My steps are slow and deliberate as I walk over to Al. He is shaking violently, tears running through the grime and blood on his cheeks.
"Heartless, cold bitch!" Al yells, his voice ragged with fury and despair, his saliva and blood dripping from his mouth. "What did you do?! What did you fucking do?! You took things too far! I will kill you! I will fucking kill you!"
"Too far?" I echo, laughing, a hollow, bitter sound. "Ha ha ha. Didn't you conspire to have my mother killed?"
His struggle ceases. His face is slack with shock. "Impossible! I would never get your mother killed! She was my only sister!"
My expression becomes even more sinister as I reply, "You think that I wouldn't find out the truth. You reported her to the Heaven Crusaders."
From the young woman's memories, the Crusaders were an organization dedicated to annihilating ungodly creatures, including witches.
This family, seeing the mother succeed, had betrayed her for money, and she was burnt to death. After that, they took in the little girl, wanting only to exploit her and take her inheritance for themselves. How she found out the truth is still a mystery to me.
"You watched her burn in that fire," I say, my voice suddenly very cold. "You watched her scream in pain. Yet you want me to grant you mercy?... To grant them mercy."
His face is slack with shock. The blood-rage of the spirit inside me is boiling, and I feel the heat of my new body's magic intensify.
Al lets out a harsh, dry laugh that quickly turns into a cough, spraying blood. "Yes! Yes, I watched! But what was I to do? Save her?"
His terrified expression suddenly shifts to something sinister, the mask of grief melting away to reveal a deep, festering resentment.
"She was an abomination! An ungodly thing!" Al yells, his voice cracked but vicious. "Father tried to beat the evil out of her, night after night. She was beaten and locked in the closet?"
Al laughs again, looking into the empty distance of his memory. "I never thought it would be my turn to be beaten until she ran away. She left me alone to have Father's wrath!"
His voice cracks entirely now, the rage giving way to ancient pain. "He tied me on a tree and whipped me everyday. He said he wouldn't let me go until she came back. I cried. I begged my sister to come back, but she didn't!"
Al coughs hard, hacking up more blood. "I waited and waited, but she didn't come back. And when I finally saw her at Father's funeral, I thought she would apologize for running away and leaving me behind. But she laughed! She laughed at me!"
"She said I watched her get beaten and didn't help her. I watched her starving and didn't give her food. But so what? She was the monster, not me... What pissed me off the most," Al screams, struggling to breathe through the blood, "was that she was doing well! She was rich and had a baby that looked so happy! How could I let her live happily?"
Al laughs, a hysterical, wheezing sound. "I reported her! I reported that bitch and took all her money! As for her precious child, I made you pay for your mother's sin! Ha ha ha!"
The raw, dark fury of the ghost is nearly overwhelming, but I manage to hold onto a sliver of my own cold self. I look at the dying man, at the wreckage of his life.
"Well," I reply, my voice deadly soft. "Your son has also paid for his father's sins."
Al's head lolls, and his gaze falls upon the twisted, lifeless body of Wendel. The cruel satisfaction fades instantly, replaced by the deep, unyielding grief of a father.
I don't give him a moment to process the grief. My voice cuts through his misery. "Now it's your turn to pay for your sins."
I command the air. Chains of ethereal fire wrap around his limbs, searing the skin but refusing to burn cleanly. The pain is a cruelty that stretches beyond mere flesh. It gnaws at his mind and soul in a slow, torturous rhythm.
I raise my hands, channeling the ghost's pure hatred. The ground beneath Al seems to writhe like a living thing, and tendrils of darkness creep up his legs, squeezing with the relentless grip of a nightmare.
His screams echo into the cold night, fragmented and raw, as his flesh seems to bubble with cold rot from the inside out, an unholy decay that no healer could touch.
My face remains impassive, a mask of icy resolve as I chant words older than pain itself. Time warps around us; moments stretch agonizingly, each second a fresh wound.
Al's body convulses, bones cracking and reshaping in unnatural ways, his cries becoming guttural and hollow. I make sure that the excruciating pain lasts long until he is begging for death. I act like I can't hear him.
I speak to the young woman's ghost, whose presence still lingers, a dark chill in the air. "Are you satisfied?"
The young woman shows a devilish smile on her pale, spectral face. "Not yet. I will tell you when I have had enough."
A sudden, sharp knock echoes from the front door.
I snap my fingers. The spell hits Al, shutting his mouth mid-scream, leaving him rigid and paralyzed, tears and silent agony still pouring down his face.
I walk over to the door, stepping carefully over the pool of blood and the mangled corpse of Pam. I open the door a crack. A young man stands there, holding a boxes inside a red bag.
When he sees my mud-covered face, my messy hair, and the sickly thinness of the girl's body, he isn't surprised at all. Who in this small town didn't know that Al and his family treated the girl like livestock?
The young man says, "I'm here to deliver the food. That will be seventy-six."
I turn to the side table, picking up Al's wallet. I take out a hundred-dollar bill and hold it out. "Here."
The young man squints at the large bill. "Do you have smaller bills?"
I shake my head. "No."
He hesitates. "I'll go get your change, then."
I stop him. "No. You can keep it."
The young man is surprised. I nod, trying to adopt a casual demeanor. "My uncle is quite generous today. He won a bet on races." I take the boxes.
The young man nods slowly, but then his eyes fix on my face. "Your eyes... you're crying blood."
I run a muddy finger beneath my eye, wiping away the thin trickle of red tears. "Oh, it's nothing," I dismiss him. "Don't worry about it."
"Okay," he says, clearly wanting to say something else, but he hesitates. "I have to go. Say thanks to your uncle." He turns to walk away, missing a step, and almost falling before walking quickly to his car.
I close the door and place the food on the table, the scent of pepperoni clashing violently with the copper scent of fresh death. I smile down at Al, who is screaming silently, frozen in place.
"Now, where were we?"