Nameless Ghoul

The Night of the Witch

Sunshine sipped her hot chocolate distractedly. There was only another hour until they needed to go to the dungeon to carry out the death sentence that Secondo and the ghoul Council had passed down to Santos’ witch. Sunshine had never thought of herself as bloodthirsty, but for Itzal and the ones who had hurt him so badly, she could barely contain her fire ghoul temper.

She had sensed that Itzal needed some time on his own, so she’d left him in his room sketching something in his book and come out to join the other ghulehs for some hot chocolate.

“You okay Sunshine?” asked Cumulus. “You seem vexed.”

“I’m fine. I just want to get this over with.”

Which was the truth. She was trying to keep the memories of her time with Santos and the witches at bay, but it was hard not to think about it, what with the inevitable task ahead of her tonight. The red-headed witch, as Itzal always referred to her (her actual name was Sylvie, which seemed like a nice name, but she was far from nice) hadn’t seemed as bad as the blonde one. But when Sunshine thought back, it was she that had directed the others, subtly placing ideas in their heads and encouraging them. She had been more gentle with Sunshine than the blonde witch Elise, but the air of excitement she displayed when Sunshine was being hurt was much worse than the blonde witch’s cold detachment.

Sunshine sighed and hoped that tonight would go some way towards purging the painful memories. She was already feeling so much better. Today with Itzal she had let her wild instincts take over and it had done them both the world of good. They'd done things that until now he hadn’t been able to manage, and she smiled a secret smile at the memories of their hot shower together.

She'd thought that maybe she was using her wilder side as a crutch to get her through what had happened, but then she realised it was part of her true self anyway, so she shouldn’t deny it. She acted more human here because she mixed with humans every day, but at the end of the day, she was a ghuleh, not a human, and she shouldn’t forget that.

Sunshine knew she was safe with Itzal. He held the other half of her soul now, and they would heal together. She knew he blamed himself for what happened, but she didn’t see it that way at all. She hated Santos even more now that she had experienced his cruelty and his malevolence first-hand.

She was aware the main reason he'd violated her was to hurt Itzal and to punish him, and it had worked. Those first few days after he brought her home, she could feel his anguish through their bond and the fear and anger that threatened to overcome him because of it. She knew the raw trauma it had brought up with him also, and that could have been the thing to finally break him for good, but he had been oh-so strong for her when she couldn’t be strong herself and she would be forever grateful to him for that. Itzal was not responsible for Santos’ warped actions and she hoped he would realise it soon.

“I heard the witch is pretty badly messed up. We got to play with her early on, which was fun, but Secondo put Quinn onto her for the last few days,” Cumulus said.

Sunshine hissed through her teeth.

“Wow, that’s cold. I almost feel sorry for her. Witches are not Quinn’s favourite people. I heard black witches killed his family.”

Cumulus and Cirrus nodded sadly.

“That’s the rumour. Although it must have been a lifetime ago by now if that’s true,” Cirrus said.

The ghulehs chatted for a while longer before Sunshine went to call for Itzal. She knocked and walked into his room, but he didn’t even notice, as he was so absorbed in what he was doing.

Her heart always did a little flip when she saw him. He sat hunched over his desk with a frown of concentration on his face. His elegant, long-fingered hands gripped a pencil as he carefully shaded the area he was working on. Sunshine loved his hands. They were strong and marred by small scars here and there, but they were still beautiful to her.