“But they are children.” Theo scowled. “What could Nathaniel possibly want with them?”
“It means nothing when the devil’s work is at play,” Stephen stated piously as he pulled the girls along by the ropes binding their wrists. He shoved them into one of the stalls and turned back to face Theo. “They are still old enough to do his bidding.”
“You cannot honestly believe that they are witches?” Theo’s eyes widened in horror as he glanced at the girls huddled together in the straw. They were barely older than his sister Temperance had been when she died. “They are no more than babes.”
“That’s for Nathaniel to determine.” Stephen smirked. “He has not been wrong so far.”
“No!” Theo grabbed Stephen’s forearm as he moved to pass by.
Theo was suddenly overwhelmed by a maelstrom of images and sensations, as sometimes happened when he touched someone. He’d get a glimpse deep inside them, a look at their true selves, but when he touched Stephen’s arm a wave of disgust so powerful swept over him that Theo had to swallow against the sudden flood of moisture in his mouth to stop himself from vomiting.
Stephen was not a man of God; he was not even a good man. He was sick and twisted. He enjoyed pain and torment. In that moment, Theo could see the truth as clear as day and it made his stomach roil.
Stephen had become aroused as he’d watched those women violated and tortured for their false confessions. Worse still, Stephen had a dreadful hunger for the younger ones, the younger the better.
Unable to help himself, Theo’s fingers clenched in fury, and before he realized what he was doing, he’d pulled his fist back and punched Stephen so hard he heard bone cracking.
Stephen stumbled back, spitting blood on the straw strewn ground and cursing. “What did you do that for?”
“Nathaniel is not having them,” Theo told him, fighting back a wave of anger as he stepped toward the stall. “I’m done standing by and letting the innocents suffer when I know it’s wrong.”
He reached for the binding at the girls’ wrists, pausing when he felt the sudden coldness of a knife edge pressed against his exposed throat.
“And I said Nathaniel will question them,” Stephen growled.
Theo turned his head slowly. Stephen’s eyes were fixed on him coldly, his teeth bared and stained with blood while a thin stream of bloodied drool hung from his lip.
“I won’t allow it,” Theo replied in warning. “Walk away now, Stephen.”
“Or what?” he sneered. “You’ve never had what it takes to stand against the court. You stood by and watched all those women die. You’re as guilty as all of us. You’ll be one of us until the day you die.”
“I was never one of you,” Theo whispered.
“Maybe you’re right, traitor.” Stephen grinned maliciously as his gaze tracked across to Theo’s makeshift writing desk made from a bale of hay and a lamp, his eyes lingering on the journal. “Tell me, what secrets do you squirrel away in that book of yours?”
Theo’s eyes hardened.
“Perhaps I should take a look?” Stephen continued his expression sly. “From the look in your eyes, I’ll bet it’s something you don’t want Nathaniel knowing.”
Theo’s jaw tightened as his eyes went flat. “Don’t threaten me, Stephen,” he warned.
“You know what I think?” Stephen peeled his bloodied lips back in a snarl. “I think it’s you who’s betrayed us. Your obvious sympathy for the accused leads me to believe that you are in league with them. Perhaps I’ll just lay my concerns out for Nathaniel when he gets here, and he can judge for himself.”
“Nathaniel won’t touch me.”
“You think the fact that you’re Logan Beckett’s brother will save you?” Stephen scorned. “If Nathaniel wants you dead, you’ll be dangling at the end of a three-foot rope from Proctor’s Ledge before you can blink. I can’t tell you how badly I want to see your face turn purple, your tongue protrude from that insolent mouth of yours as you hang by the neck, pissing and shitting yourself in front of everyone you’ve ever known…” He leaned in closer, a dreadful kind of manic glee in his eyes, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Makes my cock hard just thinking about it.”
Theo stared, his expression unreadable. “If anyone deserves to die here, it’s you, Stephen. I know the truth about you,” he whispered. “I know how much it excited you to hurt those women.”
“Yes, it did.” Stephen smiled as he licked the dried blood from his lips. “The young ones were the sweetest. How they cried and begged. Would you like to know what I did to them as soon as I had them alone?”
“I don’t need to know.” Theo swallowed back the bile rising in his throat, trying to shut out the images that had flashed through his mind when he’d touched Stephen. “God will be your judge, although I have a feeling your soul will be traveling in the opposite direction.”
Stephen’s eyes widened as Theo grabbed his hand and snapped it back, his wrist cracking as the bone splintered gruesomely through the skin. His mouth fell open in a cry of pain and outrage as the knife clattered to the floor.
Theo grasped a fistful of Stephen’s dirty red hair and smashed his face into the heavy wooden pillar with such force his forehead cracked and caved in. He smashed his head into the post again and then once more for good measure.
He dropped Stephen’s body onto the dusty straw, where he lay motionless. A vile, wet gurgling sound bubbled up from the back of his throat and escaped his lax lips before his chest stilled.
