Her living room is modest; a faded hand-stitched rug, aging armchairs, and bare surfaces adorned by little other than books. Of the latter, there is an abundance. Stacks ten deep, crammed shelves, and an overflow surrounding the chairs like learned sentries guarding against ignorance.
Witchfinder Smith rubs his chin. Not the home of a dark-artist, he thinks. It feels more professorial than satanic. Intellectuals are banned, but they aren’t witches. Besides, intellectuals are not his concern, being in the purview of the Bureau of Acceptable Knowledge, not the Witchfinder General.
“Bring her in,” he commands the guard slouching against the door frame, an AK47 dangling from his obese, combat-fatigue-clad figure.
“Get inside, witch,” the man snarls at Olivia Epstein, who stands in the rain, shackles binding her. Olivia shuffles past the glowering guard. Smith can see her resisting her instinct to retreat, as she straightens, fixes her gaze on him and moves confidently into the room.
“Now Olivia, I want you to tell me where everything is hidden,” he says in a sotto voce appeal. He hopes she sees reason and confesses her guilt.
Smith sees her as a small woman, barely five feet tall, with narrow shoulders; thin, time-drained breasts barely rippling her grey blouse; but her face is striking; a prominent nose beneath a wide brow, itself curtained by dark hair, which has a lustre defiant of her years, and deep brown eyes, reminiscent of a pair of cauldrons.
“Nothing is hidden, Witchfinder,” she says in her curiously European accent. “I have nothing to hide.”
“Now, Olivia, I want to make this easy for you. Confess all and you will not go to eternity riding on the back of a lie,” he says, raising a finger as if to make an important point. “And we will have no need for unpleasant interventions.”
“You have no evidence,” she says, eyeing him cooly. “Just the word of that slut in the grocery store.”
“That slut, as you call her, is a member of the Church of Donald, and she says you are a witch,” he pauses, and lowers his voice to a whisper. “She says you are a therianthrope.”
“She said that? I doubt that word has ever passed between her ears. Unless the Bishop said it when he was banging her.”
“Confess!” Smith snarls, advancing on her and drawing his blade.
Olivia steps back as far as her restraints allow. The manacles glow, and fall to her feet. Smith, with fear in his eyes, stays his murderous advance as she grows, her muzzle extending, sharp teeth protruding from a feline jaw, wiry muscles binding her arms and legs, claws extending. She leaps. His throat tastes good. In moments she is on the guard, ripping and tearing, until she is sated.
With a mewling howl, she bounds off into the night. She, and all her kind, she realises as she runs, have a new mission. They must step out of the shadows and deal with the men in charge. Permanently.
As Olivia hurdles across the rooftops, she smiles to herself. They would have their witch hunt, just not the one they expect. The witches are no longer the prey, they are now the hunters.
