The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [146]
“I wish my father could be here,” Kahlert told Omorose as he reached for the hammer. “I’m sure he watches us from Heaven, though. Hold the shoe for me and—”
Omorose screamed in his face, terrified in a way that Kahlert had only previously seen on the rictuses of the doomed women he interviewed, and even then only when substantial portions of their bodies had been put through his crucibles. He spun around, expecting a demon or worse to have materialized behind him, the witch’s familiar, but there was nothing there.
The lady Rose was still screaming when he turned back to her, the poor girl’s entire body rattling as she shrieked in horror, and he knew at once that she was bewitched. Keeping the black sorceress alive even a moment longer would be a mistake. She had a hoof so it was not as though he could be mistaken, and clearly the iron was not binding her as well as he had hoped. Best to kill her at once, rather than risk being ensorcelled himself as he exacted a full confession.
Kahlert opened his mouth to tell the lady Rose to be strong, that he would break the spell, which was when she smashed in his teeth with the hammer. He spun away onto the ground, his jaw afire, blood and broken teeth choking him, and as he tried to get up she fell on him with the hammer, wailing like a tortured witch as she struck again and again. He crawled along the length of the table with Omorose riding his back, gurgling blood as the possessed woman broke ribs and bruised muscle, and then he collapsed directly under Awa.
The noises behind her had been almost worse than the prospect of the shooing, Awa’s imagination unable to process what was happening. When Kahlert dragged himself beneath her, covered in blood and making wretched moans very similar to those she herself had voiced only moments before, a thought occurred to her. Then Omorose appeared, squatting down in front of Awa and continuing her unbroken shriek as she caved in the back of Kahlert’s neck, a thick black porridge welling out around his collar.
Omorose had not found the book, Awa realized, and a strange, terrible laugh burst from her mouth as she felt Omorose remove first the shackles at her wrists and then those at her ankles, and Awa rolled off the table onto the floor, meaning to put some distance between herself and her unexpected savior. Unfortunately, a week of being restrained and cramped, followed by the vicious overexertion the table-rack had inflicted, had rendered Awa’s limbs nearly useless and she lay sprawled on the floor. Omorose had finally stopped screaming and stood shaking by the table. The manacle pins she had removed were still in her bloody hand, and giving a little sob, she cast them away into the corner.
“Not fair,” she cried. “I had you I had you I had you.”
“You didn’t find the book,” said Awa, the idea making more and more sense. “You didn’t find it and thought you could have a living person do what you couldn’t, but the curse compelled you to protect me.”
“I hate you!” Omorose shrieked. “I hate you I hate you I hate you!”
Awa looked down at the bloody furrows in her wrists and ankles where the iron had cut her, knowing the dead cannot lie. It was not fair, then, but then what about life was? She sighed heavily, still nauseated from the harrowing experience. She looked up to say something, to say anything, but Omorose was gone. Then Awa heard the dull thump of a hammer striking meat, and a high-pitched whine. No.
Awa’s neck snapped around and there was Omorose, straddling a squirming, sack-covered body. The hammer came down again, a beatific grin on Omorose’s face as the tool struck home, the handle gripped in both hands. The shrouded body underneath her was convulsing now, and the hammer went up a third time. Awa tried to stand but still her legs thwarted her, and she screamed impotently at Omorose.
Omorose turned that smile to Awa, that mad, sadistic smile, and the hammer fell. The sound it made when it connected with the sack was wet, and the body stopped thrashing as