The Savage Beasts of Salem, page 1
The Savage Beasts of Salem
Cate Corvin
Copyright © 2022 by Cate Corvin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by JoY Author Design.
Content Warning
This book contains depictions of abuse and death, mentions of incest and rape, and abortion.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
It was my fault that the air smelled like hot red copper this morning.
It was impossible to keep out; the scent crept in through the shutters of the church belfry, and worst of all, it actually made me hungry.
I’d peeked out and seen the deer waiting for me when I woke up to that smell, strung over the well in the center of town, eyeless sockets gaping up at my little belfry in a semblance of shocked surprise.
Salem, it seemed to say. Did you have to do something so stupid and get me killed like this?
Red, glistening viscera. Tumbles of purple intestine. Antlers still splattered with gore.
The villagers of Vostok crept around it, veils pulled down tightly over the women’s faces, averting their gaze as they went door to door, searching for the house with one member missing.
The deer was a trade. The Beasts of the Wood had taken one of our own, and left this macabre little surprise as a warning: they owned the Wood that encircled us. They were werewolves, more monsters than men; they walked on two legs like humans, but in all other ways, they were creatures.
They could take what they liked, whenever they liked, creeping in on silent feet and leaving no more than shadows and blood.
The wail went up as I pulled on a clean white dress. “Artyom!”
His mother was on her knees in the street, sobbing into her hands. So the Beasts had taken little Artyom, only nine summers old. It didn’t surprise me.
I wondered if he was a smear of crimson out in the Wood, the Beasts sitting around his corpse like noblemen at a banquet.
I was the only one who had seen him go creeping under the blue rope, disappearing into the Wood with an empty basket at his side three nights ago. When I’d caught him, he’d given me a determined glare over his sunken cheekbones.
“It’s the season for mushrooms,” he’d whispered to me, trembling in my grip. It wasn’t fear; he’d been determined to go, even if it meant offending the sensibilities of the Vessel and tearing from her grasp.
I’d put a finger to my lips, smiled, and let him go, watching until he vanished into the dense forest. Artyom’s mother had six children, and a dead husband couldn’t fill empty mouths.
Her eldest son had to learn to be the man now, and I’d been impressed that even at nine, he’d sloughed the fearful weight of cruel fairy tales to venture past the ropes on his own.
Fat, sleek Father Borodin always said God would provide to those with faith. Those who went hungry knew that God had given them two hands for a reason.
It went tacitly unspoken that many people crept into the Wood under the cloak of night to forage, leaving behind a token for the Beasts to beg their forgiveness.
Freya and her Gran left cunningly woven little dolls that seemed to please the Beasts, and Aldis left hag stones she’d pulled from the streams along with her fish. Dobrushin the butcher left prime marrow bones.
I should have made sure Artyom had a worthy token before he crossed the line. Was it not my mandate as the Vessel to ensure the safety of the flock?
I braided my long, white hair, began my emotional flagellation by forcing myself to take deep breaths of the meaty smell that might as well have been Artyom himself, and hurriedly attached my veil before pulling my hood up. There were footsteps on the stairs, and women’s faces were not to be seen.
In the veil and robe, I ceased to be Salem, and became the Vessel: a shapeless, faceless lump of white and blue.
When the belfry door burst open, Father Borodin’s cloying cologne filled the room, driving out the stink of death. His dark beard, reaching halfway down his chest, had been freshly oiled, and a bronze censer swung from his left hand.
Unlike most of Vostok, the Father wore thick velvet robes, in shades of red and green that glimmered like jewels. He made you want to reach out and touch him, even if the body shuddered in repulsion at the thought of what lay beneath the soft velvet.
“You have seen the well?” he asked, flat gray eyes searching me from head to toe for a transgression and finding none.
I nodded, tucking my hands into my long belled sleeves and holding them in front of myself, cradled against my belly. “Yes, Father.”
“Then prepare yourself. We must begin the purification before the flock succumbs to panic.” He stepped aside, allowing the Augur to come into the room after him.
Like a dog given a bone on cue, when I heard the word ‘purification’, phantom pains ached in my back. The sight of the Augur made my stomach twist.
Unlike the oiled, scented Father, the Augur was severely ascetic. An old man with milky eyes and warts erupting all over his face, he limped into my belfry, filthy robes dragging on the floor, his belt a length of frayed rope.
He held a smoking clay cup in his hands. It was the divine consecration, the first step to cleansing myself.
My breath was already trying to come faster, hands clenching and clammy beneath my sleeves. I made myself calm as I sank to my knees, taking a breath on the count of three over and over.
The Father bowed his head, eyes squeezed shut, as the Augur lifted my veil.
I wondered at times if he was truly blind. The old man dragged rough, calloused fingertips over my cheeks, forcing my eyes open, and it felt like he was looking right back at me.
Into my eyes, as yellow as the buttercups in the Wood.
A witch’s mark, Father Borodin had declared when I was a child, the mark of the next Vessel. Only someone shat out from such filthy loins as my mother’s could possibly be able to swallow the demons of the Wood that possessed our people. It takes evil to understand evil, to cage it.
They would beat it from me once I had consumed it, purifying it in the process, giving my unworthy, gutter-ridden soul a way to atone for the crime of my birth.
The Augur chuckled, his cracked nails dragging over my lips in an almost sensuous manner, and when I obediently opened my mouth he lifted the cup to it.
He was the one who brewed the tea that would allow me to see demons and consume sins. It smelled earthy and pungent, filling my mouth with the taste of dirty mushrooms, and my stomach tried to violently upheave it right back into the cup.
I had done that several times once I’d been declared old enough to drink the tea. The first time they had forgiven me.
After that brief grace period, the Augur would grind my face in my own vomit while the Father whipped my ass with a thin birch rod.
It was better to force the tea to stay down.
I swallowed hard, my mouth watering, tongue drying to cotton almost immediately. With sheer force of will, I kept it in my stomach.
The Augur tucked the cup in a pocket of his brown-streaked robes, put the flat of his palm on my forehead, and muttered the Praises to God over me. His sour breath nearly made the tea come up again, but as the minutes ticked by, it settled.
Everything settled. My limbs felt heavy as lead, but the rest of me was as light as a feather. My mouth was dry, the belfry swimming around me, twisting into odd dimensions, the motes of dust glittering and laughing as they drifted through the air.
I felt nothing inside, not even fear of the werewolves that had invaded our village overnight.
“She is ready,” the Augur muttered, and drew my veil back down. He lifted me bodily to my feet, and both Father and Augur took my elbows and guided me down the stairs.
I floated down them, feeling like my feet hardly touched the earth.
Ionna, the Father’s wife, was sweeping out the church as the holy men led me past. The Father’s hand was clamped hard around my upper arm, but that too was a distant pain.
The roads were empty. Everyone had gone inside, pulled their shutters shut, and fresh daubs of blue paint covered every door and sill, warding off the Beasts of the Wood.
The well in the center of Vostok seemed to loom before me, a circle of rough, flat stones with streaks of brown dripping over the side. This close, the gamy scent of the slaughtered stag was choking.
The Augur brought me before it, pulling my veil back once more and pushing me face to face with the corpse.
I stared at its bloodied muzzle and gaping nasal sockets.
Father Borodin put his hand on top of my head, palm down, and began the Rite of Purification. “We condemn the sins that have been committed here. Lord, help us through these dark times. Help us walk the paths of light, of purity…”
The Augur passed a loaf of bread over the deer’s corpse as the Father spoke and waved the censer. Billowing gray clouds spiraled from the bronze dish, choking me with its harsh scent and coating the bread.
“With the body of this bread, we soak up the evil that has permeated this land. We reject it, and cleanse it—”
The Augur ripped off a chunk of the bread and held it to my face. Once more, I obediently opened my mouth. It was salty and dense, making my tongue shrivel.
Piece by piece, he passed it over the corpse and fed it to me.
“As she consumes the bread, let her also consume the sins of these people. Let us be cleansed, let us be free of the taint of evil.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. The Father’s hand had slipped downwards, and he gripped the back of my neck tightly, digging into my throat. It made swallowing the salty bread that much harder, even as my stomach protested.
I choked, coughing a mouthful of bread back up. The Father stopped dead.
“Eat it,” he whispered harshly.
I tried, tears running down my cheeks as I chewed the gluey mass. My stomach was revolting, and I felt like I was going to be sick again. If they made me eat one more bite, I’d spew up every last crumb.
And then we would repeat the whole process again. And again.
As many times as it took for me to eat the sins that had brought this deer to us.
The Augur put another bite to my mouth, and the tears ran faster.
“Eat them,” the Father demanded. “Draw this blackened taint into yourself, and drag them into the purifying light!”
I was wracked with another round of coughing, unable to hold it back. I gagged on it, and the Father dropped his censer, squeezing me with both hands. “Damn you, Salem, do your duty.”
He shook me hard, making my teeth snap together. Pain erupted in my lip, blood filling my mouth.
I felt hot, clawing at the hood and robes. My teeth ached and my fingers were sore as I gripped the Father’s wrists.
“Get off me,” I gasped, doubling over. I could not do this.
I could swear that my fingertips were claws. My teeth felt too sharp, my whole body overheated and aching.
He released me and I fell to my hands and knees, gagging again. They would make me do this all over again. I tasted my own tears mixed with the blood, knowing I had only extended my misery.
The faces of Father Borodin and the Augur filled my field of view.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“—too much of the divine consecration,” the Augur was saying. “She’s ill. My eyes are not what they used to be, and I have no extra hands to help measure—”
“If you’ve killed her with it, I swear on all that is holy, I will skin you next,” the Father snarled, and then hands were hauling me upright.
I looked into the well, the darkened pit, and at the pale bread lying on the body of the skinned deer. A strange, infinite sadness filled me that it was still here, not whole and free in the Wood.
“You will do your duty,” the Father insisted. “Eat these sins so we may be purified.”
He pushed me towards the corpse and the bread, gripping the back of my neck again and moving me like a puppet.
I stared into the dark, brackish water. Bits of viscera floated there.
A Beast stared back. My sharp fangs filled my mouth, threatening to split my jaw. My claws gouged the stones.
I wasn’t fully aware of tearing from the Father’s grasp. Of ripping my veil away, screaming at the sky as I tore off the clinging, suffocating garments.
Then they descended on me with lash and rod and fist, and I knew no more.
Chapter Two
In the dark, voices whispered to me.
They were unlike any human voice I’d ever heard before. Deep and primitive, ancient voices, whispering inside my bones.
“We’ve been waiting for you.”
Every muscle in my body ached as I ran through the woods, feeling lithe and free despite the pain.
The forest was bleached to shades of gray by the moon. I slipped between the trees like water, breathed in ten thousand smells I’d never known existed, and finally unleashed a joyful howl.
My wolf’s body was unstoppable as it carried me away from Vostok. I had no cares, no worries, no fears. Being a creature was perfection, the knowledge that nothing existed but myself and the Wood, nothing but myself against nature.
Then a shadow sped between the trees, running alongside me just out of sight. It was enormous, the source of the primitive voice whispering inside my mind.
“Run, little witch. Run as fast and far as you can.”
I pushed myself harder, the first faint worm of fear slithering into my heart. I would get a glimpse of dark fur, a flash of brimstone eyes, and then nothing—nothing but the knowledge that I was being followed.
There was a hidden promise in the Beast’s words.
“We will hunt you… and we will find you.”
Sides heaving with exertion, I streaked away from the shadow, and he followed. I was moving slower, my body feeling like I was bogged down in syrup.
“We will always find you.”
Hot breath touched the back of my neck. I pushed harder, faster, and saw that I no longer had paws… my pale hands were streaked with dirt and blood. I was running on all fours, awkward and slow.
A whimper escaped me as I lunged upright, stumbling through the Wood on two ungainly legs.
Something heavy hit me, knocking me back to the leaf-strewn forest floor. There was no time to scream, no time to even blink before the Beast was on me.
“Open your mind, open your eyes, witch,” he snarled at me. “We are through with waiting.”
“I’m no witch,” I gasped, trying to wriggle out of the cage of claws, but there was nowhere to go. The bulk of the Beast’s body pressed me down, keeping me pinned in place.
“You are.” The Beast flipped me easily with a massive clawed hand and pain erupted in my back as it touched the ground. Thick, warm fur brushed my bare skin. His slavering wolf’s head loomed over me, teeth gleaming like sickles.
The sharp agony from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine was impossible to ignore. I tried to heave myself upwards, but the Beast’s claws were on my chest.
“Please,” I whispered, and he cocked his head, pointed ears like horns in the moonlight.
He wrapped those claws around me and gently picked me up.
“Was our gift not enough for you?” His voice was a low, bone-shaking growl, no matter how softly he tried to speak. “It is the bride-price. Flesh for flesh.”
Even though I was no longer touching the ground, the pain was still immense. The edges of the world were blurring, and as everything seemed to spin around me, I understood that none of this was real.
It was all a dream. The Beast cradling me against his chest, the moon shining red, the pain—nothing but a dream.
“We’re coming for you,” he told me, and a burst of lightning through my spine ripped me away from the dream entirely.
I woke with a strangled cry, my voice muffled by the flattened pillow under my face. The minute the musty smell hit my nose, I knew where I was—back in the belfry of the Church of Vostok.
But the pain hadn’t stopped. Fresh agony tore through my back as something cool dripped over it.
I was lying on my stomach, wrists bound to the bed with leather straps. A soft humming told me who my companion was as another splash of wet coolness touched the pain.
“Yana.” My voice was hoarse. Had I been screaming in my sleep this entire time?
