It was just as weird as the time he had escaped the Coven with Septimus, Jenna and Nicko, hands burning from the touch of Sleuth, the Tracker Ball. The windows were covered in shreds of black cloth and a thick coat of grease, which kept the light out. The filthy room was illuminated only by a dull reddish glow, which came from an old stove. Reflected in the glow were dozens of pairs of glittering cats' eyes ranged like malicious fairy lights around the kitchen, all staring at Wolf Boy.
The contents of the kitchen seemed to consist of shapeless piles of rotting garbage and broken chairs. The main feature was in the middle of the room, where a ladder led up to a large ragged hole in the ceiling. The place smelled horrible - of stale cooking fat, cat poo and what Wolf Boy recognized with a pang as rotting wolverine flesh. Wolf Boy knew he was being Watched - and not only by the cats. His keen eyes scanned the kitchen until he saw, lurking by the cellar door, two more witches staring at him. Dorinda was gazing at Wolf Boy with some interest - she liked the way his narrowed brown eyes were surveying the room. She smiled a lopsided, toothy smile. "You must excuse me," she simpered, readjusting her towel. "I've just washed my hair."
The two witches in the shadows cackled unpleasantly. Dorinda ignored them. "Are you sure you want to feed the Grim?" she whispered to Wolf Boy.
"Yes," said Wolf Boy.
Dorinda regarded Wolf Boy with lingering look. "Shame," she said. "You look cute. All right then, here goes." Dorinda took a deep breath and shrieked, "GrimFeeder! The GrimFeeder has come!"
The thudding sound of feet running along the bare boards of the floor above echoed into the kitchen, and the next moment the ladder was bouncing under the not inconsiderable weight of the last two members of the Coven - Pamela, the Witch Mother herself, and Linda, her protegee. Like two huge crows, Pamela and Linda descended laboriously into the kitchen, their black silk robes fluttering and rustling. Wolf Boy took a step back and trod on Dorinda's toe. Dorinda yelped and poked Wolf Boy in the back with a bony finger. The two witches in the shadows - Veronica and Daphne - sidled over to the foot of the ladder and helped the Witch Mother down as she clumped onto the floor with some difficulty.
The Witch Mother was big - or she appeared to be. Her circumference was what the Witch Mother called "generous" and her stiff layers of black silk robes added yet more width, but she was actually not much taller than Wolf Boy. A good foot of her height was due to the very high platform shoes she wore. These shoes were made to the Witch Mother's own design and they looked deadly. Coming out of the soles was a forest of long metal spikes, which she used to spear the giant woodworms that infested the House of the Port Witch Coven. Her shoes were extremely successful, as the number of speared giant woodworms languishing on the spikes showed, and the Witch Mother spent many happy hours tramping up and down the passageways searching for her next woodworm victim. But it was not just the shoes that made the Witch Mother look weird - so weird that Wolf Boy could not help but stare.
The Witch Mother did not realize it, but she was allergic to giant woodworms, and she covered her face in thick white makeup to hide the red blotches. The bumpy makeup had cavernous cracks along the frown lines and around the corners of her mouth, and from deep within the whiteness of the makeup her tiny ice-blue eyes stared at Wolf Boy.
"What is this?" she asked scathingly, as though she had found some cat poo impaled on one of her shoe spikes.
"He came in by the Darke Toad, Witch Mother, and he's come to - " began Dorinda excitedly.
"He?" interrupted the Witch Mother, who in the gloom had taken Wolf Boy's dreadlocks to be the long hair of a girl. "A boy? Don't be ridiculous, Dorinda."
Dorinda sounded flustered. "He is a boy, Witch Mother." She turned to Wolf Boy.
"You are, aren't you?"
"Yes," Wolf Boy replied, keeping his voice as gruff as he could. Then he cleared his throat and addressed the Witch Mother with the words he was allowed to speak. "I have come to feed the Grim," he said. "What will you give me?"
The Witch Mother stared at Wolf Boy as she digested this information. Wolf Boy clenched and unclenched his hands. His scarred palms could no longer sweat, but a cold sweat trickled down his back.
The Witch Mother began to laugh. It was not a good sound. "Then you must feed the Grim!" she cackled. Turning to her Coven she laughed and said, "And I think we all know what we shall give him to feed it."
The witches laughed, echoing the Witch Mother.
"Serves her right," Wolf Boy heard Dorinda whisper to another witch.
"Yeah. Filthy little scumbucket. Did you hear what she called me last night?"
"Quiet!" ordered the Witch Mother. "Linda, go and get the Grim's little...snack."
There was more laughter, and Linda, who also sported a dead white face in imitation of the Witch Mother, glided across the kitchen. She drew back a greasy blanket, pushed open the door to the cellar and disappeared.
She returned dragging Lucy Gringe by her braids.
Chapter 9 The Grim
L ucy Gringe, soaking wet and filthy, came in kicking and screaming.
"Get off me, you weird cow!" she yelled, and swung a kick that landed hard on Linda's shins. The rest of the Coven - including the Witch Mother - gasped. Not one of them would have dared do that to Linda.
Linda stopped dead, and the Coven fell deathly quiet. Suddenly Linda yanked Lucy's head back with a vicious tug and twisted Lucy's braids up into a tight knot so that they pulled hard against her scalp. Lucy yelped, though Wolf Boy could see she tried not to. Linda narrowed her eyes, and twin blue needles of light shot through the gloom and played on Lucy's pale face.
"I'd do you for that if you weren't heading for the you-know-what - you dirty little ratbutt," the witch snarled. She gave another tug on Lucy's hair. Lucy twisted around and, to Wolf Boy's admiration, she tried to land a punch. This time Linda deftly sidestepped her.
Wolf Boy was shocked. It was Lucy Gringe - Simon's girlfriend. No wonder Simon hadn't been able to find her. He relaxed a little. Simon's girlfriend or not, at least he now had an ally, another human. There was something about the Coven that was not human. He could feel it: a cold disconnection, an allegiance to something else. He guessed that this was how people felt when surrounded by the wolverines in the Forest - totally alone. But now he wasn't alone...another human being was in the room. Linda dragged Lucy across the kitchen, kicking her way through the piles of trash. She stopped beside Wolf Boy and then, as though handing over the reins, she gave him Lucy's braids to hold. Wolf Boy took them reluctantly and flashed Lucy an apologetic glance. Lucy took in the glance, then glared at the surrounding witches and tossed her head angrily. She reminded Wolf Boy of an unpredictable pony. What bothered Wolf Boy was why the witch had given him Lucy's braids to hold - what were they planning? As if in answer, the Witch Mother teetered up to him on her spiked shoes and stood so close that he could smell her cat breath and see the red blotches deep inside the cracks in her makeup.
She pointed a grubby finger with a loose black fingernail at Lucy. "Feed that to the Grim," she spat at Wolf Boy. Then she spun around on her heel spikes and teetered back to the ladder.
Wolf Boy was horrified. "No!" he yelled, his voice shooting up an octave. The Witch Mother stopped and turned to face him. "What did you say?" she asked icily. The other witches shifted uncomfortably. When the Witch Mother spoke like that, there was going to be trouble. Wolf Boy stood his ground. He remembered what Aunt Zelda's letter said: You may refuse anything human.
"No," he repeated firmly.
"Witch Mother, let me feed the filthy little fleabrain to the Grim," said Linda. The Witch Mother looked proudly at Linda. She had chosen a worthy successor. "Do it," she said.
Linda smiled in her special ghastly way that the Witch Mother loved so much. Wolf Boy saw Lucy go tense, like a wolverine waiting to pounce. He could see she was scanning the exits from the kitchen, but he had already done that, and he knew there were none - except down to the cellar. Two witches had positioned themselves at the kitchen door and Dorinda was lurking at the foot of the ladder. There was no way out. In front of Wolf Boy and Lucy was a pile of stinking garbage, which Linda now began to demolish. Wolf Boy gently tugged Lucy's braids and they both stepped back from flying lumps of slimy turnip and decayed rabbit. Soon the kitchen was strewn with showers of trash, and Dorinda had a rotten chicken's head peering out from the folds of her towel turban. All that was left of the pile was a compacted black crust of ancient vegetable peelings and bones.