Trial By Witch

By B. Joann Crisp

Liam is cursed with immortality and the burden of carrying out a dead witch's vengeance. Hilda, a witch of spectacular power, blames four families in Liam's village for the murder of her innocent sister Gretchen. Tortured and eventually put to death for crimes of witchcraft, Gretchen carried with her three distinct scars that she received through a series of trials. Liam shares these scars--burns on his hands and feet, a gash across his chest, and the deep bruising caused by a hangman's noose--and he is charged with eradicating each of the four bloodlines so that he may earn the right to carry such scars. Until all descendants of the Goodes, Brewers, Millers, and Spensers are dead, Liam will have a tortuously long existence, void of love or meaning outside of death. Ana, a young woman Liam meets during his quest, is quick to realize the details of Liam's plight and offers to join him as he hunts down a man who has been stalking him and even killing the few people he calls his friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304831248

Book preview

Trial By Witch

Trial By Witch

B. Joann Crisp

Lulu.com

2014

Copyright © 2014 by B. Joann Crisp

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2013

ISBN 978-1-304-83124-8

Dedication

For Dad

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank those who have supported me and who have provided their time for proof-reading (to tell me when I had some major work to do).  Particular thanks to my mom who has never faltered in her support and has encouraged me to keep trying and always keep writing.  I am so thankful for your prayers.

To Robin, Lyndsay, Lauren, and Aida, you are my closest friends and allies—you keep me sane and put up with my nerdy obsession with grammar the most!  To my family, particularly Jacob and Jeremy, I thank you for your wisdom and love; while I have worked on my skills as a writer, you've given me the best feedback for which I could have asked.

Chapter 1

When

you sit down to tea with a witch, you'd better come prepared.  Then again, if you don't know that you're about to share a biscuit with one of the most vile women in the world, no one would blame you for ending up with a curse hanging over your head.  Or rather, over the head of your unborn son.  If only my mother had been prepared.

The witch was an unassuming creature who fancied herself a midwife on most days.  No one knew the real truth--that she had joined our village, Alansville, under a false name and would soon be seeking vengeance for her dead sister--but there were still many that awarded her a large berth.  A woman traveling alone was an odd thing and odder still was when the woman took up residence in the dead witch's cottage.  Of course the elders were on high alert.  Of course the Minister scrutinized her life, beliefs, and wifely skills.  Of course the witch had an answer for everything, and of course she was allowed to live, a wolf among the sheep, for weeks without incident.  Or perhaps she had already begun weaving her spells.  I can vouch for her power.  And for her merciless ire.

Long after my father had passed and I was but a boy, the witch resurfaced, if only to see the final act of her insidious play.  I was the lead, I learned, and this was no comedy.

It isn't true! I remember my mother mourned.

I remember things differently--it's been so long--than they actually happened.  Sometimes I see my mother wailing, flinging herself face-down onto the table, having just heard the fate of her son.  Other times I see my father, or what he would have looked like had he been alive at the time, stoic and brave, yet ready to throw his own son from the cliffs overlooking the lake.  Realistically, my mother was unsurprised, as if she had known all along that her son was cursed.

Young and unencumbered by the thought of my own mortality (or immortality as it turned to be), I barely felt the ramifications of the witch's revelation.  I wanted to play outside and fetch things for my uncle as he went about his leadership duties, I didn't want to think about witches or curses.

We tried burning the book, I remember.  Thrown into the hottest coals possible, the book simply laid there, growing red and angry, but never burning.  Within its pages, the names of every child born to the four families that put the witch's sister to death were written in blood, a permanent list of the damned.  Every child in that book was born with a mark, a stain showing the world just how he or she would die some day.  I, however, was born with three, each more hideous than the last.  I could have been lucky and been born with hoof marks on my chest like the Miller's boy.  He died at seventeen, trampled by his own horse.  Or I could have been marked with the scars of the pustules that took the life of the Goode's oldest daughter.  But no.  The witch had deemed me special.

The burns on my hands and feet are easy to explain: I at some point, just a babe, wandered too close the fireplace and burned myself on the cauldron hanging there.  It doesn't quite explain why I was born with these marks or why an injury so recent would appear as if it happened decades before.  As I got older and the more people that knew the truth died, it was easier to hide behind the lie.  Except for when the burns gradually reddened and began to look like fresh scars.  Try explaining that to a battlefield doctor trying to assess your many wounds.

No, no.  It's...they're old, doc, I said to the young man hunkered down beside me in the trench.

Nah, mate.  They're new!  You've been burned, bad.  You're in shock.

Luckily for me, the conversation ended abruptly and a pity for him, he had his own injuries to look after a few seconds later.  It only meant that I was close to one of the descendants, one of the children written in my little book that was my constant companion.  It meant that I was near them, and they were about to die.  I could have hoped that by some kind of miracle, the doc was a descendant after all, but by the accent alone, I knew I couldn't be that lucky.  And, as I saw later when parts of him were thrown over me, he wasn't marked.

The other scars are a little less easy to explain.  I don't consider myself a good-looking man--the years have not been kind--so I don't often remove my shirt in front of others, but when I do get lucky and some woman decides that I'm worth her time, I try to hide the scar on my chest in darkness.  Otherwise, I get the usual shock of horror.

How did you survive that? many have asked.

The jagged gash from my right clavicle down to just above my left nipple would point to a history of some tortuous injury.  I've made up so many versions of the story that I've been caught by former lovers asking for more details of my fascinating life because I've failed to keep the facts straight.  Too large, too imprecise to be a surgical scar, I've claimed everything from surviving an attack by serial killer, to fighting a grizzly bear to the death and coming out the victor.  This is the only scar that I've actually earned from the witch and there is a true story behind it, but I keep that one close to the chest--no pun intended.

The hardest to hide is the one on my neck.  I could wear high collared shirts like they did in the old days--the only old days that I wasn't actually around for--but it's easiest just to wear a simple shirt and tie.  It's the only thing I've found to distract from most of the ligature mark that cuts from just under my chin and ends, fashionably, at the base of each ear.  I get a lot of sympathetic looks from this one.

You poor baby, a prostitute from good old Boston told me once.  Here.  Mama'll take care of you.

I ended the night there, thank you very much.  I may have a lot of issues, but Mommy issues aren't one of them.  And I don't need anyone to take care of me either.  I've tried my best at making an end to this life, to fulfill the scars, but each time I tried, someone else ended up paying the price.  Sometime in the 1920s, 1924, I believe, I caught a wild hare and thought I'd try my luck again--see if the witch had forgotten or if the spell had weakened any.  Choosing just the right rope to match the ripples in the scar on my neck was important, but as I hung from the beam in my hotel room, expecting life to just slip away, I heard a man in the next room cry out in agony.  When he was wheeled away and I stood there watching, having cut myself down with some effort, I saw the man's bulging, red eyes, locked in horror.  As if someone or something had squeezed the life out of him.  Nope.  Curse was still in place.

There aren't many descendants left.  I've dispatched many of them and dozens more have come to their demise by their own doing.  When the witch cast her spell and wrote down all the names, the first generation, she didn't care who they were or what they would do with their lives--if they were good or bad.  She deemed that all of them would have to die, and that I would carry the burden of ensuring that her vengeance was complete.  When the last descendant of the minister that put the witch's sister through the trials that left her battered, burned, and bloody was dead and I earned my first scar, I realized how easy it would be to finish this work.  I could just quickly finish off the rest of the Millers and the Goodes, and be done with this whole nightmare.

But nothing's ever that easy.

I call them the first generation because the book is bound with a special feature that was unknown to me until Jennifer Miller, the dead witch's accuser's youngest of five daughters, discovered that she was with child after laying with a boy several years older than her.  A fertile Miller, she turned out to be, since the girl went on to bear two more second generation names.  Each time the wench went and got with child, a name appeared at the bottom of the list in my book.  By the time I got to the killing part of my participation, there were twenty-seven names in my book.  And the list continued to grow.

Lately, I've noticed, the list has stopped growing.  Names have been dropping off my list without any effort from me.  There are fewer than ten names left and I'm stuck hunting down the last of the Miller line in a nasty part of Detroit--if it can be said that there is a good part of the city.  I find myself reminiscing over my last three hundred years and the taste of my own death is so inviting, so close, that I no longer have the desire simply to end the life of this unknowing descendant.  I hunger for it.

Chapter 2

I saw the bullet wound on the cursed man's forehead and I knew exactly how he was going to die.  I would, of course, try to kill him by any means necessary, but, as I've learned: what the witch says, goes.

I've been chasing you a long time, I said.  He was ducked behind a blue plastic barrel and his eyes flitted from me to the exit sign above my head.  Like trapping a boar.  What do you say, we end this?

Who are you?

You know who I am, I said.  I have this because of you.  I lifted up my hand and pointed to the wash of purple, mottled skin that spread from my wrists to my fingertips.  You tried to burn me up in 1879, too.

You're crazy, man.  1879?

Justin Butterman had been hard to find, but he was definitely a Miller.  I'd tracked him down before--no, one of his ancestors.  Back when there was only a few names in the Miller family tree.  I'd messed up then, let the bastard get the better of me, and he escaped, leaving me for dead in the burning stable where I'd found him.  The years and the injuries I've sustained over them have made keeping things straight a little difficult.

Not you, I said dismissively.  I couldn't let him distract me.  But you're just like him.  Burning things down.  Killing innocent people?

They deserved it!  Justin peeped out from behind the barrel as he spoke, but as I raised my gun to fire, he ducked down again.

I was certain that a bullet would hit him through the barrel, but why waste the ammo if I knew exactly where the bullet was going to end up?  Justin, you know I can't let you out of here.

I could see that Justin's young eyes flared in realization, accepting that I was a man who would present quite the obstacle in escaping and carrying on with his murderous ways.  Justin's weapon of choice was gasoline and a lighter of some kind, so unless he had suddenly decided to pack a shotgun in that bag of his, this wasn't going to end well.  I was out in the open, completely exposed and standing in the only doorway of the abandoned warehouse.  The exit at the back was blocked by a stack of pallets that had, at one time, been made into some kind of bed by one of this city's homeless.  I took a step forward.

Don't come any closer! Justin yelled.

Or what?  You'll scare me to death?  I shook my head.  The kid, twenty-four this year, knew nothing besides how to burn buildings down and evade detection by the police.  Come on, Justin, just step out from behind that barrel and we'll end this.  There's no point to carrying on.

Who are you? Justin repeated his earlier question.

I'm the man that's going to kill you.  Make you pay for all of your sins.

Justin probably had no idea where the scar on his forehead came from.  How could he?  This day hadn't happened yet.  It had probably been explained away as some strange birthmark.  Had he come from a richer family, they might have tried to have it removed or altered at least.  Both of Justin's parents were dead, but I was only to blame for trying to kill the father once.  To my benefit, the sucker shot himself after killing his bride, so Justin's current state of mind was not of my doing.  So it was down to him, an arsonist wanted by the police for a series of fires in the commercial district that claimed the lives of about a dozen homeless people.

That mark on your head?  That means you're going to die.  By my hand.

It's just a stupid birthmark...you don't know what you're talking about, Justin said.  He wiggled behind the barrel and angled himself further away from me.

This was carrying on longer than I'd hoped.  I had a plane to Toronto to catch.  I didn't bother with any more pleasantries and started toward the barrel.

Stop! Justin cried out.  He held a lighter, a cheap Bic with a floral design, and sparked a flame.  He peeked his head out from the side of the barrel and scowled at me.  This whole place is drenched in gas.  You kill me, you die too.

Dying is a funny idea to me, so when I huffed a laugh through my nose and smirked, Justin showed a twinge of annoyance peppered with the slightest bit of fear.  So that's how it'll go down, huh?

What's your deal man?  You're not a cop.  You can't kill me.

The police know about you, sure.  And if I was a cop, I'd be a hero for dispatching with you.  But I'm not a cop, you're right.

Justin lowered the Bic closer to the floor where it was wet.  The sharp gas fumes, pungent as they were, didn't bother me.

Careful with that.  You'll ignite the fumes if you don't watch out, I warned him, as a father would a child.

Seeing he was indeed trapped, Justin pulled himself further behind the barrel.  I...I'll turn myself in.  Just call the cops, man.  Call them and tell them I'm here.  I'll let them take me.

I checked the gun I was holding.  The modern improvements more of a hindrance to me at times, I ensured that the safety was off and pointed straight at the barrel.  "That's just not going to work