Burning the Witches Ch. 01

"Yes," cried the spirit of Bridget Bishop.

"You can have everything that was taken from you returned!" hissed the voice.

"Yes," cried Bridget louder.

"You can regain a human form and walk the earth again!" crooned the voice joyously.

"Oh yes," shouted Bridget.

"You can wreak vengeance on the souls of those who did this to you!" cried the voice.

"Yes!" gushed Bridget triumphantly.

"But...wait..." said the voice softly. "You aren't actually a witch though...are you?"

"...But...I...I" whined Bridget's essence.

"No matter," said the voice. "I can teach you what you must know. To begin, you need power. For now, you are naught but a pissed off disembodied loser. In order to get what you seek, you must be a thousand times more powerful than you are now. Every spell you master will grant you power. Every alliance you make will give you aid. But in order to broker those deals with the darkness you must have power."

"But how do I get power?" asked Bridget.

"You don't get power," snapped the voice angrily. "It's not like you're going after a fucking slurpee. Power has to be taken. It must be wrenched violently from those who have it. And all the while, they will try to take yours. There are those around you, who are linked to you by events of the past. If you add their power to yours you will be three times as powerful as you are now."

"Tituba and Giles Corey," said Bridget.

"Exactly," sang the being. "But they are as strong as you are. To get their power will take a few steps. First you need an ally on the earthly plane. You need someone to act as your agent until your power grows sufficient to affect things in the physical world. I have someone in mind."

"Reach out with your thoughts and call to the one we seek," said the voice.

* * * * * *

Mason Devereaux

I wheeled the stretcher into the X-ray lab. I was chatting about baseball with the 88 year old man lying on it. I introduced him to the imaging tech that would perform the x-rays on his chest, ribs, right elbow and hip. "Bobby here will take good care of you, Mr. Jenkins," I said to him. Even as I left the room the buzzing in my pocket made me smile.

I flicked out my iPhone and looked at the screen. I rushed out of the room and down the hall. I stepped into one of the lounges that were reserved for staff to take their breaks in.

"Hey," I said into the phone. "I thought I was having terrible luck tonight. But now I have nun," I quipped. It was a terrible pun, but I knew it would make her laugh.

"I must be spending too much time in the cemeteries," she said back. "My heart beats faster hearing some dead guy's voice."

"Hearing your voice makes me wish that my heart still beat," I said.

"I love you Mason," she said.

"Piety, I don't know what you've done to me, but I've never felt this way about anyone, EVER," I said.

"I just wanted to hear your voice before we go after this Wendigo," said Piety.

"Where the hell are you?" I asked suddenly. I always worried about her when she was in the field.

"I'm in Canada, Honey," she said. I could hear the pleasure in her voice. "That's where they keep the Wendigos, ya know?" she sounded absolutely cheerful.

"Piety, why do you sound so damned cheerful?" I asked.

"Because, someone cares for me so much that he gets angry and worried about me doing my job. It's cute," she chirped. "But don't worry, Mason. Everything that's holy is on my side. Besides, I don't really think there are any Wendigos left. No one has seen one on over a hundred years. This probably won't be any worse than that werewolf we went after last week. It just turned out to be a frigging bear that was attacking tourists in a park for food. The bear had gotten rabies somehow. That thing threw us all around and scratched the crap out of us. Finally, we took it from three sides. Patience shot it with her crossbow to wound it. I distracted it and while it came after me, Penance crushed its skull with her mace. "

"Score one for the angry nun," I laughed. "Tell Big Green that I owe her one for protecting my angel."

"Awww!" she crooned. "Is that how you see me? Am I your angel?"

"Yeah, but you say that as if it's a good thing," I laughed.

"It's a very good thing. I like being your angel," she said.

"Then you really didn't read the bible too well," I laughed.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Piety, angels aren't the way that people think they are. Whenever God wanted to fuck some shit up, he sent an angel. Go get that Wendigo. And then come and see me. It's been too long," I said. "I'm immortal but I can't wait that long."

"Mason, it's only been a week," she said.

* * * * * *

Rebecca

The day started out shitty and went downhill from there. To begin with I woke up and felt like I was alone. Our bed is a queen sized sleigh bed. It's cozy but it's really not that big. Even before we were married, I got used to waking up in Joey's arms. But there he was rolled as far away from me as the bed would allow. One of his legs was hanging over the side of the bed. I felt like if I gave him one little push, he'd spill onto the floor.

I smelled my armpit because I couldn't remember if I'd taken a shower the night before. I smelled clean and soapy. As a matter of fact, my skin was still slightly damp as if I'd just taken another shower. And my legs felt funny. They felt like they'd been forced apart and held there for a long period of time. My whole body felt as if I'd had really rough sex. That was strange because I'd never had rough sex. I don't think I'd like it. I'd only been with one man before Joey, and he was a fumbling twenty year- old that I'd met in college.

The idea of letting some guy turn what was supposed to be an act of love into some kind of animalistic, chest beating trip to downtown pound town just didn't appeal to me. I love my Joey. I love the gentle and loving things he did with me. At that moment I couldn't think of anything I wanted more.

I reached out to stroke his hair and he moved in his sleep as if he was disgusted. I had never seen Joey respond to my touch like that. He must've been having a really bad dream. For some reason, I felt really bad. I felt as if I'd done something to let him down somehow. I just couldn't figure it out. He'd told me that he didn't want dinner. And I'd gotten really tired last night. The last thing I remember was him kissing me goodnight and tucking me in just before he left to go to work. He was probably upset about something that had happened on the job. I wondered why he was taking it out on me. When he woke up the two of us were going to have a talk.

* * * * * *

Interlude

Bridget reached out with her essence, the way she'd been taught. At first it was hard in more ways than one. For most of her life she'd been the typical woman of her era. She'd been raised in the church. She'd been raised to believe in God and fear evil. It had done her no good. Where was her God when they put the rope around her neck and took her lands?

Bridget's mind touched something. It wasn't exactly human...at least it wasn't anymore. The creature was far older than a human being as was Bridget herself. It was over a hundred years old. It wore the clothing from a bygone era. It had an old hat placed jauntily upon its head and carried a walking stick. Bridget wasn't sure, but she couldn't remember the last time she saw anyone with a walking stick.

As she'd been taught, Bridget probed the creature's mind. She knew exactly what to say. In fact as she'd been told, she had a lot in common with the beast. They were both motivated by the same things. They both wanted revenge. The beast seemed to want revenge against three nuns. The nuns had destroyed the creature's progeny. It hated the women for that. It also felt that if the women were allowed to continue, not only would they destroy more of his kind. They might someday destroy him, if he wasn't careful.

The women also had the support of the church and a handful of magical or blessed weapons. The creature decided that some magical help of his own might come in handy.

. He was willing to do Bridget's bidding in exchange for her help against the nuns. And so a pact of the most unholy was formed. What the creature didn't know was that the contract between them would be temporary at best. Bridget's plans and those of the creature would soon part ways because Bridget had her own plans for one of the nuns.

The very next night they started. Bridget reached out with her essence and found the spirit of another woman who'd been tried for witchcraft. This one had been a witch. Her spirit told Bridget's that she had never done anything evil. She had just used her knowledge of plants and herbs to make salves to heal her family's aches and pains. Sometimes she'd also make them for her neighbors and friends. She had never worshipped the devil or anything other than her lord Jesus.

Bridget laughed inside at how stupid the woman was. "Power is power," she thought. Bridget used her honeyed thoughts to get on the woman's good side. She promised that if the woman would tell her where she was buried, Bridget would see to it that fresh flowers were placed on her grave. The woman told her. Bridget relayed the information to her vampire familiar.

Moments later the vampire went to the unmarked grave, dug up the woman's remains and burned them. The long-dead witch suffered an agony she had never imagined as her spirit passed into true, everlasting death. This death was far worse than the first, because her spirit didn't pass into Heaven, Hell, or even the limbo that she'd been in for the past three hundred or so years. Her spirit simply disappeared into nothingness as if she had never existed. But in the process, Bridget gained her power.

"I feel stronger already," thought Bridget. "One down, ninety nine to go." the voice had told Bridget that in order to gain the power she needed she had to get it from other witches. Until that moment Bridget had never considered herself, just as the unfortunate creature whose spirit she'd just raped hadn't, to actually be a witch. "Who cares what they call me," she said. And her voice too was like the rustling of the wind. "If burning the witches gets me what I want, I'll burn them all."

Bridget burned two more weak witches that night. And that is how this really started.

* * * * * *

My name is Sarah Price. I'm the best there is at what I do. Right now, I'm suffering from a bout of jealousy. After all of the divorce and infidelity cases I've handled, it's finally come home to me. My husband and soul-mate has been spending time with another woman. The worst thing is that he does it right in front of my face. Sometimes, I don't think he even realizes how painful it is for me to see that look on his face after he's been with her. He has that big dumb smile that was formerly reserved only for me. His eyes flash brighter and his smile looks as if it would just crack his face in two.

The worst part about it is that I love her too. But Chris takes it to a whole new level. They may have pulled Charah from my body, but she'd been in her daddy's arms ever since. Chris went from nervous first time dad, to baby expert over-night. At this point I'm not even sure he fully trusts me with her. When family or friends visit, hoping to see the baby, he metes out the time they get to hold her. It isn't unusual to have friends visit and ask to hold her while Chris sits there staring at them and after some odd number of seconds have elapsed, he swoops back in and takes her. I have no doubt in my mind that she is going to be a daddy's girl. When she cries, as soon as he picks her up, she's fine.

Today is my first day back to work. Charah is six months old and I have a crib here in my office. My PA, Pam, was hired to take care of Charah, when I'm on a case. She's also great with computers, so she can help me with intel as well.

The only thing she seems to have a problem with is pronouncing my daughter's name. She calls her "Charah" pronouncing it like "Cha" as in "Cha-cha." My daughter's name is pronounced "Kara," but the spelling is written the way it is to blend her Dad's name "Chris" with my name, "Sarah."

As I was trying to explain it to her again, a rumbling came from the office next door. I ran over to see what was going on. A short chunky guy was wrestling with a couple of the guys who handled our most minor cases.

"Okay, whose dick is bigger?" I asked loudly. After a couple of seconds all three of the men stopped fighting and turned to look at me.

"He just went nuts," said Sam Bradford, one of our junior investigators.

"This asshole called my wife a slut," spat the short guy. "I'm not going to pay some guy to talk about her."

"Sam, my office, right now," I said. Sam followed me next door.

Once I got in the office Sam started pleading his case. "Ms. Price, he called her a slut himself. He thinks she's cheating on him and he wants us to get evidence so he can divorce her and..."

"This is your first, last and only lesson on professional decorum, Sam," I said. "The client can call their spouse anything they want to. We on the other hand have to be professional at all times. You are never to call anyone or anything outside of their name at any time. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am," he said.

We walked back over to the other office and I brought the client with me. I seated him across from me and got him a hot cup of coffee which he took black.

I gave him a few moments to compose himself. He sipped his coffee and I noticed the signs. His hands shook a bit. And the look in his eyes, his body language and his movements all told me the same thing. The man was in shock. Even looking at his face told me a story. This was a man who was used to smiling. Only his pain made his face neutral.

"Tell me your story," I said. And he did. He told me a story about two people in love. I was a sucker for stories like that. In a way it was not very different from my own story with Chris...well...okay I got Chris on the rebound from his divorce. But after that it was a lot the same. Only in his case, for some unexplainable reason the love had gone wrong and it was turning the poor man inside out.

Like most men, Joey didn't want to hurt his wife or leave her destitute. He just wanted to get out of the marriage and stop his pain. I agreed to take his case. I smiled thinking about it. Normally I seem to only get strange or high profile cases. For my first day back on the job, I relished the chance to have a normal, run of the mill divorce case. I figured I'd need a few days or nights of surveillance to get my evidence. Maybe we'd have to stage a fake trip out of town for Joey, but in a week or less, I'd have this one in the can.

* * * * * *

Bridget

Over the last few weeks, I've become far stronger than I've ever imagined I could be. I had absorbed the spirits and powers of more than forty witches. I no longer had any regrets about doing it. At first I worried a lot about taking the power from other witches and sending their souls to oblivion. But my nameless mentor explained to me that it was the lesser of two evils and in a way I was helping them. They served no purpose haunting graveyards and rotting houses anyway. Some of the witches had to be convinced or conned into giving away their final resting places. Others were so tired of simply existing that they voluntarily gave up their locations.

At any rate, burning the witches and gaining their power became something I longed for and loved doing. I loved the infusion of new power. I loved the smell of the burning bones filling the air. I was also learning more and more magic at the same time. Some I absorbed from some of the witches I burned, but most came from the voice. I did have a few regrets. Burning Tituba and Giles was unpleasant but necessary.

As a result of the latest acquisitions, I noticed that I'd become so strong that I was beginning to be able to affect things in the material world. Very soon I would no longer truly need the services of that vile vampire, Papa Tulu, he called himself.

I'd keep him around never the less though. Partly because I needed to save my strength and doing anything on the material plane was extremely draining. But also because I needed to step up the power levels of the witches I was going after. Some of the witches in the next group are still alive and are even more powerful than any I've face before. Some of these women and men don't even realize that they ARE in fact witches.

The living witches have been a difficult challenge. I've failed on a few occasions, but that was before I reached my current power levels.

What was the most embarrassing was when I failed with women who didn't even know they were witches. There was this awful little woman that I reached out to who was riding in one of those giant semi-trucks. The evil little bitch was just sitting there in that truck, watching the world go by her. She kept snapping and arguing with the man who drove the truck, but it was obvious that they loved each other very much. I got the feeling that her calling him names and snapping at him was just her way of showing him that she loves him.

"Chance, God dammit, I keep telling you that I don't want to hear any of that hillbilly music you listen to," she spat. "It's too damned depressing."

"Evie, are you high?" the big man asked her. He had the ghost of a smile playing on his lips and a twinkle in his eye that was obviously reserved for her. "This isn't hillbilly music. It isn't country. It's not even bluegrass. This is Gordon Lightfoot. This song, "If you could read my mind," is one of the most beautiful songs ever written."

"Chance, if you could read MY mind, what a tale MY thoughts would say," she smirked. "About a man who'll get no pussy, til his Evie gets her way." she looked at him and folded her arms across her chest.

He immediately changed the channel on the radio station.

"I love you too, idiot," she said. And even as she spoke to him, her hands were reaching for him. I took that moment to try to contact her, witch to witch. I know the little bitch felt me trying to communicate with her. I sensed in her thoughts that she felt me. Of course, she felt me as a headache since she has no idea of how strong her powers are or how to use them. The little bitch didn't have the decency to even address me. Somehow she just flung me out of her head as easily as if she was throwing a bad taste out of her mouth by eating something sweet.

Try as I might, I couldn't get into her head anymore. She just blocked me. When I'm stronger, I'll have her power just like all of the others. And then there was the one down south. She was at least as strong as the bitch on the truck, but even more sure of herself. That one calls herself Savannah. And she has to be incredibly strong. She's married herself to one of her negroes and even has children with him. In my time, that woman would have been stoned and the male would have been castrated and pilloried, still bleeding.

That one is so strong that I couldn't even begin to get inside of her head. I wasn't even a headache to her. She brushed me off without a thought. I thought about sending the vampire after her, I was so angry, but since I've developed the ability to set the bones of the dead ones afire without any help. I have him doing something else.