In Hell We Trust

Wicked

Graves was beginning to get sick of the rain.

It wasn't that rain was something that bothered Graves all that much. In fact, in life he had always found a quick rain shower quite refreshing. But here in cold grey Nothrotita, the rain came and it just didn't stop. Ever. It rained so much that the meager drains underneath the cobblestone streets of this particular village couldn't keep up with the relentless downpour from the red clouds above, leaving about an inch of water floating on top of the cobbles. Graves' leather shoes had been soaked through, and his trench coat was on its way, despite the fact that it had been waterproofed before coming here. In Nothrotita, none of that mattered. The rain got through. Nothing in the Circle could put up enough of an effort to keep it out.

Along the side of the road were tall, gnarly, dead trees. Graves didn't notice the faces embedded in their bark until he looked down into a puddle of water below and saw the reflection of one of them there. They were clearly in agony, whispering nothings that Graves couldn't make out even if he wanted to.

He had been walking down this road for quite some time when he came across the prone form of a woman lying with her spine across the curb. The woman was pale and emaciated, her once-blonde hair hanging in messy brown ropes across her forehead. Her dress was wet and clung to her body like it was glued on. She had a dazed look in her eyes and cracked lips despite the rain that told Graves that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything in several days.

Graves knelt beside her and offered her a piece of a granola bar he had stolen from the continental breakfast bar in the hotel in Limbo. The woman shook her head as if taking the food was something perverse and wrong.

"Why won't you eat, woman?" he demanded brusquely.

The woman gazed at him dully. She put her hands on his face, which made him recoil with disgust. Her fingers were cold and clammy. He knew that she, like everyone in this Godforsaken place, was dead. But he hadn't met anyone that had made him so acutely aware of that fact.

"too much" she said quietly. She spoke just like that, so listlessly and devoid of energy that it had stripped out all annunciation, all punctuation.

"Too much what?"

"too much effort" The woman slumped back on the stones and let her mouth loll open. Graves pocketed the granola bar and left her there watching the clouds. The rain pounded away behind him.

He kept walking. It seemed like the street was endless. The only thing that kept him from falling asleep was locking into the rhythm of his own footsteps and trying to match them with the pace of the battering rain. It seemed like a good mental exercise, and it worked, because before long, he was standing in front of the house of the Witch.

Unlike the rest of the ramshackle cottages of the Circle of Sloth, the Witch of Endor's house was well kept. There was a nice little green garden in the front, lined with curly white fences and pink flowers all lined up in a row. The front steps were made from clean wood painted white and led to a porch made of the same stuff. The house itself was quite a bit bigger than the rest of the homes in the village, having two stories, blue paint, and a chimney spewing smoke from the top of it. The windows glowed with the warmth of a tendered fire.

The house was also suspended ten feet in the air by an enormous pair of rooster's legs. The claws dug gouges in the garden.

Graves set about going up the stairs, the wood unfurling from above to allow him to ascend to the porch and knock on the door. There was a clatter of pans from inside and the sound of an old woman swearing profusely. The sliding click of a deadbolt and the rattling of a chain, and the door stood open before him, a wave of warmth blasting his damp face.