of a much finer material than Charlie was used to seeing in Penumbra. Unlike the gang, they wore dark red cloaks over their uniforms. He did not fail to notice that they were both armed with rifles. Slowly, he reached out behind him, ensuring that the children were all still there. Dread was stealing over him. He did not understand why Faulkner would have brought soldiers with him.

‘I couldn’t let you simply walk away, Charlie,’ Faulkner said, adjusting the heavy gold rings on his fingers. ‘It’s time for us to have a proper heart-to-heart talk. It’s been far too long.’