Page 73 of Night of the Witch
“It eases my soul,” Dieter continues, “knowing that you would bewilling to do the same to your sister.” The knife in his hand stills, the point still driving under his nail in a way that makes me wince. But his eyes turn to me, burning with intensity. “You would, wouldn’t you?” he asks, now with a manic fury beneath his words, his voice rising. “You would watch Hilde Ernst burn. You would hear her screams and not flinch away. You would cut her, crisp, from the stake after, yes?”
A tiny bead of red blood seeps from under Dieter’s nail from how hard he drives the point into his nailbed. “Yes,” I whisper, watching the blood stain his cuticles red.
“I knew you were the man for the job!” he says buoyantly. He spins the knife around, driving the blade into his desk, piercing a parchment that bears the archbishop’s seal. “You light the fires tomorrow morning, and then there’s something else you may be able to help me with.”
“Kommandant?” I ask.
Dieter stands and moves over to the tiny stone closet, unlocking it. He shoots me a shy smile, as if he’s naughtily sharing a bit of stolen cake. With his boot, he kicks at the door, opening the closet and exposing the person trapped inside.
I go perfectly still. I cannot trust myself to show any reaction at all, so deep is my disgust.
The girl inside the stone chamber is small enough that she can sit on the floor, her knees drawn to her chin, but there are cuts and scrapes all along her pale skin to show how uncomfortable she is in such a cramped space. Her cheeks are hollow, her skin sallow—she has been denied both sunlight and food. She blinks as if pained, clearly trying to adjust her eyesight from the pitch black inside the stone closet. She holds her hands up over her face, and I see that she has clawed away her fingernails, red blood on each tip, in a futile attempt to fight against the immovable stone.
Dieter squats in front of the child, bouncing on his heels. He cupsher cheek, and the girl snarls, trying to bite his hand, but he is too quick, chuckling at her.
“Is she to be burned tomorrow as well?” I ask hollowly.
At the sound of my voice, she turns her eyes to me. There is such fury in her look, such pure, unadulterated hatred. She is no more than ten years old, but I have no doubt she would kill me in an instant if she could.
“Liesel? Oh, no,” Dieter says. “No, I have different plans for her.”
I frown, wondering what power this little girl has. She must be able to do something Fritzi cannot do; why else has Dieter kept her here rather than burn her alongside Fritzi and the others?
Dieter doesn’t notice my consternation. “Something else for Liesel, yes.” He turns to me. “And you will help.” There is a finality to that last sentence. His voice went from cheery to flat in the space of a breath, assuring me that Iwillhelp see his plans to fruition whether I want to or not. He barks in laughter, the sound so sudden that both I and the little girl jump. “Fire, for Liesel? Oh, no, no, no.” He stares into her, his tone going vicious. “No fire for you, Liesel. No. Fire. For. You.”
With that, he slams the door shut again. I hear a short scream from the girl, and I hope she wasn’t injured further by the abrupt, unyielding door.
Dieter turns and meets my eyes, that eerie pale blue color piercing into me. My mind is in a panic. This is Liesel, Fritzi’s cousin—another true witch, the one Fritzi hoped to save. And Dieter has her. But not with the other prisoners.
Even if my plan tomorrow works and Fritzi is able to free all the innocents from the basilica, Liesel will still be Dieter’s prisoner, trapped in a stone chamber above a Catholic church in the heart of the hexenjäger headquarters. Unreachable. Doomed to a fate worse than the stake.
21
FRITZI
Murmurs ripple and sway around me as I crouch on the soiled cobblestones. Everyone is careful to only speak as loud as is necessary, eyes darting to the cell door in furtive glances that grow bolder and bolder.
They are reciting the routes they must take.
The groups I have divided them into.
I hear their whispers—
“The midmorning bells.”
“We go left, left again, then right, up a ladder.”
“In these clothes? We look like prisoners; we’ll be spotted for sure.”
“No, there will be supplies waiting; we’ll be fine.”
—and I sink further into myself, eyes on my lap, body utterly spent as the setting sun bursts orange haze through the one high barred window.
The bag of potions hanging from my belt has only three remaining vials now, two protection, one healing that I selfishly keep for Liesel.WhenI find her. I have distributed the rest, carefully calling themhealing tonics.Or rather, Jochen, the old man who’d first spoken to me,distributed them—I am the kommandant’s sister. They’re willing to trust the whole Three-damned floor erupting underneath them at the behest of a rogue hexenjäger, but their eyes went round in terror at the idea that the kommandant’s sister smuggled in things to help heal them. Until Jochen downed a vial and was able to stand up straight for the first time in months, he’d said.
More than one person is gravely wounded, sad excuses for bandages hanging around pus-thick cuts. Others cough into rags spotted with blood. One woman has a child whose face is gaunt and green, but she cradles him to her chest, the lot of them sipping gently on the few healing potions I’d managed. The prisoners think the potions are simple healing tonics.
All I can do is sit here now, mission fulfilled for today, playing over and over in my mind images of what Dieter is doing to my cousin.
