Witch, Please
to trust you as I do Engilda. And that’s none at all. And before you think of trying anything, just remember: before
David was a minister, he was fighting in Fallujah. With the Marines.”
“Really. Wouldn’t have guessed that…” I said, looking up at the casement window on the second floor which had
just opened inward. It was dark inside, which would make it the perfect place for a sniper to double-tap me with an
AR-15, if he should have the training and the equipment. Onward, Christian Soldiers.
“Purple Heart and everything. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t brag much about being a successful target, either.”
“Ha ha. You can show yourself out,” she said, and walked to the door.
I smiled quietly to myself and then headed on back to my rental car. Where I sat for a long time. I sat watching the
gloaming, as the light faded and the deep colors of night creeped into the sky and all that shit. And then she came
out, got back in her husband’s car, pulled out of the driveway, and headed west on road. I followed.
*
*
*
You’re probably wondering why I’m doing any of this. Why I tipped my hand instead of doing the job Engilda hired
me for, and why I’m following the person I’m supposed to kill after she already knows I’ve been hired to kill her.
Why I bothered taking the gig in the first place under false pretenses, and all the rest of it.
The answer is simple. Witches are liars.
They cannot help it. You’ve got a collection of women living a semi-secret embrace of the dark arts (yes, sometimes
witches are male, and they’re really insistent about being called “warlocks” and they’re also full of shit in general.
Happy now?). Keeping neighbors and society in general from poking their noses in means their daily lives are
misdirection and deception. And they engage in the usual infighting among each other, honing their skill. And they
have to figure out how not to bring the wrath of demonic agents on them, while dabbling in their realm. They
pretty much forget what honesty even feels like.
So yeah, when they tell you things, the safest course of action is to assume there’s a universe of detail they’re leaving
out. And it’s even wiser to assume that direct answers to direct questions will be largely false.
I mean, did Engilda really think that I would believe that someone lasts as long as she has running a coven of
witches, and has bad relations with the local Hospitallers? Or that, if one of her girls went rogue, she’d prefer me,
of all people, instead of the local knights, to deal with it? Am I really supposed to be that stupid?
And by the same token, what does “nothing she had any use for” mean? Does that mean “nothing she’d want” or does
it mean “something she could have learned how to use, except for, you know, not wanting to actually commune
with the Devil”? And honestly, Engilda isn’t gonna want you dead just because you found Jesus and decided to
canoodle with a minister. I’m not gonna say witches are never like that, but I’ve never known Engilda to be like
that.
So my guess is, Engilda wanted me to take a shot at Gany, tangle with Marine Minister, and one or both of us ends