There were more of the same shuffling dead, and more candle-lit windows too – behind which I sensed unseen hostile eyes watching us. Suddenly I heard an eerie screech in the distance. I shivered, filled with dread. I knew I had heard that sound before . . . Where was it? The cry came again. This time it was much louder. Whatever had made it was travelling fast and heading our way. The third time it echoed along that narrow cobbled street, I realized that it was coming from the sky. And instantly I knew what it was. It was the screech of a corpsefowl, sometimes called a nightjar; a bird that flies by night in the County. I’d used that eldritch cry myself as a secret night-time signal when I wanted to contact Agnes Sowerbutts. How could I have forgotten? Then a chill went down my spine as I remembered someone who’d had one as a familiar. Someone whom Grimalkin had killed and sent here to the dark: Morwena, the most powerful of the water witches and another child of the Fiend.
