Chapter 7 #2
"She is not a possession! She is a person!" Power bolts through me, a lightning rod gripped from the sky, building and feeding on my rage. "You have desecrated that girl for the last time, Selectmen. This is your final hour. I suggest you run."
"From what? From you? What will you do, Goody? If in fact, that is what you are, I will not be insulted by Satan's whore—"
The growl from Silas is a roar from the pits, and it tears through the night, our ears, my chest, starling Prichardson.
Shaking him. He turns, eyes on the dark fields, on the swaying husks, unseeing because Silas does not wish him to.
It is an improvement, that he has cloaked the flames of his power.
"Who goes there?” Selectman Prichardson whispers as the air grows still. His eyes are trained on the fields as creatures travel beneath his flesh, but his fear has swallowed every other sense.
The light comes, a spark to flame, illuminating my dark avenger with flaming eyes and sparking maw, towering above the stalks. Silas's powerful body strides through the trampled path, swelling with rage, flames engulfing the gourd with a vengeance.
"Mercy, oh Lord!" Prichardson cries, pissing himself in terror. The smell is thick on the air, watery excrements following behind as he fully soils himself. He falls back against the ground, scrambling with a hand lifted to the air in protection, as though anything could stop Silas' retribution.
"You are a Witch!" he accuses, eyes full of terror. I jump back in surprise, hands clasped over my chest, a look of shocked revelation on my face as I smile and shake my head.
"A Sin Eater, actually, I understand your lack of distinction.
" I rise in the air and he cries out, soiled in his own filth as I float nearer, toes barely dragging over the rustling husks.
Before I can close the distance, Silas steps between us, towering over the Selectman.
I stare down at him, past the hulk of muscled shoulder, and watch as the first worms burrow their way from inside, splitting his spotted, yellow flesh with ease.
"I am far more than just a Witch, Selectman.
I am the balance keeper. My kind are created to maintain the rot which spreads from the hearts of men and you, sir, are rife with it.
You will be forgotten in this field, your bones dusted, your heart devoured, and with it your soul.
You will know not peace, nor joy, nor comfort.
You will become energy, dispersed as fuel.
Prey. The only useful thing this fucking body ever created is sustenance for my Kindred. Silas?" I call.
"Yes, Witchling?"
"Bring me his heart."
"Yes, my love."
Silas bends, striking fast, fingers sinking through the brittle bones of a rotten chest. He twists, slowly, painfully, and Prichardson's eyes bulge as he whimpers and cries for mercy to a God not permitted to train an eye here.
Worms and maggots crawl from the sores of his flesh, from his nose and mouth and ears.
In a rage, Silas wrenches the heart free with ease, tossing the still-beating organ into my waiting hands.
I leave him to his designs as I turn back to the altar, feet planted on the ground once more and begin my spell work.
The sounds of tearing flesh are harrowing, the snapping of bones like kindling, but as I weave with blood-stained hands over the Ash wood, the red ring of the Blood Moon pulses brighter still, an offering accepted.
Triumphant, I spin on my heels and see the currents of power lap at Silas' body, watch in excitement as they serpentine up his blood-drenched forearms. With a grunt and tear, he liberates Prichardson's head from his neck, sending it flying out into the darkness.
In the distance, the crows descend, diving from their circles overhead in the moonlight.
They catch the dismembered head in between sharp beaks, talons ripping and feathers ruffling as they fight over the spoils.
"Waste not what not, says I," Silas shrugs, going back in for more, shearing arms and legs and feet, tossing them to the beasts.
The earth beneath us is drenched in blood, slippery underfoot, coppery on the air.
His task completed, he crosses the clearing, wiping his hands on the stalk nearest. The blood dries rapidly on the cooling air, neither of us addressing the gourd still firmly in place on his shoulders, but he stiffens, head turning to the right.
On the carrying wind, I hear it too.
Footsteps fall like anvils, far heavier than any of the others who have made tonight’s gallows march. Constable Wickham wanders to the killing floor, unkept and sweating, eyes wide, but not on the altar or blood speckled crop beneath his feet, or even on I.
No, those eyes fixate on Silas, mouth dropping in an undignified, horrific scream the crows mirror from above.
It echoes through the night, but there are no grand speeches, no chances for reconciling this death.
Silas is on him in a blink, unbridled fury rolling from his massive form in a suffocating wave.
He needs no explanation of the crimes the Constable has committed, or clarification of who those sins were laid against.
He knows.
Bore witness to the broken youngling shackled and violated.
The blood and gore weaves a tapestry of retribution, one I stand sentry for. Wickham's manhood goes first, shredding flesh, torn fabric, but his death is not instant. It lingers as he claws for life, even as Silas tears him apart, every blow an offering not to the Olde Gods, nor to me, but to her.
Molly.
This monster stole something precious from our girl, and Silas has not yet grown to know her, hear her laugh, see her eyes shine when she smiles as I have, he offers no quarter.
The earth shakes as Wickham is stripped of his clothing with the swipe of talons, slit across the belly until innards spill out.
Screams grow even more frantic when Silas finds a hardened ear of corn, rotten and dried, and makes unconventional use of it.
Every forced entry is a debt owed, a payment collected.
It ends too quickly for my tastes, but Silas is more beast than man as blood drips from his wrist. He stands, breathing like a running bull as he discards what is left of the bloodied husk of corn.
"Feel better?" I ask.
"Infinitely," he replies, spitting at the ravaged corpse of Constable Wickham, the lifeless bloat that will never again harm a woman.