I could tell that Hopper wanted to scream when I brandished the knife. His two eyes above Smokewell's claw marks were terrified and his mouth was trembling. I smirked and brought the knife closer to his face. "Do you recognize this?" I said, "this is the same knife that was given to all the employees of the Orowen Internal Police. It's supposed to tell you who has been bewitched, right?"

Hopper just shivered under my boot. I yanked him forward by his hair and snapped, "Answer me!"

"Yes!" he squeaked like a rat.

"Good," I said, "It's good that you still have your wits about you. You are going to need them to comprehend what's about to happen." I let go of his hair and grabbed ahold of his wrist. I placed the tip of the stiletto knife against the skin of his arm. He looked ready to pee himself. "Hold still, you idiot!" I shook him, almost like a child that was being disobedient. I was surprised that he weighed as light as he did. I pushed the knife through his skin. Blood oozed.

Hopper whimpered but he tried to hold back every sound he felt like making. I was pleased. It meant we had been more successful in my plan of feeding to his fears. But we weren't done yet. This was the last act of the big play we'd set up.

I slit his arm further, making him bleed some more. Then I pulled the knife out.

I mocked him with a smile. "Look what we have here," I said and yanked his arm forward, making him look at his own blood.

His eyes went wide. The frightened look in them had been replaced nearly by a look of bewilderment and insanity.

"What do you see?" I asked.

For a long minute, he didn't say anything.

I shook him again. "What do you see?!" I snapped. "What's the color of your blood?!"

"It...it's green!" he cried out in horror. Then he passed out.

****

"Did it work?" Asmod said as he entered Hopper's apartment.

"Better than expected," Smokewell said. She was lounging on the sofa in the sitting room.

Lily had called her direwolf familiar back into her card and she was tying a thick rope around the general, who was still unconscious.

"Did you make sure his screams weren't audible outside the apartment?" I asked.

Asmod nodded. "It was completely silent," he said.

"The optical illusion in the hallway was perfect, Mr. Asmod. For a moment, even I was fooled," Lily said as she made a tight knot on the general's restraints.

"It's similar to what I'd installed in Zir's restaurant," Asmod said smugly.

I paused. "Wait, you built their optical illusion array?"

"Who else do you think could've made such a seamless scenery with all those places?" he said. "I specialize in illusionary enchantments."

"I'll have to agree," Smokewell said as she gazed at the unconscious Hopper's bleeding arm, "I only scratched him once but that was enough to get him to start seeing things." She looked at her claws. Asmod's enchanting ink was still staining them along with the general's blood.

"It's a special blend," Asmod said, "It depends on the spell I use while mixing the ink in order to enchant certain organs of the human body." He pointed at Hopper. "Right now, the ink has affected his blood. Any blood that he bleeds is going to appear green. The color change is purely visual and a harmless enchantment."

"How long will the effects last?" I asked.

"I can make the effects wear off whenever I want," Asmod said.

"You really are amazing, Mr. Asmod," Lily said as she shoved the tied up general in a chair. "This wouldn't haven been possible without you and Miss Elsa's plan."

"We aren't done yet," I said. "One last step remains before we can clear our names from the burn list."

"Should I wake him then?" Lily asked, pulling out her black doll and snapping its leg.

"Yes," Smokewell said. "We're prepared."

"I'll go back to keep watch outside the apartment," Asmod said and left the room.

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I nodded at Lily. She crushed the doll's broken leg to fine dust. Then she blew it in the general's face.

The man opened his eyes and his fear returned to his face almost immediately. “Y-You…”

“We aren't here to hurt you,” I said as I pulled over a chair in front of him and settled down. “Unless you make us do it, of course.”

“W-What do you want from me?” Hopper said.

“Nothing much.” I shrugged. “Clear my friends’ and my name from the priority burn list.” Fear was still swirling within his eyes. I held back a grin and kept talking. “And we aren't here to negotiate. You are going to clear our names or walk about with that tainted blood running in your veins. And it doesn't stop there. I've put a hex on you. Wherever you'll go, whomever you'll meet, speak, so much as glance at, you'll infect them with your tainted blood.”

For a good minute, Hopper just sat frozen in his restraints before clearing his throat and speaking up, “I-It's not that easy to just clear someone's name–”

“Didn't you hear what I said?!” I rose up from the chair and towered over him. “There are no negotiations. You are going to clear our names or you are going to infect everyone with the curse.” I leaned close until he could feel me sneering in his face. “And you can't kill yourself. Because if you do I'll just resurrect you again. And the power of the hex will be doubled.” I grabbed his face and squeezed his cheeks. “I don't care how you do it. You are going to clear our names or you are going to become a disease upon society.”

Hopper froze with fear again. He went quiet again. I let go of his face and let him process his thoughts. Then he looked up at me.

“If you are capable of setting such a powerful hex upon someone, why are you so adamant on getting your name cleared?” he said, there was a hint of mockery in his voice. “Are you afraid of the Inquisition?”

I scoffed and turned my back to him. “We are powerful. But we aren't murderers,” I said, “Believe it or not, Hopper, I want to live a life of peace and happiness too. But I can’t do that after killing hundreds of people who are powerless against my curses.” I looked at him over my shoulder and said, “So if you want to defy my demand, be my guest. But remember that I've warned you what your stubbornness will lead to. You'll spread the curse wherever you go and watch people collapse and die in front of your eyes. The burden of hundreds of deaths won't be on me. It will be all on you. You will be a worse monster than all the witches you were trying to hunt. All because of your stubbornness to fulfil a simple demand.”

Hopper froze again. And then he went limp in his restraints. Then he said weakly, “I'll clear your names from the list. Please…take this hex off me.”

I didn't stop glaring. “First you clear the names.”

“It's a long process. I'll have to–”

“How long?” I said.

“I'll have to make a report and provide some evidence,” Hopper said. “In order to clear your names from the list, the court needs to acknowledge that you aren't witches.”

“There is no evidence of them being witches,” Smokewell said, hopping onto the chair behind me.

Lily frowned. “But we'd been–”

Smokewell raised a paw to stop her. “There is no evidence,” she said again. “But there is evidence to prove that they aren't witches.”

It took a moment for Lily's frown to disappear. “Oooh, I get it now.” She nodded and then she smirked at the general. “Yes, we aren't witches.” She pulled out the stiletto knife I'd used on Hopper. “We can use your so-called knife test as evidence.”

“But your blood needs to be red,” Hopper said.

Smokewell scoffed. “Lily, show him the color of your blood.”

“Right away,” she said and put the knife to her arm.

“Wait!” I said. The girl looked at me, puzzled. “Did you disinfect the knife? We cut him with the same blade earlier.”

Lily nodded. “Yes, I used a cleansing potion to wash it.”

“Good.” I nodded back.

Lily pushed the tip of the blade through her skin and made a slit. And to Hopper's surprise, the blood was red.

“Impossible,” he muttered.

“You wanted evidence, right?” I said. “Well there is your evidence. Now how long will it take to clear our names.”

“Um, the evidence needs to be preserved and presented to a judge along with a report from the investigating officer from Internal Police–”

“We don't have time for all that!” I snapped. “Make it faster.”

Hopper perked up in his restraints. Then he spoke very hesitantly, “Well, there's one other way, but it's not very…legal way.”

“We don't have a problem with that,” I said. “Now spill it.”

“I have a question, did you work with a coven?” he said.

“No.”

“Then were you apprentices to someone?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask who it was?”

“Madam Alana Smokewell,” Lily said.

“She was found dead in her house, wasn't she?” Hopper asked. “I saw the report that she burned herself along with her house when the Inquisition raided her place.”

“Uh, yes,” I said.

Hopper nervously licked his lips before saying, “This is a bit tricky but if you can get a written confession signed by her admitting that you both weren't really witches but more like…housemaids who helped her out, then the court can pardon you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, the law prohibits unregulated practice of witchcraft. But the court won't punish you if you say that you were merely cooking and cleaning after the Smokewell lady,” he said. “And since you bleed red, well the court won't be able to make a case against you either.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I see.” And then I turned to Smokewell.

The cat nodded.

“Alright then,” I said. “We'll get the written confession. How long will it be before our names are cleared?”

“At least two days.”

“Do it by tomorrow evening,” I said. “We'll start writing the report and the confession right now.”