Page 205 of Love at First Fright

Margery’s dark eyes fixed on me. For one terrible moment, I thought she’d turn that rage on me.

Father Ashworth surged upright.

His metal cross gleamed in his trembling hand. He thrust it toward Margery, face pale but determined.

“Begone, vile spirit!”

Margery’s head snapped toward Father Ashworth. Her lips peeled back in something that might have been a smile on a living face. On her, it looked like a wound opening. “A man of God.” Her voice dripped contempt. “How quaint. How familiar.”

Father Ashworth’s cross wavered. His hand shook so violently the metal caught the torchlight, throwing dancing shadows across the stone walls.

“The power of Christ compels—”

“SILENCE!”

The word cracked like thunder. Father Ashworth flinched, but held his ground, jaw tight.

Margery drifted closer. Her tattered skirts swept across the floor without touching it. Her eyes—dark pits in her translucent face—fixed on the priest with an intensity that made my stomach drop.

“Thy holy men,” she said softly. Dangerously. “Thou dost speak of God’s mercy whilst condemning women to flame and noose. Whilst taking coin for absolution.”

She circled him. A predator assessing prey.

“I knew many of thy kind, priest. They came to my cottage in the dark of night, seeking herbs for their ailments. Their sins. Their bastards growing in unmarried wombs.” Her laugh cut like glass. “Such pious men. Such devoted servants of the Lord.”

Father Ashworth’s face turned the colour of old parchment. The cross trembled in his grip.

“I am a servant of—”

“Thou art a fool.”

Her expression shifted. Something calculating entered those hollow eyes.

“Yet holy men do have one use.”

The temperature plummeted. My breath misted before my face.

“Their blood.”

The finger bone wrenched itself from my grip.

I yelped, hand stinging. The bone shot through the air—a pale blur.

It struck Father Ashworth’s throat.

The sound it made—wet and terrible. Like a blade through fresh meat.

Blood erupted from the wound. Dark. Hot. Pulsing.

Father Ashworth’s mouth opened. A gurgling sound emerged, wet and desperate. His hands flew to his neck, scrabbling at the gushing wound. Blood poured between his fingers, soaking his clerical collar, running down his chest in rivulets.

He tried to speak. Tried to pray to his god, maybe. But the words drowned in blood and air escaping his severed windpipe.

His knees buckled.

He collapsed onto the stone, cross clattering from his grip. His body convulsed. His mouth worked soundlessly, lips forming shapes as crimson pooled beneath him.

Evelyn screamed once again. Animalistic, terrified.