Between the Shadow and the Soul (18 page)

Chapter 22

N
ervous energy had gripped the crowd. They were pushing each other, eager to get closer to the podium. Nela shivered as she watched more people fighting their way onto the square surrounding the Cologne Cathedral. Twice the usual number of Brotherhood guards watched over the crowd, most of them positioned around the platform that had been set up in front of the church’s double doors. This would be the second burning Nela was going to watch, but unlike the last time nobody was forcing her.

She wasn’t even sure why she was doing this to herself, but some part of her believed that she owed it to the woman that would be burnt to death today. Nela glanced down at her watch. There were only ten minutes left before the execution would begin. Darko should have been here five minutes ago. Worry began sneaking its way through her body when she caught movement from the corner of her eye. Darko was heading to where she was leaning against the corner of a building at the fringes of the eager crowd.

He stopped beside her, bent down for a kiss, while sweeping his dark gaze over the people gathered before them. “The way they act, you’d think they were going to a carnival.”

“Well, they’re going to get a spectacle. A barbaric one, but I don’t think they care. Sometimes I think we’re drifting farther apart every day. The Brotherhood has built an invisible barrier between our kind and humans, and one day the chasm will be so wide that not even the treaty will protect us.”

“Maybe war is inevitable,” Darko said quietly.

“War?” Nela echoed. “We wouldn’t stand a chance, would we?”

“I think humans would be surprised at how powerful we are if we stick together.”

Nela shook her head. “It’s not going to come to war. Once the killer is caught, things will calm down again and the Council will hopefully remove the addendum.”

Darko laughed darkly. “The Council is a marionette of the Brotherhood and now that Grand Master Claudius has finally succeeded in making them take the first step toward hollowing out the treaty, he won’t back down. There won’t be any progress in the direction of more freedom for witches unless we take matters into our own hands.”

It was the first time since he’d first tried to convince her to let him teach her magic that he was actually talking about a revolution with her. Nela didn’t want to think about war and revolution now; considering something like that would be like accepting the possibility of things escalating even further and she didn’t want to do that with her mother locked into the Witch Tower. A dark car from the Brotherhood pulled up next to the stage and at the same time the double doors of the cathedral opened and Grand Master Claudius made his way up the podium. Behind him the wooden stake rose into the sky.

Nela moved closer to Darko and he wrapped an arm around her but his eyes never left the leader of the Brotherhood. “Why can’t you attack him with dark magic?” the words were out of Nela before she could stop them.

Surprise crossed Darko’s face, then bitterness. “I couldn’t use magic from such a distance, I’m not powerful enough, and even if I were I couldn’t get past the protection charm he’s wearing somewhere on his body.”

Nela scanned the man she hated more than anyone. His frock covered most of his body, except for his pale hands and face. “What kind of charm?”

“An amulet or something similar. A witch put a strong protection charm on it. All the members of the Brotherhood are wearing them, but the charm of the Grand Master is the strongest.”

“I hate how they use magic so casually whenever it suits them but we are forbidden from doing even the simplest spells.”

Nela tensed as she watched a woman in handcuffs and leg irons being led up the stage by two Brotherhood guards. At least they didn’t use a barrow to push the witches through the crowd and toward the podium like they had in the past. During that ride the convicted witches were usually spit at and pelted with rotten tomatoes. Nela wondered if the Brotherhood would reintroduce that tradition as well. Or maybe they’d start locking the convicted into a witch cage and hang it from the roof of the town hall, so people could mock the witches a few days before their life was ended at the stake. The woman who stumbled up the stair to the stage with the pyre had her hair cut off completely. A horrible suspicion wormed its way into Nela’s mind. “In the past the church used to shave the heads of witches.”

“They did,” Darko said. “In many parts of the world they still do. But maybe it’s for the best. That way her hair can’t catch fire.”

“What does it matter?” Nela said angrily. “The rest of her body will burn anyway.”

The woman was chained to the stake with silver chains. Her panic stricken face flitted over the crowd, looking for help. Slowly silence settled over them. Nela took a shivery breath. “Do you really think they’re going to go through with it? You know, with not drugging her before they set the pyre on fire?”

Nela didn’t want to believe that anyone, not even the Brotherhood was so depraved to let another person suffer agony.

“We’re less than cockroaches to them. And wouldn’t you squash a roach under your boot?” He sounded eerily calm, but something in his eyes told a different story.

Nela searched the area around the stake for the doctor of the Brotherhood who usually anesthetized the convicted before the guards started the fire. She found him to the right of the podium.  But he wasn’t holding a syringe, nor was he moving from his spot. Nela clutched Darko’s coat. “We can’t let her suffer.”

But her words were drowned out by the murmur that went through the audience as one of the brothers walked up to the stake with a torch in his hand. The woman struggled against her restraints and then inexplicably her eyes found Nela and Darko, and she began screaming: “This is your fate! They will burn us all! Every witch! They will hunt us down like dogs!”

The guard touched the torch to the branches piled up beneath the woman and she began wailing. Nela began shaking. The fire reached the woman’s feet and she started screeching like a wounded animal.

Nela jerked away from Darko. “No,” she said desperately. She started pushing through the crowd. She wanted to help, needed to do something. She didn’t care if that meant the Brotherhood would hunt her down too. She wouldn’t stand by and watch that woman suffer. She wasn’t even sure what she would do. She was good at healing spells, but nothing she could do would help the woman. It would only prolong her death. Maybe there was a way to knock the woman out. Darko knew dark magic. He could attack the poor woman and make her lose consciousness. She glanced around and found Darko a few steps behind her, looking just as determined.

The screams got even louder. A man in the audience threw up on his shoes, and a woman fainted. A few people fled the square unable to bear the anguish of the woman. Why weren’t they doing something? But too many people were frozen in place, watching with expressions ranging from disgust and fear to eagerness. “Can you knock her out?” Nela shouted over the screams and crackling fire. Darko glanced over the heads of the people still between them and the stage. “I can try, but there are many people around. It could happen that I take a few of them down as well.”

A shot rang out. Nela jerked to a halt and Darko collided with her back. A second shot rang out and the cries of the woman died and she slumped forward, her clothes already burnt off her body. Someone had freed her from her suffering.

Nela’s eyes flew over the audience until they settled on a guy only a couple of years older than her, with short blond hair, his arm with a gun still raised. His sleeve was pulled back, revealing a strange tattoo on his forearm. The guards pushed into the audience, trying to get to him, but he pocketed his gun, turned around and disappeared into the crowd. People let him pass. A man tried to grab him but was detained by two other men. The humans didn’t want the shooter to get caught. They seemed to agree with his actions. Then why hadn’t they done anything? Some people were crying and they weren’t only witches. Many people looked disgusted and shocked. Maybe they’d speak up and force the Council to remove the addendum immediately. Apparently, not everyone liked what the Brotherhood was doing.

Darko gripped her arm and pulled her away from the chaos that was breaking out around them as the guards tried to find the shooter. Before they entered an alley, Nela risked another glance at the stake. The entire pyre and the woman bound to it were ablaze, but at least she didn’t feel it anymore.

Nela wondered who had saved the woman. He hadn’t used magic, but maybe he had never learned how to do it. “Did you know the guy who shot the woman?” Nela panted as Darko dragged her farther away from the Cologne Cathedral until the crackling of wood and the confused screams of the audience died away.

Darko didn’t reply, his mouth set in a tight line. Before she could ask again, he whirled around, wrapped her into a tight embrace and called the shadows upon them. Her surroundings disappeared and the ground was ripped away from under her feet. The familiar sickness took hold of her and she had no choice but to lean her head against Darko’s chest. Her stomach was churning and it wasn’t helping that the stench of burnt flesh had ingrained itself into her nose. The screams of the woman still rang in her ears. She’d never heard anything worse. How could anyone relish in seeing someone suffer like that? But she was sure she’d seen triumph in the Grand Master’s expression as he’d watched the woman burn, as he’d listened to her wails. The image of her scorched flesh, of her huge, terror-filled eyes pleading for help flashed in Nela’s mind. Bile rose up her throat. They touched ground and her surroundings stopped spinning. They were in Darko’s apartment. Nela pushed past him and into the only other room – the bathroom. She didn’t have time to close the door. She bent over the toilet and threw up.

A moment later, Darko was there and pulled her hair back, and at first she wanted to send him away. She didn’t want him to see her like that, throwing up this morning’s cereal and heaving. But she didn’t get a word out. She kept retching until the bile burnt her throat and her eyes were watering. Finally nothing was left in her stomach and she sank down on her knees, exhausted. Darko flushed the toilet and wet a small towel. He held it out to her, but a glance at her hair and clothes showed that she’d gotten vomit on herself. Darko had come too late to save her hair.

“I need to shower,” she whispered. Every word was like sandpaper in her throat.

“We could use a cleaning spell,” he began but Nela shook her head in a jerky movement. “No. I need to scrub everything off with hot water.” Especially the stench and the memories.

Darko nodded, dark eyes filled with understanding. He took one of the two bath towels piled on top of a plastic chair beside the narrow bathtub. It didn’t have a shower curtain. “It sometimes takes a while for the water to get hot, and when it does it sometimes gets scalding.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly. Without another word, Darko left the bathroom and closed the door. There wasn’t a lock, but Nela didn’t think he’d try to enter while she was showering and even if he did, she didn’t care. How could she care about something as ridiculous as her modesty when she’d just listened to a woman scream in pain? She closed her eyes but the images seemed to be burnt into her eyelids. What if her mother was sentenced to death at the stake? What if the same agony awaited her? Nela couldn’t let that happen. She stepped into the bathtub and angled the showerhead toward her face. Cold water hit her skin and she gasped. Slowly it got warmer until the water was almost unbearable, but it felt good to wash away the smell and vomit. The fog lifted from her mind and she could think clearly again.

She would wait for her mother’s trial and then she’d decide what to do, but one thing was certain, she wouldn’t let her mother go through the same thing as the poor woman had today. Even if it meant that she’d risk ending up in the Witch Tower and ultimately the stake herself, Nela would do anything to save her mother. Her uncle had escaped death by raising the dead. Who said she couldn’t do the same if her mother’s life was at stake?

She toweled herself dry, then her gaze fell on the heap of clothes. Her shirt was sprinkled with vomit and so were her jeans. She soaked them in the washbasin, wrung them out and then put them on the heater under the window. Even her underwear smacked off burnt wood, but Nela put them on anyway. She wrapped the other towel around her shoulders, covering her white underwear and her upper thighs, then she tiptoed out. Her toes curled as they touched the cold wooden floorboards in the long corridor and she hurried into the living room where Darko had a fire going in the stove. He was kneeling before the furnace, feeding it with small twigs that crackled as they came into contact with the fire. Nela pressed her eyes shut, but the red-orange flames flickered in her mind. When she dared to open her eyes again, Darko was staring at her, fire reflecting in his black pupils. She shivered under his gaze. He looked like he wanted to consume her like the fire did with the wood – and the body of the woman.

She sidled toward the sofa and sat down. She pulled her legs against her body, resting her chin on her knees. She couldn’t stop shaking. The chattering of her teeth was rattling in her brain and would definitely raise a headache soon. Darko rose and knelt on the edge of the sofa in front of her. He touched her knees with warm hands. He didn’t ask her if she was okay. They stared at each other, then Nela said, “Can we lie down together?”