Witches Brew…

The old hag stirred her brew. An occasional human eye or finger would roll to the surface of the bubbling concocture as the ladle made little eddies. She cackled when she thought of how sorry he’d be for mistreating her. Two bodies, those of unlucky travelers who had lost their way, were partially butchered and hanging from a gaunt dead tree. Blood still dripped from a coil of intestines that hung from the man.

The stench rising off the boiling pot could have gagged a vampire. Maggie was unaffected by her craft. The stuff had no punch if it wasn’t really nasty…and she wanted to be sure this batch was potent. She laid the ladle down and waddled to where the bodies hung covered with flies. Reaching up into the gore, she dug around in the abdominal cavity of the young woman for a moment. Cackling as her hand closed on what she sought, the had pulled on the left kidney. It was attached firmly inside the corpse, but the witch just kept pulling and jerking until it finally came free enough for her to inspect it.

Her books of spells called for the left adrenal gland of a young virgin. The adrenal glands are a bit of tissue that lie atop the kidneys. Stretching her fat neck, the hag pulled the kidney to her face and chewed at the adrenal gland while flies settled on her face. The spell was plain, the gland could not be removed with any kind of blade and it had to be a virgin. She had checked for the proof of virginity when they were freshly killed. With few teeth left, the hag had to spend several minutes chewing at the tough meat. “Not too bad,” exclaimed the witch…”probably taste real good if it was cooked a little.”

Returning to the pot, she spit the gland into the mixture and called out the arcane words that completed that portion of the spell. Witchcraft was tedious work and not for the lazy or stupid. It called for keen concentration and extreme precision otherwise the end result could be far from that desired. Much preparation came before the actual combination of ingredients. Maggie’s skill was second to none.

Her familiar was a large black cat. She casually tossed it one of the testicles that the man would never use for again. It greedily tore into the flesh…it had a keen fondness for human flesh. “Like that do you?”, cackeled the witch, “plenty more where that came from.” Glancing at the ravaged body of the man, she admonished, “should have used it more when you had it.” Maggie laughed and laughed over that one. She loved a good joke.

“Soon, soon, my dearie,” she counselled the cat who rubbed against her leg. “That bastard will feel the hand of Maggie’s justice and when he does, it’ll literally be hell to pay.” Maggie had once been a beautiful young witch with many suitors. Regretably she had fallen under the spell of a handsome apprentice. He’d used her own spellbook to betray her while she slept in his arms one night. Instead of killing her outright, the spell had merely turned her into the old hag she now was. He had taken the spellbook and fled.

Though a young witch, Maggie was wiser than any of her peers would have believed. Under a field stone at the edge of the Black Woods, she’d kept the original copy of her spellbook that was bound in in well-preserved human skin…the one stolen was only a duplicate. She had a spell to track the apprentice. Although he’d have had time to grow into something more powerful, she felt nothing but outrage at his wrong and would have her revenge.

Opening the spellbook again, Maggie’s twisted, bony fingers found the place were the remaining parts of the spell were listed in blood. The heading on the page was…

~ How To Kill A Warlock ~