“Yes. Guards please bring her upstairs for us,” I said, turning to head for the interrogation room above.
“Yes, Sir, right away, Sir!” the guards said in unison.
The men opened the cell and grabbed the woman by her arms. She immediately started screaming, looking from man to man like they were devils. The men didn’t look or speak to her, and when she ceased to move her feet on her own, they drug her the rest of the way to the upper rooms. They threw her in and shut the door, barring her exit, although once inside she quieted down immediately. Once the door was opened for us to enter, we saw her wandering around the room, once again speaking to herself and looking around wildly.
“How are we going to do this?” Matthew asked with the log book under his arm, and the quill and ink pot in his hand.
“Mary?” I said to the woman gently. She didn’t respond but continued her conversation to herself. “Matthew, please note in the book that Mary has conversations with the Devil as if he were present before her.”
“Noted,” he said, dipping his quill and scrawling across the page in his careful handwriting. “That poor woman. May God rest her soul when she leaves this earth.”
I cautiously approached the woman from behind and placed my hands upon her bony shoulders. “Mary!” I screamed. The woman screamed at the top of her lungs and collapsed upon the floor. “She’s too far gone. This will be the easiest one yet,” I declared.
“What do you mean?” Matthew asked.
“Watch,” I turned to the woman and squatted down to her level. “Mary, there is a witch in this room!” I said to her, feigning fright. “Oh my! The witch is you!” I fell back on my behind and pretended to be afraid of her.
In her delirious state, Mary crawled towards me menacingly, embracing the fear she believed I had for her. She snarled, pulling her lips back from her teeth. She made her hands like claws and reached for me.
“Oh, no! The witch is after me!” It was childish. I felt like I was playing a game I would play with a group of children, but this was the way to get through to her broken mind. Matthew was writing furiously in the book, documenting everything.
I looked at the woman before me and asked the pivotal question, “Are you a witch Mary?”
“Yes, I am a witch and I’ll eat your soul!” she yelled, lunging for me again.
“Guards!” I yelled to the waiting men. “Please take this witch back to the holding cell. We have her confession.”
“No wait, please!” she yelled. “I am not a witch.”
“Yes, you are,” I said to her as they took her arms behind her back. She stopped struggling and looked at me dreamily.
“I am?” she asked innocently.
“Absolutely. But don’t worry, we’re going to cure you,” I smiled at her sweetly. One of the guards could not suppress a chuckle. Matthew put his quill down and looked at me with sorrow and dismay.
“Must you toy with her?”
Mary smiled up at me like I was God himself, ready to pardon her soul. “Oh, thank you so much Sir, you are truly a gracious man. Thank you for fixin’ me.”
The men drug her away still singing my praises. “Well, that is going to confuse the other women, isn’t it?’
“Yes, I’m sure it will.” Matthew laid the quill between the pages of the book and looked off solemnly, lost to his own thoughts.
I shrugged my shoulders with a grin,” I didn’t even get to torture her. She was more than happy to believe whatever it was I gave utterance to. How amusing.”
“If you say so. I think it was incredibly regretful. How can we take her confession before God, knowing she doesn’t have an inkling to what she has confessed to? Seems rather blasphemous to me.”
“It is a punishment from God himself that her mind was stripped. It shows how guilty she is, that he would castigate her in such a way.”
Matthew stood and stretched, “I’m going to head back to the Thorn and check on Taryn.” He pushed the chair in and the legs dragging across the wooden floor made a grating sound. “I will be back after a while to finish.”
I walked to the door and pulled it open allowing him to pass first. “Must you abandon me yet again?” I pouted. “I know we are at odds, but perhaps some time spent together would help remedy the situation.”
“I don’t believe so, John.”
He tipped his hat to me, turned, and headed back down the stairs; one hand braced on the wall to prevent himself from falling on the overly steep flight. I listened to his heavy footfalls until the sound was no longer audible, my mind churning. I had a pain in my gut I had never felt before and a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead.
I blew out the candle and followed my friend out of the tower. The stable boy was outside with my horse in hand. “Put her back boy. I won’t be departing anon.” Sensing my turmoil, the horse reared up and the stable boy held on tightly to her halter. She was a finicky girl and that was why I adored her. A wild beast that refused to be broken.
“Steady, Delphine,” The stable boy said, grabbing her reins by her face. He was eye to eye with her now, and upon beholding him, she calmed down immediately.
“You really have a way with her, don’t you?” I asked.
“Most of us stablehands do, Sir,” he said, releasing the leather straps. “We understand them, and they understand us.” He petted her nose and she nuzzled him affectionately.
“I’ll never understand a man’s love for big, farcical animals,” I said. The boy’s brow lowered but he didn’t utter a word in response. I turned and headed back inside to have some fun with the women.
The man guarding the cell looked at me perplexed when I entered. “Sir? I was told you were leaving for the day?” he asked nervously.
“Well, you heard wrong. I’m here and there is work to be done.”
“But Mr. Hopkins said that you would be interrogating the women together from now on, and he has gone back to town.”
“He changed his mind. He had things he needed to take care of. Are you denying me access?”
“No, Sir.”
“Well then, bring the next woman up. I’ll get started without him. Did he leave the log book when he left?” I asked the head guard. I couldn’t document guilt without the book.
“Yes, Sir, he gave it to me for safe keeping,” he said.
“Excellent. Let’s get this started.”
I went through all of the remaining women without Matthew. Three of them were so frightened of what I might do to them that they instantly confessed when asked of their guilt. The other two took a bit more convincing. The first woman did not wish to submit to me. I had the guards hold her arms out while naked, much as I had them do with little Anne. But instead of my dagger, I used my whip. I gave her fifty lashes and ripped her flesh to shreds before she screamed her sins aloft and begged God for mercy.
The second woman was a rare beauty with long jet-black hair, pale green eyes, perfect, unblemished skin, and the most delectable pink mouth. I saw the guards looking at her body when I forced her to undress. I thought it only fitting that they get a reward for all their hard work here. So, I left the room and bade the men to do whatever they pleased to her, in any hole, as roughly as they liked. I waited in the hallway listening to her screams as they molested her until they all fell silent.
Entering the room anew, I saw a different woman upon the floor than I had left moments before. Her beautiful hair was in disarray. Her eyes were swollen, evidence that they had to give her a bit of incentive to submit. Bite marks covered her fair skin on her arms, thighs, and arse. Best of all, their seed was smeared across her face and genitals in a slimy coat.
“I trust you all feel better now?” I asked the men.
“Yes, Sir, quite refreshed,” one guard said with a smile. “If you require our assistance again, we are at your service.”
I laughed, “And you?” I asked the woman. “Would you like to confess your sins to me, or should I leave you chained by the ankle in the guards barracks for th
e evening? You got a taste of three today, how would you like to try all twenty? Hell, I’ll even let the stable boy take a go at it. Maybe the horses too.”
A full confession followed, much to the guards dismay. All that was left, was to acquire Anne’s confession. For her I decided to break out an old favorite, the thumbscrews. The girl had never seen them before so they became incredibly effective. All it took was a few twists of the screw, so the bar was tight across her finger tips, and realization dawned on her what was about to occur. A few screws more and she was screaming in agony. A few screws past that and the bones in her fingers shattered. She screamed for God to deliver her from the pain, to which I informed her, God doesn’t defend the wicked. I promised her all the pain would end if she confessed. Much to my amazement, confess she did. I took the contraption off her destroyed hand and she fell unconscious from the pain. The guards then drug her back downstairs and tossed her into the cell like the trash she was.
Just like that, all eight women had confessed and now waited for their day in court. Where in the world was Matthew? He said he would return, but he had failed to do so. Anger rolled through my body as I thought of why he had not kept his word to me. That witch had taken him from me for the very last time. It was time to teach her a lesson.
I rode my mount hard through the cold night air back to the inn where I stayed with Matthew. My dismount was neither graceful nor gentle and the mare screamed in pain as my heels dug into her side when I all but fell off her. Luckily, Henry was ready and waiting to grab her reins and prevented her from bolting with me still stuck in the stirrup.
I pushed the doors of the tavern open with a deafening thud, drawing the attention of the room onto with my racket. A collective gasp went through the men. Harold dropped his rag and his mouth dropped open.
Every inch of my body was covered in the ruddy splatter of witches’ blood from my fun with the whip. The very smell of it rolled off my body in waves.
I didn’t care how I looked. My only thought was of ripping the witch away from Matthew. He belonged to me, not to her. She was going to learn her place. There is no reason she should not be locked in the dungeon with the rest of the dregs we had collected. There was nothing special about her that made her exempt from her crimes against God and humanity. I was not going to let her sink her tendrils any deeper into Matthew than she already had.
I reached their door and braced myself to rip it off the hinges to force my way inside.
A bright white orb of light shot through the floor and hovered between me and the door, stopping me in my tracks. “What the Devil is this? A witch’s trap to prevent my entry? You’ll have to do better than that succubus!”
The orb took flight once more and slammed into my chest, knocking me to the floor. The pain that over took me was greater than any pain I had ever endured. I can only explain it as a hundred knives all piercing my skin at once. I rolled trying to escape, but another wave of light attacked me, sending me tumbling down the wooden stairs.
“Get thee behind me, Satan.” I forced the words out of my mouth, through my pained chest.
Everyone was staring at me. No one moved to help me, no one spoke a word.
The ball of light that had attacked me, floated gracefully down the stairs, right through the door and disappeared into the night sky. Another star among the millions, like it was never here to begin with.
My face felt hot, my rage was a burning inferno that was going to consume me. Taryn had waged her war against me and I would not go down easily.
“Evidence of a true witch, men!” I announced to the dumbfounded men. “You all witnessed her attack me with magic. You all saw the evil she commands without even being present. Is this something you will allow? Will you all suffer the witch to live? She will destroy you all, one by one, as soon as she has eliminated the Witch Hunter General. Once he is thoroughly destroyed, nothing will stop her. Will you help me save him, and save your beloved town?”
Cheering erupted from the crowd. The men stood, pulling out their daggers and gathered together around me.
“We will stop her,” a man said.
“She will burn for her sins,” another declared.
“Come on men, let’s get the witch and stop this tonight.”
The men climbed the staircase encasing me between their bodies. The wooden door was no match for their combined strength. Once the door was splintered, the men plucked Taryn out of the bed she had been sharing with Matthew.
Her screams were muffled by the thick cord that was tied over her mouth, around her head. It took no less than six men to get control of Matthew’s bucking body as he tried to get to her.
I stood over him, glaring down at the only person who ever made me feel anything other than contempt or hate and smiled. I knelt down to his level. “You’ll thank me for this once the witch is dead and her powers no longer control you. She tried to keep me away with magic, but my love for you is stronger than her evil. You forgot your duty, as a witch hunter and as my friend. All to get your cock wet with that hellion,” I pointed at the wisp of a woman who was controlled by the hands of two men. She looked frightened and would not take her eyes from Matthew.
The men laughed at her fright. “Feigned fear,” one of the men declared. “Don’t look into her eyes, boys. She will bewitch you yet. Don’t fall for her ruse.”
Matthew ceased his struggle and slumped against the men, he looked as if his will had been broken, and my heart ached to hold him and comfort him. But he would never have me. Because of her. This was all her fault.
I grabbed the witch by her arm and jerked her away from the other men. “Your days of beguiling are over, witch. Don’t you see how you have hurt him? Look at him!” I demanded. I physically turned her face to Matthew’s prostrate form and she screamed past her gag. “Shut up, bitch. You don’t fool me; I know why you chose this place.”
A stool swung through the air and missed me by only a few inches. “Let her go, you bastard!” it was the serving girl, Elizabeth.
“Hello there girl, have you come to seduce me with your cunt once more?”
The stool was ripped out of her fingers and thrown into the hallway. A wall of muscle blocked her attempts to attack me.
“Great work men, we managed to capture two witches instead of one. This one was working with Taryn to seduce us. She came to my room late at night and bared her body to me. She begged me to fuck her, and when I did, she demanded that I write my name in her book. She said if I did, I would have all I desired, but if I did not, she would see Matthew and I burn in Hell. I tossed her out, but I felt myself compelled to not speak of it until this very moment when the witches were captured and her hex was broken.”
Elizabeth was forced to her knees by the mob and they wrapped more of the rope they had used on Taryn around her pretty mouth. The tears that I had enjoyed so much were once more running down her cheeks as she pulled against the men to her dismay.
Sadness tore at my chest looking at the motionless body of the once proud man on the floor. This was the best thing I could do for him. He would feel so much better when it was done. I had no doubt that he would be so grateful for my saving his life that he would commit himself to me and to me alone.
“Take the woman away. There is no need for a trial. You all saw what those two are capable of. It’s better to get rid of them quickly to prevent the spread of their evil.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sarah
My body was burning from the inside out. I could feel the searing over every inch of my flesh. There was so much pain.
When the girl’s power slammed into me, I used every ounce of strength I had left to teleport my smoldering body to my own home. What had that brat done to me? How had she managed to pull it off? I was the most powerful witch left on Earth. She should not have been able to damage me.
In a fury, I destroyed my house. I ran my arms across shelves full of jars filled with ancient magical potions and shattered them on the floor, screami
ng as loud as my lungs would allow, but the pain was endless. Wave after wave hit me, incapacitating me for moments at a time, and during each reprieve, I demolished whatever I could get my hands on.
Revenge would be sweet. If she thought what I did to her friend was bad, let’s see how she liked being sent to a concentration camp, or better yet, England during the height of the plague. That made me smile. Yes, I would send that sniveling bitch somewhere she could hurt as badly as I was hurting now. She deserved to suffer endlessly for this.
Flashbacks from my childhood tormented my mind. I remembered how I had suffered at John Stearne's hands while my mother was in custody. The things he had done to me were filthy. I was only a girl, still a long way off from womanhood. That hadn’t stopped him from ripping my innocence from me right before my mother’s eyes. I could still feel his hands violating me. Reliving the emotional pain nearly made me forget some of the physical pain I was suffering from now.
I had almost duped that girl into being a willing sacrifice. I almost had my revenge on John and Matthew. Retribution had been so close I could taste it on my tongue. But the Goddess favored her asinine spells over mine. My ancient chants given to me by the Mother herself, were ignored.
“Why, Goddess. Why can I not take the payment owed to me for the past? I beg you to hear my cries to you.”
A voice as soft as a summer breeze, as gentle as a doe, answers within my mind. “Her love is stronger than your hate.”
The pain in my body began to subside. I was being healed by the Goddess. She cleansed me and took away the burn emanating from within. “Thank you, Goddess.”
“I love you, child, but your hate is consuming you like a great fire. That is why the burning came to you. It is a reflection of your soul. Today you tried to use the life of one of my children to take the life of another. It is time for this all to end.”
My body felt different, it was empty, devoid of the spark that once flowed through my veins.. The voice was gone and it took every trace of the magic that had made me powerful and whole. I was a mere human now.
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