Hunting Witches (19 page)

“Let me spell it out for you, sorceress,” Pastor Edward said. “The people you are descended from threatened to divide the kingdom of Israel in half with their strange ways and foreign gods. Your very existence is an affront to God.”

“Nobody thinks that!” Nika yelled.

Edward bent over and leaned in, nose to nose. “What makes you think I’m alone in my thought processes?” His breath smelled of old Italian food and cigarettes. “There are millions of people out there who feel the same way I do. People who read the Scriptures and believe in them, and take them seriously as the law of their hearts, all across this Christian nation, understand that a white man should never, ever marry a nigger.”

This is a nightmare,
Nika thought.
Some kind of fucked up Old South King James nightmare, and I’ll wake up soon and I’ll be in my bed with Mark and everything will be fine as soon as I wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

“Here’s the thing,” Edward said. “Whether you realize it or not, you are an abomination in the eyes of God. You and your entire race. Raised in witchcraft, bred in sin. And you must not be allowed to tempt white men, or innocent white women, like Sister Penny.”

“This is a joke. This is some kind of practical joke, right?”

“Convert. Follow the laws of the Almighty God or face the consequences.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because you infected me!” Penny cried. “You made my hands burn and my skin tingle, and nobody could to do that to me but a witch!”

“Maybe you’re just curious!” Nika said. “It’s okay! A lot of people don’t find out until later in life what they really need.”

“Confess!” Edward yelled.

“Please,” Nika said, the tears starting up again. “Please just leave us alone. We didn’t hurt anybody. We just moved here.”

“You don’t understand,” Edward said. “You don’t even know what you are. Confess. Repent. Leave this world in good standing.”

“How can I repent from something if I don’t know what it is?” Nika said. “How can I confess things I don’t know I’ve done?”

“Your logic isn’t going to help you, witch,” Edward said. Penny hopped around him, like a monkey on a leash, ready to strike again when given the word.

“What are you doing to my husband?” Nika whispered.

“Oh, him,” Edward said. “We had thought there might be some hope for him, but he’s stubborn. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be free from your spell, witch. I admit a grudging admiration. You’ve done your work well.”

“I don’t care what happens to me,” Nika said. “Just let him go.”

“That’s not how this works, witch,” Edward sneered.

“I’ve got him ready,” Rafferty called.

“Good,” Edward said. “Prepare the sorceress.”

***

“Oh,” Nika moaned. “You dug up my yard.”

The monsters had savaged the ground, putting holes and trenches where her gardens were going to be. There were ropes and pulleys attached to the standing stones. It looked like a miniature strip-mining operation.

Mark was staked to the ground, like a villain in an old Western movie left to die in the desert, waiting for the scorpions to come. Nylon ropes stretched from his ankles and wrists to giant steel dog-ties, corkscrewed into the earth. Above him, one of the beautiful standing stones was leaning, held back only by the rope in Rafferty’s giant gloved hands. The henchman had shoveled enough dirt out to loosen the giant rock and had installed carabiners and pulleys to keep the weight manageable. The end of the rope was wrapped around a tree, which was holding a majority of the weight.

“This is how it starts,” Edward said.

“You’ll never get away with this,” Mark yelled.

“Yes,” Edward said, shaking his head. “We will.”

Rafferty loosened his grip on the rope and the giant stone dropped about a foot. “Whoa!” Mark involuntarily yelled.

“We’re far past that point,” Edward said. “Penny, cut the witch loose. Be careful with her. I’ll be there in a moment.” While Penny did as she was commanded, Edward walked to Mark, prone on the ground, and straddled him.

“I feel for you, Mark Pendleton,” Edward said. “And I can understand why you think I’m a monster, why the people in my congregation are monsters. I assure you, we are not. I’m going to give you one more chance, because I feel a certain amount of empathy for you. It didn’t have to come to all this, these machinations, this folderol. Will you come to your senses? Will you follow the Lord and rid yourself of the evil that surrounds you? Get rid of that woman?”

“If I say yes, will you let me go?”

“Of course.”

Mark was silent for a moment before speaking. “I think I would rather die than turn my back on my wife. So my answer is ‘No, you cocksucker.’”

Edward stood up straight and frowned. “Rafferty, touch him.” As Edward walked back towards Nika, Rafferty slowly lowered the stone until Mark could feel it on his ribs. He had promised himself he wouldn’t give these people the satisfaction of hearing him scream. So much for that.

“Get her down, get her down!” Edward said. Penny had Nika on her feet, arms wrapped around her back, as they were in the kitchen. Nika was bending forward, trying to flip Penny over her head. Edward walked behind them and kicked Nika in the back of her knee, sending her sprawling to the ground.

Edward dropped to his knees and grabbed Nika as she tried to crawl away. He caught her by the ankle and dragged her towards him. Nika grunted with the effort of escape, and one of her fingernails broke on the scrabblepatch yard. Her finger stung and bled.

Now Penny was helping, her strength increased by zealous fervor, her bleeding smile wider than ever. “Flip her,” Edward said. “Get her on there.”

Nika was swinging wildly, but she was no match for Penny’s furious movements and Edward’s sheer strength. They turned Nika over. Now instead of lying on the hard ground, she was on some kind of wooden structure. Penny sat on Nika’s chest like a ghoul. The bitch was heavier than she looked, and Nika couldn’t kick out from under her weight. Edward seemed to be everywhere at once, on one side, then the other, securing Nika’s wrists to the wood, her arms stretched taut. Then he was at her feet. She tried to kick him in the face but he caught her by the heel and slammed her foot down on to the wood. Nika howled in pain, and Edward crossed her ankles and finished tying her down.

When Nika was secured, Edward gazed at what he and his faith family had done. Nika was still trying to fight her way free. That would end soon enough. Mark was moaning in pain, but he had brought that upon himself. The time for second chances was gone. No more sympathy. Edward wondered how Moses had felt in the desert, melting down that accursed golden calf the Israelites had built while he had been on Mount Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments. Always a fire to put out, always a need to remain vigilant. Doing the work of the Lord was a non-stop job.

“The Lord is merciful,” he said, with his head bowed. Then, again full of the gravitas of his mission, he raised his hand and began pointing.

“Rafferty! Down.” Rafferty nodded and lowered the stone onto Mark’s torso about half an inch. Edward thought he heard a muffled pop. A rib, perhaps, snapping under the strain? Whatever it was, it must have hurt, because Mark began screaming.

“What are you doing to him?” Nika screamed. “Let him go! I don’t know why you’re doing this to us.”

“Because you are a witch, and he refuses to leave you to follow the Lord! Because of you!” Penny taunted. “You did this to him. Are you happy now? Are you?”

“Let’s show her what we’re doing to her beloved husband,” Edward said. “Help me get her in place.”

“But we haven’t…” Penny started, and Edward raised one finger in acknowledgement.

“That’s right, Penny,” he said. “Well, bring me the supplies.” Penny bounded over to the wheelbarrow, rummaged for a few seconds then came back.

Nika felt the sharp point of the spike in her left palm. She instinctively clutched at it, trying to determine what it was by touch. It was cold, metallic. When Edward brought the mallet down, driving the spike into the ganglion of nerves in the center of the hand, Nika came close to passing out. When Edward did it again, she did faint.

“Thank God,” Edward said. “Maybe she’ll stay out.” Penny handed him the second spike, and he moved to Nika’s right hand, pounding the giant nail through her palm. Nika twitched but did not wake up.

It was when the third spike, easily six inches longer than the first two, came down on her anklebone, shattering it, like a diamond in the hands of a poor jeweler, that Nika roared at the impact, feeling the bone shards travel through her skin, the blood shooting from her wound. Edward ignored her cries of pain and hit the spike a second time, sending it through her other ankle, destroying the bone there, too.

If only this were Christ himself instead of a small-town witch,
Edward thought. It would have been an honor to crucify Jesus and bring about the new dispensation. He wondered if Jesus screamed. Surely not. Edward couldn’t imagine the hope and salvation of all mankind being a pussy about a little pain.

“Is this one all the way through?” Edward asked. Penny bent over to check.

“Maybe give it one more good hit, Pastor,” Penny said. “That should do it.” Edward nodded, reared back and smacked the spike all the way through two anklebones and the wood to which they were secured. Nika turned her head and threw up.

“Perfect!” Penny said, giving Edward a gleeful thumbs-up.

“All right!” Edward said. “Let’s lift her up, shall we? Get her over to the spot.”

Edward and Penny went to the longest piece of wood, by Nika’s feet, worked their fingers beneath it and began to lift. Soon, they were able to get their palms underneath it, and they walked it up. The shift of weight made Nika scream again.

They were not experienced in crucifixion, but Edward and Penny were able to drag the makeshift cross Nika was tied and nailed to a few yards over, to the place they had prepared for her. Her head pointed down at the ground, her limbs shooting constant pain messages to her brain, every small bump or pebble they pulled her over hurt more than anything she had experienced before. Blood rushing towards her head, she began growing dizzy and coughing.

Rafferty, with military precision, had dug a notch and a trench in the backyard. Edward and Penny balanced the cross as well as they could. “I want you to look one last time at your husband,” Edward said. “I want you to see what your corruption and your evil influence led him to. Rafferty?”

The strain of holding up the stone must have been tremendous, but Rafferty hadn’t begun to sweat. He let some of the rope slip through his hands. The stone bore down harder on Mark’s body. There was more cracking. Nika, upside-down, saw all of this and stopped crying for herself.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Nika said, choking.

“Don’t we?” Penny asked.

“Ready? And lift!” Edward said, and suddenly everything was darkness. Nika’s head fit neatly into the hole Rafferty had carved out while the crosspiece her arms were attached to slid with little difficulty in the long trench. It was like building a model. Insert Tab A into Slot B.

Dirt tumbled onto Nika’s face, rolling into her hair and into her nostrils. She hacked and coughed, trying to snort the soil out of her nose, but she ended up inhaling more of it.

“Go on and mix, Penny. I’ll want to talk to this one alone for a moment.”

He pointed at Rafferty. Another length of rope passed through Rafferty’s strong gloved hands, and all Mark could do was moan. He tried to breathe shallowly, but every time he exhaled, the giant stone constricted his torso more. His broken ribs pierced him, like a spilled box of toothpicks in his chest. His wheezing was audible across the yard.

“I hope you two can hear each other,” Edward said in his fully projected preacher voice. “I hope you hear your husband groan, Nika, as Rafferty crushes him. I hope you can hear your wife choking on dirt and filth, Mark, before she meets her final end. Perhaps, if God has mercy on your wretched souls, he will let you burn together for all eternity in the Lake of Fire. You got that ready, Penny?”

“Yes, Pastor!” she called.

“I want both of you to remember that the Lord called you to Himself, and you rejected Him. You have no one to blame for this but yourselves. Penny, go ahead.”

Penny pushed the wheelbarrow, now heavy with wet concrete that she had mixed while the pastor had been talking, over to Nika’s trench. She tipped it up, and the cold grey goop began to fill the hole.

Nika recognized what it was as soon as it hit her hand. The consistency and grit of the stuff was familiar. She tried to wiggle back and forth, but the giant rods in her hands and ankles kept her from moving too much. Besides, the hole she was in was just big enough for her. Her captors had been clever, and there was no room for her to escape. The concrete found its way into every nook and cranny, moving inexorably around her head to her other arm. She screamed once, but then found herself trying to hold her breath. It was a reflex. Her brain knew it wouldn’t help, but her body tried to do whatever it could to stay alive.

The thick slurry enveloped her hair, and she could feel it creeping up on her forehead. She closed her eyes tightly, just as the concrete level rose over them. It filled her ears until she could hear nothing but her own rapid heartbeat, throbbing in her temples, like the drums she had thought she heard the first time they had driven through Elders Keep.