Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2010 23:31:51 GMT -5
((This is basically just something I've been working on. Critiques of all kinds welcome!))
Prologue: England, 1547
The beast chased her down the cobblestone street, snarling at her heels with its otherworldly growls. Again and again she felt it snatch a piece off of her cape or evening gown. Almost as if it was toying with her like a cat would a mouse.
Her dirty blonde hair was wet with sweat and the regular, London nighttime mist. Her frame was dainty, and she was perhaps a bit on the skinny side, with knobbly knees and elbows. At seventeen years of age, she was still virtually a child. Yet, still, here she was being chased not like a seventeen year old girl but like a wild-eyed doe fleeing a pack of ravenous wolves.
She had never meant for this to happen. Her escapades in the sewers, alleys, and outlying forests were never supposed to go this far. The young woman sobbed as the black dog snapped at her dress once again. This was it, she would die. Just as her husband had, minutes before, when the dog had leapt through their window and into their tiny, London home. The beast was red-eyed and lithe, almost cat-like in some respects, like some sort of wild dog from the Dark Continent... or the front gates of the Adversary. It had made quick work of her abusive, drunken, blacksmith of a husband... And now it craved her blood.
“Someone help me!” she yelled into the night. The streets of London were dead, save for the sounds of scurrying mice, the hellish beast, and its tiring, crying prey. Her bare feet slapped against the damp stone as she turned a corner, down into an alleyway. She slipped to a halt and began to slam her fists against a brothel door, screaming bloody murder. “Save me! I beg, save me!” No one came to the door, though she heard shouts and drunken vulgarities being exchanged inside. Another snarl sent her running down the alley once more, doing her best not to stumble or falter, lest she be devoured.
The woman eventually burst from the alleyway on to a main thoroughfare. Her feet pattered against the stones as she skidded to a halt, quickly assessing her next move. The “barghest,” as Katherine had called it, padded behind the young woman, tireless while she was about to collapse. Sighing, she began to run again.
Part of her wanted to give up, to let the black dog savage her and be done with it. Being torn apart by a devil-dog couldn't be half as bad as lying beneath an old, sweating blacksmith night after night. She shuddered as she bolted down the streets, remembering John's hot breath gagging her as he pressed his fat, slobbering lips to hers. “Squeal, Annie, my little peach,” he had whispered to her, “squeal for Big John...”
Anne had spent her entire four-year marriage to John as a prisoner. When she had met Katherine, who seemed so empowered and able, she had been seduced by the elder woman's charms. They had met, with the other women, in the dank sewers of London. There, they had charred animal or children's bones for spells, scryed the future in bowls of water, and discussed curses. It was there that Katherine had taught Anne what the elder woman had referred to as the “Old Craft.” “The Old Craft has existed long before the Christ, Anne,” Katherine had instructed. “While followers of that dead god oppress, just as John oppresses you, the Old Craft liberates. While the Christians demand submission to their god, the Old Craft will make you a god.”
Suddenly, Anne was jarred back into reality, her daydreams ripped away as the barghest lunged, knocking her to the ground. She felt one of her front teeth shatter against the stone, as the beast's hot breath, so like John's, beat against her bag. She felt a hot gob of spittle land on her neck. She would die at the hands of this beast, it would appear. All the better.
A blunt crack filled the air as the weight of the beast lifted off of Anne's back. She heard the monster whimper. Something had sent the beast flying off of her, and she heard its form thud against the cobblestone road and slide a few feet.
Summoning all her strength and resolve, she rolled over onto her back. Beside her, a man in light brown robes and a black cloak stood. He looked to be about forty years of age; a priest. In his hand, he held a large, two-handed sledgehammer. The weapon was ornate and bright, a stark contrast to the drab man, with wispy grey-brown hair and a stern, pockmarked face. Strapped to a sash around his torso was some old tome, perhaps a Bible. The book, much like the hammer, looked too gold-encrusted to belong to a poor priest, but yet there it dangled, from an iron chain, at his hip.
“Stay down, girl. This hellbeast isn't defeated yet,” he commanded, giving her only a cursory glance. Truthfully, he was right. The beast had regained its bearings, though it seemed to have lost the bravado with which it had been chasing Anne. Now, it leered at the priest, ignoring the young woman who, moments ago, it had been fatally fascinated with. It was a reflection of the beast's albeit limited sentience that it sized up the priest as it did, as opposed to attacking or fleeing like any normal wild dog or wolf would have. Its pointed ears lay back on its head, and its jowls dripped with hot spittle that visibly sizzled as it dripped onto the cold stone of the streets. Its red eyes were veritable slits of light, bright as candles against the darkness of a London midnight in Spring.
The priest appeared equally as formidable, though in a much different way. Though he was indeed drab of countenance and dress, his steely blue eyes seemed to crackle as he stared down the vicious beast. His robes and cloak billowed in the gentle breezes that periodically graced the streets. The hammer he wielded looked as though it was out of some sort of pagan, Germanic epic, with the exception of the fact that it was saturated with Christian imagery. An encircled lamb, bearing a flag in its mouth and a wound on its flank, sat in the centre of the hammer's head. On either side of the encircled lamb, there was a cross. Certain quotations from the Scriptures were inscribed in Latin on the shaft.
“Spawn of Lucifer, I do command thee in the name of Jesus the Christ to depart!” the man roared at the top of his lungs. Anne gulped as lightning crackled, seconds after the priest had bellowed. “Leave this plane of existence, or your very life – or the mockery of it – will be snuffed out!”
The beast backed up, bared its teeth even more than it already had, and then sprung toward the priest. The elderly clergyman was taken unaware, and the barghest knocked him to the wet street. The priest's grip loosened on his sledgehammer, which hit the ground with a thud. Ferociously, the barghest snapped at the priest's neck, but the priest was too quick. In his left hand, he gripped the beast's snout, and in the right, its bottom jaw. Both man and beast snarled and roared at one another.
Blood ran down the priest's arms as the barghest's fangs pierced his hands. Yet, at the same moment, a slight cracking sound could be heard by the keen ear, as the priest forced the barghest's jaws open to an unnatural angle. Gritting his teeth, the priest forced the beast's eyes to meet his own. “In nomine Patri,” he began to pray. The beast's eyes widened, and it reacted much like a hound would to a sharp whistle in its ear.
“Et Fili...” continued the priest. The corners of the barghest's mouth began to crack and bleed, oozing black blood that ran down the priest's hands, sizzling them as it seeped. The priest winced, the burn of the acidic blood almost too much to bare.
For a moment, it seemed as though the priest's grip was about to loosen, and the barghest's deadly maw would be free to snap and tear. The priest's muscles visibly trembled and his breaths were short and rapid. Surely, he was defeated, thought Anne, who lay petrified and watching.
Yet, with a vigour that stood testament to his fortitude, the priest's eyes narrowed and he roared at the top of his lungs. “Et Spiritus Sancti!” A sickening mixture of sounds filled the air as the priest tore the flesh and cartilage of the barghest; the clergyman had ripped the dog's bottom jaw clean off. The barghest wailed, its already haunting sounds made more disturbing by its lack of a jaw. The beast's tongue dangled pathetically, and it gurgled threateningly at the priest.
The pinned-down priest rolled the barghest over and positioned himself on top of it, the bloody jaw still in his burned, bloody hand. The priest gripped the barghest's throat with his left hand, and with the jaw in his right, he began to beat the barghest's head in with its own severed jaw.
Anne looked away as the squishy sound of the priest's blows began to cave the beast's skull, the barghest's guttural whimpers meshing horrifically with the cacophony. At long last, the barghest ceased whimpering. The priest dropped the jaw and rolled off of his foe.
Anne gasped as the black dog – and its severed jaw- burst into flames. The flames, blacker than the dark sky, sent heatwaves over Anne. However, as quickly as they'd erupted, the flames dispersed, leaving behind nothing more than a bit of steam that the cold, nighttime temperatures ate away at until not even wisps remained.
Girl and priest both lay on the damp ground. Anne had sat up slightly, resting on her elbows. Her saviour lay a few feet away from her, sprawled out on the street. He felt around for his hammer, and when he'd found it, he wrapped his blackened hand around the shaft and pulled the weapon nearer to him. Coming to her senses, Anne got up and jaunted over to the priest. “Father, you are injured!” she cried as she knelt down beside him. She went to take his hands in hers, but he winced and pulled away.
“Please... The skin is still tender, child.” Anne nodded and wiped the tears off of her face. The priest arose and tore a bit of cloth from the bottom of his wet, brown robes. He began to wrap it as Anne questioned him.
“What is your name, Father? I owe you my life!”
The priest winced as he made the makeshift gloves over his charred flesh. “Father O'Connor... What are you called, my child?”
She thought of John, her husband, lying face-up in their bed, his chest and throat ripped to ribbons by the barghest, a beast that she had no evidence of ever seeing... She'd be blamed for her husband's death, unless someone would listen to this priest. Choosing her words carefully, she responded, “I have no surname... You may call me Anne, however.”
The priest raised a brow. “You do not look to be a street vagrant. Your garments are fine enough... Do not lie to me, Anne. What is your name?”
She began to sob, “Oh God! That beast! That beast killed John! I am the wife of John the Blacksmith, just down the way! He's.... John is... Oh, Father, he is dead!”
Anne half expected Father O'Connor to embrace or console her... That was a priest's job, was it not? To guard and tend to his flock? Then again, Anne wasn't really a part of his “flock” anymore. Once more, her thoughts turned to Katherine and the coven.
“God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph,” Katherine had chanted, those many months ago. It was one they'd commonly chant during their meetings. Anne and the rest of the coven had echoed her. Always echoing her, always empowering themselves. “We reject you, and we reject your false teachings and your weak, slaughtered son. We reject your powerless spirit.” Anne had echoed. At first, it had been exciting, the blaspheming and chanting. But before long, she had started to feel different...
Presently, however, the priest didn't react the way Anne had expected. Though he did arise to his feet. “Follow me, my child. Here, don my cloak.” He offered her his tattered, wool cloak against the misty night. She towed behind him. He remained silent, and so she didn't try to force a conversation.
Before long, they came to Father O'Connor's church. It was dark and foreboding, with gargoyles on the battlements. One looked like the barghest, and Anne shivered as she walked beneath it.
“Please, into my office,” O'Connor urged. He took the cloak off her as they entered the warmth of the church. It seemed bare, not a sister or friar in sight. “Tell me, my dear child. What exactly happened this evening?” He pushed a chalice of water toward her. She sipped it, gratefully.
She gathered her story, leaving out any mention of Katherine and the coven. “Well, John and I were in our bed, sleeping. Out of nowhere, the bar- dog jumped into our window. It leapt on top of John, and well... I fled. I went looking for a guard or something, but the streets were deader than John was... Before long, I heard the dog snapping at me... And then you came.”
Father O'Connor just sat there, seemingly considering her story.
Oh, God, she thought. He doesn't believe me.
“I am many things, Anne. A sinner, a scholar, a son... But I am not a fool. That was no dog. Now, tell me how this hellhound, or barghest as you nearly called it, managed to attack you.” His steely, blue eyes glared at her sternly.
She downed some more water to stall. “Father, I don't know any more than-”
“It is rare for hellhounds to escape into our world,” he interrupted. “It happens, surely, but it is exceedingly rare. They're too weak. Of mind as well as body. Not sly enough. No, just like a good hound, they only come when called... My question is, who called a barghest on John?”
“I do not know!” she shrieked, “What on God's earth are you? With your war-hammer and ripping apart a dog with your bare hands! You are the guilty one! Not me! Not me!”
Anne felt herself sweating, she felt ill, and it wasn't just because her nervousness. “I feel sick, Father,” she muttered weakly. She made to get to her feet, and black vomit erupted from her mouth, all over the priest's writing desk.
Rather than chastise her, however, he merely grinned. “You should be less careful who you accept drinks from, spell-weaving hag.”
Anne felt paralysis slowly creep up into her body. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she tumbled to the floor. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, barely able to form the words as her mouth began to grow stiff.
As her eyes fluttered shut and she tumbled into a deep sleep, Father O'Connor's response was the last thing she heard: “Suffer not a witch to live...”
Prologue: England, 1547
The beast chased her down the cobblestone street, snarling at her heels with its otherworldly growls. Again and again she felt it snatch a piece off of her cape or evening gown. Almost as if it was toying with her like a cat would a mouse.
Her dirty blonde hair was wet with sweat and the regular, London nighttime mist. Her frame was dainty, and she was perhaps a bit on the skinny side, with knobbly knees and elbows. At seventeen years of age, she was still virtually a child. Yet, still, here she was being chased not like a seventeen year old girl but like a wild-eyed doe fleeing a pack of ravenous wolves.
She had never meant for this to happen. Her escapades in the sewers, alleys, and outlying forests were never supposed to go this far. The young woman sobbed as the black dog snapped at her dress once again. This was it, she would die. Just as her husband had, minutes before, when the dog had leapt through their window and into their tiny, London home. The beast was red-eyed and lithe, almost cat-like in some respects, like some sort of wild dog from the Dark Continent... or the front gates of the Adversary. It had made quick work of her abusive, drunken, blacksmith of a husband... And now it craved her blood.
“Someone help me!” she yelled into the night. The streets of London were dead, save for the sounds of scurrying mice, the hellish beast, and its tiring, crying prey. Her bare feet slapped against the damp stone as she turned a corner, down into an alleyway. She slipped to a halt and began to slam her fists against a brothel door, screaming bloody murder. “Save me! I beg, save me!” No one came to the door, though she heard shouts and drunken vulgarities being exchanged inside. Another snarl sent her running down the alley once more, doing her best not to stumble or falter, lest she be devoured.
The woman eventually burst from the alleyway on to a main thoroughfare. Her feet pattered against the stones as she skidded to a halt, quickly assessing her next move. The “barghest,” as Katherine had called it, padded behind the young woman, tireless while she was about to collapse. Sighing, she began to run again.
Part of her wanted to give up, to let the black dog savage her and be done with it. Being torn apart by a devil-dog couldn't be half as bad as lying beneath an old, sweating blacksmith night after night. She shuddered as she bolted down the streets, remembering John's hot breath gagging her as he pressed his fat, slobbering lips to hers. “Squeal, Annie, my little peach,” he had whispered to her, “squeal for Big John...”
Anne had spent her entire four-year marriage to John as a prisoner. When she had met Katherine, who seemed so empowered and able, she had been seduced by the elder woman's charms. They had met, with the other women, in the dank sewers of London. There, they had charred animal or children's bones for spells, scryed the future in bowls of water, and discussed curses. It was there that Katherine had taught Anne what the elder woman had referred to as the “Old Craft.” “The Old Craft has existed long before the Christ, Anne,” Katherine had instructed. “While followers of that dead god oppress, just as John oppresses you, the Old Craft liberates. While the Christians demand submission to their god, the Old Craft will make you a god.”
Suddenly, Anne was jarred back into reality, her daydreams ripped away as the barghest lunged, knocking her to the ground. She felt one of her front teeth shatter against the stone, as the beast's hot breath, so like John's, beat against her bag. She felt a hot gob of spittle land on her neck. She would die at the hands of this beast, it would appear. All the better.
A blunt crack filled the air as the weight of the beast lifted off of Anne's back. She heard the monster whimper. Something had sent the beast flying off of her, and she heard its form thud against the cobblestone road and slide a few feet.
Summoning all her strength and resolve, she rolled over onto her back. Beside her, a man in light brown robes and a black cloak stood. He looked to be about forty years of age; a priest. In his hand, he held a large, two-handed sledgehammer. The weapon was ornate and bright, a stark contrast to the drab man, with wispy grey-brown hair and a stern, pockmarked face. Strapped to a sash around his torso was some old tome, perhaps a Bible. The book, much like the hammer, looked too gold-encrusted to belong to a poor priest, but yet there it dangled, from an iron chain, at his hip.
“Stay down, girl. This hellbeast isn't defeated yet,” he commanded, giving her only a cursory glance. Truthfully, he was right. The beast had regained its bearings, though it seemed to have lost the bravado with which it had been chasing Anne. Now, it leered at the priest, ignoring the young woman who, moments ago, it had been fatally fascinated with. It was a reflection of the beast's albeit limited sentience that it sized up the priest as it did, as opposed to attacking or fleeing like any normal wild dog or wolf would have. Its pointed ears lay back on its head, and its jowls dripped with hot spittle that visibly sizzled as it dripped onto the cold stone of the streets. Its red eyes were veritable slits of light, bright as candles against the darkness of a London midnight in Spring.
The priest appeared equally as formidable, though in a much different way. Though he was indeed drab of countenance and dress, his steely blue eyes seemed to crackle as he stared down the vicious beast. His robes and cloak billowed in the gentle breezes that periodically graced the streets. The hammer he wielded looked as though it was out of some sort of pagan, Germanic epic, with the exception of the fact that it was saturated with Christian imagery. An encircled lamb, bearing a flag in its mouth and a wound on its flank, sat in the centre of the hammer's head. On either side of the encircled lamb, there was a cross. Certain quotations from the Scriptures were inscribed in Latin on the shaft.
“Spawn of Lucifer, I do command thee in the name of Jesus the Christ to depart!” the man roared at the top of his lungs. Anne gulped as lightning crackled, seconds after the priest had bellowed. “Leave this plane of existence, or your very life – or the mockery of it – will be snuffed out!”
The beast backed up, bared its teeth even more than it already had, and then sprung toward the priest. The elderly clergyman was taken unaware, and the barghest knocked him to the wet street. The priest's grip loosened on his sledgehammer, which hit the ground with a thud. Ferociously, the barghest snapped at the priest's neck, but the priest was too quick. In his left hand, he gripped the beast's snout, and in the right, its bottom jaw. Both man and beast snarled and roared at one another.
Blood ran down the priest's arms as the barghest's fangs pierced his hands. Yet, at the same moment, a slight cracking sound could be heard by the keen ear, as the priest forced the barghest's jaws open to an unnatural angle. Gritting his teeth, the priest forced the beast's eyes to meet his own. “In nomine Patri,” he began to pray. The beast's eyes widened, and it reacted much like a hound would to a sharp whistle in its ear.
“Et Fili...” continued the priest. The corners of the barghest's mouth began to crack and bleed, oozing black blood that ran down the priest's hands, sizzling them as it seeped. The priest winced, the burn of the acidic blood almost too much to bare.
For a moment, it seemed as though the priest's grip was about to loosen, and the barghest's deadly maw would be free to snap and tear. The priest's muscles visibly trembled and his breaths were short and rapid. Surely, he was defeated, thought Anne, who lay petrified and watching.
Yet, with a vigour that stood testament to his fortitude, the priest's eyes narrowed and he roared at the top of his lungs. “Et Spiritus Sancti!” A sickening mixture of sounds filled the air as the priest tore the flesh and cartilage of the barghest; the clergyman had ripped the dog's bottom jaw clean off. The barghest wailed, its already haunting sounds made more disturbing by its lack of a jaw. The beast's tongue dangled pathetically, and it gurgled threateningly at the priest.
The pinned-down priest rolled the barghest over and positioned himself on top of it, the bloody jaw still in his burned, bloody hand. The priest gripped the barghest's throat with his left hand, and with the jaw in his right, he began to beat the barghest's head in with its own severed jaw.
Anne looked away as the squishy sound of the priest's blows began to cave the beast's skull, the barghest's guttural whimpers meshing horrifically with the cacophony. At long last, the barghest ceased whimpering. The priest dropped the jaw and rolled off of his foe.
Anne gasped as the black dog – and its severed jaw- burst into flames. The flames, blacker than the dark sky, sent heatwaves over Anne. However, as quickly as they'd erupted, the flames dispersed, leaving behind nothing more than a bit of steam that the cold, nighttime temperatures ate away at until not even wisps remained.
Girl and priest both lay on the damp ground. Anne had sat up slightly, resting on her elbows. Her saviour lay a few feet away from her, sprawled out on the street. He felt around for his hammer, and when he'd found it, he wrapped his blackened hand around the shaft and pulled the weapon nearer to him. Coming to her senses, Anne got up and jaunted over to the priest. “Father, you are injured!” she cried as she knelt down beside him. She went to take his hands in hers, but he winced and pulled away.
“Please... The skin is still tender, child.” Anne nodded and wiped the tears off of her face. The priest arose and tore a bit of cloth from the bottom of his wet, brown robes. He began to wrap it as Anne questioned him.
“What is your name, Father? I owe you my life!”
The priest winced as he made the makeshift gloves over his charred flesh. “Father O'Connor... What are you called, my child?”
She thought of John, her husband, lying face-up in their bed, his chest and throat ripped to ribbons by the barghest, a beast that she had no evidence of ever seeing... She'd be blamed for her husband's death, unless someone would listen to this priest. Choosing her words carefully, she responded, “I have no surname... You may call me Anne, however.”
The priest raised a brow. “You do not look to be a street vagrant. Your garments are fine enough... Do not lie to me, Anne. What is your name?”
She began to sob, “Oh God! That beast! That beast killed John! I am the wife of John the Blacksmith, just down the way! He's.... John is... Oh, Father, he is dead!”
Anne half expected Father O'Connor to embrace or console her... That was a priest's job, was it not? To guard and tend to his flock? Then again, Anne wasn't really a part of his “flock” anymore. Once more, her thoughts turned to Katherine and the coven.
“God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph,” Katherine had chanted, those many months ago. It was one they'd commonly chant during their meetings. Anne and the rest of the coven had echoed her. Always echoing her, always empowering themselves. “We reject you, and we reject your false teachings and your weak, slaughtered son. We reject your powerless spirit.” Anne had echoed. At first, it had been exciting, the blaspheming and chanting. But before long, she had started to feel different...
Presently, however, the priest didn't react the way Anne had expected. Though he did arise to his feet. “Follow me, my child. Here, don my cloak.” He offered her his tattered, wool cloak against the misty night. She towed behind him. He remained silent, and so she didn't try to force a conversation.
Before long, they came to Father O'Connor's church. It was dark and foreboding, with gargoyles on the battlements. One looked like the barghest, and Anne shivered as she walked beneath it.
“Please, into my office,” O'Connor urged. He took the cloak off her as they entered the warmth of the church. It seemed bare, not a sister or friar in sight. “Tell me, my dear child. What exactly happened this evening?” He pushed a chalice of water toward her. She sipped it, gratefully.
She gathered her story, leaving out any mention of Katherine and the coven. “Well, John and I were in our bed, sleeping. Out of nowhere, the bar- dog jumped into our window. It leapt on top of John, and well... I fled. I went looking for a guard or something, but the streets were deader than John was... Before long, I heard the dog snapping at me... And then you came.”
Father O'Connor just sat there, seemingly considering her story.
Oh, God, she thought. He doesn't believe me.
“I am many things, Anne. A sinner, a scholar, a son... But I am not a fool. That was no dog. Now, tell me how this hellhound, or barghest as you nearly called it, managed to attack you.” His steely, blue eyes glared at her sternly.
She downed some more water to stall. “Father, I don't know any more than-”
“It is rare for hellhounds to escape into our world,” he interrupted. “It happens, surely, but it is exceedingly rare. They're too weak. Of mind as well as body. Not sly enough. No, just like a good hound, they only come when called... My question is, who called a barghest on John?”
“I do not know!” she shrieked, “What on God's earth are you? With your war-hammer and ripping apart a dog with your bare hands! You are the guilty one! Not me! Not me!”
Anne felt herself sweating, she felt ill, and it wasn't just because her nervousness. “I feel sick, Father,” she muttered weakly. She made to get to her feet, and black vomit erupted from her mouth, all over the priest's writing desk.
Rather than chastise her, however, he merely grinned. “You should be less careful who you accept drinks from, spell-weaving hag.”
Anne felt paralysis slowly creep up into her body. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she tumbled to the floor. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, barely able to form the words as her mouth began to grow stiff.
As her eyes fluttered shut and she tumbled into a deep sleep, Father O'Connor's response was the last thing she heard: “Suffer not a witch to live...”
