The Village Witch

by Davies, Neil

  Tim took it, weighing it in his hands, feeling the balance. He ran a cautious finger along the edge of the razor-sharp blade.

  “It would certainly chop through those things I guess, but it’s not the best for throwing.”

  “We need to get it down here long enough for you to disable it,” said the Professor. “While it’s flying around up there it can just pick us off one by one at its leisure.”

  As he finished speaking, Aello saw them and, letting out a screeching cry that rattled the windows, swept towards them, flying low, claws outstretched.

  “Watch out!” shouted Tim, pulling the Professor with him as he ducked back into the cellar doorway.

  Ethel ducked to one side as fast as her weary, injured legs would take her. Had she been Aello’s target she would not have survived, but Aello was intent on taking Tim’s head. She swooped over the old lady, claws pulling a few strands of grey hair loose to float away, drifting almost dreamlike to the floor.

  Ethel watched them fall as Aello slammed into the doorframe of the cellar, unable to fit through, reaching with her claws. Next time, she knew, it might be her head and not her hair falling to the floor. And if not hers, someone else’s.

  She looked at the dead and dying that littered the carpet and the stairs. Most of them she knew, both robed and unrobed. She watched those still alive trying to find places to hide from the creature, or wandering in a daze, bleeding and bloodied, in shock both from what they’d seen and what they’d done. She knew most of those too.

  These were her people and Katrina Bayley and now this Aello had spoiled them, destroyed them. Destroyed her village. She thought of Mr. Crosby, still lying out on the roadway. She thought of Susan, badly injured, and of the Professor and Tim. Katrina Bayley had already paid the price of her crimes. Now there was just this creature, this harpy. Aello.

  2

  Shards of masonry fell from the wall either side of the doorway as Aello continued to scramble at the opening, trying to break through and reach Tim and the Professor where they crouched on the steps, alongside Susan’s still form.

  “Can she get through?” said the Professor, one hand placed gently on his daughter’s head, stroking her tangled hair.

  “The way it’s looking there’s a possibility, yes,” said Tim.

  “Not much room for her to fly in here,” said the Professor. “If she does break through could you kill her?”

  Tim looked at the machete in his hand and then round at the small space at the top of the steps.

  “Not a lot of room for us to move either,” he said. “With those claws I think we’d probably die before she did.” He looked briefly down the steps. “Unless we moved down into the cellar. I suppose there might be more room there, but not much light to fight by.”

  “We have to be sure to kill her,” said the Professor. “There can’t be any possibility of her surviving.” He looked down to his daughter and a single tear fell from his eye, despite his efforts at control. “Not after all this.”

  “Then in here is not the place I would choose for a last stand,” said Tim, also looking at Susan, every bit as determined as the Professor to destroy the creature that had injured her and killed so many others. Including, in the end, Katrina.

  “We may not have much choice,” said the Professor as another lump of brick and plaster fell to the floor.

  3

  Ethel scrambled as quickly as she could to the nearest robed body. Dropping her knife, she pulled at the knot in the rope-belt, thankful that in their ignorance this person had used only one knot, not three as in the true cincture of a Franciscan monk. For a moment her thoughts looked back to the old friar who had hidden her for a few days in his monastery in occupied France, but she quickly pulled them back to the present. There were so many memories, good and bad. She had lived a long and eventful life. There was little she regretted, and she did not regret her decision now.

  She pulled the rope free, having to roll the body over as she did so, more blood oozing from the cloth. She barely noticed. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken things from a dead body.

  Glancing back to check that Aello still scrambled at the cellar doorway, still unable to reach her quarry, Ethel quickly looped the rope and tied a slip knot, silently thanking her time in the Girl Guides. There had been so much to be grateful for, over the years.

  Grabbing up the knife, she turned towards the creature and stood up. She knew how it liked to attack. She knew what she was doing.

  Gripping the knotted rope in her left fist and taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she threw the knife.

  The point struck true, failing to penetrate the thick hide of the harpy but pricking it before falling to the floor.

  Aello turned, growling, to see who had dared to attack her.

  “Tim, Professor!” shouted Ethel as the creature flapped its wings and rose into the air above her, preparing to strike. “You’d better take this chance. I won’t be able to do it a second time.”

  Aello swooped.

  4

  Tim saw Aello pull back from her attack on the doorway. Saw the creature turn and take off.

  He heard Ethel calling him.

  Not waiting to see if the Professor had heard also, he hurried to the now clear doorway, cautiously peering outside.

  Aello was in the air above Ethel, who stood apparently calmly, looking at Tim and smiling slightly. She held a rope in her hand. Tim had an awful premonition of what she was about to do.

  “No,” he shouted, but it was too late.

  Aello swooped down, her claws outstretched, aiming for the old woman’s head.

  Ethel made no attempt to dodge, instead lifting the rope, her eyes on the rapidly descending creature.

  She timed it to perfection, looping the slip knot over one of Aello’s claws and quickly tightening it around the leg.

  Aello, puzzled but seemingly unconcerned by the sudden tugging on her leg, gripped the old woman’s head, ready to tear it off as she had done so many others.

  Ethel screamed at the sudden pain but held on tightly to the rope. She could feel the muscles in her neck tearing, the skin splitting. The top of her spine felt ready to crack. But she held on, pulling down on the rope, holding the harpy in place.

  Tim, understanding the sacrifice Ethel was making and the opportunity she was giving him, rushed forward, the machete raised.

  AELLO

  The old woman held her in some way, stopping her from flying upwards, pulling the head free.

  A tug on her leg. A rope.

  She could smell the woman’s blood as it poured from the tear in her neck, feel the looseness of the head, the final crack of the spine. The old bitch must surely be dead and yet she held on.

  Movement from near the cellar door. Galton running towards her, a weapon in his hand.

  No!

  She struggled harder, pulled and pushed, turned and twisted.

  She lashed out with her claws, lacerating the shoulders, chest and back of the old woman.

  Galton was close.

  She changed her attack, struck out towards the hated and feared man.

  It could not end like this. Not at the hands of a Galton. Not again!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Tim ducked and dodged as best he could as the harpy’s claws turned towards him. He cried out and almost fell as red hot pain tore through his shoulder, a deep, bloody furrow gouged by a sudden and lucky strike.

  Ethel was already dead, her head connected to her body by the slimmest strands of skin and gristle, yet her fist still held the rope and the wildly flapping, roaring creature could not escape.

  Avoiding further injury, Tim got around the back, keeping low, buffeted by the winds caused by the heavy, leathery wings. He knew he would not get a second chance to make the first blow. It had to be strong, decisive, accurate.

  Timing it as best he could with the erratic flapping, he pushed himself upright, lifted the machete and brought it down heavily on the left wing,
close to where the muscle joined the harpy’s body.

  The creature’s skin was tough and thick, but the sharp edge of the machete cut into it, deep enough to stop the wild flapping and tear a scream that was more pain than rage from the harpy. Blood fizzed around the blade unlike anything Tim had seen before. It spurted. It popped. It spattered him with drops that were hot and more viscous than human blood.

  Undeterred he tugged the machete free, raised it and chopped down again, and again.

  Aello screeched and flapped her good wing in desperation. She tried to reach Tim with her claws but he moved with her, keeping at her back, bringing the machete down hard on the slowly widening wound.

  Ethel’s head finally tore free and her body folded almost gracefully to the floor, almost bloodless as most had already escaped through the initial ripping of her neck. As she fell, her grip finally loosened on the rope, but it was too late for Aello.

  With a final grunt of effort, Tim brought the machete down one last time and the harpy’s left wing fell, covering Ethel like a black, twitching shroud.

  Aello tried to fly but spiralled into the carpet, flapping helplessly like a wounded bird. She tried to stand but the loss of a wing unbalanced her, and she could not get to her feet. She lost her grip on Ethel’s head and it rolled to Tim’s feet. He could have sworn there was a smile on it.

  Before he could move in for the final kill, the villagers, who had watched his battle with the creature in silence, were overcome by mob-fuelled rage and vengeance. They reached Aello before Tim, falling on her with knives, axes, clubs.

  The harpy fought back, despite her pain and panic. Tim could do nothing as men and women fell away, bloody claw marks raked across their faces, their bodies. But superior numbers told in the end. Gradually, Aello’s struggles weakened as the weapons of the villagers’ penetrated her tough skin. The flapping subsided, the screams of rage and pain and panic falling away to little more than a whimper.

  Tim, joined now by the Professor, crouched down. He watched Aello’s face through the legs of the scrambling villagers.

  The creature’s eyes held nothing but hate, even as the life faded in them. Tim held their gaze steadily, his rage lost behind exhaustion and a grim satisfaction.

  Aello’s eyes darkened. Her stare became blank, empty. She died.

  The losses had been many, almost more than Tim could bear. Mr. Crosby, Ethel and, of course, Katrina, although she had been lost long before he returned to Byre. But in the end, they had won and the village, scarred and battered, would rebuild over time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was the second funeral in as many days. Tim and the Professor turned from Ethel Barlow’s graveside as the council workers, stood respectfully to one side during the brief service, moved in with their shovels. A small number of villagers had attended, some who had known Ethel, others who had witnessed her sacrifice in the old house. But there were many funerals taking place in Byre, and no one could attend them all.

  A little way back from the graveside, Susan sat in a wheelchair, waiting.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Tim as he and the Professor reached her. “Or is that a stupid question?”

  “My chest still hurts when I breathe, or talk, or laugh, or pretty much anything,” said Susan with a smile. “But I’m alive and I’m looking forward to getting out of this chair.”

  Tim nodded as the Professor pushed his daughter along the path, towards the cemetery gates. He thought back over Mr. Crosby’s funeral, and now Ethel’s. So many more scheduled over the coming weeks. People he did not know who had lived and died in his village. And then there were the missing, those whose bodies had never been found, among them his old adversary Steve Ives. No funerals for them. Only memories.

  “So, you going back to history lecturing?” he said, turning to the Professor. “Doing a bit of psychic investigating on the side?”

  The Professor glanced back over his shoulder to where the grave diggers were throwing soil over Ethel’s coffin.

  “I’m thinking of giving up the lecturing,” he said. “There’s obviously strange things going on out there, and I don’t mean an occasional apparition or some poltergeist activity. I mean serious, dangerous things.”

  “Quite right,” said Susan. “It’s about time we got serious about this investigating business.”

  “Could be risky,” said Tim.

  “Well, obviously, anyone investigating that kind of phenomenon would need some help, defending themselves and dealing with the more physical threats. It’s a lot for an old man and one lone woman to deal with.”

  For a moment none of them spoke, walking in silence towards the cemetery gates, the chair’s wheels quietly squeaking as they turned. Then Tim smiled and put his arm around the Professor’s shoulders, gently moving him aside and taking over pushing Susan’s wheelchair.

  “Just as well I’m here then, isn’t it?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Neil Davies was born in 1959 and has found everything else to be an uphill struggle. He currently lives in the North West of England with his wife, two grown-up children and two cats. Any spare time he can find he spends writing horror and science fiction, or playing music with his son as The 1850 Project. To find out more, please visit his official website http://www.nwdavies.co.uk. You can also find him on Facebook (nwdavies), twitter (@nwdavies) and other social media sites. Drop by for a chat.