A Princess for the Witch Doctor (Legends of Rahasia Book 3)

Chapter Seventy-One

I hold the executioner's axe in my hand. The witch doctor's far skinnier than when I last saw him. His mask hangs off gaunt cheeks, a neck that I could snap like a twig, and vertebrae popping out sharply against the length of his spine. He shivers even if the air is thick and hot. He shivers even as his tattered shirt hangs off him. He's lost more bits of bone and flesh since last I saw him.

Rangda gnaws at him like a cat ripping off a bird's wings before swallowing its head.

"Please." He croaks. "Tell me you found my name." He looks up, his eyes large and wide behind the mask. "End this."

I place one hand on his head, my fingers making contact with brittle, dark hair. Like ash. "My curse was broken by my goddess, Ode Ngayoh. The original agreement you made, that I could only kill you once I found your name, well... Your naming challenge has no use here."

He shakes his head, moaning to himself. "Fools! But you don't know Rangda..." He mumbles, laughing in a crazed manner that drives shivers down my body. "Rangda, Rangda, Rangda..."

Zahra raises her hand to smack him, but I stop her by clasping her wrist in mine. She nods, understanding this last mercy.

"It is by the ruling of the Empire that I sentence you to death for kidnapping and slaughter." I raise the blade, ready to end this once and for all. To put this wretch, one resembling a human but less than a skeleton now, to put him into the earth. "May the gods accept you in the Before, where they live, and not punish you too harshly for the errors of your ways."

I raise the blade and bring it down...

Only for it to embed itself into a woman's outstretched arm. Thin and brittle, yet the axe sticks as firmly as though I'd tried to cut into the bark of a mighty tree.

"Hello,"the woman's voice croons. Long black hair dripping down over her face. Eyes dripping ink like blood. Sickly skin and hanging breasts, the ghost of a heart exposed, beating weakly, all frail, and twisted. "Nama saya Rangda." My name is Rangda. The creature tilts her head at an unnatural angle. A sickening crunch as she steps forwards, leaving footprints like blood. Like she's stepping on glass as she approaches me.

Zahra attempts to shield me, but I refuse. I choose, instead, to pull the axe from her ghoulish body, and I hold it out in front of all of us. My guards murmur that I'm crazy, they try to switch formation to protect me. But, no matter what, the ghostly Rangda always happens to find her way directly in front of me. Surrounding me.

Inescapable.

I hold the axe out, pointing it towards her.

"Your goddess of death may try to claim him." She laughs, the sound more like a wail of a mother whose child has been stolen from her. "But his soul belongs to me. Not until you have his name." She holds up three fingers, one sawed down to little more than the knuckle. "Three times. Tiga kali. Find his name, then you can spill his blood. Until then, I'm the only one who can touch him."

I scream, and while unleashing this battle cry, I swing the axe.

It goes directly through where her neck should be. Her head floats on nothing at all.

And then, she is nothing but shadow.

The witch doctor crumples in on himself. "Rangda!" He chokes on his sobs, his horrible howls. I'm breathing hard, Zahra half-holding me up.

"I'm fine." I clap my hands, pointing to the witch doctor. "Get him a physician. If he can't die, then at least make his life less of a living torment." I glare at them, ignoring their incredulity. "We are better and more empathetic than that." I motion towards where Rangda stood. "Keep some of your humanity, why don't you?"

The physicians care for what's left of the witch doctor.

I place my head into my hands and I either sob or I scream.

Perhaps I do both.

***

Readers,

She's reached a breaking point. Also, this turned into horror. My favorite.

-Sophia