Damien noticed how witches in the forest had a better resistance when it came to the bullets who didn’t disintegrate immediately by the silver bullets. It was like they were different and more advanced than the other witches he had come across so far.
With the new black witches popping up, he used his gun over another, the gunshots echoing one after another in the silent forest except for the witches who came at Damien. Seeing a black witch near Penny, he pulled out another gun and shot it while having another gun that was shooting the other witches near him.
One of the black witches had perched himself up in the trees looking at them, drawing his arrow, he was about to let go of it when he felt his neck sting. Confused, he touched his neck to feel a needle and turned to look down to see the white witch who had a gun pointing at him. Penny didn’t know how to put the bullets in but the gun somehow behaved like a catapult, which was why she had placed the needle to hit the black witch whom she had noticed because of the rustling leaves above. The man went to pull the needle but he disintegrated right away, his arrows falling flat on the ground. She used some more on the witches, the silver bullet of Damien and her poisoned needles creating a unique combination.
Damien had left one witch alive, dragging her and placing her against the tree as he raised his gun, placing it on her forehead to ask,
“Where are the others?”
The black witch resisted him, pushing and trying to claw his face, clawing his face successfully to laugh as it started to bleed. It was when he pulled the trigger did the black witch stop laughing.
“At the count of one. Five, four, one,” said Damien.
Even the witch looked startled like Penny over the skip of numbers, “SSWAMP! SSWAMP! Near the ssswamp,” answered the black witch, her snake-like tongue slithered out.
“Show us,” Damien said, dragging the black with him as she pointed out the place. The gun was still pointed at the black witch and Penny walked behind them, watching over the black witch so that she wouldn’t use any tricks on them.
Reaching the swamp that the black witch had taken them, they caught sight of a hut-like house that was surrounded by the swamp water. A broken bridge stood that looked old and out of use. It was hard to imagine for a sane person that anyone would have ever lived here unless the house was built by the black witches themselves.
Shaking the black witch by her collar of clothes, he said, “Call them out. Each and every one of them. Let’s start the counting,” before he could start counting, the black witch hooted loudly, the sound coming similar to an owl.
Penny realized that when they had entered the forest, she had heard an owl hoot distantly.
When two more black witches came out, Damien shot them one after another without any question but the third witch who was in there ran away, escaping from them with necessary things which were of use.
Penny looked at Damien on what to do.
“Let her go, we need a messenger to carry and spread those books,” the black witch didn’t understand what he meant but before she could learn more, Damien shot the black witch right into her head. If there was one thing she had learned and noticed over the fights was that Damien had pulled the trigger many times before and every time he pulled the trigger, he did it without any remorse or self-guilt after it.
She wondered if this was how Damien’s mother treated the people who crossed her.
“Let’s look for the boy,” he said, turning to her and then walking towards the bridge and she followed him.
With the bridge which was broken, Damien tapped his shoe on the bridge. He was the first one to jump over the other side and then he waited for Penny to do the same. Ready to hold her if she were to miss her step while jumping.
The witches who were in the forest around them had died leaving only one to escape with the potions and the book of moon signs. Stepping into the house, they were welcomed with the smell of death. Both of them had to cover their noses as the pungent smell invaded their noses.
The house was dark which made it difficult to see. She heard Damien’s footsteps that went to the left, opening the window to let the light in where she caught sight of dead bodies that were placed on the far end of the walls. The bodies had their skin torn, some with no limbs and some with a half-face who had disfigured bodies. It was one thing to see a normal dead body and another to see a disfigured one of more than ten to twelve children in the room who were made to sit next to each other.
Unable to look at it, Penny ran out of the house and puked what she had eaten in the morning. The bile rising in her throat when the scene she just saw came back in her mind.
She felt Damien’s hand rubbing her back, soothing her body as it convulsed to puke her guts out. Her head and she closed her eyes before turning around. Her eyes falling on Damien who appeared to look calm.
“The black witches never leave people alive. It doesn’t matter if it is a child, a baby, a young person or old. They will use what they need for their rituals,” said Damien as her head reeled. She knew the black witches were bad but, this inside the house here was not only cruel but it wasn’t right in any sense.
She had known witches to hunt, to kill people but she had never known this side and she felt her hands go cold. Damien said,
“I told you. The boy would be dead.”
