Matas woke up naked in a white room, surrounded by about a dozen men wearing white uniforms. He had his hands and legs tied above his head, in a position that was stretching his hamstrings and calves in a very uncomfortable way and leaving him as vulnerable as possible.

“Name?” asked one of the men.

“Am I in trouble?” was the first thing Matas could say.

“Name?” repeated the voice.

“Matas Petrauskas,” he complied.

“Age?”

“Twenty-nine.” Matas noticed someone sitting in a corner, at a table, probably typing it all on a small laptop. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I remember… everything? The house, the blood, the monster?”

“Tell us about the house.”

“What do you want to know? I’ve lived there with my wife for more than three years?”

“Your wife?”

“Uh… Her name was Leja Varniene. I worked for her as a painter before we got married.” Matas stopped, but no more questions came, pushing him further. He sighed. “I guess you could say she had certain… abilities?”

“How many times did you get pregnant?”

“Uhm... Twice? How do you know?”

“See, I told you,” said the tallest man. “She’s beyond saving. Better execute her quickly. We can’t take that chance. I don’t even know why you brought her here.”

“Wh-what?” stuttered Matas.

“A minute, bishop Puniskis,” said a small woman standing behind the men. “Let me try a cross test, please.”

Bishop Puniskis looked at her in silence and nodded.

The short woman passed in front of the men, holding a long crucifix and a tube of lube. She generously applied lube onto it, which now appeared to be a dildo covered with bumps.

“Wait? What will you do with this?” said Matas, worried. “Wait, wait, wait!”

The woman ignored him and gently introduced the crucifix inside Matas’ exposed pussy.

“What?” asked Matas, expecting an explosion of pleasure which didn't happen. He felt it slide in, but it felt surprisingly… dull?

“See? No reaction! There’s no corruption in her,” said the woman.

“A little more,” asked the bishop.

Obeying her superior, she gently pushed the dildo in and out. Matas could feel the dildo moving inside him, but it didn’t feel good or hurt. It was neutral as if someone was caressing his arm. A man pushed the woman aside and got rough, but it didn’t affect the outcome.

“I checked, and she’s not pregnant,” said the woman.

“Fine,” said the bishop. “But first, send her to my office for interrogation. That will be all. Dismissed!”

One of the men uncuffed Matas and threw him Leja’s dress he was wearing last. There was no blood on it anymore. Matas put it on and got escorted to the bishop’s office. There, he sat in front of him, in silence, separated by his desk. Matas’ head was hurting a lot from where he got hit. He reached that painful spot, feeling a bump and a few stitches.

“Go on! You have five minutes to ask me questions. Then you tell me everything you know,” said the bishop.

Matas took a deep breath. “Where is my wife?”

“Dead. I killed it.”

“You…?” whispered Matas, submerged by sorrow. “Why?”

“Because it was a monster, and with your help, it started a new coven. If we didn’t stop it, it would eventually have had hundreds if not thousands of children and people working for it in a few years.”

Matas stopped talking, crying instead.

“Come on, your five minutes are counting down,” said the bishop, showing signs of impatience. “Oh, Lord! You are not making this easy. You are deep below the Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Vladislaus in Vilnius. We are the order of Purity. We track and destroy covens before they take over the world. Your wife was what we call a breeder. The monster you mentioned earlier, that was her. Or rather, it. Thanks to its powers, it doesn’t appear what it looks like, and its true form is only revealed upon death. I guess you must be familiar with most of her other abilities?” Matas timidly nodded. “Which is precisely why we need you to tell us everything you know because you are the first person we spare in one of our raids in over a century.”

Matas blinked. “She loved me…” he whispered to himself.

“More like she made you think she did. They are pure evil. Whose only purpose is to breed and grow more powerful.”

“He told me so…” said Matas, thinking of Adomas.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Matas sniffed. “What do you need to know?”

Over the next hour, Matas told everything he knew to the bishop, every detail, every name, every feeling, every event. Well, nearly everything. Matas thought he said enough.

“Well, thank you for your contribution,” concluded the bishop.

“So, what now?” asked Matas.

“What about you leave my office?”

“And? That’s it? Three years of my life are gone, you massacred everyone I knew, and that’s it?”

The bishop stood up and walked to Matas. He grabbed the frail girl by the neck and slammed him into the wall. “Don’t you understand you should be dead? Isn’t it already enough to give you back your life? What more do you want?”

“I’m… sorry…” squealed Matas. The bishop let him drop, turned around, and sat back at his desk.

“You weak people baffle me. You would do anything to anyone, provided someone powerful enough asks you to or backs you up. In every story, we talk so much about the big bad guys. But they are not the worst. The worst is all the weaklings like yourself that are too cowardly to stand their ground and do what is right. And for every evil breeder out there, a thousand cowards are willing to help them. For love, for sex, for comfort, whatever. It’s all the same.”

“But…”

“You still don’t understand, don’t you? You tell yourself you didn't do anything, believing she made you do things. But breeders aren’t some magical creatures that bewitch you and make you do things against your will. They don’t have such powers. What you did, you did it because you agreed to it. Because it was easier for you. Because you were weak. In other words, those people we killed, they died because of you. Because you let it happen or even took part in it. Now, please: get off of my face before I change my mind. With everything you told me, there’s enough material to execute you for collaborating with the enemy at least three times over.”

Matas struggled to find his way out. When leaving the Basilica, he was cold, drenched by the pouring rain, alone, crying, with nothing on him except Leja’s dress, the last reminder of the wife he still loved with all his heart.