Witch Hunt: A Pitchfork County Novella Read online

  Witch Hunt

  A Pitchfork County Novella

  Sam Witt

  Pitchfork Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Stay in Touch!

  Fear the Beast

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Come Back to Pitchfork

  Also by Sam Witt

  The Apocalypse Hive Has Opened

  Shit the Author Says

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  WITCH HUNT

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Pitchfork Press

  Copyright © 2015 by Sam Witt

  This e-book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  First Edition: June, 2015

  To my wife, for helping me chase the dream.

  To my daughters, for keeping the world fresh.

  To my readers, for keeping the flame alive.

  Stay in Touch!

  There are a lot more Pitchfork County books headed your way. Be the first to know when they’re released, and get some free books while you’re at it, by joining my newsletter:

  http://www.samwitt.com/free/main-amz

  Fear the Beast

  Alasdair is changing and he’s not sure whether its for good or ill. As the Beast grows stronger, he spends more time away from civilization. On the bad days, he’s not even sure he will ever be human again.

  When a dangerous new threat comes to Pitchfork in search of fresh meat, Al must come to aid of friends and family.

  But as the hunt turns bloody, Alasdair soon learns that the frightening power of the Beast may not be enough to save the day…

  1

  There was blood in the air. It fluttered on the wind like a red pennant, and Al had been following it for what felt like hours.

  In his bestial form, Al chewed up the miles with long strides as he led his pack in search of food. Winter had its frozen grip clenched around Pitchfork’s throat, and the mastiffs were starving. Their heavy fur coats had grown sparse and patchy, and their eyes were sunken in their gaunt faces. Al knew the dogs needed food, and a lot of it, very soon. The blood, thick and rich and inviting, was a lure they couldn’t resist.

  During the first week of January, the pack had been lucky enough to run down a few scrawny deer to fill their bellies. But in the weeks since then, they’d only been able to scrounge up a few scrawny rabbits and careless squirrels to take the worst of the edge off their hunger. Spring was coming, but if the pack didn’t eat soon some of the dogs wouldn’t survive to see the area’s wildlife return.

  The pack scrambled over the rugged terrain, burning up reserves of energy they didn’t have to spare. Al hoped the scent of blood they were chasing belonged to a wounded animal and not the ragged scraps of something else’s kill.

  After running for half the day, the pack stumbled onto the source of the smell and skidded to a stop around it. The massive hounds lowered their heads to examine a circle of red snow, streamers of white fog leaking from their nostrils as they sniffed at the carnage. Low snarls rumbled from their snouts and competed with the sounds of their grumbling bellies. Al stalked around the carcass, unnerved by what he saw.

  It was a deer—or what was left of a deer—a big buck judging by the shattered rack lying in the snow just outside the circle of blood. Inside the circle, someone had smashed open the animal’s head and chest to scoop out its heart and brains.

  A crude tripod stood inside the circle next to the carcass. It was fashioned from three of the deer’s thigh bones and held together by lengths of blood-soaked sinew wrapped around the knobs of the knees.

  The tripod held the mashed pulp of the buck’s brain, a greasy white lump streaked with thick red veins. The buck’s heart was on a mound of melting snow, directly beneath the brain.

  Al’s breath quickened as he took in the scene. He paced around the carnage and tried to ignore the ravenous hunger radiating from his pack. To them, this mess was a godsend. There was enough food here to see them through the next few days.

  To Al, it was something else.

  Something dark.

  Something dangerous.

  He crouched down and shoved his muzzle into the buck’s splayed-open chest. The edges of the wound were straight and sure, the ribs cracked away from the sternum with just enough force to keep them whole. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing. But why would an experienced hunter leave the buck this way? They hadn’t even bothered to take the trophy rack, much less the deer’s meat.

  The pack’s growls became more intense. They’d drawn up tight around the bloody circle, and their amber eyes were fixed on the carcass. Pink tongues lolled from their thick muzzles, lashing the air.

  The pain of their hunger was too much for Al. He couldn’t let his pack starve. He stood, backed away from the dead deer, and nodded. “Eat up,” he said.

  The dogs didn’t give Al a chance to second-guess his decision. They lunged forward and latched their enormous jaws onto the dead animal. They snarled and tore the beast apart in a seemingly chaotic feeding frenzy. But Al could see the order of the pack, the way the leaders took the choicest bits and the runts were left with gristly scraps. The smallest member of the pack was forced to satisfy himself by gnawing on a ragged hunk of cast-off tendon.

  Al hunkered down next to a tree outside the circle of blood and wrapped his long arms around his knees. He let the dogs gorge themselves and watched the forest around them, senses tuned for the approach of any threat.

  Whatever had made this mess was still out there, and Al couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching him, waiting for its chance to strike.

  2

  With his pack fed, Al could focus on his other duty. Even weeks after the mess in Ladue, he was the only member of his family healed enough to be up and around. His mother spent most of her time nursing her physical wounds and sleeping to avoid her mental injuries. Joe, on the other hand, spent hours each day on the back porch, wrapped in a heavy blanket, staring in silence toward the horizon. Even Elsa had retreated and now spent more time talking to ghosts than her living family. Al wanted to help them, but knew they needed time to recover from their ordeals. Instead, he took care of the tasks they couldn’t handle for themselves.

  His mother had asked him to keep an eye on the other members of her coven. The witches had all suffered serious wounds during the ritual that had cleansed Pitchfork of the godsblood’s taint. Most had healed enough to look after themselves, but there were a few that still needed special attention. Like Rae.

/>   Al stopped within sight of her door and closed his eyes. He willed the Beast away, and his skin sizzled in the cold winter air. He felt himself become smaller, weaker. When he began to shiver, Al knew the change was complete, and the Beast had left him. He was just Al, again.

  His soft, pink skin felt vulnerable, exposed. These days, he spent most of his time as the Beast, roaming far and wide with his pack, strong and confident. As the Beast, he was a powerful hybrid of man, wolf, and demon, the leader of a fearsome tribe. As Al, he was barely more than a boy.

  The pack snorted and turned away from him. The big dogs knew he was uncomfortable around them when he wasn’t the Beast, even if they didn’t understand why it bothered him. To them, he was always Al, always their leader, always the one who cared for them and showed them the way. But if he didn’t want them to see him when he was pink and shivering in the cold, they’d honor his wishes and watch the wind dance across the powdery snow, instead.

  Al scooped up handfuls of snow and scrubbed the last smears of blood from his cheeks and hands. He’d let the pack eat most of the deer, but he hadn’t completely deprived himself of the fresh meat and could still taste the blood and raw flesh at the back of his throat. He rinsed his mouth with melting snow then fished the clothes he’d stashed from within the hollow trunk of the dead oak tree on the edge of Rae’s property.

  The jeans were frigid as he yanked them up his naked legs, and the shirt wasn’t any warmer as he shrugged it on over his shoulders. He hated wearing the freezing cold clothes, but Al wanted Rae to think of him as normal. Showing up on her front door as the Beast, naked, blood staining his lips and flesh crusted under his fingernails, wasn’t going to help with that normal image.

  Al tiptoed through the snow to the front door. Although he had plenty of clothes stashed around the county to change into when he was no longer the Beast, he couldn’t afford to leave shoes everywhere he might need them. That left him hopping from one frozen foot to the other as he knocked on the door.

  There was a shuffling from within the house, and after a few moments, Rae invited Al inside. He opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him to keep the cold out and the heat in.

  The young witch sat at her rough wooden dining table, hands clasped in front of her. She’d pulled her raven hair back into a tight braid that hung over the front of her left shoulder, its end bound in a thick band of engraved leather stitched with silver wire. She smiled at Al, and he couldn’t fight off a smile himself. He hated to see the horrible wounds that left her eyes scabbed over and blind, but he was grateful for the opportunity those wounds provided him.

  He closed the door and took the seat to Rae’s left. She turned to face him, impressing Al with how much better she was at gauging her surroundings. “How do they look today, Doctor?”

  Al brushed a few stray hairs away from her face and leaned in close. Rae’s eyes looked terrible. They were covered with deep red scabs seamed with oozing black cracks. But Al couldn’t smell any infection, which was a welcome relief.

  He reached out and snapped his fingers to the right of Rae’s head and saw her eyes swivel under their damaged lids. Whatever injuries she’d suffered to her eyelids, her eyes seemed to have been spared. “They look pretty good, little witch.”

  Rae grinned and leaned back in her chair. “I guess we better get to work then.”

  As part of their connection to the supernatural world, witches possessed startling regenerative powers. Al’s mother was almost healed from a gutshot she’d suffered a less than a month ago, a wound that had received only the most cursory treatment. While Rae’s eyes looked terrible, they’d heal on their own, given time. Without proper treatment, though, there was a good chance they’d form terrible scars that might never fade, and Rae’s would suffer diminished vision for the rest of her life.

  To combat that fate, Stevie had armed Al with a heavy tin filled with greasy salve and sent him to treat Rae. “Use this to soften the scabs, then brush them away with a warm, wet washcloth. She’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  And that’s what Al had done. For the past three weeks he’d come to Rae’s house every other day. He scooped out a dollop of the greasy balm and massaged it into her wounded face with the tips of his fingers.

  Rae sighed as Al worked on her injuries. “You’re getting better at this. It hardly feels like you’re trying to gouge my eyes out anymore.”

  Al snorted. “If I wanted to gouge your eyes out, they’d be out.”

  Rae smirked at his confidence. “I’m blind, not defenseless. Don’t let these good looks fool you. I’m a card-carrying member of the Conclave.”

  “Whatever you say, little witch.” Al sealed the lid on the tin and placed it back on the table. He headed into Rae’s cramped kitchen to clean his hands. His mother’s salve had no scent, not even to Al’s sensitive nose, but it stuck to everything and made his skin feel raw and tender if he didn’t clean it off right away. He ran his fingers under the water and marveled again at how different they were when he wasn’t the Beast. Ten minutes ago, his claw-tipped fingers had been long enough to wrap around a basketball without touching his palm. Now his hands were pink and tiny, a baby’s hands. Pathetic.

  Rae cleared her throat. “You must have really dirty hands for as long as you’ve been washing them.”

  Al winced. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

  He returned to the table and sat down.

  Rae sat in silence with him for a moment then spoke up. “About?”

  “Huh?”

  She reached out and tapped him in the center of his forehead. Al was impressed – she was getting much better at finding things without her eyes. “What were you thinking about?”

  He shrugged then realized she couldn’t see the gesture. “Nothing important. Just stuff.”

  They’d grown close since he’d started working on her eyes, but Al still didn’t feel comfortable around Rae. He was always afraid she’d see through him and realize he was just a boy pretending to be a man. When he wasn’t the Beast, Al knew he was nothing more than a skinny guy with too-long hair and a too-soft face.

  Rae reached across the table and entwined her fingers with his. “This isn’t going to work if you keep lying to me.”

  Al tried to pull his hand way from her. It felt too intimate, suddenly too personal of a connection. He could feel her essence through that touch, and knew she could feel his. It made him want to change, to throw off his soft skin and become the Beast. “I’m not–”

  “You are.” Her words were warm and soft, but there was a powerful weight behind them that pinned Al to his chair. “And there’s no need for it. We’re friends, right?”

  Al nodded and tried to catch his breath. The air in the little cabin was thick with a complex tangle of feelings he didn’t know how to articulate. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “What were you thinking?” Rae held his hands tight, and Al knew he was going to have to tell her if there was any hope they’d ever be more than just friends.

  “It’s nothing.” He stopped when her grip on his hands tightened and he could see a scowl forming on her face. “Okay, I get it. I was just thinking about what it feels like when I’m…you know.”

  Rae’s brow smoothed, and a faint smile teased at the corners of her mouth. “When you’re the Beast? That’s what you call it, right?”

  Al nodded. “Yeah. I mean, what it feels like when I’m not the Beast. When I’m like this.”

  Rae rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb in soft, soothing circles. “And how does it feel?”

  He tensed. He didn’t want to admit this to anyone, not even himself. How could he tell Rae? He struggled with the words then blurted out, “Weak. It feels weak.”

  His harsh words brought a frown to Rae’s face. “You’re not weak. No one could do the things you’ve done and still be weak.”

  “I didn’t do what needed to be done in Ladue. That was the Beast; it saved my family. It did what I couldn’t.”

&n
bsp; Rae lifted her hand to brush his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “You and the Beast are one. It can’t exist without you. You give it the heart it needs to do the right thing. Without you, it’s just an animal. It’s no good to anyone.”

  Al pulled his hand from Rae’s and returned to the kitchen. He dug out a clean washcloth from the drawer next to the sink and soaked it with warm water from the tap. “Let’s see about those scabs,” he said, standing behind her.

  She leaned her head back and pursed her lips. Al could feel her desire to argue with him, but he was glad she didn’t indulge herself. They leaned against one another in silence as he gently swabbed the ugly flakes of dead flesh and old blood from her eyelids.

  When he was finished, she reached up and took his face in her hands. “You’re not weak, Al. The Beast has its place, and you have yours. You need to spend more time with the rest of us mere humans. If you spend too long running around in the woods, you may forget how to find your way back to us.”

  Al wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t. Without the Beast, his family would be dead now. Without the Beast, he would be dead now. He had to be strong for those who depended on him. He had to be strong to survive. “I need to go,” he whispered and pulled away from Rae’s touch.

  “Stay,” she urged, but Al was already at the door.

  He looked back at her, his heart aching. He couldn’t be what she wanted; he had to be what he needed.

  Al slipped out into the cold, stripping his clothes away as he rejoined the pack. He let them fall into the snow, not bothering to put them back into the waterproof bag he’d used to hide them.

  He let the transformation take him and left his clothes lying in the snow.

  3

  The pack nudged against Al as he rejoined their circle. Their enormous heads were warm and comforting as they butted into him, and he felt compassion and understanding pouring from their amber eyes. But there was something else, an almost anxious feeling, radiating from the pack. They had something to show him.