Delilah Recovered **2017 Watty Winner**

chapter nine

Wolf woke up in a damp, grimy cell lined with crumbling bricks and large iron bars. Everything hurt. He was sure that he had at least one broken rib. Had he been there for a day or a week? He had no sense of time. On a metal tray sat a stale piece of bread and a cup of water, he drank the water so fast it poured down his chin. He stuffed the dry bread into his mouth, chewing it twice before swallowing it. He took a deep breath and heaved it all back up.

Images suddenly came back to him like a movie in fast-forward. He was kidnapped from the chapel during his evening prayers. First, his sect, the witch hunters, shaved him and dunked him in a vat of holy water. They dressed him in a thin white linen robe. Then came the torture. Over several hours, he was bound and gagged. They submerged him in glacial water over and over. And finally, using a flaming hot poker, he was branded on the top of his right hand with an "H" for a heretic. It was all torture designed for witches right out of the Hammer of the Witches playbook. This tactic was an old standby for his father, Gart, who saw a poetic justice punishing hunters with the same tactics used to try witches.

An over head light clicked on. "How are you doing, son?" Gart asked as he pulled up a stool next to Wolf's cell.

Wolf turned his head toward him but didn't respond.

"We had to do it. You had been bewitched by her," Gart explained. "We had to cast that demon out of you."

"How's Joanna?" Wolf asked.

"She's a hunter through and through. She did her time in the hole like a champ."

Wolf could hear the pride in his voice. It was a pride that he had always reserved for others, but never for Wolf. And all he wanted to do was make his father proud. And that's why he hatched the ill-fated hospital attack. And this time, it was all on Wolf. It was his plan, not Gart's, that had gone south.

Gart was staring at Wolf like he was a calculus equation that he just couldn't quite crack. He sighed and said, "Son, I don't think you're ready to come out of the hole yet."

Wolf knew better than to argue or ask for a medic to look at his rib.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Gart asked.

Wolf turned away from his father. The overhead light was beaming down on him like a spotlight.

Gart slammed his hand against the cell and ordered, "Stand up Wolfgart or so help me, God."

Wolf slowly turned onto his stomach and placed his hands underneath his shoulders. He tried to pull himself up but was too weak.

"Now!" Gart yelled.

Again, Wolf tried to get up, but his arms shook. Gart pulled out keys from his pocket and unlocked the cell. He grabbed Wolf by the arm and yanked him up off the floor of the cell. He threw him against the wall and held him up by pressing his arm into Wolf's chest. The pressure from standing made his limbs shake uncontrollably.

"Do you believe the power of God is stronger than the power of the devil?" he shouted.

"Yes, sir."

"What is the difference between a miracle and witchcraft?"

"The intention, sir."

"Is evil an involuntary act or a voluntary act?" Gart yelled, so worked up into a fever that he spit in Wolf's face as he screamed at him.

"Voluntary, sir."

"We are doing God's work, and your soul must be clean. You can't allow the devil into your heart, " he said, pounding on Wolf's chest.

"Father, my soul, is pure," Wolf said through unstable labored breaths.

"My son, we are the only soldiers standing between the moral and the nefarious forces threatening our world. Delilah will release an evil the likes of which hunters have never seen or faced before. The civilians no longer have any faith in us. Do you understand me?" he asked as he shook Wolf.

Wolf nodded. Gart released him, letting his body fall to the ground like a sack of flour. Gart threw a copy of The Hammer of the Witches at him, slamming the door to the cell shut and locking it behind him.Editing in progress!

More to come !!!