Page 54 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘So, would you like to tell me what happened, Silas?’ Sybilla’s voice, right at his shoulder, startled him. ‘You truly did look dead, I have to say.’

Silas scratched at his chin, now almost as fully bearded as it had been before the soirée.

‘I think the Morrigan are up to something most nefarious.’

‘You needed to be in a teratism’s head to surmise that?’

‘No. But there is a dark magick at play, I’m certain. One that is devouring souls.’ He told the angel all he had seen. Every pang of misery felt.

‘An unkindness,’ Sybilla whispered.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘An unkindness…it is the name given to a flock of ravens.’

‘A name never more apt. But it was far more than unkindness being shown to those souls there.’ Talking of what the teratisms had shown him made him sick to his stomach. Those werehissouls in desperate need, and the urge to go to them pained him. ‘I’ve felt their torment for days…’ He slid his hand into his pocket, handling the bandalore as he’d come to do when he sought calm. ‘We need to discover what the Morrigan are doing there. Do you recognise the place by how I have described it?’ A long shot, but worth the question.

‘I truly hope I am wrong.’ A muscle in the angel’s jaw flexed. ‘But that hill…it is quite distinctive. I believe it may be Pendle Hill.’

A twinge of recall came at hearing the name, but too faint for anything but a sense of vague recognition. ‘Is the place significant?’

Sybilla bothered at her coat’s flared collar. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Sybilla?’

The angel narrowed her eyes, her tension palpable. ‘There may have been some incidents of witchcraft there in the past that I had to deal with.’

‘Maleficium? There were sorcerers at Pendle Hill?’

‘Therewere, yes. The very last of the witches…or so I hoped.’

The memory shifted into place with her words, Silas recalling the conversation at Harvington Hall where he’d first been told of maleficium. The Pendle Hill witches were the last known manifestation of Azazel’s divine magick, and the Valkyrie, a witch hunter, as it turned out, had dealt with them accordingly.

‘It was one of my simpler assignments. The purebreds themselves noticed a strangeness among their villagers,’ Sybilla continued. ‘And their thirst for casting out the devil made my job easier. I did not need my blade, only my tongue. I whispered in a few ears, raised the heights of their fears. Perhaps too high.’ She glanced at the ground. ‘They hung ten of their kin in the end, but only four of them were true carriers of Azazel’s maleficium.’

‘And you could not save the innocent?’ Silas pressed his lips. The question sounded every bit the accusation it was.

‘I was tasked with eliminating the sorcery in Pendle Hill. It was done.’ The Valkyrie regarded him, a dark and unshakeable presence. ‘The purebreds should have been the ones to save their innocent. I cannot be blamed if none of them gave voice to protest or reason. The net of fear is cast by the masses, and the innocent are always tangled in the rope, are they not, Silas?’

‘Indeed,’ he said simply, for he knew it well. Silas held his hands over the fire, wondering if Pitch was cold wherever he paced down his own fears. ‘Four sorcerers in Pendle Hill. Was that a large number for one place?’

Sybilla nodded slowly. ‘It was, and from different families too. I kept an eye on the place for a long while after, but there was no sign of maleficium again. No more children of Azazel.’ She paused and there was so much weight in that silence. ‘Or so I believed.’

Silas glanced up from the flames. ‘Do you think that is where the sorcerers come from? Or their forebears at least. Macha is fond of her mask but even with it I could tell she is not old. Certainly not two hundred years old. Maybe a child of one of the witches survived? And you simply did not…I mean to say…’

‘Go ahead, Silas, say what we are both thinking.’ Sybilla’s mouth was tight, her eyes darkened. ‘I overlooked one. I failed in my duty. Someone survived my last purge.’

‘I’m simply trying to understand what I saw, what the importance of the place might be…I am casting no blame, Sybilla.’ He was certainly not wishing a massacre had been more thorough.

The Valkyrie scratched at her curls, heaving a sigh. ‘I know…I know…I am simply vexed that there has been a nursery for maleficium right beneath my nose. Iblis raising damned witches with the Erlking in the UnSeelie Court. And perhaps Pendle Hill is where he found what he was looking for, I don’t know…the witches were certainly among the most powerful I’d known. Perhaps now the Morrigan have returned to their birthplace out of some mangled sense of nostalgia. Who bloody well knows. And we don’t know it is the place in your vision for certain anyway.’

Thunder stirred beyond the trees. The storm still bothered the air. Silas peered up at the sky, just visible through the trees. Hints of blue amongst the white and grey.

‘Matilda has gone to study that storm a little closer. I’m expecting her back soon,’ Sybilla said.

Silas nodded, but he still mulled over what he’d seen. ‘There were so many souls, Sybilla.’ He swallowed, his throat tight. ‘And all of them so burdened by their mortal coils. As though the Morrigan required the most destitute for what they intend. Macha has been gathering souls for a long time. And those ravens…they were something dark and terrible. Macha can manipulate corpses into mindless soldiers, and the Fulbourn taught us the Morrigan are masters of the Blight. Wherever that place is, I fear what they do there. The Lady must be told.’

Sybilla nodded. ‘I’ve left Hastings with the carriage and the other horses nearer to the road. There was no chance of bringing them in through the trees, but they’ll not be noticed with the hexes in place. I’ll go now and have her pass on what we know.’ She paused. ‘I have to tell you, it is becoming harder to know if the Lady has received my messages. I think she is much preoccupied. We are more on our own than I would like. We should ready to depart at once, now you are on your feet. Can I leave Tobias to you?’