Jack Kursed (2 page)

"What have you done?" she
shouted.

John barely heard her. He
rolled from his cot to the floor, on his hands and knees. He
retched, expecting to vomit, but nothing happened.

Climbing to his feet, they moved past
each other as John made his way to the front door. More moonlight
filled his home as he threw it open.

Angela was on her knees,
still naked, hovering over the broken vial. The disgusting liquid
seeped into the wood and between the cracks.

Not far from her on the floor and
walls were strange symbols and words written in a language John had
never seen. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like they were
written in blood.

"You
are
a
witch."

Angela looked up at him. Her
expression was a mix of sadness and anger. Tears fell from her eyes
and mixed with the strange liquid.

"Like my mother and
father before me," she said. "You've ruined everything. It took
me
years
to make
that potion. Studying, experimenting. We were going to live
forever."

"Get out of my home. Now!"

New voices, just on the road
outside.

"John? What's all the
commotion?"

"Where are his clothes?"

"What's going on in there?"

John looked out beyond his
home. People were gathering on the road with lanterns and candles.
Samuel, Mark, Elizabeth, Henry. It seemed the entire town was
outside. He slammed the door shut and backed up a few
steps.

"It wasn't supposed to be
like this," Angela said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "John, you
foolish human."

Pulling away, he spun to face her.
"What have you done to me?"

Shadows moved across the
floor as the people outside surrounded his home. He thought his
mind was playing tricks on him as the shadows took the form of
pitchforks and axes. His breath caught in his chest as a very real
pitchfork crossed in front of his window.

"We heard screams, John,"
someone shouted. "Just what are you doing?"

The door flew open.
Everything happened so fast. Alexander the blacksmith and Michael
the preacher led the way with a growing crowd behind them. They
looked at the naked couple, the strange markings, the broken glass
and liquid on the floor. They didn't ask any questions, or give
John the chance at an explanation.

The beating was swift, but
brutal. John strangely didn't feel any pain, but didn't have time
to wonder why. Angela cried out next to him as they whipped and
struck her. Witch or not, it hurt him to hear her
suffer.

John's hands were tied behind his
back, and a noose slipped over his head. He was pushed out of his
life-long home, Angela right behind him.

"What are you doing?" he
muttered, nearly tripping on the road. "What have I done to
you?"

"This woman is a witch," Michael said.
"And you've taken her to your bed."

"She's not a witch," John lied. "And
what we do is none of your business-"

"Save it for the Lord,
John."

"This is all your fault!" Angela
shouted behind him.

She fell, and they dragged
her on the ground, like a dog. John's head reeled back as a thrown
rock struck under his eye. They led John and Angela to Elizabeth's
inn, where they tossed the loose end of their nooses over the
sturdy wooden sign.

"Please, don't do this,"
John begged. "What you saw back there-"

Mark and Samuel, two of
the stronger men in town, pulled on John's rope. The noose
tightened around his neck as his body lifted up. The balls of his
feet barely touched the ground. Angela was to his right in the same
position, tears and blood streaming down her face. Despite his
anger, he tried to move to her, to be close to her one last time.
They pulled on his rope once more, freezing him in
place.

Michael read from a Bible
as the crowd around him cheered. They pelted John and Angela with
rocks.

"Any last words?" Michael asked
Angela.

She tried to twist in her noose to
look at Michael.

"You're better than they
are-"

Her last words were cut
off when she was lifted into the air. John watched in horror as her
body spun and swayed, bumping into him several times. She kicked
with her feet, her face turning purple. John pulled uselessly
against the rope around his wrists.

Finally, her naked body
stopped moving. They dropped her to the ground, and her head landed
near John's foot. Her lifeless eyes looked up to him.

He looked at the crowd, at the
collection of torches and weapons. Angela was a witch, and the town
felt they were doing the right thing. Still, if he could, he would
have killed them all.

John felt a rage he never felt
before.

"This is an excuse!" he shouted.
"You've wanted to hurt me for years. All you needed was a reason.
Now you've killed a woman who meant you no harm-"

His words died in his
throat as he was lifted into the air. He stretched his toes as far
as he could, desperate to feel footing of any kind. The crowd
roared around him, laughing and pointing their weapons in the air.
More thrown rocks struck his body. John felt the pressure build in
his head. Then, all at once, the pain and pressure
stopped.

The town waited for him to
die.

And they waited.

John dropped a few inches as Mark and
Samuel's strength waned. He watched the crowd as he spun uselessly.
Their expressions went from joy and celebration to wonder and
fear.

"Is this the witch's doing? He's...not
dying!"

His foot brushed against Angela's body
as he fell a few more inches.

Alexander stepped toward
John, ax in hand. The blacksmith waited for John's body to spin one
more rotation. He reared the ax back and swung as hard as he could.
The ax found its mark and buried into his chest. The crowd gasped
and jumped back as Mark and Samuel finally dropped him to the
ground next to Angela.

John didn't hesitate. He
didn't wonder why he was alive, or why he felt no pain at having an
ax sticking out of his chest. It was difficult to move with his
hands bound behind him, but he managed to roll to his knees. Taking
one last look at Angela, he ran away from the crowd, around the
side of the inn, directly into the forest.

It only took the crowd a moment to
gather their senses.

"The Devil has him!"

"We have to get him!"

John ran, pushing his way
through the forest. The forest reminded him that he was still
naked, completely without protection. Rocks poked his feet, brush
grabbed his leg, a tree branch scratched his arm.

The ax was still in his
chest, the noose still around his neck. Twelve feet of rope dragged
on the ground behind him, occasionally catching on a bush or stump.
His wrists bound behind him made it difficult to keep
balance.

He pushed on. The shouts
and taunts of the town weren't far behind. There were four, maybe
five voices. John moved under the cover of darkness for a few
minutes, but daybreak was slowly approaching. Soon, he wouldn't be
able to hide, and he couldn't run forever.

"I see him up there! Come on, we got
him!'

He jumped over a fallen tree. His neck
snapped back as the loose rope caught on a limb. He pulled free and
kept running, but could hear them getting closer.

The sound of the river was
just ahead. John enjoyed fishing there with his father when he was
younger. If he could cross it somehow, maybe they'd give up their
chase. Or perhaps he could simply let the current carry him
away.

John heard the footsteps a
moment before colliding into her. Her forehead smacked into his
chin, and they both fell to the ground. There was a feminine cry of
surprise as he landed on his side.

He couldn't believe his
eyes.

The first thing he was
drawn to was the long red hair, well beyond her shoulders. Piercing
green eyes, very pale skin. She wore a black dress, torn near her
neck, and was covered in blood. Resembling upper class, it looked
like she had been enjoying a night out.

He gasped when he finally took note of
her face.

Her mouth was open, and
John saw her abnormally long canines, like a dog or a wolf. Her
eyes shifted from green to red, a deeper shade than her hair. An
open wound bled where her dress was torn, her breasts nearly
exposed. Blood dripped to the ground.

Despite the physical
oddities, her expression was human, and one John knew all too
well.

Fear.

He shouted as she crawled toward him.
John couldn't move backwards, as his bound hands were in the way.
She made her way up his body as he squirmed under her.

She gripped the ax, still in his
chest, and pulled it free. Hauling him to his feet with one hand,
she cut the rope binding his wrists and removed the noose around
his neck.

Five men stopped as they
caught sight of the both of them, holding various weapons. John
thought they were men from his town, having circled around to trap
him. When he didn't recognize them he realized the redheaded woman
was in the same situation he was. Running for her life.

John spun when he heard
more footsteps. Men he'd known most of his life, Samuel, Henry,
Alexander, and Mark, stood their ground, holding axes, pitchforks,
and torches.

Something pressed against
his back. He took a quick glance over his shoulder to see the
mysterious redheaded woman pressing against him, staring down her
own pursuers.

"Fire will kill me," she said,
gesturing to the torches. "What will kill you?"

John looked down at his
chest, where only a minute ago an ax was embedded in his flesh.
There was no wound, no injury at all. There was only a small trail
of blood that led down his torso onto his hip.

"I...don't know."

She twirled the ax she'd taken from
John. "An interesting problem to have."

The woman pushed away from
John as Samuel lunged forward with his pitchfork. Two of the tines
went through his throat. Samuel pushed as hard as he could, driving
John back, until the pitchfork lodged in a tree.

John coughed as his throat
tickled. He was aware of the fight going on behind him. An ax
cutting through the air, cries of pain, what sounded like an animal
snarling.

Alexander stepped forward
and swung his ax as hard as he could. The blade struck John above
the ear, but barely penetrated, like Alexander had attacked a wall
of stone.

John felt no pain.

He looked at the men
standing before him, fear written across their faces. They didn't
give him mercy, allow him to explain himself, grant him a trial.
They dragged him out of his home and killed Angela, laughing the
entire time. They were trying to kill him.

They had failed, and they would pay
with their lives.

He grabbed the pitchfork
that still pinned him to the tree. It took him two pulls to
completely clear the tines from his throat. His former neighbors,
except for Samuel, slowly backed up.

John dropped the pitchfork
and reached for the ax in his head. There was no pain and only a
little bleeding. He gripped the ax and swung at Samuel. Whatever
enchantment had happened to John was not the case for Samuel, as
his head fell from his shoulders and landed a few feet away from
his falling body.

Henry, Alexander, and Mark
turned to run. They didn't look back at their fallen friend, didn't
try to avenge him. They ran just as fast in fear as they did when
giving chase. John nearly took a step in pursuit when he heard a
female scream behind him.

His knees shook as he looked at the
scene.

Blood was everywhere, on
the ground, the trees, the leaves. The men who chased the woman all
lay dead at her feet. She had killed them all in seconds. Limbs
were scattered about, a hand here, a foot there. She was covered in
blood, like she had bathed in it. The ax she removed from John's
shoulder was buried in someone's neck.

She was screaming at the
rising sun, poking its way through the treetops. A beam of light
caught her cheek, and John watched in fascination as it singed her
skin.

The woman dove to the ground and
pulled the closest body on top of her.

"Sir?" she said, panic in
her voice. "May I ask for your assistance?"

"Uh..."

"Would you cover me, please? Quickly
now. The sun and I aren't the best of friends. Drag these bodies on
top of me."

John didn't ask any
questions. He needed something to do, anything, to keep from
screaming, and covering the mysterious woman with dead corpses was
as good a task as any.

He moved one corpse, and
then another, before breaking down and crying. As he dragged the
last corpse onto the pile, he realized he was still naked. He was
eying the corpses for a comparable size when the woman
spoke.