“You idiot,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt. “You could have had everything you wanted; a long life, free of that filth inside you, and me.”
“If it’s any consolation, it was tempting,” Rudi said, “but the price was too high. My soul’s my own, and I’m keeping it.”
“Want to bet?” Hanna asked, her voice becoming suffused with the gleeful malevolence he’d noticed before when the destructive side of her powers had overwhelmed her. “I don’t need the stone to cast spells, remember?”
Rudi flinched back as another ball of hellish red flame burst into existence in front of her. Then, to his relieved astonishment, fizzled and went out, vanishing as if it had never been.
“I’m afraid you do,” Hollobach said. “Consecrated ground, remember? Chaos magic won’t work here without something to boost its potency.”
“No!” Hanna’s air of self-confidence began to crumble. She glared at Rudi. “This is all your fault! My mother’s dead because of you!” Her eyes began to fill with tears, and a howl of grief and loss escaped her. “And now they’re going to burn me, and I’ll die screaming, and it’s all your fault! I hate you! I’m glad you’re going to suffer forever. I hate you!” The last few words were barely coherent, a raw, primal scream of anguish that made the hairs rise on the back of Rudi’s neck. Then the girl’s knees gave way under the pressure of her emotions, and she fell heavily to the ground, bawling and raving, calling down every curse she could think of on her captors. From this angle something seemed odd about the fall of her hair, and with a prickle of apprehension he realised that the buds of two small horns were beginning to grow through it.
“They’re not going to burn you,” Rudi said, as calmly as he could. “I promised you that when we left Kohlstadt, and that’s one promise I can still keep.” With more strength than he knew he still possessed, he struck down with the dagger in his hand, clean through the vertebrae at the top of her neck, as quickly and neatly as dispatching a rabbit. Hanna’s body jerked and spasmed, falling suddenly to the ground, a flickering of something that might have been astonishment and gratitude in her eyes for a moment, before the deep emerald green of them clouded forever.
“Talking of burning,” Fritz said, a challenging edge to his voice. Von Karien shook his head.
“You’ve proven to me where you stand,” he said. He turned to Gerhard, whose breathing had become so shallow that it was almost impossible to tell that some faint spark of life still lingered. “Luther might disagree, but it’s my decision, and so long as you serve the Empire faithfully you’ll have nothing to fear from me or my order.”
“Is there anything at all you can do for him?” Rudi asked Hollobach. He supposed he ought to feel something after Hanna’s death, but he had no energy left for emotions, and there would be time enough to consider everything later. For a moment he quailed anew at the thought of the eternity of suffering that lay ahead, and then he steeled himself again. He’d made his choice, and he knew now that he’d lost Hanna a long time ago, if he’d ever even had her in the first place, which he doubted. The mage shook his head.
“I can ease his passing,” he said gravely, “but that’s all.” Gerhard stirred, shaking his head feebly.
“No magic,” he whispered.
“It’s your choice, of course.” Hollobach nodded to Fritz. “Do you wish to intervene?”
“No,” Fritz said shortly, turning away, “let him suffer.”
“We’ll finish it,” Rudi promised the dying witch hunter. Gerhard nodded once, and tried to say something, and then the breath rattled in his throat and his body convulsed. A few flakes of snow drifted down from the leaden sky, settling across the still face and unblinking eyes.
Rudi turned away, remaining upright and unsupported purely by willpower. There wouldn’t be a better time, he thought. All the instincts of a lifetime spent outdoors told him that the first flurry of snow was only the precursor of a much heavier fall. By the time his companions had bricked up the cellar and returned to the mansion, there would be no trace of their handiwork visible until the spring by which time the new mortar would have weathered to the point where it would be almost indistinguishable from the old. No one else would ever know he was there, entombed in his own private hell, fighting an eternal battle to preserve the Empire from the ravages of the daemon within him. He staggered, feeling the toxins in his body doing their baleful work. He was almost out of time.
He took a step towards the dark hole in the floor of the derelict building, savouring the sight of the last sunset he’d ever know.
“Let’s get this done,” he said simply, and went to meet his destiny.
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[Blood on the Reik 03] - Death's Legacy Page 31