Free Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch by Jeremy Bennett Page B

of those witches is casting or has cast a spell at this place and at us. If this works, then we might be able to hurt a good chunk of them.”
    The dwindling group worked rapidly , gathering any kind of container they could find, and in a place like the Black Crystal, it was a simple task. The store itself offered a dozen different kinds of bottles and jars for the storing of herbs and the casting of spells, and the bottles containing the herbs themselves could be emptied and used. All of the cleaning products from the janitor’s closet were emptied, as well as every bottle in the soda machine. Nothing escaped the grasp of their eager hands, and if it could hold liquid and have a top placed on it, then it was snatched and brought to Nick. Nick grabbed a cleaning bucket and sat it in the middle of the room.
    “O K, everyone come over here,” Nick ordered, waving them in with his hands. The battered group gathered around him, their eyes fixed on the bucket. In Nick’s right hand, he held a pair of scissors. “Hair, toenails, fingernails, and piss in the bucket. We’ll do the piss last, one at time, to keep at least a bit of modesty about us, but everyone has to squeeze out every drop they have.”
    “I ’m not chopping off my hair,” Kim argued defiantly.
    “You will or I will make you, ” Mike barked, grabbing the scissors out of Nick’s hands. His eyes went cold, and his voice was as hard as steel. “Now cut,” he demanded as he handed her the scissors. She cried as she made the first snip, and the tears rolled down her youthful cheeks.
    “Quickly, ” Nick urged. “Witching hour is closing in, and we don’t have much time.” Feverishly, they cut and clipped their hair and nails, tossing them into the bucket. Ann’s shoulder-length blonde hair that perfectly framed her face was soon gone, and she was left with a gnarled mess of patchy hair of wildly different lengths. All of them were starting to look as if they were exposed to radiation. No one said a word as they dumped handfuls of hair into the blue mop bucket, and when it came time to piss, they did it unceremoniously and without comment.
    When they had finished , Nick looked down at piss-soaked globs of hair. “We’re going to start filling the containers with this crap, and once we start, we can’t talk. If one of us makes a sound, it won’t work, and we’ll have made ourselves look stupid for nothing. We’ll need a few more things to complete the witch bottles. All of the cast-iron cauldrons we have will have to be brought to the center of the room, and then we need to start fires in them. Candles, too. What we are going to do is fill these bottles with the concoction we’ve made, and then two of you will put any kind of sharp object you can find in the bottles. Pins, needles, broken glass, pointed chunks of wood, and bits of plastic. Anything you can find that will cause injury. We then will dangle these bottles over the flames of the fires and candles.” Nick grabbed a bottle.
    Looking confused Mike asked, “What does it do?”
    “The objects that you pu t in the bottles will be put into the witches’ bladders, and they have to piss them out. The fire will boil their bladders, and when the bottle burns or explodes, so will the bladders of the witches.”
    A devilish smile spread across Mike’s lips.
    “What do you mean?” Kim said.
    “Li ke I said. Whatever you put into the bottles, the magic will do that damage to the inside of the witch. If you put a roll of quarters in the container, it will be like putting a roll of quarters in the bladders of the witches, and they will suffer the same pain as if they actually had a roll of quarters in their bodies.”
    “I want to be the one who picks the objects to put in the bottles,” Mike requested, rubbing his newly bald head.
    “O K, we’re going to need some others hanging the bottles and keeping the fires going. Me, Beverly, and Kim can do that while you and Ann start putting the shit