Witch Water

My God…

Fanshawe backed up, nauseous.

It was an undersense more than conscious impetus that guided his next steps. Consciously, he could not reckon the reality of where he was, what he’d done, and what he would next do. Instead, he let his feet take him where they may—

Down the straggly hill, toward the town.

Ramshackle horse-quarters stood where the Travelodge should be. Fanshawe heard the scuffs of his shoes answered by heavy snorting sounds. He’d just crossed Back Street—its teetering abodes and primitive service- buildings showing white-washed boards and crudely glazed window panes. All that lit the town was cloud-filtered moonlight. He thought of switching on his flashlight but felt alarm when he realized that might instantly make him a target for attention. The town was asleep, and he needed it to stay that way.

But he knew where he was going now…

Wraxall’s house should be just across the next street. When he slipped through an alley, he froze—at the sound of a bell—

A church bell.

It struck once, twice, then a third time. The nature of each peal sounded fat and buoyant in the air of the warm night, but also oddly brittle.

Fanshawe knew he’d heard this bell before.

Three o’clock in the morning, he deduced. Instead of emerging from the other side of the alley onto Main Street, he hung back, letting himself sink into shadow. The bell-ringer would come out of the church any moment, to walk into the tavern where he’d wait till it was time to sound the bell again, probably by the assistance of an hour-glass. Before Fanshawe’s eyes, the night-veiled dwellings of Main Street stretched, then, as suspected, a door was heard opening and closing. Footsteps crossed hard-packed dirt. Fanshawe glimpsed the bell-man approaching the tavern and disappearing into it.

Now.

He stepped out of the shadow-black alley, prepared to whisk himself across the street, but nearly shouted via the surprise that came next:

“Who be thither? Come for another go upon a helpless woman, have thee, thou stinkards? Well, I say pox on you, and may there be a plague upon all thy children! May they be borned with cloven faces and empty heads!”

Fanshawe’s heart slammed.

Just beside him stood a pillory, and in its long wooden brace hung a woman dressed in scraps of soiled fabric. Worse soiling left the color of her yard-long hair impossible to determine.

Another one, Fanshawe thought.

Sunken eyes in a gaunt face craned upward. “Glory!” she rasped in a whisper. Decayed teeth grinned at him in relief. “Pray, sir, ’tis not one’a them that you be, I can see as much! Hear my plea, I beg! Release me! ’Tis a fortnight they’ve kept me here. They spit on me in the name of God— hear me! Into mine womanhood they spurt their seed any time they’ve the mind to, and ‘tis only foul water and livestock gruel they let be my sustenance!”

“For God’s sake,” Fanshawe groaned, disgusted. He could see rings of scab and infection about the prisoner’s wrists and neck. “Kept quiet, I don’t want that guy to hear”—he fiddled with the latch on the brace.

She shivered, concealing a squeal of delight as he finally worked the latch and raised the wooden brace.

Joints cracked and she moaned when he helped her up. Between the tatters of her clothing, Fanshawe saw a body like a victim of a death camp. Immediately she hugged him, which caused Fanshawe to recoil from the power of her body odor.

“For thine kindness, I wilt do anything you may ask!” Rotten breath gusted into his ear, and then she caressed his crotch.

Fanshawe was revolted. “No, no—just run, get out of here!” he whispered. “These people are crazy.”

“Oh my great dark lord! May the Morning Star bless thee and keep thee safe!” and then the raddled woman crossed herself, but it was the sign of an upside-down cross that her hand gestured over her chest.

Fanshawe stared.

“Myself and all mine own shalt pray that Lucifer guide thee always. We shalt do anything you deem us worthy of, great necromancer!”

Fanshawe stammered, “Buh-but I’m not a necrom—”

The woman hobbled off, disappearing down another alley.

A witch…

“Halt, you!” another voice rose. It boomed down the street like a basso shout: a man’s voice.

Fanshawe ground his teeth in fear. A large man lumbered in his direction, and when a reef of clouds moved off to let the moon shine, Fanshawe grimly recognized the obese stature of the man: the vest about to break its buttons, the star-shaped metal badge, and the swollen, corroded nose and blemished face.

Patten, the high sheriff.

Fanshawe wanted to run, but his knees locked when he saw the fat, shambling man raise a flintlock pistol. “Be still and speak thy business on this Godly street at so an hour!”

Fanshawe opened his mouth—

More footsteps, then another voice boomed: “On my word, Sheriff, just now from my window I espied that fellow unfetter the harlot from her just and legal capture!” A slimmer man raced from another door, bearing a lit lantern.

“Oh, did he now?”

Fanshawe remained unmoving as the men converged, but when they got closer, their steps slowed as if intimidated. The sheriff’s out-broken face creased in fear.

“Behold his manner of dress…”

“Yea! Just the same as—”

“That one come only a week afore! Another warlock, turned up by deviltry to curse our Christian flock—”

The other man’s voice quavered. “What-what be that he’s got in his hand?”

“’Tis a weapon?”

Fanshawe raised the flashlight and turned it on. “No, listen—it’s just a…”

The slim man dropped his lantern in the road and fled, shrieking in nearly a feminine voice. The sheriff froze, terror open on his face. “A sorcerer’s scepter—surely! A wand that yields a spot of light like that of ye sun!”

Absurdly, Fanshawe said, “It’s just a damn flashlight, man. Look, I don’t want any trouble—”

Sheriff Patten’s lower lip trembled; his gun hand shook. But when Fanshawe shined the flashlight in the man’s face, he saw the expression slowly go from a gibbering panic to a slowly rising disregard for danger. He began to step forward.

Shit! What am I gonna do now?

“A Christian soldier such as I need have no fear. God shalt protect me always, as one of those with faith.” His gun hand was shaking less. “Now, keep thyself still and let go that scepter, lest thee find thy bosom with a hole large enough to admit my fist!”

With a reflex he didn’t think himself capable of, Fanshawe jerked to the left, to sprint across the street. There was a snap! a flash, then—

BOOM!

The entire street concussed from the pistol shot. Fanshawe’s teeth clacked, and he felt something substantial plow past his head, displacing air; his feet carried him through another alley as though he were on a tow-line. Behind him he heard bells clanging, shouts, and the sheriff’s voice booming nearly as loud as the shot: “All Christian men, awake—we’ve a wizard in our midst! Deputies, come out! Call ye parson! Someone fetch Humphreys and have him bring his beast!”

Beast, Fanshawe thought in horror, stumbling over rubbish in the alley. Then the thunderous barks of an immense dog overpowered all other sound; it was so loud Fanshawe wanted to