The three chicken-shit men shared a look, before one of them cleared his throat and answered.
“We’re heading to London to meet with Father Tomin,” he said.
I could’ve guessed. Last I remembered I was in an abandoned hangar in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, being taunted with a television showing Hector’s downfall. I’d pleaded with… my aunt—mybloodyaunt for his safety. Then there was a prick in my neck and the world faded to black. Somehow I knew more time had passed since then; perhaps it was the ache in my neck that suggested more than one needle had interrupted skin, or the discomfort my body was in from being forced in the same position.
“When do we arrive?”
More silence, more frightened and hesitant looks. “In a couple of hours at most.”
Curse my burning thirst, because the next word came out weak and scratched, to the sudden humour of the three peering at me. “Why?”
“That’s enough. If he could hurt us, he would’ve done so already. Sedate him.” One of the Witch Hunters pushed a syringe into the shaking hands of another. “No more questions, and no more answers otherwise Father Tomin will have our necks. Orders have been explicitly clear.”
“You do it then,” the spotty teenager in far-too-big Witch Hunter garb replied, pushing the syringe in the other’s direction. “I’m not going near…it.”
“Pussy,” the third added, a wiry-looking middle-aged man with a nasty scar down the side of his face. When he made an expression of disgust towards me, it made him look like he wore a Halloween mask. It was the way his eye tugged down, and his left lip pulled upwards due to the mess of scarred tissue.
“Perhaps he is the smart one,” I bit back.
The scarred Hunter rolled his eyes. “Arwyn has no power, otherwise we’d be dead already. Isn’t that right?”
I couldn’t lie to myself and pretend I wasn’t even the smallest bit impressed with this man’s sudden aggression towards me. Not but a couple of minutes ago he was shaking in his unpolished boots when he simply looked at me.
“How about you come a little closer to me, and we can test your theory.”
His smirk faltered, but to my surprise he took steps towards me, the syringe outstretched. I thrashed in the bed as much as my bindings allowed, snapping teeth and hissing like a feral cat. Something inside of me, a slumbering power dampened by the sheer amount of thistlebane in my blood, seemed to raise a head in inquiry.
“Witch sympathisers will die by fire too, you know.” He put a hand on my shoulder, fingers pinching into the muscles beneath my thin black top. No doubt he’d leave a bruise. Honestly, I’d prefer him to be harsher with me. Because the more he hurt me, the quicker the darkness inside was waking. “As soon as Father Tomin finds a way to get what he needs from you, you’ll be the first in line to burn on the pyre for the world to see. I look forwards to experiencing what your skin smells like as it melts off your bones.”
Hot breath worked upon me as he leaned in close, guiding the needle to my neck. “I’m the key to my father’s success,” I replied through clenched teeth. “My life is the only one secured out of the four of us. Don’t for a second think otherwise.”
The Witch Hunter’s smile deepened until his chestnut eyes burned with a darkness I once recognised in myself. A blind hate for a being they knew little about. “Is it?” He withdrew the syringe. “Do you know what then, if that’s the case I have an offer for you.”
I should’ve expected this coming.
“Name it,” I said.
“It would be easy for me to pretend we used up all the haloperidol, you know. I could tell them upon arrival that you were well-behaved. But for that, you will need to give me something. Give us all… something. Isn’t that right, boys?”
The two agreed in tandem, one less enthusiastic as the other.
I leaned up as much as my bindings allowed, leather pinching into my sweat-slick skin. “A Gift, you mean? I can almost see howhardyou’ve become at the concept of power.”
My comment wasn’t a dig. The man literally had a tent in his loose trousers, one he didn’t bother to rearrange.
He nodded, eyes fixed to mine. It was the gaze of a starved man, a man looking at something he’d always wanted, and would do anything to get. “Exactly that. We’ve heard what yougave some of the Witch Hunters. And I—wewill spare you if you offer us the same.”
A violent bout of sickness gripped at my stomach. When I’d first returned after the Witch Trials, when Bahmet was louder and more prominent—not drugged with thistlebane—the demon had been glad to help my father. I remembered sitting on a chair at the end of a church isle, as the pews were filled with Witch Hunters, when my father asked of me to bless his most loyal followers with a Gift. Power that witches were given when they traded their souls to Bahmet. And I did it, because I had no choice. Now, it was different. I had a choice, and I clung to that because, in a twisted sense, it reminded me I still had some level of control in my hands.
“No.” I smiled a wide, wolfish grin. “I don’t think I will.”
The Witch Hunter dove forwards, growling frustration out of yellowed teeth. “Prick. Waste of time.”
I’d learned two things about my guards in the short time I’d been awake. They were scared of me, but alsodesperate. And in the messy combination of these two qualities, they would make themselves vulnerable, even to a person bound down.
I was ready to do anything to the scarred one in particular, because his brashness irked me. As he leaned in close enough for me to do something, he brought his stank mouth to my ear and whispered a world-shattering secret into my ear. “Shame we’ll be too late to see the first burnings. Especially since there’s already a pyre waiting for that little witch you’ve shown a liking to. Hector… isn’t it? The Briars’ boy. I was in that room with you when you stabbed his parents to death… shame you’ve lost your way since then. Come to think of it, if you’re quiet and still, you may even hear his screams all the way from?—”
I jolted my head up, mouth widening until the corners of my dried lips ripped. Then I sunk my teeth into the side of his neck, ripping through tough skin and fat. His scream of surprise wasa symphony to my soul. Hot blood rushed into my mouth and filled my cheeks. So much that I didn’t stop until the gore stained my throat. I had no choice but to swallow it, drinking it down as I continued to give this man another scar.
