Page 151 of Night of the Witch
But I’m back now.
There is a pyre already built in front of the cathedral. Some of thecity’s residents have gathered. No doubt rumors have preceded my arrival—the kommandant of the hexenjägers, brought back to burn.
I smile at them beatifically.
“This way.” The impertinent young hexenjäger pulls my chain, and I stumble forward, toward the cathedral’s main door. That one, Johann, he was trouble. But he has his weaknesses too.
If only I had possessed Otto before. I would have known of his treachery. I could have used him before he tore apart my pretty little prison.
But then again, if Otto had not enacted his silly plans, he never would have found my pretty little sister.
A smile twists at the corner of my mouth, and I do not bother to hide it. I like the way it makes the hexenjägers “guarding” me cower.
“I must have caused quite a stir to be sent straight to the archbishop’s office,” I say as we step inside the cathedral. “How naughty I’ve been.”
Jäger Kock, to my left, lets out a hiss of breath. I think he believed my skin would ignite the moment I touched foot on holy ground. I turn my head to look at him and slowly lick my lips, savoring the taste of his terror.
“Comeon,” Johann says, jerking my chains.
“I will kill you slowly,” I tell him, my words light.
“Not before I watch you burn,” the jäger mutters.
I chuckle, following along like a good little boy. I can do that, you see. I can be a good little boy, go to church, say my prayers, burn the witches. Such agoodlittle boy.
Johann holds open the door to the archbishop’s office, and I step inside, chains rattling. It is irksome, that metal rubbing my wrists. I hold my hands out to Johann. “Please, sir,” I say sweetly.
Johann ignores me, and Jäger Kock follows inside, intending to be a guard to protect the archbishop from my foul evil. The two men block my vision of the archbishop temporarily. I hear the old man start to stand.
“This is…” he says in his cracked voice. Is that fear I hear? I bite back a giggle at the rhyming thought.Fear I hear, fear I hear.
“Dieter Kirch, witch.” Johann spits the words out.
Tentatively, I feel for the magic. That potion—it broke me for a moment. I lost hold of my threads; they slipped through my fingers.
Just like my games with Fritzichen as children, those little links to magic are hiding in the dark, but I can still see them.
The jägers step aside.
I lift my head.
I meet the archbishop’s eyes.
And I smile.
Got you.
The archbishop sits down placidly at his desk.
“You can go,” he says to the jägers.
Johann’s brow furrows. Thinking, thinking, that one! Did his training teach him nothing? Ha, the irony. I giggle to myself. What good training the others received, to learn how not to think.
“And take off his chains,” the archbishop adds.
Johann’s consternation grows, but I hold out my manacled wrists obediently. He fits the key into the lock, and the iron falls away.
Johann closes the door behind him.
