Chapter 40 - Hector
HECTOR
Arwyn wouldn’t open his eyes, no matter how loud I shouted for him.
Every time I fought against my bindings they tightened until my skin bruised, and the small blood vessels popped.
But that didn’t deter me. Nothing would.
Not the phantom ache in my hands that taunted me with the suffering Arwyn must’ve been feeling, nor the way my nails bent back as I clawed at the wood of my armrests.
A soft smile played on Arwyn’s lips, in contrast to his ruined and mangled hands that dripped blood in a puddle beneath him. He was breathing, at least. I fixated on the rise and fall of his chest, waiting for the moment that it would stop.
I wanted to tear the world apart for him. To gouge my fingers into the seams of this reality and split it in two, again and again, until Bahmet and his games were left in tatters.
But I was helpless. All I could do was sit and watch. A fly caught in a web, watching another be devoured by the spider that ruled it.
The room was in disarray. Romy was shouting for Arwyn, his name cracking beneath the weight of her emotion as she demanded he woke up. I thought I heard Kai and Verena, but with every second that passed, my heartbeat grew more demanding until it roared in my ears.
I’d just watched the man I loved face pain over and over, just for a chance of punishing the one man that should have loved him. We all had. Arwyn knew how to pass the trial, and yet he’d waited until the last moment to do so. He wanted to break his father by breaking himself.
I lifted tear-stained eyes over to Tomin. Curses spoiled my tongue, souring in my mouth until I wasn’t sure if I was going to say them aloud, or vomit.
“What is your confession, Tomin Hopkin?” Bahmet’s voice lifted above the noise. I hadn’t noticed that the demon lord had moved on to the final person.
Tomin sat rigid, face paler than I’d seen before, as his fingers were caught within the thumbscrew. He didn’t look like the cocksure man who’d passed through these trials up until this point. He looked exactly how Arwyn wanted him to be.
Shattered.
Tomin cleared his throat, ridding himself of the emotion the best he could. “I am a witch.”
“Lies!” Bahmet cackled, jolted forwards and reached for the thumbscrew.
There was yet another violent crack of bones. I flinched, not because I cared that Tomin suffered, but because Arwyn’s agony flashed in my mind.
He yelped before catching his lip with his teeth and hissing through the pain. “Fuck. You,” Tomin howled, spittle flying from cracked lips, splattering against Bahmet’s velvet suit-jacket.
Bahmet leaned in, an oppressive shadow that swallowed Tomin’s form whole. “You are no witch, Tomin Hopkin. You are a witch killer. As your ruined finger suggests, that answer will not get you out of this hell. Nor will that pesky curse I helped lay upon your shoulders.”
I paused, every sense coming to a standstill as those final words settled over me.
Curse I helped lay upon you.
Tomin released a breathy, manic laugh. His teeth were coated in the blood oozing from his bitten lip, giving him the mask of the monster he was deep inside. “I don’t believe you. You know I cannot die.”
Bahmet leaned closer still. “Test me. See what the outcome is when your fingers, your toes and that pathetic member you call a cock is broken. The only way out of this trial is truth. Ten—no, eleven chances wasted, and you will be stuck here, with me, for your long, sad, immortal life. Am I clear?”
I didn’t care if Tomin resisted or not. I wanted him to feel every ounce of pain that Bahmet could give him. Immortal life was a long time when spent in the claws of a demon who savoured suffering.
“I won’t.”
Bahmet grabbed Tomin’s lower face and squeezed. Leather against flesh squeaked together. “Say it.”
“No.”
Say what? Tomin was hiding something, and Bahmet knew. A small part of me desired to know his secrets. Bahmet’s reaction was enough to tell me it was important.
“Is that your second answer?” Bahmet asked, head tilted.
Tomin clamped his mouth closed, chin jutting in defiance.
Snap. Another bone ruined, more skin twisted into a mangled mess. Tomin leaned into Bahmet until their faces were inches apart. He screamed. Tomin released all that agony out in a single breath, until his cheeks turned red and his eyes bulged.
“Pretty voice you have, Tomin Hopkin,” Bahmet said once Tomin had exhausted the air in his lungs.
“I like the sound of your screams. It is almost better than all the witches you have sent to me over the years. I can imagine it now, me and you, here in this realm forever together. It’s a noise I could get used to hearing. ”
I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.
With his final concealed threat, Bahmet withdrew. I didn’t notice it at first, but Bahmet’s retreat suggested that Tomin wasn’t going to resist again. I didn’t know how the demon had worked it out, but he was right to drop his hand from the thumbscrew. It wouldn’t be needed again.
“I can’t win,” Tomin said beneath his breath, so quiet that I almost missed it. “I can’t.”
His head sagged, chin hitting his chest.
Bahmet’s eyes smiled with success. “And what can you not win, Tomin?”
Veins bulged in the Witch Hunter’s neck, sweat beading down his temple. “The Witch Trials. I cannot win the fucking trials.”
“Fantastic!” Bahmet bellowed. “Finally, you speak some truth. Freeing, is it not?”
Tomin didn’t answer. He leaned back in his chair, panting for breath, only for Bahmet to encourage him to continue with the wave of a hand.
“Do not stop now, my old friend. You are nearly there, nearly at the gates of freedom. Say it. Free the load from your chest. Why can you not win the Witch Trials?”
Once again, Tomin refused to answer. But in the end, he didn’t need to. It was Verena who spoke up for him.
“Because he isn’t a witch,” Verena said so matter-of-factly, I couldn’t believe I’d not pieced this together.
“Tomin needs a witch to win, someone on his side, someone to accept the great power of Bahmet and use it on his behalf. That is why Tomin Hopkin cannot win. Not without one of us… not without me.”
Bahmet paused his reaching for the thumbscrew. When he withdrew, he looked pleased with himself. He took a deep breath in, and released it.
“Very good.” Bahmet waved a hand, manipulating shadow until the bindings around our wrists and ankles disappeared. “You have each passed the trial…”
I didn’t even wait for Bahmet to finish speaking.
I wasted no time leaping from my chair, and grabbing hold of Arwyn’s unconscious body before he slipped to the floor from his lack of conscious control.
His skin was both hot and cold, trembling slightly.
Damp with sweat. I didn’t see what the others did next.
My focus was on pressing fingers into Arwyn’s neck, locating a pulse and determining how weak it was.
I couldn’t look at his hands without my stomach turning into violent knots.
These were scars that wouldn’t be healed at the end of the game…
I knew that like a truth etched on my bones.
Bahmet had weakened us both physically and spiritually.
“Romy!” Kai shouted.
It was the panic in his voice that drew my attention from Arwyn just in time to see Romy throw herself atop Tomin, nails and teeth bared. Tomin grunted, flailing back as Romy latched onto his shattered fingers and pulled, hard.
His keening yowl was a song to my soul.
Verena was running towards them, to do what, I wasn’t too sure. I hoped Kai stopped her just so Romy could continue beating the man who was at the crux of all this agony. If my hands were not full I would’ve joined her, but alas I would let Romy have all the fun.
“I can see you are all occupied,” Bahmet spoke over the chaos, pleased with himself for his success.
“I do hate to ruin your fun, but it is time to leave. I look forwards to seeing how these secrets affect your journey going forwards. For now, farewell. I will see you when the bell tolls for the final trial.”
Just as it had when the trial began, the floor opened up and swallowed us whole. I folded into Arwyn, holding his body so tight in my own that nothing could separate us. Tendrils of shadow attempted to pull us apart, but my grip was ironclad. Nothing would take me away from him.
Bahmet engulfed us in his power, like toys being thrown back into the toy box. One moment we were in his presence, the next we were back on the edge of the cliff, salt winds brushing across our damp skin, the heavy clouds concealing the beam of light that Hekate had blessed down upon us.
I looked up, still holding Arwyn’s unmoving body to my chest. Kai was there, holding Romy who was panting heavily, eyes wide and unblinking, her hands covered in deep, red blood.
She glanced down at them slowly, smiling to herself at the proof of destruction left in the wake of the trial. It had all been real… and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Because Arwyn was still in my arms, unconscious.
“Help me,” I snapped, drawing Kai’s and Romy’s attention to me. “Please.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Putting their own suffering aside, they both got to my sides and helped heave Arwyn up until his feet dragged across the sodden floor.
First, we would get back to our base and fix Arwyn’s hands…
hands I still hadn’t looked at properly. I was frightened about what I’d find.
The trial might’ve been over now. We might’ve passed. But the events of The Confessing had changed the course of this game. Deep down, beneath my concern for Arwyn’s physical state, and the emotional ramifications for everyone in this coven, I knew how this would all play out.
I knew what I would have to do.
Bahmet wasn’t the only soul to not expose a dark secret. He had let one slip, I just wasn’t sure if anyone else but Tomin noticed.
I locked eyes with Kai, wishing I could send him a message without opening my mouth.
His single sharp nod told me that he knew what I needed from him.
It was an acceptance that we both needed to speak.
Soon. But first, I had to make sure Arwyn would survive his wounds.
Because I no longer had anything to sacrifice in exchange for keeping him alive and out of Bahmet’s clutches.