Suzanna hates it here in her clean house. That insufferable puppet says she must keep her home free of corpses. If she must feed on human flesh, she has to do it somewhere else and she can only feed while there. What good does that do anyone? She has to trek back and forth between home and the warehouse he provided. She can’t even decorate the place, anything she leaves behind gets disposed of. She misses her old home with its rotting corpses and blood-stained floors, walls, and ceilings. The little piles of offal where children would lose control when they realize their situation. There’s something special about the juices of children when you terrorize them for hours before feasting. Adults are never as satisfying as the innocent little children she lures, charms, and betrays. This house has none of that. It’s classic Victorian, whatever that means.
Some of the knowledge in her and everyone’s head seems so pointless. The definition of home decor styles, Victorian, Contemporary, Farmhouse, what’s the point? Her inherited anatomy knowledge led to some of the tenderest cuts of human, which was useful. Knowing four hundred meanings of the word, ‘set’, useless! Then there’s the herbal properties of the native plants of the world, invaluable for concocting poisons to kill and regents to prolong suffering, useful!
So many things she knows and none of them can scratch the itch, the itch that tells her she isn’t good enough, pretty Enough, Smart Enough, Strong ENOUGH!
Suzanna will always be subservient to somebody. First it was her Master Greta, she learned much from that Hedge Witch. She was happy in those days, the world was full of promise, she had a purpose. They were always on the move spreading hate and disease. Then she got what she wanted, the Master, Greta’s master took notice and elevated Suzanna to a full Sister alongside Greta.
She was given her own territory, freedom to act on her own. She was content for decades doing that. No matter how much sorrow she sowed, Master was never satisfied. He punished her by taking her out of the countryside where she could do anything and put her in this smelly, bustling, trade center of a city. People got to know her, she’d launch schemes that would wreck the economy, then run out of town for her troubles. She’d invade a random homestead to occupy her time while in exile. When the meat ran out, she’d make a new identity with a new disguise and trudge back into Thuma and start over.
Master would of course pick these times, when she was starting over, when she had no power, and no influence. He would then tear her down and insult her capabilities and inevitably compare her to Greta. He would allude to other hedge witches that were infinitely better than herself. Never revealing their identities or locations, which would betray the network of terror cells. Another bunch of knowledge she finds useless.
Suzanna realizes she’s been standing in a corner this whole time to avoid looking at the room she’s in. It’s a sitting room, useless. Who needs a room for sitting? She almost forgot why she was here when the knock on the door brought her focus back. She’s been waiting for a visitor.
She saunters across the room, adjusting the giant black bow on the front of her knee length cocktail dress. The dress is black with thin vertical, silver stripes, and a single shoulder strap. The heals of her shoes make her taller than some men, she lusts for that, and always tries to stand next to shorter men when she can.
Reaching the door, she calls out in a sweet-soft voice, “who’s there?”
“Hog-tattle,” an equally soft voice responds.
Suzanna, hearing the agreed upon codeword pulls open the door; revealing a young girl, dressed like the poor little waif that she is. Clothes threadbare with little stains that no matter how much they’re washed they won’t come out. She’s not that little actually, she looks to be a young adult of fifteen. Suzanna looms over her by twelve inches thanks to her heels and the step up into her clean house.
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Suzanna steps back, opening the door further, “Won’t you come in?”
The girl is hesitant to enter, she knows exactly whose home this is. There were assurances made and payment in advance, she doesn’t have a choice. The young woman steps into the witch’s layer.
“Please join me, have a seat and tell me what you’ve learned,” the witch takes one of the three chairs in the corner furthest from the door.
“It’s customary for us scouts to stand when reporting if you don’t mind,” bluffed the girl.
“I don’t want this to be so formal. I’m your host, and I insist you accept my offer of comfort and hospitality.”
Not wanting to give this client a reason to get angry, the girl complies and takes the third seat, leaving an empty chair between them.
Suzanna lusts over watching this girl squirm, “Before we start, I should serve tea. Just a moment.” She stands and crosses the room and picks up a serving tray with a tea kettle, saucers, cups, spoons, sugar cubes, cream, teabags, and a plate of biscuits, all the things listed in her head under tea-service. She takes a moment to dump some thermal energy into the tea kettle to heat it to a boil.
She sets the tea-service on the small table from the corner and pours each of them a cup of boiling water. Then, not knowing what else to do she sets everything back on the little table and hands the girl the boiling cup of water and sits in the middle chair next to the girl who now looks more uncomfortable and deliciously confused.
“Now, tell me what you found out about my target.”
The young woman is professional and pulls herself together before speaking, “The target is of middle age and mother to two children, both adopted. Her husband, a low ranked criminal runs the protection racket in Downwind. The children are study age and walk to study every morning with the target. A nanny escorts them when they leave the house for other activities.
The target herself only leaves home to accompany her children to study, where she volunteers to sponsor several clubs. The most notable is for bird watchers. She volunteers for the painter’s club, and one for handwriting enthusiasts.”
Suzanna can’t believe what she just heard, “What? Handwriting! That is the silliest and most useless thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Apparently they practice different writing styles, like calligraphy, cursive, kanji, hieroglyphics, and block letters.”
“Yes, I know the same lists of useless writing styles. I find it ludicrous that there is a club for such a waste of time.”
“I’m just telling you the facts, it’s up to you to decide what to do with the information.”
Suzanna doesn’t care for the girl’s tone, but has to let it go, “please continue.”
“Besides her volunteering, she is a homebody, with one exception every week in the late morning when her husband is working and the children are away, she takes a walk lakeside.”
“Now that sounds interesting. Go on.”
“She is away for two, sometimes three hours and is completely alone. Our lookout spotted four ideal places for a kidnapping along her walking route. We’ve prepared a team that can snatch her this weekend. We only need to know where to drop her off and collect payment.”
“This is perfect, here.” Suzanna holds out a business card with the address of her feeding warehouse. “Drop her just inside the front door. I’ll be waiting to collect and give you your asking price.”
That’s all the young woman needed to say and hear. She stands to leave, “It’s been a pleasure. I’m not part of that team so this is goodbye.” She turns and marches with shoulders straight and an itch in the center of her back like a spider is crawling up her spine, opens the door and lets herself out. She didn’t know it, but the spider crawling sensation was Suzanna giving her spirit a mental caress.
The girl exits and turns left, continues walking, and puts her right hand on top of her head and scuffles her scarlet hair for a second. That was the signal to say, ‘the witch bought it.’
Inside the house, the witch says out loud, “What a lode of cavi crap.”