Creeping Terror Read Free Page A

walked past them. The grounds behind the house were less well cared for, the grass long and the whole area more like moorland and pasture than garden.
    The path was really just a track worn through the grass. It wound lazily between the occasional trees and formed a long loop back to the other side of the house. As they reached the furthest point of the loop, a figure stepped out from behind a large copper beech tree.
    He was short and stocky, with thinning grey hair that straggled across his balding head. Pendleton Jones looked after the grounds of Gibbet Manor. He laid traps for the smaller demons that crept in over the walls or through the gates. He was holding a spade, and Ben saw a pair of shears and a bucket half full of prunings beside the tree.
    ‘Hello there,’ Ben called as he approached.
    He liked Jones, who was easy to talk to and down to earth. When he was with him, he didn’t feel so much of a fraud, so inadequate.
    ‘Who was that with you?’ Jones asked.
    Instinctively, Ben turned to look at Sam, but she had gone. He was alone.
    ‘How did you know?’ he asked. No one could see Sam – not even Gemma, and she saw everything .
    Jones shrugged. ‘Heard you talking. Don’t worry. I talk to myself sometimes. Well, quite often actually. No one else to talk to out here usually.’
    ‘You should come to the house. Let Mrs Bailey give you a cup of tea.’
    Jones shook his head. ‘They don’t want me bothering them. Mrs Bailey’s busy enough keeping you kids under control and running the place without making cups of tea for the likes of me. Anyway, I’ve got my Thermos.’ He looked round. ‘Somewhere. Must have left it in the shed. Never mind.’
    ‘You busy?’ Ben asked.
    ‘Always busy. Spring’s coming, so there’s lots to do. Plants and trees don’t look after themselves.’
    They talked for a while. There was a chill breeze blowing across the moor, but the bright sun warmed Ben’s face.
    ‘You found out any more about your poor sister?’ Jones asked.
    They were sitting on the grass, leaning back against the wide trunk of the copper beech.
    ‘Not really,’ Ben admitted. ‘That page, torn froman old book, which Carstairs Endeavour had …’
    ‘I remember.’
    Ben had told Jones how, after defeating Endeavour, they had found a photocopied page from an ancient book – one of the artefacts that Gabriel Diablo used to summon the demon Mortagula.
    ‘Knight said he knew that Endeavour didn’t have the actual page, only the photocopy. And I know why. He showed me.’
    ‘Showed you?’
    ‘Knight’s got the real book and he showed me the page. And on it …’ Ben shook his head, still unable to understand it. ‘On it is a drawing of Sam. It’s definitely her. I mean, it’s only a drawing, but I know my sister when I see her.’
    ‘And the picture was drawn when?’
    ‘In the seventeenth century. Hundreds of years ago. So how can it show Sam?’
    ‘More to the point,’ Jones said, ‘how did Endeavour get hold of a copy of a page when Knight keeps the book locked up here safe and sound?’
    Ben nodded. He’d wondered exactly the same thing. ‘And how many of Diablo’s artefacts does Endeavour have? If he gets them all – the two books, the Crystal that focuses his power, the Dagger and the Amulet – he’ll try again. He’ll raise Mortagula.’
    Jones picked up his spade. ‘Then you’d better stop him.’
    ‘Got to find him first. There’s been no sign of Endeavour since last year. Knight’s got everyone keeping a lookout for him. But nothing so far.’
    ‘He’ll turn up. Bad things always do.’
    Ben nodded. ‘That’s what worries me,’ he said quietly.
    Jones didn’t hear. He was shading his eyes from the sun with his hand and staring down past the house to the bottom of the drive. A car was coming slowly into the grounds. It stopped and a man got out to close and lock the gates behind him. He was tall and lean, with close-cropped hair, and he was wearing a khaki