Vengeance knows neither remorse nor faith, and Heinrich answered without hesitation, “My flesh is devoted to their misery, and my soul.”

“All that is needed.” She smirked. “You would share your body with a demon?”

“Eh?” Heinrich tried to remember the words of the priest and failed, instead recalling Brennen’s ashen face in the mud. His mind jerked back to the present and he eyed the crone. “You’re a witch, then?”

“And one that despises those Brothers. The demon does as well, I assure you of that. Would you become host for it?”

Even a few days ago the thought would have proved anathema to Heinrich but between the priest refusing to help or even condone him and now this so-called witch offering succor, he worried his lip. Demons and witches alike could be tricked, he knew, but he doubted he possessed the wits for such deception. It occurred to him that he would have died without her help the night before, and she might still take his life if he displeased her. In such an event the Grossbarts would never be his, and his failure would be eternal.

“You would need to make room inside that cramped skin, a space as large as your immortal spirit.” Nicolette saw his indecision and patted his hand. “I too am prepared to give all that I may, for I loved my husband more than I love my life, and they took him from me just as they took your bride and children.”

“My soul, then,” Heinrich decided, remembering Gertie thrashing in the mire, dying in agony. God and all His saints had stayed hidden that day, as they did on this. If He wants my soul He will step in now, thought the miserable farmer, but nothing happened. “Summon what demons you may, and inform them my soul is theirs if it means I am the Grossbarts’ downfall.”

“Unlike others of my faith I lack the knowledge to conjure demons,” Nicolette said with a smile. “Fortune’s favored us, though, for in spying on the Grossbarts I have discovered one not yet banished to its formless realm, one whose goal is shared by you and me.” The flea hurled itself against its prison but Nicolette did not open the bottle, instead continuing to barter with the too-willing yeoman. “That is its price, but we’ve not fixed mine.”

“More than my flesh and spirit?” Heinrich snorted. “I have nothing else.”

“Nothing save a father’s love for his murdered children.”

Heinrich eyes filled and he reached for his knife to cut out her horrible tongue.

“I would have you be a father again, Heinrich,” she whispered, stroking her stomach. It pulsated at her touch. “My babes will require a guardian as they grow, a guide to bring them to the Grossbarts.”

“Carry wee ones over winter roads? I’ll never watch another child suffer, witch, not even to see those Brothers die.”

Heinrich had witnessed horrors great enough that he felt himself righteous in accepting his own damnation without regret, but still his bowels twisted in fear at Nicolette’s throaty laugh. “You will not need to carry them,” she chuckled. “But when you flag they will carry you. Yes, and hunt for you and do all that obedient children should.”

“I doubt that. New babes do naught but cry.”

“Doubt? Doubt! We’ll assuage those, dear master of turnips.” Nicolette groaned, her stomach rippling. “I’ll free you both, just give your word!”

“You have it.” Heinrich stared into the fire. “Give me my revenge and you may take anything I’ve got that those Brothers haven’t yet stolen.”

The bottle slipped onto the floor and broke, the flea leaping onto Heinrich. Its body, bloated with even the most diminished form of the evil it carried, popped when it reached his shoulder, a foul golden smoke drifting into his nostrils. Heinrich began to cough and gag, feeling as if a white-hot wire pushed through his sinuses and down his throat. His nose dripped black phlegm and when his boiling guts finally calmed he saw Nicolette had fallen out of her chair, her massive belly heaving.

“Into the wood,” she gasped, “find what they buried. Don’t return without it, but dare not touch it or such mischief as even I know not will occur. Tongs!” she wailed, slapping the iron tool beside the hearth and arching her back, viscous fluid gushing from between her legs.

Snatching up the tongs and hurrying out of the shack, Heinrich stood panting in the snow. Setting off into the wood, he did not notice that the feverish sweat coursing off him hissed instead of freezing when it dropped onto the ground, nor did he realize his vision was better in the dark wood than it ever had been in the sunny fields of his home. The pain in his sides came in waves but he followed the stream with purpose, almost smelling their stink, almost seeing their snow-shrouded footprints.

Eventually he left the stream, the spoiled-milk stink of witchcraft growing stronger until he picked his way through the underbrush into a small clearing. In the center of it lay a patch of disturbed earth where the snow did not fall, although it lay heaped up to Heinrich’s knees everywhere else. Digging in the frozen dirt with the tongs, he saw something shining in what early light penetrated the icy bower. Holding the pelt at the end of the tongs, he marched back through the woods, for the first time reflecting on his superior senses and the impossible nature of the last day’s events.

The sun crept farther up as he found his way back to her shack, only a finger of smoke rising from his destination. Stepping over the dead rat by the door he went inside, calling out to the witch. She weakly raised her hand from the floor, two shadowy bulges nursing at her chest.

Approaching the prone woman, even in his madness he could not control his nausea. After he had expelled what few turnips his belly held, he again stared at the abominations. They were brown and slick, easily twice the size of normal babies, and they chewed rather than suckled on her flabby breasts, milk mingling with blood on the wet floor.

Heinrich snatched a log from beside the fire but before he could act she bellowed at him, “Leave them be! I’ve done the same to their siblings, leave them be!”

Curious despite his revulsion, Heinrich tossed the wood onto the hearth. Through her agony she continued to instruct him: “Give them the sack hanging above you, it’ll take them off me long enough. Long enough!”

Heinrich shakily took down the satchel, and she shrieked, “Tear it open! Spread them on the floor!”

Following her instructions, he opened the bag and dumped out its contents. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny teeth scattered on the slimy stones, and the two newborns turned from their meal. Crawling off her, they began rolling in the loose teeth, and while Heinrich watched the small white pegs sank into the surface of their skin, forming new snapping mouths on chests and legs, arms and backs.

“Follow the road through the mountains,” she gasped, her gory chest spewing blood, milk, and loose skin. “But do not follow them to the city, for men will burn you alive. Shun even the smallest hamlet, stay to the wilds and journey southeast past the dwellings of men, into the desert. Farther than those ruins that men call holy, where fools battle for stones and dirt until the world ends, always south! That is where you will catch them, in the desert of dead kings.”

“Are they-” Heinrich swallowed, seeing the babes’ faces were umber skulls, impenetrable pits where eyes should rest. “What are they?”

“Homunculi to inspire envy in all others, my own addition to an ancient recipe.” She motioned to a bound pile of parchment, which the illiterate yeoman did not recognize as a text. “A gift from a traveler, long gone. One is Magnus, the other Brennen! But hurry, they return to me!”

True enough, the baby-shaped monstrosities crawled to her feet, their numerous maws snatching out chunks of meat and skin, blood dampening Heinrich’s knees where he knelt beside her head. She wailed and he shivered, averting his eyes. Her hands pawed at his face, her voice ragged as she urgently went on.