She hears the scuffling of boots from her left, but before she can protest, searing agony burns up her arm. The smell of roasting skin and unbelievable pain twists the last bits of bile from her stomach, flooding her mouth. It burbles from her lips onto her chest. The stink of it sears her nostrils.
"Do you remember, now? You've been questioned, Frau Bach. You denied the charges."
Questioned, yes. There had been plenty of questions; all of them ludicrous. She tries to swallow but her mouth is so dry the flesh sticks together. The judges take her silence as some sort of assent.
"The devil has stolen your tongue, child. We've been charged by the holy church to discover the truth and divest this community of evil."
She realizes she needs to speak, but she's too weak. The pain has indeed refreshed her memory. Hours of torture, demands of her to admit to witchcraft. Nothing she says seems to make any difference.
"It's a misunderstanding, my lords," she croaks out.
At that, one of the men, the magistrate she supposes, waves an arm and the hooded torturer trudges his way to the door. It's a heavy, oaken thing that creaks when he opens it, and Cathrin can see that just beyond in the torchlight and shadows of another room, another figure is hunched forward on a bed of straw. The figure is lifted by his arm, and dragged into the room. His legs are obviously broken; they bend at abnormal angles.
"Markus," she murmurs.
"Yes," the magistrate says. "A man who has confessed to being lured and tempted by you to perform unholy acts. What say you to that?"
Unholy, indeed. Each one of them at the time felt so delicious, that they couldn't possibly be anything but sanctified. She can't explain that to these men, though. Their agenda is set and nothing can sway them from it. They'd never see a difference between witchcraft and wantonness now that the former has been brought into question. She's seen the condemned women over the last months as they're dragged to their deaths. Each of them so beaten and bloody by the time they are tied to their wooden crosses that even she had come to believe that some physical wrestling of the soul had occurred deep in the dungeons. Now she knows the truth.
"I say I'm innocent," she says, trying to see Markus, trying to will him to lift his gaze to hers. Surely they will see that all that is between them is the love of a man and a woman. Nothing more.
"And yet, the man confesses you a witch. Thankfully for him, his end will be swift and painless."
Markus groans, but when he tries to lift his head, it falls again so that his chin nestles onto his chest as though he's fallen into a tender slumber. Seeing it, Cathrin seethes with anger. Never has she believed Erich could be so hateful as to do such an evil thing.
"Then you have what you need," she says, the old spite and fire finding some way to the surface through all of the fear. Let them kill her. Let them kill them both. At least this would be over. Maybe the others had been foolish enough to protest their innocence until the last, leaving them bound to crosses with patches of gunpowder tied around their necks. Maybe many others have been naïve enough to think their protestations would end in something other than death. She wasn't that foolish.
"Alas, no; we do not have what we need. Our last sacred charge is for your very soul, my child. Your confession can set you free."
"I'll neither confess nor protest," she says.
"If Lucifer so fights for your soul, then we must compel you to answer."
"Please," she begs. "Please don't do this. Just kill me."
There is nothing after but senseless begging and mindless panic. She barely hears her own voice as she screams, and she can't for the life of her find a way to drag in any breath once her lungs are exhausted of sound. The only thing that brings her back from the edge is the fixing of splints around her fingers, splints with screws on the outside. She realizes that they're in earnest now. The small tortures of hot pokers and tearing the fingernails from their beds were but introductory measures. She whimpers as she tries to stare off into space, tries to find some way to leave her body.
"See how she stares at her master? See how she tries to gain strength from him?" The magistrate says and Herr mumbles a hasty Hail Mary.
The pain comes as she expects, but the sound of her knuckle cracking and breaking beneath the pressure brings the sweet relief of blackness.
Phoenix: Act 7
Coming to was like slogging through muck; she might as well have had an elephant on her shoulders they were so heavy. Still she wasn't stupid enough to show signs of being aware. That kind of naiveté was for the coddled and the young, the untried ones who slept in cozy beds with eyelet covers. Instead, Theda listened to the sounds around her, assessing her situation. This was not a street; no smoke or exhaust or outdoor sounds. She wasn't sitting at her derelict card table; her hands were tied behind her. She knew without opening her eyes that there was no old gent with pockets at her feet to rifle through for money.
It took seconds to assess and process then Theda knew exactly where she was; she knew exactly what danger she was in.
The blood in her mouth was her own, she knew that too. One of the men she heard talking around her had hit her at some point. It was the only explanation; there was far too much of the coppery tang on her tongue for her to have pulled it from Ezekiel's finger or to have accidentally bitten her cheek.
She ran her tongue along the front of her upper teeth. Testing. There was an abrasion on the inside corner of her top lip, and she could only imagine that there was a cut on the front. She thought of the packets in Ezekiel's pocket; things would go much easier if she didn't have to worry about the sweats and shivers. She might even lose the panic that even now began to tighten her chest.
"What did you see?"
At first she thought those around her--three men, she figured by the voices she heard--knew she was aware, but it slowly dawned on her that the man asking the question was asking it of Ezekiel and not her.
"Did you see something?" The voice was more insistent this time, as though Ezekiel had shaken his head, refusing to answer. Hope flared in the place of the panic. Maybe he had his own motives besides the bounty to track her, to bring her here, to bubble his blood onto her tongue.
"Nothing?" the voice said. "Or, you just won't say?"
"Take your pick," Ezekiel said.
For a moment she wanted to kiss his feet, filthy cowboy boots and all.
There was a collective sigh before a second man spoke. "We can't accuse her without proof."
"Says who?" the mayor again.
"You mean just execute her?"
"No, you idiot. We just get a confession first."
"But--"
"But what? You think she won't confess?" The mayor snorted. "Wait a few hours."
"Do what you will," she heard Ezekiel say. "It's got nothing to do with me."
Bastard. She hated herself for holding out a tinge of hope. She should've known; he was a bounty hunter. There was no reason for him to involve himself further. In it for the money, get the money, get on his way with the money. Theda had to work at not groaning out loud.
"Good enough, then," the mayor said. "Your packet is on the desk. Take it and go. I'll be in touch if another zealot turns up." The mayor sighed, satisfied. "But I wouldn't hold my breath."
There was a shuffling sound, as though people were moving about before Theda realized someone was crouched in front of her. She smelled cologne, but not the day-old scent Ezekiel wore, the one that had a tinge of musk to make it a near pheromone in her nose. No, this was the stink of expensive, privileged freshness. The mayor.
"So, my little religion monger," he murmured almost affectionately. "What do you think of a confession? Save us some time."
He'd known she was awake, the bastard.
"I'd say go fuck yourself. I'm not a zealot. I could care less about religion, I told you. I just like to eat."
"Well, someone is setting men to thinking they can evolve their souls. Souls, young lady. Do you know what that means? It means they
think they still have one, and that is a purely religious notion."
"And you can't have that," she said, looking at him finally. He had a mole over his eyebrow that she fixed her gaze on. "Lest your boss decides you aren't doing your job. Lest he decides to replace you. Lest he decides to get rid of your salary altogether, and your taxes, and your identity, and your body."
He chuckled. "Smart girl. Are you smart enough to confess?"
She chewed her bottom lip, thinking. "I swap out godspit for the HIV test," she said. "They hallucinate." She tried to shrug. "The rest of it is just an act. There's nothing more to tell."
"You call it godspit." The man smiled broadly. "Who but a zealot would use that word?"
"Spit?"
He glared at her.
"Everyone calls it godspit," she said testing.
"Only a zealot would use that word."
"Then you don't know as much as you think you do."
"The last john will attest to the fact that you used godspit on him. You used it to invoke a sort of religious ecstasy for him."
"A hallucination, not ecstasy," she said to the mayor as she eyed Ezekiel who leaned against the desk almost too casually, crossing one foot over the other.
"But isn't that what godspit does? Doesn't the drug bring on a tremendous ecstasy in the user?"
"Exactly."
"So then they're not hallucinations."
"Sometimes in the throes of ecstasy, a person might hallucinate." She eyed him warily. He was being too methodical, catching her in her lies.
"So you admit that they do feel ecstasy?"
"It's what the drug does."
The mayor stood up, brushing his hands down along his trousers. "I'd say we have enough of a confession."
"How?" The panic again. What she wouldn't do for a smear right now.
"You admitted to helping your clients find ecstasy. You use a drug called godspit to do so. It's not a great leap to religion mongering from there."
"You can't exactly arrest everyone who succumbs to a few hours of happiness."
He held up his index finger, correcting her. "Not just happiness, little lady. Ecstasy. And not everyone who succumbs to a few hours of ecstasy has what they call a religious experience. Only the ones who visit you." He nodded to the gentleman sitting cross-legged in the corner, his foot dangling up and down. "We've got enough, I'd say."
"Stop," Theda said when the man eased to his feet, stretching his fingers as though he were about to get to some heavy work.
"You can't do this," she shouted. "I'm just trying to feed myself, I don't even believe in God. I don't even care about God. I don't care about anything. Ask anyone. Ask him." She pointed her chin at Ezekiel who was stuffing the packet from the desk into his inside pocket so calmly she wanted to cut his throat and watch him bleed out.
"We don't need to ask him," the mayor said. "We took a religion monger into custody, we recorded a confession for the books. We executed her."
Executed. No. Surely not. Not today. She'd not survived the apocalypse, dozens of rapes, near starvation, just to be executed for trying to stay alive. She twisted in the chair, eying the men as they looked down at her without pity: the mayor looking smug, the executioner flexing his fingers, Ezekiel as he stepped behind the mayor, his green eyes narrowing in hard concentration.
"Bastards," she said, feeling the legs of the chair careen with her weight to the side. Now to crown it all off, she'd topple to the floor, giving that killer better purchase on her throat. Even as she fell, thudding onto her left shoulder, a bolt of pain screaming into her shoulder blades, she could swear she heard a thud to her right. A grunt. A gasp of surprise. She kicked along the floor, scooching backward, the blind panic full on her, keeping her from making sense of anything around her except the feel of the floor, the twisting of the ropes into her skin. Twisting. Biting through, drawing blood, and burning. She had to get loose before he fell on her, wrapped those meaty fingers around her neck. Had to.
She screamed when he touched her, like a fool. Who would care if she died. No one. Who would come to her aid? Not a soul. Help didn't come in new Earth. No one cared. Not really. Least of all for someone accused of doing the unpardonable crime of religion mongering. She screamed again for good measure when his hands pulled at her shoulder, twisted in his grasp, kicking where she could. She grunted in pleasure when she felt her foot land on bone. She even dared face him so she could glare at him in final victory.
Ezekiel stood there, his charcoal hair covering one eye, the other wincing in pain.
"Idiot," he ground out. "Get up."
"I will not," she said. If he wanted to kill her, he'd bloody well have to do it while she was lying on the floor.
"I said get up," he twisted her to the side, the chair moving along with her. "We don't have much time."
"What do you mean?" She couldn't see anything now except oak boards, but she could feel that he had her by the wrists. A quick twist and her hands were free. They fell beside her, limp and bloodless, and she had a hard time maneuvering them at will. It would take a while for sensation to return. She did her best to use her cheek and side to maneuver so that she was away from the chair, tried to sit up. Chest heaving, she scanned the area. A pool of blood was rapidly moving toward her and in the moment she noticed that it was the mayor's, she could have sworn all blood left her brain as well. Shock, must be, she thought stupidly.
She looked up at Ezekiel. "What's going on?"
He reached out for her again, and twisted her to unsteady feet. "I've just done a very stupid thing," he said.
She was trying to find some balance, working to process what had happened, sidestepping the double pools of blood that were creeping across the floor, trying to meet. The mayor looked decidedly grotesque with his double grin, one on his face the other smiling bloodily from his throat. The executioner died holding on to his stomach; a whiff of bowel flared her nostrils. The sour taste in the back of her throat made her gag and she stumbled as she tried to wrench her arm out of Ezekiel's grasp.
All at once her brain leapt into focus. "You saw it," she said. "You saw it all."
"I saw enough," he said, tugging at her. "But that's not why."
"Why then?"
He looked like he would actually tell her, it looked like he would reach out to her, let his fingers move to the back of her neck just where his gaze was resting; but even when she thought he'd speak he grabbed her hand and pulled her, running from the room.
Just outside the door, her stomach finally rebelled. She let go a stream of vomit that burned her nose as she ran, hunched over, trying to keep up with the arm that was being pulled along ahead of her. It was no use, the heaves overtook her and she couldn't keep up with Ezekiel's pace, ended up being dragged along with dribbles of vomit beading on the floor of the hallway. He was relentless, not stopping to see if she was okay, only dragging her forward all the time, step after step, down the oak paneled hall. Too upscale to be in the Eastern end, she realized. Somewhere through the trembling that had begun to overtake her body, she understood that while she'd been out, comatose with ecstasy, Ezekiel had brought her to the more affluent western half. She tried to wipe a shaky hand against her mouth, but the jostling running and dodging through hallways, to the door of the back staircase, only made the vomit smear across her chin and into her hair.
"Stop," she gasped. "You have to stop."
"The hell I do," he said. They'd reached the stairwell and he yanked open the door.
Looking down, Theda could see a window on the landing that indicated they were at least six floors up.
"I can't go anymore."
"Yes, you can."
"What did you see?" she asked, thinking to slow him down long enough for her to quell her stomach.
"You really want to talk about that, here?"
She looked out the window and groaned at the thought of going down another six flights.
"I'm coming off," she moaned.
He groaned. "Of co
urse you are. And at just the right moment, too." He cursed under his breath, making her glare at him.
"It's your fault," she said to him.
"Right. Because it's never an addict's fault."
"You forced three smears into me. What did you think would happen?"
"You didn't seem too upset about it at the time."
She shrugged. "Have you ever met an addict who would turn down copious amounts of their favorite distraction?"
He looked her over, head to heel, as though he was trying to decide what to do with her. "Well, you certainly look like shit now."
She clutched at her stomach, nodding. "I feel like it." She leaned against the railing, legs quaking. She was pretty sure she was going to throw up, again; the pains in her stomach had grown sharper. Her mouth flooded with water. She couldn't look him in the eye.
"Are you going to be sick, again?" He said it with a strange coolness. "Because I'd like to have some warning this time." He lifted his foot to show where she had doused him on the pant leg.
"I'll be okay," she struggled to get the words out, to seem alert when every movement of her head took a huge amount of energy. Each breath made the sickness that much more imminent.
He sighed impatiently. "Well, you can be sick and get the hell out of here," he said. "Or you can be sick and get dead. Take your pick."
She glared at him. "Not much of a choice." She swallowed down hard half a dozen times, marshaling her strength. Shivers fingered their way up her spine to clutch at the back of her shoulders and drive hot nails into her back. For the life of her she couldn't stop shaking.
A scream came from behind them. Someone had found the bodies, a woman by the sound of it. Theda groaned out loud, because she knew her brief respite was over; and by now all she wanted to do was to curl into a ball and wait for somebody to put a bullet in her head.
His mouth worked itself into a pitying line, for one hopeful moment as he regarded her, then his face went hard again and the light in his eyes shuttered out.
"Oh, for fuck sakes," he said, shaking his head. "Suck it up."
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 81
