Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

Judge Mather was shouting, his face dark red. “Remove her rags! I shall not have even the thinnest veil impede the righteous pain of the chair!”

Hawthorne nodded. God must penetrate deep into her flesh to find passage into her blackened soul. The Devil must be driven out and allowed no other body as a new proxy, and then the tainted flesh that had welcomed his dominion must be destroyed.

Dean had moved behind Morgan now. He held her in a headlock, lifted slightly off the ground, as Virgil tore the scraps and rags away from her body. Beneath the rags she was bruised as well, her thighs bloody. From the Devil? wondered Hawthorne fleetingly. Or from the Magnus brothers?

Suddenly the torches flickered and guttered, a wind rushing through the room. For a moment Hawthorne thought the door had been left open, but no, it was sealed. And then he realized with a shudder that the wind seemed to emanate from Morgan herself, rushing and swirling all around them. He felt it snatching and grabbing at him, tearing at his clothing. The bound and gagged witches writhed as if in ecstasy.

When Morgan again spoke, it was in the same voice as the laughter, a deep and hollow, demonic voice. She was looking right at him as she spoke, her eyes steady.

“Come to me, dear Hawthorne,” she said. It said. “You have always desired to serve me.” He could hear the voice grating within his skull, as if it were being uttered inside of his head.

“Get thee behind me, Satan,” he said.

Morgan laughed. “Lick between my legs and taste the vile stench of your daughters!” she said. “For they shall belong to me as well.” The demon was trying to provoke him, he knew, but even knowing this he found it difficult not to allow the anger to rise within him. And she knew it, he could tell. She looked him straight in the eyes, licked her bruised lips, and said, “Lick me as you pray to the cock of your false God!”

“Enough!” said Hawthorne, outraged. “Put this whore of Babylon in the Chair of God!”

“Gladly,” said Dean, and he and Virgil threw her back into the chair, pushing her down hard into the seat. The sharp metal spikes cut deep into her legs and buttocks, blood already beginning to drip from the seat and onto the floor.

“Give me more!” said Morgan in her devil’s voice. “I bleed for you, Lord Satan! My whole body bleeds to welcome you!”

“Bind her tight,” said Dean to his brother. “The Devil is a wicked craftsmen and a keen trickster, and he will have at us if he can.”

Together the two brothers bound Morgan’s chest, neck, and arms to the chair with the thick leather bands. They grunted and pulled them as tight as they could, driving the spikes deeper into her legs and arms.

And yet Morgan seemed to welcome the pain. She did not scream. She even smiled and pushed against the straps to force the spikes deeper into her flesh.

“Hawthorne,” she said in her hollow voice. “Yes, destroy the flesh of this my servant. Her blood and her body are the unholy sacrament that will bring about her revenge upon you! With each spike thrust into her flesh, you inflict pain upon you and yours.”

“No more, vile demon, no more!” cried Hawthorne.

The others had finally realized something was wrong. Virgil and Dean were no longer laughing, their faces having grown taut and frightened. Mather, too, had taken a step back. He seemed to be hesitating, unsure of what to say or do.

Morgan hissed. “Revenge will be ours!” she screamed in her unholy voice. “The descendants of this town of Salem will fall to my power! I will rape the children of your children… I will claim them as my own, whores into eternity!”

Slowly, impossibly, the heavy chair rose, creaking, from the floor. It hovered there, a few feet off the ground. Virgil and Dean, terrified, tried to drag it back down, but it refused to come. Virgil let go and reached out to clasp his hands around Morgan’s neck.

“The Devil is here!” he cried. “The Devil has—”

Suddenly he let go and dropped to his knees, clutching now at his own throat. He tried to gulp in air, but somehow couldn’t get anything in. His hands scrabbled at his own throat, tearing at his own flesh, trying to tear away an unseen assailant. And then his own hands locked tight around his windpipe and began to squeeze.

Dean rushed to help him, prying at his fingers, battling to pull his hands away, but the grip was as firm as iron and though he could loosen it momentarily, he could not break the hands away.

“I can’t breathe…,” Virgil said in a suffocated voice. “I… I…”

He began to choke. Blood spilled from his mouth, long, dark strands of it.

“Virgil!” shouted Dean. “Virgil!” He turned to Hawthorne, his face full of panic for his brother. “Hawthorne!” he said. “The demon has entered his body! The demon is destroying his soul!”

That Virgil could be possessed by the demon suggested what Hawthorne had long known, that though he served good, Virgil’s heart was far from pure. Hawthorne fell to his knees, raised his eyes to the heavens, and began to pray aloud. What else was there to do? Would God listen to them? Would he save them?

“Lord hear me!” he said. “Purge our brother Virgil from this Bringer of Death! Set us free from these serpents of Hell that have invaded our beloved Salem!”

“Sisters!” said Morgan to the coven, her voice no longer imbued with the demonic tones that had overtaken it but once again her own. “We are the true believers! The true masters shall return to avenge us! We shall live again!”

Mather kneeled beside him, joining Hawthorne in prayer. Near the Chair of God, Dean still fought to save his brother. He broke several of Virgil’s fingers, but Virgil would not let go of his own neck, and even the broken fingers continued to cling to his flesh.

“In the name of the creator of the world,” Hawthorne and Mather repeated together, “the king of kings, I command you to kneel before the power of God! Kneel before the power of God… Kneel before the power of God!”

Morgan laughed. “We would not kneel, even were we free to do so. We shall not submit to your false, weak God. He is worthy only of contempt.”

Hawthorne and Mather ignored her words, continuing to chant, over and over again, “Kneel before the power of God.” Hawthorne heard Dean cry out and he let his gaze fall from the heavens an instant to see Virgil gasp for his final breaths, his chest heaving but still unable to bring any air in.

Hawthorne’s prayer slowly died in his throat. For a moment Mather went on without him and then stopped as well.

As they watched, Virgil’s damaged hand fell away from his throat and dangled as if dead. His other hand, however, tightened even further, the nails of his fingers this time gouging their way into the flesh. Dean was blubbering and screaming, and Virgil’s eyes were pleading, but otherwise his body seemed not to be his own. And then the hand tightened further and in a single, violent jerk ripped his throat out, spattering his brother with blood. Virgil swayed there a moment, blood pulsing through the ragged hole in his neck, and he then pitched forward, falling limply into his brother’s arms.

Dean cried out his brother’s name again and hugged the body to him. They had now lost one of their number. How many more would they lose before the nightmare was complete?

Mather was staring at Morgan with hatred. “By the power of the holy ghost and the blessed savior, your skull shall be drained of Satan’s black blood!” he said.

“Bring me the helmet!” Hawthorne cried.

But Mather was already ahead of him. He had the wooden box there beside him, ready for use. He opened the lid and removed a roughly forged greased iron helmet made to cover the whole face. It was scattered with holes, two under the eyes and several spread in an arc across the forehead. The surface was stained with what looked to the untrained eye like rust but that Hawthorne knew to be the lifeblood of past witches.