There was smoke in the alley I jogged down, following the drops of blood. At one point I thought I’d lost the trail - it seemed as if it had completely vanished. But standing still, thinking of what to do next, I spotted a splatter of blood along one wall. It was enough.
In the alleyways I traveled, I could hear the muffled sounds of commotion - the raised, excited voices of people, the nervous calls of goats or sheep, and clanging of metal objects. But I kept moving down, around, and what felt like back on my own steps. Then I heard a single voice where all other sound seemed to have been muffled or snuffed out entirely. I rounded a corner and, in a place that should have been open to the high sun, there was darkness.
Shadows.
The slave women were not held aloft by them, but were on the ground, motionless. Standing over them was a figure whose coat hooded their face. I moved closer, trying to keep as close to the natural shadow of the wall as possible to remain unnoticed. The person was saying something in low tones. The hood fell back as the person raised their face to the sky. It was a woman. The Shadows dipped down around her. She didn’t try to fight them off, concentrating instead on the bodies of the women. None of them moved, but from my vantage point, and I couldn’t tell if any were still alive. There was blood on their bodies and gashes from where the Shadows had used their talons to drag them from where Ursel had tried to find safety.
I continued watching, thinking of what the best thing to do would be when I saw a faint glint of metal. The darkness in the alley made it nearly impossible for me to make out what it was, until it was raised in the air - a knife.
“Stop! Stop it! Stop what you’re doing right now!” I shouted without thinking. I ran toward the woman, holding up my hand like a cop holding up traffic at an accident scene. In that moment, the Shadows dissipated, and the sun revealed the twisted bodies of the women lying in the dust of the alleyway.
“So at last, amore mio Elisabetta” said the woman, “we meet. Mother to child.”
“You know me?” I asked, confused. The air was smoky, fog-like, and I couldn’t see her face clearly.
The woman laughed and stepped closer, “Me you know. From the photograph, I am with you.”
I stared at her, blinking to clear my vision of smoke and the apparent disconnection I was having with memory. No doubt once I was close enough to see her clearly.
“Maddalena!” I said, “you murderer, you...”
“SÃ, sÃ, the murder of the cow priestess,” Maddalena responded in a tone that lead me to believe she expected someone to call her on her crime, but that she didn’t care, “I made to her offer. Malefici. She choose cows.”
“I don’t follow,” I said, feeling frustrated, “you mean you offered for her to be one of the Malefici?”
“Elisabetta, cows not all as seen,” she responded as if correcting a child, “priestess corrotta. Would be Malefici in her heart.”
“So why did you kill her?”
“Blood. Heart. Good for Malefici,” she said. Her facial expression was one of apology, like she knew it wasn’t a good thing to do, but it was what she - or the Malefici - wanted.
“And what are you doing with these women?” I shouted, feeling a great gust of anger rise in me.
“Women no more, figlia mia, so sorry,” Maddalena responded, “Malefici to use.”
With those last words, she squatted beside one of the women, slid her knife down the length of the woman’s body from her throat to pubic bone. It happened so fast, I could only gasp, my legs, my feet frozen in place. The woman did not move, not even the automatic flinch of the dead.
Maddalena began mumbling again, but this time I could tell she was chanting something, saying certain words or phrases over and over. She laid the knife down and began to pull apart the woman’s flesh over her sternum.
“You can’t do that!” I bellowed, and lunged at her, knocking her backward from the woman.
Maddalena chuckled. “Elisabetta. You are from my stock true. You are strong. Good strong,” she said as she stood, “Malefici strong.”
“I will not let you touch that woman’s body again,” I told her, “and none of the others here either.”
“And what do you do? Hmm?” Maddalena asked, “you fight? You fight me?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that I was getting myself into a fight. But I was the first to make a move and now she was egging me on to challenge her. She moved away from the mutilated body and toward me, bending low with her arms outstretched as if to pounce on me.
“I’m not going to fight you, Maddalena,” I said, “I’m going to make you come with me to the authorities so they can arrest you for murder.”
“Polizia? Ha!” she laughed, “you are home no more, Elisabetta. Only land of Malefici now. Only Malefici.”
“Then I’ll take you back to the Cryst and the Daughters and let them decide your fate,” I said. I lunged toward her and saw her lower her head and come toward me. She gripped me with hands like steel bands around my throat. I’d never felt such pressure in my head. I began to panic - I could not breathe. In a move Artio had taught me back in Chalcedony, I whipped my arms up and out between her two, breaking her grip.
“You must stop!” I gasped, “and if you won’t stop yourself, I will.”
She leapt toward me like a leopard, hands in claws ready to scratch and tear. I had a fist ready for her and for an instant in my mind I could hear Ursel commanding me to hide my intention until the last second, just as she had taught me in our practice sessions. The blow knocked Maddalena’s head back but her body continued forward and she landed on me. I was propelled backward and when I landed, she was on top of me. Blood dripped from her broken nose and pure hatred welled up in her eyes. She took jabs at my eyes with her thumbs and for moments I saw purple and white stars dance behind my eyelids. Now it was my turn to show how mad I was and I grabbed her wrists and twisted. I wrenched her forearms so her elbow joints became searing pokers of pain. Reactively, she jerked away from me and I rolled on top of her. She kicked and tried to leverage her hips so she could throw me off but I was ready and I pinned her down. This time, I closed my hands around her throat.
“You. Are. Coming. With. ME!” I shouted through clenched teeth. I felt blood pounding in my temples, my breath like gusts of hot desert wind, her struggles nothing against my raging strength.
She stopped fighting and lay still, looking up at me. For a moment, for a long moment, I wanted to go on, I wanted to kill her. I could easily keep going, I told myself. I really wanted to. It would be nothing to tighten my grip until she stopped breathing.
She began make a soft moaning sound, low, like the buzzing of bees. At first I could only see her lips moving as I closed off her windpipe. Something in me - something that knew this was not the answer I wanted - pulled me back from completely throttling her. As I relaxed my hands, she whispered a chant while she coughed and gasped.
My shadow faded as the light above me dimmed. Looking up, I saw what was blotting out the sun. She had something to fight me with that I did not have in return - Shadows. They gathered like a thunderhead above me, jagged edges - their talons - pushing out from the center. She was calling down the Shadows.
Watching them instead of her, I released my grip on her throat. The buzzing sound coming from her grew louder and with it, the shape of Shadows grew more distinct. They were on the verge of attacking me. They moved closer, their talons like pointed needles all around me.
“Le creature oscure se ne sono andate!” I shouted, surprising myself - I had no idea what just passed my lips.
“I cattivi non sono più!” I shouted again, this time raising my hands, holding my palms toward the black things.
“Non essere più, non essere più, non essere più!” and with this the Shadows dispersed, becoming mere ashes on the wind.
Breathing hard, I looked down to see Maddalena staring at me.
“Come sapevi farlo?” she said, her throat raspy from my hold.
“What?”
“Hai comandato agli spiriti di andarsene!”
“Speak English!” I said, “I know you can!”
Maddalena stared at me as if I were kidding.
“Hai comandato agli spiriti di andarsene. Come fai a non conoscere le tue parole?” she said.
I slapped her. Hard. I felt rage welling in me once more, “I said English!”
“Spirits dark are no more,” she said, “see it is you who have done this. Do you not know your own words?”
“I did what?” I asked her, stunned at her implication. I slid to the side, no longer worried that she could overpower me or get away.
She crawled out of my reach and got to her knees. Her breathing was heavy, her face bloody, purple bruises circling her neck.
Her eyes locked on mine, she began a low chuckle in her throat, as if she were having the last laugh, “Sangue del mio sangue. Blood of my blood. Madre a figlia a madre a figlia. You are of mine.”
My hands trembling, I shook my head. She was wrong. I was not like her.
“I am not like you,” I said.
“Elisabetta, you are the daughter of my daughter’s daughter,” she said, laughing now, “Non puoi sfuggire al diritto di nascita del tuo sangue! You are of mine.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“You kill me, you kill you!”
Her words brought back the memory of the conversation we had while still in Chalcedony, the conversation that I’d forgotten as I now attacked my own ancestor. That if she were to die, then I would have no ancestor, there would no longer be a me. Blood of my blood. That’s what Maddalena meant. I cannot kill her because I will kill myself.
“Your eyes tell me you understand now, yes?” she said, still laughing, “You have power, Elisabetta, but no more of me. To kill me this you cannot do.”
She was right and I knew it. All the rage, all the energy I had put into choking her, now dissipated as quickly as had the dark creatures who had threatened me just moments before. I sat in the dust of the alley, the bloodied bodies all around me came into view, the sky opened, and bright light shown to the very corners of this place.
“Vieni da me, figlia,” she said to me.
“I, I don’t understand you,” the words barely audible coming from me.
“Together, this,” Maddalena said, spreading her arms wide, “to me you come figlia mia. We will be Malefici. No. More than Malefici!”
“And do what? Kill?” I asked her.
“Great our power. All kneel before the witches - due di noi.”
She was asking me to join her to rule this world.
Kneeling near me, she placed her hand against my heart. I felt my chest thump rhythmically into her palm. Rushing in my ears. I had no strength to grab her or to call for help.
“You will come to me,” she said, “and we shall rule as true daughters of Diana de la Luna.”
“I won’t,” I heard myself say weakly, “I will get you and justice will be done.”
She chuckled, “Elisabetta. So like me. So like me.”
“I am not like you in any way!” I shouted at her, thrusting her hand away from me.
“Figlia,” she said, cocking her head to one side, closing her eyes, listening to voices I could not hear, “you will because like me, il tuo cuore sarà spezzato. Il tuo amante - leave you.”
Her words confused me, “What are you saying? Tell me in English!” I grabbed her arm, shaking her.
“You to come angry to me when your lover is gone,” she responded.
When my lover? Gone?
She looked to the sky and shouted into the air, “Vieni, ombrelli, prendimi!”
Out of the air, the Shadows formed like a tornado around her, swirling dust into my eyes and mouth. I tried to stand but the breath was knocked out of me by the fierceness of the windstorm.
Like that, the Shadows and Maddalena were gone.