The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 54

Henrik feared to take a step toward the Hedge Maid. As she made a soft cooing sound while gesturing for him to come closer, he could only stare at the leather cord stitched through her lips keeping her mouth from opening more than a mere slit. Some of the holes where the leather thong penetrated her flesh oozed a pinkish fluid, as if the effort of calling him forward reinjured the wounds.

He wondered why her lips were stitched closed.

He realized that his feet were shuffling forward, even though he’d had no intention of moving. He found himself helpless to stop himself from inching ever closer to her, closer to her outstretched hands.

His own arms lifted of their own accord. No amount of strength on his part could have prevented it. His fists led the way as he moved toward her.

Her hands, stained dark— with what he feared to imagine— at last closed tight around his wrists. Closer in to her, he noticed that there was an odd smell about her, a kind of soft but sickening odor that he couldn’t identify, but it made his nose wrinkle and his throat try to close off so he couldn’t breathe it in.

Though she was a small woman, she had powerfully strong fingers. He tried to back away, but he couldn’t. He felt trapped in her grip. He had no control, no say in any of it.

Jit made another vibrating, clicking, squealing sound. As close as he was to her, Henrik could only stare into her intense black eyes with speechless fright, unable to think of what she wanted from him, what she was going to do to him.

She leaned toward him and made the same sound again. He didn’t know what she was saying. He only knew that she wanted something.

One of the familiars bent toward him over the Hedge Maid’s shoulder. “Open your fists,” she hissed impatiently.

His breaths coming in short, rapid pulls, he tried with all his might to do as he had been told. Despite his best efforts, his hands would not open. He’d held them tightly closed for so long they’d become frozen into tight knots. Despite how much he tried, how much he wanted to obey, he could not will his fingers to uncurl. He stared at them, trying frantically to make them open, fearing what she would do to him if he didn’t do as he’d been told.

Jit seemed unconcerned. Her strong fingers began peeling his fingers open one at a time. It hurt something fierce to have them move after all the time they been held fisted. Each one tingled with stabbing pains as it was pulled straight. Showing no sympathy for his cries of pain, she did not pause at her work.

Before long, she had all his fingers pried open. She flattened his hands out, pressing them between hers, one hand at a time, stroking them for a while as if to soothe away the stiffness and make certain they would remain open before she turned them over, palms down.

The Hedge Maid snapped a small twig from the woven mass beside her. He could see that there was a long, wickedly sharp thorn at the end. Not knowing what she intended, he again tried to pull away, but, with his left wrist caught in her iron grip, she easily pulled his hand closer. He felt like an animal in a trap about to be skinned.

Holding his hand steady, the Hedge Maid dragged the point of the thorn along the underside of the fingernail of his first finger. She turned the thorn in the light, carefully inspecting it. He couldn’t imagine what she was doing or what she was looking for.

Henrik saw one of the familiars, back at the wall, working at pulling a jar out of its snug place in the weave of branches. With effort, the jar finally came free. She brought it with her to Jit’s side and waited patiently as she watched her mistress at work.

The Hedge Maid dragged the point of the thorn under the nail of the second finger. She held it up. This time there was a small bit of something stuck on the point.

A sound came from deep in her throat that told him she was pleased. She held it up to show her companions. They cooed their satisfaction. Bishop Arc only glared when she showed him.

The familiar with the jar, after pulling off the lid, held it out for her mistress. Cockroaches poured out over the sides of the jar and down over the familiar’s hands. They made a rattling sound as they fell by the hundreds onto the floor, scattering in every direction before vanishing down into the weave of sticks and branches. In a moment they had all disappeared.

Jit, unconcerned, dunked the thorn in the filthy water and swished it around. She pulled it up and saw that what ever had been stuck on it had come off. Satisfied, she returned her attention to Henrik.

She repeated the careful cleaning under the nails of the last two fingers and thumb on his left hand. She found more of the tiny treasure she was searching for under the nails of his fingers, but not his thumb. Out of the corner of his eye, Henrik saw a smile come to Bishop Arc’s tattooed lips both times the Hedge Maid came up with a little scrap of something on the point of the thorn. Each time, she swished the thorn in the stinking liquid in the jar, leaving what ever it was to disappear down into the murky water.

Jit dropped his left hand and moved on to his right. After dragging the thorn under his first finger she brought it up close to her face for a look. There was nothing there. She cast a brief, furtive look up at the bishop and then dragged the thorn under the nail again, but it didn’t produce anything the second time, either.

She moved to the next finger and did a more careful cleaning under Henrik’s nail. The thorn found nothing. She repeated the search, then when it was fruitless, moved on to his third finger. It, too, didn’t have what she wanted. She focused on the little finger, as if it were her last hope.

When the thorn came up without anything but dirt, her hands dropped into her lap.

The symbols all over him seemed to churn as the man leaned down a little. “What’s wrong?”

The Hedge Maid made a few short sounds from deep in her throat.

“Jit says that we have the flesh of the woman,” the familiar at her side said. She hesitated before finishing the translation. “But we do not have the flesh of the man.”

The bishop straightened in a way that caused all seven of the familiars to back up.

One of them was not quick enough.

He snatched her by the throat and yanked her close. It looked to be a reflex driven purely by emotion. She cried out, thrashing like a snake in a snare, but she could not escape his grip. It was clear that the bishop was in a blind rage. She clawed at his tattooed hands around her throat, but it did her no good.

“Tell your mistress that I am not pleased,” he said to the others.

Several of them urgently leaned in, speaking to the Hedge Maid in her strange language.

When the bishop pulled the familiar in his fist close to his face and glared into her eyes, she cried out with a shriek of terrible agony.

“Back to the grave with you,” he said through gritted teeth.

As Henrik watched in frozen shock, the familiar lost the bluish glow they all had. Wisps of smoke curled up from under the cowl over her head. The whole creature writhed and withered as if everything was being sucked out of her. The skin on her hands and arms darkened as it drew in around the bones and knuckles until they looked skeletal. The flesh of her face boiled and bubbled and burned to a dark, leathery mask. Blackened skin smoldered as it shrank tighter and tighter around the skull. The eyes sunk back into their sockets. The jaw slackened and lips shriveled back, exposing the familiar’s fangs.

Bishop Arc tossed the withered remains aside.

Seething with anger, he paced back toward the tunnel where he had entered. The candles went out around him as he moved, as if he were dragging a veil of darkness with him. He growled in frustration and rage.

Abruptly, he stopped and turned back. He stared at the Hedge Maid a moment, then marched back toward her. The candles behind him came back to life as he moved away from them.

“You at least have the flesh of the woman, right?” he asked Jit.

With her dark eyes fixed on him, she nodded and then took the jar from the trembling familiar beside her. She held it up a little as if to show him.

He stroked the knuckle of his first finger along his gaunt cheek.

“Change of plans,” he said in a voice like ice.