The Vampire & Her Witch

”W-what, what is happening?” Roseen stammered as she watched Dame Sybyll transforming from a beautiful young woman into a vision of dark, otherworldly splendor. When she spoke, her words sounded like a pronouncement from beyond the grave, and though it wasn’t directed at her, Roseen still felt somewhere deep inside that she should fall to her knees and confess her innermost secrets... before it was too late.

”The Church has their sorcery,” Sybyll said softly in a voice that was surprisingly normal. ”We have our own as well. I may not be as skilled wit’ it as Zedya or Ignatious, but an Executioner should give a man a chance ta’ speak his last words. All I’ve done is ta’ ensure his last words are true. A man who lies in tha’ face of death can do great harm, but maybe even he has somethin’ pure ta say b’fore he dies...”

As noble as Dame Sybyll’s intentions might sound, however, when given a chance to make his peace and say his last words, Ian’s choice of words was as disappointing as every other choice he’d made for most of his life.

”I’ll die first, you murdering whore,” Ian said as he stared directly into the eyes of death. ”But you’ll follow not long after. You made the worst mistake of your life when you harmed Loman Lothain, and his master, the Exemplar, will come for you soon enough. And if he can’t kill you, his Holiness the Saint will.”

”You act like you’re the righteous one,” the portly baron sneered. ”But you’ve just doomed every man, woman and child in all of Hanrahan. Whatever my crimes were, yours are a hundred times, a thousand times worse. When the Inquisition arrives, everything I built, everything your precious father built, it will all be consumed by their flames. You doomed them. You doomed everything you claim to care for...”

”Do ye truly have nothin’ else ta say?” Sybyll asked as she listened to him pouring out his hatred for her. ”No words fer yer wife an’ children? No regrets? Ye wish ta’ die with venom on yer tongue?”

”What words would I have for that bitch?” Ian said with a disgusted look on his face. ”She bore me one defective son, a half-wit who can’t even bed a woman without paying her to do the deed, and even then,” he snorted. ”It’s done no good. Hugo has a brain at least, it isn’t my seed that’s spoiled, it’s the vessel that’s rotten. Better off without her,” he said bitterly.

”I should have never taken such a bad match,” he ranted. ”And if your stupid father hadn’t emptied the treasuries so badly, I would never have had to marry for her family’s wealth...”

”There really isn’a anything in ye but piss an’ vinegar,” Sybyll said, shaking her head at how pathetic the man who had her mother killed seemed now that he was about to die. With the whole of his life stretching behind him, there was no one in his life he had a tender word for, not one regret or person he treasured enough to speak well of... In his world, there had only been people who were beneath him, and the only difference between the people he lorded over seemed to be whether they were useful tools to his ambitions or not.

With a view like that, it was no wonder so many people had disappointed him.

”So be it,” Sybyll said, unwilling to give the man any more freedom in his last words. Stepping forward, she loomed over him like a vengeful wraith, becoming so large in his vision that he couldn’t even see Cossot standing next to him with a glittering dagger in her hands, poised by his neck and ready to cut.

”Answer me one last question, cousin Ian,” she said as she stared down at the pale-faced man who was already on the verge of death after all of the wounds he’d suffered at her hands. ”At yer feast t’night, did ye have yer eye on any of tha’ women in tha’ hall?”

The question surprised Cossot enough that she nearly dropped the knife when she turned to look at Dame Sybyll. It didn’t matter, did it? He was about to die, so why did they need to know...

”How nice would it have been,” Ian Hanrahan said, sounding wistful for the first time since Dame Sybyll had cursed him to give his deathbed confession. ”To have one last tumble in the sheets. I gave up on Rufina, you know. She’d never let herself be alone with a man when it might look improper. At least that lad Niall knows to be grateful to the man who set her on his lap,” he said with a bitter chuckle.

”Eleri would have been a nice choice,” he said, beginning to ramble as his final moments drew closer and he lost himself in thoughts of what lay beneath the high-necked dresses and voluminous skirts the daughter of a local money lender wore. ”But her father’s too important to risk offending. Roseen would have -URK! URRGGLLLE...-”

Ian Hanrahan’s voice cut off sharply as Cossot’s hand moved, striking at the crease in his neck as if by reflex the instant she heard Roseen’s name on his lips. She hadn’t even realized that she’d moved until a spurt of thick, red blood flew from the wound in his neck, splattering across her chest and face.

-TING TING TING-

The sound of the dagger clattering to the ground filled the air, blending with the portly baron’s last, choked cries as his heart pumped blood to the deep, gaping wound in his neck, spilling it in a pool across the floor. Cossot clutched her hands to her chest, unable to look away from the bloody wound that she’d inflicted, even as she backed away from the quickly spreading pool of blood.

”I, I didn’t mean to, I... I didn’t think, I just,” she stammered as she backed away.

”Cossot,” Roseen said, stepping around Dame Sybyll to wrap her arms around her pale-faced and trembling friend. ”It’s all right,” she whispered in the most gentle, soothing tone she could manage as she turned Cossot away from the dying baron. ”It’s all right, you just did... did what you were supposed to do... You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, doing her best to reassure her friend even as she struggled to process what had just happened...