Supernaturalis Mortem

By Nick Sutcliffe

In the year A.D. 390, magic is both omnipresent and feared in newly Christian Rome. In an effort to revive their faith, three witches cast a curse on local leaders of the Empire’s new religion, subjecting them to demonic hauntings, possessions, and eventual death. Will the Iracundus family be able to survive the witches’ curse? Can the witches succeed in their quest for revenge?

Medea has always cherished her witch heritage, despite her family’s mistreatment of her. When her mother and grandmother decide to take action against the town’s mistreatment of them and their fellow believers, Medea initially supports their cause. However, when they unveil their plan for vengeance, Medea begins to question the morality of their actions.

As Medea attempts to convince her family to see reason and find a way to satisfy their desire for justice without resorting to revenge, she must navigate a difficult path that will affect not only herself but also her family, enemies, and the entire town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685629465

Nick Sutcliffe

Growing up about an hour north of Toronto, Nick Sutcliffe led the life of the typical high school loser. This in turn led him to delve into reading and writing fantasy as a means to escape the mundane boredom of daily life. Going to school for drama in Windsor, Nick found solider footing as he forged his path as an entertainer, writer and the self-proclaimed king of procrastinators.

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About the Author

Growing up about an hour north of Toronto, Nick Sutcliffe led the life of the typical high school loser. This in turn led him to delve into reading and writing fantasy as a means to escape the mundane boredom of daily life. Going to school for drama in Windsor, Nick found solider footing as he forged his path as an entertainer, writer and the self-proclaimed king of procrastinators.

Dedication

For S, D, & R: Your impact on my life cannot be put into words. I hope my impact on you is a fraction of what you’ve done for me.

Copyright Information ©

Nick Sutcliffe 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Sutcliffe, Nick

Supernaturalis Mortem

ISBN 9781685629434 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685629441 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781685629465 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781685629458 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023906369

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Chapter 1

The Dutiful Servant

My sickness had finally caught up with me. As I crawl to the shrine of my goddess at the junction of the three roads, my lifeblood flowed out through my fingers and onto the gravel. The great goddess, my goddess, Hecate had kept her promise; she’d kept me safe in the shadows all these years. And for that, I’d eternally be in her debt, should she ever need my services in the next life.

For sixteen years, Hecate had protected me and my killings. For sixteen years I wandered the world and killed indiscriminately. And for sixteen years, all Hecate had required of me for her protection was that whenever I come across anything dealing with the worship of her, I stop and offer a sacrifice of flesh, blood and bone. I think that the body of my final victim and myself, at the same altar that our covenant was first forged, would be proof enough that I had not ever faltered in my worship.

As I raised my bloody hand to the statuette of Hecate in the shrine, my dying eyes played the same trick on me they did all those years ago. For once my hand touched the image of my goddess, I could have sworn it looked upon me with a look both pleased and saddened. O, goddess of the hidden, I said. My soul is yours, a-a-a-a final pay…ment for your protection.

My strength had finally fled my dying body, as I fell to the ground. My last words, nigh, my last breath, a praise to Hecate, my great goddess.

Chapter 2

Medea

Medea looked up to the sky, seeing the crescent moon veiled by a wall of clouds. She seemed to be seeing a shrouded moon more and more of late, especially since her grandmother had first suggested the idea of summoning the demon, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad omen. But she knew how she felt about her grandmother’s plan, and it wasn’t the ceaseless fervor that her mother gave it. But then again, her mother Circe had always been all in on everything her grandmother had said. While it was true that ever since the empire had converted to Christianity, her and her family’s worship of the old gods and practice of magic had become the grounds for much prejudice towards her family, Medea still felt that these people didn’t deserve to die.

But Medea had never had the words or power to change the minds of her mother and grandmother.

Dressed as she was, in a black translucent slip identical to the ones worn by her mother and grandmother, any passerby would be able to see her perky breasts should the moon ever come out from behind the clouds. A slight breeze brought a slight chill to her body that made her nipples harden, but Medea ignored the unusual cold of the fall night. It was almost time to begin the summoning ritual.

Pulling herself out of her musings, Medea began to gather her magics; a process that her mother and grandmother have promised will come easier when she is more dedicated to her craft for as long as she could remember. Medea had begun to suspect that there was a ritual involved, but she never heard either Hecate or Circe discuss it. But as she was still lacking in this area of magic, her mother and grandmother had sent her ahead of them to ensure that she would be ready when the time came. Kneeling hunched over as if in supplication, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. With her hands, Medea felt the earth around her, willing Terra’s power to strengthen her own. Releasing the breath, she opened her eyes and felt Mother Earth’s energy increase her own as she stood once again.

Her senses of sight and hearing now empowered, Medea looked ahead to where the road she stood in the middle of met two others at a shrine to the goddess Trivia that had been there since the time before Alexander the Great. Her ears perked up at the sound of thunder rolling, announcing the arrival of her mother and grandmother; the summoning was about to start.

At the sound of her grandmother’s horn (supposedly made from the horn of Asterion himself), Medea began the slow trek toward the junction of the three roads and the shrine of Trivia. Even in the near blackness that the shrouded moon did little to help dissolve, Medea could clearly see the figures of her mother and grandmother as the three of them converged at the shrine. Pulling back the hood of her slip, Medea’s grandmother took in the sight of her daughter and granddaughter.

In her earliest memories, Medea could barely remember her grandmother looking like an older version of her daughter, but now she was only the scary, gnarled old woman that children warned each other of in the street, daring each other to get closer to show their foolish bravery. Hecate looked every bit the crone that she represented in their family’s coven. Her skin was marred by the lines of age and appeared to be as dry as the remains of mummified pharaohs. Her lower jaw stuck out almost unnaturally and revealed that she only had four teeth left in her entire mouth. But by far the most unsettling feature of her grandmother’s visage was her eyes: her right eye was milky white from cataracts, while her left appeared to be sewn shut. But despite this, her vision was preternaturally sharp, as she was able to see things like a hawk sees a mouse in a field.

Tonight, her grandmother said in her raspy voice. "Tonight, we begin the process of returning the Empire to the old ways. What we start tonight, shall not be concluded until the false god is wiped from history and the real gods are being honored once again. And magic will once again rule the night!

For too long, have we been persecuted for practicing the old ways. For too long has our faith been ridiculed for being wrong and backward. When Caesar built this empire, he brought its conquered territories’ gods back to Rome with him. At least back then you could worship any god you saw fit to deign with your praise. But when Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the empire, he made us and others like us outsiders to Rome. Well, if we’re to be outsiders to Rome, then I suppose that attacking her citizens to protest our case is a declaration of war. And make no mistake, daughter and granddaughter, for we are at war. Our very way of life is under attack, and I’d rather spend eternity in the pits of Tartarus than be forced to change to appease the mindless masses.

I wholeheartedly agree, mother, Circe voiced her agreement to the words spoken. I—

Do not interrupt me when I’m talking, Circe! Hecate chastised. It’s nearly midnight; the time has come. From the folds of her slip, Medea’s mother produced a small but wide cauldron that rested on a three-legged stand. Placing it between the three of them so that each leg was pointed to a member of the coven, Circe straightened as her mother continued. Now, for this spell to work, we must all circle the cauldron three times in unison, while saying the words seven times each.I’ll start, then you Circe and then Medea. Looking directly at Medea, her grandmother asked her in a tone that clearly indicated that the answer better be positive, Did you bring the snakeskin and pine needles?"

Rather than answer verbally, Medea produced the snakeskin and pine needles from a fold in her slip. Wrapping the former around the latter, Medea dropped the ingredients into the cauldron, and with a snap of her fingers, ignited them on fire. But this was no ordinary flame, this was nightfire: the flames of the underworld itself. The flames were blacker than black and seemed to draw what little light there was into themselves.

Her grandmother’s next words were spoken in Hebrew, and were words Hecate and Circe had spent the past fortnight perfecting to ensure the right results. "I call upon Trivia and Nemesis to aid in my endeavor. I summon a servant of Trivia to bring about my just revenge; one unafraid and able to perform acts worthy of the just Nemesis and in the name of the great Trivia. Arise, Witchcraft’s Vengeance!" As soon as her grandmother had started talking, all three women had begun to circle the cauldron; stepping in unison, with their right hands raised, creating a barrier that bounced and magnified their magics off each other’s. And as each woman finished speaking the spell, the next in line would repeat it, louder and faster than the woman before her.

As Medea said the incantation, the irony was not lost on her that they were using Hebrew to summon a demon to kill those that practiced the faith of the Hebrews; but she did wonder if that irony was lost on her mother and grandmother. And when she finished her seventh incantation, and the three of them completed their third circle of the cauldron, the nightfire that burned within blazed twenty feet into the air. It seemed to randomly bounce within the barrier their circling had created, until Medea realized that the flames were bouncing around in the same path that the coven’s magics had taken. After thirty seconds of the nightfire’s blazing, the flames extinguished themselves, and light seemed to return to the clearing that the intersecting three roads sat in. Expectantly, all three witches looked to the cauldron.

For nearly a minute nothing happened; but then Medea heard it, hissing. Rising from the cauldron came a snake, its scales red, black and white, and it slithered toward Medea’s mother. Bringing her left thumb to her mouth, Circe drew it across her teeth, before allowing drops of blood and saliva to fall from her thumb onto the snake’s head. Now you live only to fulfill my vengeance, demon. My words shall lead you to draw blood from those that persecute my family. Failing me, is equal to failing the gods themselves, understand? As a response, the snake slithered closer to her mother, and then to Medea’s slight surprise, up Circe’s body. With her enhanced vision, and the fact that her slip was just as translucent as her own, Medea was able to see the demon snake wrap itself around her mother’s full breasts in an infinite eight, resting its head in the space between Circe’s breasts.

The summoning now over, and having not failed in any way during it, Medea felt confident enough in herself to speak her mind to her elders about the doubts she had of their plan. As Hecate and Circe turned to leave, Medea said, Mother, Grandmother wait. I wish to speak of our plan. Her mother and grandmother both turned back but did nothing to hide their annoyed expressions. This was nothing new for Medea, who had become accustom to seeing this and other expressions bordering on disgust and disappointment whenever she’d spoken out of late. I know that you think that we have been treated like less than human since the Empire changed its religion-and I completely agree with that fact, as well as the fact that something needs to be done about it-I’m just not so sure that that something has to be the slaughter of all these people. If we want to change their hearts and minds about the way we live our lives, so that they treat us with the respect we deserve, we shouldn’t go about it in a fashion that only will-to them at least-legitimize the way they treat us. I do not think that we should use this demon to kill the monotheists who have taken over the Empire, but rather use him to show them that our faith is as real and as potent as theirs.

For a moment, there was silence and Medea actually hoped that her words had made her mother and grandmother reconsider their plan. But when she heard her mother’s distinctive sigh, she knew she’d failed. Which goddess did I wrong to have such a weak-hearted daughter? her mother asked of no one.

Having heard this particular taunt before, Medea didn’t back down. It’s not weakness that my suggestion shows Mother, but simply a better understanding of human nature. Jupiter knows that I would kill some of the people who torment us for simply practicing our faith; I just don’t see how coming across as the monsters they already think we are helps us. Christianity is spreading through the world like wildfire since the Empire converted to it, and those of us able to perform magic are growing smaller and smaller every year. All I’m saying is that, maybe, starting a war isn’t the smartest thing to be doing right now. We should try to reconvert some people back to worshipping the gods, not simply kill them all for not doing so.

Medea looked to her grandmother, in hopes that she was convincing her to reconsider the path they’d chosen to take. What she got instead was a hard slap across her face. She didn’t know why, but the slap her grandmother gave in response hurt Medea more than just psychically. Being abused by her mother and