The Enterprise of Death

by Jesse Bullington

  “She is your little girlfriend, isn’t she? And she doesn’t know, does she? Oh, this is too perfect, just too, too perfect.” Omorose spun around in place, then caught herself, setting down the knife and planting her hands on either side of Awa’s face. “Oh, how I wish I could spit on you, beast! Don’t have the moisture, I’m afraid—I had to take all my skin off because of you. I started shedding and so I had to shave it all off, skin, muscle, everything else, lest I give myself away. Do you know how badly I miss my skin, beast? About as badly as you’ll miss yours, I imagine.”

  Omorose glanced up at something, then leaned closer. “I was going to have him rape you, beast, like you did me. Well, not quite … we can’t make you pretend to like it. But he’ll rape you if I ask, you know, he’s capable of more than anyone I’ve ever met. I thought he was so soft when I met him, I thought it would take so much work to get him to even let me at you … but you wouldn’t imagine the things he does! It’s, it’s ingenious, is what it is. But you’ll see, yes you will, you’ll see what he does. But not to you, not at first.”

  Awa moaned then, much as she fought against it. If only Omorose would loosen the gag she could talk to her, reason with her, say something.

  Would it matter, though? The realization was sobering, and chill as ice water on her back—nothing Awa could say or do would stop Omorose, nothing. The woman’s mind was irrevocably broken and she had spent almost a decade plotting for this occasion, and there was nothing to be done but suffer whatever she had planned. Awa had raised Omorose, raised her more than once, and she had brought Chloé along, had suffered that asshole Merritt to be with her, all so the plucky young harlot could be tortured to death over who knew how many hours, how many days. Awa shook with sorrow and terror, and Omorose shook with laughter.

  “They’re gone.” Kahlert closed the second door, and locked that as well. “Shall we start?”

  They did. Awa was rolled onto her stomach and the chain around her ankles was removed, but before the bruised skin could enjoy the sensation of freedom for even a moment manacles were slid into the grooves the chain had left in her skin and locked into place. Then they removed the chains wrapped around her knees, and by working a crank at the side of the table heavy ropes attached to rings in her manacles tightened and then pulled her legs apart until she felt like she would be split down the middle. They repeated the process with the chain binding her arms to her sides, and then the second crank was tightened and Awa was splayed out facedown on the table, a board shoved underneath her chin to keep her looking straight ahead. All the chains had been removed, but when she gritted her teeth and focused despite the strain in every muscle and tendon she found that the iron shackles around her wrists and ankles were completely smothering her ability to work any sort of necromancy.

  “Start with the slut she brought,” said Omorose eagerly. “Take her on the floor so the witch can see. While you fuck her I’ll use the comb to peel back her scalp.”

  That was without a doubt the single evilest thing Awa had ever heard. She moaned again, hoping against hope that the mild-looking man would balk at this, perhaps even remove her gag, hear her side of the story, listen to—

  “I want to shoe her first,” Kahlert said firmly. “If she’s as powerful as we suspect, the iron on her arms and legs might not be enough. I still think we should take care of her—”

  “Fine, fine.” Omorose twitched, clearly displeased. “But you’ll do it, won’t you, Ash? You’ll do it so the witch has to see?”

  “Of course,” said Kahlert, knowing that what a witch hates most is what most needs doing, no matter how distasteful the act might be were an actual human involved. “What choice do we have?”

  Omorose shrieked with laughter, dropping down to look Awa in the eye as she did. Awa was hyperventilating, her pupils dilating, and Omorose yanked out her gag.

  “I gave you another chance,” Awa finally managed as Omorose shimmered before her. What Awa at first took to be a spell revealed its mundane cause when the tears tickled her chin. “Life, I gave you another life! I gave you everything I could!”

  “You gave me everything, alright,” Omorose whispered. “You think I wanted you to dig me up and play with my bones, you nasty bitch? You think I wanted to become some rotten monster instead of lying at rest? You’re just as selfish as you were on the mountain!”

  Omorose laughed again, and Awa knew they were both lost. Kahlert came over beside the still tittering Omorose and held up a small V-shaped piece of iron, several holes punched through the flat surface of the metal.

  “This is your test, witch,” the man said softly, almost kindly. “The lady Rose has told me you conceal a cloven hoof under the skin of your left foot, like the devil himself, and that she knows the method of removing the glamour you disguise it with. If you are innocent obviously your foot will remain your foot, and I will release you, and your friends. Conversely, you may admit to your crimes now, in which case you will be burned at once, your soul cleansed.”

  “The fuck she will,” Omorose growled at Kahlert. “What’s the meaning of this fucking pardon?!”

  “It is not Christian to use the stronger methods when—”

  “I confess!” Awa wailed. “I confess I confess I confess!”

  Omorose was livid, her pretty face taut and wild, but Kahlert held up a gloved hand and said, “You confess to what?”

  “I confess!” Awa hiccupped. “I confess to whatever you want, to whatever she said!”

  Kahlert shook his head slowly. “You know what you have done. Confess.”

  “I confess to being a witch,” said Awa, eyes darting between the patient Inquisitor and the fuming Omorose. “I confess to bringing Omorose back from the dead, and raping her, and trying to kill her again, and—”

  “What?” Kahlert furrowed his brows. “Back from the dead?”

  “She’s dead!” said Awa. “She’s dead dead dead!”

  “Don’t listen to her, she’s trying to turn you against me,” Omorose murmured, desperately hoping he would not ask her if this was true. It had been a very careful dance she had led him on down the years, and the thought of being tripped up by her irresistible compulsion to honesty now would be worse than never having crawled out of the ground. To her relief Kahlert nodded, clearly disappointed with Awa’s confession.

  “No!” Awa blubbered. “She’s dead, and I brought her back but she’ll kill me, and I never meant, I never meant—”

  “All of the farriers I spoke with said it wouldn’t work,” Kahlert cut her off, wiggling the iron V in front of her. “They said it would ruin the goat’s foot, that such things were only for horses. Even still I found one who would make an appropriately shaped shoe, and having applied it to several beasts myself I assure you that it does indeed impede movement instead of aiding it. But by the fourth or fifth goat I had gotten the knack for deeply affixing the nails without splitting the hoof wide.”

  Awa had not paid a great deal of attention to the hooves of the few horses she had ridden, but his meaning was clear enough and she moaned again, “I confess!”

  “Well, Rose.” Kahlert turned to Omorose, who was once more exuding a sunny smile now that it appeared Awa would not be proceeding directly to the stake after all. Omorose stood without a word, and Awa felt the woman’s finger bones running up and down her calf. They dug under the manacle, and as Awa gave another low cry she felt the string tug and then come loose. Omorose came back into sight, dangling the fraying length of twine that had disguised Awa’s foot. Kahlert took it gingerly, his breathing shallow, and looked wide-eyed down the length of Awa to where her hoof stuck out from the manacle.

  “Bring the hammer and nails,” Kahlert breathed, standing up and walking out of Awa’s field of vision, down to her legs.

  “Please!” Awa squealed, looking to Omorose. Her former mistress was twitching all over, her nose and lips and even her eyes jarring from tiny spasms. The woman smiled, and blew Awa a kiss as she walked out of sight. Awa suddenly
had to urinate very badly, and then Omorose came back before her, holding up a small hammer in one hand and a tiny bouquet of iron nails in the other. Then she smiled even wider, and went to Kahlert.

  It was a cloven hoof. Kahlert giggled. He suddenly, desperately wanted to stop everything, to unshackle her and put the chains back into place, to bag her and gag her and take her without delay out of his house, out of the Empire. She must go to Rome, they must go to Rome, and then unmask her before that swamp-Pope Adrian. It would slap the Church in the face with a real, live witch, it would convince them, it would make them stop punishing the loyal and rewarding the wicked. His father would posthumously be brought back into the Church, he would be brought back into the Church, everyone would know, and then the good work could begin in earnest. This was God’s gift to him, Ashton Kahlert, Inquisitor before God, and soon, Inquisitor before Man once again.

  The lady Rose stood beside him, a very curious expression on her face as she held out the hammer and nails. He took one of the nails and held it up. They would never believe him. Even if he brought this Moorish witch before them they would deny it, that was the way with the wicked, they would claim he had faked it, attached the foot himself, something. Yet here was a lamb who believed him, who believed in him, who had delivered to him this abomination, and all she wanted was justice, not a commendation by an officer of the Church, not the Pope’s blessing, just real, honest justice. She had not trusted the Church, she had trusted him, and even when the Church had turned its back on him she had believed, and now, even though he had doubted both her and himself many times over the long years, he believed, too. There must be something to this Luther’s ideas, he thought, God must be just as sickened by the Church’s corruption as he was, and then Kahlert smiled and shook his head.

  “I wish my father could be here,” Kahlert told Omorose as he reached for the hammer. “I’m sure he watches us from Heaven, though. Hold the shoe for me and—”

  Omorose screamed in his face, terrified in a way that Kahlert had only previously seen on the rictuses of the doomed women he interviewed, and even then only when substantial portions of their bodies had been put through his crucibles. He spun around, expecting a demon or worse to have materialized behind him, the witch’s familiar, but there was nothing there.

  The lady Rose was still screaming when he turned back to her, the poor girl’s entire body rattling as she shrieked in horror, and he knew at once that she was bewitched. Keeping the black sorceress alive even a moment longer would be a mistake. She had a hoof so it was not as though he could be mistaken, and clearly the iron was not binding her as well as he had hoped. Best to kill her at once, rather than risk being ensorcelled himself as he exacted a full confession.

  Kahlert opened his mouth to tell the lady Rose to be strong, that he would break the spell, which was when she smashed in his teeth with the hammer. He spun away onto the ground, his jaw afire, blood and broken teeth choking him, and as he tried to get up she fell on him with the hammer, wailing like a tortured witch as she struck again and again. He crawled along the length of the table with Omorose riding his back, gurgling blood as the possessed woman broke ribs and bruised muscle, and then he collapsed directly under Awa.

  The noises behind her had been almost worse than the prospect of the shooing, Awa’s imagination unable to process what was happening. When Kahlert dragged himself beneath her, covered in blood and making wretched moans very similar to those she herself had voiced only moments before, a thought occurred to her. Then Omorose appeared, squatting down in front of Awa and continuing her unbroken shriek as she caved in the back of Kahlert’s neck, a thick black porridge welling out around his collar.

  Omorose had not found the book, Awa realized, and a strange, terrible laugh burst from her mouth as she felt Omorose remove first the shackles at her wrists and then those at her ankles, and Awa rolled off the table onto the floor, meaning to put some distance between herself and her unexpected savior. Unfortunately, a week of being restrained and cramped, followed by the vicious overexertion the table-rack had inflicted, had rendered Awa’s limbs nearly useless and she lay sprawled on the floor. Omorose had finally stopped screaming and stood shaking by the table. The manacle pins she had removed were still in her bloody hand, and giving a little sob, she cast them away into the corner.

  “Not fair,” she cried. “I had you I had you I had you.”

  “You didn’t find the book,” said Awa, the idea making more and more sense. “You didn’t find it and thought you could have a living person do what you couldn’t, but the curse compelled you to protect me.”

  “I hate you!” Omorose shrieked. “I hate you I hate you I hate you!”

  Awa looked down at the bloody furrows in her wrists and ankles where the iron had cut her, knowing the dead cannot lie. It was not fair, then, but then what about life was? She sighed heavily, still nauseated from the harrowing experience. She looked up to say something, to say anything, but Omorose was gone. Then Awa heard the dull thump of a hammer striking meat, and a high-pitched whine. No.

  Awa’s neck snapped around and there was Omorose, straddling a squirming, sack-covered body. The hammer came down again, a beatific grin on Omorose’s face as the tool struck home, the handle gripped in both hands. The shrouded body underneath her was convulsing now, and the hammer went up a third time. Awa tried to stand but still her legs thwarted her, and she screamed impotently at Omorose.

  Omorose turned that smile to Awa, that mad, sadistic smile, and the hammer fell. The sound it made when it connected with the sack was wet, and the body stopped thrashing as violently. Then Awa was screaming at herself, screaming at the top of her lungs because she was a necromancer, an unbound witch, and as easy as spitting or blinking the spirit was snipped from Omorose’s body, and then Omorose’s body was gone, a skeleton collapsing into loose bones atop a bloody sack.

  Awa crawled across the floor, little nonsense words bubbling out of her mouth as the necromancer’s ring slipped off of Omorose’s finger bone and rolled away. It was Merritt, it had to be, the sack was too large and the spreading pool leaking through it was too cold to belong to her hot-blooded Chloé, and, picking up Omorose’s skull, Awa smashed it on the ground, shards of bone spinning across the floor. She closed her eyes, bit her lip, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes again. Then she unlaced the hood with numb, clumsy fingers, and pulled open the slit to reveal the bruised, swollen, and utterly dead face of Chloé.

  XXXI

  A Slow Night in the Black Forest

  Chloé was not dead. Her eyelids fluttered, the girl’s left eye a bright red puddle, and beneath the blood-filled eye her nostril was smashed flat and black, and as she opened her mouth Awa saw that her jaw was split and crushed. Awa killed her before Chloé could feel the bones of her face sliding apart, before she could feel her battered organs fail, before she could feel cold air on exposed marrow and muscle, and though it was a little death the necromancer knew that once she revived Chloé, which she must in a day or two at the latest, her partner would not have long at all, certainly not enough time to force-feed her enough meat and bone to heal her. Then Awa wondered if she would be able to raise her at all, if, little though the death she had administered was, it had been enough, given Chloé’s condition, to kill her lover entirely, and she whimpered to herself.

  Something whimpered back in the room, and Awa lifted her head. Merritt. The Englishman’s sack twitched, and Awa turned back to Chloé’s corpse. This was all her fault. As soon as she had escaped from the table she could have killed Omorose, could have ended her forever, but instead she had fumbled for something to say. How fucking stupid was she? She stayed with Chloé, mulling it all over, until one by one the candles began to sputter and die, and then the last went out and she was in the dark.

  Awa awoke, not sure how long she had slept. She pawed around the dark room for what felt like hours until she found the bag the bounty hunters had taken from her, and in the blackness of the windowless dungeon s
he removed the portrait of Chloé, which brought on another crying fit. When she had pulled herself together she went back to digging in the bag until she found her last salamander egg. Setting it on the ground, she turned her back on it before giving the command so that she would not be blinded. The brightness gave her a pounding headache, but by the third time she had ignited the egg she saw an unlit torch in a sconce by a door, and retrieving it she soon had more light than she cared for.

  The pool of blood that had leaked out of Chloé’s sack was nothing short of ridiculous, the girl seeming to have more on the floor than inside her skin. Still, even if the little death failed and her partner truly died Awa could bring her back. It was not much, but it was better than nothing. Then she began to cry again, imagining Chloé as a rotting horror, or a thing of hard bone instead of shapely flesh. Merritt groaned again from his sack, and Awa knew she had to let him out. Just not now. She could not handle his idiocy at present, and so she left him trussed and bagged and left the dungeon by way of the smaller door.

  Awa stood blinking in a pleasant, sunlit bedroom, one wall lined with books, the wide crown glass windows overlooking a creek that wound through the meadow of Kahlert’s yard all the way to the edge of a forest. The blazing torch forgotten in her hand, she wandered through the house, her mouth wide, her head cocked. The contrast between the torture chamber and the rest of the simple but impressive house was as sharp as the difference between the living and the dead. Everything was intricately carved hardwood and sparkling marble or granite, with rooms to spare and a kitchen housing more sumptuous food than a prince’s larder.

  Awa sat on the kitchen table and opened a bottle of wine, then bit into a loaf of bread—she wanted the bread to taste like potash or sawdust, for the wine to taste like sour rainwater, for the world to deny her pleasure now that she had gotten Chloé killed, but her traitorous tongue relished the food and drink, and she nearly wept at the taste. She was alive, and could not pretend otherwise. Pleasure would be had, then, and she filled a sack with bread and early cheese and dried fruit but no meat. During her time in Paris, with the abundance of cheese and bread and produce to be had, and Dario’s willingness to experiment with all things related to cooking, she had finally been able to dispense with eating flesh, save that which was absolutely necessary to heal herself—if her spiritual balance were ever to be restored she had to stop feeding on the dead like the hyena, and besides, the less iron she took into her body the more powerful were her arts. After adding bottles and bottles of wine and spirits to her already bulging sack, Awa tossed the still smoldering torch onto the stack of cordwood beside the stove. Then she heaped the table and chairs and everything else that looked flammable on the smoking woodpile, and smashed a bottle of schnapps onto it for good measure.