Sorceress' Blood (19 page)

All except the Thralls holding her gathered around Edward and the
coffin. The sounds of battle within the castle had ceased. Rebecca
watched as the knife was dropped into the coffin and Edward himself
commanded the Sorceress to rise. There was a burst of flames which
became a swarm of hundreds of little spiders. Inside the coffin those
spiders crawled over the ancient skeleton and spun their black webs
into a heart first and then lungs, veins and even bone where the
skeleton had broken. Then they spun their web into muscle and into
skin and long raven black hair. Then the spiders dug their way into
the pink flesh of their creation. Rebecca saw a hand appear on the
sides of the coffin and then effortlessly the Sorceress lifted
herself out of the coffin and breathed deeply for the first time in a
thousand years. She stood proudly as the frightening visage that she
was. The Thralls all knelt to her and even Edward bowed low. The
Sorceress looked over them with her beautiful, fiery red eyes and
then cackled with wicked delight. She ran her hands up her naked
flesh and through her long black hair that touched her ankles.

“After one thousand years of waiting, I am alive again. Where
is my heir?” She scanned the room and spied Rebecca and her cut
cheek. “You. Yes, you are my heir. You are also my Thrall, now
bow.”

“Never.”

“Then I have no further use for you.” The Sorceress
raised her hand and with all her magic, she engulfed it in bright
flames. “Die.” The flames leapt from her fingertips. They
arced through the sky and came down at Rebecca. Rebecca kicked at one
of the Thralls holding her and with her newly freed hand she grabbed
the other Thrall and threw him in front of her. The fire swallowed
the Thrall and incinerated him. Not even ash was left.

“You dare defy me and cost me a Thrall? Wicked little
creature!”

“Go back to hell.” Rebecca reached for her weapon. The
weapon was in reach but another Thrall tackled her and it was
snatched away for a second time. Rebecca struggled against them with
futile efforts.

“Instant death is too good for her. Make it slow and painful,”
Edward commanded. More Thralls rose and came towards Rebecca. The
Sorceress watched with immeasurable delight and satisfaction.

“Get off me!” Rebecca continued to pull and kick at them.

Then another voice rose up above the Sorceress' laughter and
Rebecca's desperation.

“Leave her alone!” This little voice cried with so much
force that it rocked the castle. In an instant all the Thralls around
Rebecca were thrown in every direction. Ashley clenched her fists
until her knuckles were white and glared through the tears in her
eyes. “I won't let you hurt her any more!” she warned
them. Edward turned to her and drew his sword. Before he could
strike, Ashley cried out again. “No!” The force threw him
back against the Sorceress. The Sorceress, watching the whole time,
didn't so much as blink and Edward's body disintegrated into nothing
before it could touch her.

Suddenly free, Rebecca picked up her gun and shot down all the
Thralls around her. The Sorceress turned to her; that was all it took
for Rebecca to be disarmed and forced to the ground.

“Enough! Now you both die.”

“Go away!” Ashley screamed at the Sorceress. The
unprepared witch was forced off her feet and crashed down amongst the
Thralls.

“You little bitch. You'll be first.” The Sorceress
levitated off the ground and raised her hand. “What will it be?
Fire? Lightning? Or should I just turn you little body inside out?”

“Jump!” was Ashley's response. Four of the Thralls lifted
from the ground and flew at the Sorceress from all directions. The
Sorceress quickly destroyed their bodies.

“About as impressive as a rat,” the Sorceress hissed at
her. This time Ashley was thrown across the room and her little body
landed with a crack against the wall. She struggled to lift her body
from the floor.

Rebecca swung her pistol out wildly as the Thralls came close to her.
She'd run out of bullets and tried desperately to club her attackers.

The sound and fire of someone else's gun was her saviour. Jin shot
them down with easy precision and then raised his sword at the
Sorceress and fired again. The Sorceress, focused entirely on Ashley,
was struck through her thigh. She screamed a scream that could only
be described as the wail of a banshee and just as surely meant death
for all of them. She purged the bullet from her leg and the wound
closed seamlessly.

“Another one?” She looked at Jin with frightful hatred.
“Are there any more of you lurking about? I don't want any more
surprises before I destroy you all.”

“We are the Order of the Witch-Hunter. For one thousand years
we have guarded against your return and I am vowed to destroy you.”

“That's nice. Now you die.” The ground beneath Jin went
soft and moulded around his ankles. Then it began to snake up his
body and wrap around his wrists. “Yours will be the most
agonising. Little boys should know better than to play with weapons.”
Rebecca, desperate and out of options, threw her gun at the
Sorceress. The weapon had only gone a short distance before it
changed direction and flung straight back at Rebecca. The pistol
struck her in the stomach. She fell, winded, to the ground. “Because
I have you to thank for my return, I'll kill you last.” The
creeping, slimy stone had wrapped Jin up to his waist now and its
tendrils were crawling towards his mouth. Before long he would be
choked to death by the very ground he walked on.

Then the Sorceress turned to face Ashley. The small, weakened girl
had picked herself up to her knees and tried with all her might to
cast another spell. She tried to summon a flame like she had with the
candle but she couldn't call so much as a spark. She tried to lift
the rubble and cast it at the Sorceress but it was useless. She
couldn't focus while she was in so much pain. The Sorceress lowered
herself to the ground and stood by her coffin.

“It's over, you little bitch. For someone so young you have so
much potential. But you're still nothing compared to what I was and
what I am. I have no use for you. It's time you died. I think I'm
going to rip that pretty little face right off your head.” The
Sorceress erupted in a hideous, evil cackle again.

Rebecca looked around hopelessly for anything that she could use.
There was nothing but corpses and tiny rubble around her and Jin
slowly being eaten by the earth. Then she saw the body of Pan Wĕi.
A pool of blood dripped from the hole in his head and in his hand he
still held his gun. Rebecca snatched it as quickly as she could and
turned to the Sorceress. She gripped the hilt with unsteady and
desperate hands as poorly as any amateur. But her heart was in those
hands and she swung it forward with the impassioned fury of a
protective lioness. She pulled the trigger and fired again and again
at the Sorceress. She fired without hesitation until there was
nothing left to fire. Rebecca fired until the Sorceress, ridden with
holes, had dropped back into her own coffin and Rebecca's bullets
just struck the wall. She didn't stop until Jin, freed from his
prison, put his hand on her shoulder and soothingly told her what she
needed to know.

“She's dead.” Rebecca was shaking all over and the gun
fell from her hands. Jin knelt down and embraced her. “She's
dead, Rebecca. You did it.”

Ashley ran across the courtyard and wrapped her arms around Rebecca.
Jin left them and went over to the Sorceress' body. He approached it
cautiously and when he was by it he took his sword and fired one more
time into her head. While he stared at the corpse he thought of the
legend. Two brothers had come together to end the evil reign of the
Sorceress. Only together could anyone triumph over her. Jin looked
over at Rebecca and Ashley and a proud smile came over his face. He
lifted the lid back onto the coffin and sealed away the evil once
again.

“Well, you two did it. You've saved the whole world. Now let's
get out of here.” Rebecca nodded at Jin and stood up. With
Ashley in her arms, she followed Jin back into the meadows of
Scotland and at last she felt truly at ease and knew that soon she
would be living her own life again.

“What about the castle?” Rebecca asked. “For that
matter, what about us?”

“Someone will get us. There's no way the Thralls will be able
to handle so many knights at once.”

“So you think they'll win?”

“Sure. I bet once things get bad the police will show up and
take care of things.”

“Won't the police arrest the knights as well?”

“You don't know much about the knights. We can handle just
about everything.”

Rebecca stopped and put Ashley down.

“Hold on, Jin. I need to rest a moment.” Rebecca sat and
Jin sat with her.

“What are you going to do now that it's over?”

“I don't know. It's not really over, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well the body is still there and I have plenty of blood left
in me. Maybe we'll kill most of the Thralls here but they're all over
the world, aren't they?”

“You're right. Then you will stay with the Order?”

“I don't think so. No offence but I don't like those castles
very much. I just don't think I could live like that the rest of my
life. I don't want to be a knight, and if you're not a knight or a
servant, then there's nothing to do.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Well, I can't go home. Maybe I'll go back to London with some
of the knights and find somewhere to live there.”

“I'm sure the Order will help you.”

“I hope so. I don't think there's any way we can do it
legally.”

“We?”

“Ashley and I. She still hasn't told me anything about where
she came from but I don't think she wants to go back there.”

“Then you'll take care of her?”

“I think that's best for her.”

Ashley had stumbled her way a few metres from the group and was
staring at the castle. She wanted to make the whole, horrid thing
explode if she could. She knew that she didn't have the strength left
in her to lift a pebble, let alone destroy a whole castle but that
wasn't going to stop her trying. She continued to focus all her mind
on the castle and had become oblivious to everything else.

“Yeah. I'll move to London, get a job. Change my name and just
live the rest of my life relaxed.”

“Now that the Thralls here have been defeated, the Order might
be able to rebuild.”

“Maybe. I don't think I'll keep in touch, though. This whole
thing has been horrible and the sooner I can forget it, the better.”

“I understand.” They were both quiet. There was one more
question Jin wanted to ask her but he didn't know how to say it.
Unknowingly, Rebecca was also thinking about the exact same thing.
She broke the silence, only half aware that she had begun to think
out loud.

“I can never have children of my own.”

“You can if you want. No one will stop you.”

“No. I don't mean to put the Order out of a job but it's too
dangerous. The Thralls found me, what's to stop them finding my
children or my grandchildren? I wouldn't want them to live in a world
where they're in constant danger like that. Things are dangerous
enough without being the sole target of a psychotic ancient cult.”
Rebecca turned her gaze towards Ashley and then back to the rolling
meadows stretching out in front of her. “But I think it's okay.
I've got Ashley; what do I need more children for?”

“So you'll give up being a mother for the sake of the world?”

“Maybe. No. That's not quite true.”

“I understand. That's very... very? ... I've forgotten the
word,” Jin admitted.

“I don't know. It is what it is.”

The conversation came to another pause. Rebecca let herself fall back
and looked up at the sky. Suddenly, and mostly to Ashley's surprise,
the castle caved in on itself.

“I think Scotland can do with one less ruin, don't you?”
Ashley, Rebecca and Jin all looked to see who it was that had just
arrived. Jin instinctively reached for his sword but relaxed when he
saw the newcomer wearing the crest of The Order on his brown blazer.
“I take it everything went well for you?”

“Yes.” Rebecca answered. “You too, Lord Sebastian?”

“Things went considerably worse for me. I find myself less one
castle and I only had one to begin with. So while that's being
rebuilt I've come to personally get the three of you and bring you
back to safety.”

“I'm glad you made it out of there alive.”

“Yes. Well, let's not dawdle.”

“Alright.” Rebecca picked Ashley up into her arms and
took one final look around her. With the castle gone and now sinking
into the ground the fields looked much nicer. She imagined there
might be cows or sheep grazing here one day in the future. Then
Rebecca looked at Ashley and smiled. She saw the little girl’s
face smiling back at her and in that moment everything seemed like it
would be okay. Rebecca was certain of everything, now. She would be
the last person to ever carry the Sorceress' blood.

Carl Purcell was born
in and still lives in Australia. He started writing at an early age
and has aspired his whole life to be either an author or Jackie Chan.
Because the job of Jackie Chan is already taken, Carl eventually
decided to become an author.

Carl's first
publication was as the co-writer of the comic series Winter City,
which began in early 2012 and has been met with critical acclaim.
Sorceress blood is his second release and is the result of years of
practice, hard work and learning everything the hard way.

Carl is an active
member of the website deviantArt. He also keeps a blog on the topic
of writing and being a writer. Carl loves to hear from people who
have been reading his work. You can contact Carl or find out more
about him at these places: