Objo preened, feathers as magnificent as hers required constant upkeep. She combed through the dark blue plumage with her hands, the hooked talons tipping her fingers pressing each feather to lie flat and glossy. The delicate white speckling on the plumes made a starry sky when she spread to her full wingspan, a proud twenty feet. Though a harpy now, she had not always been so. Originally a black barn owl before the transformation, she was, in her opinion, the most beautiful of her harpy sisters. Though her sister Ooi, the resplendent quetzal decked in emerald greens, was a close second in terms of beauty. She scowled at the thought of her pseudo sister. Though not originally a hunter she had adapted to the role well, becoming almost as accomplished as Objo. A fact she frequently taunted the older woman with.
Now acolytes to the chthonic god of vengeance Nemia, the rites performed upon her body for her ascension to priesthood had been an agonizing but necessary sacrifice. The golem body her god had formed for her had required Objo to personally extract and place each of her organs within the thick paste of volcanic ash forming the earthy construct. It had taken her a brutal seven days to complete. A beautiful number, Nemia had cooed, cradling the hatchling in her magma encrusted fingers, after her new daughter’s rebirth.
Objo sat tucked in the branches of a thorned acacia, midnight shadows cast from the revelry below her feathered feet dappling her face and wings as the warm wind of summer whispered through the leaves like a promise. She watched the witches with sharp eyes as they danced below. Followers of Zsa Zsa, the piebald deer witch god, were holding their ceremonial rites, twisting and writhing around a massive bonfire, higher than the top of her tree. They tossed in handfuls of powdered minerals, turning the flames brilliant blues, greens, and magentas as they whirled, light from the flames glinting off the gold of their jewelry. Objo watched dispassionately, a vicious smile twisting her lips. Soon they would be her prey.
The witches practiced kin killing, ritualistic sacrifice of their own family members to the crazed god as a form of tribute, supplicating the god for riches and power. As kin killers, they were barred from the afterlife, leaving them only the realm of the living, a place they sought to stay as long as possible. They besought Zsa Zsa the witch-mother, to increase their longevity, to keep them for just a little longer from their inevitable fates as lurking ghosts doomed to travel the earth in agony. Their kin killing customs are what drew Nemia’s acolytes to them, Objo and the other harpies fulfilling their sacred duty of punishing those guilty of the most egregious of crimes, of which kin killing was taramount.
After capturing the damned, Objo and her sisters would bring their prey to Nemia, through the obsidian tunnels beneath the dormant volcano Urtel, depositing them before the god for her brutal judgment. Objo paused in her grooming, watching carefully for the witch that would be her quarry tonight. The one that would channel the god and thus doom herself. The witch was already drenched in blood, her teeth red with it as she bared them wildly, her grin widening past human limits as Zsa Zsa channeled through her. Gold jewelry decked her every limb, clinking as she spun. Soon. Soon they would learn regret.
She eyed her current mark, a witch with a gloria of vibrant red hair braided complicatedly over top her head, long strands breaking free from the crown to billow like flames, glossy bronze in the firelight. The witch laughed wildly, lips bloodied from sipping the sacrificial wine, passed to her by the coven’s witchmother in a heavy chalice. The viscous liquid spilled down her chin as she drank deeply, seeping into the bodice of her dress, staining it a dark burgundy.
She twirled away, spinning round and round her layered skirts rippling around her legs, the complicated steps of her dance bringing her to a sudden stop in front of a bound, wide eyed girl, red hair as bright as her own, her features so similar to the witch’s. A knife appeared in the witch’s hand, bronze and jagged. She held it up to her mouth, licking the blade, her lips parted in a violent grin, flames dancing in her eyes.
Without warning she slashed down, slitting the girl’s throat in a single fluid movement, a spray of blood splattering across her face. A cry went up from the gathered, somewhere between a cheer and a wail. They collapsed around the slain girl, shoulders swaying like waves as they continued to dance, lifting her body on their collective shoulders to lay her atop the fire, now a funeral pyre for the newly departed. The witch killer watched with a grin, something predatory and eager. The flames burned brighter still, leaping high with a roar.
She collapsed on the ground, body spasming, eyes rolling back in head. The other witches gathered around her, whispering, chanting, arms around each other as they swayed rhythmically. The witch stopped spasming, body so so still. A twitch in her fingers, and she came back to animacy, standing up, something different in her stance than before, something arcane moving her limbs. She smiled and it was a different smile, something older, colder, and far more dangerous. She held up her hands to her cheeks, pointer fingers at the edge of her smile, othering fingers clasped in a fist, thumbs up pointed in the air, stretching her grin wider still, beyond what a human’s lips should. The witch-god had come to join, summoned by sacrifice.
Objo watched the proceeding, eyes narrowed in disgust. This was not her first time watching the summoning of Zsa Zsa, and it wouldn’t be her last. I never failed to disgust her, the disposal of kin for personal gain, the most egregious of crimes she brought to judgment by her god. The details of the ritual varied coven to coven, but the end result was always the same. A kin member slain and the murdering family member possessed, the goddess embodying the sacrificer, granting them longevity, for a while, until another sacrifice was required, to continue the life loaned.
She would wait a while more, until the witches were fast asleep and the witch-god departed,, before slipping into their midst and snatching her prey. The longevity granted would not keep death at bay, not from another god.
