Page 6 of Night of the Witch
My body bends double. I cannot will it to stay upright. I claw the earth, nails digging deep into ashes and mud, and from the pit of me, the core of me, I scream.
It is a promise.
It is a beginning.
2
OTTO
The city of Trier smells like fear and shit.
I wrap my black cloak over my shoulders, securing the pierced-heart brooch at the neck. My leather boots are polished to a mirror shine. My belt is heavy with my sheathed sword hanging on my left and a wheellock pistol holstered to my right, but before I open the door to the headquarters of the hexenjägers in the Porta Nigra, I mentally pause, feeling each hidden weapon on my body, thinking of what I would need to do to reach each one instantly.
A dagger at my back and a smaller one in my boot. A silver knife beneath each shirt cuff, the cost of such blades immense, but paid for from the archbishop’s own coffers.
A vial of holy water around my neck. A scroll of parchment with a verse from Exodus written in Latin, blessed by the Pope himself, sewn into my cloak. A jar of dirt from Jerusalem, tiny and clinking in my pocket next to a golden crucifix, the only thing I have left of my father’s.
Witches need more than blades to pierce them before they are cast into hell.
Our weapons are designed to rend the flesh and burn the soul.
I sling open the door and step onto the stone corridor. As I expected, there are fewer witch hunters here than normal. My plan to get regular updates from the city while I was on patrols meant that I cut my most recent tour of the southern part of the diocese short.
“Kapitän!” One of the lower-ranked men shouts, running toward me.
It’s a new recruit, Johann, too junior to have been included on patrols outside the city yet. He’s a kid, really, fifteen or sixteen. I’m no more than a few years his senior, but that age difference feels…wrong. He has peach fuzz on his chin, a gleam of innocence still alight in his eyes.
“What is it?” I growl.
“Kommandant Kirch is not yet back,” the boy stutters. “I—we were not sure of the changes to the executions?”
“Changes?”
The boy bobs his head. “Ja, Kapitän.” He holds a paper out to me.
I snatch it from him. It bears the archbishop’s seal, as well as the stamp of the executioner, that pompous ass. Both men are far older, and yet they cower behind boys like Johann.
Like me.
There is a reason why the hexenjägers are young. They say it takes youth and the strong muscles of good holy boys to fight the devilish strength of the witches. The oldest among us is Kommandant Dieter Kirch, and he is in his early twenties. I, at nineteen, am the captain, second-in-command. To be fair, I have only been elevated to this position because I had my father’s name behind me. Nepotism worked in my favor, as did the kommandant’s personal approval of me.
And, well, Trier is running out of good holy boys willing to wearthe black cloaks. What started as a mania has settled into something even darker. There are rumblings of rebellion. The archbishop may lead the charge against the witches, but the parishes have started to question whether or not the man is correct in his crusade. There is, after all, far more gold on his fingers and around his neck than what is used for alms.
Unfortunately for them, the archbishop has been known to hear blasphemy among the doubters, blasphemy that is often treated with the same fire as the witches face.
The archbishop sits upon a literal throne, watching the burnings from afar. The executioner, he lights the fires, but it is the hexenjägers, the children he trains, who bind the hexen to the stakes. Who haul their crying, fighting bodies to the pyres.
Who root out the evil as if it is a foul weed that will wither and die in the sun.
There is always fire between the others and the hexen. Fire, and the children like Johann who they have trained to dirty their hands.
Fools.
I snap the parchment out, scanning the words quickly. The archbishop has written the decree in Latin—it is, after all, a mandate from the Church—but it’s also a precaution. Few of the lesser-ranked boys can read even in German, fewer still in the language of God.
“I knew about this,” I state flatly.
Bright red splotches stain Johann’s face. He’s nervous around me. “It’s just that…with Kommandant Kirch gone…”
