The Vampire & Her Witch

For Ignatious, the moment his tongue first tasted Heila’s blood, he realized that nothing he’d ever been told about the power of a witch’s blood compared to the reality of what she offered him. The taste of her blood was sweet, cool, and soothing, like a cup of crystal clear water from a mountain spring on a hot summer day.

The first mouthful he swallowed eased the pain of his burns and soothed the raw, sharp hunger that burned within him, but it did nothing to slake his thirst for more. It was the second mouthful of blood, however, that made him pause with the realization that Heila was feeding him more than just her blood.

Tears burst unbidden from his eyes as Heila’s soft, cleansing energy washed over parts of his innermost being that he’d thought long buried and burned to ash by the torture of time. Ghosts of his victims drifted behind his dark eyes as he relived the maddening days when Hamdi drove him to the drink of starvation before hurling a fresh, innocent victim into the dark cell he’d been trapped in.

And as the ghosts appeared before Ignatious, they appeared in Heila’s eyes as well. Cecile had once warned her that a healer must experience the pain of the wounds they wished to heal as part of the price of curing that which nothing but a witch’s magic could cure. At the time, she’d thought it applied only to physical wounds, but it seemed like she would have to face Ignatious’s ghosts along with him.

"This isn’t you," Heila whispered softly as she directed more of her healing waters toward the painful stains of guilt and self-recrimination that haunted him. "You didn’t choose this," she added in an even softer voice that only a vampire’s hearing could have heard over the bitter winds sweeping across the mountainside.

Ignatious made a soft, helpless noise as he swallowed again, taking in both the strength that Heila offered and the gentle waters of absolution that soothed his wounded soul. Again and again, they faced the ghosts that haunted the fallen Inquisitor, whether they were the victims who fell to his claws and fangs as a vampire or the innocent humans caught up in the Inquisition’s relentless search for wickedness, they faced them all together.

Beside them, Kurtz watched in open-mouthed amazement as the powerful vampire wept in the diminutive witch’s arms. He didn’t understand what she was doing to him to cause the older man to weep like a babe, but whatever she was doing, it went far beyond simple tears.

Already, the burns on Ignatious’s neck had vanished, replaced by flesh so smooth and perfect that it looked like it had never been touched by the horrifying flames of the Holy Flame Blade. Even the vampire’s arms had begun to recover. Bone was no longer visible underneath the blackened flesh, and his muscles and tendons were growing back fast enough to be seen by the naked eye.

Unfortunately, Heilas outpouring of cleansing water could only do so much for the injured vampire, and she was already approaching her limits after scrubbing away less than half of the filth and soot that clung to the fallen Inquisitor’s heart. Some stains had been ground so deeply into him that they seemed to have become a permanent part of who he was, and even if she wanted to, there was nothing Heila could do to wash them away.