Free Syren by Angie Sage

As Dorinda drew back the curtain, clouds of dust made Wolf Boy cough. The dust tasted foul, of things long dead. Dorinda pushed open the door, which someone had taken a huge chunk out of with an ax, and he followed her into the kitchen.
    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 alarge 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 weightof the last two members of the Coven—Pamela, the Witch Mother herself, and Linda, her protégée. 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 woodwormvictim. 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