As Sybil flung herself over the rough-hewn table between them, Judith’s strength seemed to pale against panic. Their two bodies clashed in a tangle of limbs, the pair falling first against Myfanwy’s oven then to the ground. The weaker woman reared up, gaining the advantage as she pinned Judith beneath her. Claws sparked as they raked over the stone floor, the dark-haired woman barely evading with a look of sheer terror etched into her features. Sybil did not relent, her other hand coming to swipe across once again. Rather than risk this continued assault, Judith wriggled out from under her lover’s furious form while using the swing to off-balance her. Sybil fell with a grunt to the ground while her knightess, now seemingly craven, fled out of the door.

The night air held no refuge for her as the blonde woman emerged from the cottage as a fearsome wraith, leaping along the wall before flying to the rooftops above the fleeing Judith. She looked over her shoulder to see her love heaving a rock, flinging it toward her with unearthly speed. Thankfully, the merry murderess careened off her path into the space between two houses. The stone shattered with a rain of shards, embedding in the soft earthen walls of animal sties. Sybil leapt from the roof, sailing over the street to land once more above her lover. She moved almost like a wolf, steadying herself with her hands whilst her legs powered her over the distance.

“What have I done to earn your ire?” Judith demanded her eyes wild as she searched for egress. Such thoughts evaporated as the nun thudded beside her. She wasted no time in returning to her feral swipes, going so far as to bite Judith’s arm once it came up to defend her face. She shouted in pain, punching Sybil with a crunch of bone. Regret instantly formed on her features, vanishing as she was pinned to the wall by her throat. It dawned on her that Sybil perhaps wasn’t in control in that moment. Her fleeting surprise that her gentle star was capable of such fury cost her a vicious bite to the shoulder. She was barely able to redirect it, panting as she prised her lover’s jaws apart. Hale as she was, she did not need to hurt Sybil. But something within her cored her chest with icy talons as she saw the nun straighten up, mouth slathered in blood. Her collar was steeped with redness, its owner past caring for appearances. That momentary realisation revealed the cold, unfeeling red eyes of a monster.

For the first time, Judith was truly unsure what Sybil would do next.

Once again, the stronger of the two fled from the town’s inner environs. She’d hoped to bring the watch or other humans to scare her away. But in this state, Judith felt as if her savage lover would tear them to shreds. Though she would feel nothing for such barbarous little men, she knew it would destroy her. Without rooves to carry her as the crow flew, Sybil was forced to reckon with how slow her starvation had made her. A human might outrun her in this state.

Judith sailed clear of the savage nun, hoping that the frustrated snarling she heard was not a prelude to her giving up the chase. As they traversed an open field strewn with piles of hay, she spied a barn with an almost hysterical relief. There may be rope enough to contain her until the dawn. Changing her pace slightly, she made a sharp turn that almost saw Sybil’s clawed fingers pass clean through her side. Her refusal to slow carried her onwards, forcing her to lose her footing. The dark-haired woman looked on with concern as Sybil extricated herself from the hay she’d just disinterred from its resting place. Momentary humiliation appeared to have made her all the angrier.

She ducked within the barn, looking frantically about the hay loft and empty stalls for anything that might even be vaguely useful against her incensed paramour. Between the pitchforks and shovels, the plough blades and sun hat, Judith could only find tools that Sybil might use to more effectively dismember her. She resolved to continue fleeing until the fragile, wooden double doors of the barn clattered. In that moment, Judith became acutely aware that her lover had progressed to an entirely different type of vexation.

“You murder, butcher and make me party to your crimes,” Sybil hissed, claws raking across the wood to emphasize her disinclination to debate. “And when I bid you stop, you mock me for daring to enforce the common good?” she concluded with a face contorted beyond the beauteous vision it normally was. But Judith was beyond concerns of what their condition would do to them in their anger. Her own rose in defiance of the accusation.

“Common good, is it?” Judith demanded sarcastically, kicking a pitchfork upright into her palms. Perhaps a night pinned to the wall by her abdomen would do her some good. “You sit here in shallow admonishment while failing to note that we are no longer party to their peoples or their laws. While they bring death, pestilence and ruin upon the world we have been given leave to forgo their idiocy. I feed us both, provide the horned one her due while you meekly submit to their chains and call it noble.” The two took a step toward each other, Sybil reaching to grasp at the shovel. Her eyes had once again taken on the reddened hue. The dark-haired of the two considered her options, determining reason to be the only likely antidote. Sybil had ever been amenable to argument if nothing else. “Look upon your body, Sybil. You are glorious, powerful beyond their ken. If they should come to us with manacles and the rope, what of it? If they should perish to their own foolish crusade, why do we suffer them? They are food, my star,” Judith persuaded with a soft voice, casting her pitchfork to the side. She hoped the gesture would not be in vain.

“Did you consider me naught but food afore my transformation, I wonder?” Sybil bit back venomously, her observation lending a sharpened edge to her voice that struck her lover deeply. She recoiled from the accusation, eyes searching.

“Who then is it do you value, now? Send them to me and I shall give them my blood. And you may finally feed enough to dissipate this anger,” Judith asserted, her voice almost pleading as Sybil once again began stalking toward her, eyes picking apart her guard to find the softest points to strike. Though the question gave her pause, all the same. She seemed surprised for a moment before dropping the shovel from one of her hands. Its head hit the floor as her beloved laughed an almost derisive cackle.

“You think my fasting has delivered us to this end? Protector of my heart, how could you believe such nonsense?” Sybil leered with uncharacteristic coldness. The more sated of the two took a step back, prepared for an assault if their impasse proved insurmountable. “What has torn my heart, roused me to this cruelty, is nothing so pedestrian. You treat me as a kept creature. As if you can but feed me once a day, kiss me goodnight and be about your bloody business. No more. You will mark me, or I shall put an end to your butchery myself,” the nun delivered her ultimatum.

The statement’s impact cratered Judith’s heart as she heard it. It was not so much the threat but the realisation. How far she’d fallen. How cruel she’d become in her revelry. It had seemed at the time to have been freedom, a release from the guilt and shame. The apotheosis of her rebellion. But her drive to protect, her need to see Sybil free of these fetters, overrode all else. There was but one course left to them, she supposed.

“Very well. Our task lies before us,” Judith began in a deadly voice, seating herself upon an upturned barrel. She knew Sybil could hear them too. Their incessant clanking as they ran, pursuing a path of destruction so well worn by two creatures not of God’s making. “I shall stay my hand for the interim, keeping the wineskin for my own maintenance. I give you the task of removing the abbess and her faithful ghouls,” the Francian ordered with a temper barely held in even check against what she truly wished to do. Sybil began to protest, only to fall silent as Judith’s hand raised to stall her. “If they abide still by dusk tomorrow, I shall continue all the more directly. They will flee once they see me at my most merciless.”

Sybil took a moment to absorb these fresh terms, pondering whether she could achieve such a thing. Her anger, which now scored a nest of red-hot wire into her breast, fought against what compassion remained, screeching for Judith’s blood and her complete submission. She leaned against the doorframe her arms crossed as she allowed herself a mournful breath. Then, quickly as she heard the watchmen trudging toward the barn with crackling torches and dogs, she crossed the barn. The Francian took a moment to recoil as if expecting an attack. She relented once Sybil enfolded Judith’s hands in her own.

“I am the most lovesick fool on this earth,” Sybil observed with saddened eyes, fingers interlacing with Judith’s as she considered her words. “Whilst you continue your own crusade, I find myself torn apart. There is no choice between my faith and father, my conscience and convictions, and you. I would corrupt the very tenets of who I am to be in your arms, allow myself to become the worst of scourges upon creation,” the nun confessed with a shaking voice, her breaths coming in sharpened bursts. “Please do not make a monster of me, Judith,” she begged, her eyes once again blue and humane. Judith’s tattered heart rent all the more as she heard her love’s words, realisation dawning upon her. She reproached herself, eyes closing tightly as that fury from earlier turned inward. She buried it, painting a strong visage as she so often had.

“Perhaps that is the gift of the goddess. In her care, we reveal who we truly are,” Judith whispered, sure that even humans could hear them by now. But it must be said. Or she would be damned by someone that meant far more to her than the almighty. “You are sweet, timid. You could never be the creature you fear to be,” she encouraged before turning her eyes to the torches that now shone through the whorls in the wooden walls. “Now run back to the abbey. We are not finished on this front,” she smiled, ushering her little nun to move before she was caught.

As she got to her feet, passing a brief kiss over Judith’s lips, the dark-haired woman squeezed her hand. She nodded reassuringly to her conflicted love. When she was gone the smile fell from Judith’s lips.

“Will you be attending to this oath or were they more honeyed words for your dearest?” came the voice of Myfanwy from the shadows, who seemed to extricate herself from them as someone might peel pondweed from their legs. Judith rose to her feet, walking toward the shadows with a languid, longing look toward the rattling barn doors. She smiled at her wily woman’s forethought. She then raised an eyebrow to the older woman, who looked at her expectantly with the glint of metal in her hand.

~

Sybil made no allowances for her savage nature this time. She raced through the field with a headlong pace that saw her to the cover of the forest in mere minutes. The watchmen called after her, though she’d made sure to replace her veil. To them, it would seem as if a nun had become possessed and flown toward the abbey. The night still held sway, she reassured herself. They did not see nearly as well in its murk as she did. Yet all the while as she galloped through the forest, her mind became fixated on a single notion. Every nun must flee the abbey. To find somewhere peaceable enough to continue their lives without encroachment by the horned woman. Whatever she was, be she devil or goddess or something else not of the earth, she certainly had the power to bring catastrophe if she wished. So why did she dally with these indirect means?

Her stomach had begun to rumble with the unmistakable pains of hunger as she approached the low-slung stone wall of the abbey. Her task would be all the more difficult if it continued to build. She briefly considered whether Nye had woken up yet. A swift bite would provide more than enough to think clearly. She cursed, cocking her head to the side as she heard his worried grumbling. He would probably notice her ingress. He was far too coherent to be asleep.

Looking to her hands, she flexed her fingers. She concentrated on the rage that yet existed. Sybil focused upon the sense of betrayal, of affront, and dug her claws into the brickwork.

The climb was more difficult than expected, her fingers protesting against their role as pitons. It was made even worse by her shoes which lacked any grip to assist her. So, there she was, forced to climb the mortar with naught but her fingernails. It was only when they began to screech with pain and dribble blood onto her veiled face that she mercifully found purchase on the windowsill. Her entrance into her room was less graceful than Judith’s. She hauled herself through, only to be partially stuck at the hips. With a grunt of effort, she swivelled her body and fell with a thud onto her bed.

As the door ring rattled, Sybil frantically closed the window and lay upon the floor. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep as Nye moved to check on her. He seemed to take a moment before a dismissive noise issued over her head. As the door clattered, she eked open an eye and found her room deserted. Only then did she realise how tired she truly was, taking a moment to wash herself and remove her habit. Her nightclothes rested where she’d slung them the morning before, getting into them with a thankful sigh. The dawn was some time away, but she closed the shutters as insurance before crawling into bed and dozing off.

It seemed like seconds before her door was being loudly hammered upon, her father’s voice bellowing through it. The nun stirred, hissing with pain as a slight crack in the shutters let an unadulterated sunbeam hit her eye. With the bleary-eyed stupidity that followed being awoken so rudely, she fumbled her way to the door and opened it a crack. The excessive glory of a bright spring day caused her to squint, looking up to the looming shadow of her father flanked by two men at arms.

Sybil received no opportunity to ask what the fuss was as she was hauled bodily from the doorway, the men surging into her room and beginning to search it vigorously. Panic consumed the drowsiness in moments as the blonde woman’s attentions flicked from each figure in turn. Abbess Margaret held the master keys, her father directing his men to search the hidden places her grandfather had once stowed his heretical texts. Nye stood near his commanding officer, trembling with fright as he looked on. Beyond him, a crowd of nuns had come to voyeur her humiliation. With a vague dawning of logic, Sybil deduced that they had most likely finished their morning prayers. She’d overslept.

It didn’t take long. The soldiers returned with her mud-spattered robe and brick dust encrusted shoes. The torn veil and bloodied habit condemned her all the more mightily, both men looking upon her with new eyes. A third emerged with her satchel from the cubby, removing a holstered dagger with raised eyebrows.

Her father rounded on her his form made all the more terrible by the blinding burning of the sunlight. She shrank back, transforming herself into the doting daughter even whilst her savage nature screamed for their blood. To tear asunder every frail little sack of sustenance until she was finally sated. She resisted, keeping her lips firmly pressed together and eyes closed as if ashamed. It bought her little comfort from the searing sensation of her flesh. She was thankful it didn’t seem to manifest as literal searing.

“Sheriff, please conduct my daughter to the cells. She is under arrest,” her father ordered with a voice so betrayed that Sybil almost compelled to truth then and there. She wished for nothing less than him to know all of it. But she knew what that would entail. What her end would be.

So, she silently followed the stocky man of matted black hair that was Sheriff Gustav. The abbess followed behind, her father and his men encircling them should the worst be true. The nuns parted with wide eyes, some shaking their heads as if they’d known all along. They didn’t know the half of it, Sybil ruefully thought. If they did, they too would have done as she’d done. Sister Elizabeth made pithy comment as they passed. That her sins had finally caught up to her. Sybil bared her teeth in response. She wasn’t sure if it had been just Elizabeth who’d seen them. Nor did she care. They all lived by her grace now.

Sybil was thankful as she was led past the wine racks to spy Rebecca hiding in the tunnel. The blonde woman had used it as an escape the first day this madness had begun. She could smell the delicious scent of her blood, unmarred by masculine body odour or oiled mail. Curiously, her father didn’t appeal to her. As if even a creature as twisted as herself would not harm family. What a strange limitation.

It was only when his daughter was safely locked within the darkness of a cell that Randolf saw fit to begin the work of his investigation in earnest. He attempted to muscle forward to talk to Sybil, only to be shoved back by Gustav. Their argument revolved around how objective he could really be. The abbess meanwhile stared through the bars at the serene Sybil. She dared to ask why the nun was so calm, pointing to how grim her situation was. Spied out at night with a dagger, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. They’d also received disturbing reports from the nightwatchmen who’d relayed seeing a dead woman in a barn. Sybil supposed there were only so many Francian women who looked like Judith that could be questioned before reason had its due. And no doubt they’d been busy whilst she slept. She cursed herself for a fool, preferring to remain silent as abbess and sheriff both harangued her. Let them make their threats, she thought. The second they opened the cell to hang her, they were dead.

Sybil pulled at her own hair, gritting her teeth as she struggled with such thoughts. Dear God, she was so thirsty. Her hunger demanded sating, unceasingly calling with every heartbeat as the pair harassed her for answers. Answers they would never believe.

“I will talk only to my father,” the nun informed them, scurrying from the bars as the sheriff attempted to grab her collar. He didn’t like that notion. Fortunately, he didn’t have options to the contrary.

“Why do you call for me?” came the voice of her father, his face appearing at the bars after what felt like hours. She imagined there were many hurried discussions, though they did little to appease her anxiety. The older man looked haggard, haunted almost by the possibility that his daughter might be the butcher he sought. All lies died on her tongue as her eyes met his. He looked so defeated. Beaten by the world. First his father, now his own child. “I will have the truth, Sybil. Do not think yourself wily enough to sow falsehood with me,” he growled with sudden vigour, hand gripping one of the bars in his intensity. Sybil sighed her eyes directed toward the floor. Yes. He would have the truth.

“I called for you because you know me. My gentle nature, even as it erodes away,” she began with a bitter grin, shambling toward the bars. She gestured to the candle he held in his hand, prompting him to hold it aloft. Then he saw what his daughter had become. Her grey skin, darkened lips and the sharpened fangs beneath. The hungry, maddened red eyes that even now looked eagerly to the abbess’ aghast face. No, not her face. “I’m starving, father. Just as she is. We need the blood of the living now. Though we do not need to kill, she was overcome with her bloodlust. But I shall help her. Should the nuns leave these halls, she will flee these lands. And I will go with her,” the woman smiled gently, undercut in effect by how large her fangs had grown. Rather than the innocuous canines they were most of the time, there was no mistaking them now. Sybil could feel them seamlessly slide over her lower gums whenever she ceased talking. Her father looked as if stricken by the white plague, unable to hold himself aloft as he collapsed in fear into the abbess’ arms. The sheriff, not known for his piety, began muttering prayers under his breath. “Don’t fear me and don’t fear her father. I’m far stronger than I was before. I’m still your daughter, whatever else I may be,” the nun pleaded, her voice shifting from conversational to almost desperate. She was unsure how genuine she was in that moment. How much she needed him.

“Judith has risen as an abomination. And she has infected your daughter. No doubt the wages of her sin,” Margaret asserted. Sybil bared her teeth, taken with sudden anger before getting a foothold on herself once again. Randolf recovered from his shock, once again looking to be a broken man. Sybil looked up from her struggle to remain sane. She knew the battle that raged within him. The same battle that raged within her the previous night.

The three of them withdrew from the bars, discussing quietly what they could do. None of them understood the affliction, as they termed it. They assumed a demon had come to possess Judith’s body, manipulating it as a vessel. Sybil knew otherwise. That she’d spared the nightwatchmen had been at her request. And it had doomed them both. Once again, she felt the savagery rise. Only this time, she didn’t feel like suppressing it. It would spare her father. What else would she desire to show mercy upon in this forsaken world?

“So, it is decided. The only hope for my daughter is the destruction of her progenitor,” Randolf eventually summarized. It shot an icicle of realisation into Sybil, who clanged against the bars in her haste. She almost missed what he said next. “If she is not cured by work’s end, I shall take her to my manor. There, we shall keep her contained,” her father growled toward the abbess’ questioning. Gustav, in his haste and zeal, drew his blade. In his mind, both should die before the infection spread yet further. That if Randolf stood before him, he would simply tell the queen of his actions. Sybil’s stomach dropped from her, suddenly facing death. “I wasn’t aware Queen Eleanor was a necromancer,” her father replied dangerously, the steel of his sword rasping free. Both backed down in that moment, deeming it wise to focus their efforts on the elder monster.

“Father don’t! Let your underlings go if you must but if you fight her you will die!” Sybil warned frantically, clanging her manacles against the bars. “I promised her! If I don’t do as I promised, she will kill you all!” she bellowed, desperately trying to reach him. The abbess and sheriff could perish in their folly but not him. Not her last tether.

“Very well, I shall confine the congregation,” Abbess Margaret announced calmly. “We  fortify the convent, and she shall come to us.”