The Witch's Want Ch. 02

"For what?" she stared.

"For only speaking with me," he said, "For being brave enough to come this close to me, and for your soft touch." He nodded, "The truth be told, you would get farther with commands if your hand was on me than trying to move me with only your shaking voice."

"Indeed," he whispered, "I come because I am drawn and if I am guilty of anything unwanted by you, it is a desire to see that you are safe. I enjoy your worship, though it means nothing to me. It only reminds me of the worship of others long ago in temples far away. Temples lying now long-ruined and forgotten. I see that you practice nothing dark here and I would wish that it remains so. Despite what I feel from you, I am nothing of what you may think. I have no dark intent either. I am only happy to see you."

He saw her reach for something in her robe.

"Please," he whispered, "You need no more of your symbols here for they have no effect. I do not wish for you to be frightened, it would cause you to worship elsewhere, and then I could not see you until I found you again by the way that you call me to you. You would then waste much time, thought and energy praying that I might never find you - that I would never come to you again, and it would be a waste for I would. I would find you no matter what you do or where you would go. I cannot help it. I speak the truth. I will you no harm. There is no evil to me, if that is what you think. I am only drawn, and, if you would spare me a kind thought, you might see that I would protect you out of it all."

He tilted his head, but she still couldn't see much of his face now that the clouds had darkened again, "I am not hunting you, witch. I only care about you and I cannot help it."

He sighed, "I wanted to find a way to speak to you in any case. You should move your altar deeper into the trees. The light of your fire can be seen easily from the top of the hill there. Please move it out of sight and worship there. I will find you and never harm you, but I do not know about any others."

Her small voice took on a ragged edge, sounding a bit fearful. "What are you? I see only blackness in your eyes."

He tried to smile in hopefully a warm way, and reached out himself. He paused when she appeared to start in fright, but when she forced herself to hold still, he touched her hand there on the top of the fence.

"I cannot help my eyes, or I would make them pretty for you to look at. You have the sight to see them anyway. At the least, they are not empty holes. I do have eyes with which to see your beauty, witch, black on black eyes. If you have a bit of trust in you, come but a little closer and see. I have no magick to hold you against your will. I hold my heart open to you that you might see me as I am. I must often hide this from the world, but I would let you see."

She leaned forward a bit and looked at him as the first of the summer storm's lightning bolts flickered from cloud to cloud. The Wiccan jumped a little, looking at him, "Is this something that you do here?"

She saw more of his smile then as he shook his head, looking much less fierce now. She did move closer to him and she saw his face well then. It surprised her that she wasn't filled with quite as much fear. Despite what she saw there - and it was plain that he was trying hard to not seem threatening - she liked the way that he looked. He seemed human and also very far from human at the same time. She even liked his eyes, now that she could see them more clearly. They didn't repulse her, they only fascinated her and she wished that there was a bit more light to see them better by.

"No," he smiled, "I think that between us, it would be your doing if it lies between us at all. I listened to your prayers for rain for the crops a little earlier. This has nothing to do with me," he shrugged, "though I guess that it will make me a little wet soon."

She watched him look at her hand and then lift it to his mouth. The witch felt a little thrill of fear then.

"Do not be afraid, witch. You see me better than most, I grant you. But your fear is misplaced, that's all. If you see me as I am, then you should also know that you hear me plainly as well. I have told you three times that I wish you no harm. I grow tired of repeating myself. Do you believe me or not?"

While she thought about it, searching for a reply, she stopped suddenly and stared as he kissed her hand and bowed his head to her.

She nodded, "I feel that you are true with your words. But now I'm left to wonder about whether I wish to be seen by you as I pray."

He looked up, showing a little sadness then, "I can tell that you are still afraid, and that is something that I do not want," he said, "I would wish you a goodnight and leave you now, but for a few things which trouble me."

"I wish to be left alone here, demon," she said, trying to sound firm while wondering why it was that she almost wanted him to defy her in this.

"That is one of the things which trouble me," he said sadly, "for you still mistake my intent."

Guessing that he would refuse to leave, the Wiccan began to turn away. She found herself a little restrained when he laid his hand onto her shoulder.

"Priestess," he began.

"I'm not a priestess," she answered, trying to sound as cold as she could for the effect. She was almost fighting herself as well now.

She heard his heavy sigh and looked at his face. The face had started out fierce and it had softened, trying to appear friendly. Now it looked concerned.

"But you are," he said, "You are a witch, and in many cases, it is the same thing" he said, "You deal in Earth magick and I can say that from what I feel, you do it well, but I see no difference between a solitary witch in a wood and a priestess with followers who says much the same words in a temple on a mountain. It is only a matter of the surroundings."

He leaned a little closer to her, "Again, I wish you no harm, but besides being drawn to you, I am here for another reason - the other things which trouble me. I am not hunting you," he whispered as he extended his arm past her face to point in the direction of her fire in the clearing a ways off.

"But I think that you are being hunted here nonetheless, Priestess."

She stepped back against the fence and let a small gasp escape her as she caught sight of the men peering around in the clearing. The briefest look told her that they'd been drinking to get up their courage, and a slightly longer look with the Sight told her of their intent.

She felt his head almost beside hers as he looked over her shoulder at the scene. "I was running a few nights ago and I had a sense come to me that I should stop here to see you. I saw you, but I found no cause for the feeling - other than I wanted to see you. I have come back every night to watch for I do feel drawn to you, but also there was this," he whispered, "this is another reason why I am here. I have no answer myself, but I believe that you need me here."

She didn't know what to think, but his head was gone an instant later as he jumped over the fence and she saw his face as he whispered to her over his shoulder, "Try not to look at me here," he said, "if you had fear of me before, this will help nothing now."

He walked toward the fire and as he went, she saw that in a very short time, he wasn't dressed in trackpants anymore, he looked to be wearing leather armor.

He walked up behind the men and they found themselves lying in the dirt and tree roots where he'd thrown them.

He drew a sword as he walked around the back of the fire and she saw that what he was wearing was wet with blood and the blade of his sword dripped steadily with it. There were spatters of it on his face and his onyx eyes shone with reflected light from the fire. She wondered for a moment at the few stubby sticks here and there on him but she knew with a start that they were arrows which had gotten through his armor. He'd just snapped them off so that they wouldn't impede his movements.

The men stared dumbfounded as he pulled out one of the broken arrows with a grunt and tossed it into the fire.

"I give one chance only," he said in a low and menacing tone, "it is more than I often give."

He muttered a short and incomprehensible sentence and held up one palm, "You cannot tell a falsehood now while I hold you. Speak quietly and tell me how you came to find this place. You were sent. I know this. I feel it. Even try to lie and I will know and you lose your chance. Speak."

He listened carefully as the two men chattered mechanically against their will very quietly. As he listened, he turned his head once to look back and noticed that she still stood by the fence and was thankful. He closed his hand and the men fell silent, shaking before him.

He nodded, showing his teeth, "You have not said what it was that you had in your foul minds to do at the outset but I saw this also. Be glad that she is near though not in your sight. Her presence is all that keeps me from feeding you your own skins before you die. Do not ever come here again or I will do as I must. Leave and tell no one," he growled, "if I feel it that you have told this to even one other, I will find you by the beat of your hearts, I swear it on your lives."

"Your ... lives."

"Wh-who the hell are y-you?", one of them stammered.

The warrior threw his empty arm downward in a motion toward the fire. With a roar, it leapt up thirty feet and the man jumped back, his hair and eyebrows singed.

"Who the hell," the warrior laughed. "Very good, fool." He looked down at himself and picked a wet and bloody piece of flesh from where it was stuck to his leather armor to toss it at the man. It landed glistening in the dirt between them. The other man tried not to retch when he recognized the hair and knew that it was a piece of a human head.

He nodded at the scrap, "One of the last who defied me. Twenty thousand I slew that day. Are you thirsty, fool?"

He held out his wet sword. "Come, drink. Not as good as your wine perhaps but ..."

He raised his empty hand again and a flame grew out of his palm. He held it up to them as he walked toward them, "Or are you cold? I can share some of my fire..."

He tilted his head and they saw his very cold smile under those black orbs.

"This is your chance," he said quietly, though the menace in his voice was clear. "You should run."

Three seconds later, he stood alone as he laughed quietly.

The witch had begun to approach, but was now already backing away behind him.

"You have no reason to fear me," he whispered over his shoulder. "This is all illusion, made from my memory of the most grim day of my life long ago." When he'd turned around, it was all gone, and he stood once more in trackpants.

Her voice quavered a little, "Are you a ghost?"

He shrugged, "Are we back to where I said that you cannot lay your hand on the shoulder of a spirit or am I still a demon to you? No, I think that I must have been a ghost until recently, but now I am a man again."

He looked a bit disgusted, "What you saw was me as I once was, though I was never quite so filled with joy as I slaughtered then. I led a great conquering host then, making an empire grow for my mother and my father."

He looked at her, no longer bloody or injured. "I don't think you can understand, but I was a man once, and then I had no body for a long time. I saw a dying man's spirit leave him and I took this body for myself and undid the mortal wound." He pointed to the jagged scar on his throat.

"Now I live in the life of a man who knew others and I must do what he did for an occupation and pretend that I know them when only the brain in my head knows them. I was a general once and a king's son, but now I must buy gasoline like everyone else to drive and I must work to buy my food."

"Please," he said, "listen for a moment. I came these nights to see you for I am drawn as I've said. But I also know somehow that someone hunts you and I had a thought that you would need help and so that set my mind for me to come these nights. I've told you that I will not harm you several times, but I know how I must seem to you, and now I've made it even worse. I know that."

"Go now to your home. I will not follow you, and please, move your place of worship. Go now. I will put out the fire."

She whispered her thanks and was gone, walking as quickly as she could. She stopped once to see if he was behind her. All that she saw was that the fire was out. Coming to her home, she was inside and throwing the bolt as quickly as she could.

In the morning, she thought to go back to move her altar, but found it by her door instead.

She found another place on her property for her prayers after that, a far better one, much more secluded and far from prying eyes. She spent half a day seeking the knowledge that she'd need, and the other half setting charms, placing wards and enchantments around her new glade in layers.

But he found her the next night anyway.

She even saw him coming. He stopped several times as he approached, looking carefully for the things which she'd set, seeking traps. Each time, he seemed to come to a decision and walked right through whatever she'd set for him as though it wasn't even there. She stepped quickly through the door of her home in fear and then she watched him.

He looked at the small fire for a time and then looked right at her with a sad nod, before making the fire three times its size and kneeling before her altar. It took her a little while to see that he made his own invocations and said his own prayers. After that, he let the fire ease to its own size again and sat on on the ground staring into it with his arms around his knees, a very quiet and muscular man with long hair in a topknot, covered in the scars of his combat, sitting quietly in trackpants.

After a time, he stood up and walked off to stand in the trees. She thougfht about what he'd done the night before and came to her own courage then. She stepped out to do what she'd intended and knelt in her robe as she she performed the ancient Wiccan ritual as though he wasn't there. When she was finished, he was gone.

But he returned every night.

She knew it as soon as he came every time. He never bothered her and she was a little thankful for that - and for his presence. She felt much more secure, though she still felt a little nervous about him being there. She had no idea what he was, but at last she believed that he had no desire to harm her. Now and then she looked for him and saw him there, not far off, watching.

She felt safer with him there, but she admitted that she felt something else as well.

The way that he looked, and the way that he felt to her - even across that distance between them, even though they never spoke much, well ...

It aroused the hell out of her.

She wanted to ask him. She longed in her way to know a name by which she could call him to her if she came to that place for her observances and she couldn't see him at first.

She wanted to know more of him. She searched through every book she had, and went on-line as well, seeking anything that might give her an idea about his kind and what sort of nastiness that he might possess. Though she learned a lot in general, she found nothing specific or even anything which pointed to him in any way at all. She felt nothing bad about him, though she did feel a little of his longing – and her own. That by itself cost her lot of sleep as she looked for anything bad in this attraction which seemed to hang between them.

It took her a while, but she also came to the conclusion that he fascinated her, everything about him, every detail which she noticed enthralled, captivated, mesmerized – she stopped the list short with a mental shrug one time and smiled to herself that he just charmed and attracted her. But that was only good for a little while.

Her old fears would rise again. 'Trust issues' her old therapist had called them, though she thought that she could understand how the doctor might see it that way in a clinical sense, in the clean and pleasant office, in the light of day.

"Try to see it from my perspective," she'd told the woman who sat taking notes and toying with her own pearl necklace. "If the man who'd told you that he loved you came home every night with his eyeballs twitching, demanding money that you didn't have because he'd already spent it on making his eyes twitch beat the shit out of you and raped you - when he could get it up - and kicked you in the ribs when he couldn't as a pleasant pastime and hobby, you might have trust issues. That is, between crying so hard that no tears would come anymore and hoping that there wouldn't be any more blood the next time that you pissed yourself."

She'd stood up then and wished out loud that just once, a therapist might know just a little of what she felt like as she'd walked out.

But each time that these thoughts had run their course, she noticed that she felt a little better, all these years later, and not for anything that the idiot with the alphabet soup after her name had done for her. She felt a little bit better every time as she remembered that the man - or whatever he was - had kissed her hand with obvious care and had bowed his head to her. She remembered how she'd felt when he'd smiled and thanked her.

He always looked pleased and happy to see her. She had no idea what he was doing hanging around her, but she liked his attention. When he passed by her closely as her head was bent in her prayers, she thrilled to feel him pass by her, and she loved his smell.

She knew that much about him, at any rate, that he smelled so good to her, and that he wouldn't harm her.

She thought about the reality here. She knew that she'd had such trouble believing even one thing that any man - any man had said to her all of this time. Whatever he was, she now found that she'd believe him after what he'd done.

She thought about how he made her feel, not that she could exactly prevent her mind from going there unbidden. She had a thought come to her and wondered if it were even possible to have any sort of relationship with him.

Well, in that light, she thought, they'd be outside the range of what usually happened. True, he might not be able to take her out to dinner, but did that really matter to her?

She'd never even had a thought about being with really muscular men. If the wiry rat that she'd been married to could do the things that he'd done, a human tank could do even worse.

She thought about his black eyes and saw his face in her mind. At first glance he'd seemed to be a brute from another dimension, but not if you really looked. You'd see then that he wasn't that way at all, though he'd looked like a walking death machine under that illusion that he'd shown.

She shook her head and faced it. He attracted her like nobody's business - in spite of her fears. She finally smiled to herself when she admitted it to herself. The man with the scars and those black eyes was the hottest thing she'd seen walking in her whole life.

The slightly shy witch admitted that she was lonely. Until now, it had just been the price for her sense of secluded safety.

Now?

Well now, the witch had a want for herself.

She prayed for protection and she prayed even more that she had the right thing in her mind.

It might be the strangest one on the planet, but she now wished for some kind of relationship between them.

On the fourth visit, he stepped a little closer and cleared his throat. "I wish to tell you that I must be gone from here for seven nights. Do not look to see me until after."

"Why, demon?" she asked with a shy smile as she stepped closer to him in the darkness that hid much of their features in the enchantment she'd laid in these woods to hide her, though each could see well most times in the dark, "do you have another witch-girl who needs you?"