LITMIR.BIZ

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safe to tell,’ it said flatly. ‘Crunch my bones, witch. That better than Zeer telling.’

      ‘Well now,’ Cherry declared, intensely curious, ‘what could possibly be worse than getting your brains bashed in? I’m just gonna have to find out the hard way.’

      ‘Zeer not tell!’

      ‘Keep calm, buster,’ she said. ‘This won’t hurt a bit. I’m just gonna step inside your head and have a look around – I’ll even wipe my feet, psychically speaking of course.’

      With her free hand, she removed the oversized sunglasses, revealing startlingly pale blue eyes. The squalbiter gibbered and wriggled frantically, trying to hide its face, but it was no use. The urgent movements faltered under the power of Cherry’s gaze. Its four round, fishlike eyes were now the palest blue.

      ‘I am Zeer,’ Cherry murmured in a remote voice and the thin lips of the squalbiter moved in unison with her words. ‘I swim the dark deep. Hate . . . hate fills the waters. Such anger has never been. Hate for this place. For the insult long ago. There are voices in the fathomless trenches. Vengeance. The old grievance. It rankles more than ever. There can be no peace. Secrets. Whitby must pay and the way has been found. The Nimius curse will be roused. Long-dead enemies will awaken. Their quarrel will burn fiercer than before. Melchior Pyke and Scaur Annie will rise again to fight. Two hosts have been chosen. All shall suffer, before the final end . . .’

      Cherry let out a strangled gasp and staggered against a headstone as a power greater than she had ever encountered severed the link. The bag dropped from her hand and the squalbiter squirmed free.

      ‘Now you see!’ it spat, its yellow eyes glaring at her. ‘Now you see!’

      ‘It can’t be!’ she cried, aghast. ‘The promise.’ She clutched at the largest of her many bracelets. It was a thick bronze ring, set with three ammonites. ‘The Lords of the Deep and Dark,’ she whispered fearfully. ‘They are forbidden. Whitby is protected.’

      Zeer flicked out its tongue, taunting her. ‘The ban has grown weak,’ it said. ‘The storm that comes carries much power. Their power . . . the Lords of the Deep and Dark have decreed it.’

      ‘But the Nimius has never been found. Even I thought it was just a myth!’

      The creature shrieked with mocking laughter. ‘This very night the Nimius will emerge from its long hiding and bring about the final end.’

      ‘What . . . what will happen?’

      Zeer crawled towards her.

      ‘Cliff shall strive against cliff,’ it said. ‘Annie and Melchior will do battle and this time everyone shall die. The river will flow thick with blood.’

      ‘And then?’

      The squalbiter licked its teeth. ‘The cliffs will crumble and fall into the waves. The sea shall devour. Whitby will be no more.’

      ‘There must be a chance,’ Cherry said in horror. ‘Some way to avert it – to appease Them?’

      Zeer tilted its head to gaze up at the glowering sky. The first splashes of rain had started to fall.

      ‘Too late,’ it said, grinning horribly. ‘The power is upon us. Your time is over. You will be the last witch of Whitby. There will be no Whitby.’

      The wind grew stronger and Zeer crowed with glee. With a last triumphant glance at Cherry Cerise, the creature darted through the long grass and leaped off the cliff edge. Frilled webs of skin fanned out beneath its long, skinny arms and it rode the fierce gale, sailing over the church tower and out of sight.

      Clutching the headstones for support, Cherry stumbled away. She was shaken and mortally afraid. Against the Lords of the Deep and Dark there was nothing she nor anyone else could do. But she had to try. To defend this small seaside town from supernatural attack had been the solemn duty of every Whitby witch for thousands of years.

      ‘Is that mouse poo?’

      Verne didn’t get an answer so he turned from the suspect deposits on the window sill to the kitchen table. Lil was carefully placing a batch of home-made polymer clay badges on a baking tray.

      ‘Ten green witchy faces, with pointy hats,’ she declared proudly as she slid them into the oven and clicked the timer round. ‘At four quid each in the shop, that’s forty quid and I get to keep thirty of it – not bad. If I can make another hundred before the next big Goth Weekend, I’ll be minted.’

      ‘Mouse poo?’ Verne repeated.

      Lil shrugged.

      ‘They always come in from the cliff in bad weather,’ she told him. ‘We can’t leave anything out, like bread or biscuits or even bags of pasta. Mum swears she saw one with pale blue eyes and insists it was a paranormal visitation so she won’t use traps, and Sally can’t chase them any more, so we’re stuck with them.’

      Verne wrinkled his nose at the droppings; they didn’t look remotely supernatural to him. Crouching down, he stroked the old West Highland terrier in her basket. Sally rolled over to let him tickle her tum.

      The boy cast his eyes round the Wilsons’ eccentric orange and black kitchen. It was a weird combination of Macbeth and IKEA, just what you’d expect from a couple of modern-day witches. He loved coming here. It was the complete opposite of his own home above the amusement arcade where his dust-phobic mother vacuumed the carpets and curtains daily and nothing was ever out of place.

      Lil’s parents were well known locally, being the owners of an occult shop in Church Street called Whitby Gothic, selling all manner of peculiar and supposedly magical things. They loved dressing the part too, mainly in black with a strong Victorian twist, which they had also foisted on Lil from the day she was born.

      Whitby was the perfect place for such a shop. This small seaside town was famous for being the spot where Dracula had landed, bounding off a wrecked ship in the form of a large black dog. But it boasted many other legends and eerie tales of ghosts and monsters. They, combined with the haunting beauty of the ruined abbey and weathered graveyard, high on the East Cliff, attracted seekers of the supernatural and romantic dreamers like a magnet. It was no wonder Lil’s parents had grown up to be witches.

      ‘Can’t your mum and dad cast a spell to keep the mice away?’ Verne asked. ‘Or maybe just the non-paranormal ones? That should be peasy magic.’

      The girl scowled at him.

      ‘No such thing,’ she said for the umpteenth time. ‘There’s no real witches in Whitby – or anywhere else. Just annoying people like my mum and dad who like to dress up and dance round fires making twits of themselves. Tragic, yes; magic, no.’

      Verne wasn’t so sceptical, but before he could reply, his stomach growled loudly.

      ‘Borborygmus!’ Lil declared.

      ‘What? Is that a magic word, like abracadabra?’

      Lil laughed. ‘It means belly rumbles,’ she explained. ‘It’s the latest find for my old word collection. I’ve been dying to use it. Great, isn’t it?’

      ‘Where’s that cake you promised?’

      ‘Sorry, I was so busy getting my badges ready, I forgot. We’ve still got plenty left over from my birthday yesterday. My mum might be a bit of a loon, but she’s a killer baker.’

      Verne agreed. The cake was a moist chocolate sponge, filled with purple butter cream and green jam, topped with a cobweb of yellow icing and twelve black spiders. Mrs Wilson called it Scrumptious Wickedness, and it

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