“Fair,” Cipriano gasped, his mind unable to process what was unfolding.
“Good.” Hegel put the ring back under the stone while Manfried counted the appropriate number of coins back into the pouch.
“You’d do best by mindin your business tonight,” Manfried informed them. “Gather some buckets for your own roof stead a tendin others.”
“He’s talkin for real, like,” Hegel explained, hoisting Martyn over his shoulder. “And if we find out after you’s runnin lies or them berries ain’t proper, wager on seein us again fore the devils do.”
“Mind your father,” Manfried said, gently kicking Paolo’s chin. “Honest man’s rarer than what’s under that hearthstone.”
The portly militiaman wasted no time in opening the gate for them, being engaged in discourse with one of the farmers from the inn when they rode out. They stopped the wagon a ways up the road and led it off into the grass behind a hill, where they tethered the horses to a stump and crept back in the thickening dusk. Moving around the wall, they came to the spot behind the inn’s stable that Manfried had marked by sliding a stick between the slats, and here Hegel helped raise his brother.
The mud of the pigpen broke Manfried’s fall and he quickly threw the rope over to his brother. Hegel had reached the top of the wall when someone approached through the gloom with a rushlight. The lad caught a glimpse of silver beard before the owner’s mace bashed him between the eyes. Saving the spitting light from the mud, Manfried gave the stableboy a kick for good measure before creeping behind the inn with the little oil they had left.
Hegel darted across the thoroughfare, the nape of his neck telling him he had not been seen. The farrier’s building had no lights lit, which suited the grave-eyed Grossbart fine. Splashing oil liberally on the wooden door, he applied even more to the stable. He would have preferred to do the farrier himself but it could not be helped. He chipped away at his flint for several minutes, sweating as the straw refused to catch. When it did the fire leaped up the walls of the building so quickly he barely had time to dash across the street before the cry went up.
The rushlight made Manfried’s task far easier, and when he saw Hegel’s smiling in the dark he touched off the inn. It went up even faster, and before the Grossbarts scrambled up the pig-fence and over the wall the whole town had come alive with screams. They ran fire-blinded to the road, tripping and stumbling the entire way back to the wagon. Martyn had awoken and gave a shout when they appeared before they pelted him with reprimands.
Regaining the road took time in the dark but when they rounded the hill the glow of the burning village showed them the way. Martyn shook his head to clear it, and looked curiously at the Brothers. They said nothing but their smiles told a dark tale indeed. Too muddled of mind to comprehend anything other than that his right arm now hurt far worse than his left, he asked for spirits instead of answers. Manfried held a bottle of schnapps to the priest’s lips until he gagged and spit booze on the three of them. The Brothers joined him, the wagon sporadically drifting off the road. Midnight found them crossing the papal bridge, toasting the memory of Formosus.
XVI. The Gaze of the Abyss
Blubbering and mewling to itself, the pestilential spirit the Brothers had burned out of Ennio paced in the rat hole, the rodent it wore like an exceptionally filthy hairshirt wringing its paws in frustration. Providence had guided its drifting form to the rat it now possessed but the agony of the flames had diminished its power too much for it to make another immediate attempt to enter one of the Grossbarts. Worse yet, the dispicable Brothers somehow seemed immune to its pestilence, and now they were gone, fled, beyond reach. What men would linger in such a place, after all? With the rat already fading and winter driving any other potential hosts to ground save for the few fleas likewise riding the rodent the demon knew it would soon be alone again, and then-it dared not think it, squeaking with fear and fury.
That first night in the rat it had spent digging even deeper into the hole lest the wicked orb penetrate its sanctuary, but now it looked up into the darkness, proceeding with caution up the tunnel. It smelled the ethereal smoke of starfire and tasted the shine of moonlight, and then it ran, ran as fast as it could, out of the hole and out of the house and into the winter-smothered town. It made for the blackened, desiccated remains of the alehouse but of course they were gone, fled, beyond reach, and the tiniest sigh left its snout. It had known they would run, clearly they were not that stupid, they…
They had not run. They were that stupid. The demon saw the faint glow of a campfire behind the monastery, in the very churchyard where they had first seen one another. It could not believe its luck and rolled in the snow, cheeping with delight. The short road from town to cemetery would seem many leagues under its current legs, however, and so it quickly hopped up and set to trotting back the way it had come the night before when it had possessed the hog, jumping from hoofprint to hoofprint wherever it could.
The horses whinnied but it paid them no mind, intent on its purpose, and then it saw him, a Grossbart sitting before a fire. It charged, its teeth bared in an approximation of a grin, and then Nicolette snatched it up. The demon felt fingers close around its rat, and before it could escape the rodent the ground vanished and the stars swirled as it hurtled through the cold air, dragged by an invisible arm high above the clouds. Biting and scratching at nothing, it could not fathom what had happened and squeaked its frustration into the blackness. The moon sank and the night waned and it knew dawn would soon arrive, and the demon was afraid.
Then trees appeared below it, and a small field, and a hut. The rat crashed into a snowdrift and felt the spectral fingers release it. Nicolette shuddered as she slipped back into her skin, every bone and muscle sore from a night locked in reverie beside the sleeping farmer as her secret self flew uninhibited by flesh and bone. Shaking out her limbs, she hurried to the door to welcome the guest she had spirited away over the mountains.
The witch stepped outside, where the first streaks of light began catching in the snow. Planting herself before the door, she smiled and fished in her rags for the bottle. The rat scurried toward her but before it pounced she raised her arms with an oath and the creature scurried back as if struck, pacing on its hind legs and staring at the door behind her.
“No soul’s lost if it isn’t given,” she hissed. “I won’t have you wearing him like a simple glove. I’ve read of you and yours, and know no skin but that what carries a soul will keep you when the darkness goes. Deep as the wood be, dare you risk a stray beam touching your tail? Or I might go in after, and drag you into the light from whatever hole you’ve crept into. No birds sing and no beasts scamper, only the snow and you and I and he inside, who hates them as much as the both of us.”
The rat squealed with rage but trailed off as light brushed the laden branches of the wood behind them.
“Quick as sin, make yourself into this.” Nicolette held the bottle toward the creature, who hesitated no longer. The rat rolled on its back, a hazy miasma escaping its ass and mouth as it spasmed. The yellow mist coalesced on its belly, a final frosty breath leaving its snout. Then the smoke appeared to suck into the fur, leaving not a trace on the wind. The tiny flea hurtled toward the witch but Nicolette expected this and caught it in the bottle, jamming a wax stopper into place.
Heinrich awoke at sunset, his guts and legs and skin and even his lanky hair sore and weak. She sat humming beside him, and in the firelight he saw how swollen she was of belly and breast. She tossed another handful of herbs into the blaze, making the room fill with noxious smoke.
“They’ll be out of the mountains within a week, and they’ve met another enemy of yours,” Nicolette murmured, tapping the bottle balanced atop her belly.
Heinrich rubbed his eyes. “I have no other enemies.”
“What will you offer?” She turned her wrinkled countenance to him. “What have you that could be turned against those hated Brothers?”
Vengeance knows neither remorse nor faith, and Heinrich answered without hesitation, “My flesh is devoted to their misery, and my soul.”
“All that is needed.” She smirked. “You would share your body with a demon?”
“Eh?” Heinrich tried to remember the words of the priest and failed, instead recalling Brennen’s ashen face in the mud. His mind jerked back to the present and he eyed the crone. “You’re a witch, then?”
“And one that despises those Brothers. The demon does as well, I assure you of that. Would you become host for it?”
Even a few days ago the thought would have proved anathema to Heinrich but between the priest refusing to help or even condone him and now this so-called witch offering succor, he worried his lip. Demons and witches alike could be tricked, he knew, but he doubted he possessed the wits for such deception. It occurred to him that he would have died without her help the night before, and she might still take his life if he displeased her. In such an event the Grossbarts would never be his, and his failure would be eternal.
“You would need to make room inside that cramped skin, a space as large as your immortal spirit.” Nicolette saw his indecision and patted his hand. “I too am prepared to give all that I may, for I loved my husband more than I love my life, and they took him from me just as they took your bride and children.”
“My soul, then,” Heinrich decided, remembering Gertie thrashing in the mire, dying in agony. God and all His saints had stayed hidden that day, as they did on this. If He wants my soul He will step in now, thought the miserable farmer, but nothing happened. “Summon what demons you may, and inform them my soul is theirs if it means I am the Grossbarts’ downfall.”
“Unlike others of my faith I lack the knowledge to conjure demons,” Nicolette said with a smile. “Fortune’s favored us, though, for in spying on the Grossbarts I have discovered one not yet banished to its formless realm, one whose goal is shared by you and me.” The flea hurled itself against its prison but Nicolette did not open the bottle, instead continuing to barter with the too-willing yeoman. “That is its price, but we’ve not fixed mine.”
“More than my flesh and spirit?” Heinrich snorted. “I have nothing else.”
“Nothing save a father’s love for his murdered children.”
Heinrich eyes filled and he reached for his knife to cut out her horrible tongue.
“I would have you be a father again, Heinrich,” she whispered, stroking her stomach. It pulsated at her touch. “My babes will require a guardian as they grow, a guide to bring them to the Grossbarts.”
“Carry wee ones over winter roads? I’ll never watch another child suffer, witch, not even to see those Brothers die.”
Heinrich had witnessed horrors great enough that he felt himself righteous in accepting his own damnation without regret, but still his bowels twisted in fear at Nicolette’s throaty laugh. “You will not need to carry them,” she chuckled. “But when you flag they will carry you. Yes, and hunt for you and do all that obedient children should.”
“I doubt that. New babes do naught but cry.”
“Doubt? Doubt! We’ll assuage those, dear master of turnips.” Nicolette groaned, her stomach rippling. “I’ll free you both, just give your word!”
“You have it.” Heinrich stared into the fire. “Give me my revenge and you may take anything I’ve got that those Brothers haven’t yet stolen.”
The bottle slipped onto the floor and broke, the flea leaping onto Heinrich. Its body, bloated with even the most diminished form of the evil it carried, popped when it reached his shoulder, a foul golden smoke drifting into his nostrils. Heinrich began to cough and gag, feeling as if a white-hot wire pushed through his sinuses and down his throat. His nose dripped black phlegm and when his boiling guts finally calmed he saw Nicolette had fallen out of her chair, her massive belly heaving.
“Into the wood,” she gasped, “find what they buried. Don’t return without it, but dare not touch it or such mischief as even I know not will occur. Tongs!” she wailed, slapping the iron tool beside the hearth and arching her back, viscous fluid gushing from between her legs.
