Dark Winter: Last Rites

by Hennessy, John

  “Gorswood’s greatest witch, no less. Though I’d be right in saying you’re pretty powerless now.

  Some might say you have no more power than a spider trapped under a glass. Would I be right again, by saying you are the spider, and I am the glass?”

  Curie shrugged. “Of course, you can’t speak. Back then, I really wouldn’t have wanted you to speak. Make the wrong kind of noise, you know? Maybe you don’t know.”

  Curie removed the duct tape from around Tori-Suzanne’s mouth. He ripped it back sharp, and her face grimaced from the sting.

  “Glass can break,” she said. “Before the night’s end, it’ll shatter.”

  Ignoring her barb, Curie looked almost sad at what he had to say next.

  “I can understand that was painful for you, but as far as tonight goes, that’s the best I’m going to offer you. I brought you here tonight to tell you two things. One, that you’re going to die tonight. Two, that I’m going to find your daughter, and she is going to die too.”

  Tori-Suzanne did not doubt the sincerity of the statement.

  “Of course, I would commute it to just yourself, if only you had something to trade. So why don’t you tell me who it was that you killed twenty-three years ago?”

  Tori-Suzanne remained mute.

  “Come on, Tori, we are talking about your daughter’s life here. Doesn’t she matter to you at all?”

  Tori-Suzanne believed that Toril could handle Curie. Still, she had to admit her own chances of survival were slim. She began to regret attacking Curie as she had done, because right now, he held all the cards.

  “Okay, let’s talk.”

  “You left the Circle when you were eighteen, taking baby Toril with you. You say you left because you disagreed with the Circle’s actions. Two days before you left, you killed someone. Who was it?”

  “You seem to have all the details,” sighed Tori-Suzanne. “So you must know who it is.”

  “I want you to say the name, and I want all the details. Do not leave anything out. Your daughter’s life, remember?”

  Twenty-three long years and she had never told a soul.

  “When I was six years old, there had been a knock at the door. My parents were sleeping upstairs, and I knew better than to answer. I waited a few minutes, thinking whoever had knocked the door, had left by this time. Then I opened the door. On the floor in front of me was a object in a long, narrow package. The paper around the object was tied together with a red piece of string.”

  Curie could not help but interject. “Did you know, even back then, what the object was?”

  “No. How could I know? I was so young.”

  “But you knew of its power. That it was a tool for killing.”

  “That shows just how much you misunderstand witchcraft. I knew nothing. I ripped open the package and it was a wooden stick, thirteen inches long, eight millimetres in diameter at its tip, and wider at one end than the other.”

  Curie listened intently while Tori-Suzanne spoke. If he had any true intention on killing her daughter, she would have to speak slowly and for as long as she could.

  “What did you do then?”

  “I started waving it around, much like any child would. Boys had their toy guns and swords. Other girls had their dolls. I had my wand.”

  “I had my wand,” Curie mimicked, then fell silent, his black eyes transfixed on Tori-Suzanne.

  “Problem, Curie?”

  Curie squinted his eyes and wriggled his nose, like he could smell the scent of death in the air. Walking up to her, he smiled, leaned his head to the left, then the right, before he answered.

  “Problem? Problem?”

  Curie punched Tori-Suzanne hard on her left cheek, and she winced from the blow, but did not pass out.

  “Sorry about that,” Curie spoke quietly, but deliberately. “You’re slowing up. Give me the details, without any ad-lib. I don’t need it or require it. You clearly don’t believe time is against your daughter. But I’ll show you. Wait a tick.”

  Curie went into one of the many rooms, whilst Tori-Suzanne considered her options. In this, the house of Diabhal, her powers were suppressed. The devil’s power was strong here, and the pentagrams on the floor rendered useless anything she could do as a witch.

  Her cheek and jawbone burned from the hit. She almost regretted mocking Curie before. Whilst she was thinking about him, he returned with an object in his hand.

  “I had my wand,” Curie repeated, menace injected into his every word. “That’s right, Tori. Had.”

  Tori-Suzanne lost her composure for a second, and it was enough. Enough to tell Curie that he was winning this battle of wills. He made his hand into a fist once more, and cupped it gently with his other hand. “Like I said, sorry about that. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to tell just how hard I connect with people’s faces. Let me ask you something. What do you think my mother used to say to me?”

  Tori-Suzanne wanted to say something, but as only bile would emit from her mouth, and knowing too that Curie might just be successful in killing both herself and Toril, she decided to remain mute.

  “I won’t have you giving me the silent treatment. Now answer my question.”

  “How would I know what your mother used to tell you?”

  “Because you are a mother. You’ve had those conversations with Toril. Had. Had. Had.”

  Curie’s constant use of past tense was getting to Tori-Suzanne. Using a grimy hand, he clasped around her throat, and using his fingers, prised her right eyeball as wide as it would go. Looking into her eyes, he spoke slowly. “She used to say, ‘Don’t do bad things. Don’t hurt us. You don’t know your own strength, Donald.’ ”

  As quick as he had grabbed her throat, he let go.

  “I didn’t ask you if you knew what my mother used to say to me, Tori. I asked you what did you think she used to say. Listen when I’m damn well speaking to you.”

  The words of Curie, though many, could be cut down to just one statement.

  Two things. You’re going to die tonight. I’m going to find your daughter, and she’s going to die too.

  “Somebody wanted to induct you into their coven. They must have known something about you. What happened then? Did you have any further knocks on the door?”

  “No,” replied Tori-Suzanne. “But one day, when I was fourteen years old, I was walking down the street with my best friend, when a car pulled over. A man jumped out of the vehicle, and bundled us both into the car.”

  “Were you scared, you and your friend?” Curie smiled wickedly as he asked the question.

  “Of course we were scared.” Tori-Suzanne did all she could not to spit a retort, and answered as calmly as she could. “We were terrified.”

  This was the kind of answer Curie wanted to hear. He was enjoying himself. He enjoyed other people’s fear, other people’s terror.

  “What happened to you and your friend?”

  Tori-Suzanne struggled to continue talking, mumbling that she didn’t know what happened to her friend. She knew; she just didn’t want to give Curie the gory details.

  “The truth, witch, and all of it, otherwise this ends for you now. Let me tell you, Tori, I went to China one time. They burn sticks, did you know that, and it gives off an incense. I doubt your wand will do the same. But it’s how the Chinese used to define time. We borrow time, you see. Every day, we run down the clock.”

  “People say time flies, or time slows, but the truth is, each second passes just as it is meant to. People have mixed up conceptions of time. Here’s my take on it.”

  Tori-Suzanne knew what Curie was going to do, and she was powerless to stop it. Her wand was one of two that she knew that had been created from the wood of the cursed silver birch tree.

  She watched on helplessly as Curie took a lighter to her wand, and the tip slowly blackened, with the flame starting to work its way down, though it was unlikely it could damaged the charmed wood it was made from. Curie just liked the dramatics.

&
nbsp; “See? Time just got quicker. Except it hasn’t changed one jot, Tori. Let’s try another tack.”

  Whilst the wand continued to burn, Curie reached under the table on which it was standing. It looked like he was fumbling around for an object. Finally, a clicking sound, and an appreciative sound emitted from Curie.

  “There it is.”

  A knife, with its blade about eight inches long, glistened in Curie’s hand. It was widest at its base, curved in the middle, hooked at the tip. Curie pointed it at Tori-Suzanne’s abdomen.

  “And there it is.”

  Tori-Suzanne’s clothes offered scant resistance to the blade, and with the precision of a surgeon, Curie made the cut. Now there was nothing to stop the blade from going in. Curie pressed the tip of the blade on her stomach.

  “Yes, that’s where Toril did it. That’s where she cut her. That’s where she left her to die.”

  Curie kept the blade pressed against Tori-Suzanne.

  “You had better ask me before your wand burns out, Tori. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

  Yes, Tori-Suzanne wanted to know. So if her wand burned out eventually, there had to be a way to keep Curie from killing her, otherwise she would never set eyes on her daughter again.

  “That’s where Toril left who to die?”

  Curie closed his fingers around the burning wand, extinguishing the flame that had refused to take.

  “You ought to know. After all, you sent your own daughter there to interfere with my plan. Beth O’Neill was supposed to die in the grounds of the forest, and you stole that from me.”

  The menace in Curie’s voice could not be denied. He was angry. There was no telling what he would do when he was angry.

  “I sent Toril to support Beth; and help Romilly. That’s all.”

  “You’re lying!” Curie struck Tori-Suzanne with the back of his hand. The blade drew a trickle of blood from her stomach.

  “Toril stabbed Beth, but not to kill her. No fatal blow. But it needed to look real. She’s working for the Circle, isn’t she?”

  “I don’t know!” Tori-Suzanne had lost her composure, and fear started to consume her. Her mouth trembled as she spoke. “I don’t know.”

  “Beth’s liver had been injured, not her aorta…otherwise she would have bled to death. Your Toril either knew what she was doing, or she didn’t. Now which is it?”

  “Toril would not kill anyone.”

  “But you did. Now give me the name of the one you’re protecting. Who did you kill twenty-three years ago?”

  Tori-Suzanne that by giving Curie that information, it would change things for him, but also for her. Any advantage she held would be gone. She only hoped he did not possess the Devil-given power to probe her thoughts.

  She decided to remain silent.

  “This won’t do, Tori. Do you think you are the first woman to give me the silent treatment? Just give me the name, and we can end this. I will let you go, and I won’t hunt Toril down. I promise.

  Now why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking?”

  “I wish I had my wand one last time.”

  “Oh really? Do tell me what you’d like to do with it.”

  “I’d go back in time, to when your mother was pregnant. I’d get a hold of her, jam that wand inside of her, and abort your fucking foetus.”

  Curie raced to Tori-Suzanne, and squeezed her throat. “That’s a good idea, Tori. Go back in time, I mean. Come with me. Now.”

  The Scourging:

  Chapter 3

  Curie was a man of his word. Tori-Suzanne was no longer in the wood-cabin, but walking through a busy street. Curie was even dressed for the period in question. They passed a pub called Ye Old Fighting Cocks. She knew where they were, and it was far south of the Midlands.

  “Hertfordshire, scene of England’s very own which trials. You want to believe you’re not really here, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what trickery you’re pulling, but you can stop it right now,” said Tori-Suzanne. “You should have kept me tied up.”

  “Don’t even think of running, Tori,” mocked Curie, “otherwise you’ll miss today’s entertainment.”

  Ahead lay a great throng of people. They were dressed in mainly working class clothes for the period, and there appeared to be some kind of platform ahead. Tori-Suzanne wanted to hurry, but knew Curie was watching her every move. The pain he had inflicted on her wasn’t over; it had merely been put on hold.

  Many people were shouting, and finally the shouts turned to cheers as the pyre was set alight. Tori-Suzanne could make out that someone was tied upright to a stake, embedded deep into the pyre. It was a woman, whose arms were outstretched, and seemed to have been bound by wire.

  Not wire. Those were lacerations from a weapon of some kind.

  “Burn her! Let her burn, and may her evil burn with her!” cried the crowd. “Burn the witch!”

  Tori-Suzanne stifled a scream and stopped running. She could hear the crowd’s incessant calls for death to the witch, death to Satan’s handmaiden. She could also hear the lick of the flames as they rose around the woman’s body. To her credit, the woman did not try and escape. Perhaps they have drugged her, thought Tori-Suzanne. She tried to reason in her head that all this was some obscure mind trick. After all, she had used them in the past when needing to extract information. Curie was not trying it out on a novice.

  “I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here, Curie. Whether this is happening or not, and I choose not, I’m not giving you that name. Burning or torturing me is not going to achieve anything.”

  “You know Tori,” mocked Curie, “you’re absolutely right.”

  He turned away, a practised act designed to make the other person think whatever is he up to now and started to walk in the opposite direction, before turning down an alleyway some five hundred yards from Tori-Suzanne’s position, who was struggling to keep up with him.

  The far end of the alleyway was choked with more people. Seemingly having got bored with the burning witch on the platform, they had turned their attention to something else.

  “What the devil is he up to now?” exclaimed Tori-Suzanne. Curie, who was far ahead and amongst the throng of people, turned around, and smiled. He beckoned to her with his finger, and

  spoke to her telepathically.

  “Some people don’t like to see this. They don’t have the stomach for it. But this Tori, this you should see. This you should see.”

  Tori-Suzanne quickened her pace. She did not like the tone of Curie, or where any of this was going.

  “You were right when you said that torturing you wouldn’t work. But you should know one thing – this is where they prepare witches before the burning.”

  The finger that beckoned, now pointed towards a clearing up ahead. A woman was chained to a wooden stump. A man who was more than twice her size, perspired heavily from striking her repeatedly. He had to put more force into the whip, because, as the proclamation had stated, the woman had used dark craft to protect her body from harm.

  “The oil of the dillfern protects her!” screamed the crowd. “Lash her until she bleeds to death. Lash her!”

  The man did as he was bade, and the crowd cheered as the whip finally broke her skin.

  A piercing scream of her name erupted from Tori-Suzanne, and rose above the noisy crowd who, just for that moment, fell silent.

  It was brought on by the culmination of a few simple facts. The raven black hair, so often shiny and radiant, was mottled and clotted with blood. Her snow-white skin was torn, her flesh brutally exposed. She was on her knees, and rocked from side to side to avoid the lash of the whip, but there was no escape.

  Her chocolate button coloured eyes flickered uncontrollably. The pain inflicted on her was more than she could bear. But she would not scream out aloud, or beg the executioner to stop.

  There was no doubt it was Toril.

  ***

  Tori-Suzanne knew that in all probability, this was not her Toril.
All the same, the images and the sounds struck her like a knife embedded deep into her heart. A monster like Curie, who had never had children of his own; but existed solely to torture them, would not understand. Curie wanted to make this real to her.

  He had the power to do this too. With the backing of his boss, Curie was capable of doing almost anything.

  Another whip crack tore the skin on Toril’s lower back, and this time, while it wasn’t a scream; it was unlike any sound Tori-Suzanne had ever heard her daughter make.