the color of lobster, and her hands and face were charred black.
Evelyn heard Nadia scream, and felt her release the working she’d been holding in the direction of the window, a blue-white electric current searing the hallway in a brilliant flash. Evelyn screamed for her to stop, but it was too late. Nadia’s light working flickered, and then collapsed from inattention, and the room fell back into the natural half-shadow cast by the lamps.
Alice Gallow stepped from the shadows in front of Evelyn, grinning, her face shining and unhealthily pale. Evelyn released her working, and the red halo above her head became a burning serpent, a crescent of fire that coursed through the air, simmering and howling as it charged the Auditor. Alice waved one outstretched hand dismissively, and the working disappeared, swallowed up by the shadow her arm cast. Evelyn was tossed to her feet by the impact when the working reemerged from the shadows behind her, sputtering and disintegrating.
Evelyn knew then with a grim certainty that they had lost. The working she’d thrown was the most powerful she knew, and the serpent should have reduced even a capable Operator to ashes. Instead it failed to even touch her. Evelyn clutched her pounding head, still reeling from the blowback of the destroyed working, and wondered why they were here, and why this horrible thing was happening to her.
Alice Gallow was holding someone’s hand, pulling a man into the room through the shadow behind her. He was taller than her by a few inches with neatly trimmed black hair, his face almost entirely obscured by blue-tinted goggles and a blue surgical mask. Evelyn thought that he might have been Chinese. He wore a heavy black coat that ran almost to his ankles, and Evelyn guessed that this was armor as well.
“Alright, bitches,” Alice said amiably, holding up a large pair of silver scissors with a grin. “One chance. Your clothes, in a pile, right here in front of Xia. Then we do the hair.”
Evelyn heard Nadia making a choking sound. Alice looked at their reaction, and her smile got even bigger.
“Otherwise, we do it the way we did your sister, right? And I don’t think you want that.” Alice giggled and sat down on the edge of the bed, rolling the charred, stinking body of the Witch away with her foot. “Come on, give Xia a little show. Who knows when he last saw any tits besides mine.”
Evelyn looked over at Nadia, who was still crouched in the far corner of the room, staring wide-eyed at the Auditor and hyperventilating. She fingered the glass idol in her left hand — the Auditor must know she was holding it, there was no point in making a pretense. Witches can feel fear, and Evelyn felt a great deal at the moment. They can also understand pain, and humiliation — perhaps more than a human could, given that they are the currency of the world that a Witch lives in.
Evelyn did not understand the Operators ‘Protocols’, but she knew the functional differences between them and the Witches own workings. Witches did not draw power from the Ether, but rather, from the humans around them. This harvested power was stored, in charms and in amulets, in a Witches clothes and her hair. Evelyn had spent years weaving workings into the fabric of the dress she wore, and had been doing the same to her hair her whole life. It was the work, literally, of a lifetime.
Without her clothes, without her hair, Evelyn would be all but helpless.
“Auditor,” Evelyn began, trying to keep her voice steady. “What guarantees do you offer us in return for our surrender?”
Alice leaned her elbows on her knees and looked delighted.
“Witch, if you do what I say, just like I tell you to, I promise that you will arrive, alive and uncooked, at Central. Whatever they decide to do to you, it’ll be less painful that what I have in mind. Although,” Alice said, her eyes shining wickedly, “you are going to have to cry a bit for me, first.”
Alice’s laughter was cruel and abrupt, and then suddenly she was behind Evelyn, somehow, clutching her, one hand holding her face tightly while the other caressed her throat.
“I saw your little family,” Alice cooed, her smile frozen and grotesque. “Those were some nice little girls you had there. It’s too bad that they had to shit themselves before they died. It’s too bad it had to be like that. Now I’m not that nice of a person myself, right Xia? But everybody has limits, even in this business. Everybody has stuff that gets to them. No helping it.”
She knotted her fingers in Evelyn’s hair and pulled mercilessly, forcing her head back so that she could run her black fingernails delicately across her jugular vein. Evelyn’s breath came in ragged gasps, and she moaned involuntarily.
“It looked like they hurt,” Alice said softly. “They must’ve cried, because it took them a long time to die. And you ate it up, didn’t you, bitch? That thing you threw at me, that was some of it, their pain, wasn’t it? Did they beg you for help? Did they call you mommy?”
Evelyn didn’t see any point in denying or confirming it. Alice sighed and tossed her to the floor, leaving her sprawled out next to the twitching body of her burned sister. Alice sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, and rested her chin in her hands, looking glum.
“Enough of this.” Alice shook her head and then smiled again. “I can see that amulet you’ve got in your hand, creature. Is it a combat working? Go ahead, try it out.”
Evelyn drew her legs up underneath her, but didn’t stand up, frozen by the smiling Auditor’s stare. She was so frightened that she almost didn’t notice when Yolanda’s consciousness disintegrated, choking on her own burned lungs. It was horrible — the presence that had been in her mind since she was born, her sister and companion for decades, snuffed out like a candle. Evelyn let out another low moan, and her hand tightened around the amulet.
“You don’t stand a chance, you pathetic shit.” Alice laughed. “I’ve killed more Witches than you’ve met in your whole life, honey. I know all your moves, all the workings, all your little tricks. I could eat you up and spit you out, if I wanted to. You could use up every ounce of power you’ve got, you and your sister, and you wouldn’t even touch me.”
“Why not do it now, and be finished with us?” Evelyn demanded, seeing a glimmer of hope, her voice firming. “If you could have, wouldn’t you already have done it?”
Alice shrugged happily.
“Obviously, you can’t,” Evelyn said triumphantly, smiling up through her tears at the Auditors. “You need us for something, right? You need to know something?”
“Nah,” Alice chuckled, turning to the masked man and exchanging a knowing glance. “We’re just sending a message. Don’t get delusions of grandeur because we’re here. You aren’t anything special. Any Witch will do, as long as your corpses are ugly enough to make the rest of you think twice after they see them.”
Evelyn gaped at the Auditor in dismay.
“Why, then? Why bother keeping us alive?”
“Because it’s good practice for the kids in the science labs at Central to have a real live Witch to tear apart, so they know how to do it when we catch one that knows something worthwhile.” Alice’s smile was crooked, and her eyes fixed on Nadia. “And because of those little girls, Witch. That’s a score I want to even.”
Evelyn’s let the idol tumble from her hands on to the carpet next to her.
“Enough with the bullshit. I’m getting bored, and we don’t need two, anyway. Burn the little one, Xia,” Alice said, nodding at Nadia. “Make it hurt. We’ve got time.”
Behind his mask, Xia gave Alice a short nod, and then his eyes narrowed, and he stared at Nadia, hard.
It took a long time before Nadia stopped screaming, her face reduced to charcoal and cinders. And then, when Nadia finally went, Evelyn felt that too, like balloon popping inside her, and then the tears came, when she realized that she was alone inside her head, for the first time in her life.
She felt bad for herself. She’d liked having sisters.
“Fucking hell, but that stinks. Well, it’s a start,” Alice said, leaning forward and crooking a finger at Evelyn. “Now crawl on over here, bitch. All fours.”
Evelyn did as she was told, tears dropping from her cheeks to the scorched carpet. The room reeked of burnt plastic and cooked skin, and she felt sick.
“Okay, now strip,” Alice said smugly, crossing her legs. “Clothes in a pile, along with anything else you might have on you.”
Evelyn numbly began to unbutton her dress. Her head ached horribly, where her sisters had always been.
“Xia, you are watching this shit, right?” Alice asked, bright-eyed and cheerful. “Don’t say I never did you any favors…”
