Innocence

Witchery hung low in the air that night, and for Tom, with his black greasy hair plastered to his pallid skin-pale like cheese and cold like stone, it was the very aura of excitement. Sitting in the chairs around the table were all his sisters; some old, some not, but all aglow with the same feverish anticipation that coursed through him on that hot October night.

Naturally, they were all confident-just. The bits on the walls were all that was left of the previous occupants of this small, forest-bound chalet, and that had only happened when they attempted this particular ritual. The gore-spattered paste on the timber also seemed a-tremor with this evil air, the feverous rush of anxiety, glee, tension and death that hung in the stale gales blowing about the lost woodland. It was midnight when the eldest sister led the virgin through the copse. Her eyes were mad and glazed, and looking into them would have been to look into a coarse dead world. The virgin trembled slightly. She knew not what was to happen to her, but if she did, the horror of being led through a strange land by this entity of wickedness could not have been made less terrifying. At the same time, Tom and another sister-younger and with some traces of beauty still clinging to her features, chanted over the obsidian dagger.

All was ready-or so they thought. Monessa, the virgin, had other ideas than those the coven had planned for her, and if the ghastly witches thought she was going to go down meekly without a fight, they had a certain sick shock in store. Delicately she fingered the silver dagger strapped to her thigh, and her papery fingers enclosed gingerly around it.