Witch, Please
“Gany.”
“Gany?”
“Short for Ganymede. Her birth name is as inconsequetial as mine. But she has violated the Accord. And in order to
spare the coven I’ve built with my hands…”
Lemme pause here for a history lesson. Lillithians and the Church spent the Early Modern period in a savage little
shadow war known among both as The Burning. More or less everything you heard about the witch-trials of that era
was real, except for the fact that there were real god-damned (pun so very intended) witches being hunted. Yes,
Virginia, there was a witch at Salem. I won’t tell you who it was, except to say that she not only survived the Trials,
she was the cause of them. Greatest trick the devil ever pulled and all that.
Anyway, not long after Waterloo, a meeting between a Council of Lillithians and the Church was held, in secret, at
Montevideo. The records of this meeting were burned in their entirety after their presentation at Rome, but the
Accords that came out of it are, I am reliably told, still held in the Secret Archives. Under these accords, covens of
witches would be allowed to live in peace, unmolested by the Holy Office, provided they 1) registered themselves
and 2) kept their activities confined. Witches who went rogue and interfered with Church activities in any way, had
to be handed over or the coven could be destroyed by Hospitallers (I’ve mentioned that the Sovereign Military
Order of Malta is really the Vatican’s demon-hunting arm, and not just a charitable organization doing Crusader
cosplay, right? I feel like I’ve mentioned that.). According to the ones I’ve known, Hospitallers enjoy nothing so
much as going all Malleus Maleficium on a witch coven. Apparently the Order was really against the Accord, and
agreed only on condition that they be given the task of enforcing it.
“So what you need me for? You know who to call.”
Engilda pursed her lips. “I do not have good relations with the Hospitallers. They suspect me.”
“Okay. So what’s this Gany got herself involved in?”
“She has enslaved a local minister.”
“Minister. Not priest?”
“No, not priest. He’s a…Methodist?” she shrugged.
“Close enough.”
And it was. When it came to the Accord, the Hospitallers took a progressively ecumenical view of what constituted
“the Church”. Orthodox, Protestants, even Jehovah’s Witnesses counted. Pretty much everyone counted. Except
Unitarians.
“So to be clear, you’re calling in a hit on this Gany, and you want me to do it.”
“That… is correct.”