With Penelope who had been chased into the alley, not many witches caught her as many were fighting out in the open, loving to sabotage the newly built down by turning it into a mess. When they finally left, the town had turned quiet and deserted. Most of the people had got inside their houses, some who were out and some who were on the ground dead. The black witches who had tried to abduct people had been unsuccessful as the Lord of Wovile had sent out his men to the two towns after having the talk with Damien.
Making her way back to Damien where he himself had come in search of her, he saw her hand bleeding, “You’re hurt,” he said pulling her other good arm. Seeing no one was there, Damien was going to transport them back to the inn when one of the doors in the building opened.
Light creaked out from the open door, leaving the surrounding dark. When the door opened further, they saw it was none other than the woman who Penny had dashed earlier. The white witch.
“You need to disinfect the wound,” she said, her voice quiet. Her eyes looked at the couple who stood outside, saying, “I can help.”
Penny looked at Damien who stared at her for a second, “Okay,” he said and they got inside the house with the door closing behind them.
The house looked empty. There were hardly a few things in here. A mattress was placed in the corner of the room. A few utensils in the kitchen and that was it unless one considered the two lanterns to increase the number of objects in here.
“I thought you were hunters until I saw you kill the black witch,” the woman spoke. With the minimal things in the house, Penny wondered if the woman had no family. If there was one thing she had noticed it was that the white witches lived a lonely life with no family with them. It was very rare to find a family. Their biological families were often killed which left them alone to walk a path where they had to hide from others.
Damien didn’t speak a word when the woman looked at him, instead, Penny took a turn to speak to the white witch,
“How often do the black witches attack here?” she asked. Damien had taken himself to walk near the window, having his back facing them. Penny noticed the way the woman’s eyes followed him, her eyes slightly holding l.u.s.t at the sight of him. She wasn’t sure how to react to it.
It was the very first time since she had acknowledged her feelings that she had to go through someone else eyeing him. Back in time, she had never bothered about it but right now, she wasn’t comfortable with it, not to forget that the lady standing in front of her was beautiful. And even though she was beautiful, she didn’t like the fact that she was eyeing him right now while talking to her.
This white witch was shameless, thought Penny with narrowed eyes. At the same time, she reminded herself to be nice. The woman had offered to help her and it would be rude to call her shameless. Would it? She asked herself in her mind.
“You should know it better. Can you please take your coat off?” she said looking at the bloody coat near her arm, “The town was built very recently and we villagers moved back to take shelter last week. This was the first attack after months,” she answered Penny’s questions.
“Oh,” that was logical, thought Penny to herself. She removed the coat from her body to reveal the deep wound which was caused by the black witch’s nails. The blood was still fresh and so was the wound, “This is my first time here in Wovile.”
“Is that so? I hope you enjoy your stay better than-” suddenly a gun was shot out of the blue, her ears ringing from the sound of it. Penny gave out a startled look to see the woman who had been holding a bowl in her hand to drop it on the ground. Her body appeared to look like a frozen statue as she had stopped talking with the bullet that had made its way to the side of her head. The woman fell down flat her body sprawled on the floor.
What just happened?!
“What-why did you kill her?” Penny asked shocked.
“She isn’t whom she appeared to be,” Damien said putting back the gun behind his back.
“Is she a black witch?” but that couldn’t be. The reactions for the black witch and the white witch when it came to the perfume slightly varied where the black witches’ true form revealed by taking a sniff or coming in contact with it while for white witch it took time as they had no other form to transform to.
“No, she is a white witch. Do you know that amongst the good there are also bad? She was going to poison you,” he walked towards the woman, pushing the bowl with his feet, “There are a few very few white witches who live here. And if they are still on these lands, they are in the churches because of the current conditions and situations. If this thing dissolved itself in the wound you have, you would shortly be lying here like this with her.”
With little mercy or sympathy, Damien pushed the woman with his boot to have her body face up the ceiling.
“Did you know from the beginning?” she asked flabbergasted by this revelation.
“It was the scent. It is made of certain poisonous flowers. The first time I met Bathsheba, she had tons of it and I traded her life of execution with my own terms of information,” Penny couldn’t believe that there were white witches who were setting up their own kind to death and here she was sympathizing the woman for the lack of family.
The dead woman’s eyes looked empty and hollow as she stared up at the ceiling where the soul had passed and left an empty shell behind.
It seemed like they could trust none here. Penny asked him, “What now?”
